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In the framework of this year's Night of Researchers, the audience of Szombathely participated in a film screening and discussion. Anita Major, researcher of the Institute for Hungarian Unity, represented the Institute and spoke about the human research methodology and practice, which, in addition to the collected materials, gave and her husband, fellow researcher Dr. Gábor Margittai, with whom she jointly run the Institute, shared experiences, memories and friendships.
During the three decades they spent travelling in many Hungarian territories beyond the borders, they witnessed the untouched Hungarian peasant culture, the world of calibas and estenas, before the modern era after the fall of communism destroyed them. The spiritual and material treasures they took with them from this world gave them a foundation, a charge and values for life.
The Institute brought to the event a selection of its filmed research material, including the documentary "Golden Carpet" - The Resurrection of the Teleki House in Gornești, part of a ten-part series on the "shining castles" of Transylvania. The Grassalkovich-style castle, built at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries and once known as the "Gödöllő of Transylvania", the "jewel of the Mures", the favourite estate of the Teleki family, was not included in the series by chance - its history is intertwined with the past and present of the Teleki family, who dominated the Mures region.
The turning points and defining events in the fate of the family and the castle were laid out in the film like the golden carpet of falling yellow leaves of the old fern tree in the courtyard of the castle, shaken by the storms of history. But the vitality of the heirs who once lived and still live on as descendants has remained strong roots - and perhaps for those of us who have witnessed their story and experience through the film, it is a good guide.
