Regarding Trianon and the Kingdom of Hungary

For a second time in one day, i dont understand to well this guy. I request a ban on his name! Just for fun...

Iama

It appears that the 'Trianon' documentary will be aired by Antena 1 TV station in early February, as part of the Tuca-show.

Dénes

The 'Trianon' documentary will be aired by Antena 1 TV station tomorrow evening, on Febr. 9, at 20:15, as part of the Tuca-show. The screening will be followed by a discussion, involving the film's director and one of the Hungarian historians who co-wrote the scripts.

I'll be interested to hear the opinions of those who will have a chance to see it.

Gen. Dénes

I have seen the "documentary" Trianon. I will post my review later.

Denes, you can see the debate live on http://www.tucashow.ro

Thanks, Victor, but currently I am at work and cannot afford to get caught...

Dénes

I want to make clear several things regarding the production “Trianon”. First, this is not a documentary, as one is accustomed with the classic documentaries of Discovery Channel or History Channel. This is a lyric description of events presented from the sole point of view of Hungarians, be it memoirs, men of culture or Hungarian propaganda services, spiced with Hungarian patriotic songs or poetry. By no way this can be classified as documentary.

Second, related with the inderdiction of this production in Hungary in Romania. Nor in Hungary, neither in Romania, this production has been forbidden as is. In Hungary, its airing was refused by the national post and by Duna TV. In Romania, the cast of the movie was penalized because it did not respect the applicable laws. As in every European country, before being aired, the movie must be classified (as for children rating) and must be subtitled in the country language. When it was cast in Transylvania, it did not respect any of this law, therefor the laws were broken.

Now coming back to the content of the movie, I will concetrate my conclusions in pluses and minuses.

Pluses:
- realistical presentation of the trauma that Trianon meant for Hungarian
- some of the historians interviewed had interesting interventions
- the fact that the road to Trianon was the Hungarians own doing
- nice piece of propaganda

Minuses:
- not a documentary, an extremely subjective and nationalistic point of view
- a piece of propaganda behind of our times, not for for 21st century
- everything wrong after 1920 is the cause of Versailles and Trianon
- unargumented historical claims, sometimes with “conspiracy” flavour
- the old cliches that Romanians mentalities are faulty and obsolete (they just proved the opposite)
- some of the interviewed subjects were distasteful
- crappy overall impression, whith bad effect both for scholar historians and for uneducated masses, for the later being a reason for renewal of resentments at best.

This is not an example how te common Romanian-Hungarian history should be teached. To be avoided, IMO.

I remember Najroda.

Banned.

Too witty, too clever, and too many unbeatable arguments

I remember Najroda.

Banned.

Too witty, too clever, and too many unbeatable arguments

Leaving the irony aside, what I have learned since I'm running this forum, is that some Hungarian revisionism partisans bring as argument the fact that Romanians are tainted in their opinions by their past-communist nationalistic ideas regarding Transylvania, and cannot see or understand the opposite version. The so-called documentary "Trianon" shows exactly these symptomes. The most shocking idea from this film is that the Romania after the fall of communism in 1989, made a "peaceful genocide" of Hungarian ethnics. This is simply disgusting. It is true that after 1989, the Hungarian population in the areas inhabited by Hungarian ethnics diminished by several hundreds thousands, but the overall population of Romania decreased by well over one milion given the open borders after the fall of communism! Not to say that UDMR/RMDSZ (Hungarian minority politcal party) was a political party in Romanian parliament and government for some years, including present times. Not so many countries have a ethnical minorities party in their government.

The film shows a suffering Hungary as cut out of the map of Europe in 1920. The French were obvioulsy wrong of everything they did since the French revolution, and the English are shown in a propaganda poster with human skulls. The ony friend of the Hungarian nation in the inter-war period is Mussolini. However, the "historians" interviewed in the "documentary" said that Hungary was wrong to involve in WW2. Although they were depicted cherishing at the desintegration of Czecholovakia. They should have been strong to remain neutral in the war and to treat all their problems at diplomatic levels. According to the opinion of the director, no treaty can last forever. I still can believe what I have just seen

And if Denes is bothered by the term of "Diktat" of Vienna, this documentary extends this term to unimaginable meanings...

Diktat of Versailles, Diktat of Trianon, Diktat of Paris, Diktat of....

Since I did not see the film Trianon, I will not comment on it. All I've seen are snippets of the last part (about the last hour) of the post-movie discussion. I'll return to the topic tomorrow.

For now just a quick comments of what has been posted above.

If this is the only thing you've learned on this forum, well it's very sad, indeed. It means that all the virtual ink that was used up to counter, with facts and reasonings, some of the historically incorrect facts and arguments posted on this forum was apparently in vain, at least for some forumites.
Do you remember prof. Constantiniu's note in the after-movie discussion that he fights hard with his history students, who study for Master's degree, against their preconceived ideas? I'm afraid we face the same situation here.

As for myself, I did learn many new things here on the forum and also found old ideas that apparently die hard. I thought - and still think - that with proper arguments and proofs, leaving aside any bias and personal feelings, we can contribute to better understand history. I might be an idealist, but that's what I believe in.

As the movie's director, Koltay put it: "one should place their own ideas besides others' ideas, not policemen" (re: the huge fines slapped onto a few individuals who originally organized the movie's private screening and Chandy's note, too).

We should return to the topic after a good night's sleep, which is always a good practice.

BTW, I'd like to hear others' opinions as well.

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on February 10, 2005 01:17 am

Don't be upset Denes

Accidentally this is not the only thing I have learned on this forum. In fact, I did not say this. Just this is one of the things I have learned, and not related to other things I have debated on this forum. The "historically incorrect facts and arguments" are not my hobby. But since I'm a passionate historian, I'm dedicating to you the picture below.

You did not understand what I have said, did you? The movie was not officially rated and was not subtitled. Does it matter what my ideas are? Go in Hungary with an unknown documentary about Lenin in Russian language and play it in different pubs. If the police do not bother you let me know

Attached Image

Thanks, Dragos, for the present, but I failed to see the point.
At Paulis, Rumanian Army cadets bravely defended their positions against a superior enemy in Sept. 1944 - incidentally, the IVth Hungarian Army Corps. Again, what's the point?

As for the screening of the movie, it was done in private property, not in public places, so your comparison is meaningless (disregarding the obviously malicious topic you choose as comparison. A much more appropriate comparison would have been , for example, the screening of the movie 'Mihai Viteazul', i.e. Michael the Brave, in the House of the Rumanian Culture or the Gojdu Memorial, in Budapest, in front of Rumanian-speaking spectators).
I'm not familiar with Rumanian laws in this respect, but AFAIK the paragraph invoked for the hefty fines is related to screening a movie in cinemas and other public places .

But let's get back to the topic, namely opinions on the movie itself and the debate that followed and leave aside the personal sling shots, O.K.?

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on February 10, 2005 04:23 am

Yes, especially when arguing about how France was extremely successful at assimilating its minorities or if Turkey should be allowed to join the EU. I know someone who was debating these ideas quite strongly with him.

As for the so-called documentary, I watched it partially, while working on the update for the ARR site, as it bored me, especially with the overuse of poems and songs. It also lacked the perspective of "the other side". There were no interviews with Serbs, Czechs, Slovaks or Romanians. From what I read in the newspapers, Koltay, the director, is the Hungarian equivalent of Sergiu Nicolaescu, which probably explains the "quality" of the film.