American Hungarian Relations 1918-1944 [antikvár]

PREFACE The first Hungárián ever to set foot on the soil of the New World was a sixteenth century humanist and Protestant scholar, Stephanus Parmenius Budaeus. He accompanied Sir Humphrey Gilbert to Newfoimdland in 1583 to acquire "any remote, barbarous and heathen lands" by the command of Queen Eiizabeth of England. Parmenius was born in the fortified capital of Hungary, Buda, then in Turkish hands. Seeking education abroad, like many other Hungárián youths, he went to Oxford and to London, where the famous colleetor of autographs, Master Hakluyt, introduced him to Sir Humphrey. Upon his arrival in Newfoundland, Parmenius wrote to Hakluyt, but this was the last word heard from him, as he was shipwrecked on the return voyage. Among those who were lost, wrote Captain Haie, "was drowned a learned man, a Hungárián, born in the city of Buda, called thereof Budaeus, who in piety and zeal to good attempts, adventured in this action, minding to record in the Latin tongue, the gesta and things worthy of remembrance, happening in this discovery, to the honor of our nation.(l) Stephanus Parmenius Budaeus wished to report to the European nations an unknown, new world, about which contemporary Hungarians knew hardly more than that it had been discovered "for the great glory of Christianity."(2) After the passage of