In article >,  ()
writes:

>Hat az valoban nem sok, konnyu eszre se venni.  Tekintettel arra, hogy a
>HIRMONDO es BLA is mashonnan masolja anyagat, nem latom mi itt a nagy
>bibi, ameddig nem az egesz ujsag aranylag nagy reszenek egy az egyben
>valo atmasolasarol van szo.

Kedves Pannon Jozsi!

En egyszeruen nem ertem, hogy Maga nem erti meg, hogy itt mirol is van
szo. Az a teny, hogy a Hirmondo es a BLA valahonnan mashonnan masolja az
anyagat, az eg egy adta vilagon semmit sem jelent. Ugyanis mindket
esetben, ket ember, Bodnar Daniel a BLA es Ferko Janos a Hirmondo
eseteben, orakat tolt naponta azzal, hogy atolvassa a legfontosabb magyar
ujsagokat, megcsinalja a valogatast, es vegul is roviden es velosen
osszefoglalja a meglehetosen hosszu cikkek anyagat. En a sajat
tapasztalatombol tudom, hogy ez nem eppen konnyu mulatsag. Mindketten
kapnak valami fizetest is ezert a munkaert, mivel valoban fizetes jar egy
ilyenfajta munka utan. Ferko Janost a Hirmondo olvasoi tamogatjak. A
Batthany Lajos Alapitvany fizeti Bodnar Danielt! Mindkettojuk neve
megjelenik a hirosszefoglalok elejen, illetve vegen. Ez az o munkajuk!
Erre fogja magat valaki mas, akinek az az otlete tamadt (immar masodszor),
hogy o mindenkeppen egy uj kiadvanyt akar kiadni az Interneten. De mivel
vagy lusta, vagy nincsenek otthoni osszekottetesei, vagy pedig nincs penze
ra, fogja magat es egyszeruen lemasolja masok munkajat: Bodnar Danielet,
Ferko Janoset, nem is beszelve az OMRI angol nyelvu hireirol. Kozben egy
szot nem szol arrol, hogy ez az anyag nem eredeti. Rajongoi a Forumon
pedig egeszen odavannak, hogy micsoda szinvonalas hirosszefoglalot ad ki
Pellionisz/Szucs/Toth. Vagy ott van Pagony Lajos mai cikke a Forumban, aki
szerint o atadja ujsagiro ismerosenek az angol nyelvu hirosszefoglalokat,
mivel jobb mint akarmi mas. Csakhogy ezzel az a bibi, hogy Pagony Lajos
azt hiszi, hogy ez Pellionisz/Szucs/Toth erdeme es nem a Soros Foundation
altal tamogatott OMRI-e. En kulonosen azt tartom pikansnak, hogy
Pellionisz baratunk eppen attol a Soros Gyorgytol lop (vagy atvesz)
anyagot, akit valoszinuleg omaga melyen lenez Soros politikai felfogasa
miatt. De ugyanakkor nem atalja lemasolni a Soros Gyorgy altal alapitott
alapitvany kiadvanyait!

Udvozlettel, Eva (Balogh)

Kevin Hannan > wrote:

>>Definitely, Bowlus' work is a must.

>Fortunately, our library has a copy, which I've just completed
>reading.  Well, I hardly expect Slavists to jump on the Boba
>bandwagon just because of this book!

I might not side with you on this one, Kevin. Those Slavists arguing
for a northern location of megale Moravia, had long ago lost the
battle in which they didn't have much saying to start with. Their
objections to Boba's thesis, never weighting much and already very
convincingly refuted,  were not Bowlus' main concern because , as he
concluded (see p.319):

"...rejection of Boba's view has frequently been justified on the
grounds that *the Frankish sources, the most contemporary and reliable
body of evidence* [emphasize added], are incompatible with the notion
of a southern Moravia.[...] the Frankish evidence, in the opinion of
Boba's opponents, decisively places the heartland of ninth-century
Moravia approximately one hundred kilometers in the northern Morava
Valley."

This was actually the premise of Bowlus' approach, to address the core
of the arguments [i.e., extracted from contemporary Frankish
chronicles] that have been advanced against the southern Moravia
hypothesis. In my opinion, his brilliant structural analysis of
Frankish sources, a characterization to which you also apparently
subscribed (see below), gave a merciless blow to the opponents of the
southern Morava hypothesis.

>Bowlus's knowledge of the Latin  sources is impressive, but otherwise the book
 has
>numerous flaws. Let me just mention a few of them.  

>1) Bowlus is confused by the  Slavic ethnicons which he
>encounters in the various sources.  

Now, just because you think it's so it doesn't make it true.I think
the confusion is not due to  Bowlus' poor mastery of Slavic chronicles
or linguistic elements, but because of your biased superficial reading
of his work.

>He doesn't seem to understand
>that, depending upon the author and the period, different names, e.g.
>Wend and Slav, can be used to describe the same tribal unit.

Bowlus mentioned the Wends 8 times, always, without exception, in
connection with excerpts from only two Latin sources: Annales
Xantenses (1), and Hincmar of Reims'  Annales Bertiniani (7). Although
the author of Annales Xantenses is generally vague in his reference to
the Wends, "Louis went from Saxony against the Wendi beyond the Elbe,"
by cross-checking this entry against the 864 entry in Annales
Fuldenses, Bowlus suggests that the  Wendi are not the Slavs in
general, but exactly the Moravian Slavs of of Rastislav. Annales
Bertiniani are even more simple to interpret for Bowlus because
Hincmar referred simply and directly to "Rastizem  Winidorum regulo,"
and, therefore, in this case the Wends are obviously the Moravians,
not the Slavs in general. 

>Generally,
>I find his choice of terminology very distracting, e.g. "Zwentibald".

Bowlus focus being on the Frankish chronicles, it seems to me that
actually "Zwentibald" is the only proper choice. I hope I'm not wrong,
but hasn't used Reuter the same name variant in his  1991"Germany in
the Early Middle Ages?" 

>He's also not consistent in his terminology, e.g. Tisza and Tiza.  

Even if you're correct on this one, I hardly see the relevance of this
inconsistency for the subject under discussion. Anyhow, a brief check
of 10 occurrences, using the index entires, suggests Tisza as the only
spelling used by Bowlus. Do you have a page number to prove your
point? 

>2) The reader has to assume that Bowlus doesn't read any Slavic
>languages. 

No, the reader does not need to make that assumption because, as you
most certainly read in the Preface (p.xiv), Bowlus writes:  "While I
am confident of my ability to translate Carolingian Latin into modern
English, I recognize my limitations in dealing with Byzantine Greek
and Old Slavic.  

> His book is based mainly on Latin sources (although he
>mentions sources in other languages). 

Yes, that was part of his premises: "Although the primary arguments in
this book rest on Latin sources, at times I have found it necessarily
to cite Passages from Greek and Slavic authors." and, most
importantly,  added "For the most part I have utilized excellent,
readily available translations of these sources, and I clearly
indicated that I have. For a crucial passage from the Old Slavic *Life
of  St.Methodius*, however, Professor  Horace G.Lunt of the Department
of Slavic Languages at Harvard University has allowed me to publish
his English translation...I thank him for his advice...He has
prevented me from making many major errors."[p.xiv]

>Concerning articles and books,
>his bibliography consists primarily of German sources.

That;'s hardly a surprise. English literature on the subject is not
that rich especially when compared to the German counterpart, most of
the primary sources where either translated initially by Germans or
analyzed by German scholars, and many Czech-Slovak and Hungarian
authors have  also published in German.
 
>In order to
>discuss the mission of Cyril and Methodius, for example, one needs
>a sound knowledge of OCS and at least a little linguistic training.

Yeah, maybe, but so far you and Tony have failed to mention even one
sound Slavist argument, linguistic or historical,  against a  southern
Moravian location of Methodius's episcopacy and diocese. 

>3) His lack of mastery of Slavic results in some significant
>omissions.  One of the main arguments, to my mind, which refutes the 
>"southern Moravia" hypothesis is the reference in the Life 
>of Methodius to the "powerful pagan prince on the Vistula." 

Really? That's very interesting because at page 196 Bowlus writes:

"In the same chapter three [from VM] there is a passage that has led
many to belive that Zwentibald succeeded in conquering southern Poland
and that Methodius and his disciples were active there. Some have even
gone so far as to assert a Slavic church organization survived in
Poland following the expulsion of Methodius's followers from Moravia
circa 885. Vincenz and Urbanczyc, however, have decisively put these
theories to rest. Schelesniker argues that supporters of the northern
Moravia hypothesis have arbitrarily decided that a certain pagan
prince resided on the Vistula. The Slavonic phrase in the VM is,
however, *in Visla,* which Schelesniker argues, *was located,
according to Byzantine sources, in Paganaia (today Hercegovina).*

Now, it may be true that Bowlus, as he has confessed,  does not have a
sound knowledge of OCS, but Schelesniker's article was published in
Anzeiger fur Slawische Philologie [19, 1989, 182-187] so let's give 
at least to this guy credit for his linguistic training in OCS :-)

>4) Reading the book, I got the impression 

Well, I guess a second reading would not hurt, just for a complete
clarification of thise impressions and a full comprehending of the
finest points :-)


Liviu Iordache

Most of you have probably heard about the accusations by the deposed
Polish president Lech Walesa, charging that his prime minister was a
KGB informant.  Though the accusation, made at this time is a bit
suspicious, but assuming Walesa is right, it could only be so because
the Poles, in their last Sejm elections, brought back the former
communists to power even before the Hungarians did so.  With the recent
presidential election they did the same thing for the chief of state
position as well.  With that kind of democratic mandate what do you
think the chance is that we'll ever find out whether this Jozef Oleksy
is indeed an informer for the Russians, or not?

The situation reminds me the case of those appointed Hungarian judges
whose job was to ferret out any former communist agents among members of
the Parliament.  Apparently the assumption of their appointers was that
they would not take their jobs seriously.  However, they did, and as
soon as one of the judges mentioned in the media that they have already
found some former agents amongst the MPs (after being accused that they
were doing nothing), they were quickly replaced with other judges.  Noone
heard from that commission ever since.  So, despite the suspicious
timing of the accusation by Walesa, I would not be surprised if he was
right.  In the hope of being reelected into the Presidency, he probably
wanted to wait till more conclusive proof was collected on Oleksy before
his announcement.  His losing the election may have forced his hand,
since he had a good reason to belive that his communist successor would
probably not do anything about it, anyway.

Its a strange irony that Poland and Hungary having been the two leading 
countries in the overthrow of Communism in the East Bloc are now back in 
firm control of the reformed branch of the same communists while the
Czechs, the least rebellious of them all (the Prague Spring was really
initiated at the top, not on the streets), managed to get themselves rid
off communists in the government the most.

I wonder what outcome do you expect from Poland and Hungary with such
governments in power again?  Will the unfulfilled expectations of the
people depose them again?  Will it be at the ballot box or on the
streets again?

Happy Holidays!
Joe Pannon

EvaB459762 > wrote:
>
>fogja magat es egyszeruen lemasolja masok munkajat: Bodnar Danielet,
>Ferko Janoset, nem is beszelve az OMRI angol nyelvu hireirol. Kozben egy
>szot nem szol arrol, hogy ez az anyag nem eredeti. Rajongoi a Forumon

Nem tudom honnan veszi, hogy a NEMZET nem tunteti fel az eredeti
forrast, ugyanis minden szamban ott van, hogy az OMRItol, vagy BLA-tol
van atveve.  Lehet, hogy az elso szamokban ez nem volt mindig igy, ami
esetben valoban egyetertek Magaval, hogy az etikatlan lett volna, de
amiota en emlekszem, a "credit" mindig megvolt adva az eredeti
szerzoknek.  Ha igaz, amit mostanaban a HIXben olvastunk, akkor a
HIRMONDObol atvett par sornal ez nem allt fent, de ez veletlen muve is
lehetett.  En az egyedi eseteket nem ugy veszem, mint az ismetlodoket.

> Csakhogy ezzel az a bibi, hogy Pagony Lajos
>azt hiszi, hogy ez Pellionisz/Szucs/Toth erdeme es nem a Soros Foundation
>altal tamogatott OMRI-e.

Miota ad arra, hogy mit mond Lajcsi baratunk? ;-)

>En kulonosen azt tartom pikansnak, hogy
>Pellionisz baratunk eppen attol a Soros Gyorgytol lop (vagy atvesz)
>anyagot, akit valoszinuleg omaga melyen lenez Soros politikai felfogasa
>miatt. De ugyanakkor nem atalja lemasolni a Soros Gyorgy altal alapitott
>alapitvany kiadvanyait!

Hat ezt is lehet kulonbozokepen latni.  Pl. ugy, hogy ha en
liberalisokat akarok meggyozni, akkor igyekszem liberalis forrasbol jovo
hirekkel tenni azt, ha akad olyan.  Ha ugyanaz egy jobboldali forrasbol
szarmazna, azt valoszinuleg egybol leertekelnek.

Pannon J.