2023-10-04 19:24:15
József Bagi, born in 1800 and died in 1886, was the richest landowner in Csongrád at the time, yet he did not want to look like a lord, he wore simple, old clothes and lived the life of a servant. Acting was also far from him, he didn’t even like being written about in newspapers. Therefore, no image of him survived, only written sources. At the Károly Csemegi Library, Éva Katkó-Bagi presented her book “Ember a legendák beyát” about the large farmer who owned 30,000 acres from the shepherd’s flock, as an interlocutor with ethnographer Orsolya Gyöngyössy.
Giving golden man, peasant nobleman
József Bagi’s wealth was already legendary, but it was not accompanied by a distinctly noble appearance and behavior, which is why he got into amusing and controversial situations countless times. Do you need a better basis for a fictional biography? In addition to the Peasant Nabob and the Golden Man of Csongrád, the common people suggested many other names for the peasant who acquired a substantial fortune with his ingenuity. He was generous, he supported the church in Csongrád with preference, for example he covered the entire cost of the Holy Trinity statue group. He did not like the bureaucratic German-monkey gentlemen, he did not seek their company, nor did he imitate their clothes. His verbal testament faithfully reflects his values: “Bury me in the open ground, not in a crypt. I loved the land very much, and it will be good to feel the warmth of the home land.”
“The tailcoat was called here, not me”
The author could imagine every piece of peasant clothing of the time. When the cold came, he covered himself with a filter, there is also a story about this: the filter got warm on him at a fair, he put it down, left it, the next day he found it in the same place, no one needed it, it was so worn.
It was also typical of the incident that wished for the pen of Kálmán Mikszáth, which could have happened, but Mr. Bagi blamed the writer for what he scribbled about him. The ispán of the county invited the most wealthy gentlemen to lunch, including József Bagi, who appeared in his usual blue coat, but was not even allowed to enter the hall. He went back in a tailcoat and dipped its wing into the plate. “I’m offering the tailcoat because I see he was invited here and not me!” he justified his behavior.
The stories about Mr. Bagi and the results of his many years of research can be found one by one in Éva Katkó-Bagi’s book. The author said that he had been interested in his folktale figure since he was a child, and it soon became clear that their names were not coincidental.
I can consider him as my great uncle as my family comes from his brother’s bloodline
explained Éva Katkó-Bagi.
Saving the relics of Arad
In the second half of the book presentation, Éva Katkó-Bagi gave an insight into the beauty and value-creating activities of her work as a textile restorer. As he said, he did an uplifting job when, as a textile restorer of the Móra Ferenc Museum, he was able to participate in a tender, which gave the Arad Museum of Relics the opportunity to assess the 1948 objects kept there, bearing traces of long storage, and restore them to a condition suitable for object photography. He documented this cultural rescue work in his catalog.
Éva Katkó-Bagi keeps in constant contact with the Csongrád museum, following whose hand a vintage ball tie, party and prussian dress made in the 1930s was recently refreshed and renewed, as well as a violet-colored decorative Hungarian women’s waistcoat from the 1890s. the museum proudly announced.
#life #Bagi #fits #folk #tale