Archive for February, 2008

   Children of the Danube

 

Numerous histories and studies of the Great Swabian Migration of the 18th century have been written and published, and the tragic fate of many of their descendants in our own time has also been chronicled.  Most of these are available in languages other than English. Much of that research forms the backdrop of “Children of the Danube”, which is the author’s attempt at telling the stories behind the history.  Personal stories that weave the tapestry of the lives of his extended family with those of the other families and individuals who joined them after venturing down the majestic, sometimes turbulent, Danube River, taking them on a quest that is common to all people: the search for the Promised Land.

 

  That is what they sought in the devastated Kingdom of Hungary, recently liberated after an oppressive one hundred and fifty year occupation by the Turks. Leaving the Danube River behind them, they would be confronted by a wilderness, disease ridden swamps, dense forests, isolation, primitive living conditions, marauders and brigands.  They would find themselves at the mercy of greedy landowners and rapacious nobles, and would have to endure the final onslaught of the Counter Reformation in their pursuit of religious freedom.  This is what awaited them, in responding to the invitation of the Hapsburg Emperor Charles VI.  It was hardly what the handbills circulating throughout south western Germany had promised.

   How they would respond, who they would become as a result of it, and what sustained and formed them into the “Children of the Danube”, as a distinctive and unique people among the Danube Swabians will unfold, in the telling of their tragic and yet heroic story.

Remember to tell the Children  The Pioneers

The Children of the Danube were on the move again.  They were the descendants of the settlers who had joined the trek down the Danube River in the Great Swabian Migration from Germany to the Kingdom of Hungary in the early 18th century.  Perhaps like their forebears, adventure may have been the driving force for some of them, while desperation drove others as they sought to make a life for themselves and their families.  They were faced with limited options if they remained in their original settlements: where   land was running out, restrictions against the Lutherans and Reformed were becoming more intolerable and the increasing and often unjust demands of the nobles made it more and more difficult to provide for their families.  For those reasons and others, the Children of the Danube were on the move everywhere but wherever they went they planted their roots deeply into the soil of Hungary and their faith, customs, traditions and language thrived and flourished among them in this new emerging environment for the succeeding generations.  The Pioneers tells this story through the lives and loves of three generations of the Tefner family in the unfolding story of Dörnberg where their lives intersected with the families who would eventually become part of the author’s extended family and which they shared with all the others who were part of their life together.

They found themselves isolated, confronted by a wilderness and created an economic miracle.  Destructive fires and raging floods, famine and drought, bandit raids and epidemics tested them but did not overcome their indomitable will, which was sustained by their faith.  A faith that was outlawed but continued underground unabated until the Edict of Toleration granted them freedom of conscience.  Nor would they simply cower before the injustices inflicted upon them by the nobles and authorities without protest.  Their lives were lived within the broader scope of the history of their times that played a vital role in their development, destiny and character.  Emperor Joseph II, the Bishop of Veszprém, Martin Biró von Padány, Anton von Kaunitz, Count Styrum Limberg, the Empress Maria Theresia, the three Counts von Mercy and countless other notable personages all make their appearance and leave their mark on The Pioneers in shaping The Strangers and Sojourners who would follow them in the next century