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    Castles returned

    We continue our series of excerpts from Jaap Scholten’s Comrade Baron. A Journey through the Vanishing World of the Transylvanian Aristocracy, recently released in English by Corvina Kiadó. Comrade Baron is Scholten’s first non-fiction work. It traces the lives of members of the Transylvanian aristocracy before and after March 1949, when the collectivisation of agriculture under the new communist regime included the expropriation and deportation of all large landowners.

    Gernyeszeg, September 2009 On the edge of Gernyeszeg stands a low house with a sign outside that reads, in large red letters,COUNTESS FASTFOOD. There’s nothing very aristocratic about the greasy sausages[…]

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    Beetroot and champagne

    We continue our series of excerpts from Jaap Scholten’s Comrade Baron. A Journey through the Vanishing World of the Transylvanian Aristocracy, recently released in English by Corvina Kiadó. Comrade Baron is Scholten’s first non-fiction work. It traces the lives of members of the Transylvanian aristocracy before and after March 1949, when the collectivisation of agriculture under the new communist regime included the expropriation and deportation of all large landowners

    Budapest, September 2009 György Ugron: ‘You might say that communism destroyed three generations here: the generation of my grandparents, that of my parents and my own. My parents’ generation had[…]

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    You can dump us at the North Pole and we’ll still survive

    We continue our series of excerpts from Jaap Scholten’s Comrade Baron. A Journey through the Vanishing World of the Transylvanian Aristocracy, recently released in English by Corvina Kiadó. Comrade Baron is Scholten’s first non-fiction work. It traces the lives of members of the Transylvanian aristocracy before and after March 1949, when the collectivisation of agriculture under the new communist regime included the expropriation and deportation of all large landowners.

    Kolozsvár, September 2009 On his walk from the Hook of Holland to Istanbul in 1934, Patrick Leigh Fermor passed through Kolozsvár. He wrote about it in his introduction to one[…]

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    Seventeen truckloads of Bánffy treasures

    We continue our series of excerpts from Jaap Scholten’s Comrade Baron. A Journey through the Vanishing World of the Transylvanian Aristocracy, recently released in English by Corvina Kiadó. Scholten, a Dutch writer and journalist, has lived in Hungary since 2003. Comrade Baron, his first non-fiction work, traces the lives of members of the Transylvanian aristocracy before and after March 1949, when the collectivisation of agriculture under the new communist regime included the expropriation and deportation of all large landowners.

    Bonchida, September 2009 Between Baia Mare and Kolozsvár the landscape is ancient and magnificent. There are more horse-drawn carts on the road than cars, variously loaded with dung, maize, hay,[…]

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    The destruction of the elite

    We continue our series of excerpts from Jaap Scholten’s Comrade Baron. A Journey through the Vanishing World of the Transylvanian Aristocracy, recently released in English by Corvina Kiadó. Scholten, a Dutch writer and journalist, has lived in Hungary since 2003. Comrade Baron, his first non-fiction work, traces the lives of members of the Transylvanian aristocracy before and after March 1949, when the collectivisation of agriculture under the new communist regime included the expropriation and deportation of all large landowners.

    Sighet, September 2009 For Romania’s Orthodox Christians, the feast of Dormition, commemorating the burial of the Holy Virgin Mary, is almost as important as 15 August, the feast of Assumption.[…]

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    After his death, wagonloads of books kept arriving

    We continue our series of excerpts from Jaap Scholten’s Comrade Baron. A Journey through the Vanishing World of the Transylvanian Aristocracy, recently released in English by Corvina Kiadó. Scholten, a Dutch writer and journalist, has lived in Hungary since 2003. Comrade Baron, his first non-fiction work, traces the lives of members of the Transylvanian aristocracy before and after March 1949, when the collectivisation of agriculture under the new communist regime included the expropriation and deportation of all large landowners.

    Marosvásárhely, March 2009 I step through a large door into the Teleki-téka. Count Sámuel Teleki (1739-1822) founded this library and donated it to the town of Marosvásárhely. A white, U-shaped[…]

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    Where the moon took us

    This is the first in a series of excerpts from Comrade Baron. A Journey through the Vanishing World of the Transylvanian Aristocracy, by Jaap Scholten and recently released in English by Corvina Kiadó. Scholten, a Dutch writer and journalist, has lived in Hungary since 2003. Comrade Baron, his first non-fiction work, traces the lives of members of the Transylvanian aristocracy before and after March 1949, when the collectivisation of agriculture under the new communist regime included the expropriation and deportation of all large landowners. See last week’s issue for an interview with the author.

    Leányfalu, June 1991 On our first trip together, in an old Peugeot, Ilona and I drove right across Eastern Europe, where euphoria at the collapse of dictatorships still hung like[…]

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    Bombardment by book in war of words

    Review: Hot Books in the Cold War, by Alfred A. Reisch

    The subtitle of this book sets the scene for what to expect: “The CIA-Funded Secret Western Book Distribution Program Behind The Iron Curtain”. It sounds like an intriguing theme and[…]