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Béla Széchenyi

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Count Béla István Mária Széchenyi of Sárvár-Felsővidék (3 February 1837 – 2 December 1918) was a Hungarian nobleman, son of István Széchenyi. He is best known for organizing an expedition to China, India and Singapore. He was accompanied by the linguist Gábor Bálint, the geologist Lajos Lóczy and geographer Gustav Kreitner.

Biography

Expedition members

Széchenyi was born in Pest, son of Count István Széchenyi and Crescencia von Seilern und Aspang. His brother was Ödön Széchenyi. He was educated first in Pressburg and then at universities in Berlin and Bonn where he studied law and economics. He travelled widely to England and parts of Europe. His father was institutionalized in Döbling. In 1860 he travelled to the United States and wrote a book about it in 1863. He had a seat in the assembly from 1865 but spent more time pursuing sport hunting. He travelled to Africa three times between 1867 and 1870 to hunt lions. He married Hanna Erdődy on 22 June 1870 in Vienna and they had two daughters. She however died in October 1872 and Széchenyi decided to distract himself from the loss by making an expedition to Asia along with Gustav Kreitner (1847–1893), Lajos Lóczy (1849–1920) and Gábor Bálint (1844–1913). Balint left the group on reaching Shanghai.

Széchenyi's travel route

The Asia expedition began in December 1877 aboard the Austrian steamship Polluce and the team travelled to India, China, Indonesia and Thailand, with his main interest being tiger hunting. The team went to Japan in 1878 and climbed Mount Fuji. His companions wrote a travelogue after returning. The also collected specimens and information on geology. The bird species Tetraophasis szechenyii was described and named from the collections. The expedition was made with promises to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences of donation from the income one his estates. This was however not respected and a payment was only made in 1894 with a loan. The three volume book on the expedition was in Hungarian and German and read mainly in Europe but various rumours were spread in the United States. One story was that Széchenyi was met in the middle of the Gobi desert by nomadic tribesmen who spoke "the purest Magyar" who fell at his feet and acknowledged their long-lost western brethren.

References

  1. Glant, Tibor (2012). "A Hungarian aristocrat in Civil War America: Count Béla Széchenyi's 1862 study trip to the United States of America". Studies in Travel Writing. 16 (3): 287–301. doi:10.1080/13645145.2012.701068. ISSN 1364-5145.
  2. Constantin von Wurzbach, ed. (1880). "Széchenyi, Béla Graf". Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich, Band 41 (in German). Wien. pp. 224–226.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  3. Keane, A. H. (1882). "Im Fernen Osten, Reisen des Grafen Bela Szechenyi in den Jahren 1877-1880". Nature. 27 (686): 170–172. doi:10.1038/027170a0. ISSN 0028-0836.
  4. von Richthofen, Baron F. (1894). Hölzel (ed.). "Count Széchenyi's Travels in Eastern Asia". The Geographical Journal. 3 (4): 311–318. doi:10.2307/1773695. ISSN 0016-7398.
  5. Slobodnik, Martin (2013). "Early Contacts Between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and China: The Zichy Brothers in East Asia". Talking Literature: Essays on Chinese and Biblical Writings and their Interaction. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 103–123.

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