Culture

The culture of Hungary is rich and varied, from the twin cities of Buda and Pest on the Danube, to the Great Plain bordering Ukraine. Today's Hungary was formerly (until 1918) part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Hungary has great folk traditions, producing embroideries, pottery, decorated buildings, and carvings. Hungarian music ranges from the rhapsodies of Franz Liszt to Roma and folk music.

Cuisine

Hungarian cuisine is also a prominent feature of Hungarian culture, with traditional dishes such as goulash (gulyás or gulyásleves) a main feature of the Hungarian diet. Dishes are often flavoured with paprika. Stews are often to be found with typical elements such as pork or beef, for example as used in pörkölt.

Literature

Hungarian literature has recently gained some renown outside the borders of Hungary (mostly through translations into German, French and English). Some modern Hungarian authors became increasingly popular in Germany and Italy especially Sándor Márai, Péter Esterházy, Péter Nádas and Imre Kertész. The latter is a contemporary Jewish writer who survived the Holocaust and won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2002.

The older classics of Hungarian literature and Hungarian poetry remained almost totally unknown outside Hungary. János Arany, a famous 19th century Hungarian poet is still much loved in Hungary (especially his collection of Ballads), among several other "true classics" like Sándor Petofi, the poet of the Revolution of 1848, Endre Ady, Mihály Babits, Dezso Kosztolányi, Attila József and János Pilinszky. Other well-known Hungarian authors are Zsigmond Móricz, Gyula Illyés, Albert Wass and Magda Szabó.

Music

The music of Hungary consists mainly of traditional Hungarian folk music and music by prominent composers such as Franz Liszt, Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály. Hungarian traditional music tends to have a strong dactylic rhythm, just as the language is invariably stressed on the first syllable of each word.

Science

Hungary is famous for its excellent mathematics education, which has trained numerous outstanding scientists. Famous Hungarian mathematicians include Paul Erdos who has published in over forty languages and whose Erdos numbers are still tracked; János (John) Bolyai, designer of non-Euclidian geometry or "absolute geometry" in 1831; John von Neumann, one of the pioneers in digital computing; Eugene Wigner and many others. Erdos, von Neumann, and Wigner, like other Hungarian Jewish scientists, fled rising anti-Semitism in Europe, and made their most famous contributions in the United States.

Hungarians are very proud of their inventions. These include the noiseless match (János Irínyi), Rubik's cube, the krypton electric bulb (Imre Bródy, 1891-1944) and the aforementioned non-Euclidian geometry. A number of other important inventions, including holography, the ballpoint pen (invented by Bíró, who gave his name to the invention), the theory of the hydrogen bomb, and the BASIC programming language, were invented by Hungarians who fled the country prior to World War II.

Sport

Although a landlocked country, Hungary has produced many sportspeople who have excelled at water sports, mainly swimming, water polo and canoeing. The presence of two major rivers (the Duna and the Tisza) and a major lake (Balaton) give excellent opportunities to practice those sports.