A story of a family that shaped a city

Continuing on with my last thought from yesterday, the link of Antal Hamerli's video. The video that shows a day in Pécs in 1939 is very interesting, but so is the man, who took the video.

Antal Hamerli was born into one of the most prominent families in Pécs. The Hamerli family was a family of great indusrialist. They founded a glove manufacture in Pécs in the second half of the 19th century. The small manufacture soon became a factory and the gloves of Pécs became recognised throughout Europe. The family's spectrum of business soon widened and they expanded into other areas such as a store dealing with metal objects and dishes. In fact Antal Hamerli's father opened the first automobile salon in Pécs importing Chevrolet cars in the beginning of the 20th century.

Probably the greatest mark the family left on Pécs is the Hotel Palatinus. The hotel is a secessionist wonder and it stands in the city center. It is a wonderful place for events and is still one of the prime event locations of the city.

the ball room of Hotel Palatinus (hoteltelnet.hu)



the main staircase of Hotel Palatinus (budapesthotels-budapesthotelbooking.com)



Today the family doesn't play a role in the industry of the city anymore, which is probably due to the hardships that they have suffered during the socialist era of Hungary. The legacy of the family is still remarkable today there are several glove manufacturers in Pécs and they have an international reputation having worked for luxury fashion houses of Italy and France. In 2010 six of these manufacturers held together to create a brand and a store under the name Pécsi Kesztyű (kesztyű meaning gloves in Hungarian) with the goal to reestablish the prominence of the Hamerli era of this industry.  

the new Pécsi Kesztyű store (walled.trychydts.hu)

Baranya-Baranja

I wrote my last post about a week ago about Croatia and Hungary. As a plus I added an image of the mapt of a part of Hungary and a part of Croatia namely southern Hungary and northern Croatia. On the map you could see two cities Pécs and Osijek. Pécs is where I study. It is my second home...

History has created a gap between Pécs and Osijek since a border has been drawn between these two cities after 1919. They are both considered major cities within their countries and regional centers. They are less than a 100 km away from each other.

In the following couple of posts I'd like to introduce to you the rich culture and heritage of this fantastic region as well as its current politics.

Until my next post here is a link to a video about Pécs made by Antal Hamerli in 1939: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvAgYmZpnPQ

Croatia - Hungary

The relationship between the two nations goes back to the medieval ages. The two countries formed a personal union based on the person of the king whom the two states shared. From then on the two states were binded together and throughout history the level of their integration differed. After Hungary's 1867 compromis with Austria, which created the Austro-Hungarian empire, Hungary also had its own compromise with Croatia creating autonomy for Croatians.

The break in this close and sometimes troubled relationship came after the first world war when Croatia's territory was taken away from Hungary by the Treaty of Trianon. After this Croatia became a part of Yugoslavia. Both countries were part of the socialist east block of Europe and while Hungary peacefully transformed into a democracy in 1990, it took Croatia a war to break away from Yugoslavia.

Why am I writing about this?

Because I live in a part of Hungary where their is a godd number of Croatians and a well organized croatian community and this week our law school welcomed guests from Osijek's Strossmayer University to participate together in a series of lectures that compare our constitutions.

What we see today is that the way that our state is organized is very similar and both countries follow the same democratic values in their contsitutions. Nevertheless I find it very important to talk about the experiences of neighbouring countries with similar background and traditions as ours since Hungary is going through a contitutional change right now. It should be the foremost priority of the Hungrarian political elite that when creating a new constitution to have a thorough and open minded look at the structures and the recent history of those nations that shared the unfortunate faith of Hungary in the twentieth century.

 

Roma camps - images

Yesterday I wrote in a Hungarian post that I was recently doing a legal research on the situation of the roma in France. The research focused on their right to free movement and how France applied and implemented the EU directive concerning the matter.

Here are some images as illustration. The pictures show roma camps in France and how they are being bulldozed.

TDK

2011-ben tartják a XXX. Országos Tudományos Diákköri Konferenciát, amelyet mindenhol kari, intézményi fordulók előznek meg. Többek között én is indulok ezen a kari fordulón és éppen a ppt előadásomon dolgozok. (ill. per pillanat persze nem) Azt hiszem, hogy elég érdekes témát sikerült találnom, mivel a franciaországi romák helyzetéről írtam a dolgozatomban. Nagyon érdekes kérdés a nyáron történt kitelepítések ügye. Diszkrimináció vagy nem diszkrimináció? Jogos vagy jogellenes? Ki és hol hibázott? Mára már kiderült, hogy a francia hatóságok nem ültették át az EU szabad mozgásra vonatkozó irányelvét és a konfliktus részben ebből adódott, de szerintem fel kell, hogy vessük azt a kérdést is, hogy ott nem hibáztak-e a francia hatóságok, amikor hagyták hogy több száz roma telep létrejöjjön? Szerintem ezt a folyamatot, meg lehetett volna rekeszteni korábban. Méghozzá ugyanazon indokkal ki lehetett volna őket tenni az állam területérő azzal, hogy veszélyeztetik a közrendet. Az alapvető hibát nem abban látom, hogy kitelepítették a romákat a franciák - szerintem ez jogos volt- hanem abban ahogyan csinálták. Mert az mégiscsak non-sense, hogy becsukom a szemem és nem érdekel, hogy van a több száz illegális roma telep az országomban, amíg akkora bajt nem okoznak, hogy egyszerre több ezret kell kiutasítanom nemzetközi felháborodást okozva ezzel. Tanulság: máskor tessék ügyesebben hazaküldeni több száz ember!

Talán most tényleg elindul...

A kezdetekről: Sokadszorra állok neki egy blog elindításának és felfuttatásának. Volt már egy barátommal egy elég sikeres blogunk, azonban egy idő után nyűg volt írni rá, több energiát emésztett fel, mint amennyit szánni kívántunk rá. Az tehát megszűnt... Ő - azaz a barátom - azőta egy másik blogot egész sikeresen írogat. Én többször nekiálltam, de soha nem voltam kitartó. Remélem ez most megváltozik....