I have not followed every detail of the Habsburg/17th & 18th century
arguments, but I am surprised that I have not seen any of the professional
or the unprofessional historians mention the French role in all this,
starting at least as early as the 30-year's war.  France was, from time to
time, allied with the Turks and with the Protestant powers; Transylvania
had an important role in that war; even Rakoczi's armies were helped by
France, with money, artillery, and, as they would be called nowdays,
'military advisors'. Whatever one thinks of the Habsburgs and their
imperial dreams, they had little choice in defending themselves against
their arch-enemies. Even while the 'Habsburg dynasty inherited the throne
quite legitimately', there was another king, Janos Zapolyai, crowned by the
same bishop as would crown Ferdinand shortly thereafter, used the French
and the French used him; and it was Zapolyai's role that led to the
beginnings of semi-independent Transylvania. In any event, the Empire
cannot be judged without taking the French and Turkish factors into
consideration, or the fact that, indeed, there were many loyal, esp. Roman
Catholic Hungarian noblemen who remained loyal to the Habsburg line
throughout. A lot of the Habsburg army that finally retook Buda spoke
Hungarian.

Louis Elteto


>At 03:23 AM 10/26/96 GMT, Peter Chong wrote:
>>Hmm... On Habsburgs... As I see it, the Habsburgs gradually took control
>>of Hungary after the Ottomans had begun to relinquish their strongholds.
>>(c. late 1600s). Regardless of the blood shed by Zrmnyi Ilona's armies at
>>Munkacs and Rakoczi Ferenc's armies in the Kuruc Wars, the Austrians
>>smothered the Magyars. Of course it was all for a territorial reasons,
>>the Habsburgs' wanted to expand like many other empire-states in History.
>
>        Hmm.... The Habsburg dynasty inherited the throne quiet
>legitimately. Louis II of Hungary--also of Bohemia-Moravia--died at the
>Battle of Mohacs and without issue. His wife was the sister of Ferdinand
>Habsurg and there existed a family pact which stated that if either
>Ferdinand or Louis II died without issue the other would inherit the thrones
>of Hungary as well as Bohemia-Moravia. And by the way, the Turks were
>expelled mostly due to the Hasburg armies.
>
>        As for the rest, that is your fantastic description of Habsburg
>hatred of the Hungarians because they considered them inferior, is simply
>hogwosh. So is, I am afraid, the Sumerian connection.
>
>        Eva Balogh

Janka, aside from what is customary or not, your problem is grammatical.
The reason you cannot use 'nagyon' in either string is that 'nagyon' is an
adverb, and cannot therefore take up the position of an adjective, as an
attribute in front of a noun (tisztelet, =FCdv=F6zlet), even if that is, in
turn, converted to an adverbial (in this case with the -val/-vel, 'with'
ending). So: 'nagy uedvoezlettel', or 'nagy tisztelettel' would be
grammatically correct, but such phrases are not used. Eva's suggestion,
'ooeszinte' [that's a long umlaut 'o'] is fine, 'kivaaloo' [long a, long o]
is another, esp. in business correspondence. 'Uedvoezlettel' is, I feel,
less formal: you can use it alone, or embellish it with 'baraati',
'friendly', 'sziveelyes', 'cordial'.

Louis Elteto


>At 11:27 25/10/96 -0400, Eva Balogh wrote:
>
><snip the 1956 stuff>
>
>>        And a little Hungarian lesson. You cannot say "nagyon tisztelettel=
=2E"
>>If you want to embellish "tisztelettel/respectfully" the only adjective yo=
u
>>can add is "o"szinte/sincere" as in "o"szinte tisztelettel."
>
>Does that apply to *u:dvo:zlettel* as well? Can one say *nagyon
>u:dvo:zlettel* or *o"szinte u:dvo:zlettel* or is there a third modifier for
>use with *u:dvo:zlettel*? You know, it is not so hard to find examples of
>things you can say in Hungarian, but it is hard to determine what you
>*can't* say!
>
><snip again>
>
>>        Eva Balogh
>
>Thanks for the help!
>
>Yours,
>
>Johanne/Janka
>
>
>>
>>
>Johanne L. Tournier
>e-mail - 

Okay, Charles/Karoly (whoever you are, Jekyll and Hyde?) if you're
depressed, I'm sorry and you have my (and every one else's, I'm sure)
sincerest sympathies. I'm very sad for your gratuitously abusive
comments in your previous posting, an obvious expression of your
frustration, which only diminished your own self, as far as I'm
concerned (if you really knew anything about Britain, my family's
experiences in life and my own childhood here, you would be very
embarrassed by your ignorant personal attack), but at the same time
it showed an enthusiastic spark of life for an 82 year-old, missing
from many a younger person ;-) You also gave some reasons for your
opinion in your first posting and out of respect for that (and your
long experience) I'll give you a straight reply.

> All this opinion exchange on suicide in Hungary is way beside the mark.

Firstly, all the *exchanges of opinion* were simply looking at possible
explanations and known theories, etc, without anyone, AFAIK, necessarily
being categorical as to why. Then you come rushing in with your categorical
guns out, shooting down everything as *way beside the mark*. In one stroke,
you rubbished all the contributors to the thread. That kind of attitude
begs to be satirized, so I felt it my duty to oblige.

> Suicide is caused by depression, true enough, But depression can be
> manic-depression, which will also cause suicide, but is not necessarily
> caused by particular events traumatizing an individual, rather by genetic
> factors.

All this had already been touched upon in previous postings on the
thread. Furthermore, nobody categorically stated that all suicides
were due to electrical imbalance in the environment (as you imply),
apart from, perhaps, Fred Soyka, the author of *The Ion Effect* (have
you read it?), but it is clearly an interesting area of research
warranting investigation into a possible contributory factor for many
of the suicides. I state the obvious when I say that we all realize
that there are many reasons, even including yours, for why people
might commit suicide (as I tried to hint at in my *impolite* reply).

 >In the Hungarian case, we are not talking about that.  Rather, we
> are talking of actual mostly recurring events and situations, in which an
> individual or a nation is totally impotent. <snip>..

..And you suggest that Hungarians have been more downtrodden than anyone
else in the last 500 years, therefore they commit suicide more often.
Self-pity is certainly one reason for committing suicide, but it is
easily arguable that many other subjugated peoples world-wide have had
a similar, or even harder, history than the Hungarians. What about all
the other war torn and subjugated peoples, colonialism, black slavery
throughout the centuries, attempted genocides of various nations, the
persecution of the Jews since early history, etc, etc. Why aren't they
all committing suicide to the same extent? There is an idea going around
in Hungary, that I'm hearing more and more frequently, that Hungarians
are now weary of being persistently subjugated. Could it be that this
notion is gaining currency today because it is a convenient alibi for
their own confusion since the sudden removal of the domineering *nanny
state*? Not being used to choice, Hungarians voted the old Communists
(Stalinist stooges who helped murder Imre Nagy) back into power. Old
Communists are regaining strength in Russia, too. Does this not tell us
anything?

> So, lets go back to depression.  It has now been scientifically
> demonstrated, that there is a direct connection between intelligence,
> creativeness, and depression.  Here, in America, who hasn't seen the
> graffiti-like poster: If you don't panic, you just don't understand?
> Isn't that clear enough?

I can sympathize with this up to a point.

> Few Hungarians suffer from religious dogma telling them
> that they won't go to Heaven, or Nirvana, or Paradise, or whatever
> fantastic after life reward, if they commit suicide.  No.  They are
> intelligent enough to understand when it's over, or not even worth
> beginning.  Habsburgs, Horthy, Szalasi, Rakosi, Horn and Lantos, which one
> is worth living for?  The will of the Hungarian is to be independent, and
> live in a country which makes living worth while.  If this is stymied
>every
> step of the way, he gets depressed, and so on.  It's more than what I can
> say for Americans, who, if they would be intelligent enough to understand,
> would scamper into the ocean like lemmings.

But I'm afraid this is going too far. Are Hungarians any more or less
affected by religious dogma than their neighbours, or most other peoples
around the world? Everyone, just everyone, not only Hungarians, wants to
be independent and you are being gratuitously rude about Americans (makes
a change from blacks and Jews, I suppose).

> Sure I am still here after 82 years.  So-and-so could say that I can cope.
> But maybe I am just stupid.
> If you find a way to make life worth while, live by all means.  This is
> the  instinct that keeps us going, but sometimes the instinct of survival
> is conquered by intelligence.  That's what makes humanity humanity, no?

This betrays some bitterness...so I hope I've cheered you up a bit. We'll
have to have a drink together sometime :-)


>Dear George, PS to my former posting. I an happy to understand that you are
>not depressed.

Not right now, but being of Hungarian parents, I have my moments and I'll
be sure to make up for today's relative happiness some time later ;-)

--
George Szaszvari, DCPS Chess Club, 42 Alleyn Park, London SE21 7AA, UK
Planet Earth, Milky Way Galaxy * ICPUG..C=64 * ARM Club..Acorn * NWLCC

In article >, % says...
>
 (George Szaszvari) wrote:
>>As a matter of fact, I read (perhaps in Groves) years ago that the lineage
>>of the Bach family (of musical fame) originated in (what is today)
>>Hungary.Is there a musical historian out there who can corroborate (or
>>otherwise) this?
>
>About 40 years ago, I read a very thorough 3-volume biographical novel
>about Bach (by an author named Lang, I think) in Hungarian. I don't
>remember any references to Hungarian ancestry.
>For whatever it's worth...

The ancestry was far back and possibly even pre-Magyar. I'd need to
refer to the Groves volume in question (it was about 1969 when I read it).
BTW I'll be looking out for the Haris Alexiouy song, but if your Athenian
contact can help, that'll be great!

--
George Szaszvari, DCPS Chess Club, 42 Alleyn Park, London SE21 7AA, UK
Planet Earth, Milky Way Galaxy * ICPUG..C=64 * ARM Club..Acorn * NWLCC

I have been waiting and waiting for any brave soul who would tell me
what he/she knows about the beheading of Laszlo Hunyadi. No one came forth.
I guess because everybody knows as much about the real story behind it as I
knew two days ago: practically zilch. Or rather bits and pieces of memories
like: a blond, long-haired youth--allegedly the young Laszlo Hunyadi--on
some Romantic nineteenth-century canvas; a line or two from one of the arias
of Erkel's opera, like "Haza'm, haza'm, Te mindenem," or "Meghalt a
cselszo"vo"." In brief, Laszlo Hunyadi was the good guy and the king,
whatever his name was, was the bad guy. That bad king gave his word to this
innocent youth: come to Buda, nothing will happen to you, and see what
happened: this defender of the fatherland was beheaded despite the king's words
.

        What is the truth? Let's start with the death of King Sigismund
(Zsigmond), who was a great king but somehow he never received the
recognition in our collective consciousness which he deserved, most likely
because he was foreign-born and became Hungarian king only through his
marriage to Maria, daughter of Louis the Great. During Sigismund's reign the
barons were kept in line, although at the beginning of his reign, he ended
up their captive, locked up the Castle of Siklos, if I remember well.
Sigismund, as so many other Hungarian kings, didn't have a son, only a
daughter, Erzsebet (Elizabeth) whom he married off to Albert of Habsburg.
Laszlo V, the Posthumous, was Albert's  posthumous son. In his place, his
uncle Ulrik Cillei was actually running the show. The Cilleis were members
of one oligarchy while the Hunyadis were heading another one. And now we
arrived to the immediate background of Laszlo's beheading.

        Janos Hunyadi, the most powerful man in the country and head of the
rival oligarchy to the Cillei-Ujlaki-Garai group, died right after the
famous Battle of Nandorfehervar/Belgrade, and his death began new rivalry
between the two groups for power. In October 1456 all the important barons
gathered at Futak for a gathering of the Diet. During the Diet's
proceedings, Laszlo Hunyadi, older son of Janos, promised the king that he
would relinquish the royal castles and incomes to the newly appointed
captain-general (orszagos fo"kapita'ny), Ulrik Cillei, the uncle of Laszlo
V. (Janos Hunyadi had occupied the position before.) But when the king
arrived at Nandorfehervar in order to receive the royal fort, Laszlo Hunyadi
refused to allow the king's troops inside the walls, entrapped Ulrik Cillei
and killed him. The king himself became the captive of the Hunyadi party and
under duress he promised not to avenge his uncle's death and make Laszlo
Hunyadi captain-general of the country. After he was freed, however, at the
pressure of the barons belonging to the anti-Hunyadi party, he brought suit
against Laszlo, the younger Hunyadi, Matyas, and several other leading
members of the oligarchy. The were all condemned to death for high treason.
At the end only Laszlo Hunyadi was beheaded. The king took away Matyas first
to Vienna and later to Prague, where suddenly the seventeen-year-old king
became victim of the bubonic plague and died.

        This is the bare-bone story although there are several embellished
or outright falsified versions of the events. One simply forgets to mention
that Ulrik Cillei was killed; another dwells on the shortcomings of Laszlo
V's character: his deceitfulness, without, of course, mentioning anything
about Laszlo Hunyadi's's character and his deceit of the king.

        Interesting what historians can do, especially those in the
nineteenth century. Create national heroes practically out of thin air.

        Eva Balogh

On Mon, 28 Oct 1996, Eva S. Balogh wrote:

>
>         Interesting what historians can do, especially those in the
> nineteenth century. Create national heroes practically out of thin air.

Right. While we are at it, let's not forget another skilful trick of 19th
cent.  Hungarian historians: making heroes of the generals executed at
Arad.  After all, they had been Habsburg officers before, and it was
perfectly understandable that the Hof would have them hanged for treason.

Louis Elteto

Hi I was looking at a map of Budapest one of the days and I saw that the
Lachid is called the Szecsenyi Lanchid.  Since when?  I asked a few people
and everyone said that they must have changed it recently.  Is this true?
Christina Magyar


 *****   ** **            Christina S. Magyar          *     *
*      *   *  *                                           |      Keep
*     *    *   *   *      Carleton University          \_____/   Smiling!
 *****          ***     

The Lanchid has officially always been called Szechenyi Lanchid, named
after Istvan Szechenyi, who was responsible for having it built originally.

Louis Elteto

On Mon, 28 Oct 1996, Christina Magyar wrote:

> Hi I was looking at a map of Budapest one of the days and I saw that the
> Lachid is called the Szecsenyi Lanchid.  Since when?  I asked a few people
> and everyone said that they must have changed it recently.  Is this true?
> Christina Magyar
>
>
>  *****   ** **            Christina S. Magyar          *     *
> *      *   *  *                                           |      Keep
> *     *    *   *   *      Carleton University          \_____/   Smiling!
>  *****          ***     
>

> Felado :  [United States]
>
> There he goes again.  The offspring of families belonging to that part of
> the intellectual elite that willingly served the Kadar regime -- as long as
> it was advantageous -- have a real problem about this time of the year.
Speak for yourself, Ferenc. My parents did not, willingly or unwillingly,
serve the Ka1da1r regime. It is no secret that my father was economic advisor
for the short-lived Nagy government, and that he NEVER served as an advisor in
the Ka1da1r/Gro1sz/Ne1meth era. Upon the publication of his PhD (kandida1tus)
thesis "Overcentralization of economic administration" he was officially
declared a traitor to marxism. Go check it out, it should be easy to find,
Oxford University Press republished it a couple of years ago.

> Yes, 1956 is a very embarrassing numeral for them.
> So they try to rewrite history
> to make their  --    or their older kin's -- behavior during the Kadar years
> acceptable.  First, they deny that there was an armed fight for freedom;
This I never denied -- you are simply distorting my views so that you can
spew forth some righteous indignation.

> next, that it was actually a reform-communist happening gone wrong when
> right-wingers took over.  Eventually they might reason that the whole thing
> was a riot, and not much more.
>
> It is worth noting that they rarely try to sell their views on
> Hungarian-language lists, whose readers are more knowledgeable about the
> subject.  They must think that non-Hungarians can be told anything as long as
> it is in reasonably good English.
Ferenc, where is this knowledge that makes you "more knowledgeable" coming
from? You seem to know nothing of the role my parents played before, during,
or after the 1956 revolution, that much is for sure. One begins to suspect
that the main source of your knowledge are the "Hungarian-language lists" you
allude to, FORUM in particular.

Andra1s Kornai

Dear Christina:
It was always Szecsenyi Lanchid!
Peter

On Mon, 28 Oct 1996, Christina Magyar wrote:

> Hi I was looking at a map of Budapest one of the days and I saw that the
> Lachid is called the Szecsenyi Lanchid.  Since when?  I asked a few people
> and everyone said that they must have changed it recently.  Is this true?
> Christina Magyar
>
>
>  *****   ** **            Christina S. Magyar          *     *
> *      *   *  *                                           |      Keep
> *     *    *   *   *      Carleton University          \_____/   Smiling!
>  *****          ***     
>

At 02:08 PM 10/28/96 -0500, Eva Balogh wrote:

<snip>
>        Interesting what historians can do, especially those in the
>nineteenth century. Create national heroes practically out of thin air.

All heroes are created out of thin air.

Joe Szalai

"So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons
will duly rise and make them miserable."
            Aldous Huxley

At 06:18 PM 10/27/96 -0500, Ferenc Novak wrote:

>There he goes [Andras Kornai] again.  The offspring of families belonging
to that part of the
> intellectual elite that willingly served the Kadar regime -- as long as it
>was advantageous -- have a real problem about this time of the year.  Yes,
>1956 is a very embarrassing numeral for them.  So they try to rewrite history
>to make their  --    or their older kin's -- behavior during the Kadar years
>acceptable.  First, they deny that there was an armed fight for freedom;
>next, that it was actually a reform-communist happening gone wrong when
>right-wingers took over.  Eventually they might reason that the whole thing
>was a riot, and not much more.

        I beg you not to bring discord onto this list. Nowadays there is no
discord even on the Forum, although October 23 came and October 23 went. The
revolution of 1956 was the revolution of Andras's family as well as mine
and, I would say, 99 percent of all Hungarian families at the time. What is
wrong with you? When a whole country celebrated the fortieth anniversary in
relative tranquility, why do yo have to arouse hatred. Moreover, you are so
terribly unsuccessful at it. All of us who know Janos Kornai's work has only
admiration for him and your opinions will not change that.

>It is worth noting that they rarely try to sell their views on
>Hungarian-language lists, whose readers are more knowledgeable about the
>subject.  They must think that non-Hungarians can be told anything as long as
>it is in reasonably good English.

        Don't underestimate the readership of this list. They are more
knowledgeable than you think. Some of them are learning Hungarian and also
are reading quite widely on Hungarian history and recent politics. The fact
is that the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was the revolution of the widest
segments of the population. From the reform communists to the conservatives
everybody took part. The revolution itself was defeated within a few weeks
and therefore the differences of the participants' political outlook
couldn't really emerge. If the revolution had been successful, I'm sure, the
differences of political opinions would have come to the surface. But as it
stands the revolution managed to bring together the whole Hungarian nation.
There were only very few exceptions. So, please!

        Eva Balogh

At 01:08 PM 10/27/96 -0700, Louis Elteto wrote:

>I have not followed every detail of the Habsburg/17th & 18th century
>arguments, but I am surprised that I have not seen any of the professional
>or the unprofessional historians mention the French role in all this,
>starting at least as early as the 30-year's war.

        I guess we didn't because the main thrust of the argument was
economic backwardness and the question whether Hungary would have been
better off as an independent identity under a national king, like Ferenc
Rakoczi II. But certainly the French assistance to Rakoczi was an important
consideration.

>Even while the 'Habsburg dynasty inherited the throne
>quite legitimately', there was another king, Janos Zapolyai, crowned by the
>same bishop as would crown Ferdinand shortly thereafter, used the French
>and the French used him;

        Yes, I guess I should have mentioned Janos Zapolyai/Szapolyai (in
Hungarian history we are unable to decide on the spelling of his name. There
is another spelling: Zapolya) as one of the *two* kings Hungary had at the
same time. Janos Zapolyai relied heavily on the Turks and he played into the
hands of the sultan by fighting Ferdinand. Zapolyai was often portrayed by
historians as the embodiment of the national spirit against foreign
influences. In any case, he was the choice of the middle nobility whose
rhetoric was full of words like "natio," "fatherland", "patriotism,"
"commonweal" but its program was not much more than hatred of foreigners.
The Turks were delighted when Zapolyai appeared on the scene. As Ferenc
Szaka'ly says: "they have been waiting for this moment for the last twenty
years. Yet, Zapolyai was not deterred. He was crowned king of Hungary on
September 11, 1526."

        Here is another example of the strength and influence of the
Hungarian nobility, especially the lower nobility in this particular case.
The Polish development was very similar to the Hungarian one, by the way.
They even borrowed Hungarian words like "rakosz = rebellion" from Rakos, a
place name, where the nobility's leaders often got together to make
decision, like in 1505 when it was announced that no foreigner can be king
of Hungary. (Apparently behind the decision stood, of course, Janos
Szapolyai, the voevode/vajda of Transylvania, who had the most to gain from
such decision.)

        The way I see it, earlier the Hungarian barons, later, the lower
nobility in their struggle with the successive king were not really
defending the country and the country's freedom against a foreign king but
rather they were defending their own privileges. And their own privileges
didn't necessarily coincide with the interests of the country.

        Often they blackmailed the ruler, like in the case of Ulaszlo
II/Vaclav. In order for him to be accepted the new king had to promise not
to introduce any reforms, not to collect certain taxes, and govern with the
help of the royal council and the estates. All seemed to be tranquil during
his twenty years of reign. But how and why? Simply because the estates found
their man and found the perfect set-up. The king was simply the first among
equals, the actual government slipped into the hands of the royal council,
the nobles who gathered at the often-called diets simply voted exactly how
their leaders wanted them to, and altogether the barons stole the king and
the country blind.

        Eva Balogh

I have to thank Gabor Fencsik for two things: (1) his excellent
summary of the connection of Bach's family with Hungary and (2) that
priceless Gombrowicz quote. Aren't we, Poles and Hungarians, similar?

        Eva Balogh

In article >, 
says...
>
>Kornai ( ) says on  Oct 25 17:17:41 EDT in #828:
>>...a particular faction of
>>today's ultraright trying to hijack 56, a rare moment of national unity,
for
>>its own purposes. The "szabadsa1gharc" myth, which comes up on this list
>>time and again, is a key example of this.
>
>There he goes again.  The offspring of families belonging to that part of
the
> intellectual elite that willingly served the Kadar regime -- as long as it
>was advantageous --

It seems to be the time of the year when vacuous sloganeering, inane cliches
and sly ad-hominems become suddenly attractive.  The above quote is an
excellent example of all of these undesirables and it can be taken as a
proof of its author's inability to address issues instead of trying to
kick heads.

have a real problem about this time of the year.  Yes,
>1956 is a very embarrassing numeral for them.  So they try to rewrite
history
>to make their  --    or their older kin's -- behavior during the Kadar
years
>acceptable.  First, they deny that there was an armed fight for freedom;
>next, that it was actually a reform-communist happening gone wrong when
>right-wingers took over.  Eventually they might reason that the whole thing
>was a riot, and not much more.

Unfortunately, your attempt to set up a strawman, stick someone's name on
it and attack it is all too transparent.  You will never be able to supply
proof that Andras Kornai or any of the people whose name you want to
blacken have actually said/wrote anything to the effect quoted above.

>It is worth noting that they rarely try to sell their views on
>Hungarian-language lists, whose readers are more knowledgeable about the
>subject.  They must think that non-Hungarians can be told anything as long
as
>it is in reasonably good English.

If frequency of contributions is the only yardstick then you are not
doing too well either.

George Antony