Jókai Mór a parajdi sóbányában (1853)
The Visit of Mór Jókai to the Salt Mine of Praid/Parajd (1853)

Summary/Abstract: In May 2025, the salt mine of Praid/Parajd was flooded by the Corund Creek. The most vulnerable area proved to be the old mining site, where a small mining village had existed in the 1850s. This site had been visited in 1853 by the towering figure of Hungarian literature, Mór Jókai, born 200 years earlier, in 1825. The study traces Jókai’s travel route, the public interest in natural history at the time, and aspects of his visit to this particular Transylvanian salt mine. Based on Jókai’s concise travel writings, the similar account of his companion Kálmán Lázár (1827-1874), and other, more detailed mid-19th-century descriptions by authors such as Johann M. Salzer (1823-c.1903), János Hunfalvy (1820-1888), František Pošepný (1836-1895), and Gábor Téglás (1848-1916), it is possible to reconstruct mine visits of the era in detail. These sources reveal that travelers at Praid/Parajd were typically guided by salt mine officials, who pointed out features both on the surface and underground – where the scale of the mine chambers was conveyed through echoes and the light of burning bundles of straw, and where, during working periods, the traditional methods of salt extraction could be observed.

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