Hungary Hungarian Firemen's Medals

[Ulsterman]

very nice. I am still a bit confused about the volunteer/professional fire department stuff though.

[Gordon Craig]

Volunteer Fireman, Company Fireman, Youth Fireman badges.

Jeff,

I've recreated one of Zsolt's earlier posts to see if I can help sort out the confusion with Volunteer and Professional Firemen in Hungary. Zsolt's post contains badges from all the different organizations associated with fire prevention in Hungary. Volunteers were people who did not do the job as professionals IE they didn't spend their days in the fire hall waiting for a bell to ring. The badges themselves are fairly self explanatory so I won't go into them. I suspect where you may be having troubls is in translating from Hungarian (V?llalati) into English and using direct translation instead of substituing the exact term in English. If you translate directly from Hungarian into English it comes out as Company Fireman for the professional people. This does not mean that they work for a specific company as firemen but as full time professional fireman in a fire hall somewhere. I hope I am on the right track here and that what I have said helps.

Regards,

Gordon

Edited October 26, 2007 by Gordon Craig

[Ulsterman]

Ah-ha!! That explains it!

Are those jounior firemans' badges there on the right hand side?

[Gordon Craig]

Ulsteran,

The badges down the centre are for the Young Pioneers and I have never seen them other than in Zsolt's post. They apper to be for different levels but hard to tell what. Perhaps Zsolt can tell us more. The large one on the left is for the Young Guard. Older youth than in the pioneers. The one on the right is for Young Pioneers. There are numerous badges like these for youth and Pioneers, who were involved in some way with one orgaization or another, and these particular ones are for the Fire Prevention people. You'll find them for the police, border guards etc.

Regards,

Gordon

[FireMedals]

Here is my contribution to the Hungarian Fire Medals discussion. I just got this nine medal bar, and assuming it?s a real group rather than a put-together-for-sale set, it seems what might be a standard volunteer firemans set of awards. I just have a couple of questions of my own that someone may be able to answer.

FireMedals

[FireMedals]

There are the standard post-1974, 5,10,15 & 20 year long service medals. They share the same reverse, which I believe is for Volunteer Fireman Service.

FireMedals

[FireMedals]

There are four decorations; an Order of Labor 3rd Class; a Medal for Excellent Labor Results, and two standard Fire Protection Medal awards, in gold and silver grade (each 35mm).

FireMedals

[FireMedals]

Medal for Excellent Labor Results

FireMedals

Edited January 20, 2008 by FireMedals

[FireMedals]

There is also an award in the middle of the bar that I can?t identify. I am thinking a possible flood control medal, or some other kind of disaster service. The reverse is plain.

FireMedals

[FireMedals]

My questions;

- What is the medal in the middle?

- I?ve seen the Medal for Excellent Labor Results identified as being from the Ministry of Energy as well as from other organizations. What is the actual basis of this award?

- If the recipient received the gold and silver classes of the Fire Protection Medal, why not a bronze class?

Thanks,

FireMedals

[Guest Rick Research]

The flood Prevention Medal in the middle is the type from 17 February 1977. It is #663 in Bodrogi, Moln?r, and Zeidler's book:

[FireMedals]

Thanks Rick,

That seemed a good possibility given the frequency of other European flood control medals.

FireMedals

[Gordon Craig]

Firemedals,

The date on the back of the Long Service Fireman's Medals has nothing to do with their being Professional Firemen or Volunteers. The wording on the other side determines that. ?nk?ntes indicates a volunteer fireman while V?llalati indicates a professional fireman. It would make sense for a fireman to have a Flood Medal. As for the Medal for Excellent Labor I'll have to look in my copy of the blue book before I can answer that question.

Your other question re why silver and gold and not a bronz could have more than one answer. First of all, he man not have been awarded all three.

1-It would seem that, in some cases, the Council of Ministers could decide to give an award in whatever class they wish to at any given time. For example, I have a set of documents and medals to the same miner that consists of two bronze awards and one silver of the same medal. I have another set of medals and documents to a Lt. Col. who was awarded a silver and a gold of the same award. No document for a bronze but in this case that may just be missing.

2-When you find a long medal bar like this one and the bronze class is not there it may simply be that the wearer did not have room for this extra medal when he wore the medal bar. Once you get past 8 medals you run out of room on a uniform or on a suit coat. The medal bar can not hang outside you arm and the wearer would want his lapel to lie flat. I have actually experiments with this sort of thing on my uniforms and once you get more than 8 medals on one of these brass medal mounting bars things get very difficult in pinning them on a tunic or just in wearing them. If you look at pictures of Hungarians over the last century you will find that they have a habit of not always wearing all of their awards at the same time.

Regards,

Gordon

[FireMedals]

Gordon,

Thanks for the response on the medal bar and the information regarding the awarding of the different classes of the Fire Protection Medal. I was assuming a recipient moved from the lower to the higher grades. And, you're right, he may just have run out of room.

I'm anxious to learn about the Excellent Labor decoration. I had trouble finding any ready reference to that one.

I was aware of the 1958 date being generic to that award, but I had apparently misread earlier posts by Zsolt (# 16 & 18) that seemed to connect the reverse lettering to the type of service. After rereading them, I see I was mistaken. However, it's interesting that the awards on my bar have the Type I lettering referenced by Zsolt as being on the medals using the squared suspension ribbon style. Perhaps my recipient upgraded to the triangles.

As far as ribbons go, the two Fire Protection Medals on the bar have a lose weave to them. I have other examples of this award in my collection, and they all have the ribbon weave usually found on this medal.

Thanks,

FireMedals

[Ulsterman]

Firemedals: awarded 1977 onwards:

see CD's information here (posts 142-145):

oops.

Edited January 21, 2008 by Ulsterman

[Gordon Craig]

Firemedals,

Ulsterman appears to have posted the wrong URL. Here is the one I think he meant to post <a href="http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=11559&st=140" target="_blank">http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=11559&st=140</a> Scroll down to 142.

The blue book has quite a lot to say about this medal so I will reduce it somewhat (a lot actually) in answer to your question. Charles has given some of the basis for this award in the referenced URL above. Here is my two cents worth. The medal came into being with the Ministers Council order #1006/1977.(II.17.) The entitlement to award this decoration was given to the higher authority of a large number of organizations nationwide. Below is a page from the blue book listing those organizations given the authority to bestow this award. If there is no award document with the medal it would be impossible to tell bestowed it.

Regards,

Gordon

Edited January 21, 2008 by Gordon Craig

[FireMedals]

Thank you Gordon, Ulsterman and Rick.

As always, the members help to make something nice, even better.

Anyone with anything else to add, the information would be appreciated.

FireMedals