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The Music of Hungary consists mainly of traditional Hungarian folk music and music by prominent composers such as Franz Liszt, Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály. Hungarian traditional music tends to have a strong dactylic rhythm, just as the language is invariably stressed on the first syllable of each word. Hungarian cuisine is also a prominent feature of Hungarian culture, with traditional dishes such as goulash a main feature of the Hungarian diet. Dishes are often flavored with paprika (also Hungarian for pepper). Stews are often to be found with typical elements such as pork or beef, for example as used in pörkölt. Hungary is famous for its excellent mathematics education which trained a lot of outstanding scientists. Famous Hungarian mathematicians include Paul Erdős who is famous for publishing in over forty languages and whose Erdős numbers are still tracked, János Bolyai designer of non-Euclidian geometry, John von Neumann one of the pioneers in digital computing, Eugene Wigner, and many others. Erdős, von Neumann, and Wigner, like other Hungarian Jewish scientists, fled rising anti-Semitism in Europe, and made their most famous contributions in the United States. Hungarians are very proud of their inventions. These include the noiseless match, Rubik's cube and the aforementioned non-Euclidian geometry. A number of other important inventions, including holography, the ballpoint pen (invented by Bíró, who gave his name to the invention), the theory of the hydrogen bomb, and the BASIC programming language, were invented by Hungarians who fled the country prior to World War II. Hungarian literature has recently gained some renown outside the borders of Hungary (mostly through translations into German, French and English). Some modern Hungarian authors became increasingly popular in Germany and Italy especially Sándor Márai, Péter Esterházy, Péter Nádas and Imre Kertész. The later is a contemporary Jewish writer who survived the Holocaust and won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2002.The older classics of Hungarian literature and Hungarian poetry remained almost totally unknown outside Hungary. János Arany, a famous 19th century Hungarian poet is still much loved in Hungary (especially his collection of Ballads), among several other "true classics" like Sándor Petőfi, the poet of the Revolution of 1848, Endre Ady, Mihály Babits, Dezső Kosztolányi, Attila József and János Pilinszky. Other well-known Hungarian authors are Zsigmond Móricz, Gyula Illyés, Albert Wass and Magda Szabó. Hungarians are also known for their prowess at water sports, mainly swimming, water polo and canoeing; this can be said to be surprising at first, due to Hungary being landlocked. On the other hand, the presence of two major rivers (Duna/Tisza) and a major lake (Balaton) gives excellent opportunities to practice those sports |
Hungary Information: Inside
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