The legendary songwriting collaboration between the writer Géza Bereményi (1946–) and the musician Tamás Cseh (1943–2009) led to twenty full-length albums as well as countless bootlegs, singles, and unreleased recordings. With its unique mixture of absurdity and suggestion, story and song, comedy and pathos, their work broke ground in its time and influences songwriters today. Little has been written about it in English; this article aims to introduce readers to Bereményi and Cseh’s opus through their Frontátvonulás [‘Frontal Passage’], a story-song show first performed by Cseh in 1979 and released as an album in 1983. Telling of the characters Vizi and Ecsédi and the miracles they incite at Budapest Keleti Station, and setting a plethora of other characters to song, this work is at least partly about ends and endings. After briefly introducing Cseh and Bereményi, this article examines Frontátvonulás in light of its four stages (disorientation, stagnancy, breakthrough, ending), treating the last as a key to the whole. The author calls Frontátvonulás “an album of no return” both because it emphasizes its own ending and because it confronts the audience irrevocably.
This article is a retrospective of the last thirty years of US-Hungarian relations with special focus on university relations. I do this by telling my story of moving to Hungary in 1994, then building new American-Hungarian academic programs over the last 20 years. I discuss the successes and struggles of each period as well as the particular challenges today. I conclude with thoughts on a path forward and argue that we need exchange programs and partnerships between our countries more today than ever. This is a written version of my keynote address given at the AHEA 2023 Annual Conference.
This paper problematizes the etymology of the word “Ungeziefer” in Franz Kafka’s Verwandlung, connecting it to the Jewish tradition and Egyptian mythology as well as to the anti-Semitism that flourished from the Renaissance to the early twentieth century in the German and Central European area. Gregor Samsa’s desire for freedom and emancipation embodies a monstrous and tragical metamorphosis, which gives the opportunity to free the protagonist, albeit in a humiliating and nihilistic way, from the yoke of philistinism in the family, paradoxically freeing also his relatives from a stagnant existential condition. Kafka’s “Ungeziefer” thus becomes a symbol of growth, transformation and rebirth.
History of Austria. Liechtenstein. Hungary. Czechoslovakia
Fábián, Katalin and Korolczuk, Elzbieta (eds.). 2018. Rebellious Parents: Parental Movements in Central-Eastern Europe and Russia. Bloomington: Indiana UP. 364 pp.
Baczoni, Tamás, Tibor Balla et al. eds. 2014. A Nagy Háború, 1914-1918 - kézzelfogható hadtörténelem (The Great War, 1914-1918 - Tangible Military History]. Budapest: Zrínyi Kiadó, Honvédelmi Minisztérium Hadtörténeti Intézet és Múzeum munkatársai (Staff of the Institute and Museum of Military History Ministry of Defense). 68 pp. Two DVDs and fifty-six reproduced documentary inserts.
Significant role in developing and shaping the city of Bratislava played Danube River. Since 1830 introduced a regular shipping service for people and goods. The Harbour of Bratislava began to grow. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, next to cargo harbour built a new part Winter Harbour. The harbour experienced a golden age between the world wars. In the 1st half of the 20th century belonged among the biggest inland river harbours in Middle Europe. The Czechoslovakia was one of the largest export countries in Europe. At that time, there were also held the International Danube Fairs. The harbour was almost destroyed during the Second World War. In the post-war period the function of the port revived and modernized. Currently consists of Passenger Harbour, Winter Harbour and innovative parts of the cargo harbour built lower downstream. From the beginning Harbour of Bratislava was built as internationally, enabling investment and implementation of activities of enterprises of different countries. According to available sources, we know that in harbour worked except to Slovakia, respectively Czechoslovakia, French, Austrian, Hungarian and German shipping company. In the past, the city with harbour was growing, presently with growing city the harbour decreases. Landing stages and the surfaces of Winter Harbour are taken for the new residential and commercial construction; the historical harbour buildings are demolished. In the past we kept pace with Europe, sometimes we even set an example. At this time is the question whether we would nowadays not take example from Europe. The paper will present a summary of the known, but especially the lesser known international contexts of Bratislava harbour. It shows a vision of which direction could move into its development, particularly with regard to its history and unique value which remained.
Deák, István. 2015. Europe on Trial: The Story of Collaboration, Resistance and Retribution during World War II. Boulder: Westview Press. 257 pp. with maps and photographs.
Reviewed by Kees Boterbloem, University of South Florida
Csapody, Tamás. 2014. Bortól Szombathelyig - Tanulmányok a bori munkaszolgálatról és a bori munkaszolgálatosok részleges névlistája ('From Bor to Szombathely- Studies on the Forced Labor Service at Bor Camp and the Partial List of the Forced Laborers in Bor'). Budapest: Zrinyi Kadó. 254 pp. ; Csapody, Tamás. 2015. A Cservenkai tömeggyilkosság ('The Mass Murder at Cservenka'). Budapest: Zsidó Tudományok Szabadegyeteme Alapítvány. 150 pp. (e-book; a shorter version is accessible at: http://zsido.com/konyvek/a-cservenkai-tomeggyilkossag/).
The authors, a historian and a language-learning expert, recently devised an introduction to Hungarian history, language and culture for students in Wellington, New Zealand. We describe the origin and circumstances of New Zealand’s Hungarian community, why we thought to develop a Hungarian language course, and how the course relates to the interests of New Zealand students. After explaining our approach to historical and linguistic components of the course, we consider the future of Hungarian studies in New Zealand.
In this paper, Gergely Kunt analyzes the collaborative diary writing of two preadolescent boys from the period of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, during which they decided to act as reporters and writers to create their own chronicles of the events transpiring between October 1956 and March 1957. Twelve-year-old Gyula Csics and thirteen-year-old János Kovács were close friends and neighbors in a tenement house in Budapest, which resulted in their collaborate project of writing and illustrating their own diaries in an attempt to record the events of the Hungarian Revolution. During this collaborative project, they would read and copy each other’s diaries, which primarily focused on public events, rather than the preadolescents’ private lives. In addition to their handwritten entries, the two boys illustrated their diaries with drawings that depicted street fights or damaged buildings, as well as newspaper clippings and pamphlets, which they had collected during and after the Revolution.
Gecser, Ottó, József Laszlovszky, Balázs Nagy, Marcell Sebők, Katalin Szende, eds. 2011. Promoting the Saints – Cults and their Contexts from Late Antiquity until the Early Modern Period – Essays in Honor of Gábor Klaniczay for his 60th Birthday. Budapest: Central European University Press. 325 pp. Illus.
Reviewed by Kathleen V. Kish, San Diego State University, California