László Almásy

László Almásy a adăugat o fotografie

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László Adolf Ede György Mária Almásy de Zsadány et Törökszentmiklós (Hungarian: zsadányi és törökszentmiklósi Almásy László Adolf Ede György Mária; pronounced [ˈɒlmaːʃi ˈlaːsloː ˈɛdɛ]; 22 August/3 November 1895 – 22 March 1951) was a Hungarian aristocrat, motorist, desert explorer, aviator, Scout-leader, and sportsman who served as the basis for the protagonist in both Michael Ondaatje's novel The English Patient (1992) and the movie adaptation of the same name (1996).

László Almásy a adăugat o fotografie

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Early life Almásy was born in Borostyánkő, Austria-Hungary (Bernstein im Burgenland, Austria), into a famous Hungarian noble family (his father was zoologist and ethnographer György Almásy), and, from 1911 to 1914, was educated at Berrow School, situated in a private house in Eastbourne, England, where he was tutored by Daniel Wheeler.

László Almásy a adăugat o fotografie

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World War I During World War I, Almásy joined the 11th Hussars along with his brother János. Almásy saw action against the Serbs, and then the Russians on the Eastern Front. In 1916, he transferred to the Austro-Hungarian Imperial and Royal Aviation Troops. After being shot down over Northern Italy in March 1918, Almásy served the remainder of the war as a flight instructor.

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Interwar period After the war, Almásy returned to join the Eastbourne Technical Institute, in East Sussex, England. From November 1921 to June 1922, he lodged at the same address in Eastbourne. He was a member of the pioneering Eastbourne Flying Club. Returning to Hungary, Almásy became the personal secretary of the Bishop of Szombathely, János Mikes, one of the leading figures of the abortive post-war Habsburg restoration attempt. The young Almásy became involved in these events by accident as the driver of Bishop Mikes when King Karl IV of Hungary returned to Hungary in 1921 to claim the throne, and was helped by Mikes to reach Budapest (from where he was politely but firmly sent back to Austria by Miklós Horthy, the Regent of Hungary). After he was introduced, the King continued to refer to him as Count Almásy, confusing László with another branch of the family. This was the basis for Almásy using the title to his advantage, mostly in Egypt among the Egyptian royalty to open doors that would have remained closed to a commoner. However, he himself admitted in private conversations that the title was not legitimate. After 1921, Almásy worked as a representative of the Austrian…Citește mai mult

László Almásy a adăugat o fotografie

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Explorer In 1932, Almásy embarked on an expedition to find the legendary Zerzura, "The Oasis of the Birds," with Sir Robert Clayton, Squadron Leader H.W.G.J. Penderel and Patrick Clayton. The expedition used both cars and a De Havilland Gipsy Moth aeroplane owned by Sir Robert Clayton. While Almásy went with two cars to Kufra Oasis, Sir Robert and Penderel discovered a valley with green vegetation inside the Gilf Kebir plateau, which they presumed to be one of the three hidden valleys of Zerzura. Their attempts to reach the mouth of the valley by car failed. Later in 1932, Almásy's sponsor and travel companion Sir Robert Clayton East-Clayton died of acute spinal poliomyelitis contracted within two months of completing the spring 1932 expedition to the Gilf Kebir. (Not on crash-landing as described in The English Patient but from infection possibly picked up on a desert expedition. However, East-Clayton's wife Dorothy, also a pilot, did die in a peculiar plane accident, at Brooklands on 15 September 1933.) Despite the setbacks, Almásy succeeded in organizing another Zerzura expedition for the spring of 1933, this time with the desert explorer Prince Kamal el Dine Hussein as his sponsor. He was accompanied by Squadron Leader…Citește mai mult

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World War II After the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Almásy had to return to Hungary. The British suspected that he was a spy for the Italians, and vice versa. While there is no evidence to suggest that he was involved in any clandestine intelligence gathering prior to the war, he was clearly not welcomed by authorities on either side of the Egypt-Libya border. Hungary formally joined the Axis powers by signing the Tripartite Pact on 20 November 1940. Almásy joined the Royal Hungarian Air Force (RHAF). On the 8th of February, 1941 he, as a Hungarian officer was commanded to the Abwehr, to the Afrika Corps. Nikolaus Ritter of the German military intelligence service, the Abwehr, recruited Almásy in Budapest. As a Hungarian reserve officer, he was permitted to wear the uniform of a Hauptmann (captain/flight lieutenant) of the German Air Force, the Luftwaffe. Initially he worked on maps and country descriptions prepared by the Abteilung IV. Mil.Geo. Then he was assigned to an Abwehr commando in Libya under the command of Major Nikolaus Ritter, using his aviation and desert experience in various missions. After the failure of Plan el Masri and the first Operation Condor to…Citește mai mult

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Later life After the war, as the Communists took over in Hungary, Almásy was arrested for alleged war crimes and treason for joining the armed forces of a foreign power. The charge was based mainly on his wartime book. However, during the trial it emerged that neither the prosecutor nor the judge had read the book, as it was placed on the banned books list by the Soviet occupation forces. Eventually Almásy was acquitted with the help of some influential friends. However, after the trial the Soviet NKVD also started looking for him. He escaped from the country, supposedly with the aid of the British Intelligence, which reportedly bribed Hungarian Communist officials to enable his release. The bribe was paid by Alaeddin Moukhtar, cousin of King Farouk of Egypt. The British then spirited him into British-occupied Austria using a false passport under the name of Josef Grossman, then on to Rome, where he was escorted by Ronnie Waring, later 18th Duke of Valderano. When Almásy was pursued by a "hit squad" from the Soviet "Committee for State Security" (KGB), Valderano put him on an aeroplane to Cairo. A note of caution needs to be exercised when taking Valderano's account at…Citește mai mult

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Death Almásy became ill in 1951 during a visit in Austria, and died 22 March of complications induced by amoebic dysentery—contracted during a trip to Mozambique the previous year—in a hospital in Salzburg, where he was then buried. The epitaph on his grave, erected by Hungarian aviation and desert enthusiasts in 1995, honors him as a Pilot, Saharaforscher und Entdecker der Oase Zarzura (Pilot, Sahara Explorer, and Discoverer of the Zerzura).

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Legacy The Abu Ramla Sahara Expedition was established in 2000 with the aim of re-discovering the eastern Sahara region that the legendary Hungarian explorer László Almásy visited, described and discovered during his travels in Egypt, Sudan and Libya. The name of such expedition was inspired by László Almásy himself, who was called by local Saharan tribes: "Abu Ramla" or "Father of the Sand". The Abu Ramla Sahara Expedition visited the Nubian territory and the three ancient capitals of the Kushite kingdom: Kerma, Napata and Meroë. These archaeological sites are registered in UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites. During their campaigns in 2003, 2004 and 2006, they captured various photographic material and filmed those areas where the remains of Kushite royal tombs can still be observed. On the occasion of the 120th anniversary of the birth of László Almásy (August 2015), the Abu Ramla Sahara Expedition placed a commemorative plaque in Hungarian on main entrance gate of the castle of Bernstein (Borostyánkő), where Almásy was born in 1895.

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Fictional portrayal A fictionalized version of Almásy was portrayed in the Academy Award-winning film The English Patient. The screenplay was based on the 1992 novel by Michael Ondaatje, and some of the characters and the events surrounding the search for Zerzura and the Cave of Swimmers were adapted from Geographical Journal articles describing the expeditions of the real Almásy into the Libyan Desert. The publicity attracted by the film helped uncover many hitherto unknown details about Almásy's life, but also resulted in a huge volume of inaccurate or outright untrue claims, mostly related to his World War II activities, which continue to circulate in print and on the web. Many of these inaccuracies and false stories were examined and refuted in a 2013 book on Operation Salam by Kuno Gross, Michael Rolke and András Zboray. In the movie, a native guide is depicted as describing to Almásy the physical location of the cave; "A mountain the shape of a woman's back". The fictionalized Almásy is then depicted as rendering a drawing and some text that he then includes in the book that he keeps for himself.

László Almásy a lăsat un gând

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Bibliography Almásy, László. Autóval Szudánba (With motorcar to the Sudan). Budapest: Franklin, 1929. Almásy, László. Ismeretlen Szahara (Unknown Sahara). Budapest: Franklin, 1935. Almásy, L.E. de. Récentes Explorations dans le Désert Lybique. Cairo: Societé Royale de Geographie d'Egypte, 1936. German translation by Klaus Kurre in Mythos Zarzura. Belleville, Munich 2020, ISBN 978-3-936298-18-5 Almásy, László. Levegőben... homokon... (In Air... on Sand...). Budapest: Franklin, 1937. Almásy, L.E. Unbekannte Sahara. Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1939. Almásy, László. Rommel seregénél Libyában (With Rommel's Army in Libya). Budapest: Stádium, 1942. Almásy, Ladislaus. Schwimmer in der Wüste (Swimmer of the Desert). Innsbruck: Haymon, 1997. (new edition of Unbekannte Sahara) Bermann, Richard (Arnold Hollriegel). Zarzura - die Oase der kleinen vögel. Zürich: Orell Füssli, 1938. Bierman, John. The Secret Life of Laszlo Almasy: The Real English Patient. London: Penguin Books, 2004. Gross, Kuno, Michael Rolke and András Zboray. Operation Salam - László Almásy's most daring mission in the Desert War. München: Belleville, 2013. ISBN 978-3-943157-34-5 (HC) Kelly, Saul. The Hunt for Zerzura. London: John Murray, 2002. ISBN 0-7195-6162-0 (HC) Kubassek, János. A Szahara bűvöletében (Enchanted by the Sahara), Panoráma, Budapest 1999 (Biography of Almásy, in Hungarian) Ondaatje, Michael. The English Patient. (fiction) 1992. Sensenig-Dabbous, Eugene. " 'Will the Real Almásy…Citește mai mult

László Almásy a lăsat un gând

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Almásy's explorations in the Libyan Desert Another Almasy on film.

László Almásy a lăsat un gând

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El verdadero "Paciente Inglés" Hungarian Aristocracy.