1927

Pictures of Hungary

Vilde had been experiencing intrerest and fellow-feeling to Hungarians for years. He was well informed about their literary life and translated through the German language contemporary Hungarian authors into the Estonian. The Hungarian government awarded him for his efforts as a ‘diplomat of culture’ with their service cross in 1930. Vilde visited the Magyars’ country four times: in 1900, 1903, 1921 and 1927. He liked the warm climate and the people. Like every other Estonian, Vilde attempted to find similarities between the Magyar and Estonian languages and thought that the people looked like pure Northern Finno-Ugrians. In the early 1930s Vilde wrote Impressions of Hungary and included it in his collected works. The text summed up all his four trips impressions and experience, revealing how well he knew the Magyar history, culture and folklore.

In 1927 Vilde’s doctors advised the spiritually and physically exhausted writer to spend some time in a warm country, so Vilde left for Hungarian spa Heviz in May and stayed there for two months.

The almost four-day journey started in Tallinn from where the train took him through Riga and Warsaw to Vienna and Budapest and finally to Heviz. Vilde planned to relax a little first and then start working, as he could never rest long. He posted a travelogue to Estonian newspapers. He was visited there by Hungarian novellist and journalist Gyula Szabo who wanted an interview for his paper from “the most interesting and congenial person in the spa”.

The writer could take natural mud baths, enjoyed the Tokay and the fantastic Magyar cuisine.

“You know what, beloved, I have reached the decision that this is the last foreign journey I have made,” Vilde wrote on 1 August 1927. “The wear and tear have become bigger than pleasure. I have seen it all before and have not discovered anything new!” Thus the traveller had calmed down, mostly due to his age and deteriorating health. It was not Vilde’s last trip, though, he visited Italy in 1931. Only two years of life had remained for him then.