Hungarian Literature Research Articles

Bertram, John and Leving, Yuri (eds). Lolita — the Story of a Cover Girl: Vladimir Nabokov's Novel in Art and Design (review)

REVIEWS 355 writes: ‘as the assimilation contract was finally being undone, even diatribes against the “alien” Budapest fell apart, leaving at the outset of World War II, not one coherent metropolitan narrative that could provide any form of positive identification with the city’ (p. 11). Based on a historical contextualization of the social background of writers and the ideological debates of the time, a good knowledge of the secondary literature, a detailed discussion of the content and plots of relevant literary works and ample quotations in Hungarian (consistently translated in English) from a representative sample of novels and short stories, Jones’s book is a social history of Budapest literature. Although the portrayal of Budapest in the poetry and essays of Endre Ady and Mihály Babits is not discussed, her work fills a gap in that, while other scholars (such as Marianna Birnbaum and Gábor Sánta) have analysed portrayals of Budapest in nineteenth-century Hungarian literature, there has not been, until now, a book-length synthesis covering the early to mid twentieth century. What is missing from Jones’s work is a more sustained comparative perspective that would have specifically connected the portrayal of Budapest to that of other cities in other national literatures. Nevertheless, it is a useful addition to a growing scholarly corpus concerned with the relation between cities and the nation, cosmopolitanism and populism and left- and right-wing portrayals of the city in literature. Marywood University, Pennsylvania Alexander Vari Bertram, John and Leving, Yuri (eds). Lolita — the Story of a Cover Girl: Vladimir Nabokov’s Novel in Art and Design. Print Books, Blue Ash, OH, 2013. 251 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Index. $30.00 (paperback). The American publication of Lolita in 1958 marked a turning-point in Vladimir Nabokov’s career. It was the novel that rewarded him with worldwide fame — or rather, for many, notoriety — and with it a degree of control over his future published work that relative obscurity had so far denied him. The timing of Lolita’s publication, however, followed by Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 iconic film version, coincided with a post-war boom in paperback book production which made the novel a global phenomenon, manifested in myriad incarnations. Nabokov’s initial attempts to influence the ‘look’ of his book were quickly overwhelmed by a combination of market forces and the difficulties inherent in attempting to faithfully depict the essence of one of the most controversial novels of the late twentieth century. By exploring Lolita through the history of its covers, John Bertram and Yuri Leving highlight an aspect of Nabokov’s art that has been, up until now, largely neglected. Their project, inspired by Dieter Zimmer’s ‘Covering SEER, 93, 2, APRIL 2015 356 Lolita’, an online collection of over 200 Lolita editions, explores the eclectic array of responses to Nabokov’s novel through its artwork, with essays by graphic designers and publishers, artists and art critics, authors, educators and Nabokov scholars, accompanied by a set of eighty newly-commissioned covers by graphic and book designers, illustrators and art students. Freed from commercial constraints, these provide intimate visual commentaries on the novel itself, whilst demonstrating the predicament of the book designer when faced with the ‘irresistible and frustrating’ challenge of encapsulating all that comprises Lolita in one single, eye-catching image (p. 39). Vintage Books designer John Gall described the process of creating his cover for Lolita’s 50th anniversary edition as ‘a project that is too easy to get wrong, too hard to get right, and doesn’t have enough room to experiment in between’ (p. 24). Whilst Ellen Pifer argues that in its soft close-up focus on a young girl’s mouth, his 2005 cover merely perpetuates the ‘popular image of a lascivious Lolita licking a lollipop in the manner of an experienced pornstar’ (p. 145), Gall’s comment establishes the issue that is at the heart of Bertram and Leving’s investigation. Every contribution to their volume deals, in differing ways, with the paratextual role of the book cover, each element of which, as Dieter Zimmer explains, ‘performs a balancing act’, and in respect of Lolita, a particularly difficult one. Nabokov himself was alert to...

A végső kocsma by Imre Kertész

intrude upon his new family’s happiness: he eventually comes to realize that he himself has destroyed the new home that he had, almost miraculously, been able to build with his wife. Nor is Judith unharmed by loutish antiSemitism : she will never forget a certain childhood slight. The novel begins with a letter written by Marc, Salim’s and Judith’s son, to his twin sister before his rather implausible invasion of, and Molotov-cocktail -fueled attack from, the “Orange House” in which his father had grown up. He envisions “[walking] down this little track . . . until we reach the sea.” In the last sentence of the novel, the previously estranged Salim and Judith will make this very walk, and reconciliation of a sort is offered. So Hajaj’s heart is in the right place. She makes great efforts to be fair to the two sides of an apparently insoluble conflict, acknowledging the faults and anguish of each. The prose is sometimes flat and the dialogue occasionally unconvincing, but she is by no means bereft of novelistic promise. Oneworld’s publicity handout quotes the Library Journal’s praise for an “accessible and beautifully rendered work that makes the tragedy of the Middle East real; highly recommended.” Perhaps one day Hajaj will write a novel worthy of this accolade. M. D. Allen University of Wisconsin, Fox Valley Imre Kertész. A végső kocsma. Zoltán Hafner, ed. Budapest. Magvető. 2014. isbn 9789631427738 The Nobel Prize–winning writer Imre Kert ész always focused his writing on two broad themes: the Holocaust and his own experience of post-Holocaust existence (see WLT, April 2003). A végső kocsma (The final tavern) may well be Kertész’s swan song (he is over eighty-five), and it also fits the above pattern with a somewhat disjointed, postmodern structure. This book, then, is no conventional fiction . Neither is it just a collection of aphorisms or personal notes; what we find here are two sketches for a would-be novel separated by entries from Kertész’s diaries from 2001 onward. For students of his work, these notes are most valuable, although they hardly occasion surprise. While the author rejects vindictive nationalism, he is not in favor of multiculturalism either, finding the threat of extremist Islam growing by leaps and bounds. One of his recurring themes is identity, a much-discussed problem in twenty-first-century Europe. Kertész denies having either a totally Hungarian or a dominant Jewish identity— he claims that in fact he is successor to the presently nonexistent Jewish literature of Eastern Europe, mostly written in German. “My misfortune,” he says, “is that I write in Hungarian, but I am fortunate because I was translated into German.” This statement leaves open two questions: whether Kertész writing in his native tongue enriched not only European but also Hungarian literature and, if so, whether his work—now available in most languages—could have been written with the same intensity in a “borrowed” language, for instance in German. While acknowledging his indebtedness to Kafka and Camus, Kertész on the whole steers clear of modern/contemporary literature. He has a soft spot for János Pilinszky, the Catholic existentialist poet, and at one point he quotes Rilke, but on the whole he enjoys music more than poetry. While admired by András Schiff and having a good relationship with Daniel Barenboim, his friendship with composer György Ligeti steadily deteriorates. First, he seems to be touched by the Hungarianborn composer’s “moving frailness” and his determination to carry on working in spite of his physical condition, but when he finds out that Ligeti did not respond well to his more recent writing, the tone of his remarks becomes bitter. He complains A Coney Island Reader Louis J. Parascandola & John Parascandola, eds. Columbia University Press Coney Island is a shape-shifter. The dichotomy of shiny entertainment against urban decay has always caused mixed emotions. From Nathan’s Hotdogs and the Wonder Wheel to end-of-season gloom and recession, Coney sings the bright and dim electric song of Brooklyn’s iconic peninsula. This literary anthology unfolds the layers of the unique destination while enhancing the experience...

A lélek betegségeinek reprezentációi a magyar nyelvű orvosi irodalomban, 1770–1820

A lélek betegségeinek reprezentációi a magyar nyelvű orvosi irodalomban, 1770–1820

SZECESSZIÓ: IRODALOM, MŰVÉSZET ÉS LÉTFORMA, Herczeg Ferenc Szelek szárnyán című úti- és hajónaplójáról

A sokat vitatott és a közelmúltig gyakran mellőzött Herczeg-életmű egyik érdekes darabja, a Szelek szárnyán (1905) című hajó- és útinapló. Vizsgálata új szemszögből világítja meg a dél-bánáti születésű író életpályáját, aki Sirály nevű vitorláshajójával a 20. század elején – igazi szecessziós magatartást tanúsítva és létformát választva, Budapestet is odahagyva – az Adria és a Meditteráneum térségében vitorlázott unokaöccsével, s tenger-ihletettsége ebben a (minden vonatkozásban szecessziós, az Adria szépségeit és értékeit népszerűsítő) kötetében csúcsosodott ki. Trogir, Split, Dubrovnik és Boka Kotorska vonzáskörében jött léte ez a próza, amely (szecessziós jellege mellett) művészetközi és multikulturális jellegéből kifolyólag a művészi formák és beszédmódok izgalmas összhatását jelenti. Rácsodálkozást kiváltó olvasói élményt eredményez. A tanulmány Herczeg Ferenc Szelek szárnyán című kötetét mint öszetett műfajú, művészetközi térben létrejött alkotást értelmezi és vizsgálja azzal a céllal, hogy kiemelje és bemutassa a magyar irodalomban, illetve a képző- és iparművészet területén elfoglalt különlegesszerepét és helyét.

‘Transfers’ in Hungarian Literature from Vojvodina

Abstract The study examines the variants of the postmodern phenomena of literary ‘transfer’ (‘trans-correspondence,’ ‘transpass’) and their relationships with Hungarian literature (in Vojvodina) from the beginnings (the creative tradition of Kornél Szenteleky’s oeuvre) up to the events of present-time literary history (e.g., to the publication of Esti by Péter Esterházy). Referential aspects (the literary themes of the railway, the train, the change of trains), specific contexts (e.g., Kornél Esti as a contextual ‘transferring’ literary character) and metaphorical contents (e.g., the meanings of the straight line and the plane in the literature of the region) come into the focus of our research. Another significant aspect of the research is the interpretation of the intricate web of cross-cultural ‘transfers’ (between the works of Dezső Kosztolányi-Danilo Kiš-Péter Esterházy). The dominant motif of Central-Eastern European man’s experience of space is the straight line of the flatlands: lacking the sea-experience of the Southern European or of the more southern regions, as well as the related mythical experience of the world, infinity-experience, or reality perceptions hosting unrealities. The trip in this sense is an intermediate form of life: movement towards other shapes. The direction and extent of this movement has always been defined by the ‘straight line,’ the main road, and later the straight line of the railway

Intercultural Passages in Ottó Tolnai’s Textual Universe

Abstract The literary palette of Tolnai’s textual universe within the Hungarian literature from Vojvodina is based, among others, upon the intertwining of various cultural entities. The social and cultural spaces of “Big Yugoslavia,” the phenomena, figures, and works of the European-oriented Yugoslav and ethnic culture (literature, painting, book publishing, theatre, sports, etc.), the mentalities of the migrant worker’s life, the legends of the Tito cult embed the narrative procedures of particular texts by Tolnai into a rich culture-historical context. Similarly to the model of Valery’s Mediterranean, the narrator’s Janus-faced Yugoslavia simultaneously generates concrete and utopian spaces, folding upon one another. Above the micro spaces (towns, houses, flats) evolving along the traces of reality, there float the Proustian concepts of scent and colour of the Adriatic sea (salt, azure, mimosa, lavender, laurel). The nostalgia towards the lost Eden rises high and waves about the “grand form” of Big Yugoslavia, the related space of which is the Monarchy. The counterpoints of the grand forms are “the small, void forms,” provinces, regions (Vojvodina, North Bačka) and the micro spaces coded into them. The text analyses of the paper examine the intercultural motions and identityforming culture-historical elements of the outlined space system.

The literature of diagnosis and therapy

This analysis is based on papers published in periodicals, in the period 1975-2013 with title words referring to diagnosis or therapy. The literature of both topics is growing dynamically and in an ever accelerating pace. At the same time, the two topics appear to get more and more separated, except for a part of the German-language literature. The share of therapy-oriented literature is increasing and its citation rate is higher, although 9 of the 10 most cited papers are from the topic of diagnostics. The Hungarian literature (papers having at least one Hungarian author) appeared to be proportional and balanced.

Atlas Florae Europaeae notes 23. The typification and revised taxonomic circumscription of Sorbus bakonyensis (Rosaceae), with a description of Sorbus udvardyana, a new apomictic species endemic to Hungary

The taxonomic and nomenclatural history of Jávorka’s Sorbus bakonyensis is surveyed and its correct authorship and bibliographic citation is provided. The identity of the original material of S. bakonyensis and the history of its interpretations are discussed. The name S. bakonyensis is applicable to an endemic of the eastern Bakony Mountains, restricted to the vicinity of the village of Márkó in Hungary. The illegitimate name S. majeri is a synonym of S. bakonyensis. A new name, S. udvardyana, is introduced here for the species occurring in the western Balaton region of Hungary, which was erroneously named “S. bakonyensis” in recent Hungarian literature.

Book Review: Gwen Jones: Chicago of the Balkans: Budapest in Hungarian Literature 1900–1939

Book Review: Gwen Jones: <i>Chicago of the Balkans: Budapest in Hungarian Literature 1900–1939</i>

Towards a Methodology of the Intercultural Teaching of Hungarian Literature to Speakers of Hungarian as a Second/Foreign Language

Although there are many Hungarian Studies scholars teaching literature to Hungarian language learners around the world, there are practically no resources available about what is happening in these classes, and what linguistic, literary and cultural challenges they pose for students and teachers. In her study, Györgyi Horváth discusses her ten-year teaching experience as a teacher of Hungarian literature to Hungarian language learners within the Hungarian Studies Program, a one-year off-site university program offered to international students, accredited by the University of Pécs, and hosted by the Balassi Institute, Budapest. She discusses the institutional and program framework she worked in, gives a detailed account of the linguistic, literary and especially the cultural competencies that were in play in these courses, and also formulates some general methodological insights about teaching Hungarian literature to language learners. Horváth concludes that teaching literature cross-culturally widens the cultural horizons of students as well as of their teachers, offering them a space for increased cultural awareness and self-reflection.

Supstancijalni i diseminirani Matoš

This paper deals with the literary works of A.G. Matos. It attempts to demonstrate that in his works a whole period of the Croatian literature modernism is concentrated. It also explores a question: Why cannot the opus of this Croatian author be absorbed into the Hungarian literature? In the Hungarian literature of modernism Matos would be disseminated first of all because of his strong literary authority and his very special language use. Despite difficulties, the author of this paper finds some parallels between Matos and the Hungarian authors of modernism. As a coherent and strong author of extraordinary fantasy, languge usage and style, Matos can be only partly assimilated into the Hungarian literature.

Why Should the Public Participate in Environmental Decision-Making? Theoretical Arguments for Public Participation

In modern societies dealing with environmental issues has become a part of everyday life. Making decisions on waste- or water-related issues is part of the public discourse in Hungary as well. The Hungarian literature on public participation discusses different participatory tools applied in particular policy fields. Public participation seems to have greater significance in environmental decisions than any other kind of democratic decision making processes. These experiences raise the question of ‘why should the public participate in making environmental decisions?’ In this paper we are looking for the answers to this question analysing the literature on public participation and exploring the relevant theoretical approaches. Arguments based on democracy theories, communication theory, sustainability, environmental democracy, risk research and behavioural economics will be summarized. The paper presents an analysis of how these different theoretical approaches treat public participation in environmental decision making and what arguments they present for its justification.

A BÁNK BÁN ÉS A MIC BÁN-MONDA KÉRDÉSE

Történeti-poétikai, monografikus, forrás- és folklórkutatások hatalmas tárháza kapcsolódik a magyar irodalom klasszikus drámai művéhez, Katona József Bánk bánjához. Jelentőségét és összetett jelentéssturktúráját jelzi, hogy majdnem kétszáz évnyi távlatból is megszólíthatók dilemmái, feltehetők értelmezésének mindmáig vitatott és teljességében megválaszolatlan kérdései, vizsgálhatók megértési hiátusai. Jelen kutatásunk a Katona-dráma – az irodalmi recepció által elnagyoltan tárgyalt, és dramaturgiai okok miatt elhibázottnak tartott, ún. Mic bán-epizódját vizsgálja több vonatkozó diszciplína – az irodalomtörténeti távlat mellett a kulturális antropológiai szempont beiktatásával. A vizsgálat célja nem lehet a drámához kap­csolódó korszakos problémák megoldása, ugyanakkor feltételezhető, hogy az interdiszcipli­náris megközelítés közelebb visz néhány jelentés megértéséhez (pl. a jelenet beiktatásának funkciója, Simon bán hét ikerfiáról szóló elbeszélésének hitelessége, a hetes szám problema­tikája).

Az urbanizációs folyamatok megjelenése Budapest környékén. Előtanulmány egy történeti szempontú urbanizációs modell kidolgozásához

A magyarországi, ezen belül a főváros térségében tapasztalható urbanizációs folyamatok vizsgálata viszonylag széles körben foglalkoztatta a hazai kutatókat az utóbbi évtizedekben. A kutatások jórészt az urbanizációs folyamatok szakaszolhatóságára vonatkozó, van den Berg és Drewett által kifejtett, majd Enyedi György által továbbgondolt modell alapján szolgáltattak újabb és újabb adalékokat a főváros térségében zajló urbanizációs folyamatok megértéséhez. Tanulmányunkban a korabeli statisztikai kiadványok feldolgozásával egy olyan adatbázist építettünk ki, amely lehetővé teszi, hogy az eddigieknél is pontosabb képet kapjunk a főváros térségének 1945 előtti urbanizációs folyamatairól. Vizsgáltuk egyrészről az urbanizációs folyamatok intenzitását (ennek során elkülönítettük egymástól a közvetlen urbanizációs zónához és a tágabb urbanizációs zónához tartozó, valamint az urbanizációs folyamatból kimaradó települések csoportját), másrészről az urbanizációs folyamatok jellegét (az ipari övezethez, a munkás-, tisztviselő- és nyaralótelepek övezethez, a város mezőgazdasági ellátóövezetéhez tartozó települések elkülönítésével). Az egyes zónák és övezetek tér- és időbeli megjelenése, elterjedésük dinamikájának sajátosságai alkalmasak lehetnek arra, hogy egy történeti szemléletű megközelítéssel pontosítsuk az úgynevezett evolúciós iskola urbanizációs folyamatok szakaszolhatóságára vonatkozó megállapításait.

The Challenges of Retranslating The Great Gatsby into Hungarian With a Focus on Metaphors of Emotion and Embodiment

The Challenges of Retranslating <i>The Great Gatsby</i> into Hungarian With a Focus on Metaphors of Emotion and Embodiment

Clostridium difficileinfection: epidemiology, disease burden and therapy

C. difficile causes 25 percent of the antibiotic associated infectious nosocomial diarrhoeas. C. difficile infection is a high-priority problem of public health in each country. The available literature of C. difficile infection's epidemiology and disease burden is limited. Review of the epidemiology, including seasonality and the risk of recurrences, of the disease burden and of the therapy of C. difficile infection. Review of the international and Hungarian literature in MEDLINE database using PubMed up to and including 20th of March, 2012. The incidence of nosocomial C. difficile associated diarrhoea is 4.1/10 000 patient day. The seasonality of C. difficile infection is unproved. 20 percent of the patients have recurrence after metronidazole or vancomycin treatment, and each recurrence increases the chance of a further one. The cost of C. difficile infection is between 130 and 500 thousand HUF (430 € and 1665 €) in Hungary. The importance of C. difficile infection in public health and the associated disease burden are significant. The available data in Hungary are limited, further studies in epidemiology and health economics are required.

Roberto Caracciolo De laudibus sanctorum kötete egy magyar prédikátor kezében

The name and the works of Roberto Caracciolo have been well known for some time to those involved in the study of medieval Hungarian literature. He is recognised as one of the major sources for the Codex Érdy. In the past few months, we have discovered and examined a copy of Roberto Caracciolo’s De laudibus sanctorum, which supports the argument that this collection was not only a significant work of reference in Western Europe, but it proved useful for preachers in Hungary as well. The 1489 edition of De laudibus sanctorum published in Venice by Georgius Arriuabenus features an entry that lists the various religious festivals where the owner of the volume had preached, the topics of his sermons and the sources of his inspiration. There is an explicit reference to the time and place of the entry: 1495–1496, Pécs. In my study I present and discuss this unique document which justifies and supplements what we already know in the field of ars compilandi. The short drafts for sermons reveal which reference books were used by the preacher. The divisions point out the most important themes of the sermons, which can be compared with the content of the original versions. Furthermore, we can identify the method with which the subject matter was arranged and organised into a complete sermon.

The Eclogues of Miklós Radnóti: A twentieth-century Vergil

At the beginning of the 19th century, when the poets wanted to create the national epic poem of Hungarians, they followed the Aeneid; at the end of the 18th century, when the agricultural reform was established in Hungary under the Habsburgs, the poets wrote agricultural poems in Vergilian form and translated and modernized his Georgics. The world of Vergil depicted in the Eclogues and in the Georgics became the idealized Arcadia, and poets and writers or the aristocracy — influenced by Vergil — wanted to create their own Arcadia. The pastoral theme and the bucolical forms were very popular in Hungarian literature of this period, at the end of the 18th century. The poets had pastoral names, and very different topics were expressed in eclogues (e.g. actual events of politics). In the first half of the 20th century Vergil had a new renaissance connected to the bimillennium of his birth. And this renaissance reached the most expressive element of the presence of Vergil’s Bucolics in the poetry of Miklós Radnóti (1909–1944), whose eclogues are the most tragic expression of cruelty of war. My paper focuses on the influence of Virgil’s Bucolics in Radnóti’s poetry, but his examples can attest to the deep influence of Vergil on Hungarian literature.

Behcet’s disease: a hardly diagnosed orphan disorder

Behcet’s disease is a multisystem autoimmune disease with variable clinial manifestations. The diagnosis may pose a difficult challenge for the clinician, who has to be familiar with the wide spectrum and combination of the symptoms of Behcet’s disease. It is considered a rare disease in Hungary, and there are only few reports on Behcet’s disease in the Hungarian literature. However, the past history of Hungary, the worldwide growing incidence of the disease, and the authors’ experience raise the possibility that the occurrence of the disease is higher than previously thought. In this review the authors present and discuss literature data on the pathogenesis and pathomechanism, as well as their own experience concerning the symptomatology of Behcet’s disease in order to promote diagnosis and offer adequate therapy for the patients. The authors presume that the importance of the disease is underestimated in Hungary due to a considerable number of unrecognized cases and they propose to establish a national registry for Behcets disease. Orv. Hetil., 2013, 154, 93–101.

Jedan lirski element u romanu Zlatni zmaj Dežea Kostolanjija, sagledan iz prevodilačke perspektive

The great classic of modern Hungarian literature, Dezso Kosztolanyi (1885 – 1936), a prolific poet in the first place, has put a significant emphasis on the sophisticated elaboration of linguistic expressions in his prose writings as well. These linguistic, stylistic features play a crucial role in certain points of Kosztolanyi’s novels in the thematic and existential sense. This paper attempts to point out to a momentum of this kind in one of Kosztolanyi’s novels, Aranysarkany (The Golden Kite). The narrator employs a rhyme in the most dramatic moment of Antal Novak’s suicide, adding a special, irony-loaded quality to the unspeakable dreadful violent moment of death, which is rarely touched upon in literature. From the perspective of the text-oriented reader, the translation of this specific part of the text is crucial, since the reader needs to become aware of the linguistic and stylistic emphasis of this specific segment of the text.