He was born at Lengyelfalva, near Székelyudvarhely, Principality of Transylvania (today Polonița, Romania), into an old Székely family from Udvarhelyszék.

His father, János Orbán, Baron of Lengyelfalva (1779-1871) was a parliamentarian, who during the French wars was an army officer; his mother was Eugénia Knechtel (1810-1883).

He and his family traveled to Constantinople to receive the heritage of his grandmother, Mária Foresti, who was descended from Venice and probably poisoned by Muslims.

After long lawsuits he only received a small part of the fabulous fortune, so he learned the craft of watchmaking.

He had got to Egypt, where he climbed the pyramids, in the Holy Land visited the biblical places, met a lot of Hungarian and Romanian “Bedouin” from Transylvania, who escaped the military conscription, traveled around Asia Minor, studied the ancient Greek cultural remains, wrote admiringly about the revolution of the Greek people.

He left the Ottoman capital with a military unit of volunteers but learned of the fall of the War of Independence in Vidin.

He was greatly influenced by Victor Hugo, who migrated to Jersey and then to Guernsey, who said that “I could overthrow The Empire of Napoleon the 3rd with 200 Balázs Orbáns”.

Meanwhile, he worked on Szejkefürdő that he developed, writing historical studies and publishing numerous newspaper articles in opposition papers.

He made his only heirs the Hungarians, and more specifically the Székely people, but there were long lawsuits over his legacy.

The Council of Hargita (Harghita), Kovászna (Covasna) and Maros (Mureş) County established the Balázs Orbán Prize in 2011, which is awarded to individuals who have earned indelible merits in creating a unified image of Székely Land and modernizing it based on the specific traditions of the region.

János József Gudenus: The Nobility of Hungary 20th Century Genealogy from the letter K to O, Tellér Publishing House, Budapest, 1993, 416–418.