Slovakia’s foreign minister said in an interview with Friday’s national daily Nepszabadsag that he was “surprised” by Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany’s six-point proposal to his counterpart Robert Fico, adding that the proposal had been put on the table without any diplomatic preparation.
“I was surprised by the Hungarian prime minister’s six-point proposal which I heard about for the first time at the working meeting [between the two PMs],” said Jan Kubis.
Kubis dismissed a proposal by Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom to introduce a minorities’ ombudsman and a related law on minorities in Slovakia, arguing there was no need.
On the subject of textbooks in the minority language, he said it was the right of ethnic minorities to use original place names instead of the Slovak names attached to them at the end of the 19th century. He expressed hope that Slovakia’s president would sign the law passed by parliament and that any disputed details would be resolved.
Kubis said the dispute between the two countries had sullied their reputations abroad and any further disagreements should be discussed in the framework usual for members of the European Union.
Regarding his meeting next week with Kinga Goncz, Hungary’s foreign minister, he said that their main job was to boost the work of the new mixed committees based on the Slovak-Hungarian basic treaty and appoint joint chairmen so that work in resolving issues can be carried forward at a faster pace.
Gyurcsany presented six proposals to help improve Slovak-Hungarian relations to Robert Fico at their meeting in Komarno in mid-November. He proposed providing more support for minority culture and education, allowing ethnic-minority schools to use textbooks published in another country, passing a national code of behaviour, creating a “court of honesty”, founding an institution of ombudsman for ethnic rights in Slovakia and reconsidering the ban on using national symbols at sporting events in Slovakia.
dear friends,
as a half hungarian ethnic i still feel i need to say that :
the above is not surprising nor disappointing, although i do understand gyurcsanys comment to it.
the primarial issue is, as i indicated several times before : EUQALITY.
first of all, the hungarian minority has standards in slovakia that are above the standard of eu,proven no doubt and i urge you to realize that.we all must realize,that the info we are recepting on both sides can hardly ever be fully objective, since the posts are made by groups with either political or other motive.
secondly,we must take in,even how much we dont want to,the fact that the nation and country we are asking for such surplus standard is a nation that we have almost extinced or mildly said, assimnilated,for hundreds years of time.this can never ever be an excuse for ANY COUNTRY to violate human rights, BUT BEING A BIT SELFREFLECTIVE,WE MUST TAKE THE HISTORY INTO CONSENT WHEN REWIEVING bilateral relations.
reason why i write this, is that i havent seen any of it till now,and find it saddening.
czechoslovakia has done harm to hungarians after world war II for sure, but it was not slovakia alone and the harm of 10 years is objectively incomparable to the terror hungary has made towards slovaks in more than 900 years.
as said before, i am a part of hungarian ethnicity, but trying to really resolve what s going on,i felt the obligation to write the above,although i might have said much of it here before,please forgive me.
“incomparable to the terror hungary has made towards slovaks in more than 900 years” Huh? Piss off 900 years of terror? First of all stop using our Loraine Cross on your flag, yes the double cross on 3 hills, then you can give us Felvidek back (Southern Slovakia aka Occupied Hungary) and you can also give us back what you call Bratislava back where Hungarian kings where crowned for Hundreds of years, then you can take that chip on your shoulder and go on your marry way….
gandi…what can i say.i could tell you piss off too, but funnywise its not my style.
disputing bratislava is a top of the tops- i even think of notifying MOFA about this as this is unheard of.
your apparent blindness to things than are well known and history proven are sad and insulting NOT ONLY TO SLOVAKS,BUT TO ME AS A HALF HUNGARIAN.
i have obviously dozens of hungarian friends,too, and i can tell you, they will be ashamed of such attitude as you have shown to a serious debate,and so do i.maybe ricsi was right that this was not the right place,hovever if so,what IS the right place?
i nonethless wish you well.
oh btw gandi,YOU INSULTED ME.YOU INSULTED A HUNGARIAN ETHNIC.my grandma would send you places.ya, whatever.
Being an American, I really don’t have a “dog in this fight” so hopefully I can give an impartial evaluation of what I believe is a tragic and ill conceived solution to the rights of minorities from the old Hungarian Empire. Trianon was impressed upon Hungary at a time when it could not defend itself, the promised plebiscites with the exception of Sopron, did not occur. The treaty became a tool for French, Czech, Slovak and other collaborative intellectuals to punish Hungary and carve out their own diminuitive empires. The Slovak/Hungarian border based on the request of Slovak representatives to be placed close enough so that Budapest can be hit with the artillery of the time from Slovak territory! The areas that were cut off from Hungary that were majority Hungarian were never addressed at the time, however, most diplomats recognized that this would eventually be resolved through future negotiations. This is why Hungary fought legally throughout the 20′s and 30′s to try and resolve the disparate territory issues. They only turned towards Italy and Germany for support because of of the intrasigience of the neighboring entities. Of course this led to the two Vienna awards that were supported in principle by the world powers but rejected internationally because of the nature of Hitler’s government. Even after the war, the US and UK governments were sympathetic toward a revision of borders for Hungary but, because it was in the Soviet sphere, did not get involved.
Continued…..Ultimately, the dilemna still exists. The Hungarian populated areas are part of historic Hungary and the injustice was placed on them. The lack of plebiscites as promised being just part of that injustice. But, if they had been fairly held, I believe a lot of the resentment and problems we have today would have been alleviated.
Szekes,thank you for your post.
First of all,you seemed not to reflect the extiction,and again i am putting this to your attention.one cannot be separated from the other.
secondly,there is nowadays nothing such as an empire,even if i do respect the historic context for any country.but if so, would italy still demand the old territories of roman empire, or would france demand their lost territories at all? the content of this issue is as such unheard of.
btw if you are american hungarian as i have assumed, so is my family, more than you can imagine.
i do not want to hurt slovaks,hunjgarians,ruthens,russians,czechs, gypsies, whomever,i just think we should take the history all in all.
if you say south belonged to hungary,than i say yes, but we got it,and much more, by simple annex, which is nowadays considered as overall unacceptable by international law.i am here just to keep peace, but being hungarian here does not mean NOT and act in the name of truth i know and i observe in my everyday life.
First of all Zuzana, what if Slovakia today lost 2/3 of her territory and 1/3 of her Slovak population to other neighbouring countries tomorrow? How the hell would you feel? If you are so concerned about not hurting other nationalities, put yourself in their shoes for a moment and see the other side’s position. The return of some of Hungary’s territories just before WW2 on the part of Italy and Germany’s pressure on Slovakia and Romanian and Yugoslavia was the best solution to this crisis. Basically, in the case of Souther Slovakia (occupied Hungary) large Hungarian population there, was returned back to Hungary. you still had your country and we got back some of our people and land back and best of all, you didn’t have to deal with the “Hungarian problem” anymore. After WW2 was over, all the returns were taken away from Hungary again and we are now back at square one again…Trianon was a crime because it also robbed Hungary of the lands that were still occupied by majority Hungarians, lands that we could argue in international court were our lands since they were occupied by us. BTW, Hungarians are Europe’s largest minority outside of their mother country…..If you don’t like what I have to say, you should get out of the kitchen honey, because maybe it is getting to hot for you here…
Szekes, there was no HUNGARIAN EMPIRE, look at the borders of when Hungary was established in 1000 AD and when Trianon occured at the end of WW1, the borders are almost identical, there was no empire building, these are pretty much the same borders as the established kingdom….it was known as the Kindom of Hungary not the Hungarian Empire…there was no colonialism like the British/French/German etc
Gandi wrote:
“First of all stop using our Loraine Cross on your flag, yes the double cross on 3 hills, then you can give us Felvidek back (Southern Slovakia aka Occupied Hungary) and you can also give us back what you call Bratislava back where Hungarian kings where crowned for Hundreds of years”
Hehehe, this is very funny, so now you call it “your” cross while using its variation used in France with naming derived from a french region? And where is anything hungarian in the term Loraine cross? If something than stop usurping foreign symbols as your own. Because they are not, never were and never will be.
Hungarian coats of arms were always mixes of foreign figures whenever they were coming from Transylvania, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia or – Slovakia. If your coat of arms should be stripped off of all these foreign relations and origins than the only thing remaining in your famous coat of arms would probably be that small yellow crown.
As for the double cross on tree hills – Tatra, Fatra and Matra. It’s the genuine symbol of slovak region even until its southmost magyarized part reprezented by Matra. In hungarian coat of arms it’s the remainder of the times long gone. If someone, than Slovaks should ask why do you still have in your coat of arms the symbol which clearly signify the dominance over the sovereign country which is no longer part of your own?!
Another citation from Gandi:
“First of all Zuzana, what if Slovakia today lost 2/3 of her territory and 1/3 of her Slovak population to other neighbouring countries tomorrow?”
Hungary lost exactly what it had to lose. 50% hungarian population living in the Kingdom is fabricated fairy-tale. Territories were restored with accordance to the level of hungarian population from before hard magyarization process in 19th century. 1/3 hungarian population is exacly that number that hungarian population was accounted for just before its hard magyarization policy. The rest of the population up to those “50 percent” were violently magyarized ethnic groups, whenever they were Slovaks, Germans, Serbs or Romanians.
@gandi: Hungary does not necessarily equate to Magyarorszag historically. Bratislava, (Pressburg) a crowning town of “Royal Hungary” in historical terms never belonged to Magyars. There were 19 kings and queens of (Royal) Hungary crowned in Bratislava, none of them Magyar. All 19 of them were Austrian. “Royal Hungary” since 1526 until the compromise of duality with Magyars in 1867 was firmly in Austrian hands. Most of the Slovak territory along with NW of today’s Hungary was part of this “Royal Hungary”. Magyars inhabited Center and the South, mostly occupied by Turks (Üngüristan). The third Hungary of the times was in Transylvania. Simultaneous existence of 3 territories calling themselves independently as “Hungaria”. Franz Joseph I of Austria, wanting to keep his monarchy afloat, gave in magyar pressures, and allowed Magyars to establish their administrative rule over the all hungarian territories of the united land in 1867. The dominating Magyars ruled for only 50 years and this is for the first time they started to equate “Magyarország” with the term of “Hungary”. This causes problems even today. Franz Joseph I remained the Hungarian King, until he died in 1916, in the middle of the war. (In 1853, the Emperor survived an assassin’s attempt by Magyar nationalist János Libényi, being stabbed in the neck by him). Habsburgs were the true rulers of the Royal Hungary for 400 years. 1867-1918 does not give you right to claim Hungary for Magyars only. It was multinational always.
So why is it acceptable that ethnic Hungarians have to live in Slovakia and Romania and other backward countries? What gives the Slovaks and Romanians the right to occupy our territories and force our people to speak their awful languages?
Let’s face it Trianon was a huge mistake. Pushing the borders left and right while ignoring ethnicity and common sense is just not acceptable. The sooner we’ll revise the unfair treaties the better. I don’t want any foreigners trapped inside our borders, all I want is the same from our neighbors. Hungarians and the land they live on should belong to Hungary, that’s all. Simple enough for you?
Stan-
Perfectly simple and logical–the best short summary of the situation I have seen here.
zuzana
You sound like you are seriously interested in this debate,I admire that and welcome you to join the other forum,English language,that I mentioned-just sign in and I will guide you from there.
That is an open invitation with no conditions attached !!
@Stan “So why is it acceptable that ethnic Hungarians have to live in Slovakia and Romania and other backward countries?”
Think about what you are saying but without emotion.
“What gives the Slovaks and Romanians the right to occupy our territories and force our people to speak their awful languages?”
Again. No emotion. understand your pain.
“Let’s face it Trianon was a huge mistake. Pushing the borders left and right while ignoring ethnicity and common sense is just not acceptable. The sooner we’ll revise the unfair treaties the better. I don’t want any foreigners trapped inside our borders, all I want is the same from our neighbors. Hungarians and the land they live on should belong to Hungary, that’s all. Simple enough for you?”
.. Er, life is not that simple. Think global. think Americas, Australia,… Need I say more.
The strong will always fight the strong to dominate the weak. If you tell a lie often enough, it will become the “new truth”.
The allied victors of World War 1 were fortunate in a way; fortunate that what they imposed upon Hungary in 1919 did not have the degree of blowback to them that the Versailles Traty caused. Hungary was no Germany. Hungarians did not have the ability to strike back at France, Britain and the US, but the Germans did. The Germans made them eat shit for what the allies did in 1919, at least for a few years.
I regret deeply our past lack of those very things that made the Germans so very lethal: an advanced military industrial complex, a lot of financial wealth plus a cocky “We can do anything” attitude.
All this back and forth about Trianon makes me want to mention something I’ve been meaning to bring to our attention for some time. The infamous “Zimmermann Telegram”, sent in 1917 and a very major contributing cause to America getting into the First World War. The telegram was intercepted by the American govt and caused an outrage, when the German Ambassador wanted to make the following deal with Mexico:
“If this attempt is not successful, we propose an alliance on the following basis with Mexico: That we shall make war together and together make peace. We shall give general financial support, and it is understood that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. The details are left to you for settlement…”
So you see dear people, America was facing it’s own potential “Trianon”, complete with massive loss of territory. The response from America’s rulers was forceful and vigorous! A nice pre-emptive declaration of war! How stupid and out to lunch our own ruling class was, they didn’t comprehend partition even when it was already a done deal.
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To those who say the Hungarians should “get over Trianon”, let me ask this: was the American response to the proposed German scheme justified? Can a telegram be a cause for war? Can the mere talk of involuntary territorial losses be a causus belli? Should the Americans have just “gotten over it”? Who needs Texas?!
@Laszlo – If Trianon is not valid, then should Russia get back Alaska? After all, the circumstances were the same, meaning, it was signed away by the legitimate (or recognised) government of that time. How far back in history do you propose to go back to resolve territorial disputes?
Hello Uncle Joe, how have you been?
Ever since I was a kid, historical atlases have been a passion with me. By flipping the pages, you travel through the centuries, and you get to see the almost organic growth (and diminishment) of nations. It bears testimony to a LOT of past territorial disputes- most of which are not currently “live” as issues.
My big concern with Trianon is not just about the past, but a concern for the present and future. A realistic assesment of the Hungarian national temperment tells me that this 1919 treaty is not going to be forgotten and forgiven. It has political consequences to this day. The results of this partition do not give us a feeling of empowerment, and at times, this can be dangerous because it can contribute to extremism. It’s happened before.
I don’t see the forced Trianon territorial transfers as analogous to the voluntary Alaska land deal. Very similiar to the cash-for-land deals like the Louisiana Purchase from France, or the Gadsden Purchase from Mexico. It’s perfectly OK for nations to engage in this sort of thing; indeed it should have been done more often. Interestingly, the Bolshevik govt accepted the Alaska transaction by the Czarist govt., and avoided claiming Alaska.
@Laszlo – totally agree with you on the perspective of maps and going through history. Yes, the circumstances of Trianon were different. The point I wanted to make was that the legitimate government at the time signed and recognised the binding legality of the treaty.
I did not know that the Bolshevik government recognised the Alaska sale. However, this does not mean that a subsequent Russian government cannot make the claim, saying the Czarist & Bolshevik govts were wrong. Hence there is a general acceptance that international treaties signed by countries are binding, otherwise, all other treaties which the country signed need not be adhered to by the other countersigning parties.
Anyway, I have an exam in 15 mins. Will try to write more after grading of exams, projects etc. Wishing you a great holiday, in the meantime.
Hello again Uncle Joe,
This is a lot like contract law, where there has to “a meeting of the minds”(i.e. agreement), “consideration” (i.e money), and an absence of coercion. None of these applied to the Hungarians with Trianon. The fact that land has been purchased, rather then forcefully seized, does not guarantee the absence of a future dispute, but hopefully, it would make it less likely.
Unfortunately for us, such “gentlemen’s agreements” are moot, as we lack the wealth with which to buy back anything. Such an opportunity did present itself, back in the 1990′s, when the utterly corrupt Ukrainian strongman, Leonid Kravchuk was in charge. For a few billion in cash, I believe he would have been willing to sell us back the Carpatho-Ukraine. It would have been just a question of how much. I do believe the territory would have been more valuable in the long run than the bribe it would have taken to seal such a deal. Oh dear, we just don’t get to think and act like realtors in this part of the world!
The “legitimate ” government of the time did not voluntarily sign the treaty,it was pressurised to do so by France,and reluctantly did so under promises of a re-negotiation offered by the USA-which was ignored by the other Western powers after the event, hence the disgust of Charles Lindbergh and the British newspaper tycoon .
@Laszlo, Ricsi – I am not a lawyer and I may be wrong. From my understanding, treaties are not considered in the same way as contract law.
The international treaty signed by Hitler and Stalin re the new eastern borders of Poland is still binding ! Poland lost all of its eastern territories and yet all other treaties signed by Hitler are considered unbinding today–hypocrisy ?
The comparison with contract law refered to voluntary transfers of land for cash. These arrangements reduce the chance of a dispute in the future- but don’t preclude the possibility. Nations are like people- they can certainly change their mind! You need more than a treaty to be able to hold onto a piece of territory. Russian nationalists at some point may attempt to reclaim Alaska, but they won’t go very far with such a thing. The Americans didn’t spend the last hundred years sitting on their hands! They have been busy acumulating wealth and might; no Russian is going to take Alaska away from them!
Ricsi was spot on to mention the coerciveness of Trianon- and it is that, combined with the excessive punitiveness of the end result- that has and will make Hungarians reject this “treaty”. (I like the point about Poland) If our non Hungarian neighbors want peace of mind, then a renegotiated settlement or plebescite is essential at some point in the future.
Too bad that Károlyi wasn’t sending out any “Zimmermann telegrams”! He should have threatened the Americans with a Mexican deluge and the loss of California!
Mr Farkas, as always, you make a very good point! In fact, you outlined a simple way to resolve this problem for Hungary as it is being done very effectively today in the US. All Hungary needs to do is flood the bordering nations with illegal (Hungarian ) immigrants and then plead leniency with the liberals to make them citizens…then slowly vote the buggers out of office and establish your new “autonomous” territory…Aztlan here we come! Only problem is, we don’t have enough Magyars. Dosen’t this kind of sound like the plebiscites Hungary was promised?
HUNT, as far as I know Hungary existed long before that 1500 date you were talking about when it became “Royal”, the original borders of the Kingdom set out in the establishment of the Kingdom of Hungary are still the same ones that were dismantled by Trianon. Hungary has always existed in one way or another for over 1000 years, Within the Austro-Hungarian empire, we were still known as the Kingdom of Hungary, like a partner union with Austrian Kingdom, but unfortunately we were never treated as true equals in this relationship. The fact is that the borders were virtually almost the same, the Kingdom of Hungary was still in existance , what matters is that this was our Kindom and our land, magyar or multi-ethnic.
Furthermore HUNT, just because a minority or an ethnic different from the majority lives on the majorities land, does not give them the right to take or steal what is not theirs. There were many cases in history where kingdoms and countries invited “guest workers” i.e. other ethnics to settle and work the land for the crown of that kingdom.
Hello Szekes!
Thank you for your kind words. This forum is a good place for me to think out loud and to get feedback. It is also an invaluable chance to involve and engage non-Hungarians, and to share our thoughts with them.
I believe you have the right spirit. A physical reinvasion based upon sheer numbers of Hungarians (similiar to what the Mexicans are doing in the American Southwest), does not fit our demographics. You’re right, we don’t have the numbers.
“Többet ésszel, mint erővel!” (Better brains, than brawn.) I believe we should make our presence felt thoughout the Carpathian basin. Not having Mexican style demographics, we must resort to a more clever and more leveraged approach. Previously on this forum, I have advocated Hungarian investment in land, buildings and other assets throughout the region. Hungarians should pool their funds and buy useful properties for long term investment. This is individual and private ownership I am talking about now, as opposed to an Alaska type buyout between governments. I believe it is our geopolitical “manifest destiny” to dominate the Carpathian basin. If the current generation of Magyars can’t step up to this challenge, then maybe a future generation will.
Hi Gandi!
I appreciate your summation of Hungary as a long standing territorial unit. A glance through my well loved historical atlases shows that Hungary has long encompassed throughout it’s 1000 year history most of the Carpathian basin, with the Carpathian range defining the frontier. I want to add that there was a definite reason for this-it just makes geopolitical, economic and military sense. So much sense, that I think it will come back, maybe not as a political entity, but “invisibly” through money, ownership investment, and perhaps some plebiscites. We are perfectly within EU rules in operating this way- so I say go for it. I look forward to buying off their politicians some day. How many corrupt Romanian politicos will we have to grease, and how much will it cost? How much to authorise a plebescite in Hungarian majority areas? I’d like to hear their figure!
Hi Mr. Farkas. I’m doing my best to help, I’ve got six little Szekes’ to help populate the Karpat Medence, hopefully teleport them into the Vacs area, hear its beautiful there! I too spend as much time as I can examining the historical maps of Central Europe and see that Hungary’s claim to the territory from the time of the Conquest is well founded. In fact, if Hungary not not blunted the Mongol and Ottoman invasions saving Western Europe in the process, and if the invasions had not occurred, Hungary would possibly have become the dominate power in Europe. Conjecture of course, but seriously, from a distance I see that the issue of Magyar minorities in the neighboring lands and especially in Slovakia are not going to go away. I agree that the more international attention that can be brought to this subject the better chance a favorable outcome can occur. But I truly wonder what the current Magyar residents of these territories feel about this subject and weather a common bond still exists. Nagy Magyarorszag?
@Ricsi – about the Hitler-Stalin treaty. I’m not sure if Poland was a signatory to the treaty.
The Molotov/Ribbentrop treaty over Poland did not involve any Polish delegate ,which makes the fact that its predetermined border arrangements in the East still stand an even worse case of hypocrisy!
Hello Ricsi!
This was an excellent example you mentioned with the Polish border. After WW1, the British demarcated a “Curzon line”, which is close to where the current eastern Polish border lies. It is another example of how the allies then were drawing grafitti lines all over the map of Europe. The Poles were expected to play along and have someone else, far away, tell them where their frontier lies. The Poles refused to play along! They where better organized militarily then than we were. and sent the Russians running. They then pushed their border much further east than the allies were originally intending. For this impudence, there was a price to pay, and eventually, pay they did. They paid when Russia and Nazi Germany cut a secret backroom deal (no they were not invited to the negotiations!) to partition them and wipe them off the map. The Ribbentrop-Molotov line of partition approximated the Curzon line. The poor Poles got some more precious payback at Yalta and in the postwar division of Europe. Again, the Curzon line came back when Stalin insisted that it be Polands eastern border, and so it is, even to this day.
I am not sure how many Poles are left to the east of their eastern border. If not many, then it’s not entirely analogous to our situation, which leaves a lot of Hungarians outside our borders. The latter fact gives the issue of Trianon revision “legs”. Ricsi has given a great example of how certain standing treaties have a lousy provenance.
Farkas
An old family friend in the UK told of how her family found themselves on the Soviet side of the border in 1939, in Lvov, they were forcibly expelled to Siberia for been land owners,kulaks, and they had an amazing journey through Soviet Union and ending up in 1947 in British India,just before its independence,from there they got to the UK.
I do not think too many genuine Poles remain in Byelo-Russia,Ukraine because of the mass expulsions before and after the Soviet-German campaign.
I guess she was lucky her father was not an officer,otherwise Katyn would have been his destination.
It also reminds me of the forced annexation of parts of Finland to the Soviets after the winter war of 1939 and 1944-again those borders are still recognised .
Trianon lines and the Polish “Curzon line” have something very important in common: they were forced, non-negotiated impositions upon our two peoples by the western Allies. To put it bluntly, the allies were giving away territory that was not theirs to give. Translyvania did not belong to the US, UK or France, thus they had no business giving it away. Creating such plans and inciting the Little Entente forces to act on them, was not a “peace treaty” but rather an act of war. Our ill fortune would have a vapid naive man like Karolyi at the helm when this was going down. A more insightful and forceful leader would have seen the allied plans and intentions as an act of war, and would have acted accordingly. Someone who would have clearly seen the “Zimmermann telegram” in all this! Trianon was an act of agression; yet another reason to declare it unjust and in need of revision.
Today, almost nobody praises the Versailles Treaty or think it was just, not since the debacles of Nazi reaction and WW2. Trianon is different. I go back to my point earlier on this thread: the reason for this is that we never had the power to strike back at those who were messing with us.
Hello again Ricsi!
Wow, you kill me man! The mention of Soviet annexations of Finnish territory, something that still stands against Finland, was an incredible catch to this discussion! I know the Finns are very sensible by nature and don’t like to raise a fuss, but they could certainly raise one over this if they wanted to.
I appreciate reading your family story, it is very interesting! I’ve read a memoir of a Pole also caught on the east side of the Naz-Soviet side, also sent to Siberia. As you say, the Polish population was forcibly relocated in the Soviet areas.
What we are uncovering here is that Europe is a festering sore of these ethnic territorial fault lines. “Earthquakes” happen under these circumstances! The severity will vary, and the location of the next tremor can not always be predicted, but happen they will.
Sorry folks, but mention of Károlyi, reminds me of the many jokes ridiculing the intelligence of our feudal era upper crust. They were called “Arisztit and Tarszilló” jokes, and for Hungarians, these resemble what the “dumb blonde” jokes are to Americans. These jokes played upon the assumption of being spoiled and stupid.
Feudalism created among us an upper class that never had to take economic risks, make long term plans nor ever to have to make business decisions. When you allow this to go on for centuries, you end up with an inbred class of people who never had to use their brains. The wealth just poured in, thanks to the serfs and peasants, and no “MBA” degree was needed to live off of it all! When our nation experienced it’s great moment of stress in 1919, it’s no wonder that an old line aristocrat leader like Károlyi was clueless about what to do. We suffered greatly for his lack of sense and streetsmarts.
If any of you know an Arisztit and Tarszilló joke, feel free to share it here. To me, their humor is bittersweet.
@Farkas László: Thanks for the pointer and background information. I wasn’t aware of these jokes. I noticed it is easier to find versions of these jokes with the names spelt Arisztid és Tasziló (all the jokes will be Hungarian, of course).
Greetings Vándorló!
Thank you for the correction! Jokes were a way for the old Hungarians to blow off steam, in the face of a social, economic and political order that did not empower them.
One of these jokes goes like this: Two counts (Grófok) are walking through the forest, and one has to take a shit. He asks his companion what he should use for tiolet paper. He answers:”Why not reach into your wallet, pull out a ten spot and use that? You can afford to do it, we’re counts!” His companion goes off to do his business, but ends up coming back with heavily shit stained fingers. Upon seeing this, he is asked “What happened, didn’t you use a tenner?” The reply: ” I did use a ten, but I only had it in coins!”.
Our dear Károlyi lived in la-la land. Upon reading his autobiography, one is left with the impression of someone not grounded; one who views events around him from an intellectual distance. His body may have been in Budapest, but he was mentally observing from far away, totally detached. He neither assumed nor accepted responsibility for anything that happened.
On with the jokes!
Besides Károlyi, one other aristocrat air head we need to mention in connection with the Trianon debacle is Karl IV, successor to Emperor Franz Josef and our last crowned Hungarian king. A good profile of the man was written by fellow Hungarian Balassa Imre, called “Death of an Empire”(1937), a biography of Karl IV. Here was our nation’s fate, in the hands of a young, naive man. He, like Károlyi, were very likable well intentioned men. They both were out of touch with reality; witness the pathetic attempts by Karl to sneak into Hungary after the war to reassert his authority before Horthy. It’s the kind of story Hollywood would have shot as a farce, a comedy.
Farkas Lászlo
You are an interesting and well informed guy !
There needs to be more like you.
Hey I know jokes too….There once was a man from Nantuckett…….
@Zuzana
you rather sounds like a Slotaist agent, not new here…
Köszönöm szépen Ricsi!
What I produce here, is a continuation of what my father has instilled in me from childhood: love of Hungary, passion for our history, while looking at our past critically. He didn’t like anybody messing with us, but at the same time he felt that we had helped our enemies through our collective fault and lack of good leaders. (He was the first person I heard to question the policy decisions of our founding King Stephen, and he was no Communist either!) His take on our history was our lack of a good ruling class, and over the years, I have come to appreciate the validity of his viewpoint.
@Laszlo – sorry, this may be a bit late. I’m done with my exams.
I’ve no issues about what your father taught you. All mostly true.
But my issue I wanted to highlight earlier, was that Poland was not a signatory to Ribbentrop/
Molotov, whereas the government of Hungary was a signatory to Trianon. Eg Pakistan (which is bigger than Hungary)was given away by the British. By your logic, you are almost saying that this should be given back to India, since there are groups in India which still see Pakistan as being part of India, even if their government has signed the treaty which accepts the mutual borders (except for Kashmir).
As I understand, the issue of coersion is not really present in international treaties, but realities. Countries can choose not to sign any agreement they see unfit in order to protect their sovereignty. The realities sometimes make countries choose decisions which they dont like or want, but have to live with.
Farkas László,
And where your criticism is reflected in? Because from your posts it’s on the contrary rather actual that your father instilled you with lots of absurdities without a piece of self-reflection. I would expect more of a reasonable man than doubting the policy of your semi-magyar king to consider the highest peak of his self-reflection. Your suggestions to buy and bribe your neighbours are brilliant indeed, as is your justification of WWII.
Can you tell me who your enemies are/were and how you define them? Because you talk about the enemies a lot. Do you have any names for them or you just refer to them as to the enemies, eventually non-Hungarians?
Enemies are whoever invaded Hungary and laid waste to us. It happened a lot of times over a 1000 years. We may have fresh ones to face in the future.
My fathers’ views about King Stephen were not the height of his self refl;lection; I did not say that! Hungarians have venerated him to the point of non-criticism, and so it was significant that he could see his weaknesses.
Our founding King Stephen was our first “Euro-intergrationist”. He felt his people needed an overhaul in order to fit into Europe, and was willing to use force to achieve it. Just as there are Hungarians today who question whether we belong in NATO or the EU, I’m sure there were Hungarians then who questioned whether King Stephens political- pro Western line was justified.
Doubts about the soundnes of this King’s policies were sown early in life for me, and as time went on, I became more convinced that what he started in the year 1000 was our greatest calamity, and the root source of almost all our major national disasters. Let me elaborate:
1) He disarmed the Hungarians. Until he came along Hungarians were armed nomads and very dangerous, able to roam all over Europe, even into Spain and France. Disarming the populatioon and allowing only a landowning feudal class to bear arms, weakened the nation, especially when a serious invader showed up, like the Mongols in the 1200′s. In that early phase of feudalism, it was preferred that on;y land-owning men be warriors; the lords were afriad to form a large national army, as they feared that it would mostly be made up of peasants, who would turn on them. As it turned out, only 15,000 Hungarian warriors were present at the battle of Mohi, and about 20,000 at Mohacs. Not enough men with which to defend such a large territory! Once that fighting tier was wiped out, the unarmed population was at the invaders mercy.
(cont)
Re King Stephen cont:
2)He introduced serfdom and oligarchy. Serfdom was just another name for work-slave. The serf was the property of the lord and would be hunted down if he left the estate. Feudalism was the bane of all Europe, not just Hungary. Looking across Europe, I notice that it is those naions that shook off feudalism earlier, or which substituted a merchantile economy in it’s place, that ended up making the greatest political and economic gains. Nations that did not do this until later, tend to lag. Feudalism led to a static, and not dynamic economic and political order. I don’t know how “free” Hungarians were under Arpad, but I know thay had to be less free later under Stephen’s order.
3)Lastly, Stephen forced a religious conversion upon his people. I hear that molten lead was poured into the ears of those Hungarians who did not want to convert to Catholicism! I’m not here to pass judgement upon the validity of any faith, but I do want to point out that the religion Stephen chose for us was top heavy with expensive priestly overhead. The Bishops and Cardinals expected and demanded huge estates- so much so that I consider them economic parasites. The church ended up owning anywhere from one fourth to one third of the country! It would have been far less costly to cling to our ancestral beliefs.
(cont)
Not just Hungary, but all Europe had to deal with the legacy of feudalism. Feudalism bred it’s own reaction in the form of Bolshevism and fascism. I see it as a veritable Pandora’s Box of economic, military and political backwardness, all of which produce other Pandora’s Boxes of ills.
Nothing good could ever come from a set of arrangements that required 98% of the people to be slaves, and for the remaining 2% to have unearned wealth.
F.L.,
King Stephen did what he had to do: if you can’t beat them, join them.
Hi Stan!
I would not have wanted the Hungarians to remain as nomads living in tents and spending their lives on horseback, but then I would not have wanted them to become landless serf/slaves, disarmed and unable to defend their country. Reasonable men can ask if some compromise between these two alternatives might not have been possible. Was it really necessary to give all the land to the top 2% and a few greedy lazy priests?
I know that if Stephen had taken some other course of action, he his nation would have been subject to a “jihad” from the Pope and his feudal allies. (Those parts of europe that held out against feudalism got forcibly invaded by feudalist forces.) I would like to think that a fully armed Hungarian people could have taken care of such an invasion. The problem is, that we would have been invaded anyway over time. Even after “Steve” sold us out, with the Pope’s blessings, we were still subject to invasion, like by the Mongols or the Turks. The Pope didn’t have any divisions! (A paraphrase of something Stalin once said!) We gave away too much of our power by toeing the line that Stephen saw fit for us. I feel a large standing national army would have been appropriate for the defense of a Hungary that then, was quite a bit larger than the one today. We didn’t have it then, because the magnates feared putting weapons in the hands of ordinary men. Such an army could have turned upon them eventually.
(cont)
(cont)
I don’t question King Stephens patriotism, I believe that what he started here in Hungary was in accordance with what he thought best at the time. Looking back however, I have to question it all.
Suppose the Dozsa Gyorgy Kuruc uprising of 1514 would have succeeded, and a Republic created. Suppose that this republic would have raised an army not of 20,000, but 200,000 or 300,000 men! That would have made all the difference in the world against the Turks a few years later wouldn’t it? I feel that with a better sized army and defense, the Turkish conquest would not have happebned. A better sized army would have worked against the Mongols as well. The damn aristrocrats feared their own people just as much as any foreign invader. No! Feudalism was wrong, and it didn’t work.
I regret that the Dozsa uprising failed. It might have resulted in another bloody “1789″, if you know what I mean. But we were in for bloodshed anyway. I also regret that the Hungarian people did not rise up against their King and feudal class after the Mongol invasion. The inability of the feudal class to defend the country agianst the Mongol invaders, to me would have invalidated the lousy feudal “social contract”.
Farkas László,
you avoided my question, so I ask it explicitly. Do you consider Slovaks your enemies? Are your enemies Serbs, Austrians and other neigbours as well? You are probably the only people so far who think and talk in the terms of the “enemies”, do you realize that?
There are obviously many things that Hungarians venerated to the point of non-criticism. You keep talking about your alleged heritage, but I have to ask you what do you have in common with those nomades who came to Europe 1000 years ago? Because they weren’t just any nomades, they were also the nomades with appropriate asiatic appearance, probably not that unsimilar to those of mongolian invaders. Surely you have something in common with them but it’s not your history and definitely not your gene pool.
-continued-
The feudalism was the reality of the era, not something that Magyars should have been questioning. It was probably the least of their concern at the time. Stephen, who was married to german woman, their children spoke german and he himself was probably born to polish woman. You talk about your king Stephen like he had any choice. Like it wasn’t like those magyar nomades were forced to settle down after their defeat in the battle of Lechfeld in 955. They didn’t have where to go, they couldn’t return, so they settled – on the territory that wasn’t deserted. What old Magyars learned later about governing the society, about the steady life instead of looting and raiding, they learned from the present inhabitants mainly those of Great Moravia. The same Moravia they raided and helped to dissolve. It could easily be said that Magayrs got from those mongolian raiders, possibly their former neighbours from Asia, in the late centuries exactly the same treatment they brought to Europe themselves.
@VD
I cant listen to the propaganda fiction you are trying to promote, get with it, your version dosent apply here it is in the fiction section of the library!
Laszlo,
Please don’t lower yourself to wasting your time and energy on VD’s absurd comments, he is a provocateur, and has no respect, to think he can target a person of your intellect with a ridiculous version of history that has no archeological discoveries to back up any of there theories of the Kicsi Morovia fairy tale, and the battle of Letchfeld which was rewritten to favor the Germanization and Holy Roman Empires dictatorship of Central Europe.. There I said for you mate cheers!
Hi Hotpaprika!
Danke Schön!
Nations are “enemies” when it has come to violence. Differences short of violence constitute competition or an adversarial relationship. So what if I call for a revision of Trianon by peaceful means? Does that make me vdx’s enemy? So what if it does?
yes Hotpaprika, everyone has rewritten his history just to provoke you, only what’s written in hungarian books is the ultimate truth. I almost forgot that you “truth-seekers” got exclusive patent in the area and perhaps you too dream of Turul every night like your ancestral father was when Turul showed him his way to that dreamed-of land of yours. But I’m afraid you won’t find the truth never, not until you remove that plaster from your eyes and stop wandering in blindness.
Hi vdx!
No dream Turuls just yet, but I do dream of cookoo birds! Any hope for me?
Mr. Farkas! Thank you for leading the way, I am now an “enemy” of VDX! Without a doubt the way to a solution to Trianon for Hungary lies through peaceful means. Unless there is a Sci-Fi weapon under development by the Gyurcsany administration, (and wouldn’t that be an oxymoron!)Hungary’s military force will not be capable of forcible revision anytime within the foreseeable future. Besides, without a strong sponsor, military border revision always causes more problems than it solves. So I fall back on my previous message of proselytizing the issue of Hungarian minorities to the world at large and focusing on the injustice of Trianon and working toward an acceptable border revision. Of course, we keep the Magyar Guarda ready just in case!
hello there,
sorry i have been away from the internet for a while as i went to the mountains of the mid-sk, so its a lot of reading now : )
but ROBI, you made me laugh. if you are such a careful reader that you have not overseen my comments,you have also surely not overseen that i previously wrote that i am a member of an opposition party in slovakia.thus,quite logically,i am not a slotaist,as you indicated.
moreover as a careful reader, you have surely not overseen that i am half hungarian and come originally from a mixed territory.the rest identification from long before i wont even mention.
i am proud of hungary and all of its achievements,but i live with open eyes and cannot be a slave of any policy which conflicts with what i see in my everyday life.
so i pardon you,but urge you to realize the above when you are talking to me.
i am on the side of both and no one,i give credit to anyone who is objective and disagree with anyone with single-sided view.thats all.
Zsuza!!
Well stay ignorant and neutral as I am assuming from you sitting on the fence, real coward! by now you should see some clarity if you claim to be Hungarian blood, unfortunately you may of learnt a History of Bull**** in Slovakia about Hungary just like many people because of the Politics and History been written by the Liers and Dicitators, if you are really passionate about being a patriot and true to society then you should defend the truth and not support the lies,,
Dear Hotpaprika,
What can I say.As others,I could call you things and send you places as you did to me,but how does that help us all?
When you openly discuss political issues that might seriously influence the lives of others,NO MATTER IF IN AFRICA,ANTAKTIDA or Hungary,you should normally expect to have an opponenture.
That is democracy.
STOP seeing and making enemies where aint any. Happy new 2009.
:i am proud of hungary and all of its achievements,but i live with open eyes and cannot be a slave of any policy which conflicts with what i see in my everyday life:
Hotpap, I have to add still, WHAT OF THE ABOVE DID YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?
Or better,how does this,given that your interest in based on the idea of human rights, may possibly heat you up?
Dear Zsuzsika
Human rights is a scam it doesn’t work in this false democracy we are experiencing around the globe, it only there to protect the minority who are using and abusing the Laws for crime, Nothing shocks me anymore after learning that Democracy doesn’t exist its an illusion honey!
ricsi,
(who remained polite and constructive despite of being of totally different opinion than i,not like many others-which is how it should be)
thanks for welcoming me to the debate you indicated,i am in.
i wait for your guidance,hopefully,using tools such as above, we can help common interest within the boundaries of european democracy.
Szuza How blind are you? your a grown up now why cant you see? especially living amongst the most corrupt people in politics in Slovakia and not being streetwise? Playing the neutral lamb, you seem to be The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing! Go run and hide under your skirt!
Hotpap, this doesnt make sense. Do you have skype?Lets speak in a much time-saving modus.If you insist,ok,but making statements like this via this portal is in my way far too ineffective.
ricsi,
i tried my best to get into the forums,but it constantly tells me “not found”. everything works well but once i log in and try to get into a forum this is what it tells me.whats wrong?
once again to outline my purpose is to find out on what grounds your initiative bases its policy towards the country i live in and how hungary and slovakia can reconcile once and forever in the frames of equality and reciprocity with regards to both overall history and the present.
but technically i seem to fail.
i guess it its caused by a temporary technical discrepancy,maybe? i end up helpless,it seems.
vdx,
i long waited to say,thank you.lets say,i might be much less forthcoming,what i can guarantee is that i am fully objective.
its not easy to come up here with a view as you( and partly i) have shown,you were right the other day saying what you said.
see,my family was harmed twice,as i am a multinational.thus my view is somehow doubled,if not tripled,but my aim to protect objectively the interests of all “my nationalities”, hungarian,slovak,german.
protecting hungarian interest is,quite logically,not difficult here,german is left untouched and slovak is “explosive”.
somehow i treat this forum as if it was international..
whoever you are and whereever you come from i dont know,i thank you for the opponenture even it heats some up.
if we all agree on everything,it can no longer be a discussion.
my hungarian disputees,just please do not misinterpretate me.really,all i want is friendship and peace for all of us and its the very reason why i post anything here or anywhere is this regard,regardless to how it seems or may seem to you.
What nonsense you say you are in politics and want peace for everyone, well it seems that Slovakia is the made up fantasy land built upon myth actually not even myth but lies, and no educated citizen should bow to any lie just because the situation is as it is, simple the territories must be reviewed and reinstated to Hungary, then the lies would be reconciled and we can continue living under the original Hungarian borders, and have Slovakia be the minority how it always was.
One thing I don’t understand, and maybe the more enlightened among you can explain…but where did the Slovaks come from? I know how the Magyar led tribes entered the Carpathian Basin and took control of a largely unpopulated area. But what is the basis for Slovakia? Did they defeat Hungary in a war? Did they negotiate for the territory they currently occupy? Was it just a magnanimous gesture on Hungary’s part? Should the US look to Hungary as an example of an enlightened government and give the South West US up to become a Hispanic Country?
Dear Szekes,
the area of Slovakia was first occupied by the celts and pohans ( i honestly dont know if there is an english equal for it ), the ancient slaves, when the brothers of Solun, Constantin and Metod,came to spread Christianity.It became the Great Moravia which ceased to exist in the 9th century because of a fight for power within the governing family.The area was then taken over by the Huns sometime in the 10th century and this reign lasted basically till the Trianon era.
what i know and can see now is that bratislava is the city of 2 castles,one of them is the castle of devin, built by the ancient slaves of great moravia and nitra in 9th century,with much of its artefacts left,including first slavic and celtic christian basilics.
it can be visited 7 days a week.
but again,why do i feel like i am fighting here against myself.i am not blinded from the truth at all,from any side,hello!
f ex the justification for any of my posts is,as THIS ONE,you dont believe me,you can go and see for yourself.
As for Hotpaprika,if you have anything you think i should see with my own eyes to get convinced about something you say that i dont believe in,i am very open to it.
none of us knows all,i guarantee only for my own experience.
Last thing, to make sure, the word “Sláves” in this regard comes from “Sláv” which means something like “celebrated”.Whatever, just that you dont get confused : )
good night to all
Hello Zuzana,
I understand and feel your concern about the peaceful happy co-existence of our two peoples. It seems like you would like our differences permanently resolved somehow, and I can appreciate that. I being a realist in saying that that is most likely not possible. That position is not my wish or desire, believe me, but my assesment of the reality of our situation. I don’t think our competing territorial differences can be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction; somebody is bound to feel like thay got the short end of the stick. To ask the Hungarians to accept the status quo (that is, as things now stand) would make them very dissatisfied. They don’t feel their current frontiers are just, and nobody can convince them otherwise. If on the other hand, we “revise” Trianon, then Slovakia will be the loser, and that would cause unhapiness with your people.
The problem in our part of Europe is too many small nationalities on top of one another, fighting for their own sense of space, each with overlapping claims to each others territory. It’s not a pretty picture, especially when viewed historically. It’s an ongoing thing that runs for centuries, and likely will continue into the future.
The only hopeful note I can offer is that if there are any more territorial changes around us, that they happen through peaceful, negotiated means and not armed conflict.
Hello again Zuzana,
I forgot to mention to you, that in English, the Slavic people are called “Slavs” and not “slaves”. With the latter spelling, you run the risk of being horribly misunderstood! We who are from this part of Europe know what you meant, of course, but this being an English website read by people all over the world, I feel it is important to avoid the possibility of confusion. I hope you don’t mind me mentioning this, as I am not in the habit correcting my fellow correspondents here.
Zuzanna
Sorry for late reply,thank you for trying to make contact.
Unfortunately that forum as been closed due to persistent attacks by “idiots” seeking to discredit any open debate.
Something new will appear in the near future,I promise !!
You present a polite and well thought out debate,from your perspective.Of course we may not always agree (who is perfect ??)but it does not stop me finding interest in your thoughts.
If there was a secure way of communicating privately,I would be open !
Happy new year.
Thanks Zusana for an honest attempt at addressing my question, but the issue still stands for me…i.e., how did Slovakia come into existence as a nation and what role did Hungary play in creating it? Aside from Trianon, where was the negotiation? Last I was aware of, Hungary defeated Slovakia in a war and even captured an armoured car!
Hello Szekes!
Let me have a swing at this, as I’ve been meaning to anser your question. Following the First World War, a number of new nations appeared on the map of Europe, and their boundaries were the result of peace treaties imposed by the victorious Allies. It was decided that the Austro-Hungarian empire should be carved up, with much of it’s former territory to be given to the newly created Czechoslovak state, to newly created Yugoslavia and to Romania. None of this was negotiable for the Hungarians, who were treated as a defeated enemy nation to be carved up. The boundaries were decided for us. Saying no meant a military invasion, and that actually happened. The allies supported the “Little Entente” with money material and weapons, and so we were in a three front war with our neighbors, who in turn were supported by France, Britain and the US. As you can imagine, it was a losing fight for us. In a strange turn of events, the new Soviet Union supported our local Bolshevik, Bela Kun, who did lead a forceful counterattack. Kun’s forces did manage to push beyond the Trianon borders and engaged our neighbors in a three front war, but the effort collapsed. Many Hungarians joined his red army simply because they didn’t want to see Hungary dismembered, and there was no other organized Hungarian resistance.
(cont)
(cont)
Our dear neighbors wanted to wipe us off the map entirely. The Romanians wanted to extend their border to Budapest, as did the Czechs, the Serbs AND the Austrians. It was British intervention that prevented this from happening. This all leaves bitter memories for us to this day.
The Hungarians were itching for a revision, and got their chance in November of 1938. Hitler sponsored the retaking of southern Slovakia by the Hungarians. (see map at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Czechoslovakia_1939.SVG ) More territory was regained in 1939, 1940 and 1941. These were mostly Hungarian majority areas of Romania and Yugoslavia. The 1941 boundaries of Hungary were a fairer approximation of where Hungarians predominate, and as such would be a more just settlement for us, if only it would have been allowed to stick. It did not, and after WW2, it was back to the Trianon frontiers for us. The fact we came back once before, after Trianon, makes our neighbors uneasy. They worry we are going to do it again, and so talk of Trianon revision makes them paranoid. They fear our resurgence, because it is going to cost them, sooner or later, in one way or another.
(cont)
Hi all,
Szekes y are right I didnt make myself quite clear.
The Pohans, or better ancient Slavs inhabitated the area of current Slovakia after the Celts / and back then also a part of the area of current Ukraine/ meaning that they are the more-or-less original inhabitants of the area. The whole very central region is purely Slavic till now,quite visibly, with Poland,Ukraine,Slovakia and the Czech.
Annexing the area by the Huns was of course long back then a normal thing then as everywhere else in Europe or world.Of course, nowadays its unacceptable by the intl law. War? Well…from how i sum it up it was more in the direction that when the Great Moravia ceased to exist, the country or region was crushed and basically with no functioning governance, just fights for power between the local nobles. Thus, as always, this is an opportunity for any neighbour to come and take over the place of course including its people, which is pretty much what happened.You see,its all because of an eternal feature of the Slavs- they have a historic problem of getting united within. Not very practical, I have to say, ehm : )
Btw guys happy new year to all of you-I think we are starting to have a good discussion here!
Btw Mr Farkas, no I dont mind you correcting me : )
It was quite late at night when I wrote it after 8 hours of work and 6 hours of writing a project…so I was not as diligent in writing as I should be : )
(cont)
All this history raises troubling issues for me. Our ruling class was totally unprepared for an Allied victory in 1918. No useful contacts were made with the Allied govts during or after the war. No bribes were paid and no influence peddled. We got rolled behind the scenes. I just don’t understand why our large wealthy land magnates didn’t round up some cash between themselves and just pay off the US, British and French politicians; at least pursuade them to make boundary revisions that were more in our favor than what we ended up with. A million dollars spread around to the right people could have and would have worked wonders, and today we would be in a better situation.
Also troubling to me was the Hungarian-American community, which exerted no pressure on the American govt on Hungary’s behalf in either 1919 or 1945. We were written off after both wars as disposable and non-important. The majority of Hun-Americans in 1919 were peasant folks; many were illiterate. They lacked the education and wordly sophistication needed to save our country.
The ugly Trianon debacle is a reflection of ourselves and our collective weakness. It betrays an inability to think and act strategically. There is in us a lot of emotion, but not enough cunning.
I have given our old feudal aristocracy quite a roasting here. In all fairness, not all of them were idiots. I have admired Count Paul Teleki’s book “The Evolution of Hungary and Its Place In European History” (MacMillan, 1923) It is a small book, but with a rather large fold out map in the back, showing the ethnographic distribution of pre-WW1 Hungary. I can give you all a link that has a scan of this great map, but it doesn’t beat seeing the large sized original:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Redmap.jpg
(There is an enlarge button in the lower right corner.)
Looking at this map makes plain just why there is so much contention. The Trianon boundaries are faintly delineated, and you can see that there are a lot of Hungarians left outside the treaty boundaries.
The 1923 Teleki book is for sale on a used book website called http://www.abebooks.com, at prices ranging from US$45 -90. His book was also reprinted in 1975 by Academic International Press. In 1992, the map was reprinted and included with a monograph published by Columbia University entitled “Trianon and the Protection of Minorities”, by Jozsef Galantai
Mr Farkas, as usual, you have summed it up greatly. The history I am very well aware of, I just felt it was a good point of interest to question the reasoning behind the creation of Slovakia to further this discussion. The nugget of interest though was your statement “The ugly Trianon debacle is a reflection of ourselves and our collective weakness. It betrays an inability to think and act strategically. There is in us a lot of emotion, but not enough cunning.” This tells me more than what can be gleaned from the internet and is what I suspected along with the lack of moral clairity by the nobles of the time. I have not been to Hungary for over 40 years so I do not have a feel for the social climate, but I am curious if the regional feeling for some type of revision is still an issue with Hungarians. Outside of Hungary, is it even on the radar for the EU?
Farkas Laszlo and Szekes
Magyar people lack the awareness of the serpentine mind. Looks like this is where the nations soul has to learn it’s lesson, but if you think about it just a moment, the Magyar still have a clearer consciouness compared to our neighbours and power elite, so isn’t this a bonus?
Hi Szekes,
Thanks much! I take my efforts here very seriously as well as the moral and intellectual responsibility involved with communicating to a broad audience.
About Slovakia, they had a “velvet” divorce from their senior partner in the Czecho-Slovak relationship some years ago. Along with that seperation, they inherited what was left of the WW-1 boundaries, sans the Carpatho-Ukraine. Without the more economically advanced Czechs, and without the weight of their territory, they now feel quite small, and hence vulnerable. They still have enough Hungarians left within their country to feel uneasy about us. It’s always possible to get a plebescite going, the results of which may still closely approximate the 1938 partition line of the “Vienna Awards”.
Hungarians are always ready for a little Trianon revision! It may not be a “live” day-today issue, given that there is no credible poltical initiative going to make it happen, but like a long festering wound, it can always be split open! It will never go away, and never be forgotten.
As for the EU, it is not on their radar screen, because we have not yet been the people who could do that and make it work behind the scenes. After Communism, we have been floundering as a nation, trying to find a way for ourselves, as well as trying to discover our power. When we do (and we will!), then we will be able to get the EU to see our viewpoint and to help our cause.
Hi Hotpaprika,
Thanks I agree with you. One can’t make a habit out of having a reptilian mind, but there are certain moments in history where it helps, especially when you are up against other reptilians who are ganging up and working against you! I wish to focus my criticism not so much against our neighbors, but the great power interference that we saw in 1919. The US, Britain and France had no business giving away pieces of our land to any and all comers like it was just slices of birthday cake! It wasn’t theirs to give away. Because they had no real stake in our issues, a few lousy dollars spread around to them would have “pursuaded” them.
Cheer up my friend, we have and will endure and eventually prevail.
Hi Laszlo
I dont think i would make a good diplomat, I would piss too many people off that havent awoken yet, hopefully I can work on this, your setting a great benchmark to follow..Happy New Year Mate! and to all the souls awoken and asleep 
Yes I have to chill out a bit, no good for my blood pressure
Fárkás/Hot Paprika
You are both correct,Hungary as been floundering in an abyss for too long–we need people like you to help find a new way.
Happy new year !
Boldog új évet kivánok mindenkinek!
(I wish everyone a Happy New Year!)
It’s my birthday! I was born at 12:03 AM on Jan 1, 1955 in Budapest. I was the first born child in Hungary for that year, but unfortunately, my mother and I did not get the recognition. They had a flower wreath and fruit basket ready to give my mother, but right next to her was another woman whose husband was a big govt. communist party big-wig, and she gave birth to a girl one minute later, at 12:04. Because they were such important people, the “ÀVO” men were there in their long trademark leather coats. (The communist secret police, like the Checka or KGB in Russia. Back then in Hungary only ÀVO men could afford leather coats.) The hospital staff was ready to give my mother the honor, but then when the other woman was about to give birth, the ÀVO man picked up the wreath and basket and said to my mother: “Sajnálom asszonyom” – “I’m sorry lady”, and gave the honor to the other woman! {This was more courtesy than they were accustomed to in their regular line of work, as these men preferred to work with torture devices and their fists!) The other woman and her daughter wound up pictured on the front page of all the newspapers! So it was back then…
Best wishes everyone!
Laci
Fárkás !
So typical and so true ! Thanks for sharing that personal event.
Happy Birthday and happy new year to you !
I think I can see a great opportunity for you to help me in a new project ,interested ??
Farkas László: Well you and your kind really are born losers then?
@Laszlo – Wishing you a very happy birthday, and a great new year ahead. I’ll be sure to have a drink for you right at that exact time in your honour. Cheers!
Fárkás Lászlo
Unfortunately the children are at play again,seemingly determined to spoil your night of celebration–pathetic weasels as usual,too cowardly to put a real name to a comment.
Rest assured my friend,you have some real admirers here.and you can contribute very soon if you are interested ?
Many happy returns.
Risci the tart has it right, almost all Hungarians born in those days feel like borm losers, whatever their success later in life. Stalinist communism made everybody feel tha way! It was THAT bad!
Cheers!
Cheers !!!!
Hi Uncle Joe!
Köszönöm szépen Jóska bácsi!, minden jót neked is!
Laci
@Laszlo – I had a lager lime at 12.03 just for you! Happy birthday!
Uncle Joe
Though we may never agree,have a drink on me !
Happy new year ,peace.
@Ricsi – Thanks. Happy new year to you too.
Its not true that we cannot agree. I have no objection to your political views (if that is what Hungarians want). If you check back, I have never commented on your politics.
It’s your social views that I cannot agree with. I have seen society rapidly turn on each other when my parents & I were caught up in a racial riot when I was 10, and living in a foreign country. Most of what I saw stemmed from wrong logic and hatred.
Our economic views we can discuss quite civilly, but I’ve never seen you elaborate sufficiently enough to debate.
UJ
Thanks,I will ignore your snide remark,for I have never claimed to solve Hungary’s problem’s, only that I see the failings in the current system and believe some form of change will be the only solution.
zuzana,
yes, it’s not difficult to notice strong anti-slovak sentiment coming from some mistaken hungarian expats here. It’s sometimes quite ridiculous coming this from the people claiming they don’t even live here and don’t know the situation. If they would have been in Hungary in December 2008 they perhaps could have used their opportunity and celebrate 4th jubilee of humiliating referendum in which Hungarians rejected double-citizenship for their fellow-citizens living abroad. Sure it would come in handy to them, joining their co-patriotic companions and besides organizing annual pious actions around local Trianon monuments try something new for a change.
you’re right that there’ve been harms made on both side, but should we take all injustice on weights for comparison, Magyars would probably come out as one aggressive, bloodthirsty nation. And above all a nation which’s not even aware of causing any harm. The problem is hungarian history which is curved from the very beginning. The famous Gyurcsany sentence: “We lied morning, noon and night.” could have continuation: “We lied 100 years ago, 200 years ago, 1000 years ago..”
Like in the case of Huns. The famous magyar leader which led old Magyars to their home is claimed to be of hunnic origin, but it’s well known that Huns were central-asiatic nomades speaking language belonging to altain language family group (along with turkic and mongolic language).
-continued-
On the other hand hungarian language is classified to be of finno-ugric origin which is completely different group somewhere from Caucasus and west Siberia. It’s a very capital contradiction. Not to say that nowdays Hungarians have nothing common with any of these groups and are only using their language. It seems sometimes the most most important for some of them is to throw dirt on the people they were part of themselves not a long time ago.
Even today instead of reasoning and finding solutions from the ditch where hungarian economy found itself, hungarian parties rather keep bothering with so popular national agenda. Given the curved historical base it’s a good way to find easy votes for sure, but a very bad way to find any solutions to crisis. If it wasn’t for 25 billion bailout, Hungary would have found itself on its knees by now and should it follow its actual course of action, Hungary will be on the level of Albania within the next 4 years. Better for Hungarians to take an example of Austrians which have never had a problem with accepting their role in the war and with the time events. For Austrians Trianon is only a past history and maybe this is the reason why Austria is where it is now and where Hungary will never be.
vdx
For a guy who likes to write so much,you do write shit !
Does anybody actually bother to read your drivel ?
Zuzana, hope you read my reply recently.
Ricsi,
no one is forcing you to read anything nor to reply. By doing so you show your position very clear.
Austria, unlike Hungary and many of it’s former east block neighbors, did not have to endure 50 years of sovietization. [There was a Soviet zone of occupation in Austria for a short while, but the Russians were pursuaded to leave.] In this, the Austrians were blessed indeed, as they could retain and develop some kind of market economy, private ownership and national independence. That definitely puts them on a different developmental footing, that’s for sure. Not just Hungary, but most of the former communist block nations are struggling to find a place in an intensely market driven world. We went from feudalism to communism, only to be turned loose in 1989. I admit we are floundering, and it partly explains why the double citizenship initiative failed; the Hungarian economy is not dynamic enough to absorb the large potential influx of Magyars from Romania and Serbia that might have resulted.
I conditionally share vdx’s pessimism about us never becoming an Austria. A future generation might be able to pull it off, but it’s not in the cards for the near future.
The comment about us being bloodthirsty perked my interest for sure! Here I was under the impression that we are just a plaster and papier maché poodle, no bark, no bite and no romp! Too much Magyar pessimism perhaps?
I have made a life long hobby of studying the Germans; they truly fascinate me and I wish we had more of their strenghts.
I can suggest two reasons why modern Austria does not raise the issue of it’s lost empire: they, unlike us, do not have a lot of their people scattered outside their existing frontiers. (Remember the Sudeten Germans were mostly thrown out after the war.) For Austria to raise irredentist issues at this point would be seen as pure imperialism. Upon what could they base claims to Hungary, or other former subject peoples? The other consideration is their share of historical guilt for Nazism and WW2. Today’s Germans and Austrians are still very sensitive to this, and tend to avoid being seen as stirring up trouble (again!) in Europe. This accounts for why there isn’t much interest in Germany for reclaiming it’s former territories east of the Oder-Niesse, in Poland.
This has been a hell of a discussion thread so far! We are just all over the place!
VDX This kind of comment is expected from someone with a certain nationalistic pride and refuses to accept that their History was rewritten to justify and back up the lies, the day you realise that you are misguided by elite propaganda then I hope you will come to the table with constructive comments, your version of history as Ricsi put it Dribble! dont be a pratt! go join a group that supports STORYTELLING!
Farkas László,
Hungary had 2 decades since the fall of communism and what had it done besides appointing a serie of populist governing promoting cheap nationalistic agenda and unable to take any useful action. Hungary is in the worst shape of all four Visegrad countries and it’s not only because of communism.
Hungary is “absorbing” – assimilating the remainders of the minorities from the Kingdom until this very day. 95 percent is the number very eloquent, during the last century all non-Hungarian minorities silently disappeared from Hungary.
It’s most pelicular and hypocritical behaviour of Hungary, which stowed and exported its german minority in livestock transports right after the war, to keep nagging its neighbours who left their hungarian speakers practically intact.
Hotpaprika,
You keep repeating the same words like a broken recorder. Still I can’t remember reading your explanation why haven’t I seen yet any Hungarian looking like Genghis Khan’s warrior.
Comming from jobbik member and jobbik worshipper however, I take your assesment as a compliment.
Hi vdx!
From Poland down throughout all the countries they they were thrown out of in the region after WW2, I say:
Bring back the Germans! THAT kind of fresh blood we can all use!
I’m still a little giddy from the backhanded compliment you gave us when calling us blodthirsty! It’s nice to know someone takes us so seriously! This kind of flattery can get you everywhere, can go to our heads. Careful, it may give us ideas!
Cheers!!!
Cheers!
Farkas László,
Use whatever you like of my words. Just be carefull because there’s a limit where encouragement can outgrow to paranoia. Have a nice day.
Being a big pro-German, I have told Poles for a few years now to brace themselves for Germans buying back their land and assets. (In a manner I have suggested on this website for Hungarians as well) I have even proposed that the Polish state consider selling small chunks of their territory back to Germany, like the region around Szeczin, (Stettin), west of the Oder-Niesse. Why not? The Germans would pay well for it. Money talks, and you know what walks! I for one question whether Germany should have lost any territory at all following the First and Second world war. Also questionable were the forced deportations of millions of Germans, wherever they occured. I support the return of the Sudeten Germans as well- let the Czechs deal with that one! Let them “move over” in their little country and make way.
Careful what you post here VDX, it may have consequences and results that you didn’t anticipate!
Szeretettel (LOL!)
Laci
Hi again VDX!
Don’t worry about me getting paranoid. It was all just tongue-in-cheek funnin’ with ya!
xoxo
Farkas (Mr. Funny Man) Laci
Farkas László,
good to hear you’re ok. One would say you have bought at least half of south Slovakia yourself by now. And what to import Germans for? Need of fresh subjects for magyarization?
Ricsi, Hotpaprika and other Hungarians!
This thread just gets me going and I’m lovin’ every minute of it! We have been accused of wrongly throwing out the “Schwabs” from our country. I say we rectify that wrong, right now, by extending them an invitation to come back! Restore their citizenship! We could use people of their class and calibre! What say all of you?
The only policy decision of our founding King Stephen that I agree with was him letting in a lot of Germans into the country. We needed them then, and we probably still need them now, to assist in the development of our nation. It is only fair, that if we invite the Germans back, that of course, every other nation in the region that once threw them out should follow our moral example, no? Let the Hungarians lead here!
“Es gibt wieder “Drang Nach Osten”! Es lebe Ungarn! Es lebe die Deutschen Volk!”
dein lieber “Heinz”, die “Komiker” ( A komikus)
Fárkás Laszlo
My dear friend,be careful of what you wish for !
Much as I admire Germans,and respect Schwab contributions,just remember who (apart from the Jews) where the first to embrace communism as a means of power after the collapse of Hitler’s regime,my father told me of how the Schwabs often had a picture frame with Hitler on one side and Stalin on the other !!
Hungary needs Hungarians to strive forward and make a new future,any patriot,German,Slovak,Croatian even Gypsy is welcome to join IF they put Hungary first,but let us not dream of a great German saviour,Germany is now the most diluted,racially mixed nation in the EU (by intention) and so no REAL contribution will come from that former great county. Sorry,but I really think Hungary needs to see that the future lies outside the corrupt EU,start to make a real connection with the new Russia and work together,break this ex-commie hold on Hungary and its zionist connections once and for all .
SZEBB JÖVŐT.
Hi VDX!
On a more serious note, let me respond to one of your questions. Do I want the Germans back just so they can be “Magyarised”? No, because they are not the kind of people who can be pushed around and told what to do. God carved them from out of some extremely serious material (Az Isten nagyon is komoly anyyagbol faragta őket!/ “God has carved them from out of some very serious material!) They will take whatever local assimilation they see fit and useful. I wouldn’t kick them around like a football!
I am not into 1930′s style “racial purity” politics! I am not into “forced Magyarisation” of any minority. The paradigm I admire is assimilation a lá Americaine: fit in, not because the government forced it, but because it makes economic sense. Once an immigrant group come into America, their children learn English and identify with America. Why? Because the economic life and culture of that nation sucks them in, whatever country their parents came from! THAT is the kind of Hungary I dream of, (and for that I may have to dream on!) Even if we reacquire any lost territory, if we can’t rise to that standard, we will just LOSE IT AGAIN! “Verstehen Sie?!”
By the way, I have already purchased Kosice! (Kassa), and have negotiated with the Walt Disney organisation to build a theme park there! I have insisted that they be an equal opportunity employer for both Slovaks and Hungarians! Want any season tickets? JUST KIDDIN MAN!
Csókolok! (With kisses)
Hi Laszlo, amusing like a mosquito VDX keeps buzzing around, however he has an agenda, and that’s pretty obvious by now, I suggest not wasting any precious talent on trying to be diplomatic with him I assume it’s a him but never mind.
I have an interesting observation about the Germans, now because of some exodus of the Germans was mainly due to regime that followed the Horthy era, and that was the Red influence this was the cruelest period but not only to Germans but any one who supported that regime so many Hungarians where sent to Siberia to their death, some Germans chose to be loyal to Germany under Hitler’s rule and that was a threat to the Hungarians being Germanized just like under the Hapsburg rule so there was a period of Germans moving back to there homeland, however as far as I am lead to believe the Swab Germans were not accepted and many returned to resettle in Hungary. Going back even further much of our history was influenced by the Holy Roman Empire mainly German ideology and politics which rewrote much of Magyars original history. So I’m not much of a fan for Germanizing Hungary, I would rather see the truth of the Hungarians History be available mainstream, which would be a major step to raising our awareness to our local European History, and within this history many questions are answered about origins of the Magyars, and help support Hungarian families financially, morally and ethically to increase their birth rate,
cont… localize our industries and introduce some positive enthusiasm amongst Hungarians.
Kedves Ricsi!
Ezzel az emberrel leg jobb humorral bánni. Ha túl sok szemtelenséggel jelentkezik itt, akkor csak csapjál oda neki piszkosul Magyar pajtásom! Ne vegyél engemet túl komolyan mikor vacalolok vele! Van mikor komolyan beszélek vele, és van mikor nem.
Látom hogy kezd kicsit gyengülni ez a pacák. Egybe vagyunk?
Laci
Kedves “Erős Paprika”
Amit a Ricsinek mondtam, az persze te neked is szól! Rettenetes szemtelenséggel jelentkezik itt ez a Tót! “Vérszomjasság”!! Nálunk inkább az volt a baj, hogy nem voltunk eléggé vérszomjassak! Csak is téved ez az ember.
Ha nem tud illedelmes lenni itt, akkor csak tessék csak csapd le őtet bokszerrel! Erre mag adom az áldásomat!
Egybe vagyunk?
Laci
Egybe vagyunk
)
Farkas László,
I would imagine to be quite comfortable lobbying against forced assimilation since most of the work has already been done. Comparing affairs in Europe to America or Europe to whatever other region in the world is meaningless since Europe has always had a very specific position in the history. One of the strongest attributes which prevail in the process of self-determination is the language and since Britain had won in the struggle with France, it’s anglo-saxon culture which laid basis to american-US culture. Same in South America where most contries speak spanish. What determine and differentiate Hungary and Hungarians of neigbouring nations is hungarian language in the first place. Not hungarian history, hungarian crown, nor hungarian wine. And it was hungarian language which was used throghout the centuries as a tool for assimilation.
Hungarians do like very much to compare themselves to large nations such as Germans (or French, British perhaps if they do not stand up against their actual interests), you demonstrated it yourself after all. But if Hungarians are not so great how come to that, that at least one quarter of Africa doesn’t speak hungarian? Where the Hungarian Kingdom forgot itself in the times of colonisations when Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Britain have been undertaking their expeditions. Germany had colonies in Africa, even Italy had some, only Hungary has fallen behind somehow.->
-continued-
I know most of Hungarians would welcome hungarian language to be the world’s language and if not then at least european’s language, but it won’t happen simply because hungarian language is a very uncommon and strange asiatic language which doesn’t even belong to indo-european family group (english, german, french, slavic languages are all indo-european languages). On the contrary the languages similar to hungarian are spoken only by some dozen thousands inhabitants living in the villages somewhere in far Siberia. There can be found folk who speak similar language.
I will now leave you guys, because it seems you became quite self-sufficient by now (in the chattering I think) and it’s really not my purpose to engage any paranoid ideas in you.
Good night.
Ricsi,
No actually I got to read ALL the comments more carefully only now.Do you have skype or msn or yahoo messenger? we can chat there. i have a lot of questions and a lot to say to fit into this (a bit ) inflexible forum.lets get timely answers.
oh, by “fitting” i did not mean the quality, but the time factor,given that on a regular chat we can type as if we spoke face to face,which,given to the subject weight and volume surely brings faster results.
The worst and most dangerous Hungarians are those who are not paranoid! Paranoid Hungarians are useless, and ineffectiual, and like the Serbs, wallow in self pity, which will not get them anywhere.
“Don’t get mad, get even”
Sleep soundly at night!
Love, Me
Dear Hotpapri,
Just to return to your previous comment and to set it clear at once.
My major issue is,that it clearly seems, that our 2 countries operate by 2 different history records in distribution.I object to your vision of lies,because as both countries have contradictory intrests,how can any of us reliably guarantee what happened? Or else, are you over 100 years old?
I must object to your comment on reannexing the country to Hungary or so it seemed to me.
Slovaks are entitled to live in their territory as they have always lived here.No one wants to be thrown away from where he and his ancestors came from, you wouldnt like that either.They are neither servants nor a province of no one,they have been made a province long ago by a means which are since longtime unacceptable by the cogent intl law (at the time they were, as i said) .But we live in the 21st century and cannot advocate our interests via such means anymore.We do not send women to death accusing them of witchcraft because it was fine 500y ago,do we?
I am not neutral as you once wrote-I cannot imagine that being possible,given my origin.Objectivity is not synonymous to neutrality.
Discussing Trianon and such is fine with me,I am a very open person,it is a dispute over a part of the country bordering with another and such contention is not occasional in the world.
But speaking of overall territory of Slovakia as a “province” or “minority” such is just unacceptable.
oh,now i know what the surname of a friend of mine means-from your comments in hungarian!not particurarly important i give in, yet cool!
Oh,how horrible of me.last but not least,Laci,I wish you all the best for your birthday.I do not think payback is the way,since we would have to question the time point which may well end up being contraproductive, but nonethless thank you for contributing to this forum in an adept modus!
Zuzana,
History has a lot to do with peoples ignorance, there are some deep lies in History which your version is preaching and it’s not true version, and we have to agree to disagree here because no way in my life time will I believe otherwise, I once did believe your version until moving here and discovering that the History books in the west and even here have been written to introduce and support an ideology which is suppressing the truth, and once this truth is slowly revealed we will have justice again, there are many book stores opening up with some great books being written all throughout, Hungary it is not about Hatred it’s about healing the wounds of a nation that has been suppressed for many centuries, While your version was written recently.
After the Avar Empire dissolved, the Carpathian Basin had several temporary rulers. The Pan-Slavic historians created princes out of the Slav feudal lords, who temporarily took possession of territories in the Carpathian Basin. For example, they called the territory of the feudal lord called Samo, who ruled for twenty-one years, a Slav empire, or they called the territory of Svatopluk, Zwentibold, an empire which existed for about twenty five years. There are no contemporary sources of information which mention the Slavs as having an empire. Only the Pan-Slavic historians talk about the Slav Empire. There are no sources which give both bad and good information about them as they do about the Huns. cont:
Colin McEvedy states: Politically, all the Slavs were very backward. Their myriad chieftains lacked all sense of unity and they were therefore easily dominated by other races. W.G. East says: “The economy of the Slavs was of a rudimentary type. Agriculture and trade had little place in their economy.”
According to Hugh Seton-Watson: The Slavs, according to their nature were sly. They lived in the depths of the forests and the moors, avoiding strongholds: instead of waging war openly, they applied continuous robbing, harassing actions.” Jenõ M. Fehér says: “The Slavs’ role in the people’s migration was a very insignificant one. Their cultural level was low; their social organization was primitive and their ability to create a state was non-existent.” The Croats were fugitives who fled from the Turks and when they arrived in Hungary, Hungary had already been in existence as a state for seven hundred years. According to Kniezsa, the Slav people’s greatest political organization was that of the clan. They lived at the edge of the forests and the Steppes and this it self prevented them from forming a higher political organization.
Ferenczy mentions that the Slavs became more significant at the time of the Avar rule and they can thank the Avars for teaching them how to form a state.It is false information that the Magyars suppressed them and erased them. cont
Cont
Sándor Nagy says that the theory that the Slavs were assimilated in large numbers by the Magyars is erroneous. They did not live in large numbers in the Carpathian Basin in the ninth century. Their numbers were insignificant at that time compared to the autochthonous ancient populace of Pannonia who were not Slavs. The situation is the reverse here. The numbers of the Hungarians decreased after centuries of long continuous wars against the Tartars, the Turks and the Hapsburgs and the Slavs were later able to absorb them into their numbers. Therefore there was no Hungarian oppression against them.
CONT
The Wends were maybe the only group of Slavs which lived in a larger organized group in the territory of Western Hungary. They were the ones who pushed the Hungarians out of the territory of Õrség, in Vas county and Hetés, in Zala county. These Wend people became good Hungarian supporters because at the time of Trianon, they opposed the break from Hungary.
The Pan-Slavists advocate that the political border of the territory of Moravia was at the Rába River in Pannonia but Macartney questions this. He states: „We have no evidence that Pannonia was ever a part of Moravia.” Edward Gibbon was of the same opinion: „That ample and fertile land was loosely occupied by the Moravians.” These statements emphasize that, at the time of Árpád, not the Slovaks, but the Moravian Slavs lived in scattered settlements, without organization, in the western territories of the Carpathian Mountains. The existence of the Moravian Empire is still without proof. Even now, nobody knows the name or the location of the supposed capital. Now probably the Slavs could bring up the counter-accusation that the Hungarians do not know where the capital of Atilla was located. However, according to Dabas, the Empire of Atilla was four centuries earlier than the supposed Moravian Empire and recently, his capital has been found in the Pilis Mountains near Esztergom. The Moravian Empire was nothing more than a union of tribes.
The Slav distortions are so reckless that they state that the Hungarians learned agriculture from them, when it is a well-known fact in the scientific world that “they lived miserably, from hand to mouth.”
Hot Poof – please give the references when quoting someone, so that the context can be verified. Looking at the comments, I think you have misunderstood them, or misquoted them.
“Dickhead wright!!” I would however previously the jerk that runs this site deletes any reference or link! the Author is Botos Laszlo.
http://www.magtudin.org/Northern%20Hungary.htm
Hot Poof – Thanks for the indirct reference. Now, I have to check if that Botos dude (who looks like another Hungarian nationalist) used it in the Wright context.
I dunno bout deleting links. Maybe you should read and quote from the books directly. Looks like the dude was talking about Slavs in the 8th & 9th century having a rudimentary economy. Wow, who would’ve thunk it.
Botos Laszlo and his wife Margarat don’t belong to any political party, he is a neutral Hungarian who loves his country and origins. I had the opportunity to meet him and share drinks one evening at his private residence and discussing with him History he lead me to these sources. All he is interested in is researching and presenting facts in his books, fantastic to have someone dedicated to revealing this information in English.
Impressive, this is the first time I heard of this writer, thanks for the link.
The Communists suppressed not only nationalism and its symbols, they also did their best to control and eventually eliminate Christianity and its churches.
To me, Communism is a religion, and the party is its church. And churches traditionally tolerate no competition. Convert or be destroyed. It was so in Hungary after 896. István’s father, Géza accepted Holy Roman Empire, and István took his religion so seriously that he later achived sainthood. But during his life he dealt harshly with those Magyars who opposed him. Magyars labeled simply pagans by the chroniclers. (There were other considerations as well, and debate about their nature has yet to cease.) There were riots, civil wars, and in the end, Roman Catholic domination of the newly organized Hungarian realm.
There have been Hungarian nationalists (and there are a number still) who see the establishment of the official state church in Hungary as little more than a German plot. That view stems from several later centuries of Habsburg rule, during which much as in Spain, also a Habsburg realm church and state existed in symbiosis with one another. What was good for the church was thought good for the country, and vice versa.
But the Reformation and the concurrent Turkish occupation of much of Hungary changed many a thing. From that point on, national populists were usually Protestants, while royalists tended to remain loyal Catholics.
continued;
In the 16th century it was religion which was the most important mark of a man, not national allegiance. The writers of the day speak of Magyar heroes in the same context as of Christian soldiers, and it turns out that either label could fit Germans, Croats and other groups subject to the Crown. In the 17th century, Count Miklós Zrínyi writes his famous epic of the Hungarian defense of Szigetvár (Fort Sziget) from the Moslems, in which many of the protagonists are Croats. Zrínyi himself, though a Hungarian aristocrat, was of prominent Croatian stock.
The symbols of Christianity need not be explained to the educated English reader: belief in the Bible as the Word of God, belief in Christ, in the resurrection (or eternal life), the Cross, the Holy Ghost, to mention but the most important, are symbols for Catholics and Protestants alike. The interpretation of these symbols may have differed from church to church and time to time, but all agree that those who have accepted them were or are Christians. There are additional symbols galore that are not universally Christian, e.g. the Papacy, the mass, the saints, the sign of the Cross. These are Catholic symbols and signs, rejected by most Protestant denominations. The chalice was – and has remained – a Protestant symbol of the Reformation, because the Catholics would only let the priests have a drink of wine during communion, not the congregation. But even they have relented since.
Dear Antal greetings to this thread!
I enjoyed hearing from a fresh intellectual voice. You sound well informed, and we can always use that here! This thread is quite lengthy by now, and you may enjoy reviewing it, (or a least parts of it!) if you haven’t already. I also appreciate people who take sides without utter insolence and resentment. Of that too, we have had a little too much lately. Some fresh air is definitely needed here.
I totally agree with your assesment of communism as a semi-religion. I’ve often heard and read this from others. It’s such an obvious fact that no astute and observant person can help noticing it. For the benefit of those who are too young to remember, or those old enough to know but in denial: Communism had a series of “infallible” founding authors, like Marx, Engels and Lenin or Mao. Their works became infallible “scripture” which could in no way be disagreed with, not even in the smallest deatail. Doubters were dealt with in a way reminiscent of the fanatical Catholic Inquisition in 16th century Spain. Differences of belief became severly criminalized. Even though it philosophically did not believe in the divine, it strangely believed in an absolute and incontrovertible truth. It was a non-theistic cult armed with unlimited temporal power.
Much as I detest it, it was the natural outcome of a feudal order; it was the “gift” of Russia’s backward nobles and Czar to all humanity.
Hello again Antal!
I also appreciate some of your comments on Hungarian history. I have expressed similar concerns about King Stephen. (see my posts far above on this thread.) The worst thing about the Catholic religion in the feudal days was that it was an ecnomically expensive cult for any country that played host to it. The church always seemd to wind up owning a fourth to a third of all the land not just in Hungary, but in Spain, Mexico and most other Latin nations. The priests did not fight or pay tax, and produced nothing concrete. Their wealth came from feudal serfs. Not a great exemplification of Gospel values. Such a wealthy and entrenched priesthood sided with political reaction. It was not in the interest of the clergy for people to become educated, economically emancipated or to have civil liberties, especially freedom of speech and press. Democracy was also unwelcome. Everything that defines the modern world was resisted tooth and nail by the priests.
Appreciate your point about the multi-ethnic nature of Hungarian history; we are actually all pretty mixed blooded. Nice to hear this after some of the other nonsense seen around here. One writer ranted on about our origins, and how we should not have minded being wasted by the Mongols in the 1200′s, being racially related to them! He was blinded by so much anger and resentment against us that he would grasp at straws and throw anything at us!
You add a nicer voice to this choir!
Kedves “Erős Paprika”
Köszönöm a támogatást! Úgy látszik hogy távoz tőlünk a szarjancsi; hát mennyen is. Na végre valami szépet írt itt! Veszekedjen a Szerbekkel; ők jobban tudják bemutatni neki a “vérszomjasságot”!
Laci
Dear Farkas Laszlo
Thanks for the warm welcome, and it does appear a colorful array of comments, not to mention the list of characters, this is kind of overall reaction expected with the amount of disinformation available so it takes time for one to research.
I read your comments about the St Istvan and Hungarian history and found it very well written, I hope it helps some people begin to check other resources available on politics and History. Have a pleasant evening I’m off to dinner to a nice Italian restaurant.
Szia Laci Kedves testi-lelki jóbarát
At last what an interesting dude, welcome Antal !enjoy your meal mate, what a breath of fresh air!
Dear László,
you saw what you wanted to and you pointed out what you wanted to. You seem not to be prepared, nor expecting indeed some reactions you can actually get when presenting certain opinions and coming from the people who actually do not stand by your side. If you had wanted to hide behind Hotpaprika, you wouln’t have had to hide behind hungarian language. It’s simple when speaking, but much more difficult when writing.
PS: I wish you Happy (late) birthday.
I am very stimulated here, but perhaps in a way that a few here may not like or appreciate.
No Serb, no Slovak and no Romanian here can tell me and the Hungarian people to “forget Trianon”, unless that Hungarians get some significant financial compensation. In order for us to forget that it all happened, and to retire our old maps, we will need the size of payoff that our poor neighbors don’t have the wealth for. So here it is: the money will have to come from their “Great Power” sponsors of 1919, who to this day are still very rich. I let our impoverished neighbors off the hook, but now I just want to financially rape the US, Britain and France. We need not “b” as in “boy” billions, but “t” as in “Tom” trillions for what happened. (Ezer milliárdok!) We need compensation not just for lost territory, but for being written off and tossed to the Russians at Yalta. (Maybe Russia also needs to be included in the defendant list as well.) No Slovak here has given me any reason for “forgetting Trianon”, quite to the contrary! Nor do I appreciate any of them insolently questioning Hungary’s economic performance, when they themselves would not have the kind of wealth that it would take for us to forgive and forget.
I don’t hide behind pseudonyms like “vdx”, I give my real name for a special reason: I truly stand behind what I say here, and I am ready to die for it.
My apologies to the broader English audience when I write in Hungarian.
Do you recall that wonderful American TV show “I Love Lucy” from the 1950′s? Whenever his dingbat wife would get to be a little too much for him, Ricky Ricardo would switch from English to fast and frustrated Spanish! Well, it’s the same with me. When I write in English here I try to deal in ideas and policy. When I write in Hungarian, I deal in personal frustration, which I would like to spare our English speaking friends. There are a few really good Hungarian men here. However I would like to hear from a few more who know English and have balls.
I am ready to take my concerns to the halls of government and diplomacy. I am not content to just sound off on a website.
@Farkas Laszlo
From the Heart and Soul, genuine words of wisdom.
United we stand!
You don’t have to repeat twice you’re ready to die for what you say, it’s just quite obvious from your words, believe me, I’m not that blind. You say you would welcome financial compensation. And how would you justify such request in the light of your associates’ efforts to retrieve your (allegedly) opressed citizens abroad? Consolidate your requests at first or get them in line at least before putting them out.
Concerning your retribution request itself just let me quote one of slovak signatories Štefan Osuský signing Trianon treaty (free translation):
“When at quarter to five an July 4th 1920 I put my name under the memorandum bearing the name “Trianon”, I knew I’m signing up for the settlement of slovak nation with former H-Ungary, pay bill signed from upside down by blood, suffering and destitution of my nation. And such accounting is eternal”.
Good luck in politics.
The history of Hungary was written by the West. History is usually written by the victors. Hungarian history, as the West knows it, was written by the enemies of the Hungarians, by those who conquered them and who wished to keep them under their dominance. Hungary has been occupied by various nations in the past, the Austrians, the Turks and, most recently, the Soviets. The version of Hungarian history written by western historians has been reproduced for centuries and is even taught in Hungarian schools as “Hungarian history”. At the time that these historians were writing, they did not have the knowledge available to us today through the auxiliary sciences of archeology, anthropology and linguistics.”
Now we can use this knowledge to rewrite Magyar history, I want to highlight that much of the History written of indigenous Aboriginals North and South America, New Zealand and Australia have had there history rewritten as discoveries have been made, however it’s so unusual that in Hungary there is still an entity of powerful invisable dictatorship existing,too taboo! if released it would turn the world politics on it’s head. Chew on that thought.
adjon az Isten !!
Fárkas L
Thanks and yes ! Egybe vagunk
Dear Antal
You hit the nail on the head here and as you can well see there are some people awakening and others who are too stubborn to let go of their ego’s , and they will remain on this lower plain vibrating in Hell, while people with a higher understanding will rise above them, so yes mate the people or dictators that you mention have been there a long time and will remain, however there percentage will shrink and ours will only increase, so keep spreading the truth as best you understand it and we will prevail Szebb Jovot!
Hi Antal/Anthony,
The important particulars of our history, especially the events of the 20th Century, are not much in contention as they regard us. Especially the territorial reductions and gains and re-reductions. These were all the result of formal treaties whose documentary evidence is not in dispute by historians. We have been invited here to forget Trianon. Trianon certainly happened! So what say you? My real issue is not the history that the victors wrote, but what they did in real life, whose effects are still with us to this day.
How about this: Let’s migrate to a Serbian website and ask them to forget about Kosovo! After all, if we are to forget about Trianon, it’s only fair to ask the Serbs to forget about Kosovo. (They’ve been wallowing in self pity over Kosovo since 1389!) There is a mostly Albanian population there now that would rather fight than see them back. Should Serbia forget about Bosnia and the Krajina? It of course would be inconsistent to say that the Serbs should retain their claims while we abandon ours.
We have also been labeled as “bloodthirsty” on this thread. Let me ask something: are the Croats and Serbs bloodthirsty? After all, the memory of the horrendous violence of the 1990′s is still fesh in my mind. It was the most sickening thing: “rape camps”, forced ethnic expulsions, paramilitaries, over a million refugees, mostly women and children. It all makes me want to vomit still.
Hi folks, here is a link where we can ask of the Serbs what vdx is asking of us, namely that we forget about our territorial issues:
http://serbiablog.blogspot.com/.
It is also important that we of course call them “bloodthirsty”! Then sit back and watch the reception we get. We’ll see how polite they are! If you want to add to the fun, don’t say you are Hungarian, but a Croat! (Further seasoning would be added by saying you are an Ustasha!)
Just to show I’m a fair guy and don’t want to pick on just Serbs, here is a Croatian blog:
http://pollitika.com/
Don’t forget to call yourself a Chetnik and decry Croat bloodthirstiness! Then sit back and watch the fun! We just might reignite another European war!
Don’t get me wrong. As a Hungarian I don’t care who runs Kosovo, whether it’s NATO, the Albanians or the Serbs, because to me, it’s not a Hungarian issue. I might even support a Serbian takover, if they will cut a peaceful deal with us over Vojvodina, something that might involve a combination of plebescite and cash transfer. That is a more civilised proposition than what they gave their enemies! At least we will not be shelling Belgrade, like Sarajevo was shelled!
Peace love dove!
Farkas Laszlo.
A new project is about to start hopefully in the near future,I think you would be very interested in it,both to contribute and to comment. Hot Paprika is already on board.
It is not politically motivated or sponsored by any party.
Interested ???
Israel has occupied Gaza for over 40 years, and look at the bloodshed launched over this land which was stolen from Palestinian, and it’s well documented that the Israel killers are breaking international law, double standards for these murdering so called Human rights supporters, there the biggest killers of the period of modern history. God bless Palestine!
Hi Ricsi,
Yes!!!!!!
Egybe vagyunk, ügye??????
Laci
Hotpaprika,
Check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6VoR5I2dTQ
It’s a ten-part video, a fair, unbiased comprehensive history of zionism and the occupation of Palestine. You’ll see interviews with many Israeli Jews who also condemn the mistreatment of Palestinians and blame their own government for the crisis. It’s a great video, well worth the time to watch and learn the truth.
@Stan
Thanks mate I uploaded the video on my facebook, and spreading the news to the help raise awareness, anyone that has some sort of way of spreading this news please use your utmost networking ability, there is a demonstration against the attack on Palestine this wednesday 6pm (Budapest, II. ker. Józsefhegyi út 28-30. szám)
Farkas László,
so this is how people go mad. Don’t be so touchy, no one is asking you to forget, coping with it would be fairly sufficient.
Hi Hotpapri,
Thx I read your comment carefully.
Of course,what I learned all my life is totally different from much of what was said here.I do not have a certificate of wisdom and neither am I over 100years old in order to have witnessed any of my allegations-of course,neither is any of us.
Yet given what you wrote,I come to ask, in whose interest would be putting the history of centuries so much in favor of such small,unsignificant nation and country.If it was France and Germany,I wouldnt ask,but like this…maybe you have an answer.
As I said,I see the key for reconciliation in an objective due diligence of history books of both countries.If both live convinced in good faith! of information being so contradictory,the chances are slim or close to none.
Hotpaprika,
Why protest at the consulate of Palestine?
Why not go to the Israeli embassy instead and ask them nicely to leave Hungary and never come back?
Recognizing Israel as a legitimate state is supporting it. We don’t want that. Let’s face it, the creation of Israel was a huge mistake, just like the creation of Slovakia, Romania or Yugoslavia. Time to restore borders.
@ Stan
It’s just that we dont want to clash with the Droids, a peaceful demonstration to help support the Palestinian cause, It was a surprise for me the location.
@Sue
This is upto you to make the ultimate Decision, when and if you ever do then you will begin to see a whole lot of answers not only historically but spritually unfold, right before your eyes, it all goes hand in hand the awakening process, and when this occurs especially talking from my experience you will see why hitory has been oppressed, it’s an old tactic that has been used by the elite for centuries.. thats why I like Hungarians because many of them are awoken to the chaos behind world events, and I have chosen this land as my homeland, the energy being generated from here is tremendous.
@Sue
You don’t have to be over 100 years old, the evidence is there just that you have to make a chose, much of history only certain percentage of the evidence and it’s up to your interpretation and intuition, to decide no one can force this upon you. Nobody in this realm has 100% of the truth it’s all up to your perception and as you begin the awakening process your other sense has a big part to play in the duality of the analytical mind, so biggest challenge is letting go of previous belief systems, traditions and stepping back and seeing the trees from the forest, and honestly Hungarian a that I have come in contact with are not wanting violence but a way of solving this through love and awareness, it’s the Elite agenda making us seem like the culprits, so chill out and take your time to absorb new teachings and don’t let your ego take over your emotions.
“Hi Ricsi,
Yes!!!!!!
Egybe vagyunk, ügye??????
Laci
This last post supposedly written by me, was not.
There is a problem with imposters on this website, given the easy open process by which anyone can post, or use an existing username. The web administrator should consider changes, such as requiring passwords.
The real Laci
“This last post supposedly written by me, was
not.”
Akkor, már nem vagyunk egybe??????
“The web administrator should consider changes,
such as requiring passwords.”
Here here!!!!!! With email addresses,
fingerprinting and passport numbers.
The real Laci
Fárkás
It looks like the children are playing on Daddy’s computer again ! pathetic morons.
Mr Farkas, this was such an excellent thread I was wondering if you had any more input on how to resolve the current war of words between Slovakia and Hungary? And has this situation died down a little with the cold weather now occurring. Is Hungary still demanding an explanation for the actions of the Slovakian police force?
Thank you Szekes.
The web administration here, or lack thereof, threw me for a little bit. I don’t like being impersonated- and I appeal publicly to the website owners and managers to delete any posts made under my username, that don’t match my original email address, which should be known and retrievable to them. People who counterfeit me only make fools of themselves. I consider such activity to be unworthy of anybody who has any reflection to share with the rest of us.
Hello again Szekes!
About the Slovak-Hungarian “competition”. In our part of Europe, there is an ugly reality; one that persists throughout the centuries. If you want to “see” the point, start checking out some good historical atlases. What even the most casual observer of such a work can’t help but notice, is that territorial change seems to be a dynamic, ongoing, unstoppable and inevitable process throughout Europe. It has been so in the past since the beginning of recorded history, and I don’t see how it could “freeze” forever from here on and stop. (Look back on what changes to the map of Europe occured in the 1990′s, with the Yugo dissolution!)
Why is this so? My answer is that there are too many nationalities and competing nationalisms, in too small a space, with too many conflicting grievances and claims. You put too many rabbits in a cage together, and they start biting each other!
Remember those seemingly useless “Venn Diagrams” in grade school math class? They DO come in useful in illustrating the problem around here. Slovakia and Hungary are “intersecting sets”, as are notions of “Greater Serbia”, “Greater Hungary” and “Greater Croatia”! (The real Hungarian nationalists would hold that Slovakia and Croatia are “subsets” of the Hungarian state, and not “intersecting sets”!) I say everyone is entitled to their nationalism; the real problem is always dividing the territories involved, in light of the fact that it might be claimed by two or more countries.
(More for Szekes)
Slovak-Hungarian tension is inevitable under the circumstances. I’m being a realist. It’s not how it should be, but it’s how it is. I don’t predict any improvement in relations any time soon; on the contrary, they may get worse.
The real problem is that both parties are small territorially, and so for one to ask the other to make territorial concessions, would not be well received. Neither nations are among the richest tier of world or European economies, and so do not have the self-confidence and sense of power that goes with real wealth. (Nations as small or smaller than Hungary and Slovakia, like Luxembourg, Netherlands and Lichtenstein, seem to be more content and rich!) We have not had the hisory that Western Europe draws from, so things will be different here.
I was once poignantly asked if our neighbors are enemies to me. No, they are not. As long as things don’t erupt into violence, they are competitors only. I once told a Romanian friend it’s like this: Translyvania is like a ball in a football match that keeps changing hands between teams. A ball does not “belong” to either team; there is no signed deed from God! It rather is in the possesion or control of the stronger team. I see it all as a big game, with high stakes. No cause for hate and violence! He was a smart young man,and immediately saw my point. We shook hands and parted as friends, even though he fully understood that I would like to bite off a big piece of his country!
F L
Beautifully put ! Thanks
Thank you Ricsi!
I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you about the project you mentioned. I had some misgivings about this website recently, where I realize anyone could pose as any one of us; it all becomes a mirror maze. Send your email address to the webmaster here, who will then kindly forward it to me. They know my email address.
“Az igazi Laci”
I strongly recommend to my readership the study of historical atlases; the perspective they afford is unique and different from that of just reading narrative text. Some of my life-long favorites are:
Großer Historischer Weltatlas. – München : Bayerischer Schulbuch-Verlag (3 vols., in German, expensive), available at http://www.abebooks.com and http://www.amazon.com
This is the absolute top of the line; three big volumes, one for antiquity, the second for the middle ages, and the last volume for modern times. Knowing German helps of course, but any historically literate person could make out what is shown, it’s that visual. It’s a funny thing to say perhaps, but seen this way, European history starts to look like a slow motion cartoon! Nations grow, get smaller, disappear and reappear! Very amoeba-like!
William R Shepherd’s “Historical Atlas”-1929, (in English) available online to us at the Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection website at:
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/history_shepherd_1923.html
In Hungarian, there is the work of Cartographia, known to all Hungarians for publishing school editions of their historical atlas, as well as library hardcover editions, available at:
http://www.cartographiaonline.com/export/fooldal.vm
These works are “old school” cartography, which I prefer. Many other modern competing works feature weird off angle orthographic projections and air-brush delineations instead of lines. Go with the good stuff!
All the genuine Hungarian patriots we have to stick together and not let these rats deter us, this is exactly what the provocateurs on this site and many others are out there doing, singling us out and ridiculing us, the old divide and rule, so if we can back one another up even if we don’t agree on all our views, our most important objective is we are for Hungarians, Szebb Jovot
hp, you all ridicule yourselves, you don’t need
our help. We just feel embarrassed for you.
didn’t take long for the Rat to appear
An Israeli student finishes high school without ever hearing the name “Genrikh Yagoda,” the greatest Jewish murderer of the 20th Century, the GPU’s deputy commander and the founder and commander of the NKVD.Within a short period of time, Cheka became the largest and cruelest state security organization. Its organizational structure was changed every few years, as were its names: From Cheka to GPU, later to NKVD, and later to KGB. We cannot know with certainty the number of deaths Cheka was responsible for in its various manifestations, but the number is surely at least 20 million, including victims of the forced collectivization, the hunger, large purges, expulsions, banishments, executions, and mass death at Gulags.
In 1934, according to published statistics, 38.5 percent of those holding the most senior posts in the Soviet security apparatuses were of Jewish origin.Even if we deny it, we cannot escape the Jewishness of “our hangmen,” who served the Red Terror with loyalty and dedication from its establishment. After all, others will always remind us of their origin.
Sourced http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3342999,00.html
It angers me at times that the collective memory of communism in the west is fast fading. It seems like something that everybody would prefer to forget about. “Truth” mentions an important part of the picture, and that side of it has been totally unrepresented in the western media. Today, Jews have almost no collective recollection of their complicty in the crimes of the Soviet regime. They have been good at endlessly portraying the Nazi evils, but the Soviet system has never been played up for what it really was. I also predict that the story will not “get out”; I don’t anticipate any major Hollywood productions depicting the horrors of the Soviet system. It’s a story that Hollywood “types” don’t want to acknowledge or hear about.
In the west, Jews are congenital liberals, and liberals have always been in denial, or ignorant of the totalitarian nature of communism. They always preferred to see it in idealistic terms. It was silly sentimental idealism that prompted Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to sell the secret of the bomb to the Russians. They just didn’t think it right that the big bad US, their own country, should be the only country with nukes!
The problem with the nationalities that suffered under communism, is that none of their people are clever enough, or well positioned enough in the world media as are Jews. That’s the one thing I really admire about the Jews, that they know how to influence the media. We could all learn from that!
A fairly recent poll shows that only 25% of the American public thinks Hollywood is controlled (owned) by Jews. Down from 50% of the previous results. Jews actually complained to ADL, because they have proof that most of Hollywood is really controlled by them, and they are pretty proud of it. So the sad truth is, the American public is manipulated, they believe whatever is being fed to them. Israel can do anything it wants, the big bully will always protect it.
According to the Jewish controlled media and Hollywood, the 20th century was a barrel of laughs, no one was ever hurt or killed, except for the sacred “Holocaust”, which is the only tragedy in the history of mankind, and everyone should always be nice to Jews or else. I dunno…
FL,
let’s not forget the British contribution to the Soviet bomb:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cairncross
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Nunn_May
and more convolutedly:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Fuchs
None of these were Jews.
I think the problem you rightly identify – “the Soviet system has never been played up for what it really was.” – has come about because support for Communism in the mid-20th century was endemic among intellectuals. Co-incidently Jews have been over represented in intellectualism since Maimonides. As Paul Johnson writes “to acquire authority [in Jewish society], family mattered and commercial success was useful, but scholarship was essential” (A history of the Jews, p. 183).
The failure of western liberal intellectuals to acknowledge the evil of Communism has nothing to with their commitment to Jewish causes; Martin Amis combines a disgust for this hyprocrisy with emotional support for Israel (Korba the dread, Experience). The horrors of Stalinism were brought home to me most concretely by Anne Applebaum (Gulag: a history), and Faludy György (My happy days in Hell) both Jews.
What we all could learn from the Jews is to put learning at the heart of our culture – but that was a idea the Jews took from the ancient Greeks.
Hi Sophist, good post!
My favorite Jew who “woke up and smelled the coffee” was early 20th century anarchist, Emma Goldman. She and her man were thrown out of the US after WW1, along with a lot of other leftists.(At that time, the US President had broad discretion to throw out of the country any foreign born person considered an “undesirable”) They were packed on a boat and sent to Soviet Russia! She too, believed in liberal fairy tales about Bolshevism, until she had the “pleasure” of living under it first hand! She managed to make it out of that hell-hole and ended up writing two books called “My Disillusionment in Russia” (1923), followed by “My Further Disillusionment in Russia”(1924). Both of these works are a fantastic read, I strongly recommend to you all to read them, available in full text online at:
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/goldman/GoldmanCW.html
Liberals aren’t the only ones who don’t want to know anything bad about communism. The French and many Italians can be just as idiotic. In those countries, many people still vote Communist or sympathise with it. They are ignorant of the Soviet system, and prefer to remain that way. I once explained to a French woman, who was around 50 (old enough to know better), that East block communism was totalitarian and oppressive. She responded with a utterly surprised and astonished “REALLLLLY!?. One would suppose she just saw a cat walk across the ceiling…..
The mention of Martin Amis by Sophist was a good addition to this discussion. He, along with the famous Christopher Hitchens, have eloquently written on and questioned liberal historical amnesia and denial about Stalinism. I too have read Amis’ “Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million (2002)” (Koba was a nickname of Stalin’s), and strongly recommend it as reading to you all.
The Martin Amis website is: http://www.martinamisweb.com/,
For Christopher Hitchens, go to: http://www.hitchensweb.com/
FL,
thanks for the links!
Sophist: good nick, secondary definition fits you well. Re: Stalinism, Applebaum and Faludy. I would have started with the Gulag Archipelago myself but as you brought up Applebaum again, please read this: http://www.sras.org/finnish-americans_in_the_soviet_union. As it turns out, political motivation played a great part in Finns going to the USSR, many were well off and came “to help the Soviet Union build socialism”, but even for those for whom the motivation was economic, I still maintain that they had a “right” to emigrate there because of the reasons I stated as opposed to EU8 economic migrants coming to the newer EU member states today. They were, of course, purged, same with many other nationalities who returned in several waves. The wave of purges (migration or escape) of communal, social, democratic thinking people left more of the kind of the people the region who purged them, leaving a hugely corrupt and antisocial elite perfect for the incoming global paradigm. Same with China after Mao. I still find it hard to believe that you truly see any sort of similarity but to clarify something you wrote, you called my calling those skilled workers idealization, because you were in Russia in 1992 and found nothing there “wonderful”. Well of course you didn’t. (But you were in a perfect position to see what low breed of expat invaded Russia then, which is why your response to my post was dishonest. Not as dishonest though as anon’s, because he is researching the topic.)
Sophist cont. Apologies for being off topic on the above post, but everyone else seems to be as well, and Pesticide is so distasteful.
Thanks for the link on the Finnish Americans, I can’t get the link to work at present – “404 Error” – do I need a login? Is the link a response to Applebaum’s work, or research that she overlooked?
As for dishonesty – I would hope we have got beyond this see post 196 on
http://www.pestiside.hu/20081104/its-official-hungarians-sort-of-love-sortof-black-people/
The forums are what we make them, and I don’t see much dishonesty just honest disagreement and misunderstanding. For the record, the professional calibre of ex-pats in Russia was higher than in Hungary (or especially Prague) at the same time – it was difficult to get into Russia. But I suppose since these were people working for multinational companies, you regard them – like me – as a low breed. Still as I tell my children “sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me”.
sophist – you need to remove the trailing full-
stop from the link (often the trailing characters
get mistaken for part of this link, always start
by deleting these first, one at a time, to see if
that works). As for dishonesty Tünde should know
all about it. She claims to have got most of her
education in the Anglosphere, whereas she got her
degrees in Budapest.
I B
Who cares were she obtained her degree’s or got her training ? It is her message that counts and I for one find a lot more intelligence in her comments than yours usually.At least she realises the problems facing Hungary and wants to do something about them.Trying to belittle her ‘degrees’ or ‘training’ is not productive and does no favours for you.
Kedves Mr. Farkas! Thank you very much for sharing your intellect and passion for history. I’ve said it before and will repeat it again, I’ve learned more real history and cultural opinion from this blog than I have from all other internet research that I have pursued. I appreciate the time and energy that you and others contribute to making this forum so interesting and informative!
Now another question…as a conservative, should Fidesz be the party I should support. I like Victor Orban but I don’t know how much influence he still has.
Not so Innocent Bystander,
thanks for sorting out my bad link.
Tunde,
thanks again for the link, the paper is very interesting, Applebaum only cites Gelb for her source: Weidenhamer cites Gelb and many, many others. I will try to find the Gelb paper and see if Applebaum has misrepresented him, or Weidenhamer has overlooked his claims about the motivation of the Finnish Americans. The claim “Most Finnish-Americans, however, did not go for primarily economic reasons. Many of them were fairly well-off economically, owning homes, cars, farm equipment, and the like. They paid their own way to the Soviet Union, and they emigrated with entire families” comes from a source published in Moscow in 1987 – you’ll expect me to be prejudicially sceptical about this, but I’ll try to read this paper as well.
I don’t care where you got your degrees, but I’d like to know how your English got so good.
Szekes,
“I like Victor Orban but I don’t know how much influence he still has.”
There’s a good post about Orban’s prospects today on
http://esbalogh.typepad.com/hungarianspectrum/2009/01/again-new-party-structure-in-fidesz.html
Orbán is a real politician, I wouldn’t write him off, especially in his prime.
Szekes
You must vote for who you think will be of the most benefit in the coming hard times,let nobody tell you,you must seek the path for yourself.— but I will say one thing ,their is NO REAL DIFFERENCE today between Mszp and Fidesz.Do some reading up and find the way ! Good luck
Hello Szekes!
I agree with Ricsi on the political question. My efforts here are focused more on strategic questions, rather than political personalities and day to day changes. For a country like Hungary, just like for most any other nation, the real way to find out what works and what doesn’t is through trial and error. This is unfortunately “expensive” in terms of time, mistakes and lost opportunity cost. Decades could be wasted, chances missed etc. Every country that ever achieves anything worthwhile nonetheless has to go through this. Also, what works in one country might not work in another. My effort here is addressed to the Hungarian people and their friends abroad. With some exceptions, politicians are generally not “leaders”; they are followers; they are no better than the mob that elected them.
I appreciate your appreciation! We should keep this particular thread going and not let it fade. Much of what I have been saying here has been inside of me for many years, before many of our current leaders achieved maturity!
Fárkás
How do I contact the webmaster ??
I want to import an issue from another thread, concerning the VAT (Value added Tax), by way of illustration as to how hard it is to make choices sometime.
Let’s say you have three politicians. “A” says jack up the VAT. “A” then wants to spend the money obtained on social welfare spending. “B” does not want to raise the VAT and wants to go on as before. “C” wants to raise the VAT, but has a purposeful plan for using the windfall for new economic, educational and physical infrastructure. When you look at it this way, the waters have gotten a little muddier! There are costs and risks with each option. I’m a bit drawn towards “C”‘s idea, but it also carries big risks. “C” may not have the clout or political longevity to make his grand plan stick. Then there is corruption. Or the money may not end up in the right places. There is also a question of how long a VAT should continue; give it 5 years? Perpetuity?
I am generally not in favor of tax increases, especially ones like VAT, which are regressive (i.e. rich or poor, pay the same amount.) But sometimes you have to “pay the piper”, one way or the other. Given the massive indebtedness of the nation, and the global downturn, some new tax source may need to be found. I still say zoning and carefully restricting legal cannabis in such a way that we fleece the foreigners is a better way to go than imposing VAT on Hungarians!
Hello Ricsi,
Here it is: editors@politics.hu (Taken from the very bottom of this page, after you click “Contact Us”)
Good luck in getting a response or cooperation! When I wrote to them about my concerns re impersonation, as well as what precautions might be taken against it, I did not get a reply. Too bad. Allowing impersonation ultimately undermines the better authors of any blog forum, and what you end up with is something akin to a mud-pie fight in a Three Stooges film, rather than a credible discussion space.
Farkas
YES ,I have seen that and wrote previously,but also got no reply !! I will try again.
Hello again Szekes!
Today is Martin Luther King Day in the US, and Black Americans are about to see one of their own become US President. This is a time of intense aspirations and dreams for them. Let me take this moment to shre with you my dream:
I want to see a new, upcoming breed of young Magyars who think in terms of creating and influencing their own leaders, and not the other way around. The latter is the way of the serf; the former the way of men of power and dignity.
Szebb Jövőt!
László
Hello Mr. Farkas, I find your comments very encouraging! For many years I have felt that Magyars were stuck in a malaise of self pity and were not making any real contributions towards becoming a great nation once again.
This floundering back and forth as they try to determine the government that is right them, the lack of of continued economic growth, and worse of all….the exodus of intelligent, hard working young Hungarians as they pursue greater economic benefits outside the country. If what you see is the beginning of a sense of nationality that grows towards rebuilding the country and culture of Hungary then I am enthused. The only question I have is are there enough individuals with the drive left to make this a movement or would you consider this still in its infancy?
Nationalism … is like cheap alcohol. First it makes you drunk, then it makes you blind, then it kills you.
—Daniel Fried
Joe, or would you prefer Djugashvili, since the antithesis of Nationalism is Communism. You seem to confuse the desire to form a cultural national entity with the footsteps of Stormtroopers in the night! A people become great when they can share common ideals and morals, the backbone of culture, not when they share the mantra of “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”! Once you can get away from what appears to be your desire for a “One World Government” you might be able to see that unity breeds strength in a nation.
You are in the “drunk” stage, Szekes!
For Comrade Commissar JOE(SEPH STALIN)
“Most people who read “The Communist Manifesto” probably have no idea that it was written by a couple of young men who had never worked a day in their lives, and who nevertheless spoke boldly in the name of “the workers”.”
Thomas Sowell
“Communism is in conflict with human nature.”
Ernest Renan
“Communism means barbarism”
James Russell Lowell
“Communism is like Prohibition, it’s a good idea but it won’t work”
Will Rogers
“Communism is the corruption of a dream of justice.”
“Communism is the death of the soul. It is the organization of total conformity – in short, of tyranny – and it is committed to making tyranny universal.
Adlai E. Stevenson
“Communism doesn’t work because people like to own stuff.”
Frank Zappa
So, Gandi, it looks like you’ve tried that cheap alcohol too.
Give it a rest. Nationalism ain’t gonna take you anywhere, not in 2009.
Joe, your idealogy never worked or will work, people are waking up to your lies!
Nationalism in 2009? Joe, why don’t you look at the makeup of the European Parliament, majority is now centre-right and right wing parties, not to mention that left-wing governments are collapsing like dominos all over Europe, kinda reminds you of the breakup of your beloved Soviet Union….
P.S. Thanks yo Irish Patriots, we no longer have Lisbon Treaty….
Gandi is losing it. Talk about cheap alcohol!!
Mr. Joe, since I don’t imbibe and Mr. Gandi, if he follows his namesake refrains also, it would be difficult to accuse us of being under the influence.
Unless of course, the only way you can defend your ideology is to throw out personal attacks, then your weak attempt to refute our logic becomes very evident.
@Szekes – your logic is flawed. Joe simply dissed your support of Hungarian nationalism. You made the wrong logic of equating that to him supporting communism, and then calling him Stalin. Personal attacks?
I agree with his statement about nationalism. It tends to pull societies further apart, simply because it is usually driven by the unintelligent who can only elicit support through emotions and passions rather than by intelligence and logic.
@UJ
You consistently ridicule and if it doesn’t agree with your view then you attack the persons intellect as if deprived, you should look in the mirror and not judge, again Szekes and Ghandi have more Logic then your theory and silly chidish behavior
Hello Szekes and everyone else!
The national pride and drive that I appeal to here is more akin to the pep talk a coach gives his team before the big game (even though he feels they may lose!), or rather also like giving smelling salts to a person passed out on the floor! I feel the Hungarians, like a lot of other neighboring peoples, are in a “prone position” right now, and urgently in need of revival. The nation in question must be brought back on it’s feet, readjust to walking around and being a “mensch” again! With the renewed vigor, comes the responsibility to do something constructive. Whoever we are, Magyar or anyone else, we have to sublimate our national drive for power and assertiveness through constructive pursuits, particularly economic ones. I don’t see any other way for long term peaceful coexistence.
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Dear Szekes, the self pity and other characteristics that you identify, sadly enough, run throughout the region. Some peoples have it worse than others, but once you get to know, you realize that most nationalities in the region are processing some degree of past hurt, paranoia and victimhood. It is a function of being small nations, caught up in big past events like wars, and never feeling in charge of their destiny. It is also the legacy of feudalism and communism, hardly builders of self-confidence! Welcome to the club! It’s a big tent, with many nationailites in it!
I wish to clarify just what sort Hungarian patriot I am, as I feel there has been some concern. I am a Pragmatist; I’m up on history, but am not a dreamer stuck in some political past. I care about what fits the current international trends and climate that we have to work in.
Hence, I want to plainly state that I do not agree with, or promote:
1930′s style “blood purity” questions. I do not care about the purity of ones ancestry or lineage. We are all very mixed here, that is a fact, and it is true on both sides of my family. People none the less stongly identify with one regional nationality or another, and that is the fact.
Second, should there be any further territorial revisions in the future in the Hungarians’ favor, I want them to come by peaceful, legal means, within current international law. I also do not advocate “forced Magyarization” of minorities. What I would like to see in Hungary is that suctioning effect that you have in the US; people assimilite, not because they were forced to, but because it was desirable and made sense.
What I do hope has come to an end in this region is organized state military and paramilitary violence directed at nationalities, especially minorities. Of that our sad part of Europe has seen more than enough. It is a moral responsibility that rests with us all.
Nice sentiments, Farkas László, but your words, perhaps inadvertently, only encourages the nationalists on this forum.
And you yourself have used the expression “Szebb Jövőt” which, if I remember correctly, was the expression used by Hungarians who did promote “blood purity.”
I think Erick Fromm hit the nail on the head when he said, “Nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is our insanity. “Patriotism” is its cult.”
Hello Joe
I want to rouse all Hungarians, especially to economic pursuits. What they do with that “arousal” will of course have to be worked out in a (hopefully) democratic political process. I know that there will be an extreme nationalist element- a condition common to the region. The real question is can such a group get very far in the modern world? Will they get their way vis a vis Brussels or Washington? Will they convince a majority of Hungarians in a free election?
I am much more concerned about further economic stagnation fueling political extremism, be it of the left or right. We don’t have much of a history of handling systemic crises democratically in this part of Europe. We are getting practice at it right now.
Szekes mentions the self pity, and boy do I know it! I’ve heard it all my life from other, especially older Hungarians. Trianon fuels endless self-pity, and hence I consider it to be a potentially dangerous treaty that still may end up causing trouble in the future. The approach I have taken here is like a bomb squad expert, trying to defuse something that could quite well blow up someday. I have challenged the Hungarians to think creatively about the situation. If they don’t like their current borders, well let them engage in the economic and diplomatic game-playing. So long as there is no shooting, what’s the harm? If we fail, we at least wind up with a few more assets and friends than when we were still passed out on the floor!
Why not just promote minority rights in neighbouring countries? That way, Hungarian can flourish not only in Hungary but in Romania, Slovakia, Serbia and other neighbouring countries with Hungarian minorities. In fact, in the Burgenland area of Austria, Hungarian is an official language. I think that is the model that would enhance our culture and language. Forget about borders in the EU. They will become as meaningless as borders in Canada or the US.
Hello again Joe,
The Erick Fromm quete made me want to add another point about the problem of nationalism in the region, and it is a region wide issue not just confined to the Hungarians.
I see nationalism as part of the fabric of life and identity in the region. At times, this causes no problems; at other times, it flares up an results in anything, up to and icluding war.
The realist in me says that nationalism is alive and well in the region, can flare up anytime, and is not likey to go away in our lifetimes. The recent Yugo wars should give us something all to think about. It’s like a strong wind blowing across the landscape, you can’t stop it or order it out of existence. You do have a choice of just letting it do damage, or harnessing it with windpower. I suggest tha we take local nationalism, whatever the flavor, and harness it constructively. People need some kind of motivator to put their nations to useful work. If anyone is unhappy with their boundaries, let there be an organized process within international law, for that to be changed. I don’t want a replay of early 20th century history around here.
I believe it will take at least two more generations for there to be the possibility of economic development around here, that would unify our nations, rather than keep them apart.
Nationalism has been most buried or sublimated in those parts of Europe that have had booming peacetime post WW2 GDP growth.
I agree with most of what you say but I wish you would not use the expression “Szebb Jövőt” again. It is a nice greeting but politically it is very loaded.
http://www.szebbjovot.lapja.hu/
Farkas Lászlo
Guess what ?? No replies from my contact with the site master and even my personal message to Erik D’Amateur regarding impersonators .
Szebb jövőtt
In Dante’s Inferno, a poetic vision of Hell is given that includes different circles or pits, each reserved for a certain type of sin and punishment. There sinners stand in boiling blood, excrement or ice, each buried or covered to a different degree, depending upon their sinfulness. Some are in it only up to the ankles; other up to their eyeballs!
As you get to know people personally throughout Europe, or learn enough about the culture or politics and history of it’s different nations, the vision of Dante’s Hell comes up to me! In the pits marked “self pity” and “denial”, many, many Europeans wallow in. Some are only in it up to their ankles or waist, while others….
I hope that we get out “Inferno” and “Purgatorio”, and in to “Paradiso”. Dante does not suggest an easy, one step ascent. Rather a long and painful one with many steps.
So, for all you “Szebb jövőtt” folks, do you think Italians should reclaim Pannonia? It was a Roman province for a very long time.
Thanks Joe,
I meant exactly what the phrase means in English- which is a “Better future”, it was a heartfelt sentiment expressed to all and not a politically loaded one. I apologise for the confusion. I usually like to translate my short Hungarianisms for the benefit of the English only readers here, but did not do so in this case.
I accept your apology.
Farkas László
NEVER apologise for patriotism !
As for Pannonia ,what are you talking about Joe,raising this who should occupy what issue?
The Roman empire was almost 2000 years ago,Trianon was a little bit later !!
They are both history.
Joe dude, we’re really going today!
Here’s what. I do not wish to take away from Italy it’s sovereign right to raise a territorial issue. Nor do I take away that right from any other nation in Europe. Europe is a festering cauldron of such simmering claims, and I am again being very real with you. What I support is peaceful transition if this sort of thing again comes up in Europe, as I predict it will.
In the case of your example, I would support Italy’s right to go before an international body and argue for the restoration of Italian control over “Pannonia”. My friend, this is one proceeding I wouldn’t miss for the world! Pass the laughing gas! What credible argument could the Italians make that would hold water in this day and age? The territory is not adjacent to Italy, has no residual Italian population left, and control was lost 1700 years ago! Not much of a case is it.
Europe will need a negotiated process for such changes, one that may have to include cash transfers, internationally monitored plebescites etc. A lot of restrictions could also be imposed. One idea is “temporary sovereignty”, for like a 5 year period. The takeover nation is on probation for a period of time, if they have not governed well, they face a renewed election whose results could result in a transfer back to the original country. All of this is more civilised and sensible than what has gone on for the last 1000 years in Europe. What the rest of this century be like?
Following Joes logic, I respectively suggest Italy demands Judea back,that should keep those pesky jews under control again !
“What credible argument could the Italians make that would hold water in this day and age?”
Sure the idea is crazy but… There were Jews in the Holy Land a couple of thousand years ago. Today, because of (failed) European policy, the state of Israel exists.
Strange things can and do happen.
Hi Ricsi,
I knew it, sensed it. Boy do I feel their love!
I saw someone pulled this gag on you on another thread the other day. We are on our own here, very much like in the old American West. No law and order; every man carries his own six shooters! Still, beautiful things can happen and be built up, even under such circumstances.
I am happy to be on this blog, and am pleased to see people “revive” it, even after the the webmaster has allowed the link to pass out of sight a couple of times!
Hungarians Magyars Avar Hun Scyth Szekely Parthia are all related, and outdate the outdate the Romans, The Carpathian Basin has been homeland to the Hungarians before the Romans, unfortunately the text has been changed when the Holy Roman Empire rewrote History, so Romans had a short term occupation which was later conquered by Atilla the Hun Avars and the Magyars. Todays mainstream history books have been written by our enemies. Szebb Jovot im a proud patriot! I will never buckle to a Lefty Poof who ridicules and continuously laughs in the face of Hungarians. Joe fuck off!
Hello again Joe,
How the state of Israel was created, is for better or worse, a “done deal”. Looking forward, from here, I am concerned for Europe, and I suggest a process of sovereignty claims and territorial disputes that is negotiated and not forced. A pretty radical idea in Europe!
My God we need some levity here!
I just heard from the Brussels court in the case of “Italia versus Hungaria”. The news is not good for us! The court ruled that we are to be a part of the Italian state once again! Budapest is (once more) to become Aquincum! The red white and green flag will have to come down, and the Roman Eagle will have to be hoisted. Lichtenstein was the tie breaker on this historic decision!
With this pipedream comes the thought that the Italians now owe us citizenship, free travel and employment in Italy, Italian state social benefits, pensions, state employment, in short, if they want the whole mess, they can pay for it’s upkeep!
The point of this parable/jest is a serious one, and it is this:
I don’t propose that my suggested process of territorial change in Europe be a cheap one for the winning side. With sovereignty comes responsibility. The current posessor of the “ball” in a match amy lose it anytime.
“Looking forward, from here, I am concerned for Europe, and I suggest a process of sovereignty claims and territorial disputes that is negotiated and not forced. A pretty radical idea in Europe!”
The Czechs and Slovaks showed Europe how to do it peacefully. Norway and Sweden also have some experience in this area. Serbia(!!) and Montenegro also managed to do it peacefully. The EU is showing the rest of the world how to unite peacefully for the benefit of the majority.
Perhaps it’s not that radical an idea in Europe.
@Laszlo, Joe – Bilateral negotiations are an excellent idea. So it has to be a win-win situation, which basically means Slovakia must get something in return which is of value or interest to them! Any proposals?
Squandered opportunities #1.
I offer up this series to my reader friends for the purpose of provoking thought and thoughtful discussion.
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One reason that I think a 64 county “Greater Hungary” could not have remained intact, was that the Magyar ruling class could only hold it together with a combination of feudalism and Austrian imperial oversight. Their economic system wasn’t dynamic enough for the old “Greater Hunagary” to be self integrating, rather than “self-dintegrating”.
Throughout hundreds of years, the Hungarian ruling elites had direct access to the ocean, both from the Adriatic, as well as the Black Sea. This occured especially under the medieval Arpad dynasty, and for centuries longer. A glance through historical atlases confirms this.
I’ve stared at the maps for years, and it dawned upon me to ask the obvious: why didn’ our rulers make more use of the ocean? Where were the commercial vessels? Where was the navy? (That could have come in useful against the Turks!) The fishing industry? For them, the world ended at the waters edge. For a good reason; they had such a sure thing going on land, that what was beyond the waters edge did not tempt or interest them. To sail, you have to be driven by money or a desire for power. Our leaders were neither money hungry, nor driven by great power ambition. It’s no wonder tht Hungary became landlocked; it’s rulers never knew what to do with a seacoast.
Hotpaprika wrote: “I will never buckle to a Lefty Poof who ridicules and continuously laughs in the face of Hungarians. Joe fuck off!”
Hey, Hotpaprika, I’m Hungarian and I laugh at myself when I look in the mirror. What’s your excuse?
And as for being a “Lefty Poof” all I can say is my mother made me a homosexual. And, if you get her some wool, she’ll make you one too.
Hello UJ!
I think we are making progress here. Imagine a bunch of doctors getting together and agreeing on one thing, that a certain syndrome is likely to continue; now the discussion is what to do about it.
As doctors, we know that “inflammations” are likely to break out in the corpus of Europe. The Slovak-Hungarian “fault line” is one of those inflammmation points. Reducing the redness and swelling is going to call for a most delicate and prolonged period of discussion and negotiation with all those parties who have contributed to the condition.
In the process of talks, all of the following items are to be on the table of mutually respectful discussion:
Plebescite, international oversight, money transfers, the arrangement of loans for such transfers, minority guarantees, equality of citizenship and rights with the citizens of the aquiring state, Equal share of social benefits. Also the options of temporary sovereignty, with a final vote in 5 years. Even the radical possibility of “rotating soverignty”.
All of this sounds better than the last 1000 years around here! We live in a different world, and change is going to have to be this way, if at all.
@Laszlo – your suggestion to consider monetary compensation, temporary sovereignty, plebiscite, and also rotating sovereignty are probably things which Hungary should be ready to consider during negotiations.
However, to get there, downplaying current flashpoints, and working together on common agenda would a good start to get the “two doctors” to the operating table.
When I was a diplomat, I was based in a neighbouring country where we had a territorial dispute. It had gone on for about 50 years. Our countries worked together first to address common areas of interest (which I was a part of). Needless to say, the relationship was difficult, and at times nearly reached extreme points short of war. After 30-40 years of working together to develop mutual interests did the relationship improve sufficiently to consider talking about the border(which I was not involved in but had knowledge). Over time, very small parts of it were resolved through negotiations, while others parts were settled in international courts, and others are still yet unresolved. Our neighbour still owns and controls a small part within our country, and don’t want to give that up despite billions of dollars being offered over the years. A vague agreement is currently in place to “mutually develop the land” for common benefit.
Hi Mr. Farkas, I am guilty! I’ve saved this thread and comment every time it expires! It is well worth it! Another item that I think would be very appropriate to bring up in context of this thread is what is happening on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Similar situation to Hungary’s. In 1893 a foreign power basically dictated the location of the border to protect British India from Russian encroachment. This border, the Durand Line, seperated thousand year old tribal areas from each other and created a division of the Pashtuns with 12 million in Afghanistan and 25 million in Pakistan. This is relevant today because it is impacting the GWOT (Global War On Terrot) and because there are extreme nationalistic feelings in the area towards creating Pashtunistan.
The US wants to treat the Durand Line as an arbitrary border citing historical trade, travel and culture in the area. Of course to allow them to pursue Al Qaida in the area of Wajiristan. The Afghans are saying the entity they signed the agreement with (British India) no longer exists since 1947. Therefore the Durand Line should be revised to include the “historic” tribal lands of the Pashtuns. How familiar does this sound to the Magyars? With US emphasis and slowly eroding Pakistani control, does this revisionism have an oportunity? Can that be used to Hungary’s benefit?
Mr. Farkas I agree wholeheartedly with your emphasis on peaceful negotiation, but I also feel firmly that until Hungarians can fully engage their cultural strength that they will continue to erode their identity on their way to becoming Euroman. This is where diversity is vitally important, maintaining the diversity of nations each with its own culture, adds strength to the world.
Hello Szekes!
The Tribal area question in Pakistan has life to it, because it shelters and breeds a form international mischief-making that threatens the “Great Powers”. The Hungarians, not even in their most wildest dreams back in 1919, would have concieved the sort of countermeasures that Al-Quada considers deploying. Hence, the US is “interested” over there in a way that it could not be along our own borders.
Mr. Farkas, but the premise is that a treaty signed by entities (Governments)that no longer exist become invalidated. Is this not the same as has occurred with Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia? The reason I brought it up was not to emulate the current Terrorist actions but to show that border revision can be made viable with enough emphasis. Of course when you become politically and militarily important, the emphasis appears as a byproduct.
Hi Szekes!
I know you meant no support of Bin Ladenism or anything like that. The point you make about boundaries being the result or leftover of bygone treaties by now defucnt signatories, is an astute one. I’ve thought it myself, when Yugoslavia dissolved, and also when the Czechs and Slovaks parted. It can be a good talking point at the diplomtic level, especially when combined with other pressure. What you need is for political leaders who think like this and are willing to press the advantage quietly, behind closed doors. You’ll need a whole clever bag of tricks to upset the status quo!
By the way, excellent idea…I’d welcome Roman rule over Pannonia again! Just find Ceasar and let him do his thing…. Oh, forgot about them pesky Dacians, they claim the area was theirs also!
Imagine the “La Dolce Vita” that Italian annexation could bring here Szekes! When driving people would be able to pick and choose what side of the road they want to travel on! Signs and traffic rules likewise disregarded; obeying laws is for chumps!
Going Italian is a no- brainer!
Ciao!
Aiutati che Dio ti aiuta.
Lovely thoughts drift my way of those Italian women Mr. Farkas! But then, they would still be Magyar, correct? Here is a web site I enjoy, though I have trouble understanding most of the Magyar…but I feel it has a lot of good information on current culture. http://www.mariaorszaga.hu Let me know what you think!
Thank you Szekes for the link, I enjoyed it very much! It is so well done and well put together. It is a concise presentation of Hungarian culture and history. People in the US are every bit as proud of themselves, and have similar outlets for their red-white-and blue rah rah and patriotic memoribilia. The difference is that over there, it raises no eyebrows. Loved the changeover effect into the ancient runic writing! Hope your Hungarian gets better! I hear there is some translation software that you can buy and download, but I don’t know how well they work. The free ones I’ve tried don’t produce good grammatical translation into Hungarian. Any reader recommendations from anyone on this?
What was missing from the website was a commemoration to the Hungarian contribution in Hollywood. Hollywood would not have been Hollywood without the Hungarians, and it is a story that needs to be told somewhere. With encouragement from you all, I may even wind up my mojo and work on this myself! The subject is huge, vastly entertaining, and covers many people over a long period of time. We helped create the magic! Too bad we couldn’t build such a thing back home, it had to be done in California. Hungary’s loss did become mankinds gain!
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Dear Szekes, would our Hungarian women still be “Magyar” after coming under the Italian influence? To me, they would become Magyar women who drive their red sports cars down the wrong side of the road!
Hi Joe!
Aiutati che Dio ti aiuta.
“Helped that God helps. ” Is that about right?
Damn it, I agree! Some countries and nations are more favored by Providence than others. It sure does help that God helps!
One Italian like thing I like about this particular thread is that is goes on, like a Fellini film. Some Nino Rota music please….
“Roma locuta est. Causa finita est”, (Rome has spoken, the matter is finished)
- a fun priestly proverb from within the Catholic Church
Farkas László wrote: “Hi Joe!
)
Aiutati che Dio ti aiuta.
“Helped that God helps. ” Is that about right?”
That’s close. The idiomatic translation is “God helps those who help themselves.”
Farkas László wrote: “One Italian like thing I like about this particular thread is that is goes on, like a Fellini film.”
There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life.
—Federico Fellini
Chi pò, non vò; chi vò, non pò; chi sà, non fà; chi fà, non sà; e così, male il mondo va.
Farkas László, if you can translate the above I’ll give you five extra points.
Hello again Joe,
Chi pò, non vò; chi vò, non pò; chi sà, non fà; chi fà, non sà; e così, male il mondo va.
“Who pò, not vò; who vò, not pò; who sà, not fà; who fà, not sà; and so, badly the world goes.”
?
“Chi pò, non vò; chi vò, non pò; chi sà, non fà; chi fà, non sà; e così, male il mondo va.”
Can be translated as: “Who can do, don’t want to; Who wants to, can’t do; Who knows how to do, won’t do it; Who does it, doesn’t know how to; and, so, badly goes the world.”
hi everyone,
i would like to excuse my absence( unnoticed,it seems) due to my exams.
i still have to study for my finals,thus i am not super careful with regards to reading posts.
i do admit and agree to lacis comments,even principially it seems we would “crash”. like many others,anyway.
i do have a part of a family being slovak,too, and i do believe in what they have been thru.how couldnt any of us believe what his living ancestors tell him.and so do i,logically.
magyarisation is a fact, a fact of the past and even present here and nothing i see as a natural reality in the recent times besides of its existence.
i showed my openess to different sources of information even from sources such as Jobbik-where no one can expect that i will principially agree with,but YET,as said, i am open- however as it seems, this call remains unanswered-i am still open for discussion.
Joe and Stan, thanks! What is so very telling about that quote is it’s underlying assumption that nothing can be right or as it should be, and secondly, that nothing can be done about it. It’s just the way it is! It is classic Italo-Pessimism/Fatalism, and is reflective upon their national temperament and attitude. It betrays a lack of belief in progress and betterment. I think this is also partly the legacy of Catholicism. It has been often noted in the past that Protestant parts of Europe evolved differently in terms of their politics and economy.
This has had a cheering effect on me! It’s a wonderful reminder that the Hungarians aren’t the only people who have problems!
Hello Zuzana,
Maybe we just got tired of threads that fade, we have worked to keep it going in your absence!
Nationalism is a fact of life around here. I have tried to outline a way in which nationalism can be adapted to the 21st century. If it is going to be with us, then let it play by modern rules.
Forced Magyarisation was the way an old feudal class tried to create a unified nation. An American style melting pot, where people are eager to assimilate, was beyond their wildest dreams. They could not envision the personal and economic freedoms that would have created such an economic engine, such as would have “Magyarised” without coercion. Any modern European govt will have to do better. It’s a different world. Thank God.
People like the Eszterhazy’s had the same “Gold Plan” for all, be they Slovak or Hungarian. Be a peon, a serf. Don’t move, and don’t leave the estate or change occupations! Their system was not viable and produced a lot of war, revolution and upheaval. We should not forget that the Little Entente peoples equated Magyar rule with feudalism; when the boundaries were redrawn, guess what, the Hungarian magnates got their lands taken away in the new Czech, Yugo and Romanian territories!
hello laci,
now i see missed it being here.
i have basically no time available at the moment-yet i again put,as bugar bela did and does- the revision of bilateral history is the ONLY and very prior issue to all.otherwise i can oppose to any history-related posts here-taat doesnt help much,does it.
you see,i am SO proud of hungary,of its international recognizance,its tradition,i am proud to be part of such strong nation and entity.this is a very honest and open statement.
at the same time i am proud of this little nation over here. the fact that it SURVIVED without major “money”, people and legislative intl support,back then, deserves an admiration from me.as a suprplus,its culture is breathtaking,as far as i see it.
Farkas László wrote: “This has had a cheering effect on me! It’s a wonderful reminder that the Hungarians aren’t the only people who have problems!”
Exactly! But let’s get over it already.
Life is too important to be taken seriously.
——-O. Wilde
Hi Ricsi!
So much stuff on this great thread, I wanted to get to you about something you had contributed:
“Following Joes logic, I respectively suggest Italy demands Judea back,that should keep those pesky jews under control again !”
We’ve got something here; too bad the Italians probably won’t want to own the problem. They would be more than welcome to go for it!
I want to build upon Ricsis comment to share with you another thought of great historical import.
The other nation that experienced its Allied imposed “Trianon” after WW1 was Turkey. Ah! Let’s not forget those blokes! Measured in square Km, they lost far more land than Hungary! Far far more. And much of it was potentially more valuable than anything the Hungarians held. The Allies loved “penciling up” the map every bit as much as their future nemesis, Adolf Hitler. Turkey had to give up Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, the whole west coast of Arabia (which included Mecca!), Yemen, Iraq, and Kuwait!! Makes the loss of Transylvania seem pretty trivial by comparison, doesn’t it? Note that the list included “Palestine”! That is why I am writing:
Looking back, the dismantlement of Ottoman control over these territories was a big Allied strategic mistake, whose repercussions continue to this day!
(cont)
(cont)
1)Had Turkish control over Palestine been allowed to continue, no troublesome Jew-Arab partition and partition related violence would have happened. The Turks as necessary outside “third party”, would have kept things in line. They had many centuries of experience in such matters, and of course the Hungarians were once their “pupils” as well.(Too bad we didn’t learn more from them!) The Turkish vizier wouldn’t give a damn about either Zionists or Hamas; neither’s claims would have been entertained or taken seriously, and any instigator of violence would be taught something!
(The ancient Romans also knew how to deal with such trouble, but their methods are out of date, and the modern Italians are not up to the old tradition!) Had the Turkish empire been left intact, eventual Turkish citizenship could have been granted to all. Thus both Palestinian and Jew would have a “homeland”: Turkey!
2)Dismantlement of Turkish control elsewhere started a process of cause and effect that is causing the human race headaches to this day. What was the point of taking Iraq, or Mesopotamia, away from the Turks, who cared enough to hold it for hundreds of years, and give it to the British, who didn’t care to stay for 30 years? You have to care more about the place, if you are going to own it! It was a cheap imperial land grab.
Some places are to volatile to be left to the locals.
My definition of a place or region in need of outside administration and control:
Where local ethnic fratricide takes more toll in lives than an outsider would.
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Turkey didn’t lost national territory after ww1. It
lost foreign provinces. Most of these lost imperial
territories had only 1-2% turkish population.
Therefore your comparison with Hungary is wrong.
@Idiote farkas laszlo
Farkas László never said it was national territory. He just compared the size and value of the land Turkey lost to our losses. (Of course putting monetary value on a land where your people lived for long centuries [Erdély] might not be the best measurement of the value of that land.)
So I don’t think Farkas László is an “idiote” but I think it shows your lack of understanding of his post and that you are nothing but a “szellemi toprongy” (ask wolfi for his dictionary if you don’t understand that because you are one of those “knowing it all about Hungary” foreigner.
Hi “Idiote” and DoubleH63,
(Wow where did this come from?)
There is something to both of your positions, as Turkey was then still an empire, keeping many unwilling nations within in it. The sheer size and strategic importance of what the Allies cut away from Turkey after WW1 was enormous. It all came up for grabs in a power shift favoring France and Britain, stirring up many religious and nationalist passions that the Turks supressed.
@ Laci,
“(Wow where did this come from?)”
Well obviously, somebody decided to skinny dip in either the eggnog or palinka…or both!
@ “Idiote” Farkas Laszlo and Double
FL – hope you saw JA’s posting wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone from both of us; btw if you are an “Idiote”, I would like to join your club so please forward application asap.
Double : About “szellemi toprongy” (complete idiot) – my Grandmother would have would have commented on the “Idiote” poster: “Ha a hulyeseg fajna ez az ember orditana” – I probably made spelling mistakes but you get the gist
All the best for 2011!
@Farkas László “(Wow where did this come from?)”
We can all thank dissertation service to bringing this thread back into life. Even though – no matter how easy his life has become since he is buying dissertations – it seems to me that he is still in need of buying some English lessons.
We all know (hopefully) how farsighted the Brits and French are with their “peace makings” (Versailles; Trianon; making agreement [and honoring that agreement] with Poland/ the later basically cost the Brits their leading role in the world and their Empire and the French needed some bailing out to have a country again, on top of it Poland was lost to the Russians).
@justasking
I just love eggnog and somewhat pálinka! Although, I only had some boróka pálinka on Christmas Eve, not enough to skinny-dip in it.
@olga
You and your Grandmother hit the nail on the head.
Best for all of us here on Politics.hu for the coming year.
@justasking
Don’t worry; getting blind (or crazy) from pálinka is only temporary:)
The last time I brought some homemade wine and pálinka from Hungary I was way over the limit of 1 gallon without paying duty. As an honest (but not a skinny-dipping kind of guy) I told customs but they just waived me through. Couple of my friends had a hard time with life the next day though after sharing the stuff with them.
What a hell???
I answered to justasking’s post an hour before she made the post.
Wow!
@ Double, Double,
” Although, I only had some boróka pálinka on Christmas Eve, not enough to skinny-dip in it”
—
Yeah, from your posts, you don’t come across as the ‘skinny dipping’ kinda guy
As for palinka, I’m okay with it…I do my obligatory shots on special occasions/get-togethers.
I even managed to sneak out a bottle to bring back home to Canada with me of my Uncles home brew.
None of my cousins dared try it for fear of going blind…hold on a sec…where’s my keyboard…I can’t see my key board…ahhhhh!!!!!!!
@ Double, Double,
“What a hell??? I answered to justasking’s post an hour before she made the post.”
Are you sure you don’t mean ‘an hour AFTER she made that post’?
I’m pretty sure something screwy is going on with this thread.