Do not forget: I’ll go round the world
Dénes Balázs, founder of the Hungarian Museum of Geography
MúzeumCafé 13.
Historical Hungary was bordered by the Carpathian mountains and is still today a country with no sea. Perhaps that’s why many significant personalities turned to the past rather than to the unknown, outside world. Nevertheless, the country has still produced great travellers. The line is long, stretching from the Transylvanian Sándor Kőrösi Csoma through Sámuel Teleki travelling in Africa and Lajos Lóczy to Jenő Cholnoky and others. Another Sekler, the founder of the Hungarian Museum of Geography, Dénes Balázs, was one of the last legendary Hungarian travellers. Of a Sekler father and a mother from Rimaszombat (today in Slovakia) he was born in Debrecen in 1924 and grew up on the Great Hungarian Plain. His restless nature tempted him to travel from an early age. “Perseverance and stubbornness characterised him,” says János Kubassek, a geographer and director of the Hungarian Museum of Geography, who knew Balázs from the age of 15. In 1942-43 as a trial run Dénes Balázs, accompanied by his best friend Géza Medveczky, made two long bicycle tours of 5200 km through Hungary. He got to Seklerland (then part of Hungary, today in Romania) and visited his relations on his father’s side. After returning, Balázs began working in the Debrecen tobacco factory. The following year he was summoned to the pre-military ‘Levente’ organisation. Although he managed to avoid being sent to the front, he was eventually taken prisoner by the Soviets and endured forced labour in a camp in Russia for several years. Back in Budapest he joined the hikers’ section of the Kinizsi Sports Club and in 1954 with a team of 20 he explored the Szabadság Cave near Égerszög in the karst region of Aggtelek. In 1956 he launched a scientific journal, Karst and Speleology, although he studied geography at Eötvös Loránd University later, between 1959 and 1962. By then he had made two major trips to south China and the Arab Middle East researching karst. The former tobacco factory worker received his doctorate in 1964, having written his theses on the theme of karst corrosion. From the beginning of the 1960s to the end of the 1980s Dénes Balázs set off for a long journey nearly every other year. He reached the volcanic islands of Indonesia. As the first Hungarian he crossed the Sahara from north to south with his small team in a Polish long-distance lorry. In 1969-70 he travelled across the American continent from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. He researched the unexplored Archidinia karst region in Ecuador. Later he travelled to Japan, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Madagascar and New Zealand. He visited 130 countries across five continents and summarised his research in more than a hundred papers. He also had some trying experiences. Besides admiration, the question may arise: how could he travel so much in the former system? “The regime didn’t support but tolerated him,” says János Kubassek. Although he became a renown scholar and wrote a great deal, he never became a university professor. He was merely invited to give lectures. “He didn’t have any favours, such as free housing.” Dénes Balázs was allowed to publish his books and was awarded high prizes, but his long journeys, his absence of altogether more than a decade from Hungary may explain his attitude to the system. Moreover, he was not travelling first class. “He suffered much privation to be able to travel and he set off with little money.” According to Kubassek, Dénes Balázs felt at home while travelling. Having the scientific knowledge and speaking foreign languages, he could have chosen never to return to Hungary. “He had spontaneous opportunities in the West and he could have made a living. But he loved Hungary very much, national feeling was strong in him. For him Hungary remained the magnet.” Though the idea of a Hungarian Museum of Geography was raised already in 1911 it was Dénes Balázs who was able to achieve it by persevering organisation. At one stage he was even at the point of building the museum on his own piece of land, which he would donate to the state. Eventually the museum was established in the town of Érd in 1988. Dénes Balázs asked János Kubassek, who was still studying at university, to help with the organisation. Balázs died in October 1994 after a long illness. In the last months of his life he worked on his memoirs which saw the light of day under the title My Life – My Travels in 1995. His wife, Vilma Sprincz, who helped and supported him from home for decades, lives alone in Érd. Friends and colleagues of the world traveller and museum founder still keep his memory alive. A statue of Dénes Balázs made by Béla Domonkos stands in the museum garden.