Romanian Hungarian Beauty

PolgarLagno

Anna Rudolf 

Rapport

Hou Yfan
Caruana

Nakamura

Famous Chess Players and Romanian Hungarian Chess Set 

https://learningchess.net/blog/?p=888

Thank you for taking the time to post these photos @Kovylkino - it is excellent to see this set in such broad use. 👍

You did nothing wrong Powder.I certainly would not notice and even if someone did,I doubt anyone would be at your door the next day.

I just want to thank everyone here for keeping this thread alive. I had been looking for a new set for some time. Being of Hungarian descent I had considered these pieces in the past. Once I found out that I could get a set from the original designer I knew I had to try to get my hands on one from IM Sandor Biro. My set is currently being made in the brown gilding. It makes me happy to know that I'm getting this from the original designer and giving credit where it is due.

I will try to post a pic after they arrive. Not sure how long the shipping may take. So hopefully within a month.

Thank you for the background and link. I'm Hungarian, been to Transylvania and even named after it! In fact, I have this same set from Chess Bazaar and it is my least favourite set. Not the design, rather, I find the quality to be low. I don't like the rough finish.

In Hungarian, family name (i.e. last name) is always written first. Don't worry about the error.

Hungarian: Biro Sandor

English: Sandor Biro (or Alexander/Alex Biro)

That's beautiful! From the picture I can't tell if it's the red or brown stain? Either way they look great! Congrats

Interestingly, Count Dracula was also a Szekely, at least according to Bram Stoker in his book.

There's no mention of a chess set being in Dracula's castle, but I wouldn't be surprised if Count Dracula had one, and that he was a good player as well.

Here's Dracula recounting the history of his race. It's a great speech which shows the incessant warfare in that part of the world.

I like the proverb he quotes too: "Water sleeps, and the enemy is sleepless." It's a great quote for a chessplayer!

Quote start: // “We Szekelys have a right to be proud, for in our veins flows the blood of many brave races who fought as the lion fights, for lordship.

Here, in the whirlpool of European races, the Ugric tribe bore down from Iceland the fighting spirit which Thor and Wodin gave them, which their Berserkers displayed to such fell intent on the seaboards of Europe, ay, and of Asia and Africa too, till the peoples thought that the were-wolves themselves had come.

Here, too, when they came, they found the Huns, whose warlike fury had swept the earth like a living flame, till the dying peoples held that in their veins ran the blood of those old witches, who, expelled from Scythia had mated with the devils in the desert. Fools, fools! What devil or what witch was ever so great as Attila, whose blood is in these veins?” He held up his arms.

“Is it a wonder that we were a conquering race; that we were proud; that when the Magyar, the Lombard, the Avar, the Bulgar, or the Turk poured his thousands on our frontiers, we drove them back? Is it strange that when Arpad and his legions swept through the Hungarian fatherland he found us here when he reached the frontier; that the Honfoglalas was completed there?

And when the Hungarian flood swept eastward, the Szekelys were claimed as kindred by the victorious Magyars, and to us for centuries was trusted the guarding of the frontier of Turkey-land; ay, and more than that, endless duty of the frontier guard, for, as the Turks say, ‘water sleeps, and enemy is sleepless.’

Who more gladly than we throughout the Four Nations received the ‘bloody sword,’ or at its warlike call flocked quicker to the standard of the King? When was redeemed that great shame of my nation, the shame of Cassova, when the flags of the Wallach and the Magyar went down beneath the Crescent?

Who was it but one of my own race who as Voivode crossed the Danube and beat the Turk on his own ground? This was a Dracula indeed! Woe was it that his own unworthy brother, when he had fallen, sold his people to the Turk and brought the shame of slavery on them!

Was it not this Dracula, indeed, who inspired that other of his race who in a later age again and again brought his forces over the great river into Turkeyland; who, when he was beaten back, came again, and again, and again, though he had to come alone from the bloody field where his troops were being slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph!

They said that he thought only of himself. Bah! what good are peasants without a leader? Where ends the war without a brain and heart to conduct it?

Again, when, after the battle of Mohács, we threw off the Hungarian yoke, we of the Dracula blood were amongst their leaders, for our spirit would not brook that we were not free.

Ah, young sir, the Szekelys—and the Dracula as their heart’s blood, their brains, and their swords—can boast a record that mushroom growths like the Hapsburgs and the Romanoffs can never reach. The warlike days are over. Blood is too precious a thing in these days of dishonourable peace; and the glories of the great races are as a tale that is told.”//Quote end.

Yeah, and it's another reason to order from Mr Biro Sander - you get a set made by a member of the same ethnic group as the Dracula clan. 😁

(I wonder if he does a set in blood rosewood? 😏)

A cold laugh echoes through a dusty chamber .. the players are left to ponder the pieces stained in the blood of armies of yore….

That is a particularly "bloody" set, Powder! And a bloody board too. Is the blood of Attila in your veins? 😁

Love the red!!!!

Good Lord! That board! So shiny and classy/cool.....Just like it's owner.

Not according to Bram Stoker. Dracula starts the speech I quoted above with “We Szekelys ..."