Skanderbeg

[Mister D]

Good video covering the Albanian resistance to the Ottomans in the 15th Century. Skanderbeg, or Iskender Beg (Lord Alexander) in Turkish, was a legend of Christian resistance in the Balkans. This is one of my favorite periods. What a cast of characters! Skanderbeg, Vlad Dracul, Vlad Dracula, John Hunyadi, Mehmet II and King Matthias among others. Skanderbeg became one a select few to be granted the title Champion of Christ.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athleta_Christi

[Peter1469]

That is cool.

I spent the night in the building Vlad Dracul was born in.




Sighișoara, Romania. It is in the middle of nowhere. The train station is 18th Century. The walk up the hill to the town is steep and gypsy lined. I almost got gutted by a gypsy who didn't like that I stopped him from beating his young daughter.

Nice little town. Lots of history.

[Mister D]

You mean Dracula, right? Dracul was his father who also conspired against the Ottomans even though he had to send young Dracula to the Sultan's court as a hostage.

My Hungarian friend can't stand gypsies. He makes comments from time to time but I've never seen one in real life.

[Lummy]

You mean Dracula, right? Dracul was his father who also conspired against the Ottomans even though he had to send young Dracula to the Sultan's court as a hostage.

My Hungarian friend can't stand gypsies. He makes comments from time to time but I've never seen one in real life.

Gypsy's seem to be unpopular everywhere. Britain has them and they are highly prejudiced against them. I get that.

[Peter1469]

You mean Dracula, right? Dracul was his father who also conspired against the Ottomans even though he had to send young Dracula to the Sultan's court as a hostage.

My Hungarian friend can't stand gypsies. He makes comments from time to time but I've never seen one in real life.

The names do get confusing. He is still considered a national hero in Romania.

[Common]

NYC in the 60s-70s had a gypsy population, I knew them to stay to themselves and not bother anyone unless they were bothered first.

They all made their living either fixing cars in the street or doing half assed body work in the street.

I think their unpopularity comes from clannishness and a contemptuous attitude towards others that arent gypsys.

[Chris]

Interesting video about a part of history I know little about.

One thing struck me was all the battles found by armies during that period and the 10s of 1000s of men it took to maintain those armies in addition to the monetary costs. I see parallels with that and the need to replenish the workforce with youth in the Chinese Lewis Turning Point problem.

[Mister D]

Interesting video about a part of history I know little about.

One thing struck me was all the battles found by armies during that period and the 10s of 1000s of men it took to maintain those armies in addition to the monetary costs. I see parallels with that and the need to replenish the workforce with youth in the Chinese Lewis Turning Point problem.

War was no doubt as expensive then as it is now but you have to realize that the real fighting was done by a professional core of warriors and their retainers and/or by mercenaries/paramilitaries. I use "professional" loosely. A medieval knight, for example, was not a professional in the sense that we use the term even though he trained his whole life for war. It was a much more individualistic ethos. He was more of a warrior than a soldier if that makes sense. I'm also skeptical of ancient and medieval headcounts. I hear numbers like 100,000 (the video mentions such figures more than once) and I would not be surprised if the real figure was a quarter of that.

[Chris]

War was no doubt as expensive then as it is now but you have to realize that the real fighting was done by a professional core of warriors and their retainers and/or by mercenaries/paramilitaries. I use "professional" loosely. A medieval knight, for example, was not a professional in the sense that we use the term even though he trained his whole life for war. It was a much more individualistic ethos. He was more of a warrior than a soldier if that makes sense. I'm also skeptical of ancient and medieval headcounts. I hear numbers like 100,000 (the video mentions such figures more than once) and I would not be surprised if the real figure was a quarter of that.

OK, yea, I'm reading now about the evolutionary origins of such warriors in early Indo-Europeans in Kevin MacDonald's new Individualism and the Western Liberal Tradition, so that makes sense.

[Mister D]

OK, yea, I'm reading now about the evolutionary origins of such warriors in early Indo-Europeans in Kevin MacDonald's new Individualism and the Western Liberal Tradition, so that makes sense.

Kevin MacDonald? That Kevin MacDonald?