Production report on a sunken world

We – my brother Gyuri and I – got to know Lajos Erdélyi in our childhood from his photo album about the Jewish cemeteries of Transylvania. This was, I think, the first book that gave news, showed pictures and offered short but thought-provoking analyses of those cemeteries and their richly carved tombstones, which at that time were still sunken into the ground and overgrown with bushes all over Eastern Europe, waiting to be rediscovered. It was this book that started us, like many others, to discover these cemeteries and the former Jewish culture of our Eastern Europe. And the photos in this book also served as models for how to photograph these cemeteries, the pathos of the tombstones leaning forward, the helplessness of the stones standing in frightened rows, the cheerfulness of the anthropomorphic symbolic animals.

This album was probably the closest to the author himself, who said several times: “I was a Hungarian among Romanians, and a Jew among Hungarians”. His memoir as to what it meant to be “a Jew among Hungarians”, was just published in Litera. But this thin, poorly printed Kriterion edition was merely a love child in his work as a photographer and writer. The “legitimate” offspring were the photographs he took as an employee of the Hungarian-language Romanian newspaper Új Élet (New Life) about the life of the Socialist country from Oradea to the Danube Delta. In 2023, the negatives of these photographs, Lajos Erdélyi’s complete archive, were given by his heirs to the Blinken OSA Archive in Budapest, where, after two years of work, an exhibition entitled The insensitive photojournalist has now opened, selected and curated by Lenke Szilágyi and Zsuzsanna Zádori.

The newspaper needed production reports on the successes of Socialist industrialization, on the incredible new achievements under Ceauşescu, on a prosperous and happy country. Lajos Erdélyi went where he was sent, and photographed what was needed. But in his pictures, alongside the concrete and steel monsters, there is always a piece of real life. And that dominates the picture.

By collecting and invetorying a multitude of such pieces of real life, this archive became the chronicle of a sunken world that many of us have seen and recognize, but those who come after us will only be able to see it in Lajos Erdélyi’s pictures.

A literally sunken world that we have not seen: the last years of the village of Bözödújfalu (Bezidu Nou), which was doomed to be flooded in 1988. It must have been painful for all of Lajos Erdélyi’s identities to document the destruction of this Székely village that, from the 17th century on, converted to Judaism.

Those who saw these photos in Új Élet, where they were published in the form of poorly printed stamps, can only now really see them for the first time. The curators sometimes display original newspaper prints side by side with the enlarged version of the detailed and sensitive photo. The latter in this format tells stories that perhaps was better not to be caught by the censors of the time.

And the camera with which Lajos Erdélyi photographed all of this. The Nikon F camera was given to him as a gift by his former schoolmate and fellow prisoner in the concentration camp, Raymond Naftali, who emigrated to America.

The first snow

Christmas in Kashan

Christmas? In Kashan?? At the edge of the Iranian desert?? Maybe rather in Isfahan, among the Armenians of New Julfa, or with the Assyrian Christians in Tabriz or Tehran… But the title is no mistake, there was a Christmas in Kashan as well, at least once. And guess what, one of the participants was Hungarian.

Christmas in the Armenian district of Isfahan. Photo taken in 2019 by Mortezâ Sâlehi from here

Gergely Béldi de Uzon was a member of an aristocratic family from Transylvania. He was appointed as vice-consul to Tehran in the summer of 1914 at the age of 26. In the absence of the envoy, Logothetti, he was in charge of the affairs. At first life in Persia seemed to be one of ease – in August 1914 they spent two weeks hunting in Mazandarân –, but things became complicated soon enough.

Though Persia (as Iran was called at that time) officially stayed neutral in the Great War, it was heavily under the influence of Russia and Great Britain, while in domestic politics one political crisis ensued the other for years. Soon after the outbreak of the war the Germans tried to make Persia an ally of the Central Powers which seemed to turn out a success by the end of 1915. To prevent this, Russians – who already occupied the northern parts of the country since 1911 – sent troops (8000 cavalry and 6000 infantry) under the command of General Nikolai Baratov to the south, to Qazvin.

Iran in the First World War. Source: Yann Richard: Iran. A Social and Political History since the Qajars, 2019. 123. p.

On the news of the advance of the Russians, the diplomats of the Central Powers fled Tehran (the last group of the Austro-Hungarians leaving on the morning of 14 January 1916, disguised as Bakthiyari nomads). Back in early December 1915 Gergely Béldi was south of Tehran in Qom. From there he set out to Isfahan together with a group of Austro-Hungarian officers and soldiers. Then they went on to Abade, where they turned back towards the northeast, to Kermanshah upon the advance of the British troops from the southeast. Finally he arrived via Mesopotamia and Anatolia to Constantinople, then to Vienna on 16 April 1917.

In this period, from 10 December 1915 until April 1917 Béldi wrote a personal diary of his experiences en route, a unique source in which the actual political events are mixed with his personal observations on ornithology and hunting. Later, in 1918 his ornithological notes were published both in Hungarian and German in the Hungarian ornithological journal Aquila. There he gave a brief summary of the hardships of the previous years, illustrating his involuntary Persian voyage with a map.

The voyage of Gergely Béldi through Iran during the First World War. Source: Béldi, Gergely: Madártani jegyzetek Nyugat-Perzsiából és Mesopotámiából [Ornithological notes from Western Persia and Mesopotamia]. In: Aquila 25 (1918) 89. p., accessible here

However, the entire diary was never published. Nowadays one copy is kept in the Archives of Vas County in Szombathely, Western Hungary in the family archives of the Chernel family (presumably a copy of the original, based on its even, clear handwriting). Supposedly it ended up there via Béldi's wife, Erzsébet Mannsberg, a relative to the Chernels. Maybe it is due to the ornithological observations, as a member of the family, István Chernel was a famous ornithologist of his time (and the editor of the Aquila journal), just as later Gergely's son, Miklós too.

His account would not put Baedeker or Lonely Planet to shame, though. He obviously didn't have an eye neither for the Iranian landscape, nor for the milieu in general. He writes about the landscape and Kashan (where they arrived on the evening of 22 December 1915) in such detail and manner:

“We arrived to Kashan in the evening. The road was of no interest. The great, plain Kevir [the desert] to the left and some hills to the right. A large inquisitive crowd was waiting for us outside the city. Kaschan(!) is a city stretching all over and one of no interest, with the usual narrow, arched bazaars.”

However, the wartime circumstances are an excuse for him (how would you enjoy the road if you should take it fleeing from the advancing Russian army on horseback and among uncertain rumors?), as well as the fact that even if he wanted to, he could not visit the nowadays must-see places of Kashan, like the Fin Garden (on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 2012) or the historical houses.

According to his account they spent 23 December in Kashan and as they had to marched on the following day, they had an early Christmas Eve there, under rather unconventional circumstances, exactly 109 years ago:

“XII. 23. We rest for a day. Napravil commanded the soldiers that today is Christmas Eve. We had to go on the next day and we could not celebrate it then. We sat together, me, the two officers (Napravil and Daskiewicz) and the two Jewish physicians and we celebrated Christmas Eve as much as we could. We ate raisin and almond and drank red wine at the light of a candle, lying on the carpet.”

There was even time for an occasional bargain earlier that day, though it turned out very soon that it was not a good deal:

“I bought from one of the Swedish officers, who was still there, a fine-looking 6-years old chestnut stallion. I wondered at the low price he asked for it, but the next day I realized why. He went on very well and tame but as soon as I got off of him, as a tiger, he attacked the other horses and kicked them where he reached them. Thus until Isfahan I could not get off and at the lodgings I had to find an empty stable and could only get off there. I cursed the Swedish many times. Otherwise, he endured fatigue better than the other horses we had.”

On 24 December they went on to Isfahan and in the evening they arrived to a caravanserai. His short description reflects the circumstances very well:

“XII. 24. At noon we departed for Isfahan. We, Napravil and I, got lost again fortunately. We departed later than the soldiers and the people showed us the shorter way because they didn't know that the others go with a wagon and that we would go with them. When we discovered our mistake, we passed through the stony wasteland and after a long fumble and stumble we reached the others in the dark at a half-collapsed caravanserai. which was full of fleeing Cossacks. They did not have a single bit of discipline and would not make place for us. We didn't even try to throw them out as they were many and the air was already rather awful in the rooms. Thus we set up our beds in a half-collapsed stable where seemingly stray dogs used to give rendez-vous to each other. But we cleaned the place and settled in well enough. What a poor Christmas Eve!”

We hope our readers will have a a richer and less adventurous Christmas.

***

I noticed it only after writing this post that the Hungarian Iranist Miklós Sárközy gave a lecture on Gergely Béldi's diary just a few weeks ago. The recording of the lecture is available online (only in Hungarian) since 21 December but I didn't have the time to watch it until the publication of this post. Thus I wrote this post without knowing it and before it became available, waiting only for the anniversary to publish the story of Gergely Béldi’s unconventional Christmas in Kashan.

Hagia Sophia through the back door

In July 2020, Turkish President Erdoğan restored by decree the mosque status of the Hagia Sophia Cathedral, which was transformed into a mosque in 1453, after the capture of Constantinople, and then into a museum in 1934 by Atatürk’s decision. This decision, by which Erdoğan sought to favor his conservative voter base and illustrate his own authoritarian power, sparked protest around the world. The public nature of the museum made it a kind of bridge between cultures and religions, and its non-denominational accessibility symbolized that it was not only part of Islam, but of the world’s heritage, a common cultural treasure of humanity. Sharia, of course, does not recognize such categories. But what will happen to the beautiful Byzantine mosaics rediscovered after 1934 and made publicly visible, which are obviously incompatible with an active mosque, since this is why they were whitewashed in 1453? And how can hundreds of thousands of tourist visit a cult place that serves prayer? Erdoğan dismissed these problems: “Like all our mosques, the doors of Hagia Sophia will be wide open to locals and foreigners, Muslims and non-Muslims”, he said. That promise has since been proven to be a lie.

At the time of the decision, these questions were not relevant, because the country was still closed to tourists due to Covid. When it was possible to travel again in 2021, I visited the cathedral with curiosity. The change was big. You could enter the building without a ticket, but only to the lower level. The gallery with most of the mosaics was closed to visitors. Many people were praying in the mosque. The prominent mosaics visible from here – the image of the Mother of God with the child Jesus on the vault of the apse, above the current mihrab, and the archangel Gabriel on her left – were covered by stretched canvases.

The apse mosaic of Hagia Sophia in 2019 (above) and 2021 (below)

Before our current trip to Istanbul, news spread that the gallery had been opened. We visited the cathedral again with curiosity. The result, to put it kindly, is half-baked. The lower level can be entered only by Turkish citizens – so much for Erdoğan’s promise. The entrance to the gallery is on the back side of the church, from the side towards Topkapı Sarayı. It is a makeshift tunnel with electronic access gates. The ticket office is opposite the tunnel, with a long line in front of it for the €25 ticket (which is more expensive than the most expensive Western ticket I know, the one for the Vatican Museum). Tickets can supposedly be bought online, but according to the local guards, it is not recommended, because the electronic entry gate often does not recognize the electronic ticket code. In such cases, the ticket is reset, and a new one must be purchased by waiting for your turn in the line.

Later, I experience that online ticket buying is virtual in the strict sense of the word. In some of the overlappingmandatory sections of the poorly designed website it is simply impossible to enter data. Thus, the queue is the only way to go.

When you are finally inside, a spiral staircase takes you directly to the gallery. It has a gently sloping, knurled surface. It was obviously used for bringing up construction material fifteen hundred years ago.

You can walk around the gallery and see everything: the mosaics depicting the emperors and their spouses, the beautiful Deesis mosaic, the pictures of the three church fathers on the wall of the northern gallery facing the interior, the Viking runes scratched into the marble of the southern gallery by the bored bodyguards.

Christ Pantokrator, with Empress Zoe and her third husband, Constantine IX Monomachus on either side. Made between 1028 and 1042. The mosaic originally depicted her first husband, Romanos Argyros. Only the head was replaced in 1042 for that of her third husband.

The Mother of God, with Emperor John Komnenos and his wife Eirene (the Hungarian Piroska, daughter of St. Ladislas, King of Hungary) on her both sides. To the right, on the turning wall, the heir to the throne, Alexios, who died early. Made between 1118 and 1143

Deesis, i.e. the plea of the Mother of God and Saint John the Baptist to Christ the Pantokrator. It was made in 1261, after the reconquest of Constantinople from the Crusaders. John’s title “ὁ πρόδρομος”, the forerunner is translated as “pioneer” by the informative inscription

You can also look down on the lower level, and you can see how Turkish citizens – most of them tourists just like you, no one is praying, so the segregation is more discriminatory than religious – are walking around in the mosque. However, you cannot go down.

And some pictures from 2021, when foreigners could admire the church also from the lower level:

This is a particularly big loss for us Hungarians. After all, on either side of the mihrab stand the two large bronze candlesticks that King Matthias had made in Buda in Italian Renaissance style, and which Sultan Suleyman took from the Church of Our Lady in Buda Castle after the sacking of the city in 1526, along with the library, weapon collection, bronze statues and the library of Matthias’s palace as well as with the treasures of the churches of Buda and Pest. Until now, you could admire them up close, and even a sign proved their coming from Buda. Now, viewed from the gallery, they are almost indistinguishable in the covering of cult objects. As if we had been robbed a second time. Along with all of humanity.

The candlesticks on either side of the mihrab back in 2021

At the same time as the Hagia Sophia, the greatest treasure of Byzantine art, the Chora church, was also reclassified from a museum to a mosue, even though its mosaics had only recently been restored with many years of work. It was also closed immediately, and since then noises of work can be heard from it. It is rumored that it will also be opened within a mont or two. But there, all the mosaics are in the cult space of the mosque. I wonder what the combination of violence, stupidity and hypocrisy experienced in Hagia Sophia will result there?