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LOCAL PRESS REACTION
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1—'' Hungarians celebrate heritage Annual weeklong event features seminars, cultural events
Johnna Shepherd
The parking spaces around the St. Sylvester Catholic Church in Zaleski were full of vehicles bearing license plates from states as far away as Maine to Minnesota. One carried plates from Ontario last week. They were not the usual tourists who come to the Zaleski area to enjoy the relaxing beautiful scenery of the lake, the area caves or aboundant foliage. These travelers gathered in Zaleski to celebrate their Hungarian culture.
Since 1976, the Hungarian Communion of Friends have met at Lake Hope State Park every year for a week in August to remember, to invigorate and to celebrate their culture. The week’s itinerary included seminars and events in Hungarian and in English.
“We were looking for a place to gather when we discovered the Lake Hope State Park,” said Panni Ludanyi. Ludanyi and her husband traveled to the park in about 1975 with another Hungarian couple. “Someone took us behind the lodge. I saw the lake and I knew this was the place,” she said. Ludanyi, a high school teacher living in Ada, Ohio, taught the Introduction to the Hungarian lan­guage class on Monday and Tuesday.
The week of the events always encompasses Aug. 20, said Balazs Somogyi, a surgeon attending the event and lecturing in English on 2009, the year of Hungarian Culture in the U.S. Aug. 20 is St. Stephen’s Day (Szent István napja), a Hungarian national public holiday. St. Stephen was the first Christian king of Hungary, crowned on Aug. 20, 1000, explained Somogyi. With his corona­tion, the Hungarian (Magyar) state was founded.
Rosie Rinehart, Vinton County local and granddaughter of Hun­garians, joined Somogyi’s class. On the pation behind the church’s social hall, attendees learned about the Hungarian cultural events that have been held in New York and Washington, D.C., organized by the NY Hungarian Cultural Center. The cosmopolitan avant-guard performances did not contain the traditional sentiments found at the Zaleski event, Somogyi said.
“They would do better to bring their children here,” he said.