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I'm Szántai Gábor, a teacher, cultural manager, history blogger, and HEMAist (Historical European Martial Art fencer). I live in Budapest with my wife. During communism, I traveled extensively in Central and Eastern Europe. Later, I lived in Colorado, USA, for a couple of years.
I focus on the Hungarian-Ottoman wars between 1366 and 1699 and write popular articles and books about this period, as it is quite underrepresented in English-speaking social media. I usually translate the work of recognized Hungarian historians.
My mission is to spread our history among those who can't read Hungarian but are interested in our cultural heritage.
Unfortunately, you can read almost nothing about our history in the English language on social media, so I started to write articles about this topic in 2016 when I started my FB page "Hungarian History 1366-1699" (before it was called "Hungaries 1632"). Since Facebook is restricting my work, in 2019, I launched my searchable, self-hosted page that cannot be banned. Now, I save my castle articles and other historical posts from my FB page to this page.
So far, I've uploaded more than 377 castles. These fortresses were located in the Kingdom of Hungary, the Ottoman Occupied Lands, and the Principality of Transylvania, countries I call "The Hungaries." Now, they are situated in 8 modern states.
Here is my page, take a tour:
https://www.hungarianottomanwars.com/ (launched in 2019)
Here is my FB page (it has about 49K followers) and in my two groups,
with about 33K members:
https://www.facebook.com/hungarianturkishwars (since 2016)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2043764082501630 (since
2017)
You can find all my castles on Google Maps, too:
Check out my books on Amazon, too:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/198020490X
The stories of my first book ("33 Castles, Battles, Legends") are based on the records of historians and the tales of the local folks while my second book is a historical fiction story from the 17th century, it is „The Ring of Kékkő Castle”.
I am not supported by any institutions from Hungary or abroad. I rely on the donations of kind lovers of history. Thank you very much for your help and contribution.
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