Tourist Guide of the Rocky Land [antikvár]

Foreword to the English Edition Every book contains a part of the writer's soul, and all the emotions therein. Many people read and enjoyed the two previous books on which this translation is based: A Guide to Torockó (Torockó útikalauz), published in 1998, and In the Shadow of the Castle: Torockószentgyörgy (A Vár árnyékában Torockószentgyörgy), published in 2003. This current book goes beyond the limited confines of the Hungarian linguistic area, perhaps falling into the hands of readers unfamiliar with the area, who may have difficulty finding it on a map, and might even have a more difficult time pronouncing the names of these two villages. The Latin name of the region is Transylvania, which means „beyond the forest." The Transylvanian Basin lies at latitude 46° north and longitude 25° east, surrounded by the Carpathian mountain range. Prehistoric visitors traveled through dense forests and dangerous rocky straits to reach this place, through cliffs that even the Second World War's military technology had a hard time with. Artists rendered these cliffs as the gates of hell; will the traveler find hell or Eden beyond these rocky gates? Visiting Torockó/Rimetea in 1702, one would have found two gallows on the market square, its citizens despondent and the village destroyed. Trying to find a place to stay in Torockószentgyörgy/Coltesti during the summer of 1849 would have been impossible as the village was reduced to ashes. In the same village, 43 years later, one would have found thirty tiny coffins, child fatalities of the diphtheria epidemic. Not quite Eden. However, not quite hell, either. The valley converted to the Unitarian religion in 1568 already, and built a beautiful stone church in 1643. In the years between 1812 and 1844, an overwhelming 70% of the residents were already literate. Indeed, the Torockó/Rimetea school had 50-60 pupils yearly, at a time when the surrounding villages were mostly illiterate.