There is a certain lovely irony that Nicolas Sarkozy is one of the foremost opponents of Turkish entry into the EU, since part of his family comes from Salonika (mod. Thessaloniki, classical and Byz. Thessalonika), which happens to have been the hometown of Mustafa Kemal and the heart of the CUP in its early days before the Balkan Wars restored it to the Greeks.
Then again, it is quite appropriate that an heir to minor Hungarian aristocracy should be resisting the incorporation of Turkey into Europe, since it was long the mission of the Hungarians to keep Europe from being incorporated into the Ottoman Empire. In those days Belgrade (Mag., Nandorfehervar) was the front line fortified point protecting the Hungarian Plain from invasion. As someone who also has Hungarian ancestry, let me say to the soon-to-be President of France, Isten aldd meg a magyart.
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May 9th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
Grumpy Old Man
OK, I’ll bite.
CUP? Whazzat?
May 9th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
danielhaar
CUP=Committee for Union and Progress, aka the “Young Turks,” a group of secular nationalists who took power in the later years of the Ottoman Empire, tried to modernize the country on a rather authoritarian model, and will be forever remembered in history for perpetrating a vast slaughter of Armenians.
May 9th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Grumpy Old Man
Oh, of course, the İttihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti.
Silly me.
May 9th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Christopher B. Hayes
Am I the only person who regularly reads Eunomia and speaks only one language fluently?
May 9th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
daninardmore
I’ve largely forgotten Latin, although it still has a familiar look to it, and my reading knowledge of German is fair,but for some reason these languages rarely pop up on Eunomia.
May 9th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Daniel Larison
My acquaintance with Latin is not as good as with some of the others, aber ich kann die deutsche Sprache viel besser erinnern und benuetzen. Obgleich ich habe sie fuer sechs Jahre studiert, es gibt nicht so viele Gelegenheiten diese Sprache zu ueben, sodass ich sehr viel vergessen habe. I’m sure I’ve made some dreadful mistake in there somewhere that will horrify me later, and I apologise to cultivators of the German language for that, but that is what I have to offer by way of rusty German for our Teutonophone readers.
May 9th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
daninardmore
I got it the first time through, and without having to consult a dictionary, so at least we’re on the same level in German. When my wife & I were in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and the surrounding area last year, every time I would start speaking German to ticket agents, store clerks, even cab drivers, they would switch to English better than my German, so I could scarcely practice it even in der Heimat der Muttersprache.
May 9th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Christopher B. Hayes
Danke. Ich spreche kein Deutsche (ein jahre).
Hablo poquito espanol (no es muy bueno)
I couldn’t find the bathroom in a non-english country if my life depended on it. Reading Eunomia is a great motivator to hit the books though.
May 9th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
daninardmore
My wife is Cuban, so I’m picking up Spanish.