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Debrecen - Culture 

The hotel, which they called 'White Horse', had been a hosting traveller since 1688. There were several famous people whose name is recorded as once being the guest of that hotel. Among others Joseph II, the uncrowned king of Hungary, spent one night in 1770, during his Hungarian journey.

A century later the yard of the hotel functioned as a stage for theatrical performances. There were performances on that stage every summer from 1792 for almost 20 years, owing to the contract made with the enthusiastic National Theatre Association founded by Micheal Wesselinyi in Kolozsvar (Transylvania). Students of the Reformed College often contributed to the performances with their musical accompaniment.

In 1811 a fire burned down almost half of the city, and made an end to the theatrical performances in that building. The hotel was reconstructed after the fire. In 1849 Lewis Kossuth stayed in the hotel.

In 1863 several floors were built on the original one story building. In 1786 it was offered for the newly founded Hajd? County as a County Hall by the town. After four decades the building proved to be confined for the central county administration, so it was pulled down. The present building was raised in 1912, reconstructed by Francis Gellur in 1986.

From 1950 there were centres of all kinds of companies working in that building, among others it functioned as a county pioneer house. The offices of the county council had to move to a new county hall, built nearby.

This building, after the reconstruction in 1986 is said to be one of the most beautiful Hungarian Art Nouveau buildings. The facade of the building is heavily decorated: there are four allegoric sculptures of hajd? Warriors on the top and pyrogranite flower ornamentation made by the Zsolnai Factory of Pecs. In the middle of the facade the coat of arms of Hajd? County can be seen.

If you enter the County Hall on the second floor you will find the most beautiful room, Hrpad Hall. Its 8 meter high walls are decorated with arms of the communities of the county. The coloured glass windows of the big hall display seven leaders of Hungarian tribes, from the age of the Hungarian conquest, the last years of the 9th C. Charles Kernstock made them.

Nowadays the main hall gives place to the meetings of the General Assembly of the County Self-Government.

The administrative building of the town has been standing in that site since 1531. The judge of the town had his working office in the Town Hall too.
From January 1849 Lewis Kossuth lived here. During that time the National Defense Committee held its sessions in that building.

In the middle ages there was a pound in that place, called Priest's Pound. In the 1820s people decided to make here a botanical garden. For this reason they dried out the pound. The organizers of the establishment of the botanical garden were Micheal Fazekas and Samuel Disszegi. After they had created the garden, Disszegi wrote a book on the rare plants and flowers that were planted in that site.

When Frederick Dary, the owner of a silk factory, decided to give his valuable collection to Debrecen, the town found out to build a museum in that area. The botanical garden was moved to the university area -it is still standing there. Dary did not gave just his collection to the town, but financially supported the building of the museum too.

In front of the building there is a composition of four sculptures, forming a frame to the fountains between them. These were made by Francis Medgyessy, as other sculptures of the Diri Square, and are known through out the world as they have won the gold medal on the world exhibition in Paris, 1937. The four sculptures represent:Archeology, Science, Arts, Etnography.

The building itself is neoclassical, neobaroque style. In the middle of the fascade there is a version of the coat of arms of Debrecen.

The museum was based on the valuable collections of the D?ri brothers, Frederick and George. The collection of the D?ri Museum collected ethnographical, archeological, local historical materials and paintings from different ages. There are temporary and some permanent exhibitions in the museum.
The most famous pieces of the museum can be seen in the Munkacsy-hall. These are the paintings of the Jesus Trilogy, painted by Michael Munkacsy, who exhibited his pictures from London to New York with great success.

The first church on this place was the St.Andrew Church, built in 1290-1311 in roman style. That church building was destroyed in conflagration first in 1564. It was rebuilt in 1626-1628 with the financial support of Gabor Bethlen. There used to stand a Red Brick Tower next to the church, built in 164o-42, which was built in order to place the bell given to the St. Andrew Church in 1636 by George Raksczi I.

The church and the Red Brick Tower together with almost the half of the city burned down in 1802. The bell had to be recasted, but one part of the original bell, with the coat of arms of the Raksczi family on it, was preserved, and can be seen in the Oratory Hall of the College. The recasted Raksczi-bell was put in the tower of the new church

The plan of Michael Puchy for the building up the new church was so grandiose that the town could not afford the construction of it. His idea was to build up a rounded church.
Joseph Thaler's plan started the building from the old basis. It seemed to be a far more attractive, and cheaper implementation. It was finished in 1823, but the first church service had already been held in 1819

Today its institutions of higher education dominate the cultural life of Debrecen. The Calvinist College remains with its fine collection of rare books in theology and early science. Other institutions include Lajos Kossuth University of Arts and Sciences, the University of Agriculture, the Medical School, and the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music all to be combined into the University of Debrecen. There is also a Teacher Training College and technical schools.

Debrecen lies on the eastern border of the Hortobágy, or Hungarian steppe. Once a vast sea edged with volcanos, this area is now an extensive plain important both as a physical feature in Hungarian (Magyar) history and a memorable sight. As one Hungarian poet has noted, it is a place where the earth and sky flow into each other. It is a land of hot sun in the summer and bitter cold winds in the winter; it is a land of shimmering mirages. The river Tisza, the second largest river in Hungary, cuts the Hortobágy. The Tisza rises in Romania and flows through Russia before heading south through Hungary. The seasonal flooding of the Tisza once created vast marshes on the puszta. Here on the Hortobágy the ancient Hungarians encountered the Sarmatian villages. Here herdsmen and shepards tended large herds of cattle, horses and sheep which were driven to markets in western Europe, Poland, and Turkey. Tartar and Turkish invasions destroyed most of the early villages on the puszta. Today small villages with thatched-roofed houses and storks nesting on chimneys again dot the Hortobágy.

In the early nineteenth century, control measures were introduced for controlling the Tisza. Overtime, the Hortobágy became dry, grasslands increased and the soil became alkline. To offset this last development, a system of irrigation canals were built in the early twentieth century that once again make the Hortobágy an area for agriculture and grazing. About 40 % of the steppe was preserved as grassland and is now treasured as the Hortobágy National Park. Here one can find much of the wildlife that used to roam the steppe. The Hortobágy National Park, about 36 kilometers west of Debrecen, hosts a museums detailing the life of the csikós, or Hungarian cowboy; several Csárdas, or restaurants (one dating back to 1699); and offers excursions providing visitors the opportunity to view the wildlife of the Hortobágy from horse drawn carriages.

. The name refers to the birch woods that grew in the marshes from the Tisza's flooding. This area is more populated than the Hortobágy and many of the small villages date from the Middle Ages. This region contains numerous churches built in traditional local styles. Some are decorated with frescos while others reflect Calvinist tastes of the l7th and l8th century.

The history of higher education in Debrecen dates to the early l6th century when in 1538 the city, called the "Calvinist Rome" established what would become the famous Protestant College of Eastern Hungary. Training primarily ministers and teachers, the College had a staff of professors who had attended such famous universities as Basel, Tübingen, Göttingen, Wittenberg and Utrecht.

The present institution, Kossuth Lajos University, founded as a state university in 1912, followed the example of the classic European universities of the day with four colleges: theology, law, medicine and the arts. In 1927 the university founded the International Summer School, which continues to draw students from over 30 countries and offers courses in Hungarian society, history, language and culture. In 1949 the college of law was discontinued and in 1952 under the auspices of the Ministry of Health.

The College of Theology continued in the Protestant College. Kossuth Lajos University retained only two colleges, arts and sciences.

Research is important at Kossuth University. Today the University houses the Antibiotics Research Team, an independent branch of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The Institute of Nuclear Research has established with the University's Department of Physics a joint venture, which allows for more effective use of the cyclotron and other equipment for nuclear research.  Founded in 1916, has more than 3,600.000 volumes and institute and departmental libraries hold an additional 400,000. The music section of the library holds more than 100,000 items and since 1987 continues to receive recordings and other items from Hungarian recording companies. The library has access to various international database systems (Dialog, Data-Star, Inis, Sin, Questel) and is also a member of the International Scientific and Technical Information System. A number of publications with international audiences are published by the University including, Hungarian Studies in English, and Studies in Linguistics.

Kossuth University is particularly strong in the fields of English-American Studies, Hungarian Literature and Linguistics, History, Philosophy, Slavic (Russian) Literature and Linguistics, General Linguistics, Hungarian Ethnography, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Music. Although the language of instruction is Hungarian, several of the science departments are now teaching some courses in English. Foreign language courses include the following: English, French, German, Russian, Finnish, Polish, Spanish, Italian, Slovak, Esperanto and Dutch. These courses are taught in their respective languages.

Kossuth University is in direct international cooperation with more than 50 universities in Europe and in the U.S. and is establishing links with universities in Canada and Austalia. Most of these ties are through Tempus programs--which involve exchanges of students and faculty members--but also include the Samantha Smith Program and direct exchanges through funds from the Soros Foundation. Kossuth University is also a prospective member of the International Student Exchange Program (ISEP) and also participates in the new Smithsonian-Soros Student Intern Program. The English Institute and North American Department currently have faculty and students on Tempus and other exchange programs with the University of Minnesota, Indiana University, Stanford University, the University of Warwick and the University of Hull. Debrecen, as a sister city to New Brunswick, N.J., student-faculty exchange programs between Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey and Kossuth University are currently under preparation.

In 1991 the University and the city government moved to unite Debrecen's four universities and one research institute and establish the  Once achieved, the University of Debrecen will be one of the major research institutions in Europe.

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