Hungarian Studies Newsletter, 1975 (3. évfolyam, 6-8. szám)
1975 / 6. szám
sdHUNGARIAN ^§11 STUDIES síZm-ll NEWSLETTER No. 6 Winter 1975 published three times a year by the HUNGARIAN RESEARCH CENTER Subscription: $3.00 per annum. Single copy: $1.00 Subscriptionsfrom outside the United States of America: $4.00 per year. Communications concerning content should be sent to Dr. Bela C. Maday, Editor 4528 - 49th Street, N. W. Washington, D.C. 20016 Subscriptions and communications concerning circulation should be mailed to the Hungarian Research Center American Hungarian Foundation 177 Somerset Street P.O. Box 1084, New Brunswick, N.J. 08903 BOOKS (Continued from page 1) History School, concluding that the Geistgeschichte School, though an important philosophical and methodological orientation, has not played a monopolistic role in the historiography of interwar Hungary. The author is Assistant Professor of History at Duquesne U. The following four books are part of a series published by the Program in East European and Slavic Studies at the U. of New York, College at Buffalo. Six of the eight volumes already in print deal with Hungarian topics. Most of the remaining 20 volumes are also planned to cover Hungarian subjects. The actual publication of the volumes related to Hungary was undertaken by the Hungarian Cultural Foundation (P.O. Box 364, Stone Mountain, GA 30083) with the exception of volume no. 4 which was published by the East European Institute of Buffalo with a grant from the Foundation. General editor of the series is Prof. Joseph M. Ertavy- Barath. Books may be obtained directly from the Foundation at the address above. Komlos, John H. KOSSUTH IN AMERICA, 1851-1852. Buffalo, NY: East European Institute, 1973.198 pages, biblio, illustr., $7.80 paper. Publication no. 4 of the Program in East European and Slavic Studies, State U. of New York, Buffalo with the support of the Hungarian Cultural Foundation. Foreword by C.A. Macartney. It is surprising, as the author states, that no major scholarly work has been published in English on Kossuth’s journey to America during the past 120 years. “The monumental work of Dénes Jánossy, A Kossuth Emigráció Angliában ás Amerikában (The Kossuth Emigration in England and America), published with two volumes of documents between 1940 and 1948 was the culmination of two decades of extensive research on Kossuth’s activities in England and America. The obvious limitation of the work is that it appeared only in Hungarian. The study which is essentially identical with the author’s Masters thesis, begins with the defeat of the 1848 revolution, after Kossuth fled to Turkey. As against Ja'nossy’s study, Komlos places events into historical perspective for which he gathered new data, giving a number of significant events different interpretation from those of Ja'nossy, whose “total evaluation of the journey was more favorable than it should have been, more idealized than the present generation may allow.” Macartney in his foreword summarizes the drama. “The imagination of wide circles of the Western world had been fired by Hungary’s fight against the forces of despotic tyranny.” Under pressure from the West, the Turkish government rejected extradition of the ‘rebels’ and “the United States had officially offered to Kossuth the hospitality of its shores ... But the parties were at cross-purposes. It was not safe retirement that Kossuth wanted, but a base from which to renew the struggle and opportunities to create a diplomatic situation which should make this possible ... He was received with unparalleled popular ovation in England, and on his disembarkation in New York, but he could not persuade the government of either country to give him the concrete help for which he pleaded.” “So his journey remained an episode, and a sad one. But it was not one which history need think beneath its notice. Its very failure was an important historical fact, and the eddies and tides which it set in motion in American opinion would themselves have been worth recording for the light that the record of them throws on American politics and personalities. Mr. Komlos’ work thus fills a real gap ...’’ The author is a doctoral candidate at the University of Chicago. Note: It is interesting to note that a recording of Kossuth’s voice from 1890 has just been discovered in the archives of the Széchenyi Library and transferred to modern magnetic tape. The rare recording is a message Kossuth made in Turin, Italy and gave to Tivadar Barna and Károly Feiner for the inauguration of a memorial erected in Hungary to the thirteen matyrs of Arad. Nyerges, Anton N. PETŐFI. Buffalo, NY: Hungarian Cultural Foundation, 1973. 423 pages, biblio., map. $9.80 paper. Publication no. 5 of the Program in East European and Slavic Studies, State U. of New York, Buffalo. The late Joseph Reme'nyi said in 1953 that Peto'fi was the “foremost nineteenth century Hungarian lyrist__His poetry has stood the test of time.... It is to be hoped that the time will come when not only discriminating critics, but the general public of the world will read and appreciate his poetry according to its true merit." (Sándor Petőfi Hungarian Poet, 1823-1849. Washington, DC: Hungarian Reformed Federation of America, 1953, p. 46). What kept this wish from being fulfilled has been the language barrier. Scattered translations, such as those by Reme'nyi himself or those by Watson Kirkconnell in his Little Treasury of Hungarian Verse (Washington, DC: American Hungarian Library, 1947) and his The Magyar Muse (Winnipeg: Canadian Hungarian News, 1933) orthosebyE.B. Pierce and E. Delmar in Sixty Poems by Alexander Peto'fi (New York: 1948) provided only a dim glimpse at the works of this genius. Dr. Nyerges had to come to rectify the situation, by translating over 200 poems into English, and introducing this volume with a 17 page biography of the poet who profetically foretold his death in the poem “I Feel Low Only When.” Also included are such translated prose writings as the “Travel Journal,” “The Grandfather,” “Ja'nos Vitéz,” and the “Diary.” Extensive notes, pictures, a map of Petó'fi’s travel, and a short (Continued on page 3) 2 No. 6, 1975 HUNGARIAN STUDIES NEWSLETTER
