Selected English-Language Bibliography of Interest for Hungarian Cultural Studies: 2024–2025
Zsuzsanna Varga
This bibliography mostly straddles 2024–2025, covering the period since the summer 2024 publication of last year’s bibliography in this journal. Each year’s bibliography may also be supplemented by previously published items earlier not included. Although this bibliography series can only concentrate on English-language items, occasional items of particular interest in other languages may be included. For a more extensive bibliography of Hungarian Studies from about 2000 to 2014, for which this is a continuing update, see Louise O. Vasvári, Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek, and Carlo Salzani. “Bibliography for Work in Hungarian Studies as Comparative Central European Studies.” CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture (published by Purdue University) (2011): http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweblibrary/hungarianstudiesbibliograph
Hungary, Language and Literature
Pánczél Hegedűs, János. 2022. Nem forradalom, hanem szabadságharc: Mindszenty József 1956-os helyzete és tevékenysége (Not a Revolution, but a Fight for Freedom: The Position and Activities of József Mindszenty in 1956). Budapest: L’Harmattan. 390 pp.
Bernadette Wirthné Diera
Hungary, Language and Literature
Trianon: 101 Years Later
András Ludányi
This keynote address on Trianon was to be presented at the treaty’s 100th anniversary in 2020 at the Pécs Conference of AHEA. Because of Covid 19 the conference was not held. It was organized a year later in 2021 via virtual internet presentations. Thus, the new title for the keynote became “Trianon: 101 Years Later.” The address focuses on the historical background of this event and on the demographic, cultural, economic and political consequences for Hungarians and East-Central Europe. The analysis begins with the punitive nature of this dictated and imposed treaty and sets out to look at the causes which made this a lasting decision. Without attempting to blame solely the major powers or the immediate neighbors of Hungary, which became the successor states, the analysis also focuses on the major blunders of Hungarian leaders on the Left and on the Right. The devastating consequences for all the peoples of the region, but particularly for the Hungarians who became minorities in their own homelands in the successor states, requires a look at exit strategies from this quagmire. During the past 101 years nationalists, communists, fascists and liberal capitalists have all proposed solutions but to this day the problems remain. Although the root causes of the problem have been described by such outstanding scholars as Pál Teleki, Zsombor Szász, C.A. Macartney, and more recently Nándor Bárdi, Balázs Ablonczy, László Szarka, Zoltán Kántor and many others, the political will to work for solutions has not been present. The intent of this keynote is not to rehash the past but to provoke a re-thinking about the entire region’s interests and future.
Hungary, Language and Literature
Márkus, Beáta. 2020. “Csak egy csepp német vér.” A német származású civilek Szovjetunióba deportálása Magyarországról 1944/1945 ['"Just a drop of German blood:" The Deportation of German Civilians to the Soviet Union from Hungary in 1944/1945']. Pécs: Kronosz Kiadó. 469 pp.
Lívia Szélpál
Hungary, Language and Literature
Studia austriaca XXIX (2021)
Fausto Cercignani
Studia austriaca XXIX (2021) - The Entire Volume
History of Austria. Liechtenstein. Hungary. Czechoslovakia
Borders and Identity in A halálba táncoltatott leány ['The Maiden Danced to Death'] and A nagy füzet ['The Notebook']
Clara Orban
This article explores borders, border crossings and the geography of separation in two recent Hungarian films. In The Maiden Danced to Death (2011) and The Notebook (2013), two films produced within a few years of one another and just before the recent re-erection of a border between Hungary and its neighbors, escape provides the vehicle for the brothers’ separation. Of particular interest is the frequent portrayal of brothers separated during communism, often with one brother staying and one leaving. In these films, regimes and ideology tear brothers apart; whether viewed on screen or only alluded to, the crossing of a border becomes a physical symbol of this separation and loss. The fraternal pairs’ personal lives interact with history, especially the repressive state as manifested in Hungary’s border. Geocriticism, border and trauma studies perspectives will help understand the anguish of this separation. In these films, political realities fray the bonds between brothers and lead to their separation through the border, or to its trace, as identities are subjected to traumatic reconfigurations.
Hungary, Language and Literature
Szentkirályi, Endre. 2019, Being Hungarian in Cleveland: Maintaining Language, Culture, and Traditions. Saint Helena, CA. 292 pp.
Mártha Pereszlényi-Pintér
-
Hungary, Language and Literature
Distancing Gender in Contemporary Hungarian Fiction
Pál Hegyi
Representations of gender crossing go back to a rich tradition in Hungarian literature. The most conspicuous achievements for performing gender passing on the authorial plane are epitomized in such fictionalized female literary alter egos as Erzsébet Lónyay (Sándor Weöres), Lili Csokonai (Péter Esterházy), and Jolán Sárbogárdi (Lajos Parti Nagy). Providing a unique sensibility to seek out innovative forms that could accommodate interrogations into distancing gender, it is a legacy that finds continuation in the works of a new generation of young Hungarian prose writers. By conducting close-readings of literary pieces by two present-day writers, Pál Hegyi’s paper endeavors to give instances of how gender passing is transposed from the authorial plane to the level of narratives. The short stories “Karambol” [‘Crash’] by Ádám Berta and “Pertu” [‘On Intimate Terms’] by Edina Szvoren will be interpreted to adumbrate distancing narrative strategies for crossing gender boundaries.
Hungary, Language and Literature
Seegel, Steven. 2018. Map Men: Transnational Lives and Deaths of Geographers in the Making of Modern East Central Europe. Chicago and London: Chicago University Press. 346 pp., illus.
Steven Jobbitt
-
Hungary, Language and Literature
Identity and Intergenerational Remembrance Through Traumatic Culinary Nostalgia: Three Generations of Hungarians of Jewish Origin
Louise O. Vasvári
In my interdisciplinary analysis of foodways which combines Gender Studies with Holocaust Studies, I aim to demonstrate the cultural and gendered significance of the wartime sharing of recipes among starving women prisoners in concentration camps. This study will further discuss the continuing importance of food talk and food writing in the aftermath of the Holocaust, with an emphasis on the memory work of Hungarian survivors and their descendants. Fantasy cooking and recipe creation, or “cooking with the mouth,” as it was called in many camps, was a way for many inmates to maintain their identities and connections to their ethnic and family history, a survival technique that may have influenced the depiction of food memories and their continuing role in the postwar memoir writing of survivor women. I will also examine the continued use of food talk as a genealogy of intergenerational remembrance and transmission in the post-memory writing of second-generation and even third-generation daughters and (very occasionally) sons of Hungarian origin. Studying multigenerational Holocaust alimentary writing has become particularly urgent today because we are approaching a biological and cultural caesura, at which juncture direct survivors will disappear and we will need new forms of transmission to reshape Holocaust memories for the future.
Hungary, Language and Literature
Hamvas, Béla. 2016. The Philosophy of Wine (trans. Peter Sherwood). Budapest: Medio Kiadó. 115 pp.
Cain Todd
Hamvas, Béla. 2016. The Philosophy of Wine (trans. Peter Sherwood). Budapest: Medio Kiadó. 115 pp.
Hungary, Language and Literature
Lessons from Objects: Designing a Modern Hungarian Childhood 1890-1950
Amber Winick
Art and architecture assisted Hungary’s delivery into modern Europe, and many Hungarian designs of the early twentieth century invoked the child rather than the adult as the ideal citizen. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, Hungarian designers, design reformers and the Ministry of Culture and Education expressed national identity through design, emphasizing objects and spaces for children as a key element in defining a national culture. This research unfolds a vital dimension of Hungarian culture by examining a selection of objects and spaces—nursery designs, children’s clothing, school architecture, the Budapest Zoo and book illustrations—made for Hungary’s children during different periods of the last century. Working in partnership with the Iparművészeti Múzeum—the Museum of Applied Arts in Budapest—as well as several public and private collections across Hungary, I researched a number of important children’s designs that helped to shape the lives and experiences of twentieth century Hungarian children. Central to my research is how social and political forces shaped designs and how these designs helped children identify as Hungarian citizens. Looking at five material case studies, I hope to demonstrate the ways in which designers negotiated issues of Hungarian identity, tradition, and modernity.
Hungary, Language and Literature
Following the Life Stories of Participants in the 1956 Hungarian Revolution
Tibor Valuch
To date, analyses of the 1956 Revolution have devoted little attention to examining the events pertaining to this period from the aspect of social history. In this study Valuch explores the life stories of those who participated in these events from six decades ago in an attempt to introduce the most important characteristics determining various life phases from before and after the revolution. Based upon life interviews conducted during the 1990s with former 1956 participants living mainly in the city of Debrecen and its surrounding Hajdú-Bihar County, Valuch’s examination outlines those experiences determining their socialization, including family background, political attitudes predating the revolution and political activity conducted during 1956. His focus will then turn to the issue of how these individuals experienced the period of retribution following the revolution as well as attempts by the Kádár regime to marginalize participants in the 1956 Revolution. What general effect did collaboration with the revolutionary movement have on life during the Kádár regime and the political attitudes held by these individuals? In the final section, factors characterizing life stories from the 1956 period will be analyzed.
Hungary, Language and Literature
Tamas Dobozy. <i>Siege 13.</i>
Ágnes Vashegyi MacDonald
Reviewed by Ágnes Vashegyi MacDonald
Hungary, Language and Literature
Günter Brus’ «Zerreißprobe» und die Tradition christlicher Selbstopfer
Rosemarie Brucher
This article addresses the relation of Zerreißprobe (1970), the last performance work of the Viennese Actionist Günter Brus, to the tradition of Christian self-sacrifice. Three aspects of this relation are given particular attention: the aestheticization of suffering, the representative function of sacrifice and the distinction between the dependent body and the postulate of free will.
History of Austria. Liechtenstein. Hungary. Czechoslovakia
Call for Papers
Fausto Cercignani
Studia austriaca XXI (2013) - Call for Papers
History of Austria. Liechtenstein. Hungary. Czechoslovakia
Jewish Name Magyarization in Hungary
Tamás Farkas
This article presents the surname changes of the Jews as formal acts which served as a means of assimilation, and which resulted in a characteristic phenomenon of the history of Jewish communities as well as of the surrounding society of the majority. Surname changes as the sign of forming cultural and national identities were used for an individual crossing of a conceptual borderline between ‘they’ and ‘us’ in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Hungarian society. The paper is based on research in different fields of scholarly studies, applying multi- and interdisciplinary standpoints. It focuses on the Name Magyarization process, but also makes comparisons with the name changes of the Jews in other countries. It applies different sources to investigate the social, historical, cultural and ideological background, context and the characteristics of the nominal assimilation of the Jews. It analyzes their names as ethnic symbols, and presents the reasons that made the surname changes so typical for them. It presents the assimilation process of Jewish persons and their personal names in general, and the history of their surname changes in Hungary. The characteristic features of the surnames chosen and their typical motivations are also analyzed, in comparison with those of the non-Jews in the country.
Hungary, Language and Literature
Bilingual Experience in the Hungarian and German Immigrant Communities of the San Francisco Bay Area
Gergely Tóth
Studies on the interaction of languages are gaining importance in today’s world, characterized by accelerated migration and increasing cultural exchange. Unlike most research in this field, which concentrate on one embedded language against a matrix language, this fieldwork-based study examines the linguistic life in two immigrant populations, Hungarian and German, against the background of English. The primary focus of this article is the description of the bilingual and bicultural experience of the two groups. The discussion of language and identity will take a central place in the paper, and diglossia, bilingualism, loyalty, and language as social behavior will also be touched upon (section 4). This is complemented by a socio-historical portrayal of these speech communities of San Francisco, set forth in the preceding section 3. Section 5 provides an outline of the informant sets, spanning three generations in each linguistic cohort, and illustrates the subjects’ attitude towards maintenance. The final, sixth section offers qualitative and quantitative comparative statements about the results of linguistic interference and the ongoing attrition process, thus contributing to our understanding of contact linguistic mechanisms, and shedding light on specific grammatical and lexical features that are most prone to attritional forces.
Hungary, Language and Literature
Studia austriaca XV (2007)
Fausto Cercignani
Studia austriaca XV (2007) - The Entire Volume
History of Austria. Liechtenstein. Hungary. Czechoslovakia
Fenyves, Katalin: "Képzelt asszimiláció? Négy zsidó értelmiségi nemzedék önképe" [Imagined Assimilation? The Self-Representation of Four Generations of Jewish Intellectuals]
Mary Gluck
Fenyves, Katalin. Képzelt asszimiláció? Négy zsidó értelmiségi nemzedék önképe[Imagined Assimilation? The Self-Representation of Four Generations of Jewish Intellectuals]. Budapest: Corvina, 2010. 299 pp., illus. Reviewed by Mary Gluck, Brown University.
Hungary, Language and Literature