Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:01:33and the
00:06:39Zebegeny,
00:06:43those German settlers cried out, who arrived in
00:06:46Hungary at the beginning of the 18th century,
00:06:49to find a new home along the Danube.
00:06:52Although there is a written
00:06:56record from the 13th century that mentions
00:07:00a convent called Cebeguen in the Mill Stream
00:07:03Valley, and this could be the explanation for the name of the
00:07:07settlement as well. Szövegény,
00:07:10Zebegény, neither in size
00:07:13nor in the number of its inhabitants does it differ from other Hungarian
00:07:16settlements, unless in that, thanks to its unparalleled
00:07:20environmental beauty, it has deservedly
00:07:24become one of the country's most well-known settlements.
00:07:26The two
00:07:29streets were built next to the stream,
00:07:32one is the current Árpád Street, and behind me
00:07:35it was originally called Erzsébet Street,
00:07:39today Szőnyi Street. and Bartóki Street, we have to say that originally there were no
00:07:43street names in the village,
00:07:47only numbers, house numbers existed, right
00:07:50until the Millennium.
00:07:52The houses probably got their
00:07:55numbers in the order of construction,
00:07:58because it is numbered quite strangely according to
00:08:01old maps, and when the streets got names,
00:08:05by then there were already several streets, not just these two streets,
00:08:09even then, the old house numbering remained for a very long time,
00:08:13so the continuous house numbering,
00:08:15the original village, so these two streets were, and
00:08:19the current main square, of course there was no
00:08:23church on it yet.
00:08:29The church has a very interesting history, the
00:08:32very small church of Zebegény had outgrown it, and in the
00:08:36mid-1800s, the question of building a new
00:08:39church arose. By the second half of the
00:08:4380s, the village already had a finished plan,
00:08:46a collection started for the construction of the new church,
00:08:49they found that young architect, Károly Kós,
00:08:53Béla Jánszky, who designed the
00:08:56Ebegény church. This was a unique plan in its own
00:09:00right, because the young Károly Kós, then 26 years old, and
00:09:03this young team were able to realize a unique
00:09:06initial work of 20th century Hungarian
00:09:09church architecture here.
00:09:35Compared to the original plans, almost no changes were made, it was realized exactly as the young architects had planned it. They created one of the most beautiful interiors of Hungarian Art Nouveau in the church.
00:09:39The pictures have this
00:09:57unifying idea behind
00:10:00them, the most important thing here, of course, is that
00:10:04we enter through the
00:10:07triumphal arch, the Exaltation of the Holy Cross,
00:10:10in the Middle Ages it was the... rule, perhaps,
00:10:14or custom, that the Holy Trinity, our greatest
00:10:17mystery of faith, had to be placed before the
00:10:20faithful. On the triumphal arch, the Father, the Son, and the
00:10:24Holy Spirit. "represented in human form,
00:10:27Jesus Christ crucified, how much the Father raises him above the world.
00:10:31On the left side is the
00:10:36beginning, you know,
00:10:39it was painted in 1913, they went back
00:10:42in history 1600
00:10:45years, when a Roman emperor named Constantine,
00:10:48or rather at that time only
00:10:51a general, and before a battle a shining cross."
00:10:55in front of the vault of heaven, that in this
00:10:58sign you shall conquer. He takes this as a divine
00:11:01revelation, they paint it, I say, on the shields of the soldiers,
00:11:04on their clothes, he achieves victory, becomes
00:11:07emperor, and makes the Christian religion free in the
00:11:11Roman Empire, where for 300
00:11:14years it was not only forbidden, but also persecuted. On the other
00:11:18side, again this long large panel painting, Emperor Constantine's
00:11:22mother, Empress Helena,
00:11:26in Hungarian Empress Ilona, who
00:11:28in 320 in Jerusalem on
00:11:31Calvary, finds the holy
00:11:33cross.
00:11:37They carry the idea further, above the altar, which
00:11:41now originally didn't stand where it stands
00:11:44now, 10 angels, in such an oval
00:11:48arrangement, carry the instruments of Jesus'
00:11:51suffering, the inner sanctuary. and
00:11:55there that lonely cross inside the dome
00:11:59signifies the ultimate victory of the cross, so it is thus complete
00:12:03and, well, dogmatically also very
00:12:07beautifully resolved, the idea of the paintings.
00:12:31a small bridge leads across to the former Erzsébet, now
00:12:34Szőnyi István Street, named after a world-famous Hungarian painter.
00:12:38Here the road forks,
00:12:46we can choose the path
00:12:49along the stream or the
00:12:53footpath ascending to Calvary Hill. The
00:12:56"slope that rises
00:13:01Before the church designed by Kóskároj was built. Indeed,
00:13:05this was where the village's church was. This is actually
00:13:08Calvary Hill, and at the bottom of it, a tiny
00:13:12little building was built in front of a small cave
00:13:15opening, which perhaps we could say was the part
00:13:18of the church where the faithful took
00:13:21their place, and this small cave was
00:13:25the sanctuary. Then when the
00:13:28church was built, of course there was no need for it, the small
00:13:31building in front of it was demolished. We don't
00:13:34know when the church was built, or when it was
00:13:38first used as a church, but in our
00:13:41current church there is a bell, which
00:13:45is unfortunately cracked, with an inscription from
00:13:481747, and this was the bell of this small
00:13:52church, and inside the chapel,
00:13:55there is a relief depicting the Holy Trinity
00:13:59and the Coronation of the Virgin Mary, it's a very
00:14:02beautiful carving, we don't know who
00:14:06created it, according to some versions it was a Hermit,
00:14:10who lived in this cave, and
00:14:12perhaps, well, perhaps this
00:14:16beggar, who certainly for a little food, carried out,
00:14:20let's say, sacristan
00:14:21duties.
00:14:30The creator of the National Flag movement was the pain of
00:14:33Trianon, and wanted to strengthen the sense of belonging
00:14:36of the torn nation in the members
00:14:39of the National community. In the
00:14:421930s of the last century, almost every
00:14:45self-respecting locality erected a national flag.
00:14:49The people of Zebegény decided quite late, in 1935,
00:14:53that Zebegény also wanted to erect
00:14:56a national flag, they chose this wonderful
00:14:59place, it was previously called Bald Hill, it was an
00:15:02empty, flat area, and from here you can see
00:15:06the annexed territories, as we already see
00:15:10the mountains of Slovakia on the other
00:15:13side of the Danube, a movement started, it was specifically
00:15:16the Zebegény folk song group, who
00:15:19compiled subscription lists, and looked for an
00:15:22architect, Géza Maróti. He was commissioned in '35
00:15:26to design this national flag and the
00:15:29monument. Géza Maróti was very happy, because he was a
00:15:33passionate architect and sculptor, so he felt
00:15:36very bad without work, and then he started
00:15:39working on the design, he designed
00:15:43a special World War I monument, he didn't erect
00:15:46a column, not a statue, but a
00:15:49garden, a mystical garden, he named this
00:15:52on the blueprint the Garden
00:15:54of Heroes,
00:16:00it was half-finished by '38, it was not completely
00:16:04finished, Géza Maróti's dream was not realized.
00:16:07"They left the columns half-finished, they didn't put the double
00:16:11crosses on them, but in '38 there was a big
00:16:13ceremony when they inaugurated this
00:16:17area, the architect was not invited anymore. After '45,
00:16:21the fate of the national flags became very sad in
00:16:24Hungary, because almost all national flags were demolished. The
00:16:27Zebegény one was saved because there were
00:16:30council members who thought that it would be complicated
00:16:34to carry all these stones away from here, I guess,
00:16:37and they converted this into a lookout point, and then it was
00:16:40also possible to erase from people's
00:16:44memories what kind of place this was, this place was not named,
00:16:48this Zebegény lookout point, and then newer
00:16:51generations came, and we came here, and there is such a
00:16:55special atmosphere about this place, because it was very, very well
00:16:58chosen where it would be built, and then this Zebegény
00:17:02lookout point, why the columns are there
00:17:04and everything, everything was so hazy and
00:17:08foggy, regime change, that is,
00:17:12in 1996,
00:17:15the place got its name back, then the plaque was placed
00:17:19here, which stated that this is the
00:17:22national flag, and a heroic monument built by
00:17:26Géza Maróti.
00:17:30In Calvary Hill, that small baroque chapel was built,
00:17:34which Borbála Coller had built in memory of her son.
00:17:52We walk down along the stations to the famous Zebegény
00:17:56cemetery, immortalized by painters.
00:17:58Here István Szőnyi and the other
00:18:19members of the family were laid to
00:18:23rest.
00:18:39Hungarians, Slovaks, and Germans lived side by side
00:18:42in tolerance and great poverty in this
00:18:45area. Many worked in the surrounding mines,
00:18:49and since the soil was quite
00:18:52poor, they grew vegetables and fruits. Here
00:18:56you can see the remains of the original row of cellars,
00:19:00unfortunately it's really just remains, holiday homes, these are
00:19:04more or less, but the reason for this is that during
00:19:07the phylloxera, the vines perished, and well, it probably
00:19:11wasn't very good quality wine, because the conditions are not
00:19:15suitable, and that's probably why it wasn't replanted, so this
00:19:19row of cellars preserves the memory of the fact that there was once viticulture
00:19:22here.
00:19:31My father bought this property 40 years
00:19:35ago, we traveled the country together, because he
00:19:38specifically wanted to buy a suitable building
00:19:41for museum purposes, he felt
00:19:44here for the first time that he could
00:19:47realize the opening of the museum, which
00:19:50happened 26 years ago, he worked as a captain
00:19:53in shipping, and
00:19:57in fact, when he saw
00:19:59that Hungarian shipping was doomed to
00:20:03liquidation, he realized... "that even if only in pieces,
00:20:08they had to collect, they had to save
00:20:11something from these, certain things could not be
00:20:15brought from abroad in original form, for example, the Indian
00:20:18totem poles, so he, in order to be able to
00:20:21show them from pictures, drawings, carved them here
00:20:24at home, and he started
00:20:27building ships because he also built
00:20:30the history of shipping from tree trunks, that was
00:20:34already consciously for the museum,
00:20:38but during longer, in quotes,
00:20:42boring voyages, he also creatively
00:20:45spent these periods by trying
00:20:48out his manual dexterity.
00:21:17From the late 1800s, the Budapest middle class
00:21:21discovered the beauties of Zebegény. Every summer,
00:21:24dozens of families appeared in the small
00:21:28Danube village. Thanks to his friends, that's how József
00:21:31Bartóki, a politician and writer, came to Zebegény,
00:21:34who not only rented, but also bought
00:21:38property in Erzsébet Street. Later,
00:21:41he gave this property with its garden
00:21:44to his daughter, Melinda, and his son-in-law, István Szőnyi.
00:21:48He often laughed and mentioned
00:21:52that this was the most expensive model.
00:21:56He bought the house in 1905. This was exactly
00:21:59the notable period of Zebegény, when they also started
00:22:02building the church, and it was precisely József Bartóki
00:22:06who brought the very young Károly Kós here
00:22:10to design the church. And the small house was most
00:22:13likely converted according to Károly Kós's
00:22:16instructions to what we see now.
00:22:20"it stands out from the other houses in Zebegény. Szőnyi
00:22:24lived and worked in this house from 1924 until
00:22:28his death. His art fully blossomed
00:22:31here, his painting was influenced
00:22:35by the magically beautiful landscape and the people
00:22:38living in the village. Here is this beautiful place, you
00:22:42live beautifully here, and then they started, well, cows,
00:22:45a cow and, I don't know, horses and chickens, I don't
00:22:49know how to get them. Because they were going to farm now,
00:22:52they had no idea how, the chickens
00:22:55died, then the cow
00:22:58went out, luckily every morning they took it to graze
00:23:01with the herd of cows, so that was
00:23:05taken care of, at least there was milk for the children, so we lived here
00:23:09until I was six
00:23:12years old.
00:23:16This is what we called Painters' Street, because near
00:23:20Szőnyi, they rented houses for the summer,
00:23:23or they even bought some, like for Vasarely, but the
00:23:27others primarily stayed in private
00:23:30houses, from spring to autumn, they worked here, they didn't have
00:23:33joint appearances, so they didn't present themselves collectively
00:23:37under the name of the Zebegény artist colony, but
00:23:39they regularly came over to the Szőnyi house
00:23:43as guests, Szőnyiné was known
00:23:47for gladly hosting the
00:23:50members of the artist colony,
00:23:53primarily on St. Stephen's Day, or rather they came to greet
00:23:57István, and then this small veranda could accommodate
00:24:0140, 50, 60 people.
00:24:18Next to us was a young pianist, who
00:24:21studied at the music academy and lived with his mother, all
00:24:24day long piano music was heard, in the next house was
00:24:28Uncle Kati, or rather Aunt
00:24:31Kati, who
00:24:33was a real pub, a real
00:24:37pub, where people went in, drank a beer, or a glass
00:24:41of wine, but the painters, every
00:24:43evening there was a covered part, and they camped
00:24:47there nicely, and all these...
00:24:50"from Vasarely
00:24:52to the Elekfis and, well, Róbert Berény,
00:24:56everyone was there, and of course my father,
00:25:00and there were huge conversations when
00:25:03we, the children, sometimes tried to listen
00:25:06to what they were talking about, for example, one big topic
00:25:12finish line first, Achilles or the tortoise?"
00:25:14béka?"
00:25:19"
00:25:27"Zebegény always remained the summer and holiday
00:25:31wonderful life, because indeed
00:25:34there was such an incredibly great life here, and the
00:25:38children were free in the garden,
00:25:41and whenever we could,
00:25:45we immediately ran up here, for example, when
00:25:48my, uhm..." dear husband,
00:25:52who later became my husband, Mátyás Triznya, started
00:25:55courting me when I was 17-18
00:25:58years old, then he came up here.