War as a Joint Criminal Enterprise: The View from The Hague

On 16 November 2012, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) acquitted Ante Gotovina and another prominent figure of the “Croatian war of independence,” of all the charges brought against them in connection with Operation Storm, a major Croatian military action launched in August 1995.

During Operation Storm, the Croatian military recaptured most of the country’s Krajina region, where the ethnic Serb population had established its mini-state during the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia in 1991. The Croatian offensive was accompanied by serious atrocities against the Serb population. Some 200,000 Serbs fled within a few days from the Krajina; most of them never returned.

The Prosecutor of the Court charged Gotovina, then Colonel-General of the Croatian Army, with persecution, deportation, murder, cruel treatment, plunder of public and private property, and other heinous crimes. To be sure, the Prosecutor did not allege that Gotovina personally committed all these crimes. His responsibility was said to consist in sharing the objectives of, and significantly contributing to, a “joint criminal enterprise”, whose common purpose was to permanently remove the Serb civilian population from the Krajina by force or threat of force. The Prosecutor specified two main contributions of Gotovina to this “joint criminal enterprise” of the Croatian political leadership: first, the ordering of unlawful artillery attacks against Knin, Benkovac, and Obrovac, towns in the Krajina region and, second, the failure to prevent or investigate crimes committed by his subordinates against Serb civilians in the Krajina.

In 2011, the Trial Chamber of the Court found Gotovina guilty of the charges and sentenced him to 24 years of imprisonment. The Appeals Chamber of the Court, however, completely reversed the conviction. Why?

From a legal point of view, the reasoning of the Appeals Chamber seems rather bizarre. It starts with identifying a certain error committed by the Trial Chamber and goes on to show that the whole conviction rested on this.

The basic error identified by the Appeals Chamber was the “200 Meter Standard,” a criterion used by the Trial Chamber to assess the lawfulness of artillery attacks (judging artillery strikes more than 200 meters from legitimate targets as illegitimate strikes). In an exercise called the “impact analysis,” the Trial Chamber had applied the 200 Meter Standard to documented artillery impact sites in the said towns and concluded that the artillery attacks against them were unlawful.

The Appeals Chamber found that the 200 Meter Standard was not a reasonable criterion. It did not undertake to establish the correct standard, however. Instead, it simply discarded the whole impact analysis performed by the Trial Chamber as inconclusive.

Having revised this part of the reasoning, the Appeals Chamber rushed towards the complete reversal of the trial judgment. First, it established that other evidences – if considered independently of the impact analysis – did not prove beyond doubt that the artillery attacks were unlawful. Second, it found that the persuasiveness of the evidences showing Gotovina’s “failure to make a serious effort to prevent or investigate crimes” rested on the additional finding that he ordered unlawful artillery attacks. This finding being discarded, the remaining evidence no longer proved that Gotovina failed to prevent or investigate crimes.

By arriving at this point, the Appeals Chamber had in effect cleared Gotovina of both charges against him which formed a significant contribution to the “joint criminal enterprise”. This would have sufficed for his acquittal. The Appeals Chamber could have said that, although a “joint criminal enterprise” aiming at the permanent removal of the Serb civilian population from the Krajina region existed, Gotovina personally did not contribute to it, hence he was not guilty.

Remarkably, the Appeals Chamber went beyond that and established that the “joint criminal enterprise” of the Croatian political leadership did not exist. The Trial Chamber’s conclusion on the existence of a “joint criminal enterprise” had mainly been based on the following findings: (1) the anticipation of refugee flows in government documents leading to Operation Storm; (2) the crimes committed by the Croatian military against the remaining Serb population; and (3) the discriminatory policy imposed by the Croatian government against the Serb minority after Operation Storm. The Appeals Chamber found, however, that these facts had been considered by the Trial Chamber “in light of” its most central finding, namely, the unlawful artillery attacks against the said towns. This having been reversed, the existence of a “joint criminal enterprise” was not “the only reasonable interpretation of the circumstantial evidence on the record.”

Politically, this is the most significant aspect of the judgment. The ICTY thus acquitted not only Gotovina, but also the entire Croatian political leadership, and, by extension, the Croatian people of the charge of having committed organized “ethnic cleansing” against the Serbs during Operation Storm. This is why huge crowds celebrated in the streets of Croatian cities when news of Gotovina’s acquittal broke.

For the Serbs, by contrast, Gotovina’s acquittal seems to be only the latest in a series of unfair decisions from the side of the “international community.” It strengthens the feeling that Serbs are held solely responsible for the tragic events of the 1990s. It reaffirms the impression that similar deeds are treated differently depending on who committed them. As noted in a 2008 article against Kosovo’s independence, Serbia’s 1999 military operations in Kosovo and Croatia’s 1995 military offensive in the Krajina were similar actions, but their political treatment by the international community was anything but equal. Until the Gotovina judgment, the Serbs may have hoped that at least their legal and moral evaluation would be the same. This hope has now been shattered.

From this perspective, the judgment looks even more troubling – irrespective of its final outcome. Can it be that not only decades of imprisonment of a person but also the honor of a nation depends on a single artificial concept called the 200 Meter Standard? There seem to be a fundamental problem with the approach of international criminal tribunals as such.

The problem is that international criminal tribunals adjudicate crimes by treating tragic historical events as charges against individuals. In fact, it was the charge of “conducting an ethnic civil war” that was raised against Gotovina under the name of a “joint criminal enterprise.” This approach personifies historical events and distorts the complex processes that give rise to them.

The Court could easily have convicted Gotovina for ordering unlawful artillery attacks against the cities of Knin, Benkovac and Obrovac if it had undertaken to find a reasonable legal standard to apply. This would have been a just conviction. Instead of concentrating on this task, however, the Prosecutor and the Trial Chamber left no stone unturned to put the accused in prison for the rest of his life for participating in an ethnic civil war in order to deter future generations from doing so. The Appeals Chamber, on the other hand, went out of its way to overturn just this conviction – with the result that it overturned the whole judgment.

This essay first appeared on 11 January 2013 on Paprika Politik, the blog of Common Sense Society, Budapest.

1979 and the Collapse of Omnipotent Rationalism

In a provocative new book, “Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century,” veteran foreign correspondent Christian Caryl argues that our century began in 1979. This was the year, for instance, when Margaret Thatcher won the general election in the UK and launched her bold agenda of privatization and de-regulation. The following year, the same political principles prevailed in the United States with Ronald Reagan’s landslide presidential victory. It was also in 1979 that Deng Xiaoping, China’s new leader, began to liberalize the Chinese economy after three decades of Maoist collectivism; collective farms were dismantled and the peasants enjoyed increased freedom to manage their land and sell their products on the market. At the same time, the Chinese economy was opened up to foreign capital by means of special economic zones.

Other important changes took take place in 1979 as well. John Paul II, who had been elected pope the preceding year, began his worldwide pastoral visits, which would serve to lend Catholicism a more open and modern image. One of his first trips was to his native Poland and dramatically showed that religion remained important for people long living under communist rule. In Iran, an Islamic revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the rule of the Shah, who had led one of the most secular regimes in the Middle East. In Afghanistan, Soviet troops came to the help of a socialist government, which had been facing an Islamist insurgency since it had seized power the previous year. The prolonged and costly war would be one of the main reasons for the collapse of the Soviet empire a decade later.

Caryl interprets these events as the victorious return of the dual factors of market and religion to the world stage, two forces that had long been suppressed by an arrogant rationalism. Beginning in 1979, the strong beliefs in central planning and secular perfectionism that had enjoyed significant currency for years were challenged when the chaotic, even destructive forces of market chance and religious fervor returned “with a vengeance,” writes Caryl. “The forces unleashed in 1979 marked the beginning of the end of the great socialist utopias that had dominated so much of the 20th century.”

Does Caryl’s thesis apply to Hungary?

In this country, the year 1979 does not bring to mind any particularly dramatic memory. But if one looks closely, one finds that this year witnessed two key economic turning points that indicated the collapse of omnipotent rationalism in Hungary as well. First, 1979 was the first year in more than two decades in which the average real wage fell — this decline would continue until the democratic transition and beyond (see here and here). It was also the year in which the accumulation rate (the proportion of investments as compared to consumption in the GDP) foundered: after a rapid increase, the figure plateaued at a record high of 38% in 1978. Starting in 1979, however, the rate of accumulation gradually plummeted by half to hover around 19% by 1990—it would remain between 18% and 23% over the next two decades (see here, here, and especially here).

These profound economic changes in Hungary correspond to the historical development described by Caryl on the global scene. Before 1979, the communist government in Hungary had aimed at catching up with the West via a society-wide, centrally planned modernization effort. In order to achieve this, they had withdrawn resources from consumption and social services and had invested everything they could in the productive economy. Unlike Stalin, however, Hungary’s communist leaders did not dare sacrifice existing living standards, so they instead raised foreign credit to simultaneously finance a modest improvement in living conditions.

Obviously, this model of development proved unsustainable, and it was in 1979 that this hyper-rational, scientifically socialist agenda began to unravel. Although less noisily than the United Kingdom, China, or Iran, Hungary made its own move away from 20th century rationalism in the momentous year of 1979.

This essay first appeared on 18 July 2013 on Paprika Politik, the blog of Common Sense Society, Budapest.

Gender, the Big Indo-European Problem

The past years have seen a steady rise in the global appeal of identity politics. Following its victories in academic and political discourse, it is now on its way to conquer the corporate world. Firms are increasingly expected to implement policies promoting the elevation of members of "minority" or historically "oppressed" groups into leadership positions. As a result, identifying with certain groups has become much more important than it was in the golden days of liberal individualism.

The question is which group identities count in this new paradigm - and which don't.

The Texture of the Other

Female figurine from Neolithic "Old Europe", which
archeologist Marija Gimbutas argued was a matriarchal
culture destroyed by the invasion of Indo-European
 warriors (credit: unveilromania.com)

Liberal individualism was a fairly straightforward concept: Every individual had equal intrinsic value. Political and economic structures were simply meant to provide the same opportunities and protection to each individual irrespective of any external feature – such as skin colour, ethnicity, sex or social background – which accidentally differentiated them. 

Proponents of identity politics argue – similarly to Marxism – that this principal equality failed to bring about a more meaningful levelling of social opportunities because deeper structures continued to favour those belonging to certain dominant groups.  Marxism pointed to the unequal distribution of wealth as such a deeper structure. It saw the dominant group in the bourgeoisie, which controlled the means of production. Identity politics has devised a more sophisticated theory. It argues that it is certain cultural codes – or discourses – disseminated in society that serve to establish a dominance hierarchy favouring certain groups over others. 

Yes, It’s 1979 All Over Again

It is amazing to see how people change. With Donald Trump's victory, we are fortunate enough to witness this amazing phenomenon once again. We are fortunate because it happens pretty rarely. In fact, such a radical change of mankind's spiritual condition occurred only three times in the past 150 years. In order to understand the significance of Trump's rise to power, it is useful to revisit these past epochs.

I really wanted to put a beautiful photo of "Mr Trump holding a mining helmet at a West Virginia rally" here but was unable to agree with Getty Images on the price. Maybe I should have consulted "The Art of the Deal" before I started bargaining. Fortunately, a prolific and highly influential hobby photographer came to my help (credit: Gage Skidmore).

"She called it the gold standard"

Departing from London to go round the world in 80 days, Phileas Fogg told his fellow club members with whom he had made the famous wager that “I am taking a passport with me, so that the various visas it will bear will enable you to check my itinerary when I return.” Notice that Fogg did not take the passport with him to be able to travel across the globe. It only served to document his journey – and even this was considered “unnecessary” by his friends, who would as well have trusted his “word as a gentleman”. A couple of days later he was once more reminded of the “futility” of passports by the British consul in Suez: “You know that a visa is useless, and that no passport is required?" This happened in 1872, before either Egypt or the Suez Canal came under British control.

Can Spengler Explain the Islamic State?

At university, I was sometimes jokingly accused of a tendency that, no matter what the actual topic was, the title of my writing assignments always began with “Spengler and the ...” If you take a look at my list of publications or even the posts of this blog, you will be able to establish that this was nothing more than a malicious falsehood. Still, Oswald Spengler remains a central point of reference to me and yes, sometimes I publish essays under a title featuring his name.

This and all other illustrations of this post are taken from
"Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves", a
filmstrip drawn by Sándor Lengyel, 1963.

All the more so as the range of nouns that can appear in such a title together with Spengler's name is virtually endless. Relying on his encyclopedic knowledge, Spengler wrote about almost everything. First and foremost, however, he was a civilization theorist. A recourse to his thoughts therefore commends itself most clearly when a phenomenon is examined in the context of the civilization that produced it. This is the case with the problem of how the Islamic State is rooted in Middle Eastern culture.

Scripts for the Future

My history teacher once said, “It is our loves that make life worth living.” By this measure, I have no ground to complain.

I encountered my first love at the age of 10, on a rainy autumn afternoon. I was in the 5^th grade, just having been allowed to return home every day right after the last class. The day-boarders of my class (i. e. those who remained in school for the afternoon) were brought to cinema once a month and we were invited to join them. That afternoon I was not sure if I wanted to go because the film's title reminded me of the action genre I did not like. Reluctantly, I went – and I was not the same person as I left the cinema. I fell in love with Back to the Future for the rest of my life.

The Power of Love

Hill Valley, 1955, as seen from the future
("Back to the Future", © Universal Pictures)

For a long time, I thought it was my interest in history which resonated so strongly with this time-travel movie. In fact, however, the film's protagonist does not travel back in time on a historical scale. He travels back in time on a personal scale, into a period which still lives on vividly in the memories of his parents. Instead of depicting a historical epoch, the film shows how a family's life was shaped by past events that happened to its members and how another turn of events could have led to a different form of life for the family and its members. It is this personal theme that has enchanted millions watching Back to the Future in the past three decades.

The Song Factor

This is the time of the year in which television talent shows come to their finals.

Of course there are many problems with these shows. At present, I only wish to point to the most fundamental one: They nurture the belief that it takes a talent to sing a song. Those participating in the competition think they will become stars because they can sing. Those watching the show think they will spend their evening in a meaningful way if they listen to other people singing. Both are wrong.

Doctor Faust with students and musicians in Auerbach's Cellar
(mural painting from around 1625 in Auerbach's Cellar in Leipzig)

These expectations represent a significant “rupture” in people's attitude to singing which occurred with the emergence of recorded music. Before that time, singing by oneself ranked among the most important sources of joy in people's life. Indeed, it was held in the same esteem as love and wine as evidenced by the adage “Wine, Women and Song”, variations of which were known in many languages. Please note that “song” in this context meant songs sung by ordinary people at everyday occasions, be it work, leisure or a love affair, whether on one's own or with others. It is from this cultural background that the multitude of folk songs arose.

In the twentieth century, the trinity of “Wine, Women and Song” gave way to that of “Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll”. This change of expression symbolizes a general shift towards crudity in our lives. With regard to music in particular, it shows how the enjoyment of music recorded by a few selected "stars" took the place once held by the pastime of singing by oneself.

I remember an inscription hanging in my primary school that showed a motto coined by the famous Hungarian composer and music educator, Zoltán Kodály: “Let music belong to everybody!” In my youth I felt this motto was too pathetic and sappy. Today, I fully approve of the message it conveys: People should recognize that singing is not something extraordinary, not something that only stars or would-be stars are able or supposed to do. This insight would be the first step towards rediscovering the joys that singing can bring.

Wine and love can be next on the agenda.

A Beginner's Guide to Circumnavigating the Globe

Great circle route around the world starting from Budapest
and passing through China, Oceania and South America

In a previous post, I put together an itinerary to go round the world in thirty-seven days. The itinerary was then successfully implemented in a virtual world tour lasting from the 8^th April to the 15^th May 2013.

I received some criticism, however, for my very “loose” interpretation of the notion of going around the world. My world tour could be considered a circumnavigation of the earth only in one sense: namely, that I arrived back to my starting point after crossing every line of longitude of the planet. It did not fulfil two other criteria that one may expect of a circumnavigation: First, the length of the route did not add up to the circumference of the earth (the whole journey covered around 34.000 km as opposed to 40.000 km, the approximate length of the equator). Second, I came nowhere close to reaching the antipode, i.e. the exact opposite point of my starting place at the other side of the earth; in my case, this would have been in the Southern Pacific, but I did not even leave the northern hemisphere during my journey.

Pandora's Bachelorette Party at Doboz

Market choices vs. anti-discrimination laws in Budapest nightlife

Some days ago Hungary's Anti-Discrimination Authority issued a ruling in a case filed by Szilárd Teczár, a student of media studies, against “Doboz” (Box), a Budapest night club. In its decision, the authority announced that Doboz' policy of charging men for the entrance while letting women in for free violated the anti-discrimination law.

In a sense, I admire Mr Teczár — he has done something I have long speculated about. Ever since I learned of Hungary's anti-discrimination law effective from 2004, I have been thinking about whether price discount granted for women at night clubs could bear legal scrutiny. As the practice has been quite general in the Hungarian party scene, I had plenty of occasions to ponder on this while standing in those long rows waiting for the entrance. 

Prison as a Cultural Symbol

The prison in Balassagyarmat. Built in 1845,
it is the oldest functioning prison in Hungary.

Today, prison is the ultimate guarantee of the moral order. Considering its importance and its institutional embeddedness, it is astonishing to realize how recent a phenomenon the prison is: In its present form, it is less than 200 years old. This suggests that, despite its apparent indispensability, prison is not an evident option to ensure compliance with moral rules. So the question arises: why the prison and why not something else?

In an age as enlightened as ours, your first guess will be that the institution of prison must have a rational justification. In this regard, one can think of two possible arguments for it: a practical and a moral one. Unfortunately, neither of them works.

Virtual World Tour 2013

My previous post presented an itinerary to go round the world in 37 days. After a careful consideration of my financial means, I decided to do the proposed world tour – virtually. In the evening of 8 April 2013, I got on Tisza express in Budapest Keleti railway station to leave for Moscow. While sitting on the train at the Hungarian-Ukrainian border, I started to think about writing a diary of this virtual world tour. The diary, which would then be published on Facebook day by day until 15 May 2013, can now be read below.

Around the World in Thirty-seven Days

Original illustration by Alphonse de Neuville and Léon Benett
to Verne's novel "Around the World in Eighty Days" 

When I was a child, one of my favourite animated cartoon series was Around the World with Willy Fog, an adaptation of Verne’s classic. The story is about an Englishman – called Phileas Fogg in the original novel – who in 1872 bets half of his fortune, ₤ 20 000 on going round the earth in 80 days. The planned itinerary, proposed as the fastest way by a newspaper, consists of train trips across the continents and steamer trips through the seas. Fogg departs on the day of the bet and arrives back in London after spending 81 days – and the other half of his fortune – on a much more adventurous journey around the world. Since he has been travelling eastbound, however, he has gained a full calendar day as compared to his friends in London. After realizing this, he manages to show up at the agreed place just in time to win the bet. 

To my great joy, my daughter has come to love the series just like I did. While watching the film together, I began to wonder how long it would take and how much it would cost today to circumnavigate the earth in a way Verne’s hero did. So I have prepared an itinerary which you can find below.

Circumcision and the Power of Tradition

On 5 May 2012, a German regional court in Cologne held that the circumcision of male children for religious reasons constitutes a criminal act under German law. According to the judgment, parents cannot validly consent to an irreversible bodily injury to their children. The child's right to physical integrity and self-determination prevails over the parents' right to religious freedom. If the court's interpretation is upheld in later cases, Germany may be one of the few countries in the world in which circumcision of children for non-medical reasons is banned.

Fiddler on the Roof. Dir. Norman Jewison. United Artists, 1971. 

The judgment, which was discovered by the press in late June 2012, provoked ferocious debate in Germany and received much international attention. Under-standably, Jewish and Muslim communities, which traditionally exercise the practice, became quite nervous. One Russian rabbi in Berlin to discuss the judgment called it "perhaps the most serious attack on Jewish life in Europe since the Holocaust". Supporters of the ban, however, argue that the decision on this serious question should be reserved for the child upon reaching legal age. 

One of the disturbing facts I encountered while following the debate was the complete ignorance of what circumcision means to the Jewish community. While many Muslims follow the custom of circumcision as a tradition, the practice is not prescribed in the Qur'an and Muslim religious scholars do not agree on whether it is obligatory or only recommended. In the Jewish community, by contrast, circumcision is not a mere custom but a clear command of God. More than a command: It is the sign of the everlasting Covenant between God and the Jewish people, on which the whole Jewish life with all its commandments is based.

Arthur Schopenhauer Looking At Things

Some weeks ago I finished reading Arthur Schopenhauer’s main work, The World as Will and Idea.

Looking at glasses

This accomplishment came a bit late in light of the fact that I first encountered Schopenhauer at the age of 17. This was the time when I decided to study philosophy and was exploring the – admittedly limited – stock of philosophy books in the libraries of my home town. Somehow I bumped into Rüdiger Safranki’s biography on Schopenhauer and was enchanted by the book. It depicted the intellectual scene of late romanticism, Goethe’s Weimar and German idealism in a way that I found fascinating. Thanks to the book, I became interested in Schopenhauer and started to read his minor works. However, I soon realized that his system cannot properly be understood without a basic understanding of Kant, so I began to study Kant. Then I went to university, and many other philosophers diverted me from Schopenhauer. At the back of my mind, I kept planning to read his main work but did not find time to do so until I finished my PhD thesis last year.

Schopenhauer’s most frequently – although simplistically – cited thought is that life is suffering. This may have touched me 15 years ago when – having awakened from the naivety of my childhood – I felt the pain of an unrequited love for the first time. Today, perhaps because I understand more clearly the delight that even an unrequited love can bring, the idea of life being suffering does not affect me much. What I find interesting in Schopenhauer instead is what he wrote about the redemptive power of looking at things.

The Constitution of Hungary and the Seven Lost Years

New constitution: What is left as it is is worse than what is changed

“The functioning of the Hungarian State shall be based on the principle of division of powers” - says the new Hungarian constitution (the “Fundamental Law”) in its Article C thereby codifying what is usually regarded as the heart of a democratic political regime. Although the old constitution (which remains in force until the end of 2011) did not contain such an explicit declaration, the doctrine of division of powers has been acknowledged by the Hungarian Constitutional Court as a basic – albeit implicit – principle of the Hungarian constitutional system ever since the early 1990s. Considering that the new Fundamental Law changes little on the institutional structure of the Hungarian governmental system, one has to conclude that the Hungarian system of public law will be characterized by the principle of division of powers just as much from next year on as it was under the old constitution.

But does this characterisation in fact apply?

The Revolt of the Elite Schools

The Hungarian education system reinforces social inequalities

I do not like elite schools. I have never attended any, and now that my daughter is starting school, I have sticked to the principle of not sending her to one. (As a divorced father I had to contend with other principles though.)

"Braceface" series. Episode: "The Beat Goes On".
© 2001-2002 Nelvana Limited
/Jade Animation (Shenzen) Company

The obvious problem with elite schools is that they can only exist if there are also not-so-good, second-tier, third-tier schools. That there are no-name brands and second rate companies on the market is a matter of course in a capitalist economy. That there are top, second-tier and third-tier universities is also a widely accepted fact in higher education. But that there should be better and worse secondary schools, or even – which is a very sad aspect of Hungarian reality – better and worse primary schools, is by far not self-evident. I am in fact shocked when I hear my friends treat this phenomenon as if it was natural: Many of them have been climbing the ladder of elite education, their families and later themselves consciously choosing always the “best” available school for further studies. They will almost naturally do the same as parents, because “they want the best for their children”. The scarcity of good jobs and the value of up-to-date knowledge on today's labour market make this endeavour reasonable up to a certain point. What I cannot but wonder, however, is the apparent lack of understanding the harmful consequences this attitude has on Hungary's social cohesion.

Hungarian Vigour in the Common Law

I have always been convinced that my fellow-countrymen can make it to the top in whatever field they want. But I must admit that the common law tradition was among the last areas to be conquered by Hungarians I would have thought of.

Hungarian lawyers have a strong aversion to the case law approach. Law students usually have serious difficulties with learning the subjects in which it plays some role, namely international and European law. These difficulties are caused by the fact that mastering a complete system of rules, which is the ultimate goal of Hungarian legal education, is not enough here. Law faculties in Hungary concentrate on pouring the full content of as many statutes and regulations into the students’ head as they can. These statutes and regulations are usually based on an elaborate conceptual structure, which makes them easy to visualize: It is like a refined architecture built out of basic notions, distinctions, general rules and exceptions. University text books see their task in drawing the distinctions even more precisely, making the system look even clearer and repairing its possible ruptures. Of course written laws and text books intend to have something in common with the reality they pertain to, but even if they succeed, law students are not aware of how reality is reflected by this legal dogmatics. As a result, they finish university with a neat picture in their head of Hungary’s legal system but without basic skills of applying this knoknowledge to real cases.

Where Is the Middle of Hungary?

A recent excursion to the centre of historical Hungary in Szarvas aroused my curiosity and I decided to find out when and by what calculation this place was declared to be the centre of the Hungarian Kingdom. It was only after lengthy searching and with a combined utilization of Google and the New Révai Encyclopaedia (Révai Új Lexikona) that I found the following quotation from the 1879/8 issue of Vasárnapi Újság (Sunday News), a popular weekly journal of the time:

"Hungary's centre. In his work about The Natural Conditions of the Hungarian Empire ("Magyarország természeti viszonyainak leirása", Pest, 1863-65) János Hunfalvy writes: 'Hungary’s middle meridian is 38 degrees 13 minutes Eastern longitude, while its middle parallel of latitude is 46 degrees 53 minutes Northern latitude; these circles of longitude and latitude cross each other not near to Kecskemét but to Szarvas. It means that Szarvas should be approximately in the middle of the country.' In the Szarvas News ("Szarvasi Ujság"), the article continues, József Mihályfi is now giving an answer to the not uninteresting question as to where these lines exactly cross each other, where the centre of the country actually is. If these lines are drawn on the most accurate and detailed plan, which currently exists, on the sheet of Vienna’s Generalstab showing the area around Szarvas, it will become visible that that point corresponds to Kreszan’s mill, one of the two windmills built just north of the town on the area called 'green field’. So Kreszan’s windmill marks Hungary's centre."

The method was obviously rather primitive: The alleged centroid was simply determined by taking the mean value of the coordinates of latitude of the northernmost and southernmost and the coordinates of longitude of the easternmost and westernmost points of the country. The text also answers to the question of why the place is still marked by a windmill.

Now, let us have a look at why Pusztavacs is regarded as the geometric centre of today's smaller country: "The landmark of Pusztavacs was built in the middle of Hungary, more specifically, at the geometric centre of the country. That is why it is worth visiting it and not for the view for example. The point marking the geometric center of our country of 93 000 km2 is situated in the north-eastern outskirts of the village. The landmark is located exactly in the intersection of the diagonals of a rectangle enclosed by” the coordinate lines of the outermost points of the country.

This is exactly the same dilettante method, only in different words. Its biggest mistake is that it has nothing to do with geometric centre. It could be called "geographic centre" at the best.

An essential feature of geometric centre or centre of gravity is namely that it does not depend on the coordinate system applied, but does depend on the shape of the figure. In fact it is defined as the intersection of the lines that divide the figure into two equal areas. The centre of gravity of a triangle is determined by the intersection of its medians, whereas that of more complex polygons can be calculated by dividing them into triangles, or by applying the following formula of analytic geometry:
s.x = sum ((v [i]. y - v [i +1]. y) * ((v [i]. x * v [i]. x) + v [i]. x * v [i + 1]. x + (v [i +1]. x * v [i +1]. x)) / (6 * T));
s.y = sum ((v [i +1]. x - v [i]. x) * ((v [i]. y * v [i]. y) + v [i]. y * v [i + 1]. y + (v [i +1]. y * v [i +1]. y)) / (6 * T));
where the coordinates of vertices and the area of the polygon are given.

Although in the case of curved lines already integral calculus is needed, the centre of gravity of Hungary (or any other country) can easily be found out even at home. All you have to do is to cut the figure of the country out of cardboard, to hang it up at one point, and, as soon as it has reached the equilibrium position, to draw a vertical line downwards from the point of suspension, then to repeat the same process with another suspension. Since both lines divide the figure into equal parts, the intersection of them will show the centre of gravity. Assuming that the cardboard figure reflects the shape of the country in a fairly accurate way (and of course that the country is considered a plane figure instead of a piece of spherical surface) the true geometric center can be determined by projecting your result onto a map.

My revolutionary discovery is a bit detracted only by the fact that in the case of Germany - where both data are available – the geographical points resulting from the primitive method of bisecting the coordinates on the one hand, and from the more sophisticated calculation of centroid on the other hand, are located only 4.5 kms apart.