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A content/posts/thoughts_on_the_organization_of_history.md
A content/posts/vacation_2023.md

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+---
+title: Thoughts on the Organization of History
+date: "2023-05-19T11:30:26-05:00"
+draft: false
+---
+
+I recently spent two weeks in Hungary, Austria, and Slovakia.
+It was the longest I've spent physically separated from my work laptop
+literally ever.
+(Took it to my wedding, took it to Japan, took it to every Christmas and
+Thanksgiving holiday, and so on...)
+
+----
+
+I had the opportunity to visit the Hungarian National Museum.
+It was a very impressive collection and exhibit; I have to highly recommend it.
+Something that stood out to me was the frequency with which Bratislava played
+a pivotal role.
+Or rather, as it was referred to in that time, *Pozsony*.
+
+I wasn't sure how to feel about the insistence to use an outdated and
+imperial name for a sovereign nation's capital.
+It seems to me that there's a very close parallel to how museums in the United
+States have historically referred to Native American tribes.
+(Iroquois vs. Haudenosaunee; Eskimo vs. Inuit; Indian vs. Native American.)
+It significantly colored my experience in the exhibit, and caused me to
+reconsider the blurbs in a new light.
+
+Which lead to me realizing that the voivodeship and principality of
+Transylvania, which the museum went to great lengths trying to claim as
+Hungarian heritage, are in fact *Romania*.
+
+I admittedly knew very little about Romanian history until this week.
+But as I poured over Wikipedia articles about the region and government,
+I started recognizing many names.
+*Thokoly*, whose name adorns many streets and public squares in Budapest, was
+in fact a Transylanian leader.
+Same with *Rakoczi*.
+Both of them have statues in Hero's Square, alongside Stephen Bocskai
+and Gabriel Bethlen.
+All of them can hardly be claimed as Hungarian, I think.
+
+----
+
+To keep straight all of the history which I learned in Budapest, and also to
+*straighten* that history out with regards to *whose* history it actually is,
+I began writing articles on my wiki.
+
+My personal perspective on Medieval Europe is that **dynasties** are the key
+unit.
+Realms were reshaped and changed hands so often that it's not really possible
+to record a coherent history in terms of reigns and monarchs.
+Not to mention all the times that kingdoms were raised or vassalized, or
+that kingdoms were held in personal unions.
+You could spend a week trying to sort the Habsburgs between Spain, Austria, and
+the Holy Roman Empire.
+
+At the same time, I do think that understanding the history of how a kingdom
+was created is foundational.
+In many cases it is even more important.
+I don't honestly have that much interest in the dynasties of Serbia and Syrmia,
+but it would be difficult to properly understand Hungarian expansion to the
+south without knowing *who they were expanding into*.
+
+For each of Hungary, Czechia (as the successor to Bohemia), Romania (as the
+successor to Transylvania), Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Poland,
+and Serbia, I have created a parent wiki article and a "Monarchs" sub-page.
+That sub-page is organized as a list of the
+duchies/principalities/kingdoms/etc. that explain *where the modern states
+came from*, and then a list of dynasties across all of those
+duchies/principalities/kingdoms/etc.
+This gives me the flexibility to list dynasties outside of royalty and across
+interregnum periods.
+
+As needed, I add sub-pages for major historical individuals and cities.
+Generally I try to keep individuals under the modern nation that corresponds
+best to their core realm. Sigismund, while also having been Holy Roman Emperor
+and king of Croatia and Bohemia, was first and foremost a king of Hungary.
+
+I have a bad habit of biting off more than I can chew, so I placed a hard limit
+on myself.
+I am not, under any circumstances, touching any of the Byzantine, Ottoman,
+Austrian, Venetian, or Holy Roman Empires.
+That also effectively restricts the time period of interest, since one or more
+of those was dominant in the entire region by the 16th century.
+
+----
+
+I've really enjoyed this deep dive into eastern and southern European history.
+It's not a topic I've really thought about before, so even this basic level of
+research has been highly fruitful.
+
+It's also given me an opportunity to practice expository writing.
+On my high school debate team, I was frequently advised to focus on
+the framework of an argument, rather than a lecture.
+Ever since, I've reviewed my work through the lens of *how can I get to the
+point faster?*.
+This exercise has gone in a very different path.
+The more tangential connections I can make between the objects of my study, the
+richer my understanding of the regional history becomes.
+And wikis are designed specifically for this interlinking model.
+

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+---
+title: Vacation 2023
+date: "2023-04-26T09:35:51-05:00"
+draft: false
+---
+
+I will be off the grid for the next two weeks.
+