Language and mores, Part VII

Update: follow Part VIII here.

 I recapped in my previous post (here) the first five parts ending w how tribal mores persist today. Having mentioned im/migration  in Part III (here), my stay in the family home led to discuss how we relate to our parents. Note that I was born on the way out so to speak - born in Vienna en route from Budapest to Paris as my parents fled the Hungarian Uprising on New Years Eve 1957 -  whereas my sibs were born 15 yrs later in Pau, SW FR, where my parents settled - that time interval isn't germane here - but it helps explain the generation gap. Here is what I said in French:

... We skipped a generation as privileged immigrants: in fact I was the 1st transit  generation, and [my sibs ] were the 2nd landed generation.  Mom and Dad were "entre deux eaux" [1],  in between waterflows and never found their feet on the ground...

We were privileged in two ways. My parents were middle-class, white professionals - my dad a career geologist, my mum had worked in labs - with an uni. prof. to greet them in Paris. Secondly both their families came thru WWII and the Uprising unscathed  - part of recovering my HU heritage was discovering how other refugees had been affected - altho not entirely: two WWII sieges of Budapest by Nazis & Soviets, and their escape from the Communist regime led to an occlusion of everything in that period. But as neither family suffered greatly, I was able to piece our story together thru cousins mainly. All of them stayed behind except one family  - their son 6 mo. younger than me was born  out West and that made all the difference - and one niece who emigrated a generation later.

In other words, going from one mid-century European capital to another and from one job to another - my dad had a tough few years, but managed to own a car at a time they were not commonplace - dad entered pretty quickly the French nat. oil co. he stayed with the rest of his career. As we did the expat circuit at an oil industry peak, in fact, he retired early with a gold-plated pension my mum benefits from almost 5 yrs. from his passing.

But my parents were never really at home anywhere. Who did the traditional transition role of the emigration fall on, given mum and dad skipped it? None other than their first son born on the way out, literally!

 I only realised it recently, however, after spending a decade each recovering my HU, FR, refugee and Catholic identities. This is largely thru my wife of 30 yrs, who I just left - a story for another time - but who introduced me to co-counselling (here), and with whom I remain civil... I am also part of a Hungarian group of online co-counselors spanning Europe and US as well as Magyar and Roma local ethnicities.

I went thru all the adaptations and inadequacies of a new refugee. I was however privileged in many ways. I learned French, Hungarian and English by age six - yet another story for another time - was state-educated in France and Oz, my uni. paid by the state then my dad's company. I was also automatically accepted in Europe, Australia and North America as a white male middle-class professional. That is why my transit generation role was largely hidden. While others revelled in the appearance I was OK, it took my 1st divorce to pause & take notice, and my second wife as mentioned to address my situation. 

My siblings on the other had were born into a settled status. That was right after we acquired French citizenship - late but yet another story for later - although the expat years were hard on their education. And they have successful careers and families of their own now in Paris and Montréal. 

My parents however were always on the move as expats. Dad never left his roots, indeed he inherited part of a family estate by Lake Balaton in c. Hungary. He had fond memories of spending summers there away from WWII-torn Budapest. My mom on the other hand never wanted to return: her family was so-called X class in the Communist regime, as her dad and granddad had been high up in the admin of the previous regime [2] - that was the class deemed suspicious, after Workers and Bourgeois - the latter were only tolerated because they provided key workers. My dad's family of doctors and profs, as well and my mom's side outside guv provided a modicum of privilege in an otherwise depressed country behind the Iron Curtain. Those tensions meant my parents never found their footing really out West, even if they provided very well for us abroad and for our  cousins at home.

That is the best I can describe our complex story.  My old website www.zolnai.ca, that had a comprehensive chronology, will disappear at month's end. Our ISP of over 20 yrs - an eternity in IT world - shut that down. I migrated my domain name as well as this blog and Andrew Zolnai Blog: those were my modern web presence, compared with vintage 1996-style defunct www.zolnai.ca... it was time to let go of! You may revisit it on   Way Back Machine. 

Let me close with my fondest photo of my parents: my mum keeps it next to her fondest photo of British Royals, you will see why 😆 

My parents and Royal Wedding pamphlet front cover

1: title of my collection of early poetry & prose here.

2: the supreme irony was that my grandad was a division head of Magyar Posta: he introduced progressive policies for women about the time of the Suffragettes; those were subsumed by Communism - it was not all bad, esp. w.r.t. women's roles - yet never recognised to help save them later on.

 A double irony is that Austrian postal trucks patrolled the Hungarian border roads right after the Uprising: they thought a live refugee was better, in one of the bitterest winters when the River Seine in Paris and most of East Anglia froze over; and they were corralled in a disaffected railway station in Vienna. As est. 200K of 250K refugees were white collar workers, headhunters form Australia, Canada and South Africa among others swooped in.

Treble irony: did you know dad got a job with Esso in Calgary... except the Canadian guv only picked them up on the Eastern seaboard... and the only way to cross was in a semi-cargo!? My parents emigrated late, all passenger liners were booked and air transport didn't exist as it does now, so we ended up in Paris as mentioned.