On the question of the recent outrage against the synagogue in Debre-
cen, the Israeli ambassador to Hungary, Joel Alon, speaking at a meet-
ing in Debrecen last week of the Hungarian-Israel Friendship Society,
likewise characterized the event as a single isolated incident per-
petrated by two disturbed individuals.  This view seems to be shared
by members of the local Jewish community with whom I have spoken.

The desecration is the easier to imagine given that the two synagogues
are used only on the High Holidays, and one of them is a virtually
abandoned hulk.

Udv. Debrecenbol,
Be1la

You may recall that about two weeks ago Iva1n Ga1dor, a Hungarian journalist,
wrote a piece about a meeting between two Hungarian-born foreign journalists
(Hefty and Oplatka) and the "cream" of Hungarian journalism. You may also
recall that according to Mr. Ga1dor, these two journalists went down in
flames (Greg's excellent translation of "lee1gni)--certainly Mr. Ga1dor was
not terrible impressed. Well, it seems that the visitors were not too
impressed either. At least Mr. Georg Paul Hefty wasn't. How do I know? He
tells us so on the Op-Ed page of HVG (February 11). The title of his piece is
"Hollo1 i1r hollo1knak" [Raven writes to ravens]. There is a Hungarian
saying, which Hefty quotes, that "a hollo1 a hollo1nak nem va1jja ki a
szeme1t," that is that the raven doesn't scratch out the eyes of other
ravens. English equivalent? Mr. Orszagh thinks that "there is honor among thie
ves" is a pretty good one. (Greg! Any ideas?) In any case, Hefty doesn't
think that Hungarian journalists are ravens. At least this is how it seemed
to him at the meeting. The "media war"--it seemed to him--wasn't really betwee
n the government and the media but among the journalists themselves. He would
like to call the attention of his Hungarian colleagues for a "professional
error" on their part: "journalists are not scientists or professors, they are
not economists, they are not politicians and they are not spokesmen but--at
least in western definition--independent, private citizens, who happen to
make a living writing or editing newspapers. Therefore, the opinion of the
journalist is not news, and the news he provides or edits is not opinion and
his opinion or the news he provides are not messages from foreign powers to
the Hungarian government or the Hungarian people."
. . . .
After describing how Hungarian papers simply take over newsreports from
western papers as "official" opinions of foreign governments he continues:

"This is how news and commentary get mixed up: what is news in a foreign paper
, appears as opinion in the Hungarian paper; opinion expressed in foreign
papers appears as news in the Hungarian."

There is still a lot to learn--but what can we do when Mr. Ga1rdos and his
fellow journalists don't really want to.

Eva Balogh

Eva Balogh recently summarized two very interesting articles from the *168
o1ra* to show that "Horn's star has faded and faded seriously". In the Febr.
14, 1995 issue of the *Globe an Mail* (Canada's National Newspaper) there is
an article which also suggests the same conclusion.  The article entitled
"Hungary's economic policy flashes contradictory signals" was written by the
"Oxford Analytica", which is an international consulting firm providing
timely analysis on world developments for business and government leaders. The
article is commenting on the fact that Horn named new finance minister and
central-bank president on Febr. 7.  In their opinion the appointments are
insufficient to repair the long-term damage done to Horn's reputation and
coalition relationships. The following quotes from their analysis I think are
quite interesting:

"There is growing consensus within SZDSZ that the main problem is Mr. Horn's
leadership style and his propensity to act without consulting others. This was
demonstrated again recently when Mr. Horn announced possible revisions to the
draft media bill already agreed by MSZP and SZDSZ negotiators and due to go
before parliament at the end of February."

The also refer to internal MSZP tensions: "Concerns about Mr Horn's autocratic
leadership style have for the first time been raised within the MSZP. Two
party vice-presidents have said that the internal party organs and the
parliamentary group should have more input into decision-making.  [...]
Personal and political manoeuvring within MSZP can be expected to increase as
the party's autumn congress approaches."

Barna Bozoki

Many thanks to Eva B. for the potato controversy summary.  The conspiracy
twist on potato prices is fascinating.  Just when you think you've heard
it all:  oil, paprika, coffee prices being influenced by dark forces;
comes the krumpi connection.  (Unfortunately, as HVG pointed out in January,
there have been some strange manipulations of the "free market"...  Coffee
prices in Hungary were kept artificially high - far above world prices - by
the four large multinational processors).

Eva is right about foreign investment - it really is necessary in Hungary.
Hungary can hardly afford Russian-like enthusiasm for investment with a
Mexican-like debt load.

However, if I may play the devil's advocate...  Why is it that the Czech
privatisation has managed to keep many strategic areas of the economy in
Czech hands without the same reaction that we've seen in Hungary?  For one
thing, the Czech government has an excellent reputation as being solidly
liberal and market-orientated.  Hungary, which has already sold much more to
foreigners, seems to be very vulnerable to charges of going back on
privatisation (both during the Antall and Horn governments).

Perhaps the Hungarian economic situation wouldn't be so tragic if we didn't
have the Czech economy to compare it to.  The Czechs worry about when to
REvaluate, not when to devaluate.  Unemployment is still relatively low, and
inflation is under control.  This might not be the most objective measure of
a country's economic success, but just go into a Czech food store and notice
how inexpensive everything is compared to the Hungarian ABC. (Wages are
slightly lower). It's true the Czechs don't have the same debt load, but the
relatively competent management of the economy seems to be a very important
variable.

I would like to know where I could find a list of english words
translated into hungarian.  Please send this informaiton to
Dan Kovacs

Thanks.


I'd hate to be sarcastic but you could try a dictionary!!!
TM

I am looking for books/articles written about the spread of the English
language in Hungary since 1990. I am also wondering if anyone out there
knows where I might find some information about the policy of the Hungarian
Government toward the teaching of English?

Thank you so much.
John K. Hellermann
Grad Student in Applied English Linguistics
University of Wisconsin-Madison

 wrote:

:"journalists are not scientists..."  (quoting Georg Paul Hefty)

Oh no!  First historians, now journalists!  Who is left to save
mankind from itself?

As to ravens, still thinking.  There is the saying about birds not
dirtying their own nests, but that doesn't seem good enough.

--Greg

Let me put on for a moment my canadian hat.

Foreign investment is good, if it diverse. When I lived in Canada, I was told
that 80% of the canadian economy is under US control. If it is true, I think
it is too much. I understand, that there is no real independence today.
We each depend on each other. But I feel there should be a healthfull
balance of dependence and independence.

Sandor

I am happy to report that the ministry of agriculture, notwithstanding with
the minister's claim on TV that the shortage of potatoes was due to a
conspiracy, made a belated move and allowed the importation of thirty thousand
 tons of potatoes from abroad. Moreover, the Uj Magyarorszag reports that the
shortage of potatoes, after all, was due to the very dry summer of last year.
Already the price of potato is down to about 60 Ft. Interesting, interesting.
The market economy does work, after all.

Eva Balogh

Charlie Pinter writes:
>        Dear Joe Pannon (Josephus Pannonius? Sounds like a typical pseudo-
>name, if you excuse me),

Really?  Well, it's not.

> If you had read my remarks a bit more
>carefully, you could have noticed that I myself have pointed out various
>problems which are unsolved and (I'm afraid) will remain so.
>
>        BUT: I do think that if somebody is interested in a historical or any
>kind of scientific problem seriously, wants to know facts and have a balanced
>view, he should turn to specialists simply because they happen to know more
>about it and not to journalists, especially not Anglo-American ones who
>usually cannot even locate Hungary on a world map.

Obviously it was you, who did not read carefully, so let me repeat
it again:  the journalist was REPORTING, not giving his own expert advice.
Now I happen to have heard that Kiszely's lectures tend to be very popular,
drawing huge, college age crowds, and hi is _IN_.  I suppose this is
the reason the journalist reported on Kiszely rather than somobody else.
And if he incorrectly reported that Mongolian language teaching was
something new there, so what?  It could have been a misunderstanding on
his part.

Frankly, beyond curiosity, I am not interested which way the debate on
the origin of Hungarians will lead us but I do think the Finno-Ugric
origin theory currently prevailing in academia is not based on such
strong foundations that should preclude any further search for
alternatives.  What can be wrong to look into that Sinkiang connection?
The worst that can happen is that Kiszely and his followers might fall
on their faces once again.

I am also not impressed by some of the alternate theories (Badinyi-Jos,
etc.), but I don't think (yet) that Kiszely is that far off the edges.

> (I'm not talking about Kiszely now but
>people who hail Attila as the first Hungarian in the Carpathian)

Mentioning Attila ...  Something that always made me wonder if it had a
reasonable probability that Attila's burial place could be found?
It could be the find of the century!  What do you think?

Joe Pannon

Charlie Pinter writes:
         The linguistic evidence to our belonging to the Finno-Ugric
language
group is overwhelming and indisputable: no Hungarian linguist in his right
mind would question that. The evidence is based on more than a century's
exhaustive research, and now enjoyes the widest possible consensus among
the specialists (quite rare phenomenon in linguistics, in fact).


    I don t know if  ANY researchers deny the relationship between the
Magyar and Finno- Ugric languages. This relationship, however, does not
tell the whole story. And relationship  does NOT necessarily mean common
origin.  The concept of related languages branching out of the same
ancient language  is not as commonly shared now as it was in the last
century. The Voguls and Ostyaks conceivably could have adopted their
languages. Their number is very small and are racially quite different
from the Magyars (not to mention the Finns).

       Now, I don't want to mix up the two questions, namely, the origin
of
our language and the origin of that ethnic group that was called a
thousand
years ago "Hungarian."
    Fair enough. We don t know EXACTLY  what the ethnic composition of
Hungarians (or that of most other nations) was over a thousand years ago.
However, that does not keep ethnic groups from tracing  their heritage
through the clouds of centuries.
   What we possibly ought to look at is the ethnic composition of
Hungarians TODAY. I don t see anything wrong  with investigating and
tracing the main ethnic strata of  Magyars (regardless how it came about)
back in time. Archeologists dig up old graves, among other things, to
determine what race the dead belonged to and how they lived.Tracing the
language only is a pretty narrow proposition. We are creatures of
biological and genetic components also, as opposed to only linguistic-
cultural ones.


  You can quickly forget about those Hungarian expatriate "scientists",
usually living in
America or somewhere else in the West, who come up with all kinds of hair-
raisingly stupid "theories" about our close relationship with the Sumers,
the
Huns etc.

   This is a rather hasty blanket statement. As a historian, you surely
must know that the theory of relationship between the Magyar and Sumerian
languages was not   made up  and certainly not by Hungarians. For decades
after the discovery of the existence of the Sumerians, leading scholars in
France, Germany, Britain, etc. scrambled to learn the language and
heritage of the Magyars in order to understand and learn more about
ancient Mesopotamia, especially about the Sumerians.  I don t see anything
  hair- raisingly stupid  about picking up where some serious and
acclaimed researchers left off, even if it is not the prevalent theory
today. As I understand, many advocating this relationship of late are (or
were) professors of renowned universities.
    Now, what about relationship with the Huns? This was not made up by
whackos in America, either, as it was the prevailing theory 'til the last
century.  Even if we accept the most extremist interpretation of the
Finno- Ugric origin (that is, the descendance of the Hungarian language
and people of a supposed ancient Finno- Ugric language and ethnic base) we
can not deny the relationship with the Huns. Both belong to the broader
Ural- Altaic group of languages (which includes the Turkic, Korean, Uygur,
Mandshu, etc.), not to mention the relationship in ethnicity and folklore.

 They are in most cases absolutely ignorant of the basics of the
scientific methods of investigation and self-criticism.

   Well, some of them could be; but some of the apostles of  pure Finno-
Ugric origin  in Hungary are guilty of the same. We all know that
research, especially  in Social Sciences  and Humanities was far from free
under Marxist- Communist regimes in Hungary. To the best of my knowledge,
even today there is no university in Hungary  that has a department for
comparative language studies for Sumerian. Many other countries do, for
their own language(s) and some even for Hungarian.
   Regardless of what we personally believe, research should be completely
free. Galileo Galilei was burned for his theory and he was proved right in
the end.

Peace,

Fred Sabato

Charlie Pinter writes:
         The linguistic evidence to our belonging to the Finno-Ugric
language
group is overwhelming and indisputable: no Hungarian linguist in his right
mind would question that. The evidence is based on more than a century's
exhaustive research, and now enjoyes the widest possible consensus among
the specialists (quite rare phenomenon in linguistics, in fact).


    I don t know if  ANY researchers deny the relationship between the
Magyar and Finno- Ugric languages. This relationship, however, does not
tell the whole story. And relationship  does NOT necessarily mean common
origin.  The concept of related languages branching out of the same
ancient language  is not as commonly shared now as it was in the last
century. The Voguls and Ostyaks conceivably could have adopted their
languages. Their number is very small and are racially quite different
from the Magyars (not to mention the Finns).

       Now, I don't want to mix up the two questions, namely, the origin
of
our language and the origin of that ethnic group that was called a
thousand
years ago "Hungarian."
    Fair enough. We don t know EXACTLY  what the ethnic composition of
Hungarians (or that of most other nations) was over a thousand years ago.
However, that does not keep ethnic groups from tracing  their heritage
through the clouds of centuries.
   What we possibly ought to look at is the ethnic composition of
Hungarians TODAY. I don t see anything wrong  with investigating and
tracing the main ethnic strata of  Magyars (regardless how it came about)
back in time. Archeologists dig up old graves, among other things to
determine what race the dead belonged to and how they lived.Tracing the
language only is a pretty narrow proposition. We are creatures of
biological and genetic components also, as opposed to only linguistic-
cultural ones.


  You can quickly forget about those Hungarian expatriate "scientists",
usually living in
America or somewhere else in the West, who come up with all kinds of hair-
raisingly stupid "theories" about our close relationship with the Sumers,
the
Huns etc.

   This is a rather hasty blanket statement. As a historian, you surely
must know that the theory of relationship between the Magyar and Sumerian
languages was not   made up  and certainly not by Hungarians. For decades
after the discovery of the existence of the Sumerians, leading scholars in
France, Germany, Britain, etc. scrambled to learn the language and
heritage of the Magyars in order to understand and learn more about
ancient Mesopotamia, especially about the Sumerians.  I don t see anything
  hair- raisingly stupid  about picking up where some serious and
acclaimed researchers left off, even if it is not the prevalent theory
today. As I understand, many advocating this relationship of late are (or
were) professors of renowned universities.
    Now, what about relationship with the Huns? This was not made up by
whackos in America, either, as it was the prevailing theory 'til the last
century.  Even if we accept the most extremist interpretation of the
Finno- Ugric origin (that is, the descendance of the Hungarian language
and people of a supposed ancient Finno- Ugric language and ethnic base) we
can not deny the relationship with the Huns. Both belong to the broader
Ural- Altaic group of languages (which includes the Turkic, Korean, Uygur,
Mandshu, etc.), not to mention the relationship in ethnicity and folklore.

 They are in most cases absolutely ignorant of the basics of the
scientific methods of investigation and self-criticism.

   Well, some of them could be; but some of the apostles of  pure Finno-
Ugric origin  in Hungary are guilty of the same. We all know that
research, especially  in Social Sciences  and Humanities was far from free
under Marxist- Communist regimes in Hungary. To the best of my knowledge,
even today there is no university in Hungary  that has a department for
comparative language studies for Sumerian. Many other countries do, for
their own language(s) and some even for Hungarian.
   Regardless of what we personally believe, research should be completely
free. Galileo Galilei was burned for his theory and he was proved right in
the end.

Peace,

Fred Sabato