Our Bucharest math prof writes:

>I just want to refer to a nice article
>of David Wingrove which you can find at the WWW address
>
>hhtp://www.halcyon.com.rompr/18david.html
>under the heading "Whose Language? Whose Education ?"
>I am too lazy to write it here :)
>Eseentially there you can find resons for which
>the Hungarian activist would do well to recognize that the future
>is not to be bound within their narrow interests.

I've read that article, too, and found its reasoning rather primitive
and unconvincing.  Wingrove's argument is defeated by the American
experience where most foreign educated professionals do just fine.
I especially found that argument stupid where he poses the question:
"Just how many professionals can a 1.6 mill. ethnic community absorb?"
To which the natural answer is: proportionately just as many as the
larger Romanian community.  Or is he assuming, that there are more
Hungarians wanting to be professionals (relatively speaking) as
Romanians?

Anyway, browsing through that WWW page, it became obvious that the "PR"
in RomPR stands more for Public Relations than PRess and the Bucharest
based free-lancer Wingrove makes it all too transparent.

Joe Pannon

 wrote:
: In article >,
: Mihai Caragiu > wrote:
:
: > Maybe it would not be
: >a bad idea for Madame Eva Balogh to learn a little bit more about the
: >meaning of scientific professionalism.
:
: Maybe it would also be a good idea if Bucharest mathematicians practiced
: a little bit more restraint and modesty in lecturing Yale historians
: about historical subjects.  Especially so soon after the demise of
: that great Romanian academician, Elena!
:
: It's almost funny seeing your arrogance about not your own field so soon
: after seeing something similar from a Bratislava mathematician.
: This is not to say that one has to be a trained historian to be credible
: in historical subjects, but let's not confuse amateurs with
: professionals, for Pete's sake!
:
: Joe

i believe eva balogh "retied' from being a professional historian
a number of years ago and is now connected with the publishing business.

by the way, if the formal status of thephd from yale is your criterion
for accepting eva balogh as a historian, then it is difficult to see
how you can reject seton-watson. his formal credentials are at least
as impressive, and his entire career was as a professional historian,
far longer than eva balogh's.

on the other hand, if formal qualifications don't matter, then surely
even a mathematician from bucharest might know and understand something
about aspects of history.

by the way, what formal qualifications do you have?


d.a.

On 29 Jul 95 Mihai Caragiu wrote:

"We cannot understand each other unless the mistakes of the
 past are reviewed and acknowledged from both directions".

With statues and memorials going up in Rumania in honor of the
executed war criminal Antonescu, the following books would
make appropriate reading:

1. Radu Ioanid, The Sword of the Archangel, Fascist Ideology
   in Romania.
   East European Monographs, Boulder, 1990.

2. Richard Landwehr, Romanian Volunteers of the Waffen SS.
   Landwehr

3. Randolph Braham, ed., The Tragedy of Romanian Jewry. Columbia
   University Press, New York, 1994.

Of course, none of these authors are Hungarians. Even the distinguished
Randolph Braham has a Rumanian background.

C.K. ZOLTANI

Wally Keeler wrote:

>>It is easy for a thief and his supporters to argue that
>> it is not worth dragging out an unpleasant situation to determine justice
>> in a difficult conflict.  Hll say, "this conflict is silly.  Let's just
>> forget the whole thing, and be better neighbors in the future".  Ofcourse,
>> however, he gets to keep what he has stolen, so that we can put the
>> situation behind us and start over.  Well, the Isrealis didn't feel

>Individually, yes. If you have been wronged by an individual, then seek
>out the individual to obtain justice, not the nation, not the peoples.

Individually, yes, I agree.  How would you propose to do this when a
government takes land and property from one group of people and gives it
to another?  The first group is made up of individuals who have each lost
everything.  How do you provide justice to these people?  How do you
explain to them that it is right that they lose everything?

To now, the conflict has been put in terms of all-or-nothing: one side wins
and the other side loses.  I may consider a compromise solution, which may be
the only truely fare way to end this conflict, but as long as the conflict is
put in terms of a winner and a loser, you can be sure I will not accept the
position as loser which the international community says I should.

>As far as I am concerned, both the Hungarians and Romanians, are on
>parole and should remain so. If you are so concerned with justice in that

You clearly are not neutral here.  If BOTH sides are on parole in your mind,
how can you reward one parolee and punish another. No, Rumania is not on
parole.  Hungary has been executed, and Rumania pulled the switch.

>> Bill Cosby was right when he said about fights among siblings, that "parents
>> are not interested in justice.  They are interested in quiet".  The same
>...
>The international community was happy to let the Serbs have a full 50% of
 Bosnia
>in order to end the war.  Nevermind about justice - let's just have some quiet
.

>This is idiocy. The Serbs claim the 50% as belonging to them -- history
>proves it, they claim. They are only trying to achieve justice they

You just got done explaining how wrong it is to exact justice from groups
instead of individuals, and now you tell us what the Serbs are doing is ok?
I don't know the arguments on both sides of the current war in Bosnia, so
I cannot take a side.  I was condemning the actions and motivations of the
international community, which is not considering history, but just
expediency.

In your reply to my writings, you were clear to explain your disagreement
with my position, but you still have not explained how you would
provide justice to Hungarian Rumanians.  The current situation is clearly
unacceptable, but what is your solution?  If I am wrong to want to reverse
roles in Transylvania, and the current situation is clearly unjust, and it is,
then what is your proposal?  Critisism without proposals for a solution
are worthless.

Paul

Mihai Caragiu wrote:


: Everything is so predictable...

Yourself excluded.  I trust you at least won't find that hard to believe...


--Greg

>> Bill Cosby was right when he said about fights among siblings, that "parents
>> are not interested in justice.  They are interested in quiet".  The same
>> is true about the international community, and we can see it in the treaties
>> they backed in Bosnia.  The international community was happy to let the
>> Serbs have a full 50% of Bosnia in order to end the war.  Nevermind about
>> justice - let's just have some quiet.  Therefore, agreements approved by
>> the international community are meaningless, till they try to achieve
>> justice.
>> Paul Gelencser

The above statment looks right to me.

>>The Serbs claim the 50% as belonging to them -- history
>>proves it, they claim. They are only trying to achieve justice they
>>claim.
True.
>>Europe has gifted the world with the bloodiest wars in human
>>history because one tribe of people was only trying to seek justice from
>>the wrongs committed by another tribe of people.

True.

>>History has proven how unsuccessful the Europeans have been in obtaining
 justice in the manner
>>that you have delineated.

In which manner? By treaty? Yes, you are right. By war? The winning side is
 always successfull.
(Unfortunatelly :-) )


Sandor.

>>Typical hungarian defensive.

I am not defensive here.  A I wrote a week ago, I look at historian, with great
 scepticism. That includes
english. french, romaninian etc.. even hungarian. Though some of them try to be
 more impartial than the
others, all of them have their opinion  colored to some degree. I could have
 brought up a ver respected
Scottish historian called MacCarthy, who was very partial to the hungarian side
,
 of course he was also
member of the Hungarian National Academy, but why bother.
  I only wanted to bring up a point that Seton Watson was not impartial and a
 propagandist, and that
in the USA not considered seriously. The last one is a heresay, I will try to
 research it. His writings
still interest me. But if he did have prejudices, it is certainly also a point
 of interest.
  But I agree with most that the present is more important, than tha past.

Both Romania and Hungary have same good people. It is also true, that extreme
 nationalism can cause
problems in the two countries. But the extreme nationalist in hungary, did not
 even get into the
goverment. The reasonable nationalists. (maybe equivalent with the ruling
 romanian party, (if it
would be not pressed by the ultra nationalist) are in oposition. For the ruling
 parties in hungary,
nationalism is a dirty word. So we are ready for peace.
  But by the american press, romania has a way to go yet. I hope that Mihail
 Caragiu
will help them get there.

  Sandor

P.S. Lets work for the better present, instead of bringing up the past.

On 7 Aug 95 Eva Nadai writes:

"Randolph Braham's original name was Abraham Adolf. He is from Transylvania
 but not Romanian."

In fact, according to his vita, Randolph Braham was born in Bucharest,
Romania on December 22, 1922 and came to the US in 1948 and was naturalized
in 1953.

Since 1992 he is distinguished professor emeritus of CCNY.

C.K. ZOLTANI

[...] When The Bishop (Ioan Inocentiu Klein) presented a memorial
"in his own name, and in that of the whole nation of Wallach
name in Transylvania, this first public confession of faith
roused storms of abuse on all sides and cries of "There is no
                                                  ===========
wallach nation, there is only a Wallach plebs".
> ===============================================

Even the word "gens" was disallowed as applied to Romanians. But Klein
this time refused to retract a single word. "Our nation", he
uncompromisingly declared, "is not inferior to any in
Transylvania, either in virtue, in knowledge or in judgement
of affairs"[...]

He insisted that the clergy of the Greek rite were entitled to
full equality with their Latin fellow clergy; that proper houses and
endowements must be provided for them; that they should be free to
erect a church in every parish with an Uniate majority, even if a
roman Catholic church was already there; that the sons of a clergy must
remain free from feudal obligations to the lord, and that Romanian
children must no longer be deliberately prevented
from attending schools. [...]

Maria Theresa was sympathetic, but could not, amid the conflict with
Frederick the Great, afford to offend Magyar opinion. The question was
again referred to a comission and again nothing happened [...]

The Diet doubly resented the proposal [...]. It therefore sent in a
"Supplicatio" of its own "contra Valachos", and meanwhile altered the
imperial draft in many respects.


When the daring bishop protested on behalf of a people "wounded to
marrow" and accused the Diet of running counter to the wishes of the
crown, he was challenged on all sides and forced to withdraw his words.
There was a cry, "The Wallachs are mere vagabonds", to which Klein
replied, "It cannot be otherwise since they are bloodly oppressed".
"They are only peasants and serfs", said another deputy, but the bishop
pointed to the Romanians of noble race in the district of Fagaras, and
the freemen on Saxon teritory. Then come shouts "They are brigands, they
are lazy thieves", to which the bishop retorted, "You cannot wonder, for to
the poor you left nothing but their skins, on which to live. Do the romanians
not work the salt and iron and gold mines for you, and some you actually dont
despoil of their skins also?"

His plea that it was unfair to force the Romanians to contribute to the
support of the Protestant clergy while their own priests were in the direst
straits, is unanswerable to-day: but to an audience mainly drawn from the
landed nobility his arguments were as offensive and unconvincing as his tone.
A joint petition of Roman and Greek catholics, reminding the crown that the
Uniates were far more deserving than "the stubborn Arians, Calvinists and
Lutherans" and looked for help neither to the Patriarch of Constantinople,
like the schismatics, nor to England, Holland and Prussia, as the Magyar
Protestants notoriously had done in the past, but to Rome and to
the imperial house - such tactics only stiffened the Diet still further [...]

In his isolation he appears to have feared that he was to be confined to
a Graz asylum. Under pretext of pilgrimage to Maria Zell, he escaped from
Vienna, made his way to Rome and appealed to the Pope on behalf of his
unhappy flock. But he thereby played straight into the hands of his
enemies: for though Curia was sympathetic, it could not quarell with Vienna
over the obscure Uniates. His memorial to the Empress remained unanswered,
and meanwhile the authorities ordered all his properties to be sequestrated,
thereby reducing him to destitution in Rome and forcing him to sell his
pectoral cross. [...] The transylvanian Government ordered that Klein
should henceforth be ignored by the faithful, and in 1751 there was nothing
left but surrender. He abandoned his see and lived on in his Roman exile
till 1768. He lived too in the hearts of his people, of both faiths, and
for many a year the peasants would greet some preacher with sad cries
"Our Bishop, our Bishop!"...


> ------------------------------------------
 Reference:  "A history of the Roumanians,
 from Roman times to the completion of unity"
 by R. W. Seton-Watson. Cambridge [Eng.], The University press, 1934.
 viii, 596 p. XVI pl.(port.,incl.front.)fold.map. 25 cm.

After hearing the `impressive' :-) comments of (),
some of you might want to take actually a look at the
editorial of David Wingrove. Here it is. Enjoy.

Mihai Caragiu


         ==================================
        | Dr. Mihai Caragiu                |
        | Institute of Mathematics         |
        | Romanian Academy of Sciences     |
        | e-mail:  |
         ==================================


> =========================================================================
[Romanian Press Review]

Whose Language? Whose Education?

Editorial by David Wingrove

This week, Romania took three decisive steps over the ongoing crisis of
minority-language education. Only the first was a decisive step forward. On
Tuesday, 18 July, Foreign Minister Teodor Melescanu went to Strasbourg and
signed - with considerable flourish - the Council of Europe's charter on
protection of regional and minority languages. Romania is only the second
country in the eastern half of Europe to sign this particular piece of paper.
The first was Hungary. Mr. Melescanu said the signing was a token of Romania's
deep concern for protecting minority languages. What he really meant was:
"Anything you can do, we can do better!"

The same day Melescanu signed the charter, the Vacaroiu Government took an
equally decisive step back. It issued a statement attacking European criticism
of its new Education Law. It said a resolution by the European Parliament on 13
July saying the law discriminates against minorities - is "ignorant and
offensive." An affront both to Romania and to the minorities that live happily
within its borders. One could spend hours debating the rights and wrongs of the
European statement. But it did rather spoil Romania's big day in Strasbourg.

The first and the second steps managed to cancel each other out. The third step
was different. A decisive step that did not go either forwards or back.
Instead, a decisive jumping up and down in the same place.

No sooner did Melescanu get back from Strasbourg than he went into two days of
talks in Bucharest with Hungary's Foreign Minister, Laszlo Kovacs. Their
meeting was only the latest attempt to sort out a basic political treaty
between Romania and Hungary. Every other meeting has fallen apart over the
inclusion of Council of Europe Recommendation 1201, which deals with ethnic
minority rights. Hungary wants it in. Romania wants it out. The new Education
Law just added fuel to the fire. Both sides say they have made progress in the
talks. Neither side will say what this progress is. Three steps in one week,
and Romania has got to the place it traditionally gets to when discussing
ethnic minorities. Nowhere.

All this fuss might make some sense if any of the documents in question were at
all inflammatory. The Hungarian Democratic Union (better known as UDMR) claims
to speak for Romania's 1.6 million ethnic Hungarians. In an official statement,
UDMR has attacked the Education Law as "more anti-Hungarian, and more
anti-minorities, than all the legislation of the Communist regime."
Representatives of the much-smaller Polish and Armenian communities felt
strongly enough to add their signatures to the protest. But what does this
dreaded Education Law actually involve?

The text of the Education Law does far more to guarantee minority-language
education than to prevent it. Under the law, any sizeable language minority has
the right to primary and secondary education in its mother-tongue. Once
minority students get to university, they may conduct specialized study in
their native language - provided their basic professional training takes place
in the official language of the country - Romanian.

There are those in UDMR who view this as an outrage. They want the guaranteed
right to full third-level education in their own language. It is only natural
that those born and brought up in a language should wish to speak it at work.
It is also only natural that the Ministry of Education should wish to train
professionals who can talk to each other - if necessary - without means of an
interpreter.

The training of Hungarian-language professionals is not just a question of
training. It is also a question of where those professionals will work once
their training is complete. If minority students are educated in isolation from
the majority, most will isolate themselves still further once they graduate. To
pretend they will not do this is to pretend that education has no effect. To
mis-quote Muriel Sparks' school-teacher Miss Jean Brodie, "Give me a minority
language-speaker at an impressionable age, and he is mine for life!" A
professional education in Hungarian would direct graduates to work almost
exclusively in those areas of Transylvania that have a large concentration of
Hungarians.

But how many doctors, lawyers, engineers and researchers can a community of 1.6
million people hope to absorb? Training someone to work within a narrow ethnic
community may have been practical 100 years ago, when most people could be
relied on to make a career in their native town. In the 1990s, fewer and fewer
people make a career in their native country - never mind in their native town,
region or province. Less and less professional communication takes place on a
local level. More and more of it is national and - yes - international.

By insisting on full third-level education in Hungarian, UDMR activists are not
just flying in the face of the Romanian government. They are flying in the face
of the whole world. If UDMR gets what it wants, the Hungarian community will
become more insular and isolated within Romania. Difficulty in finding work
outside the Hungarian community will add to the myth that Hungarians in Romania
are second-class citizens. If anyone does want to be a second-class citizen,
then minority-language education is the way to go about it.

Nobody - not even the most unpleasant extremists in certain political parties -
would dispute the right of ethnic Hungarians to keep their language and
culture, in areas where that language and culture are essential. On a recent
visit to Tirgu Mures, I missed a chance to see Peter Schaffer's Equus performed
by a Hungarian theatre company in Hungarian. (I have always found this play
rather dreary, and thought Hungarian might improve it!) However, in areas where
national and international communication are indispensable, Hungarian activists
would do well to recognise that the future is not to be found within their
narrow interests.

International and, particularly, European observers would do well to step out
of the minority language dispute. If they allow the dust to settle a bit, they
may get a rare glimpse of reality. Despite its troubled history and its
undeniably chaotic present, Romania is a largely successful multi-ethnic
society. "Largely" is an important word here. With the possible exception of
Switzerland, an entirely successful multi-ethnic society does not exist, and
never has. International bodies have been ready to overlook the many things
Romania does wrong - when it suits their political agenda to do so. Amazing
that they cannot forgive one of the few things Romania does right!

(Editor's note: David Wingrove is a free-lance journalist based in Bucharest.
He can be reached through the Romanian Press Review offices at Tel: (40-1)
312-6237 or E-mail: )

> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
[Image]Back to this issue's Table of Contents or to the Romanian Press Review
Home Page

Copyright 1995 Romanian Press Review

I see that my writing on Seton-Watson caused quite an uproar in Bucharest.
Naturally the Romanians, the Czechs, and the Slovaks consider him the
greatest historian on the face of the earth because he took their side. On
the other hand, Hungarians believe that C. A. Macartney, an equally famous
British historians, was much more objective because Macartney was not
anti-Hungarian and on balance was rather sympathetic to Hungary. But the very
fact that Seton-Watson received so many honorary degrees from Prague, Zagreb,
Belgrade, Bucharest and Cluj tells you something.

Eva Balogh

I see that my writing on Seton-Watson caused quite an uproar in Bucharest.
Naturally the Romanians, the Czechs, and the Slovaks consider him the
greatest historian on the face of the earth because he took their side. On
the other hand, Hungarians believe that C. A. Macartney, an equally famous
British historians, was much more objective because Macartney was not
anti-Hungarian and on balance was rather sympathetic to Hungary. But the very
fact that Seton-Watson received so many honorary degrees from Prague, Zagreb,
Belgrade, Bucharest and Cluj tells you something.

Eva Balogh

P.S. His son, Hugh Seton-Watson, also a historian of Eastern Europe, wrote a
book about his father and admitted that his father was wrong in getting
involved with the squabbles of East-European nations.

By the way, there is no such thing there as pure innocence and pure guilt. If
the Hungarians acted badly toward their Romanian, Slovak, or Serb fellow
citizens, the Romanians, Czechoslovaks, and Southern Slavs all committed
atrocities against the Hungarians as well as against each other. Romanians,
on the whole, has had a rather sad record of intolerance toward others--Jews
as well as Hungarians and Gypsies.

Sandor Lengyel x2495 > wrote:
>>Typical hungarian defensive.
>I am not defensive here.  A I wrote a week ago, I look at historian, with
great
> scepticism. That includes
>english. french, romaninian etc.. even hungarian. Though some of them try to
be
> more impartial than the
>others, all of them have their opinion  colored to some degree. I could have
> brought up a ver respected
>Scottish historian called MacCarthy, who was very partial to the hungarian
side,
> of course he was also
>member of the Hungarian National Academy, but why bother.

For the present discussion it is irrelevant the fact that Seton-Watson
took also a strong stand against Austro-Hungarian propaganda machine.
I proved here that his credentials as an historian are strong enough,
so Madamme Eva Balogh can _safely_ assume he is OK professionally.
Now, everything reduces to this :

Is the truth of the statement "2+2=4"
dependent of the inner disposition of the
person who ennounces it ? In other words :
are we back to Orwell ?

Personally I would admit
that MacCarthy is a very respected historian,
and that if he has written down a true statement, it
would be OK for me.

>But by the american press, romania has a way to go yet.

Yes Romania has a way to go yet. Not only because the
american press says so, you know :-)


Mihai Caragiu

Mihai Caragiu wrote:

: For the present discussion it is irrelevant the fact that Seton-Watson
: took also a strong stand against Austro-Hungarian propaganda machine.

You are an intelligent person, but you are a bad actor, I'm sorry to
say.  You are  pretending to be stupid and to miss the point that
S-W is accused of attempting to counter falsehood not with the truth, but
with more falsehood.  So give us a break and drop the act.


--Greg

>Maybe it would also be a good idea if Bucharest mathematicians practiced
>a little bit more restraint and modesty in lecturing Yale historians
>about historical subjects.  Especially so soon after the demise of
>that great Romanian academician, Elena!

Yeah, what Joe said goes for me too, so there :-)

Paul gelencser

Mihai Caragiu wrote:

>The fact that he [Seton-Watson] indeed took a _strong stand_ against
>the austro-hungarian propaganda before the first World War is translated
>(normally, isn't it :) by the hungarian intelligentsia by `he was a
 propagandist'
>Against the `good' old unjust status quo?...Against the continuous
>lies exported to the West?... _This_ should be added in proof by Mme Balogh,
>and then I would agree that he was indeed a propagandist, and that is
>OK for me.

If there were injustices against the Rumanians by the austro-hungarians,
remember that the Hungarians were not willing participants in that
union.  If there were injustices against the Rumanians by Hungarians, you
cannot rightfully counter that with the current injustice.  As you know,
there is strong support on both sides for a claim to Transylvania, and the
positions taken by both sides cannot be changed by more oppression.

>Maybe the following are irrelevant for the author: S-W was Fellow of
>British Academy since 1932, President of the Royal Historical Society
>since 1945, Founding Editor of the well respected journal `Slavonic Review',
>...

Education does not mean he didn't have a bias.

>[S-W] Doctor Honoris Causa at Prague (1919), Zagreb (1920), Bratislava (1928),
>Belgrade (1928), Cluj (1930)

Notice that his sympathies lay with those under whom he studied - or that he
only studied under those with which his sympathies lay.  Not exactly a
well rounded education.  What he did have was a complete knowledge of one
side of the issue.

Paul Gelencser