HELDENWERK - Die Träger der Goldenen Tapferkeitsme, A new book!

Dear friends!

A friend of mine from Austria is planning to publish a new book in autumn 2010 that I find revolutionary in many ways. It is going to be the very first book about the recipients of the Golden Bravery Medal (GTM) in the k.u.k. Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I (1914-1918). The book will be self-published and therefore only about 500 copies of it will be available for sale, so my friend has asked me to spread the word around to those who might be interested to order and buy a copy of it. This is the kind of book that comes along maybe once every 20 to 30 years, so this is unique opportunity to finally find out the names of these long forgotten heroes of the k.u.k. Army in World War I.

And yes before you ask the book will also include the names of all Romanian GTM recipients during the war. There were quite a few of them, to name a few: Kadett i.d.Res. Theodor Gramatovici (k.u.k. IR.16), Fhr.i.d.Res. Ladislaus Cisteian (k.u.k. IR.50), Fhr.i.d.Res. Bikentie Murgu (k.u.k. IR.43), Zgf. Johann Istrate (k.u.k. IR.63), Zgf. Michael Hajdu (k.u.k. IR.62), Stabsfeldwebel Ladislaus Grebenisan (k.u.k. IR.62), Stabsfeldwebel Andreas Miklea (k.u.k. IR.50), Fhr.i.d.Res. Rada Lungulov (k.u.k. IR.101), Infanterist Peter Popa (k.u.k. IR.37), Infanterist Miklos Barbu (k.u.k. IR.61), Zgf. Demeter Bratescu (k.u.k. reitende Artilleriedivision Nr. 7) etc.

You can order the book by contacting Joerg. You can do this by downloading the DOC file from the following link, where you can also read a short introduction of his book.

URL: http://austrohungarianlandforcesdiscussion....com/topic/1121

In fact, if you happen to have any biography of any Romanian GTM recipient, we would be more than happy if you could send it to us. It is very hard to find out anything about what happened to these Romanian GTM recipients after the war. I for example would very much like to know what happened to Leutnant Ladislaus Cisteian from k.u.k. IR.50, who won his GTM during the capture of fortress Casa Ratti in Southern Tyrol in 1916, together with another much decorated officer Oberleutnant Albin Mlakar (a Slovene from Lower Styria) from Sappeurbataillon Nr. 14. More about him here: http://www.austro-hungarian-army.co.uk/biog/mlakar.html

It would be kinda "cool" to know what happened to Ladislaus Cisteian after the war.

Best wishes,

Klemen

The book has come out!

More information available on the Austro-Hungarian Land Forces forum:

http://austrohungarianlandforcesdiscussion...aster/1/?page=1

Best regards,

Klemen

Note that ALL the Romanian names are Hugnarized/Germanized - a thing that really makes me sick.

That's a good symptom for the way in which the dual monarchy did function politically, and for what the A-H citizenship meant for the ethnic Romanians: the right to sacrifice their life in a war, under a state-"corrected" name.

That was the norm in every state, not only in the A-H Monarchy. Mind you, in Rumania most ethnic names were/are Rumanised as well. For instance, my father had to be Christened Dionisie (what an awkward name!), because Dénes could not be chosen. He could officially regain his real name (everybody was calling him as) only when he moved to Hungary in his seventies. Just one (personal) example of many.

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on December 21, 2010 08:21 pm

The official language in the k.u.k. Army was German and Hungarian. As a result of this all first names of the soldiers were officially written in a Germanized or Hungarized version. The only exception were Bosnians and to some degree Serbs and Croats.

One can rather easily recognize Romanian GTM recipients by their surname (Gramatovici, Cismas, Cistean, Popa, Bratesku etc.), which are usually not Hungarized or Germanized.

So I don't quite understand what's the fuss here. I quickly checked the database of French casualties from Great War 1914-1918 and also found a few Romanians from the French Foreign Legion. Most of their first names are "Frenchized".

I remember many Hungarians and Serbs whose names and surnames were (forcibly? voluntarly?) romanized after World War I. I remember the case of Lavinia Miloşovici, a famous Romanian gymnast of Serbian origin, whose proper spelling of her name is Lavinija Milošević.

lp,

Klemen

First of all, I would make a difference between voluntary (recommended) and forced "control" of that basic form of (personal, but also cultural and ethnic) identity which is the name. As Denes said, there were examples of "name control policy" in Romania in the first decades after WW 2, and I think at least some of them were "forced". The only thing which I can derive from my observations is that they were not systematically implemented. I have/had several Hungarian acquaintances which were affected by that stupid and abusive practice. But, oddly enough, some other born around the same period could officially use their name of choice. It was the case with two former neighbors, when I was a child: both had Karoly as their christian name, but one of them was "Romanized" as Constantin (!) and the other had his proper name in his identity card. The policy was not only stupid and abusive, but also ineffective, since they both/all used their real given names except the official circumstances (ex. as written on their home front door). The policy was applied mainly (but not only) to the first names. There was for example the case of an old lady (Hungarian) of mixt Romanian-Hungarian origin, who recalled that the original name of her Romanian parents/grandparents had been "administratively" Hungarized before 1918 (easily done, since it was a toponym).

So I don't know how much of this was done by controlling the "batch/list" of available given names, or by direct administrative intervention, and if a (again administrative) later switch to the original name was possible. I also have no statistical data, but I can say that for the later generations (at least in regard with the Hungarian, the most prominent minority in Romania and the one with which members I was/am in contact) such examples had disappeared. By the way, I cannot imagine such a policy still being enacted in nowadays Romania, since the Roma's can freely (and officially) give names like Televizor or Remanierea to their newly born.

"The big fuss", as Kelemen put it, could perhaps be made/understand in/for the cases where such a "name/identity control" policy would be official, coherent and part of a bigger picture, as it was for the Romanians who constituted a clear majority in the Transylvanian part of the Hungarian half of the AH monarchy. The "bigger picture" was represented by the set on de-nationalizing/assimilation laws enacted in Hungary after 1867, to which such a practice was consonant; that's why I said it was only a symptom. By the way, if you compare the situation of the Romanian ethnics (AH citizens and conscripts) to that of the Romanian volunteers in the French Legion, I'm not surprised that you wonder about what the fuss is and don't get what I meant.

My only surprise was that ALL the names were "adjusted", and not only the given ones: Bratesku, Hajdu or Miklea are not Romanian names, but Romanian names changed in order to "look proper". And the irony lies in the fact that they were nevertheless (with their "non-desirable" names "corrected" - a "good enough to die, not good enough to have your own name accepted" variation) AH heroes. It reminded me of a Hungarian activist from Transylvania (present days) of distant Romanian-Armenian origin, who's name is Patrubany.


Merry Christmas to you all!

Mind you, in Rumania most ethnic names were/are Rumanised as well.

OT. While reading a long report on unusual or moving stories that came to light while ethnic Hungarians (and not only) from Rumania were submitting their request to obtain or regain Hungarian citizenship (see: http://www.kronika.ro/index.php?action=open&res=48024), I came across the case of a mid-aged HUngarian man from Tg.Mures/Marosvasarhely, who explained that his parents wanted him to be called Csaba (pronounce as Chaba), but the bureaucrat told them there is no such name, so instead he wrote in the birth certificate its Rumanised form... Decebal.

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on February 18, 2011 06:15 pm