  Semilinear elliptic equations which give rise to solutions blowing up at the
boundary are perturbed by a Hardy potential. The size of this potential effects
the existence of a certain type of solutions (large solutions): if the
potential is too small, then no large solution exists. The presence of the
Hardy potential requires a new definition of large solutions, following the
pattern of the associated linear problem. Nonexistence and existence results
for different types of solutions will be given. Our considerations are based on
a Phragmen-Lindelof type theorem which enables us to classify the solutions and
sub-solutions according to their behavior near the boundary. Nonexistence
follows from this principle together with the Keller-Osserman upper bound. The
existence proofs rely on sub- and super-solution techniques and on estimates
for the Hardy constant derived in Marcus, Mizel and Pinchover.
