Hungarian Identity Research Articles

Mihály Lieb or Mihály Munkácsy? Developing Cultural Identity in Hungary’s German National Minority Schools

In the Carpathian Basin, German-speaking peoples have lived alongside Hungarians for hundreds of years, resulting in many, shared points of cultural intermingling. (Although commonly referred to as svábok [‘Swabians’], this is not the correct term for Hungary’s German minorities since their origins differ from those of Swabians living in Germany today). After World War II, thousands of Hungarian Germans were deported to Germany. Those who remained could not use their native language and dialect in public. Today, young generations reconnect with their German roots in state-funded, national minority schools where, through the medium of Hochdeutsch, students are familiarized with their Hungarian German dialect, history and traditions in a subject called népismeret [‘folk education’]. This paper provides a brief overview of the current legal documents and rulings that determine the curriculum in Hungary’s national minority schools before detailing the topics studied in a Hungarian German folk education class. We contend that the overwhelming losses in cultural heritage that resulted from assimilation must be reversed in a process that simultaneously respects their unique, dual identity. To this end, we recommend adapting the curriculum of folk education to include an alternative, more inclusive perspective of famous, “Hungarian” individuals.

Orientalist Perspective in the Letters of Lady Mary Montagu and Kelemen Mikes

An English aristocrat, poet and writer, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762) was a privileged and distinguished woman traveller in her time. During her sojourn in Ottoman Istanbul, she noted down significant details as regards the Constantinople and seraglio through her vivid descriptions as a liberated woman in her Embassy Letters. Another significant oriental work, Letters from Turkey by Kelemen Mikes (1690-1761), who was a Transylvanian-born Hungarian writer and political figure, is centered upon Mikes’s life in exile between the years 1717 and 1758 within the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire. In Letters from Turkey, we can feel his strong sense of Hungarian identity and his steadiness in maintaining his cultural and religious customs and values in his elaboration of his own and the “other” culture, while his praising the benign and merciful ruling style of Ottoman Sultans offers a different view of orientalism in favour of the “other” culture (Ottoman Empire). Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine the Letters of Lady Mary Montagu and Kelemen Mikes from their political, ethnical, religious and personal perspectives and trace several relationships that has allusive discussion relativity in the discourse of Orientalism. After having explained the specific letters of both writers, I will attempt to use the scope of Edward Said’s Orientalism and Enlightenment Orientalism discussed in Sirinivas Aravamudan’s Enlightenment Orientalism: Resisting the Rise of the Novel, as a magnifying glass to different oriental images and conceptions contradictory with the reality in the eighteenth century. This study will mostly make use of Edward Said’s account of orientalism as well as Stephen Greenblatt’s theory of Self Fashioning in order to explicate the differences as to how the Orient is perceived by the authors from different cultures but from the same period. In order to highlight how the definition of Orient changes, this paper attempts to define the Orient in accordance with the works of Lady Montagu and Kelemen Mikes.

W spadku po rodzicach

Inherited from Parents: Identity Reconstruction Processes in the Narratives of Translingual Writers of Hungarian Origin Translingualism in the context of literature is a phenomenon that describes the works of authors who do not write in their mother tongue. Their works are narratives that transcend the boundaries of cultures and literary conventions and, as such, are not easily definable and analyzable. This fact is often the reason why their works are marginalized. The article is an analysis of works written by two authors of Hungarian origin. The first one, Viviane Chocas, writes in French, while the second, Melinda Nadj Abonji, in German. Both are therefore translingual, although this is not their only point of similarity. Their works are clearly autobiographical and both describe a similar process: that of the reconstruction of Hungarian identity, which was suppressed by their parents or blurred in earlier generations. That fact entitles us to look at their works from the point of view of the so-called post-memory, a phenomenon first described by Marianne Hirsch. In the course of the analyses, it turns out that the protagonists of the discussed works have a different attitude to their parents’ heritage and adopt different strategies of dealing with the past. While Ildikó, the protagonist of Melinda Nadj Abonji’s novel, decides to cut off both symbolically and physically from the past, Klara, from the novel by Viviane Chocas, feels an irresistible urge to learn about the difficult fate of her ancestors.

A hazafiság kihívásai és próbatételei a 21. században

Magyarország Kormánya az 1257/2018. (VI. 4.) határozatával a hazafias és honvédelmi nevelésért felelős kormánybiztost nevezett ki jelen tanulmány szerzőjének személyében. Feladatai között szerepel a honvédelmi nevelés kormányzati stratégiájának kidolgozása. A honvédelmi nevelés a hazafiságra nevelés komplex feladatrendszerébe integrálódik. Az alábbiakban közreadott írás a hazafiasságra nevelés rendszerkörnyezete elemzésének részeként bemutatja korunk legjelentősebb kihívásait és kockázatait, amelyek – megtévesztő módszerekkel – veszélyt és egyben próbatételt jelentenek, főként a fiatal nemzedék tagjai számára magyarságuk megélésében. A szerző tanulmánya konklúziójaként megerősíti: a 21. század biztonsági kihívásaival, kockázataival szemben – legyen azok eredete a globalizáció, vagy éppen az új típusú hadviselés – a hazaszeretet, a nemzeti összetartozás érzésének erősítése lehet az ellenük való védelem alapja.

Textuality, heritage, and identity in Hungary: contexts for the interpretation of Szikszai's insertion in Macbeth (2018)

Textuality, heritage, and identity in Hungary: contexts for the interpretation of Szikszai's insertion in Macbeth (2018)

Benő Karácsony (1888-1944) și Alba Iulia

The relation of Benő Karácsony with Alba Iulia was not just a relation between childhood and youth, but one that influenced the entire life of the writer. The spiritus loci of Downtown animated the writer’s adulthood work. Living in the area, at the time inhabited especially by Hungarians and Jews, the writer fully relives the dichotomy of the military and, at the same time, administrative town, over which the Citadel rose with its distinct life. The inward tragedy of the writer cannot be understood without relation to his native town. Benő Karácsony (Bernát Klärmann) grew up in the spirituality of Jewish cultural assimilation with a Hungarian cultural identity. Talking about himself, he allows us to recognize a hybrid identity: he considers himself Hungarian, and of the Jewish religion. He spent his childhood under the romanticism bestowed on him by the livelihood of the small bourgeoisie from the town on Mureș. The memories of his childhood and youth further prevailed during the adulthood period spent in Cluj. Karácsony uniquely grasped the spirit of the town, whose two elements, the Citadel and the Downtown, seemed to have been dueling for centuries. His writings are pierced by the lightness of the spiritual and administrative connection between the two differently organized urban entities, the conflicts of this connection, towns inside a town, which seemed to live schizoidly and simultaneously under the great transformations of history. However, the humor, often critical and bitter, allows the reader to grasp urbanization and modernization in Alba Iulia in the early twentieth century. The Hungarian Jew, Benő Karácsony, one of the most notable characters of the Transylvanian literature of the twentieth century, died, exterminated as a Jew in Oświęcim (Auschwitz) in 1944, despondent of the falseness of the society in which he lived.

About the System of Prejudices among the Hungarian Youth in Romania, Slovakia, Serbia, and Ukraine

Abstract This study is focused on the relationship between the youth and other social groups based on the data of the GeneZYs 2019 study. The study asked 15–29-year-olds from four countries regarding how appealing or unappealing they feel 24 different social groups. Research results show that several social groups, e.g., homosexuals, migrants/refugees, skinheads, drug users, are especially perceived as relatively repulsive/distasteful by the youth of the studied countries. Starting from theoretical and empirical antecedents, the author presumed that the low level of openness among the youth could be explained by several factors such as socio-demographic background, religiosity, value orientation, and sources of information. Based on empirical results, the author takes an analytical approach on the population under study. The goal of the study is to exceed the level of a partial analysis and to explore a typology while redefining the relationship between the motivation factors of prejudices. The hypotheses were partially confirmed. Compared to the author’s expectations, the typology of young people based on their attitudes towards otherness seems to be harder to explain. Three groups were identified: a smaller one which feels others being appealing, a larger one with a neutral attitude towards others and which sympathizes less with Hungarian groups than the average, and a mediumsized third group which dislikes otherness. From the characterization of the groups, one can discover that among those who dislike otherness, the overrepresented categories are: men, young people from rural areas, those who finished secondary education level, those economically active, young people from Ukraine, atheists, those who did not study abroad, people who suffered from discrimination experiences, young people with regional Hungarian and/or Hungarian identity, people who are not satisfied with the national economy and interethnic relations, and those who see the future in a pessimistic way.

The Complexity Inherent in Researching Migrant Identification: The Case of Hungarian Jews in Israel

AbstractIdentity is a heavily researched topic because of its fluid nature. One's identity is constantly changing; thus, it is hard to study. This paper presents the results of research conducted among Hungarian immigrants in Israel. The self‐identification of Hungarian Jews living in Israel is incoherent and complex. The interviewees wanted to present themselves as having different degrees of Hungarian identity (sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker) than they actually seem to have. As the results of this research suggest, self‐identification should be studied using qualitative methods in particular.

State Sovereignty and National Identity in Hungary

There is a great de­bate in the European Union on the present role of na­tion states, and on the role of state sov­er­eignty on their im­port­ance in the fu­ture. Some say that the concept of na­tion states is out-of-date and in­cap­able of fa­cing the chal­lenges of the mod­ern world, while oth­ers be­lieve that the na­tion state is a means of deal­ing with mod­ern chal­lenges. The key ques­tions of the dis­agree­ment are the place and role of na­tion states in the European Union and the in­ter­de­pend­ent sov­er­eignty of mod­ern states. This study joins the dis­cus­sion by re­view­ing the his­tory of the Hun­garian state sov­er­eignty and its eth­nical back­ground. The second aim of this paper is to provide a his­tor­ical con­tri­bu­tion to the cur­rent dis­cus­sion with out­lining some de­tails of the his­tor­ical trends and ex­ternal views on Hun­garian eth­ni­city and state sov­er­eignty.

The Origin of Hungarian Ethnic Identity and the Hungarian State, and Contributions to the European History of Hungarian State Sovereignty

The Origin of Hungarian Ethnic Identity and the Hungarian State, and Contributions to the European History of Hungarian State Sovereignty

The Challenges and Tests Faced by Patriotism in the 21st Century

Through Government Decision 1257/2018. (VI. 4), the Government appointed a Government Commissioner for Patriotic and National Defence Education and Related Investments. The tasks of the Commissioner include drawing up a Government strategy for national defence education. National defence education is part of a complex system of patriotic education. Based on the systemic environmental analysis of patriotic education, the present essay discusses the main challenges and risks of our time, which are misleading, hiding dangers and tests of character when it comes to conserving Hungarian identity, especially for young generations. In the conclusion, it is confirmed that the key to facing the security challenges and risks of the 21st century – be they caused by globalisation or new methods of warfare – is the strengthening of patriotism and a sense of national belonging.

The Uses and Abuses of Constitutional Pluralism: Undermining the Rule of Law in the Name of Constitutional Identity in Hungary and Poland

AbstractThis article explains why autocrats love constitutional pluralism and constitutional identity. Though these concepts were developed by scholars and jurists with the best of intentions in mind, we explain why they are also attractive to and inherently prone to abuse by autocrats. We then describe how the regimes in Hungary and Poland have made use of these concepts in their drive to consolidate autocracy. We conclude that given the dangers inherent in constitutional pluralism and its susceptibility to abuse, it should be replaced with a more traditional understanding of the primacy of EU law.

Manifestations of Hungarian Identity in Literature

Concentrating on some important literary and theoretical works, this article examines how Hungarian identity has been given different meanings and various forms of expression over the past few centuries. Hungarian identity is an ever-changing concept and the question of belonging and what is Hungarian has been subject to numerous interpretations. Linked to periods of victory and prosperity, and their opposite, defeat, humiliation and poverty, as well as revolt, revolution, defiance, resignation and even silence, the alternating forms of national identity can all be found in literature. The fact that Hungarians have more than one text (the “Hymn,” the “Appeal” and, recently, the “Székely Hymn”) that assumes the status or quasi-status of a national anthem itself indicates the multiplicity of Hungarian identity. These texts have become part and parcel of national identity due to the frequency with which individuals encounter them from their early childhood on. This is coupled with a strong Hungarian literary canon, which also plays an essential role in identity building. In the absence of a solid literary canon, literary works are less significant in the identity structure of many other nations; in larger countries a diversity of texts are taught at school due to substantial regional differences. In contrast, the Hungarian school system has traditionally placed and still places emphasis on a stable and only slowly changing literary canon which, in turn, leads to a body of literature known to most members of society.

Identity Preservation and Hungarian Language Education in Diaspora Communities

The main aim of our research is to provide an overview of what role language education plays in how Hungarians living in diaspora communities preserve their cultural identity. To this end we compared three Hungarian schools from three continents (North America, South America and Australia), selected by a sampling based on geographical location. We compared the similarities and differences between their educational methods according to factors predetermined by the research group. By reviewing the extant, but limited literature on this topic, the authors studied the present situation of Hungarians living abroad and the actual questions of identity preservation with special regard to language learning and preservation. These results present a detailed image of language education within the Hungarian diaspora. We also compared the educational methodology employed by the three schools based on different statistical data, such as the number of students, their cohort, student motivation as well as the role of partner institutions in the preservation of Hungarian identity. This study introduces the similarities and differences among institutions located far from one another.

Heritage and Repatriation in the History of Habsburg and Hungarian Archives

Hungary’s National Library and National Archives seek to collect, as exhaustively as possible, information sources defined as Hungarica: created by, or about, Hungary or Hungarians. Modern archival practice privileges the principle of provenance (the identity of the author or records creator) in determining what an archive should acquire. The Hungarian government’s Mikes Kelemen Program, founded in 2013, builds on earlier efforts for the acquisition of foreign Hungarica publications and manuscripts, defined by the Hungarian identity of the author. But because Hungarians living in the diaspora are not only Hungarian, sensitivity to the heritage and collecting interests of the diaspora host country is recommended.

Smith, Kathleen E. Moscow 1956: The Silenced Spring (review)

SEER, 96, 2, APRIL 2018 382 ‘poor substitute for real power’ (p. 307). Yet the cultural capital built up in these turbulent years was significant, and ‘the infrastructure created for interwar cultural diplomacy remained essential during the communist era’ (p. 302) and beyond. Accordingly, the book concludes that in the long run the propaganda drive was not ‘for naught’, as it ‘helped to legitimize Hungary’s status as an independent state’ and to develop a ‘basic template of Hungarian identity, which, for better or worse, survives today’ (pp. 301, 306). University of Bradford Gábor Bátonyi Smith, Kathleen E. Moscow 1956: The Silenced Spring. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA and London, 2017. 434 pp. Map. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $29.95: £23.95: €27.00. Moscow 1956, by Kathleen Smith, is a detailed and engaging portrait of the political change and cultural experimentation that followed Nikita Khrushchev’s so-called ‘Secret Speech’ denouncing Joseph Stalin in February of the titular year. The book’s twelve chapters, each roughly representing one month, cover a variety of the events and themes that defined 1956, including the Twentieth Party Congress (where the speech took place), the involvement of urban youth in the Virgin Lands Campaign, trips by Soviet tourists to capitalist countries, the publication of Vladimir Dudintsev’s controversial novel Not By Bread Alone, and the Soviet response to the Hungarian uprising. Together, these chapters give readers a visceral sense of how Soviet citizens experienced the dramatic changes of a watershed year while making a case for Smith’s larger argument — that ‘the arc of the year 1956 in Russia encompassed multifaceted reform from above, scattered, sometimes intemperate reactions from below, and ultimately a reassertion of top-down control that did not (and could not) restore the status quo ante’ (p. 5). Moscow 1956, in short, is both ‘the story of a memorable year’ and a ‘reflection on the long-term impact of stunted reforms’ (p. 8). Although Smith’s book is a sweeping account of the events of 1956, it focuses on the ways that intellectuals, other educated people, former political prisoners and other citizens responded to Khrushchev’s reforms. The book’s early chapters (following Smith’s account of the Secret Speech) describe the processes of de-Stalinization and rehabilitation by highlighting a large cast of characters, including the Old Bolshevik Elena Stasova (who made it her mission to help victims of Stalin’s terror), the historian Anna Pankratova, a number of GULag returnees, including several who became advisers to Khrushchev (Aleksei Snegov and Olga Shatunovskaia) and a number of intellectuals, including the writer Anna Barkova and the screenwriters Iulii Dunskii and REVIEWS 383 Valerii Friid. These chapters paint a clear and compelling picture of what it was like for Stalin’s victims to live through the year 1956 — touching on the politics of de-Stalinization, the logistics of rehabilitation and the difficulties of return. Other chapters examine the work of scientists and university life in 1956, highlighting both everyday experiences (like tourist hikes) and the responses of trouble-making students to the Secret Speech and events in Hungary. Smith convincingly highlights the zigzag pattern of reform, beginning with the dizzying discussions that followed the Secret Speech and leading to a December 1956 Central Committee letter that stalled the reform process. De-Stalinization, she argues, ‘had plunged many Party members into a state of anxious uncertainty even as it liberated them to criticize the old regime. 1956 became a year of questions and questioning, but also a year of silences, some strategic, some self-imposed, and others ordained from above’ (p. 331). Although it could have been useful to get more of a sense of how other Soviet citizens responded to the events of 1956 (including peasants and less politically engaged citizens), Moscow 1956 does an extremely effective job of capturing the ways its cast of characters experienced the year’s events. There are, of course, some disadvantages to structuring this book as a series of snapshots of Russia in the year 1956. Focusing on 1956 alone runs the risk of giving an incomplete look at Thaw-era politics and society, for example. As scholars like Polly Jones and Miriam...

Between Asia and Europe: Hungarian Identity seen through Hungaricum

Between Asia and Europe: Hungarian Identity seen through Hungaricum

Struggling for cultural survival: Hungarian identity discourses in the face of assimilation

The Hungarian immigrant community in Australia is struggling with cultural survival. The diaspora has experienced a general decline in community participation as a result of the aging of the émigré population and the rapid assimilation of subsequent generations. Using data derived from the series of annual community‐organised conferences called Megmaradásunk Konferenciák, this article compares the different discourses articulated by community leaders in Australia seeking to preserve and strengthen the diaspora community. I examine how newly emerged narratives of ‘diaspora death’ and cultural survival are debated and how possibilities of strengthened connections with Hungary have impacted these discussions.

Trends of constitutional amendments in Central Europe after 2008

The Visegrad Group, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, which forms the core of Central and Eastern Europe once more became constitutional and democratic states as a result of the changes of 1989. The global economic and financial crisis that began in 2008 has naturally shaken up the Central European region, but the intensity of its impact varied from country to country. The period between 2008 and 2010 hit Hungary the hardest, which led to the landslide political transformation of 2010. However, the economic and financial crisis that began in 2008 did not in itself lead to a new wave of constitutional legislation in Central Europe. The creation of a new constitutional identity in Hungary with the adoption of the Fundamental Law of 2011 has more to do with the local, specific political, social and perhaps partially legal historical conditions. At this time, the other Visegrad countries can be characterised by maintenance of the constitutional status quo or only partial amendments. It is true that in these countries the turbulence caused by the crisis has not yet lead to a single party or coalition achieving the qualified majority required for constitutional reform. The situation in Poland after 2015 is still open but the new government does not have the necessary majority for the adoption of new constitution. The constitutional amendments adopted after 2008 were only a partial reaction to the great economic and financial crisis. Rather, many amendments were reflections on structural problems that had existed previously or problems arising in the course of day-to-day politics that had not been fully considered previously or they introduced long-debated and still timely changes. Among new trends, the protective measures applicable to natural assets and waters were introduced in the interest of future generations. These were inserted in a very forceful manner into the Hungarian and Slovakian constitutional systems during the post-crisis period. The reinforcement of such an ecological identity could be interpreted as a positive development. However, the public law documents of the region are also characterised by a certain conservative ‘revolutionary’ mood including the definition of marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman; some family law measures aimed at improving demographic conditions and the passages of the Hungarian Fundamental Law concerning a society based on work. The function of constitutional courts is also beginning to be re-evaluated in the region, mainly in Hungary and Poland.

MŰFORDÍTÁS, ÚJRAÍRÁS, RECEPCIÓ

Ivo Andrić jelentős helyet foglal el a magyar irodalmi gondolkodásban. Műveiről folyamatosan jelennek meg tanulmányok, tárcák sorának címében jelenik meg utalás a Nobel-díjas regényre, a Híd a Drinánra. Poétikája a mai középnemzedék irodalmi affinitásával találkozott, s ennek során mottók és intertextuális áthallások formájában jelentkezik az andrići szövegvilág hatása. Miközben a recepció jelenségeit regisztráljuk, nem téveszthetjük szem elől, hogy Ivo Andrić munkássága nem a szerb eredeti szövegek olvasásán, hanem a fordításokon keresztül fejti ki hatását. Alkotásait pályájának kezdetétől fogva rendszeresen fordították magyar nyelvre. Dolgozatomban arra keresem a választ, hogy a fordítás jellege hogyan határozta meg a recepciót, s vajon hatott-e és hogyan irodalmi hatásának kiteljesedésére. Munkám során André Lefevere elméletéből indulok ki, aki a fordítást – a szövegmanipuláció más formáival egyetemben – újraírásként határozza meg.