“The mysteries of the Hungarian word “Bor”: in search of the values of a vanished wine civilization”.
November 12, 2000
I. The Gospel according to Wine in the two historic centers of viticulture
There is a fundamental relationship of implication between the birth of human culture and that of grapevine cultivation: human culture, like grapevine cultivation, requires the adoption and acceptance of certain rules that enable us to overcome the anguishing state of anarchy. Human culture was born when man realized that it was better to follow certain rules than to live in the existential uncertainty of the law of the jungle. The proposed formula was: “I will not hunt or eat the inhabitants of the neighboring village, and in return I can expect them to behave in the same way towards the inhabitants of my village”.
Vine cultivation was born when man succeeded in taming the anarchic, rapacious nature of the wild vine, which lived like a jungle parasite, appropriating and monopolizing the vital light of the sun, the living water of the rains and the nourishing mineral substances of the trees and plants of the forest. When man imposed rules of conduct, the vine became the most humane and civilized of plants, transmitting divine messages codified in its vinous essence about the cycles of life, death and rebirth. Man finally understood that the Gospel according to Wine meant the revelation of messages of hope and joy.
Based on historical research, we know that man tamed the wild nature of the vine over six thousand years ago on the southern slopes of the mountain ranges between the Middle East and Central Asia. The wild vitis sylvestris was transformed into the tamed vitis vinifera thanks to the rules of conduct imposed by man. In those distant days, the nascent Sumerian civilization regarded wine as the most precious commodity, enabling communication with the gods. The cradle of the first viticulture was the vast region comprising part of Central Asia, present-day Mesopotamia and Persia. This region can be considered the world’s first center of viticulture.
Subsequently, knowledge of the rules of viticulture spread from this first center to the Near East, Egypt and the Mediterranean region, i.e. to the lands that became the starting point for the triumph of civilization over viticulture. Dionysus, the god of wine in Greek mythology, while proclaiming that “Asia is his original homeland” (Eurepides), established himself as a Mediterranean divine figure in the nascent European civilization. He spread his teachings, based on the mystery of vines and wine, throughout the Mediterranean region and continental Europe. The civilization of wine thus developed from two historical centers: the Asian center, where the cultivation of the vine was born, and the Mediterranean center, where the cultivation of the vine triumphed. From the very beginning, in these two historical centers, wine was regarded as a sacred beverage that enabled the realization of a privileged relationship between heaven and earth, between men and gods.
II. The Hungarian word “Bor”: a word of hope
The history of the Hungarians is linked to the Asian center of wine culture. More than two thousand years ago, the Hungarians – part of the great equestrian civilization of Central Asia – lived close to the Asian center of viticulture. The etymology of the Hungarian word “Bor”, meaning wine, is one of the essential keys to researching Hungarian prehistory in Central Asia. Hungarians can consider themselves particularly fortunate and blessed since the first two words written in their language are the word “bor” meaning wine and the word “Tengri” (Isten in its present form) meaning God.
Curiously, these two words were first recorded in Chinese characters in Chinese chronicles! According to these chronicles, the peoples of the equestrian civilizations related to the Huns had an important sacred mountain called Bor Tengri, where they presented offerings to the Earth God who presided over the cyclical rebirth of nature. At that time, the word Bor did not yet mean wine; its meaning expressed both a divine quality enabling rebirth, and a particular color characterizing both the pale color of dawn and dusk (i.e., the color heralding the rebirth of day and night) and the whitish color of the earth’s dust rising into the air lifted by the great rides of galloping horsemen. The word Bor thus expressed both the whitish color of the rebirth of the sky (dawn and dusk), and the color of the small particles of earth (dust) capable of rising up into the sky.
The semantic content of the word Bor thus carried within itself the mystery of the possibility of establishing a fundamental relationship between heaven and earth. To understand the meaning of this relationship, we need to know that the equestrian civilizations of Central Asia defined the principal divine qualities by three essential values symbolized by three different divine colors. The color Bor characterized the transforming quality of divine power, enabling the rebirth of life, while the color Kôk, meaning sky blue, was associated with day and life, and the color Kara, meaning black, was associated with the notion of night and death. The whitish color Bor thus represents a value of synthesis, resolving the anguishing equation of the human condition teetering between life and death.
How did this divine color Bor become the Hungarian word for wine? Quite simply through an association of ideas between a divine quality determining transformation and rebirth, and a divine drink also signifying transformation and rebirth. When the distant ancestors of the Hungarians first tasted wine, they noted the euphoric transformation of their psychic and emotional state, which they attributed to the divine presence manifested in this miraculous liquid substance. This idea was reinforced by the visual perception of the color of the whitish foam that formed on the surface of the fermenting must. The color of this foam was associated with the whitish color of the sky ( Bor ), heralding the rebirth of both day and night.
Henceforth, the meaning of the word “Bor” also expressed the notion of the divine drink resulting from the transformation of pressed grape juice into wine, recalling the ideal of rebirth at a higher level of existence. From then on, the word Bor, meaning wine, linked Hungarian wine culture with the Asian center of viticulture. It was these ancestral Asian traditions defined by the word Bor that the Hungarians brought with them to Europe over a thousand years ago, when they settled in their present-day homeland in the Carpatian Basin. Later, the torments and vicissitudes of history swept away the Asian wine civilization in Mesopotamia, Persia and Central Asia.
There are only a few insignificant little islands of it, such as the Turfan Oasis in the Gobi Desert, East Turkestan. I recently had the good fortune to visit this region, where I was able to meditate on the transcendental values of the world’s first wine-producing civilization. Wine is still produced here in a mysterious place called “Bor-luk”, from indigenous grape varieties – Ak Sayva (white), Kizil Sayva (red), Bigyiki (white), Monaki (white), Kaskir (white and red), Kismis (white and red), Ak Navat (white), Gunga (white) – the last remnants of Asia’s great winemaking civilization. The word Bor preserves the memory of this vanished civilization, reminding future generations of the fundamental evangelical message of wine, linked to the perpetual cycle of life, death and rebirth. The Hungarian word Bor is therefore a word of hope, constituting a spiritual bridge between the values of civilizations of the past, those of our present civilization, and those of the better civilizations we must build and realize in the future.