In Diósgyőr, in a family home overlooking the peaks of distant mountains—one might almost imagine oneself in Liptó—lives Elemér Platthy (or Plathy). The view from his glass-walled living room inspires this involuntary thought. His family, too, hails from that wild, bear-haunted land, from which they take their ancient territorial epithet: of Turócdivék and Nagypalugya.
According to the family chronicles, their ancestor Marceus de Gywek held lands in Divék (Diviaky), Turóc County. On August 20, 1317, his sons received a royal grant from King Charles I of Hungary for the estate of Nagypalugya (Paludza). The land of that once noteworthy village now lies beneath the waters of the Liptószentmária (Liptovská Mara) reservoir. Of its former buildings, only the famed wooden Evangelical church of Szentkereszt (Svätý Kríž) survives—thanks to the popular movement that arose during the years of state socialism to preserve it—and the reconstructed wooden manor of the related Lehoczky family, now standing in the open-air museum of Pribilina (Pribylina). The Platthy family lived here, as well as in Andaháza (Andice) and Gálfalva (Galovany), serving as honorable county gentlemen for centuries before, like many noble Liptó families, they dispersed across the Hungarian lands.
Elemér Platthy’s career stands as a remarkable testament to human will and the determination to live. As a university student, he fell beneath a train due to an error by the Hungarian State Railways and lost half a leg in the terrible accident.
After a long recovery, walking with crutches, he rebuilt his life from the ground up—and soon enough, as was his temperament, love entered his days. Together with a former classmate, he built an unusual career: producing and selling animal equipment and plastic goods for aquaristics, they carved out a modest but successful livelihood. Their small business never grew beyond a workshop in scale, yet it provided enough means to indulge an old passion—the rescue and preservation of relics from the past. Thus they became saviors of old artifacts and guardians of the Platthy family heritage.
Among their treasures were the personal belongings of Gáspár Platthy, once a cadet at the Ludovika Military Academy. During the years of the communist regime, he was branded a class enemy, expelled from the academy, and denied a military career. Turning instead to horses, he earned his living for a time as a carter. Then came word of the Platthy family’s expulsion from Liptó. Determined to save his relatives’ ancestral valuables, he drove north with a wagon and brought whatever he could to his father Miklós Platthy’s home in Kázsmárk, Borsod County.
Tragically, after Gáspár’s death, these heirlooms once again had to be rescued, for thieves repeatedly broke into the Kázsmárk house, searching for valuables.
While they ripped the brass handles from a two-hundred-year-old tabernacle, they scorned the papers scattered on the floor—among them a letter from Lajos Kossuth himself, lying forgotten in the dust when the family entered the house after their relative’s passing.
Elemér Platthy later donated a significant portion of his collection to the Hungarian National Archives. Part of his legacy consists of military photographs—memories of his father, Miklós Platthy, who served on numerous fronts, including the campaigns in Upper Hungary and Transylvania. His photographs capture the daily life of front-line soldiers: the heroic work of the field barber before whom half the regiment queued for a shave, and the jubilant scenes of Transylvanian towns and villages adorned with flags and flowers to welcome the returning Hungarian troops.
A gyűjtemény másik része Liptóba, a Platthy család ősi fészkébe kalauzol el minket. Köszönhetően a kiterjedt rokonságnak, számos eredeti felvétel örökíti meg a Csemiczky, a Kubinyi, a Thuránszky família tagjait, és mindazokat a helyeket, ahol éltek, így a lerombolt bertalanfalvi kastélyt is, mely már csak archív fotókon él tovább művelődésünkben.
The third segment of the collection unveils the story of the Kázsmárk manor and the struggle of Miklós Platthy against the postwar communist authorities, who used every means at their disposal to ruin the life of the former landowner. Yet thanks to the wonder of photography, fragments of the nineteenth century remain—frozen moments of those who have lain in their graves for more than a hundred years. In one image, a carriage rolls out from a rural manor, bearing ladies to church or perhaps to a social visit; in another, a group relaxes in the garden, or raises glasses at a christening. One photograph shows Pityó Guszti, the famed Gypsy violinist of Liptószentmiklós; another depicts a young man, Miklós Vereby, who fell heroically on the Galician front on July 5, 1918. 1918. július 5-én hősi halált halt a galíciai fronton. Nem túlzás azt állítani, talán ez az egyetlen kocka, amely fennmaradt róluk…
P. Zs.