Hungarian Studies

Der Tod und der Blick

Adorján Kovács — 2024-01-10

Der ungarische Dichter Sándor Petőfi war weder der nur am Volkslied orientierte Naturbursche noch der protosozialistische Revolutionär, wie ihn die deutsche Rezeption im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert sah. Die kurzen Gedichte des 1846 erschienenen „Wolken“-Zyklus beispielsweise sind aphoristisch zugespitzte pessimistische Meditationen. Im vorgestellten Stück (Hier inmitten der Ebne steh‘ ich…) erkennt der Sprecher die tiefe Kluft zwischen sich und „dem Anderen“. Sowohl kann „dem Anderen“ eine Todessymbolik zugesprochen als auch die Blickphänomenologie Sartres auf seine Wahrnehmung angewandt werden, was eine Komplexität von Petőfis Dichtung offenbart, die ihre Neubewertung nahelegt.

How the Croatian Elites Switched over from the Habsburg Empire to the South Slav Kingdom in a Drunken Night of November 1918

Marijan Bobinac — 2024-01-10

In his autobiographical, slightly fictionalized essay A Drunken November Night 1918 (written in 1942, first published in 1952), repeatedly noticed and quoted also by historians, Miroslav Krleža attempts to reconstruct a sensational scandal to whose creation he himself contributed to a large extent. In November 1918, in the interregnum from the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy at the end of October to the foundation of the South Slav kingdom at the beginning of December, the then young author felt himself compelled at a reception held in Zagreb in honor of the Serbian officers to protest loudly against the speech of the former high Austrian-Hungarian officer Slavko Kvaternik. The public scandal in the ‘post-imperial hour zero’ retrospectively reinforced Krleža’s conviction of the misery of the contemporary Croatian elite, a circumstance whose reasons, in his opinion, not only lay in political opportunism and moral corruption, but also in unreflected utopianism and the underlying political naivety. His hope that after the dissolution of the compromised rule of the Habsburgs the South Slav peoples could advance towards national, political and social emancipation was soon replaced by the sober insight that the imperial Danube Monarchy was followed by a small-sized post-imperial structure based on pronounced relations of dominance.

The Arts Policy of the Kádár Era in Hungary 1957–1989

Gábor Bolvári-Takács — 2024-01-10

The study presents the development of the art policy of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party between 1957 and 1985, describing the processes and tendencies supporting it. The art policy of the Kádár era was framed by four documents among the various party resolutions, with different weight and effectiveness: the The Cultural Policy of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party (1958); The Vocation of Literature and the Arts in Our Society (1966); Topical Issues in Our Arts Policy (1977); and the On the Current Tasks of the HSWP’s arts policy (1984). György Aczél, the main director of the art policy of the Kádár era, played a decisive role in their creation, albeit with age. The appearance of the documents always marked a change in the era of art policy, in close connection with the consolidation after 1956, the attempts at economic reform in the 1960s and the reversal of the 1970s.

Sándor Petőfi es de todos

Alfonso Lombana Sánchez — 2024-01-10

El escritor húngaro Sándor Petőfi (1823-1849) logró con su Canto nacional (Nemzeti dal) reunir al pueblo húngaro en torno a unos versos que, hasta el día de hoy, son citados y recitados con interés. El presente estudio tiene dos objetivos. En primer lugar, analizar los problemas de traducción que se presentan al traducirlo al español y, en segundo lugar, presentar una nueva traducción de este poema icónico para los húngaros.

N. Roosevelt in Hungary, 1930–1933: Expectations and Illusions

Zoltán Peterecz — 2024-01-10

Although a score of new studies have been published about the various aspects of the history of American-Hungarian relations in the past three decades, there are still a considerable number of uncovered chapters. The present article will introduce one of the American ministers who served in Hungary in the interwar years. Nicholas Roosevelt came from a well-known family that gave two presidents to the United States in the first half of the twentieth century, and the name helped him throughout his storied career. Since he had visited Hungary at the time of the establishment of the Hungarian Soviet Republic in March 1919, he had first-hand experience regarding his host country. His service as American minister (1930–1933) fell in the first years of the unfolding Great Depression, which defined the basic conditions for Hungary, as well for the United States and Europe. Nicholas Roosevelt was an avid writer, and he left behind a plethora of both private and official documents containing, among other things, his thoughts and opinions about Hungary and Hungarians. Building this as a primary source, along with a number of secondary sources, the article will bring closer the economically and politically shaky days of Hungary in the early 1930s through the eyes of the American minister posted in Budapest, thereby enriching our knowledge about the relations between the two countries.

Károly Kós in Istanbul

Gergő Máté Kovács — 2024-01-10

Károly Kós, a pioneering master of 20th-century Hungarian architecture, spent two years in Istanbul as a fellow of the newly established Hungarian Institute for Science in Constantinople between 1916 and 1917 to fulfil research on the architecture of the Ottoman Empire. During this period, he is known for his drawings of numerous Byzantine and Ottoman historical buildings and street sections, and as a summary of his research, a volume entitled Istanbul - Urban History and Architecture was published. However, this historical event and publication go beyond itself in many ways. Firstly, the aforementioned period was an important turning point in Ottoman-Turkish architectural history. On the other hand, Kós's work is more than just an analysis of architectural and urban history. The paper is aimed to provide an insight into the period of the turning point of the late Ottoman and early Republican era of Turkey, the local context of Kós's activities in Istanbul, and at the same time to analyse the architectural-historical achievements of the Hungarian master's work in the territory, that is described by himself, as ’The City’.

Károly Kós – Henri Godbarge

Henri de Montety — 2024-01-10

Károly Kós et Henri Godbarge sont des architectes et créateurs du début du XXe siècle. Ils ont l'un et l'autre contribué à l'élaboration d'un style vernaculaire de qualité, respectivement le transylvanisme et le néo-basque. La comparaison de leur oeuvre, et de leur vie, permet d'identifier ce qui, à cette époque de grande créativité, a pu nourrir leurs réflexions : l'héritage immédiat de l'Art nouveau ; la complémentarité des grandes structures (l'Europe, Paris) et de l'échelle régionale, combinée avec la question de l'usage immédiat de l'habitation par la famille et même les défunts ; les visions personnelles de l'Orient.

Motifs musicaux et architecturaux en Transylvanie

Henri de Montety — 2024-01-10

Comparaison entre l'approche de deux compositeurs hongrois, Béla Bartók et Zoltán Kodály, et l'architecte Károly Kós, qui leur était contemporain. On ajoute également quelques remarques sur Imre Makovecz, disciple de Kós, qui appartient à la même école de pensée. La comparaison permettra d'identifier le rapport organique, essentiel pour les quatre créateurs, entre l'homme, la communauté et la nature.

L'entreprise Malonyay

Henri de Montety — 2024-01-10

How Dezsõ Malonyay prepared his volume on Kalotaszeg folklor in the early 20th century.