On Oct 28, 2008, at 1:47 AM, Claes Wallin wrote: > To be sure, China is not the only interesting country in this aspect. > See East and West Germany, Czechia and Slovakia, the former > Yugoslavian > countries, the North and the South in the American Civil War etc. But > China is more interesting, because it is still ambiguous today -- both > governments call themselves the "real" China.
Slovakia is a somewhat more interesting case, as (if I remember correctly) it is almost entirely made up of land that used to be part of Hungary, which (like most of the countries bordering on Hungary) took control of Hungarian territory when Hungary entirely disbanded its armed forces after WWI. (Hungary is the only country I know of which borders entirely on land that used to belong to it. Before WWI and the union with Austria, its borders extended to the edges of the Carpathian Basin and included Slovakia, Transylvania, and parts of former Yugoslavia (including the Adriatic coast around Split, I think), Austria, and the Czech Republic. Esztergom, which used to be one of the major central cities, is now on the border.) Transylvania in particular is still very bilingual and bicultural, and many of the church liturgies are almost exclusively Hungarian, despite fairly strong pressure from the Romanian government (particularly during the Ceaucescu regime) to assimilate into Romania. So, returning to the original subject, is it Hungary, Romania, or something else all its own? :) (My vote goes to #3.) _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
