Smithsonian Journeys | The Danube

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SHAPE SHIFTING RIVER The Danube takes its character from the people and places it passes on its 1,770-mile course

10 SMITHSONIAN JOURNEYS SUMMER 2016


“The Danube River Project” explores the waterway using underwater equipment to show scenes—like this one of Budapest—partly above and partly below the surface. ANDREAS MÜLLER-POHLE, MUELLERPOHLE.NET


KG-IMAGES

12 SMITHSONIAN JOURNEYS SUMMER 2016


By Nick Thorpe

T

he Danube has many faces. In Roman sculpture, it is distinctly male, represented as the wise, bearded river god Danubius. But elsewhere the river is female, an embodiment of grace and beauty. A statue at the

river’s source, in the town of Donaueschingen in Germany’s Black Forest, depicts her as a young maiden standing next to her mother, looking wistfully downstream. The mother—representing here the Baar, a plateau whose waters feed the Danube—shows her daughter the direction she must follow, to the east. Flowing, misted, shape-shifting, the Danube takes its character from the people and places it passes on its 1,770-mile course. The river wears different colors, depending on the eye of the beholder. Johann Strauss II composed “The Blue Danube” waltz in 1866, to lift his fellow Austrians out of the gloom that descended on the country after losing the Seven Weeks’ War with Prussia. For the Bulgarians, it’s the White Danube. A main tributary, the Tisza, rises in Ukraine as two rivers—the Black and the White Tisza—while sand stirred up along the riverbed prompts the Hungarians to call it the Blonde Tisza. On a certain stretch of the Danube near Ram in Serbia, I saw its waters turn pure silver. This is a broad-minded, multicultural river. It brushes against ten countries and drains another nine. (By contrast, another mighty river, the Volga, is longer than the Danube at 2,290 miles, but crosses and drains just Russia.) Since the beginning of historical time, traders and migrants, mercenaries and adventurers have followed the Danube into the heart of the continent, carry-

A detail from a relief

ing goods, ideas, and innovations.

depicting scenes of the

The arts of metallurgy and agriculture, brought to Europe by

Roman Emperor Trajan’s

settlers from Anatolia around 5000 b.c., traveled upriver. Later

military campaigns

the Turks brought new trees, flowers, fruits, and vegetables to

against the Dacians in the

the lands they conquered in eastern Europe. Western ambassa-

2nd century a.d. shows

dors in Constantinople, astonished by the gardens there, gath-

Danubius, the river god of

ered seeds and bulbs and carried them home. The most famous

the Danube. Elsewhere, the

such import was the tulip.

river is depicted in female

The Turks also brought chili peppers, which spread from

form—an embodiment of

the New World through the Ottoman Empire in the 16th

grace and beauty.

century to Hungary, where they were used to make paprika. When

SUMMER 2016 SMITHSONIAN JOURNEYS 13


Hungarian chemist Albert Szent-Györgyi discovered ascorbic acid (vitamin C) in the early 1930s, he extracted it from peppers planted by the Ottomans. There is now a popular paprika museum beside the Danube in the Hungarian town of Kalocsa. In the 19th century, Bulgarian gardeners grew peppers on a large scale, and also introduced melons, pumpkins, and cauliflower to Hungary. At Csepel harbor in Budapest, a “Dock of the Bulgarian Gardeners” is named in their honor. Those who live along the Danube’s banks, or ply its waters, try to gauge its temperament. The river takes so long to gather melting mountain snows—from Albania in the south to Switzerland in the west, and above all from the horseshoe -shaped Carpathians in the center and east—that its waters are usually highest in summer. The fishermen of the Szigetköz region of Hungary used to say that if there is fog on the Danube in March, there will be floods 100 days later, at harvest time. 14 SMITHSONIAN JOURNEYS SUMMER 2016

(CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE) ILLUSTRATION: THE NICOLAS M. SALGO COLLECTION, BRIDGEMAN; PHOTOS: AKOS STILLER; TIMOTHY FADEK


(Clockwise from left) A

Yet the capriciousness of the river should not be

Bulgaria. To study his maps today is to discover the

landscape showing Pest

underestimated. Mild much of the year, it can turn

gurgling hinterland which gave birth to the river

and Buda on either side of

wild unexpectedly.

eons ago. Today’s Danube, straightened to improve

“Contrary to our expectations, the wind did

shipping and reduce flooding in the 19th and 20th

panoramic view of modern

not go down with the sun,” wrote the American

centuries, is sterner, with a more singular sense

Budapest from Gellért Hill;

author Algernon Blackwood, whose short story

of purpose.

the nightclub Blaywatch,

“The Willows” depicts a canoeing trip downriver of

The hydroelectric energy generated by the

located on a floating barge

Bratislava in the early 1900s. “It seemed to increase

upper Danube in Germany and Austria played a

near the spot where the

with the darkness, howling overhead and shaking

vital part in the industrial recovery of both coun-

Sava River meets the

the willows round us like straws. Curious sounds

tries after the Second World War. (Nearly 60 dams

Danube in Belgrade, Serbia.

accompanied it sometimes, like the explosion

are built along the first 600 miles of the Danube

of heavy guns, and it fell upon the water and the

in Austria and Germany.) But the economic ben-

island in great flat blows of immense power. It

efits of hydropower entailed environmental costs.

made me think of the sounds a planet must make,

In the 21st century, a new focus is on repairing the

could we only hear it, driving along through space.”

damage.

the Danube in the 1870s; a

In 1726, the Habsburg general and geographer

In the Wachau Valley, between Melk and

Count Luigi Ferdinando Marsigli published a mag-

Krems in Austria, a local entrepreneur named

nificent investigation of the geography and natural

Josef Fischer breeds the rare Huchen, the Danube

sciences of the Danube, mapping every twist in the

salmon. Tanks in his garden contain about 10,000

river’s course from its source all the way to Ruse in

glimmering fish, including many just a few months SUMMER 2016 SMITHSONIAN JOURNEYS 15


Low clouds drift over the Danube and around the rocky cliffs and outcrops of the Iron Gates gorge in Djerdap National Park, Serbia. WWE/SMIT/NPL, MINDEN PICTURES



old and others who sired them all. What started as

survived in small numbers in the main river. The

(Clockwise from above)

a hobby—Fischer earns his living as a winemaker—

restoration of the oxbow provided a safe place, at

Sunrise among the reeds

now draws most of his enthusiasm. There’s just

last, for the fish to multiply.

in the Danube flood plain,

one downside, he says: He loves his fish so much he can’t eat them anymore.

Four capital cities, Vienna, Belgrade, Bratislava,

lower Austria; a flock of

and Budapest, stand beside or astride the Danube.

eastern white pelicans

Fischer now reintroduces his fish to the Danube

In the Naschmarkt, the traditional market of

(Pelecanus onocrotalus)

instead, presenting new difficulties. The salmon

Vienna, many of the vendors, as well as the goods

take flight in late spring

need to migrate, and their way upstream is blocked

for sale, have made their way upriver from the

near the Danube Delta in

by dams. One solution under consideration in

east. A man from Samarkand sells wanderbrot, a

Romania; a color engraving

many places, already tried successfully at Melk, is

bread or cake made with dried fruits and nuts.

of the Danube, 1821.

to carve a channel through the bank next to the

There are wines from Romania and Bulgaria, and

dam, allowing the fish an alternative route. Because

caviar from the Caspian Sea. (In Roman times,

of the difference in the height of the water, the

when sturgeon were plentiful in the Danube, caviar

engineering challenge is to slow the river enough

was a poor man’s food. Now it sells for thousands of

to give the fish a chance to fight the current.

dollars a pound.)

Nearby at Schönbühel, an oxbow in the river

The museums of Novi Sad and Belgrade, over-

has been restored. Six weeks after that project was

looking the Danube in Serbia, are richly endowed

completed in 2006, nearly 40 species of fish were

with swords used in the battles between Christian

counted in this sidearm of the river that had been

Europe and the Ottoman Empire. The alliances

starved of water for a hundred years. The fish had

between sultans and kings, both by marriage and

18 SMITHSONIAN JOURNEYS SUMMER 2016


agreement, receive less mention. Serbia in the 15th century struggled to keep its independence between the powerful Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary. Around 1432 the Serbian despot Durad Brankovic married his younger daughter Katarina to Ulrich II of Celje, a close ally of the Hungarians. Three years later he sent his older daughter Mara to marry the Turkish Sultan Murad II. That won him just five years of peace. Downriver from Belgrade—at Vinča, Lepenski Vir, and Kladovo—the traces of astonishing Copper Age civilizations of the lower Danube Valley are carefully preserved in figurines and animalheaded pots. Archaeologists are still trying to decipher symbols and letters—evidence of what some regard as a “Danube script,” older than Sumerian—found carved into stones or painted on pots in the cliffs at Vinča. At Lepenski Vir, 54 huge egg-shaped stones carved with human or fishlike features were discovered in the 1960s by (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) REINHARD GOLEBIOWSKI & GERALD NAVARA, ANZENBERGER/REDUX; MINDEN PICTURES; THE GRANGER COLLECTION, NY

SUMMER 2016 SMITHSONIAN JOURNEYS 19


ATLAS OF EATING

The glory of goulash a simple stew made by browning

By Rachel Laudan

A

the meat in lard and onions, adding few miles before the Danube

water and, if available, black

reaches Budapest, the river

pepper. At some point, they began

turns to the south, flowing

substituting coarsely ground dried

parallel to one of its mightiest

red chilies from home gardens for

tributaries, the Tisza, some 70

the pepper. In the villages, some

miles to the east. Between them

unknown innovator had rediscovered

lies the heartland of the Great

what was already known in the

Hungarian Plain. Without natural

Americas, that chilies could be dried,

barriers, this wild grassland was

crushed underfoot, and pounded

for most of history a passage for

in a mortar. By the end of the 18th

warriors: first the Huns, then the

century, travelers were commenting

Mongols, and later the Turks, who

on this rough, spicy peasant dish

occupied it for 150 years until they

river fish soups, and used it in

Goulash began as a

that left a pleasant warmth in the

were finally expelled in 1699. Along

abundance in their new national

humble soup-stew.

stomach. Since the Hungarian

the tense border zone, they left a

dish, goulash.

Hungarian herdsmen

term for herdsmen was gulyás, the

—like this one (right)

travelers called this herdsmen’s meat,or gulyás hús.

culinary legacy: coffee and coffee

The invention of goulash began

shops, the thin-layered pastry

with one of the humblest groups in

photographed in 1978—

now known as strudel, and chili

Hungarian society, the cowherds,

cooked it over an open fire

Those wealthy and educated

plants. Recently introduced from

according to the distinguished

on the plain. The addition

enough to write about their travels

the Americas, probably Mexico,

Hungarian ethnologist Eszter Kisbán.

of refined varieties of

came from the other end of the

chilies had delicate flowers and

Groups of five or six single men, with

paprika from ground red

social spectrum, the aristocracy.

hollow berries that ripened from

their dogs and a couple of horses to

chilies made the dish an

The sale of cattle, driven to distant

green to shades of yellow and red.

pull their supply cart, spent months

international staple.

markets in Vienna, Venice, and

Nobles grew them as ornamentals

or even a year at a time out on the

northern Germany, often provided

in their walled gardens, whence

plains tending tall, slender gray

much of the nobles’ income. But

they gradually made their way to

cattle with long upturned horns.

cowherd’s meat, while a novelty to

the garden plots of peasants. By

They cooked for themselves in

try on the plains or when hunting,

the end of the 19th century, the

large cauldrons slung from a pole

was no more likely to appear on

Hungarians had bred new varieties

supported by posts over an open

their tables than chuck wagon

of chilies, found ways to process

fire, using simple, nonperishable

cuisine was to be on a dinner party

them, and created their defining

supplies: millet, lard, bacon, onions,

menu in New York or San Francisco.

spice, paprika. They sprinkled the

salt, and sometimes black pepper.

In the grand castles on their

red powder on bread and lard, or

If one of the cattle died or was

estates or their town houses in

on fresh cheese, added it to their

slaughtered, the cowherds would

Budapest or Vienna, the aristocrats

salami, introduced it into their

feast on a rare dish of fresh meat,

dined on a cosmopolitan haute

42 SMITHSONIAN JOURNEYS SUMMER 2016

(ABOVE) LASZLO BALOGH, REUTERS; (OPPOSITE) PAUL ALMASY, AKG IMAGES



processing could not produce

AE

enough paprika for the market. In 1867, Hungary was granted greater autonomy, and the new government encouraged economic development. The cowherds

cuisine prepared by French-trained

dwindled in number as the plains

chefs and conversed over dinner in

were transformed from grazing

German, French, or Italian.

fields to rich farmland. Before

It was the far less wealthy

long, Hungary was producing the

petty nobility who paved the way

finest white flour in the world for

for goulash’s ascent up the social

the delicate pastries of Budapest

scale. Resentful that they were

and Vienna, thanks to improved

now ruled by the Habsburg dynasty

methods of milling. Hungarian

and irritated that German was the

wines from new vineyards and

official language, they emphasized

fruit brandies became famous

their Magyar (Hungarian) customs.

across Europe. Chili peppers

Like other nationalist movements

flourished in the hot summers

that emerged in the early 19th

of the southernmost parts of

century, they took up the romantic

the Hungarian plain, particularly

vision of a nation’s essence

around the ancient towns of

being expressed in its language,

Szeged and Kalocsa. Growers

its landscape, and its peasant

carefully transplanted seedlings

culture. Writers began publishing

in the spring, protected them from

newspapers in Hungarian, collecting

sparrows and pigeons, weeded and

folk tales, and authoring plays

watered them, and then harvested

and poems about their country’s

the individual chili pods as they

glorious past. Composers adopted

began ripening in early September.

the rhythm of the peasant dance,

Girls armed with six-inch steel

the csárdás, which became

needles threaded the pods on

respectable in urban ballrooms.

strings six to eight feet long before

Painters depicted noble herdsmen

garlanding them on racks and house

with their wide trousers, hats with

fronts to dry until the seeds rattled.

upturned brims, and embroidered waistcoats.

Then it was the turn of the into humbler kitchens when black

A chef finishes goulash

processors, whose job was to

pepper soared in price in 1806 after

with Hungarian paprika

reduce the tough chili skin to a

vigorous, red, utterly Hungarian

a Napoleonic embargo on the import

at Budapest’s Bestia

powder. The külü, a heavy beam on

goulash began creeping into

of foreign goods to the Continent.

restaurant. Travelers can

a fulcrum, replaced foot treading,

urban kitchens, cookbooks, and

The final step in the dish’s adoption

choose from many types

increasing the output of a single

restaurants in the 1830s, despite

as a national symbol, now under

of paprika at a souvenir

worker to 20 pounds of spice a

hostesses’ fears that it was

the peasant name pörkölt, came

market (opposite) or

day. This, in turn, was replaced by

too crude for ladies. It gradually

during the difficult years following a

buy jars of homemade

grindstones, which heated the

displaced the standard pallid

failed revolution in 1848-49, when

spice from town-market

paprika sufficiently to melt the oil

sauerkraut with meat (similar to

Hungary was firmly under the heel of

vendors.

in the seeds. It coated the powder

the French choucroute), common

the Habsburg emperor.

So it is scarcely surprising that

to all of central Europe. This complemented its earlier entry

Now the problem was supply. Peasant gardens and hand

44 SMITHSONIAN JOURNEYS SUMMER 2016

from the ground pods, preserving its much sought after bright red color. By the beginning of the 20th

(ABOVE) AKOS STILLER; (OPPOSITE) RÓBERT LÁSZLÓ BÁCSI


Paprika buying guide

century, 12 to 15 paprika mills

who came following the failed

lined the banks of the Tisza River

revolution of 1848. Later, when

in Szeged. Customer demand for a

Hungarians too poor to have

milder—but still colorful—spice was

enjoyed such a rich meaty stew in

satisfied when János and Balász

their home country arrived in the

C

Pálffy, two smiths in Szeged who

United States and Canada in the

powder is the result. Paprika is only one of a large number

had toured the factories of Western

early 20th century, they discovered

of such powders, including cayenne pepper; pimentón

Europe, invented a machine to split

that goulash was widely known.

from Spain; guajillo, ancho, pasilla, and other powders from

the dried peppers and remove the

By 1969, a Gallup Poll found that

Mexico; and even good old American chili powder. They are

white ribs and seeds, the source of

goulash was one of the five most

not interchangeable: pimentón is smoked, cayenne is hot,

the chilies’ heat.

popular meat dishes in the U.S.

Mexican powders have distinct flavors, and American chili

hilies come in dozens of varieties, each with a distinct color and flavor. When they are dried and ground, chili

With this new Szeged “noble

Back in Hungary, the choice of

powder contains considerable amounts of ground cumin. In all

sweet” paprika, dishes could be

paprika as the national seasoning

cases, the quality of the chili, the care taken in processing, and

created that satisfied even the

seemed wholly justified when

freshness determine how good the powder will be.

refined tastes of the aristocracy,

Albert Szent-Györgyi, a professor at

To buy paprika in Budapest, the Central Market Hall (Nagy

especially when made with veal

the University of Szeged who came

Vásárcsarnok) on the Pest side of the Szabadság Bridge is well

or then-prestigious chicken, and

from a noble Hungarian family,

worth a visit. With its three levels of stalls and stands flooded

softened with the addition of

was awarded the 1937 Nobel

with light from soaring windows, it is a cathedral to food. Those

sour cream. France’s Auguste

Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

in the know suggest that best of all are the jars of homemade

Escoffier, who was happy to be

Having established the chemistry

paprika offered by small vendors in this and other markets. Also

called “the king of chefs and the

of vitamin C, he analyzed paprika

intriguing are the museums dedicated to the history of paprika

chef to kings,” imported paprika

in Kalocsa and Szeged, each about a

from Szeged and served Goulash

two-hour day trip from Budapest.

à la Hongroise in Monte Carlo in

The paprika you are most likely to

1879. When Escoffier included

encounter in the United States, often

the recipe in his 1904 Le Guide

found in a distinctive can decorated

Culinaire, a worldwide reference, he

with the red, green, and white colors

ensured its place in the fine dining

of the Hungarian flag, is the light

traditions of Europe. Károly Gundel,

red “noble sweet” (édes nemes). It

one of Hungary’s most esteemed

comes from a mild variety of chili.

chefs, the owner of the celebrated

Paprika scorches easily, so to use it

Gundel’s in Budapest, and a mentor

in goulash, fry your onions in the oil or

to later generations of cooks,

fat of your choice—lard if you want

included not one but many variants

true Hungarian flavor—allow it to

in his cookbooks. By the end of the

grown and processed just a short

cool, add the paprika, and stir. Then add your other ingredients

19th century, goulash was firmly in

distance from his office and

and water before returning the pot to the heat.

the international lexicon of cookery

continued his research using the

for beef stew seasoned with

vitamin-C-loaded spice. No wonder

quality” (különleges) and “delicate” (csemege) are excellent

paprika—except, oddly, in Hungary

George Lang, the Hungarian-

mild grades. If, on the other hand, you want a paprika more

where the term “goulash” was

American director of the Café des

like the original used on the Hungarian plains, you might try

reserved for soups and “pörkölt”

Artistes in New York, who restored

a pungent Erős Pista (Strong Steven), a popular Hungarian

was used for the stew. Goulash had

Budapest’s Gundel restaurant

condiment. It is a coarser, hotter spice that still contains the

climbed to the highest social levels.

following the fall of communism,

capsaicin seeds. Or, if you like a smoky flavor, look for smoked

described paprika as being “to the

paprika (füstölt). Finally, paprika and goulash “creams,” the

more popular than in North America.

Hungarian cuisine as wit is to its

latter including onions, tomato purée, and flavorings, are now

It was probably introduced by the

conversation—not just a superficial

sold in tubes and jars. Édes on the label indicates it is a mild

first wave of Hungarian migrants,

garnish, but an integral element.” l

chili, erős a hotter one.

Nowhere did goulash become

Many other Hungarian varieties are available. “Special

—Rachel Laudan

SUMMER 2016 SMITHSONIAN JOURNEYS 45


46 SMITHSONIAN JOURNEYS SUMMER 2016


Glitter from a lost world Treasure found in a handful of prehistoric graves in Bulgaria is the first evidence of social hierarchy. What caused these ancient societies to suddenly disappear?

This gold appliquĂŠ, more than six millennia old, appears to be a bull but has buffalo-like horns. NATSIONALEN ISTORITCHESKI MUZEJ, SOFIA, BULGARIA; DE AGOSTINI PICTURE LIBRARY / A. DAGLI ORTI / BRIDGEMAN IMAGES ALL OTHER PHOTOS: VARNA REGIONAL MUSEUM OF HISTORY


By Andrew Curry

“P

erhaps you’d like to see the cemetery?” says archaeologist Vladimir Slavchev, catching me a bit off balance. We’re standing in the Varna Museum

of Archaeology, a three-story former girls’ school built of limestone and brick in the 19th century. Its collections span

millennia, from the tools of Stone Age farmers who first settled this seacoast near the mouth of the Danube to the statues and inscriptions of its prosperous days as a Roman port. But I’ve come for something specific, something that has made Varna known among archaeologists the world over. I’m here for the gold. ¶ Slavchev ushers me up a flight of worn stone stairs and into a dimly lit hall lined with glass display cases. At first I’m not sure where to look. There’s gold everywhere—11 pounds in all, representing most of the 13 pounds that were excavated between 1972 and 1991 from a single lakeside cemetery just a few miles from where we’re standing. There are pendants and bracelets, flat breastplates and tiny beads, stylized bulls and a sleek headpiece. Tucked away in a corner, there’s a broad, shallow clay bowl painted in zigzag stripes of gold dust and black, charcoal-based paint.

48 SMITHSONIAN JOURNEYS SUMMER 2016

A restorer from the Varna Museum of Archeology looks into rows of excavated graves in 1976, four years after archeologists discovered the prehistoric cemetery and erected a fence to protect it.


ANCIENT JEWELRY This pendant necklace of gold, carnelian, and Spondylus shell was found in a cenotaph, a grave with no human remains. Archeologists believe it hung from the neck of a woman during the late Copper Age. A typical female adornment, its white, red, and gold are a unique color combination that offers clues to the world’s oldest known social stratification.


50 SMITHSONIAN JOURNEYS SUMMER 2016


GILDED GRAVE The final resting place of a prosperous chief, who died in his 40s, was recreated exactly as archeologists found it, using field pictures, plans, and diary descriptions. Though the skeleton is a plastic replica, it is surrounded and adorned by remnants of the chief’s original bow and arrows, spear, and a tomahawk. He holds a gold-handled axe—a symbol of his power—and wears gold bangles, necklaces, and even a gold sheath for his penis. Gold appliqués once attached to his clothing encircle him.


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