Hollosi Information eXchange /HIX/
HIX HUNGARY 407
Copyright (C) HIX
1995-08-24
Új cikk beküldése (a cikk tartalma az író felelőssége)
Megrendelés Lemondás
1 Day to Day Chaos (mind)  53 sor     (cikkei)
2 Re: Day to Day Chaos (mind)  18 sor     (cikkei)
3 Cost of living and transportation in Hungary? (mind)  10 sor     (cikkei)
4 2 lessons for today from the history of the danubian pl (mind)  140 sor     (cikkei)
5 Re: Cost of living and transportation in Hungary? (mind)  10 sor     (cikkei)
6 Re: Cost of living and transportation in Hungary? (mind)  19 sor     (cikkei)
7 Hungarian ABC (mind)  6 sor     (cikkei)

+ - Day to Day Chaos (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Andras Kornai writes:

> Ga1bor Fencsik (and quite possibly Greg Grose, if I understood his
> one-liner correctly) both take mountains te be analogous to more
> permanent historical situations against which the day to day chaos of
> politics need to be interpreted. But mountains are part of the current
> state of affairs, so they are in no way justifying the proposition
> that earlier states of affairs need to be known if we are to make
> sense of the current situation.

As a matter of fact, I don't think the weather or the mountains are
particularly apt metaphors for historical processes.  The analogy was
suggested by Andras, to make the point that understanding where we are
has very little to do with understanding how we got here.  This modified
Ford thesis is what is at issue here.  My counterpoint was that even if
we accept, for the sake of the argument, the concept of history modeled
as a chaotic, memoryless process, we are still likely run into phenomena
that are both *persistent* and *recurring*.  I suggested mountains and
continents to illustrate the point, but Andras has gone one better by
bringing up El Nino, and the Red Spot on Jupiter.

As long as we are faced with persistent and recurring phenomena such as
these, we can make use of the past as a guide to understanding the present
even if we are clueless as to why anything at all should be persistent and
recurring.  Simply by plotting the path of past hurricanes, we can notice
certain regularities.  This might lead to understanding of a certain sort,
even though our ability to make predictions about the next hurricane is
extremely limited.  This sort of "understanding" does not necessarily
imply predictive power.  But the fact that we can all agree to call the
thing a hurricane already shows that it fitted into our preexisting
(historical) notions of how the world works.

> ...I completely reject the idea that to understand something you have
> to understand its history (the point has been argued in same detail in
> Popper's "The Poverty of Historicism"), and I see no reason to make an
> exception to myths.  The man-made conceptual systems I'm most familiar
> with are languages, and certainly their history explains nothing about
> the way they are today.

I don't know if Andras is pulling our leg here.  Assuming you mean just
what you say, the charitable assumption is that the words "explanation"
and "understanding" are taken in a strong (Popperian?) sense implying
the ability to make predictions.  Making predictions about future linguistic
evolution may indeed be hopeless, but in the ordinary sense of the word,
the history of languages does seem to explain a great deal about why they
are the way they are today.  How come the English and German words for wolf
are the same?   And how is it that the Hungarian word for "bellybutton"
seems to have come from Turkish?  If historical explanations don't work,
what does?

-----
Gabor Fencsik

+ - Re: Day to Day Chaos (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Dear fellow-listmembers,

Could I just suggest, that the value of the study of history does not
depend on its supposed (and very debatable) predictive powers?  That's
the trap into which some of our political science cousins have landed.
Viz the spate of "why didn't we foresee the fall of Communism" articles
in the political science literature post-1989 ;-).

I would say that history tells us something about _our understanding_
of how we got here.  But I don't see it as a science, rather a craft.
If pushed to the wall, I suppose I would admit that I'm a historian
because it's fun (my mother-in-law would say, it beats working for a
living!).

Sincerely,

Hugh Agnew

+ - Cost of living and transportation in Hungary? (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

We are a group of forestry students from Finland trying to arrange a trip
to Budapest and Sopron. Could you please give us some hints about cost of
modest hotels near downtown Budapest. We also need a bus for about a
week, but we do not have any idea how much that would cost us.

If you have any advice to give us, please respond to the newsgroup.
Please do not use our E-mail adress, since all of us have no password to
download our mailbox contents.

Thank you
+ - 2 lessons for today from the history of the danubian pl (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Dear Folks,

We have been discussing the origin of the magyars. During this discussion it
was pointed out that
there is a danger that one can produce a theory to serve a particular end by
 using logical
constructs(i.e. arguing a point based on sound logic, but ignoring facts
which are contradictory to
the logical conclusion). An example was the logical construct that the
treatment of the jews in
Hungary during wwII was done by the germans, because:1. there was a sizable
german presence
in Hungary, 2. the germans exhibited very marked antagonism toward the jews
and 3. because
abusing ethnic minorities(or worse, being inhospitable to guests), was not in
the hungarian
tradition.

There are two very important lessons relevant to our time which are embedded
in the history of
the Danubian basin. The following statements are condensed from "The Dawn of
the Dark Ages"
by Istva'n Bo'na(Hereditas, Corvina Press, 1976;ISBN 963 13 4493 2). The
original was printed in
Hungary in 1974(Corvina) and was entitled "A Kozepkor hajnala".

As Rome began to falter, roman factions began to include the nonroman peoples
of Europe in the
wars and defence of Rome. Eventually, as these troops and their officers
gained power, they
gained ascendency over the imperium-they even became emperors of Rome. Rome
fell to the
barbarians(non-romans). B'ona covers a slice of the post-roman history from
about 471 AD to
670.

Present-day Hungary and parts of the Vajdasa'g(Vojvodina), as well as Croatia
and Rumania had
germanic tribal settlements: the gepids in the east and the lombards in the
west. There were also
Heruls and Seubians in the western part as well as ostrogoths(eastern gothic
tribes) in the south
west. In the east, there were Sarmatians who built fortified earth works in
the east during the
300's. Add to these the remnents of the romanized population left from the
empire.

The gepids moved into the Carpathian basin in about 471 and the lombards in
about 562.  There
were frequent clashes between the gepids and the lombards. In 550, slavic
tribes began to move
in from the south and were soundly trounced by the lombards. The lombards
learned their warfare
fighting for Rome and in the eastern roman empire. They were tall, well
built, fierce warriors. Yet,
when tha avars showed up and combined with the slavic tribes, the lombards
saw annihilation and
made an agreament with the avars to withdraw toward northern Italy. This
agreament was
consummated  and the lombards left for Italy leaving the Danubian basin and
some adjacent
lands to the avars, who also contained turkik and uighur tribes including the
kutrigurs. Bo'na
states that the the avars left for northern italy accompanied by 20,000
saxons, gepids, seubians,
bulgars, sarmatians and the leftover romanized remnent. The avars made a
career of fighting the
bysantine empire and by 670, the avars were nearly finished. After the avars
came the invasion by
the huns. The hungarians(magyars) moved into this territory in 895.Yet, as
Bo'na states, sizable
populations were left behind by the lombrds and these people survived past
the hunnish
occupation. All this longwinded discussion now leads to two pints.

Point #1.

It should be clear that as the various tribes and nations moved into the
danubian plains, they
would incorporate sizable portions of the previous population. Whether the
conquerors took the
best looking and sexually most accomodating women, or were offered such by
the conquered,
such women would bear children and preserve the genetic pool of the
conquered,even if the
conquered lost sizable men in the battles. It is quite futile,therefore, for
any nation in Europe to try
to become genetically 'pure'.  While it is possible to characterize some
physical traits as peculiar
to some group(such as darker skin in southern Italy), such may also be found
in Ireland where the
trait arrived via spaniards of the grand armada sunk by the british. England
itself  is a mixture of
peoples descended from the natives, saxons, norsemen, normans, and immigrants
from
Scotland, Ireland and a few other places. A walk around the streets of
Budapest is an eye opener,
where one finds a dozen street names honoring people with slavic or germanic
names-names that
honor hungarins, put there by the hungarians themselves. Yours truly has
ancestors, some of
whom are/were slovaks, some hungarians.

Point #2.

It is time to put an end to ethnic repression in Europe. It takes about 50
years to cycle through the
hatred created by war; western Europe is near to a state where most of the
battles will be fought
on soccer fields. The new realities are that wealth is no longer based only
in land, thus a nation no
longer needs to compete in warfare to acquire as much territory as it can. If
ethnic minorities are
allowed to retain their culture, then most of the reasons for past wars will
disappear. At least this
will be true among Europeans, leaving the question of moslems for another
day. Thus it should be
clear that what is happening south of Hungary and Rumania(the oppression of
hungarians) is a
great thret to the current and future peace of Europe. It can be safely
stated that the cleansing of
croats by the serbs of Krajina begat the cleansing of the Krajina serbs by
the croats. This in turn
will sow  hatreds that will  cause grief to the horvati in the future. It may
take 20 years, but
attacking an ethnic group will have repercussions. We should see that the
present ethnic
cleansing in the former Jugoslavia is an outgrowth of the cleansing of the
germans of Silezia and
Eastern Prussia. Hungary anf the Austro-Hungarin empire had a very stable
multiethnic state
based on the 3 principles of citizenship I described earlier. It is time to
give this concept wider use in the eastern part of Europe.

My apologies for this lengthy letter.

I remain sincerely,

Bela Szepesi
Bowie,Maryland
+ - Re: Cost of living and transportation in Hungary? (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

On Wed, 23 Aug 1995 09:39:35 GMT Lauri Vesa said:
                         Could you please give us some hints about cost of
>modest hotels near downtown Budapest.

--There is no more modest hotel than the Hotel Platanus, Konyves Kalman
krt. 44, Telephone (361) 133-6057.  While it is not downtown, it is
about a half-block from the Metro.  Rooms are fairly cheap and the
hotel is clean.  There is a very good Bierstube, but the dining room
does not serve Hungary's finest food.  Caters to German tourists and
lorry drivers mostly.
+ - Re: Cost of living and transportation in Hungary? (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Try the Charles House Apartments.  For a family of four we paid about $54
per day.  It's on the Buda side in the shadow of the Citadella.  The
airport minibus can take you directly to it, but you'll need to book ahead
probably, depending on the time of year you are going.  It's a five minute
bus ride to the Vaci Utca (main shopping district in Pest).  From there you
can get anywhere in the city on the trams, buses, and metro.  There is a
24-hour front desk and the people running the place speak several languages,
including English, very well.

I might also tell you that the rooms are large, comfortable, and have a
kitchen in each, so you can save money on eating if you choose to.

Make sure you spend about $3.00 (maybe $2.50) to take the train to Szentendre
a wonderful little town very near Budapest.

Enjoy!!

Frank A. Aycock
American University in Bulgaria
+ - Hungarian ABC (mind) VÁLASZ  Feladó: (cikkei)

Windows has a complete East European program, and a supplement for
English windows.  Nota Bene - not so well known, is quite versatile. I
can't remember offhand the name of the company in Los Angeles which has
all the "crazy" languages. In order to save time, I'll collect the data
of those I have, and will send them to you tomorrow or the next day.
                                Robert Hetzron

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