#hungarian peoples republic

[workersolidarity]

History of The Hungarian People's Republic Part I

After WWI, Fascist Capitalist dictators were installed in Eastern European countries with the support of the Western Powers, including the United States.

In Hungary, as in Germany, Fascist forces mustered up enormous resources to disseminate anti-Communist and anti-Jewish propaganda to lay blame for Hungary's troubles on these populations.

This is just a small part of the incredible detail the Finish Bolshevik goes into while analyzing the history of the Hungarian People's Republic.

There's so much more and if you prefer to read rather than watch videos, here's the like to Part I:

[telogreika]

Say cheese

[girlactionfigure]

THURSDAY HERO: Giorgio Perlasca

Giorgio Perlasca was an Italian fascist and emissary of Benito Mussolini who had a change of heart and used his diplomatic status to save 5,218 Hungarian Jews from the Nazis.

Born in Como, Italy in 1910, as a young man Georgio became a fervent believer in fascism, believing it was the best system for achieving societal safety and prosperity. Dedicated to fascist ideology, he joined the Italian army to fight prime minister Benito Mussollini’s war of aggression against Ethoipia (the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935-37). Italy invaded Ethiopia and sent leader Haile Selassie into exile in 1937. Still a committed fascist, Giorgio pivoted straight from Ethiopia to Spain, where he fought on the side of Franco’s Nationalists against the defenders of the Spanish Republic. 

Giorgio went back to Italy in 1938, and that’s when his world was rocked and his personal belief system made a 180 degree turn. Just as he was returning to his native land, the Nazi-allied fascist government adopted the Italian Racial Laws, which persecuted and segregated Italian Jews and African immigrants from the Italian colonial empire. The first law banned Jews from working with the public or attending college. Books by Jewish authors were burned. The next set of laws confiscated Jewish property, prohibited them from traveling, and finally arrested and imprisoned them. Italian newspapers were filled with vicious anti-Jewish propaganda and hideous caricatures.

Giorgio Perlasca, the man who’d spent the last decade fighting for fascism, was horrified. Perhaps he’d been in north Africa and Spain for so long, he wasn’t aware of the extent of Nazi persecution of the Jews. He’d joined the fascists because, young and naive, he thought they had answers to societal problems. But he never signed up for the Nazis’ “final solution.” He believed in human rights, freedom and tolerance and therefore realized he had to reject fascism.

Ironically, just as he was rejecting Mussolini’s ideology, he was rewarded for his service by being granted diplomatic status and sent to Budapest to represent the interests of the Italian government. As an emissary, Giorgio’s most urgent mission was traveling throughout Eastern Europe to purchase large quantities of meat for Italian army soldiers fighting on the Russian front. Despite his political shift, he remained committed to what he felt was honorable work procuring food for Italians who’d been drafted into the army.

On September 8, 1943, Italy surrendered to the Allied forces. Diplomats like Giorgio had a choice to make: pledge allegiance to Mussolini, or join the Allies. Giorgio switched sides and instead of returning to Italy he was arrested and detained with other diplomats sympathetic to the Allies. After several months in captivity, he used a medical pass to leave the facility. He went straight to the Spanish embassy, which was being run by Angel Sanz Briz*, a diplomat who was secretly saving Hungarian Jews. Sanz Briz enabled Giorgio to claim asylum as a veteran of the Spanish war. Giorgio called himself “Jorge” (the Spanish version of Giorgio) and as a nominal Spaniard, was untouchable by the Nazi-allied Hungarian authorities since Spain was officially a neutral country.

Giorgio Perlasca during the war.

Giorgio immediately teamed up with Sanz Briz to save Jews from the Nazi death machine, which was systematically massacring the Jews of Hungary at shocking speed. He later said, “I couldn’t stand the sight of people being branded like animals… I couldn’t stand seeing children being killed. I did what I had to do.” Giorgio convinced diplomats from neutral countries to shelter Jews in their embassies and homes. He created “protection cards” that identified Jews as being under diplomatic guardianship and therefore impossible to arrest. In November 1944, Sanz Briz was transferred from Hungary to Switzerland, and he urged Giorgio to go with him. However, instead of traveling to a safe country, Giorgio put his own life at risk by staying in Hungary so he could continue saving Jews from the Nazis.  

The Hungarian authorities got wind of what Giorgio was doing, and they used Sanz Briz’ departure from the country as an excuse to order the Spanish embassy building and residences to be emptied and shuttered. In response, Giorgio made a bold move. He announced that Sanz Briz would be returning shortly, and he’d been appointed consul-general in the meantime. This bought him enough time to continue saving Jews, providing them with sanctuary and vital supplies. He also issued fake transit visas based on a 1924 law giving Jews of Sephardic heritage Spanish citizenship. The law had expired in 1930 but Giorgio managed to keep that part secret. 

In December 1944, Giorgio stood up to high-ranking Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann – architect of the genocidal “Final Solution” – who was about to force two Jewish children onto a freight train headed to a death camp. Swedish rescuer Raoul Wallenberg later described watching Giorgio boldly defy the vicious Eichmann and rescue the Jewish boys.

Around this time the Nazi-aligned Hungarian government known as the Arrow Cross set up a squalid ghetto in Budapest for the city’s 60,000 Jews. As “acting Spanish consul-general” was privy to top-secret information, and he learned that the Arrow Cross was going to liquidate the ghetto – which meant murdering the men, women and children who lived there. Giorgio demanded – and got – a private hearing with the Hungarian interior minister Gabor Vajna. He threatened the high-ranking government official with severe repercussions against the “3,000 Hungarians” currently living in Spain. Unless the government backed down on destroying the ghetto, those Hungarian expats would be harshly punished financially, legally and professionally. The fact was, there were nowhere near 3000 Hungarians in Spain and the real number was a fraction of that. That bold threat, combined with a promise to help Vajna and his family escape the advancing Soviet army, prevented the Budapest ghetto from being liquidated, saving thousands of lives.

After the war, Giorgio Perlasca returned to Italy where he lived a quiet life as a businessman, married and raised a family. and didn’t tell a single soul about his heroic actions during the war. Meanwhile, a group of Hungarian Jews saved by Giorgio searched for him for decades. They knew their rescuer as a Spaniard named Jorge and it took 42 years for them to finally locate him. In 1987 Giorgio’s wife, children and community were utterly shocked to learn that this unassuming man had saved the lives of a documented 5,218 Jews and probably many more. The famous rescuer Oskar Schindler saved a quarter as many people as Giorgio Perlasca did.

Once Giorgio’s heroism was known, he became famous in Italy and a source of national pride. Giorgio Perlasca was the subject of a bestselling biography, “The Banality of Goodness,” which was made into a popular movie. He received many honors, including Righteous Among the Nations by Israeli Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem, the Wallenberg Medal, the Hungarian Star of Merit, the Spanish Knight Grand Cross, the Italian Gold Medal for Civil Bravery, and many others. Noted Israeli composer Moshe Zorman wrote an orchestral piece, “His Finest Hour,” about Giorgio. There is a statue of Giorgio Perlasca in Budapest and a high school named for him, and he was featured on an Italian and an Israeli stamp. 

Giorgio died in Padua, Italy in 1992. 

For saving thousands of lives, and proving that people can change, we honor Giorgio Perlasca as this week’s Thursday Hero.

[mariacallous]

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the only EU leader to openly back Donald Trump in his bid to reclaim the White House, was unsurprisingly among the first to congratulate the former president on Wednesday morning, even before the final results were in and rival Kamala Harris had conceded.

“The biggest comeback in US political history! Congratulations to President @realDonaldTrump on his enormous win. A much needed victory for the World!” Orban rejoiced on X (formerly Twitter).

Orban, who will be hosting European leaders in Budapest later this week, was swiftly joined by other illiberal leaders and fellow populists in Central and Southeast Europe, likewise unable to contain their glee at the return of Trump, who by midmorning Europe time had gained 266 electoral votes — just four shy from the 270 he needs to be elected the 47th US president.

Another close ally of Trump in Central Europe, Polish President Andrzej Duda, who met the former president in New York earlier this year, posted excitedly, complete with emojis: “Congratulations, Mr. President @realDonaldTrump! You made it happen! 👏👏👏🇵🇱🤝🇺🇸”.

In the Czech Republic, the former prime minister and Trump admirer Andrej Babis posted on X: “Sensational comeback @realDonaldTrump! He wasn’t stopped by an assassination attempt, nor by politically motivated lawsuits, nor by a systematic smear campaign in the media. American citizens have made it clear who they want as US President. I am confident that his victory will bring prosperity to the United States and peace to the world.”

More subdued comments came from Prime Minister Petr Fiala, who Babis is looking to oust in 2025, also on X: “Congratulations to Donald Trump on winning the presidential election. Our shared goal is to ensure that the relations between our countries remain at the highest level, despite changes in administration, and that we continue to develop them for the benefit of our citizens.”

Populist Slovak prime minister, Robert Fico, is currently on a state visit to China, though his ally, President Peter Pellegrini, offered his congratulations to Donald Trump on X. “I wish you and the American people all the success. Slovakia remains to be a strong and reliable Ally on NATO’s tested Eastern Flank living up to our shared commitments. I sincerely wish for a continuation of our good cooperation. Let’s make the transatlantic bond great again.”

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, who visited the White House during Trump’s first term in office that ended in 2020, welcomed Trump’s win on X. “Congratulations to Donald Trump on his victory. Together we face the serious challenges ahead. Serbia is committed to cooperation with the USA on stability, prosperity and peace,” Vucic wrote.

Turkey’s strongman leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said he wanted to congratulate his “great friend” Trump on his victory.

“In this new period that will begin with the election of the American people, I hope that Turkey-US relations will strengthen, that regional and global crises and wars, especially the Palestinian issue and the Russia-Ukraine war, will come to an end; I believe that more efforts will be made for a more just world,” Erdogan wrote on X.

The first to hail Trump’s win from Bosnia and Herzegovina was, unsurprisingly, the president of the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity, Milorad Dodik. “One of [the] most important electoral wins in recent history of the USA but the World as well! Congratulations, Donald Trump, 47th President of the United States of America!” Dodik wrote on his official X profile.

Late last year Dodik said that a victory for Trump would mean a “better geopolitical situation for Republika Srpska”, claiming that he regretted not declaring his entity’s independence from Bosnia and Herzegovina during Trump’s 2016-2020 presidency.

North Macedonia’s conservative prime minister, Hristijan Mickoski, sent his “heartfelt congratulations” to Trump on Wednesday morning. “This victory is a confirmation of the deep faith of the American people in the principles of freedom and democracy,” Mickoski, whose conservative, right-wing government came to power earlier this year, wrote on Facebook.

Mickoski and his cabinet are not among European leaders who fear a second Trump term could wreak havoc with transatlantic and international relations. His ruling VMRO-DPMNE party nurtures close ties with one of the biggest Trump endorsers on the continent, Hungary’s Orban, and over the summer Mickoski’s series of meetings with close Trump associates made his preference even more obvious.

“We look forward to further deepening our strong partnership and cooperation,” Mickoski added.

Warm words from the Balkans

The president of Montenegro, Jakov Milatovic, congratulated Trump on his victory. “Montenegro and the USA are friends and steadfast partners, united by shared goals and values, focused on advancing democracy, security, stability, and freedom. As NATO allies, we look forward to working very closely with Your administration on strengthening our friendship and deepening cooperation,” Milatovic wrote on X.

Montenegro’s first congratulatory message came earlier from the president of the parliament and leader of the pro-Serbian NOVA party Andrija Mandic. “I am sure that together we will build bridges of cooperation and preserve peace and stability in the Western Balkans,” Mandic wrote on X.

From Kosovo, which has deep ties with the US since the 1998-99 war, President Vjosa Osmani also congratulated Trump on his White House comeback.

“The US remains Kosovo’s steadfast partner and indispensable ally. I look forward to working with the new administration to further deepen our unique bond and strategic alliance,” Osmani said on X.

A similar message came from Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic. “Congratulations on a convincing victory and a second presidential term,” Plenkovic wrote on X. “I look forward to our cooperation and further progress in Croatian-American relations.”

Plenkovic’s domestic political rival, President Zoran Milanovic, hailed “the will of the majority of voters” in choosing Trump. He wrote on Facebook: “Since Croatian independence, the USA has been a partner and friend, I am convinced that this will remain the choice of the new president”.

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama was also effusive in his congratulations: “I look forward to the great privilege of working with the 47th President to further enhance our partnership for peace, prosperity and further progress,” Rama wrote on X.

In Bulgaria, Boyko Borissov, leader of recent election-winners GERB and former prime minister, posted a photo of himself with Trump on social media, saying: “I’m ready for us to work together, again!”

Bulgarian President Rumen Radev also congratulated the Republican victor: “I am confident that our effective dialogue at the highest level will continue in the interest of the strategic partnership between Bulgaria and the USA,” Radev said.

Opposition party We Continue the Change’s Kiril Petkov described Trump’s comeback as US president as “a serious achievement”, while noting: “Of course, Bulgaria’s fate depends first and foremost on the will of the Bulgarians, but good cooperation with the US is crucial in the positioning of our country amid the changing geopolitical reality.”

In Greece, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis added his voice to the congratulatory messages from countries across the region. “Greece looks forward to further deepening the strategic partnership between our two countries and working together on important regional and global issues,” Mitsotakis wrote on X.

[scavengedluxury]

The side entrance of the Hungarian State Opera, looking towards Andrássy Avenue (then People's Republic Road), Budapest, 1976. From the Budapest Municipal Photography Company archive.

[mercurymessiah]

“Peter” or “Pietro”?

I was contemplating Peter’s name, along with its origins. In the comics, he’s originally Pietro which is the Italian version. But both variants derive from the Greek word Petros, meaning “stone” or “rock”, which I find ironic considering Peter is opposite to that.

It got me thinking that whilst it’s normal for people to have foreign names contrary to their nationality, Peter is originally from Sokovia. Although it’s a fictitious place, it’s in between Slovakia and the Czech Republic, which are very much real countries. Meaning it’d be apart of the West Slavs. So this information lead me down a rabbit hole of looking through translations of Peter’s name in languages that relate to him.

Czech: Petr, Péťa (diminutive)

Slovak: Peter, Peťo

Hungarian: Péter, Petya, Peti (diminutive).

I found that Hungarian is the second most spoken mother tongue in Slovakia (9.4% of the population) so I researched that as well.

Both his biological parents (Magda & Erik) were born in Germany, so I searched up the German translation but it also came up with just Peter.

I tried digging up Wanda’s name too, but it appears that it’s very one-dimensional. I couldn’t find any different versions of it, but I did discover its Polish in origin. Of course, I hunted down the Polish translation for Peter’s name in contrast to hers. Interestingly, I discovered there was quite the variety.

Polish: Piotr. Diminutives/hypocoristics include Piotrek, Piotruś, and Piotrunio. (Piotr has several name days in Poland)

Erik (in the movie-verse, as far as i’m concerned) lived in Poland when he formed a new family and even spoke the language as well. Despite it not being his mother tongue, I reckon he would affectionately call Peter “Piotr” under certain circumstances. I like to think so at least.

Amongst all the research I did though, the most challenging was finding Romani translations. I know it’s apart of Peter’s identity, so I wanted to include it. However, I came up short. Unfortunately, it’s not easy to find Romani translations like most other languages. It became really frustrating too since my research kept leading me to Romanian or Roman, even when I made sure the spelling was correct. I found myself disappointed with this dead-end but it also taught me how underrepresented Roma is and how we should keep that in mind.

Nonetheless, I still did some more research on it even if I couldn’t find translations to Peter’s name. I’m aware that the Romani language is diverse, and so I stumbled upon Carpathian Romani. Also known as Central Romani and Romungro Romani. It also happens to be native to Slovakia and the Czech Republic, which we know as the countries surrounding his birthplace.

Apparently, nearly all Romani speakers are multilingual, so I find it credible that Peter would be able to speak this particular dialect, along with Slovakian or Czech (in theory). Whilst I couldn’t find a new variant of “Peter” or “Petros” for this language, I at least have some deeper understanding of his connection to it.

In conclusion; the discussion about whether “Peter” or “Pietro” is better doesn’t really matter, since they’re essentially the same name. Besides, Peter being called all types of versions of the name by different people in his personal circle sounds very appealing me. With his friends, he’s Peter. For Wanda, he’s Pietro. And potentially he’s Piotr for Erik.

[symboslug]

(Part 2 out of 4 probably)

If you haven't read the first part, you should probably read part 1 beforehand. The first part also talks a bit about Cadoc's orientation and whereabouts.

4. Mojmír, Moravian vampire that used to be a woodcarver (mid-late Great Moravian empire so like mid/late 9th century)

Mojmír belongs to @havrani-otec by the way!!

Cadoc going by Oleg traveled with Varyags to Moravia (nowadays southeast of Czech Republic). It was supposed to be just one of the stops on their trade route but Cadoc decided that his group should stay there for longer. His reason was a small village where he wanted to stir some conflicts and also a creature he found in the local woods at night. The creature was Mojmír, who used to be human just like the other villagers.

Cadoc's and Mojmír's relationship was full of intense hate-love. They were mostly arguing because of their different worldviews and even their differences as species- Mojmír being once human brought back to life, Cadoc not being human to begin with. Sometimes it seemed like they could sustain something like a relationship but then they'd go back to hating eachother to the bone (but still sleeping in the same bed y'know).

As the Magyars came, Cadoc left Mojmír and they've never seen eachother again.

(Since this part of lore is made through a dialogue, I don't really have much info to tell…yet)

5. Magyar raider István (early 10th century)

Magyars came and Oleg/Cadoc was threatened by the Magyars. As raiders they wanted him dead. Cadoc told them he's not a local (at least he tried to say that) and that he can fight. His ability to fight Cadoc showed almost immediately when he started attacking the villagers that used to be his neighbors. The raiders accepted him as their own and István became his guide. Cadoc manipulated the raiders to be even more violent that before they met him, the only raider that wasn't affected by Cadoc's ideas was István.

István was really nice to him, he tried to teach Cadoc (that used to be called Oleg and was called Oguz by István) some Hungarian phrases. Cadoc found him annoying, he was killing villagers just if he was ordered by the other raiders to do so and not because he indulged in it. You could even call István a peaceful individual that rather wants to take care of horses and he didn't see Cadoc as a raider but only as a foreign visitor. Even though Cadoc didn't like him that much, he still did some acts of service for him and István interpreted that as acts of affection.

One day István started to protest to his fellow raiders that he doesn't want to kill anyone ever again. The wrath-blinded raiders decided to murder him for his disobedience. The night afterwards Cadoc decided to bury István's mutilated body and leave the Magyar raiders for good.

6. Romanian/Bijelo Brdo culture vampire Alin (mid 10th century)

As Cadoc left the Magyars, he travelled alone down south until he reached the south Carpathians. There, in the mountains, in an isolated cottage he found Alin. Cadoc just wanted to find some people but it didn't take long for him to realize that Alin was a vampire. Cadoc introduced himself as Oguz and told Alin that he can help them with tasks around their cottage. Alin knew from their first meeting that Cadoc/ Oguz is not a human.

When Cadoc realized that Alin is a vampire, he thought they'd be just like Mojmír and that he could feel that pure wrath and hatred once again, so he decided to attack Alin at night to test his theory. Unexpectedly for Cadoc, Alin didn't even try to fight back and just told him: “Do what you need to do, I don't deserve to live in the Lord's world anyways”. Alin used to be pagan before turning into a vampire and after the change converted to Christianity. They thought that the Lord gave them the vampiric second life as a second chance to undo their sins and believed that Cadoc had that chance too. Cadoc felt bad for Alin but also felt very “hungry” while looking at them, that actually was just a crush on them. He wanted to taste their blood but then felt bad because of thinking about hurting them because Cadoc saw them as weak. He stuck around Alins's cottage for almost a year, helping them with chores that required Alin being in direct sunlight. Cadoc even told Alin the truth about his name and the fact that he's not Magyar at the slightest.

One evening Cadoc proposed an idea to Alin of him staying there for good to protect them. Alin replied with: “I fear we shouldn't be together, Cadoc. We should rather contemplate our sins of the past separately. Then we can go to the kingdom of God together,” and told Cadoc to leave their home the next day.

[beyourselfchulanmaria]

Post-WW2 Anti-Fascist Educational Film | Don't Be a Sucker | 1947

納粹大屠殺又稱猶太人大屠殺，指的是納粹德國及其協作國對近600萬猶太人進行的種族滅絕行動。當時全世界有1500萬猶太人，而歐洲總共有近900萬猶太人，其中近三分之二被害，包括近150萬兒童。一些學者稱大屠殺亦當涵蓋近500萬非猶太遇難者，由此總受害人數將達到近1,100萬人。(and  About Holocaust denial  納粹大屠殺否認論 🙄 🤬 🖕 bite you dead! lol )

Don't Be a Sucker! is a short educational film produced by the U.S. War Department in 1943 and re-released in 1947. The film depicts the rise of Nazism in Germany and warns Americans against repeating the mistakes of intolerance made in Nazi Germany. It emphasizes that Americans will lose their country if they let themselves be turned into "suckers" by the forces of fanaticism and hatred. The film was made to make the case for the desegregation of the United States armed forces by simply revealing the connection between prejudice and fascism. 

This film is not propaganda. To the contrary, it teaches how to recognize and reject propaganda, as was used by the Nazis to promote to bigotry and intimidation. It shows how prejudice can be used to divide the population to gain power. Far more significantly, it then shows how such tactics can be defanged by friendly persuasion; that protection of liberty is a unifying and practical way to live peacefully. 

Plot: 

A young American Free Mason is taken in by the message of a soap-box orator who asserts that all good jobs in the United States are being taken by the so-called minorities, domestic and foreign. He falls into a conversation with Hungarian professor who witnessed the rise of Nazism in Berlin and who tells him of the pattern of events that brought Hitler to power in Germany and how Germany's anti-democratic groups split the country into helpless minorities, each hating the other. The professor concludes by pointing out that America is composed of many minorities, but all are united as Americans. 

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND / CONTEXT 

 Nazi Germany is the common English name for the period in German history from 1933 to 1945, when Germany was governed by a dictatorship under the control of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP). Under Hitler's rule, Germany was transformed into a fascist state in which the Nazi Party took totalitarian control over nearly all aspects of life. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Großdeutsches Reich ("Greater German Reich") from 1943 to 1945. The period is also known under the names the Third Reich (German: Drittes Reich) and the National Socialist Period (German: Zeit des Nationalsozialismus, abbreviated as NS-Zeit). The Nazi regime came to an end after the Allied Powers defeated Germany in May 1945, ending World War 2 in Europe. 

Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933. The Nazi Party then began to eliminate all political opposition and consolidate its power. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, and Hitler became dictator of Germany by merging the powers and offices of the Chancellery and Presidency. A national referendum held 19 August 1934 confirmed Hitler as sole Führer (leader) of Germany. All power was centralized in Hitler's person, and his word became above all laws. 

Racism, especially antisemitism, was a central feature of the regime. The Germanic peoples (the Nordic race) were considered by the Nazis to be the purest branch of the Aryan race, and were therefore viewed as the master race. Millions of Jews and other peoples deemed undesirable by the state were murdered in the Holocaust. Opposition to Hitler's rule was ruthlessly suppressed. Members of the liberal, socialist, and communist opposition were killed, imprisoned, or exiled. The Christian churches were also oppressed, with many leaders imprisoned. Education focused on racial biology, population policy, and fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels made effective use of film, mass rallies, and Hitler's hypnotizing oratory to control public opinion. The government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others. 

 Following the Allied invasion of Normandy (6 June, 1944), Germany was conquered by the Soviet Union from the east and the other Allied powers from the west and capitulated within a year. The victorious Allies initiated a policy of denazification and put many of the surviving Nazi leadership on trial for war crimes at the Nuremberg trials. 

 Post-WW2 Anti-Fascist Educational Film | Don't Be a Sucker | 1947 

 TBFA_0103 via  @TheBestFilmArchives on YouTube Thanks~*

[brandonwritesgames]

check out Dieselpunk 1921 here!

The Free Peoples' Republic of Ukraine

Ukraine has never been a stranger to violence. The breadbasket sandwiched between Czar, Kaiser, and King-Emperors, there have always been interests beyond the confines of Ukraine that desired control. As Russian influence waned, and their forces were pushed beyond the Dnipro, then Siverskyi Donets, questions rose about what power would fill the vacuum. In the east, radicalism and anarchism took root, a rising tide of free soviets taking arms against Boss, Czar, and State alike; In the west, a feverish nationalism has swept the hearts and minds of those in power, the flame of hate fuelled by Austro-Hungarian interests attempting to halt the rise of radicalism. The interests of power have sought to rapidly build the industries of Ukraine, though not those of food, shelter, or dignity – those are not the facets of society that maintain power. Arms factories, prisons, and barracks are built in record time, with little regard for safety, all in the name of maintaining control in the Republic.

Even five years after the Russian withdraw from the territory, the vast majority of people in the republic have seen little change; the face of oppression changing from Czar to Hetman, the flags of the occupying soldiers bearing the emblem of Ukraine rather than the Russian eagle. Fear governs streets of the republic, and though most of the peasants desire change and liberation, most simply keep their heads down and try and avoid trouble.

For professionals without morals, opportunities for staggering wealth abound – dissidents, unions, and many more present valuable targets for Skoropadsky’s regime. Yet for all others, work is plenty, but pay is limited. Dissidents have a wealth of targets, and anarchists from the Free Territory are always seeking allies to fight against the rising tide of nationalist violence. The rapid construction of factories has left many with fatal and obvious flaws, and sabotage is far more common in the republic than most other states.

[dailykafka]

++(adding on the last ask, sorry i just forgot to put this there) it's also the very very VERY weird way they keep talking like the jewish culture was completely erased from the rest of the Europe and the german speaking countries, like we didn't know how there were people fighting and resisting and trying to create communities before and after holocaust. this does NO erase holocaust, and that's one of the most enraging parts for me too: talking like the resistance of jewish people outside israel would somehow negate holocaust and antisemitism. this is fucking bonkers?

during the whole article i was thinking "why would the Germans have ownership of the works of an writer who is from PRAGUE? writing in german does not immediately imply this, and the fact that he was born in Prague does not negate the antisemitism he faced"

Kafka writing about his experience with oppression inside a country where antisemitism was so recurrent does not make him an symbol of the israeli state, and that's mainly what they're trying to affirm. by doing this they're trying to erase the way his works relate so much with the oppression other groups suffer inside other places, including the ones being attacked by the israeli state.

Yes, Israel's whole rhetoric is very deliberately constructed narrative which often raises uncomfortable questions.

And I also agree I think it's weird how there's complete exclusion of the country that Kafka was from (but then again, was he from Czech Republic (because that didn't exist back then) or was he from Austria? That existed in some sort). In any case, Kafka identified with the minority in the Austro-Hungarian empire (Hermann also), that is with Czechs.

What Kafka's nationality was is a tricky subject overall but the reality is that Prague is in Czech Republic so it is Czechs' "responsibility" to preserve Kafka in that city. Israel and Germany are just both weird about Franz Kafka and are trying to have hegemony over his legacy when none of them actually have tangible credibility.

[workersolidarity]

Watch "History of the Hungarian People's Republic PLAYLIST" on YouTube

Fantastic work by our comrade The Finnish Bolshevik. It is a series on the History of Socialist Hungary.

If you'd prefer reading the series, you can find it here:

Western Historians would have you believe an "Imperialist" Soviet Russia just went around at the end of WWII invading Eastern and Central Europe and setting up Soviet "authoritarian dictatorships" under Russian control.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

I will try to put together each part into seperate posts throughout the day or over the next few days, but I can't be sure I'll find the time to do that with all 10 or 11 parts.

Each part is not that long, roughly 30-40 minutes, and makes for easy viewing in chunks.

In the videos, The Finnish Bolshevik deep dives into the history of the Hungarian State, how Western Imperialist Powers installed a Fascist Dictatorship, the impact of World Wars 1 and 2 and their aftermath, Hungary's Socialist Revolution, and Hungary's transformation into a Socialist State becoming a satellite of the Soviet Union and much more.

[telogreika]

Hungarian people's army Female NCO in summer dress 1970s

[mariacallous]

In an interview this week, Romanian presidential candidate Calin Georgescu said Ukraine is a “fictional state,” prompting diplomats in Kyiv to accuse him of regurgitating Russian propaganda narratives. On January 29, Georgescu told journalist Ion Cristoiu that he is certain Ukraine will be partitioned after a peace deal halts Russia’s invasion. “It will happen, 100 percent. Well, they have no other choice. The path to something like this is unavoidable. Ukraine is a fictional state. We’re talking about the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic,” he said.

Georgescu insisted that a “changing world” will lead to changing borders. “And if the borders change, where will we be? That leaves us with Northern Bukovina, Budjak, Northern Maramures from former Transcarpathia, what’s left from the Hungarians, Lviv (which will go to the Poles), and Little Russia.”

In response, Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Ministry spokespeople said Georgescu demonstrates “extreme disrespect” toward Ukraine and its people by questioning its territorial integrity. Diplomats also argued that such comments mirror Russian propaganda talking points and undermine Georgescu’s attempts to present himself as an “independent” politician. 

Last November, Calin Georgescu won the first round of Romania’s presidential election with 23 percent of the vote. However, the country’s Constitutional Court subsequently annulled the election results and scheduled another first round of voting on May 4, 2025, with the second round on May 18.

After the November election, Romania’s intelligence services released documents related to Georgescu’s campaign, stating that Romania had been the target of “aggressive hybrid actions by Russia,” including election interference. The declassified documents also indicated that 25,000 bot accounts on TikTok may have been enlisted to campaign for Georgescu. He denied any ties to Russia.

[xunzilla]

Having resolved to investigate the dubs vs. subs question, the DYEWSPH2TER SOCIETY watches the new Dungeon Meshi.

IZUTSUMI (DUB): The name of your race is pretty strange. I heard it came from your kind getting one of their legs chopped off for committing too much thievery!

GIANLUCA D'BOVRIL: She would not say that.

ZEPHANIAH EZEKIEL THUD: Why not?

GIANLUCA D'BOVRIL: "Committing too much thievery"? She's a slave bought from a freak show and she speaks fluent Ciasslcal English?

SIMPLICIO J. RHETORICUS: Is the language of the island diglossic?

GIANLUCA D'BOVRIL: They're ruled by the elves. But let's not get into translatology. (A horrid, ill-formed word: two parts Latin, one part Greek.) The manga renders Senshi's dialogue in an atrocious fantasy accent, but it makes clear a nuance of the original: he's a weird foreigner who lives alone in a cave and his only friends are orcs.

SIMPLICIO J. RHETORICUS: Does Izutsumi's country have a different language?

GIANLUCA D'BOVRIL: Izutsumi's country is fantasy Japan. Look at their names. "Shuro" is a mispronunciation of a name Laios is unfamiliar with.

SIMPLICIO J. RHETORICUS: The dwarves' names also fit Japanese phonology. Senshi, Namari...

DICTIONARY: 鉛 なま̅り̅ nàmárí, lead (chemical element). Perhaps related to Goguryeo 乃勿 *namur; cf. Korean nap, OC (Zhengzhang) ra:b.

TYPESETTER: U+0305 COMBINING OVERLINE should render above the characters ま and り, but on some systems may display as spacing characters following them. We apologize for our inability to reliably display simple linguistic text without platform-dependent markup in 2024. 😔👎💩

ENCYCLOPEDIA: Vowel length in Zhengzhang Shangfang's reconstruction of Old Chinese represents Type A syllables.

GIANLUCA D'BOVRIL: Izganda?

SIMPLICIO J. RHETORICUS: Is that an official name? The scan thought Laios and Falin Touden were Laius and Farlyn Thorden.

ENCYCLOPEDIA: Lajos is a Hungarian masculine given name, cognate to English Louis. People named Lajos include Lajos Kossuth, who in 1849 presented the Hungarian Declaration of Independence. A bust of Lajos Kossuth was added to the Small House Rotunda of the United States Capitol Building in 1987.

ZEPHANIAH EZEKIEL THUD: 1987?

ENCYCLOPEDIA: "A Gift to the People of the United States from the American Hungarian Federation"

GIANLUCA D'BOVRIL: Did you think he was more important? At any rate, he was a nobleman.

ZEPHANIAH EZEKIEL THUD: It sounds Greek to me.

HANPHECIUS HUMBUG: Hungarians don't have saunas.

ZEPHANIAH EZEKIEL THUD: Didn't you think he was Faroese? It's a fantasy west.

GIANLUCA D'BOVRIL: Why would Japan care about Hungarian names? But this is a stupid diversion. Where were we?

SIMPLICIO J. RHETORICUS: Dubs vs. subs.

GIANLUCA D'BOVRIL: Of course! A critical matter. A noble pursuit. In this fallen world, in which the noblest by nature are forced to toil in drudgery while petty-minded merchants build generational fortunes that their mediocre heirs piss away, many are unfortunately unable to read Japanese. So we debate dubs vs. subs.

SIMPLICIO J. RHETORICUS: I grew up on 4Kids. I can't stand the English VA voice. The Japanese one is bearable.

GIANLUCA D'BOVRIL: Thank you for your valuable contribution.

VRISKA: why do you all have the same voice

ZEPHANIAH EZEKIEL THUD: We live in a bourgeois republic.

SIMPLICIO J. RHETORICUS: Let's grant that Izutsumi's country speaks a different language. "Committing too much thievery" is a clumsy phrase. "Thievery" sounds silly compared to "theft". And it's a vague Latinate verb that lets the noun carry the meaning - very indirect! We don't live in the kingdom of nouns.

ZEPHANIAH EZEKIEL THUD: Why couldn't Asebi, Toshiro's retainer, have been taught to speak like that? Toshiro went to the island for training. But would they pay real islanders to teach them the nuances of the language?

SIMPLICIO J. RHETORICUS: She was bought at the age of six; even if the circus had the same language as the island, that's well within at least the tallman critical period.

ZEPHANIAH EZEKIEL THUD: She would've been taught out of dictionaries, which don't say anything about connotation.

VRISKA: okay not to be rude but can i say something about some of the papers i've read

GIANLUCA D'BOVRIL: I didn't pay that much attention to "thievery". It's simpler, more regular. For all I know "theft" might be too hard a word to put in a mass-market translation. "Committing too much theft" would still sound too classical. It seems like the wrong intent.

ZEPHANIAH EZEKIEL THUD: Why couldn't a slave learn the acrolect?

GIANLUCA D'BOVRIL: How broad-minded. Would your escaped slave also write her own sermons?

VRISKA: oh my god shut up

VRISKA: what does the sub say

IZUTSUMI (SUB): That odd name for your race. I heard it's because lots of you got a foot lopped off for stealing.

VRISKA: the manga?

IZUTSUMI (MANGA): I hear that the reason your race got that name is because a bunch of halflings got punished for theft by having one of their feet cut off! Guess they had to deal with having half as many, huh?

VRISKA: yea the dub is bad

ZEPHANIAH EZEKIEL THUD: It could be a deliberate choice. I personally think that "thievery" is awkward, but it's a possibility to keep in mind. We'll see if what follows bears it out.

VRISKA: marcille sounds like a college republican horse girl

VRISKA: #notwrong

[dragoneyes618]

Perhaps the most shocking thing about Hamas’s pogrom is not so much the attack itself – although it was horrifying – but the accompanying glee we see on the Western left, most obviously and appallingly on college campuses.

Jewish students were besieged at a library at Cooper Union by a crazed pro-Hamas mob. Jews at Cornell University were threatened with gruesome death. At Harvard, students chant, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a call for the genocide of Israeli Jews. At George Washington University, jihadist and genocidal language was projected on the library building. A Jewish student was attacked at Columbia University and Jewish students said that they don’t feel safe there.

To add insult to injury, more than 100 Columbia University professors signed a letter defending students who support Hamas’s “military action.” A history professor at Cornell proclaimed that he was “exhilarated” by what happened October 7. A Yale professor sneered that massacres of Israelis are fine because they are all “settlers” anyway and “settlers are not civilians. This is not hard.”

Colleges have long cultivated a simplistic ideology that bifurcates all of humanity into two buckets: the “oppressed” and the “oppressor.” This childish division of all human activity allows for zero nuance. If you’re oppressed, all is allowed, even atrocities. If you’re the oppressor, nothing you do is justified – you are guilty, whatever you do or don’t do.

According to this absurd ideology, Israel is an oppressor. Therefore, everything it does – even existing – is unacceptable.

On the other hand, Hamas is the voice of the oppressed, so anything and everything it does – from wanton massacres to explicitly admitting that it only cares about its fighters, and not for the people of Gaza who, it says, are the international community’s responsibility – is cloaked in righteousness.

Nothing is allowed to penetrate the alternative reality of this dogmatic ideology, which is why posters depicting kidnapped Israelis must be ripped down. Israelis are demons, you see, even the babies.

It is all depressingly reminiscent of an earlier time, between the two world wars, when Jewish students throughout Europe were terrorized by ideological fellow students.

“Polish universities became the stage of the most extreme antisemitic activities,” writes Celia Heller in her book On the Edge of Destruction. Polish universities in 1936 and 1937 had “Jewless” days and weeks. Radical students called for a quota on Jewish students and “ghetto benches” where Jews would be forced to sit. Administrations, weak then as now, caved.

Heller writes, “Violence was condemned in words, but encouraged in deeds through concessions granted to the perpetrators of violence at the cost of the victims of violence. Further violence was the result.” Radical students “took walks in the evening to hunt for the Jewish students.”

All the while, most students and faculty remained silent.

In 1920, under student influence, the Hungarian parliament passed the Numerus Clausus Act, which limited Jews to six percent of the student body of universities. There were continuous antisemitic student riots throughout Hungary in October 1928. Students attacked Jews at a university in Budapest in 1930.

Most notorious are the students of Germany, who were among the most radical elements of the interwar Weimar Republic and the early Nazi period, and an important constituency of the Nazi Party. German students conducted a campaign of intimidation against Jewish students and, infamously, burned more than 25,000 books in 34 university towns on May 10, 1933.

The National Socialist German Students’ Association expressed the need to “cleanse” and “purify” German language and literature from “Jewish intellectuals.” It was this thinking that was behind the book burnings.

The notions of “cleanliness” and “purity” were highly important ones in Nazi ideology. The Nazis desired a Judenrein (“pure of Jews”) Germany, and then Europe (and beyond – the Jews of the Middle East, too, would have been murdered if Rommel hadn’t been defeated at El Alamein).

Fast forward to today. A New York City public school student displayed a poster reading “Please Keep the World Clean” with an illustration of a Star of David in a trash can. A virtually identical poster was held by a Norwegian medical student in Warsaw. This is Nazi language.

Campus radicals today are also intimidating Jewish students while administrators issue mealy-mouthed statements. Students are in thrall to a totalizing ideology that brooks no dissent and burns with hatred for Jews.

American Jews feel that they have seen all this before, and they are right. Universities are once again incubators of moral rot and antisemitism.