I have this postcard WW1 era.. Has a message that was hidden behind the stamp..Anyone read Hungarian?? This was a way of getting messsages pass censors...
bobone - Your card would stand a better chance if inscribed: Secret message in Hungarian behind stamp.
I hardly know two dozen words in Hungarian, certainly not more than two score, each one considered, but I happen to have an academic 1,880-page Hungarian-Czech dictionary in two large volumes, offered at a sale for 2 USD because of damaged binding and of interest to me owing to its summary of Hungarian grammar.
Given the circumstances, if it were not for the sprawling scrall in a language of over a hundred agglutinating suffixes of non-Indo-European origin, it would not be difficult to decipher the message.
Problems can be anylysed and solved - at a cost in terms of time required. The question is whether this is worth the effort. I spent most of my weekend's free time on it and here is the result of the challenge:
Cards with multilingual incriptions like that one were current in 1903 - 1906.
CDS: Hajdúböszörmény : NNW of Debrecen, Hungary.
Address:
Önagysága To Madam Lévay Margitka (affectionate for Margit = Margaret; the surname Lévay derives from the place name Léva = Levice, Slovakia) urleánynak young lady Helyben Locally Polgári Leányiskola Girls' Junior High School
Message:
Mint az édes Szept(ember) --- Like the sweet September ....... Mint a tavasz ibolyája Like the springtime violet Olyan édes olyan kedves As sweet as dear Legyen életednek Pólyája Let life be kind and gentle to you Édes Margitka nagyon meg- Sweet Margitka, a lot of köszönöm az rossz tekinket emléké thanks for the reminder of the black look ..tét is köszönöm is most isk....... ....... and thanks as well now for ......... Kivánok ............... és Szinböl üdvözlöm Géza. I wish ...................and from colour best regards Géza
Message behing stamp:
Édes Margit Sweet Margit czak sok nö- just a lot of woman- zet ne i........... kind not ............ .... ....................... ............hül ............ weaken az ....................... that ...................
I think love messages were far more common than spy messages. Thanks to the exceptional work and his generous use of his weekend by Florian in translating this it appears that this is just a love message.
Florian thanks for your help in solving this puzzle for me. ... You went out of your way and I appresiate it.. How would the person receiving this card know to look under the stamp? I know they arranged the stamp in certain ways (upside down etc,) either that or they knew before.. anyway thanks again...
The lovers would simply tell each other to look under the stamps on their correspondence. Since they were using postcards such as this one they would not have wanted every postman to be able to read their true love messages.
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