Translator: Ivana Korom Reviewer: Balazs Banyai
[Melinda Marton What is the message of the golden ages?]
Host: Melinda Marton is coming.
Melinda’s story started in her very early childhood.
She grew up not far from Fenékpuszta,
and visited many times the surviving buildings of the once famous stud.
Today she is a historian,
whose researching area is the history of the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s stud.
She is the only one lady researcher of horse breeding in Hungary,
who is going to convene in her talk
the philosophical thoughts of great people,
and we will find out as well, what the message of the golden ages are.
Melinda, please.
(Applause)
(Music)
Kind regards to everybody. My name is Melinda Marton,
I am a historian, researcher of horse breeding.
My researching area
is the history of the golden ages of horse breeding between 1869 and 1914.
Mostly when I introduce myself like that,
people are surprised.
I think there are lot of surprised people in the audience at the moment as well.
How did I get here?
It has happened to me many years ago, during a meditation.
I have seen myself, in an old castle
going upstairs on a snow-white stairway,
and I was about to do the next 3 steps.
My legs were heavy as lead.
I had to do my best,
it was a big effort for me to do the first step.
Not much later I was standing in front of stairs again, but now in reality.
I was about to go to the Research Library of Festetics Palace
through secret doors in an old stairway.
I went there to find my thesis topic,
but I found more, a true cause.
Meanwhile a lot of rare books were in my hands,
I knew the history of Festetics family ant their world famous stud.
In this period I was living in the wonder of modern Hungarian history,
in my free time I read the works of István Széchenyi and Miklós Wesselényi.
I understood from the books,
that in the background of the success of horse breeding in dualism,
was the cause to revive horse breeding,
what was labor of love for people in that times.
I got wise to the fact that the most successful period of the stud of Fenék
and the golden ages of horse breeding coincide with each other.
All the previously realized correspondences become reasoned suddenly.
I decided to write my thesis about the stud of Fenékpuszta.
My thesis was a hazardous venture,
because most of the time theorists in this topic are
agricultural engineers, veterinaries and stockbreeders.
I am a historian, but I think,
that I can say something new as historian in this topic.
I considered my thesis as my first artwork,
as a chance for my succesful future.
My teachers considered my work so good
that they motivated me to apply for PhD Fellowship.
I was selected from 10 attendants for the sole state-financed place.
So I could really step to the second stepping stone.
Dematerialized from the researches
the books let me fly back to ancient times.
To a world, where the horse breeding postulated on philosophical values.
The knowledge and experience, what I have collected from the books
motivated me to give this huge amount of information to the people.
I decided to be a bridge between present and past,
and I started to be attached with the old cause.
I wrote a lot, studies, articles and article series,
and I gave many presentations on the topic.
The collected data of my researches confirmed,
that the period between 1869 and 1914
was really the golden age of horse breeding.
Have a look at some data from the period.
In 1911 the Lands of the Hungarian Crown counted 2,351,000 horses.
Can we imagine? That is a huge number of horses.
Meanwhile in the beginning of years 1800 there were 224 private studs
in Hungary and Transylvania together.
This number in 1903 was 423.
In this period, the selectively bred horses of the state studs
made the name of Hungary well known word-wide.
This period gave us one of our greatest breeder Tasziló Festetics,
and the luckiest as well, Ernő Blaskovich.
Under the leading of Tasziló Festetics the stud of Fenékpuszta
won more than 5 million crown until 1922.
His horses won 395,000 crown in prices, only in the year 1905
it means 16 times more than the yearly salary of the prime minister,
what was approximately 24,000 crown.
I say another example as well.
The yearly salary of an industrial worker was 823 crown.
Now you can imagine so, that it was a huge amount of money.
Ernő Blaskovich, as I have mentioned,
was properly speaking one of the luckiest horse breeder. Why?
His horse was the unbeatable wonder-mare called Kincsem,
who run her triumph in this years.
She won 54 round uninterrupted.
In this year raced the derby winner called Kisbér
and also a derby winner Fenék, and many other horses of us.
Hungary stood in the third place
of thoroughbred breeding in Europe in this period of time.
In 1914 the Hungarian horse breeding stood on the top of it’s performance.
We can ask with reason, what was in the background of the success?
The spiritual background of the golden ages of horse breeding
was established by the work of István Széchenyi called Lovakrul (About horses),
what I consider the Bible of the riding nation.
His writing is a philosophical cause exploratory work,
in that he marks strategic goals for the leaders of horse sector.
István Széchenyi wrote in his work called Világ (World),
that the goal of Lovakrul was to extend the consciousness of Hungarian people,
to increase intelligence and to join the patriots together.
As Mór Jókai the famous writer said:
For a wise man fits the horse,
because people bamboozle, but horses make you human.
Then I realised, that behind the cause of reviving the horse breeding
stands a noble matter.
Namely, that we, Hungarians, become better people.
I have learnt a lot from the leaders of the golden ages of horse breeding.
These leaders knew very clearly not only their individual goals,
but their social goals as well.
They knew very clearly, that this two together could lead the sector to success.
What was the individual goal?
The individual goal was to gain profit;
the social goal was to make the sector better.
They knew clearly that firstly it's necessary
to secure the chance to succeed for the individual people,
who will be able later to do for the common cause.
I have learnt from this leaders as well
that leading involves many responsibilities and duties.
The mission of the leaders is to mark the right direction.
I have also learnt
that we have to finish, what we started.
So I could step on the third stepping stone.
My story has not been finished yet,
because there are always newer stepping stones,
to step on them, and they give me always new challenges.
But what is the message of the golden ages?
What could be the message of the golden ages for the people of the present?
It is not possible to understand this message with our head,
only with our hearth.
What is the message of the golden ages for me?
Everything we do should have a superior goal,
a goal, what does not approach on us, but about how to humanize the world.
Thank you.
(Applause)