Interest in Hungary's past and the Transcendent made our article entitled Shamans in the Larder the spark for our biggest debate of recent times. Although many people welcomed the article, originating from the catholic episcopacy's circular letter condemning neopaganism, the majority, via telephone and e-mail, expressed their disapproval of our „academic" bias.

It seems that many people, feeling that the present is too grey, are not satisfied with real Hungarian history, wishing instead for a nicer past with theories that ignore even the most basic rules of linguistics, historiography and archaeology. In the following selection we quote opinions given in relation to the neopagan movements followed by the most often mentioned erroneous theories submitted by our readers. Finally we examine the authors who were frequently recommended in the letters.

Christianity or paganism?

Lajos Papp, heart surgeon, addressed the episcopacy on the pretext of the circular letter which was also published in Heti Válasz. The professor is worried about those families who are churchgoers but also participate in the activities that are subject to the Church's condemnation, and who are now having to make a decision. It is true - he writes - that quite often "self-appointed prophets, or "magicians", speak about the spirit world, often without a basic knowledge", but "I am afraid that among spiritually awakening Hungarians, those people who are searching for God, a fear of inquisition may evolve".

In his letter to our newspaper, István Somogyi, a shaman, known as the leader of the Arvi-su-ra Theatre Company, argues that Christianity fails to answer a number of questions. "In the ancient tradition faith was not present, instead of faith everyone could develop a belief based on experience. I myself am Christianized, but not a believer. I am a scientifically educated person and I also support ancient traditional belief. We should accept that the basic dogmas of Judaeo-Christianity about the origin of the world, about original sin as the reason for mortality, or the resurrection of the body and the final judgement are untenable for many clear-thinking people", he says. According to his reasoning the materialistic way, the belief that refuses Christianity in the name of Reason, and the real spiritual way co-exist, although the latter is contrary to the rationality of "clearly thinking people". Somogyi adds however: "I do not consider authentic those masters who speculatively create theories to support the idea that the Hungarians are destined for great things, and who do this by adding an attractive gloss to various theories of ancestry ".

The "real" prehistory

Most people wrote to us in defence of the prehistoric theories that we presented as unscientific in our newspaper. We received numerous references to the quote from Ágoston Trefort that is supposed to prove the Finno-Ugric relationship was forced on the Hungarians. The quote is as follows: "As a Minister I have to consider the interests of the country and therefore accept the principle of Finno-Ugric descent, which is more favourable from the point of view of our position in the world, because we need European connections rather than Asian. The government will continue to support only those representatives of science who defend the Finno-Ugric theory." One of our correspondents, Károly Kiss states: "Since Ágoston Trefort's decision of 1877 official academic argument has only been able to pursue the Finno-Ugric path and those holding a different opinion regarding these issues have never been able to become official academic linguists or historians." Another correspondent, Tibor Pállfy gave the source of the quote, the work of Béla Oláh entitled Édes Magyar Anyanyelvünk Szumír Eredete (The Sumerian Origin of our Sweet Hungarian Language).

The problem is that this book does not indicate the source of Ágoston Trefort's text, and as it turns out when searching through the internet portal töriblog, no other author has ever published the source of these sentences, made by the education minister of the age of dualism, in any text or speech. This does not mean that the quotation does not exist, but it can hardly be seen as proof of the "Finno-Ugric terror". However, during the truly liberal scientific-cultural era that came after 1867, various ideas were embraced. For example one of the world's first Turkology departments was established at that time at the Budapest University of Science. Reservations regarding the Trefort quotation seem to be further justified by the alternative historians' tendency to conjure up texts. One forum writer, csoka56, for example, mentioned the "Isfahan codex" on the Heti Válasz website, as an irrefutable proof of the Hun origin of the Hungarian people. The text is an Armenian-Hun glossary, and allegedly proves the relationship between Hungarian and the Hun language. What weakens the sensational impact of this ‘proof' (the research, theorising about the Hun language, is made on the basis of just a few words), is that its "discoverer", Csaba Detre, a retired geologist of Armenian origin, published the text in a children's colouring book. The source is said to derive from the Armenian monastery Surb Khach, located in Isfahan, Iran. "As in most cities in Iran, Armenians do live in Isfahan and its surroundings. However, such a monastery does not exist, and nobody has ever seen the text on a photo, a photocopy or a microfilm" -Miklós Sárközy, Iran expert and teacher at the Károli Gáspár University, told Heti Válasz.

Who to read?

Many people recommended works to us which examine "real" Hungarian history and the linguistic and ethnic relationship. István Komlóssy argues that there are many Sumerian elements in the Hungarian language, and at the same time states that most probably Hungarian is the oldest language in the world. He mentioned that he would have liked to have seen a more detailed list of the works of Csaba Varga in our article. However, we did not give more space for this, as the author, who presumes a relationship between the Hungarian and the ancient Greek, as well as the English languages, that can be traced back ten thousands years, makes the same mistake as esoteric linguists in general. They project the recent Hungarian language back thousands of years, a projection which anyone who has read the hardly understandable text of Halotti beszéd, written at the end of the 13^th century, would feel to be blatantly absurd.

Varga ignores the rules of linguistics in the same way as László Götz, a writer recommended by Károly Kiss. The dermatologist, who died in 1992 in Austrian emigration, devoted a four-volume book to the Sumererian-Hungarian relationship, and tried to establish a new linguistic system in many of his writings, while ignoring the system of regular sound correspondence that is used for determining the relationship between languages in comparative linguistics. As a result his experiment resulted in scientific anarchy, saying for example, that the German word trümmern (beat), the latin tero (trash) and the Arabic drb (hit) are all interrelated with each other and, naturally, with the Sumerian language.

Our readers also suggested for our edification the work entitled Dentru-Magyaria written by Viktor Padányi, who lived as an emigrant in Australia until his death concerning himself with the Sumerian connection while making a living as an accountant and a draftsman. We were told that a basic truth can be found in this piece of writing, namely that Antal Reguly "goes to Russia from the spiritually and financially totally crippled Hungary two years after the surrender at Világos in order to examine the "related nations".(...) What makes this "study trip" even more remarkable is that in 1851 getting a passport in Hungary was so difficult, that only those having the strongest connections with the government and its agents could receive one." The neo-absolutist mission of Reguly as a government agent perfectly suits the theories of the alternative prehistoric front, but not reality. The truth is that Reguly travelled to Saint Petersburg in 1841, and to the Obi-Ugrics in 1843, following his study trips to Sweden and Germany. After undertaking years of research, he arrived back home seriously ill in 1846, three years before the tragedy at Világos. He never went back to Russia again.