Angry archaeologist

I must apologize in advance, some of you may find this post a bit vulgar. Nevertheless, I'm sure that many more will actually enjoy this fine piece of Hungarian cultural history.

It so happenned that during the hot summer of 1903 in an obscure corner of the Austro-Hungarian Empire some good people found a spur. Since in the legendary bureaucracy of the aforementioned empire nothing went undocumented, the find (who knows, it could have been the spur of king Attila!) was referred to the local archaelogical authorities. They were puzzled. Shunning responsability in good bureaucratical fashion the matter was forwarded to the capital. Dr Réthy (pictured on the right), eminent linguist (i.a. learned Sanskrit in Vienna!) etc., in charge at that time, gave them this kind answer:

506/1903.
Tekintetes kultúrmérnöki hivatal
Pécsett.

Tegnapi póstával érkezett 1090/1903 sz. hivatalos okiratukra,
melyben azt kérdik, hogy a Nagy-Berki község
határában lelt régi sarkantyúval mi történjék?
hivatalos tisztelettel azt válaszolom, hogy
basszák meg az urak a sarkanytyújukat, mert
35 Reaumur höségben ilyen szarságokkal
nem foglalkozhatunk.

Budapest 1903 aug 18.
Teljes tisztelettel
lófasz a seggükbe
Dr. Réthy László

m. n. muz. érem és régiségosztályi
igazg.-helyettes.

A XIV. ker. m. kir. Kulturmérnöki hivatalnak
Pécsett.


506/1903.
[To] the honourable department of cultural engineering
[In] the city of Pécs

With reference to the official document no. 1090/1903 which I received in today's mail and in which you enquire about what is to be done with the old spur found in the outskirts of Nagy-Berek, I answer with due official respect that the good gentlemen should f**k their spur, since in this heat of 35 Reaumur [= 43.75 Celsius = 110.75 Fahrenheit!] we cannot be bothered with such s**t.

Budapest 1903 August 18.
With the utmost respect,
[and wishing] a horse's c**k up your a*s
Dr. László Réthy
vice-princ[ipal]
Department of Coins and Antiquities, H[ungarian] N[ational] Mus[eum]

[To] the department of cultural engineering of the King[dom] of H[ungary], district XIV
[In] the city of Pécs

If you have ever tried working your way through Hungarian official documents the question you must be asking is: gosh, whatever went wrong?

Red tape chokes Hungarian Oriental Studies

Hungarians are a funny sort. Whereas most normal languages express things with particles, agglutination is a national sport. We have our surnames in front. When the post-communist world was trying to pick up the pieces amidst chaos, Hungary was the wonderchild of Eastern Europe. When the neo-European countries were booming, we suddenly discovered that the economy is about to collapse. Then we have an unusual knack for screwing up things that work and pumping money into things that don't and never will, to wit, soccer.

So it was high time for the glorious red tape to choke some of the good things still left in the country. This year the all-powerful Hungarian Accreditation Committee decided that studies concerning about half of the planet is totally useless beyond a BA. Kind of ironic for a nation of less than ten million. Thus, beginning from next year the following disciplines will not offer MA courses at ELTE University: Indian Studies, Chinese Studies, Mongolian Studies, Korean Studies, and Japanese Studies (Tibetan was successfully wiped out earlier).

Well, fine and dandy, a small country can't afford such 'luxuries'. Never you mind that Tibetan studies should be on the list of national treasures since it was sort of invented by a Hungarian. To hell with India and China which happen to be on the way to becoming superpowers of this century. Japan is going down anyway. Mongolian? Oh well, 50 years of spearheading research should not bother us.

Surprise, surprise, however: Turkic studies, Arabic studies, Hebrew studies, Assirian studies, Iranian studies, and Altaic studies (in Szeged) passed. I'm not saying that they don't deserve it, they are just as valuable as all the above if not more. Surely, it's only a fortunate coincidence.

I think that members of the accreditation committe deserve our thanks and appreciation for taking this burden off the country's shoulders. I'm sure that the process was long and exhausting, hence I would be glad to pay them a long vacation to discover some of the more obscure parts of Xinjiang Uighur. One way tickets will suffice.