#Herman arminius full#
He became a tutor in the house of Huseyin Daim Pasha, and, under the influence of his friend and instructor, Ahmet Efendi, became a full Osmanli, serving as secretary to Fuat Pasha. By the age of twenty, Vámbéry had learned enough Ottoman Turkish to enable him to go, through the assistance of Baron Joseph Eötvös, to Istanbul and establish himself as a private tutor of European languages. Vámbéry was especially attracted by the literature and culture of the Ottoman Empire including Turkey. Map of the travel of Ármin Vámbery in Central Asia He immediately trusted me completely and told me, under oath of secrecy, that he was a secret agent of Turkey and of England. doesn't know whether he is more Turk than Englishman, writes books in German, speaks twelve languages with equal mastery and has professed five religions, in two of which he has served as a priest.He told me 1001 tales of the Orient, of his intimacy with the sultan, etc.
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Vambery was a professor of Oriental languages at the University of Budapest. Theodor Herzl enlisted Vambery to consult on diplomatic work in the Ottoman Empire (despite Herzl's reputation for working alone). Later he studied at Vienna, Kecskemét, and Budapest. In 1846, he went to Pressburg (today Bratislava, Hungarian: Pozsony), where he remained three years. He was also rapidly acquiring English, the Scandinavian languages, Russian, Serbian, and naturally other Slavic languages. He worked briefly as a dressmaker's assistant, but after becoming tutor to the son of the village innkeeper, he was enabled by his friends to enter the "Untergymnasium" of Szentgyörgy.īy the age of sixteen, he had a good knowledge of Hungarian, Hebrew, Latin, French, and German. He was forced to leave school, to support himself with work. He attended the local school until the age of 12 and showed a remarkable aptitude for learning languages. He walked with a crutch under his left arm because of congenital disorder. Vámbéry says that the constant hunger and scanty clothing of his childhood hardened his young body, which served him well in his later travels. In his autobiography, Vámbéry says that his parents were so poor and had so many children that they were forced to stop supporting each child at a young age. Vámbéry was 1 year old when his father died and the family moved to Dunaszerdahely (now Dunajská Streda in Slovakia).
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He was raised Jewish, but later became an atheist. According to Ernst Pawel, a biographer of Theodor Herzl, as well as Tom Reiss, a biographer of Kurban Said, Vámbéry's original last name was Wamberger rather than Bamberger. Vámbéry was born in Szent-György, Kingdom of Hungary (now Svätý Jur, Slovakia), into a poor Jewish family.