Indeed, the 100,000! From th beginning, I suspected that Andras Szucs is the
figment of Mr. Pellionisz's imagination. This mysterious Andras Szucs has
been most active on the Forum in recent days. And there is another man,
Joseph Toth, who is also most interesting. He is an illiterate Hungarian: his
grammatical mistakes and spelling errors are too numerous to count. The
trouble with these spelling errors that they are not genuine. We all know the
kinds of errors Hungarians make in writing. These are not those. These are
phoney. Joseph Toth, on the basis of his poor Hungarian, supposed to be an
older man who has been living in the United States for decades. Yet, he seems
to be very familiar with the Hungarian political scene and uses expressions
an old Hungarian emigre wouldn't be able to use. For example, calling SZDSZ
followers "blue heads." In any case, Joseph Toth's favorite target is "yours
truly," who is now accused of being a secret police agent of the Rakosi
regime.

And this leads me to Andy Kozma's piece. Nobody is going to bloody your nose
for finding writings in the *Nemzet* "personaly . . . offensive and
inciting." And to enlighten the readers of this list what the *Nemzet* is all
about, let me give a little background history.

A couple of weeks ago I found a new publication in my mailbox. The title
*Nemzet*--Nation. The publication originated from .
Originally it was simply a news service, re-publishing the English-language
OMRI news items and very detailed daily news summaries, in Hungarian, from
the Hungarian daily press. The news service was excellent: detailed,
balanced, objective, no editorializing.

This new publication, of course, didn't only come to me but also to several
other readers of the Forum. People on the list were remarking on how good the
publication was and some expressed surprise that the style of the publication
didn't bear any resemblance to that of Mr. Pellionisz. That was true, and I
was wondering from the very beginning who the real author of these summaries
was.

Well, about a week ago the truth came out. A foundation in Hungary called
Batthyany Lajos Alapitvany (Batthyany Lajos was Hungary's first prime
minister in 1848 and sentenced to death in 1849) is the publisher of the news
summaries--they come out daily with the exception of Sunday. The Batthyany
Foundation published a disclaimer: whoever is publishing their news summaries
is doing it illegally. If nothing else, it is a copyright infringement case,
but I suspect one could also call it plagiarism. Someone obviously also asked
OMRI whether they were aware of the re-publication of their news items in
*Nemzet.* Needless to say, that they were not. The OMRI items were lifted
without permission also.

The *Nemzet* soon enough stopped being a simple news service. Mr. Pellionisz
began to republish items to his real liking, i.e., far-right propaganda. Two
days ago I wrote to  and asked to be removed from the
list of recipients of the *Nemzet.* I was removed as of yesterday. Therefore,
I cannot comment on the article Andy Kozma found offensive. But I am sure it
was!

The whole thing sounds terribly childish, doesn't it? Stealing other people's
news items and inventing followers to a cause. It is. It is absolutely
ridiculous but at the same time extremely annoying. And dangerous as well.

Eva Balogh

Eva S. Balogh wrote:

: ...It is absolutely
: ridiculous but at the same time extremely annoying. And dangerous as well.

With respect, if it's that easy to see through, how dangerous can it be?

--Greg Grose

The issue is defamation of Hungary. I am a newcomer to Internet
but have watched many ugly episodes already. I passed a point
where can no longer see why defamation of Hungary (e.g. on the net)
should go unchallenged. Therefore - although I am not a cardholding
member of Prof. Liptak's League - claim as a privilege that all
Hungarians are entitled to, to speak up in self-defense against
anti-Hungarian defamation.

The issue is that Kornai, Balogh and some others abroad (and the
official media inside the country) spread malicious lies about
Hungary. We heard Mrs. Balogh badmouth Hungarians, referring to
"written statements" that they were preparing *armed* revolt for
Oct. 22nd. It was a lie, a defamation. She wrote that the rally
of some 7-8 thousand shouted "anti-semitic" slogans. This is a
very grave charge, since if it were true would rather greatly damage
to Hungary's reputation. However, if it is not true, it is a very
serious defamation, costing Hungary an awful lot. For the slogans
shouted, we know now that Balogh lied, and her charge of "shouting
anti-semitic slogans" was a defamation that she will no doubt be held
responsible for. (There were *no* anti-semitic slogans shouted, those
who were there know very well. Balogh most certainly wasn't there.
Defamation based on hearsay, however, is an even more condemned and
irresponsible offense. Liberal Magyar Hirlap, in its half-page report
on the rally, would have no doubt specifically quoted if there were
any such shouting, but *did not*, as there wasn't any).

For Kornai's anti-Hungarian defamation, belittling an anti-government
protest (trying to picture several tens of thousand *bodies* -not
internet accounts- as nonexistent), or branding the 100,000 as "Csurka
fans" are rather minor examples. Suffice to note that the figure
100,000 did *not* originate from any fan of Csurka (to say the least!)
but from TV director Adam Horvath who stood on the opposite side of the
cordon of police. But Horvath was at least on the spot, while Kornai
most likely was far away. True, Horvath was probably scared s***less
of what he feared as hundred thousand, and thus is not the most
objective head-counter, but "Csurka fan" he is definitely *not*.

I jumped on Kornai because of his much earlier grave defamation of
Hungary. Early this fall, Dr. Pellionisz refered to Kornai's denial
of the "Freedom Fight" of Hungarians in 1956, here in "Hungary".
I was in such disbelief that I asked Dr. Pellionisz if that defamation
truly happened. He directed me to saved issues of "Forum" (written
in Hungarian). One does not have to be an "old-timer" to use records,
Kornai himself directs any reader to Forum-issues #461-476 on the
Internet-archive "HIX").

Most English-speaking persons would not know much more about
Hungary than "It's capital is Bukarest" and that "Hungarian Freedom
Fighters stood up to Soviet tanks in 1956". While those reading
"Hungary" are much better versed, still I consider anyone publicly
denying the Freedom Fight in 1956 as an extremely serious defamation
of Hungarians, since the malicious lie takes away from Hungarians
one of their few most precious "claim to fame". Therefore, hereby
I challenge Kornai either to (a) declare that he does not deny Freedom
Fight of Hungarians in 1956, or (b) face us with any such claim if
he does - and it the latter case we look forward to a very lively
debate where quite possibly even Mrs. Balogh and Kornai will be
against each other's throat.

If lies by Mrs. Balogh and Kornai were isolated occurrences, anti-
defamation struggle weren't be all that important. However, their
lies, serving obvious political goals, are most typical even
for SZDSZ party leader Peto (son of a high ranking AVO -Hungarian
KGB- officer) according to a very recent bestseller book by Jeno
Szatmari. When SZDSZ attempted to bring down the democratically
elected Antall-government by physical force ("taxi-blocade"), SZDSZ
declared that "the blocade has nothing to do, whatsoever, with the
SZDSZ". Journalist Szatmari, however, is a (still) living wittness
to testify that Peto commanded the blocade personally, over telephone,
in the presence of Szatmari in Peto's office.

Hungarians had enough of liberal lies - let it be known that
defamation of Hungarians will no longer go unopposed.

>... given the arrogant style of your demand.
 You have no sense of humor. That was not arrogant !

>So, why don't you find out where your local library is and look for some
>material yourself.  While at it, do read up on etiquette as well.
  Because
  1.: That is not 20-40 lines
  2.: Takes much more time
  3.: This is this media is for
  4.: The "Suez Canal" is used as magic word in the story
      of Hungary 1956
  5.: Because I was practically no on this arrogant world at that time
  And I have about 1000 more reasons.

>George, I think kristyan was making the distinction between he folklore
>version "everyone knows", and the factual version.  I don't think
>arrogance was involved, but just an abrupt writing style which can across
 Thanks Paul !!!
   Now my name is spelled with lower case like Nemecsek's
 in the famous book "Be good until you die". I hope non-Hungarian
 natives will not misunderstand it, this book has nothing to do
 with Hungary 1956.
    Also George may not know who the Hungarian Nancsi neni is.
 Well, she corresponds to the "redneck" in the southern part of US.
    Yeeeh, one more: I need 20-40 lines story about the Suez Canal
                                         Dr.Dr.K.S.

E1va Balogh summarizes a "university textbook," (I'm actually interested
who's the author) saying, in essence correctly, that
> After the terror, Kadar and his comrades successfully
> managed to convince the Hungarian population that in the outer ring of the
> Soviet Empire what this regime managed provide was the maximum which could be
> achieved. Without expressing it, the government pounded into public
> consciousness that the Hungarian government was actually continually
> outwitting the Soviet leadership, and was incessantly working for securing
> better and better living conditions. `That's all that can be achieved, and
> even that with only us. . . . If not us, then comes back Rakosi--continued
> the unexpressed reasoning. Naturally, in order to accept this line of
> reasoning, the regime had to produce `results,' and until the 1970s these
> `results' were there.
>
> One of the foundations of this "winking" between the political power and
> society (i.e. we are "pulling the wool over Moscow's eyes, was the steady
> improvement of living conditions. . . .
This was, indeed, one of the pillars on which Ka1da1r built legitimacy. The
other pillar was the de-politicization of everyday life. No more "Szabad Ne1p
Fe1lo1ra", no more A1VH, access to Western culture (it is worth comparing the
contents of "Nagyvila1g" in the sixties and seventies to that of similar
literary monthlies in Czechoslovakia or Poland), access to Western media
(from the seventies onward, Western newspapers could be bought for forints
first in hotel lobbies, later in all newsstands in tourist-frequented areas),
and of course access to the West itself (increasingly liberal passport/visa/
foreign exchange policies). Implicit (sometimes explicit) statements as to
bringing Hungary into the western orbit as far the convertibility of the
currency and integration into western organizations was concerned.

There can be little doubt that the split between emigre assessments of
Ka1da1r and his actual acceptance in Hungary was caused by the fact
that the emigres had no use for increasing living standards and a
decreased role of communist politics and Marxist ideology in Hungary.
They had these things for themselves in full measure by virtue of
leaving Hungary, and had no sense of the relief even small steps in
these directions would bring to those who stayed behind.

Andra1s Kornai