Meek Bozgors (Bassa Manelka!)

Abstract

Based on the consistent omission of the Hungarian swear words from the different Hungarian translations of Jaroslav Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk, this paper aims to prove Sándor Szilágyi N.’s suggestion regarding the etymology of the deprecatory ethnonym “bozgor” used in Romanian. According to the sources presented here, the stereotype of verbally aggressive Hungarians has been known since the 18th century, especially in German literature, but it was reinforced around the First World War. It was spread through vulgar jokes in the popular literature, but at the same time less and less tolerated by Hungarian public opinion, which, after the Treaty of Trianon, most probably started simply to ignore it with an automatic, defensive reflex.