I remember when I was a very young boy and lived in Hungary under the Soviet regime we celebrated some birthday for Stalin. At the time he was at the top of his rule.
Anyway they created a traveling exhibition of the presents he received from his "faithful" subjects. I went to see this exhibition, probably because it was mandatory. In all honesty it was memorable. Memorable in a nice way, at least for me. Some of the stuff created for him were really remarkable.
Like beautiful native carvings, swords, hunting knives, sculptures and a myriad of other things. What really grabbed me was some kind of a carving on a single piece of rice (or at least I think it was rice). I don't remember what it was, maybe the history of the world or the Soviet Union or the life story of Stalin but regardless it was amazing.
And that was done long before micro art became more popular.
Not that Stalin ever sat down in his playroom and played with these presents but nevertheless they were nice.
I wouldn't mind getting a single bean or pea with a future winning lottery number carved on it! But I never get presents like that.
===========================
It is nice to have families. It is even nicer to have large families with a history and a future.
But history and future are two complete separate things.
Family history tells us where we came from, who were our ancestors and gives us a larger picture of the composition of the "clan".
The future of the family assures us that their history is not forgotten but continued, the ancestors are being remembered and the family name is carried on.
And this is where the trouble begins.
I have a family tree that goes back to the 1850s. It is drawn up as a tree and it is a gigantic tree. It shows all the ancestors in several branches of my family on my paternal grandmother's side.
I am on that tree on the outer limits, almost on the margin since updating stopped in around 1940.
War came and a large number of the family members perished during the Holocaust.
My Father had two brothers. When they were young men they sat down and created this tree by talking to all the living relatives and drawing on their memories.
Today there are no living relatives or parents who remember all the details about the family. I have an older cousin living in Budapest who remembers some people but not too many. My Mother was familiar with the family history but She is no longer around.
I have a cousin in this country but none of us knows how we are connected and there is no one alive to ask. Actually, I have another cousin from another side of my family here but years ago he was lost in the fog of life.
My Hungarian cousin and I have no children. With us the family name ends. His brother has two daughters but being women the family name doesn't carry on.
It is very sad. But there is nothing we can do about it. Even if we had children I don't think today's young people really care about where they came from. They only care about where they are going.
Ten years ago my cousin and I visited Hungary to retrace our younger years. He lives here in the US. He has a son and a daughter. He was obsessed about collecting information about his early years for showing those to his children.
Since these children were born in the US and raised as Americans they really have no deep interest about their background. And that applies to all the children who were born here of emigrant parents. At least the ones that I know of.
Assimilation is so strong in everybody that background takes a large step backward. These children marry primarily American spouses and therefore their parents' nationality is now something exotic that they try not to flaunt.
All of my friends' US born children married non Hungarian origin spouses. Therefore, they don't speak Hungarian, they don't eat Hungarian food and traveling to Hungary is like 38th on their list of priorities.
This brings me back to the family. With this new life we all found here or any other country the history of our families are disappearing in the dust.
It is a very sad thing to see members of families, brothers and sisters not talking to each other for years or forever because some pissy argument they had years ago. Those lost times can not be brought back. When the dust settles and they look around they will be very surprised when they won't be able to find anybody there.
It is upsetting to see generations disappear. They disappear because there is just nobody to continue or because there is just no interest.
I think we Hungarians perfectly fit the bill for these two cases.
But history and future are two complete separate things.
Family history tells us where we came from, who were our ancestors and gives us a larger picture of the composition of the "clan".
The future of the family assures us that their history is not forgotten but continued, the ancestors are being remembered and the family name is carried on.
And this is where the trouble begins.
I have a family tree that goes back to the 1850s. It is drawn up as a tree and it is a gigantic tree. It shows all the ancestors in several branches of my family on my paternal grandmother's side.
I am on that tree on the outer limits, almost on the margin since updating stopped in around 1940.
War came and a large number of the family members perished during the Holocaust.
My Father had two brothers. When they were young men they sat down and created this tree by talking to all the living relatives and drawing on their memories.
Today there are no living relatives or parents who remember all the details about the family. I have an older cousin living in Budapest who remembers some people but not too many. My Mother was familiar with the family history but She is no longer around.
I have a cousin in this country but none of us knows how we are connected and there is no one alive to ask. Actually, I have another cousin from another side of my family here but years ago he was lost in the fog of life.
My Hungarian cousin and I have no children. With us the family name ends. His brother has two daughters but being women the family name doesn't carry on.
It is very sad. But there is nothing we can do about it. Even if we had children I don't think today's young people really care about where they came from. They only care about where they are going.
Ten years ago my cousin and I visited Hungary to retrace our younger years. He lives here in the US. He has a son and a daughter. He was obsessed about collecting information about his early years for showing those to his children.
Since these children were born in the US and raised as Americans they really have no deep interest about their background. And that applies to all the children who were born here of emigrant parents. At least the ones that I know of.
Assimilation is so strong in everybody that background takes a large step backward. These children marry primarily American spouses and therefore their parents' nationality is now something exotic that they try not to flaunt.
All of my friends' US born children married non Hungarian origin spouses. Therefore, they don't speak Hungarian, they don't eat Hungarian food and traveling to Hungary is like 38th on their list of priorities.
This brings me back to the family. With this new life we all found here or any other country the history of our families are disappearing in the dust.
It is a very sad thing to see members of families, brothers and sisters not talking to each other for years or forever because some pissy argument they had years ago. Those lost times can not be brought back. When the dust settles and they look around they will be very surprised when they won't be able to find anybody there.
It is upsetting to see generations disappear. They disappear because there is just nobody to continue or because there is just no interest.
I think we Hungarians perfectly fit the bill for these two cases.
No comments:
Post a Comment