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Danubia: A Personal History of Habsburg Europe

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Simon Winder

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“There’s something about border towns that tastes like spilt liquor and cigarette ash. They rarely greet you with a smile. More like a shrug, a raised eyebrow, maybe a tax. And crossing from Slovakia into Hungary felt exactly like that: like the end of a party we were never really invited to. Gone were the manicured roads and apologetic drivers of the West. In their place: cracked tarmac, sun-faded billboards, and a lingering Cold War hangover you couldn’t quite shake off. It was perfect.”

HungaryBeautifullyrawBordertownsCultureshiftCycletransitionEasterneuropePostcoldwarRoadrealitySaddlesorewritingTravelmood
Book:SaddleSore: From England to India
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“The paprika was in fact brought to Europe by the Spaniards, probably from Southern Mexico or Peru. The first shipment was apparently sent by a colleague of Columbus in 1494. It seems to have arrived in Hungary sometime in the sixteenth century, brought by people fleeing from the Turks, for the plant had found its way from Spain to the Balkans and was known in Hungary as 'heathen' or 'Turkish' pepper. Since then it has become the characteristic spice of Hungarian cuisine.”

EuropeHungaryBalkansPaprika1494
Book:Roads That Move: A Journey through Eastern Europe
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“This Magyar-Vlach hostility is shared to some extent by both peoples. The Hungarians feel themselves to be surrounded by a sea of Slavs and other races with which they have no affinity. It is certainly true that their language has no affinity with the Indo-European languages by which they are surrounded. The Romanians, or some of them, feel that they are an outpost of Latin civilisation set in a hostile sea of Asiatic Magyars and Slavs. The truth is that both peoples inhabit a part of the world which has been overrun, depopulated, repopulated and overrun again so many times through their histories, that any notion of racial integrity is merely absurd. Huns, Avars, Magyars, Turks, Cumans, Pechenegs, Bulgars, Vachs, Ruthenians, Saxons, Austrians, Greeks and just about every other European and Asian people have contributed to the stew. What provides a national integrity, where it can be said to exist at all, is language, and an acknowledgement of a common history. But the fierce hatreds, alas, are unlikely to vanish. Communism kept then below the surface, as it suppressed all forms of dissent and much individuality. Now that the cork has been taken from the bottle, it may be that all sorts of evil spirits will roam abroad and none more dangerous than that romantic nationalism which defines itself by the hostile exclusion of others from the community of what counts as human.”

LanguageCommunismNationalismHungaryRomaniaMagyarSlavsVlach
Book:Roads That Move: A Journey through Eastern Europe
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“Og det slår meg en ting i at man uten videre godtar at en ung mann skal (og må) ha en tid hvor han lærer verden å kjenne, 'samler erfaringer', 'raser ut'... eller hva man nå vil kalle set. At han "gjør sine erfaringer" med kvinner, forutsetter at han har en partner, at man er to om det (eller minst to). Men hans partner? Herregud, hvor dypt det sitter i alle: at det som er tillatt for en ung mann, ja til og med en fordel, å ha 'verdenserfaring', det er for en tilsvarende ung pike ikke en fordel, men en skittflekk, en fornedrelse, noe som har merket henne for livet, noe som aldri mere kan vaskes av.”

PornWomens LiberationSexual Liberation60s
Book:Uten en tråd
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“Every woman, from the prostitute to the nun, possesses equal right to safety, protection, and freedom; in a manner unrelated to the consent or standards drawn out by men. We do not choose which woman for whom to provide more protection and more safety based upon what she is doing with her own body, how she clothes herself, or the style by which she chooses to live.”

Womens RightsFeminism QuotesWomens LiberationFeminicideGbvGender Based Violence QuotesFemicide
Author:C. JoyBell C.
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