Hungarian Studies Newsletter, 1978 (6. évfolyam, 16-18. szám)
1978 / 17. szám
HUNGARIAN STUDIES NEWSLETTER No. 17 Autumn 1978 Published by the Hungarian Research Center of the American Hungarian Foundation, three times a year: Winter, Spring, and Autumn. Founder and editor: Bela Charles Maday. Journal editor: Enikő Molnár Basa. Corresponding editor: Lorant Czigany (London). Communications concerning content should be addressed to the Editor, 4528-49th Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20016. Communications concerning subscriptions, advertising, and circulation should be addressed to American Hungarian Foundation, 177 Somerset Street, P.O. Box 1084, New Brunswick, NJ 08903. Annual subscription in the U.S.: $3.00; abroad $4.00. Current single copy $1.00; back issues $1.50 each. structure in various countries. Culture (in the humanistic sense, i.e. music, art, education, ideas) and civilization receive specific attention. Part two discusses the dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy and the new face of East Central Europe, together with a thorough treatment of political currents, population demography, and a concluding chapter on selected aspects of World War II. ETUDES FINNO-OUGRIENNES. Vol. XII (1975), published in cooperation with the (French) National Center for Scientific Research, by Libraire Klincksieck & Cie (11, rue de Lille, 75007 Paris, France) and Akade'miai Kiadó. 330 pages, maps, tables, 74 French Francs. Among the annual surveys dealing with Ural-Altaic, Finno- Ugric, and Hungarian-related issues, we have tried to keep our readers informed by reporting at least once about the existence of such volumes. In later issues we would make reference to individual English-language articles in successive volumes. Thus, we are happy to report that the 1975 volume of this basically French annual Finno-Ugric survey has been published. It contains articles mainly in French, some in English and in German. The volume has 12 major articles (of which 3 are in English). In addition it has notes, critics, and book reviews. Among the articles Bernard Comrie writes on Subjects and Direct Objects in Uralic Languages: A Functional Explanation of Case-Making Systems; Alo Raun discusses The Definite Superlative in Finnic; and György Radó writes on The Literatures of Small Finno-Ugric Nations in Hungarian Research (until 1970). Among the book reviews Lajos Kazár reports on URALICA: a journal of the recently formed Uralic Society of Japan. Hitchins, Keith. ORTHODOXY AND NATIONALITY: Andreiu §aguna and the Rumanians of Transylvania, 1846-1873. Harvard U. Press, 79 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, 1977. 332 pages, maps, biblio. $21.00 cloth. Harvard Historical Studies no. 94. Traditionally the Transylvanian constitution recognized three nations in which its citizens held membership: the Hungarian, the Saxon, and the Sze'kely. To the ever growing Romanian population, culturally alien, politically unorganized, and lacking in the attribute of nationhood the same privileges were not extended. In the absence of secular leadership, the clergy of the Romanian Orthodox Church and the Uniate (Greek Catholic) Church provided an elite. The court at Vienna, in line with its policy of “divide and conquer” hoped to weaken Hungarian leadership in Transylvania by giving support to the claims of the Orthodox Church and offering privileges which would have strengthened the court’s Catholicization efforts. A coherent Romanian national program was developed and presented to the Transylvanian diet in 1791, and in the following decades the relationship and the participation of Romanians in the polity of Transylvania had witnessed important changes. During the 27 years under thorough consideration by the author, Bishop §aguna made the Orthodox Church an active social force by endowing it with strong institutions and by regularizing the participation of the laity in its affairs. He tried to reconcile the Romanian heritage with the new learning coming from the West. “In an age of nationalism, hewas nota nationalist. Rather, he was the last of the great bishopnational leaders.” The author is Prof, of History at the U. of Illinois, Urbana. Kabos, Erno and A. Zsilák, eds. STUDIES ON THE HISTORY OF THE HUNGARIAN TRADE-UNION MOVEMENT. Budapest: Akade'miai Kiadó, 1977. 308 pages, biblio. $19.00 cloth. Nine studies and an introduction, written by members of the Institute of Party History, discuss the origins, development, and role of trade-unionism in Hungary. The context is European trade-unionism, class solidarity, and the influence of Marxist-Leninist ideas and leaders. The authors take the reader from the early beginnings of the movement in the second half of the past century, through the relationship of social democrats and communists with trade unions, their role in 1919, during the depression years, in World War II, and since then. Though the labor movement had several historians of its own, no integrated effort of research and writing had been made on a large scale until recently. Tibor Erenyi’s, A magyar szakszervezeti mozgalom kezdetei (The Beginnings of the Hungarian Trade-Union Movement, Budapest, 1962), may be considered as the first comprehensive work. This volume was followed by Miklós Habuda’s, A magyar szakszervezeti mozgalom a népi demokratikus forradalomban 1944-1948. (The Hungarian Trade-Union Movement in the People’s Democratic Revolution, 1944- 1948, Budapest, 1971). Both authors are contributors to the present volume. Kudos are due to the editors for including background sketches on most authors and outstanding personalities mentioned in the text. This feature, which is extremely helpful to the English language reader, is not characteristic of other books published in Hungary. (Not even on the jacket.) Kabos is a senior scientific officer of the Institute of Party History and author of several works, and one of the editors of the Munkásmozgalomtörténeti Lexikon (Encyclopedia of the History of the Labor Movement). Lomax, Bill. HUNGARY 1956. St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, 1977. 222 pages, maps, chronology, notes, biblio. $14.95 cloth. This is a reinterpretation of the 1956 uprising written in a Western Marxist frame of reference. The main theme of this unorthodox volume is that “from the very start it was the masses of working people, not the elite of writers and politicians, who were responsible for the birth and development of the revolutionary movement.” The events of 1956 “had more in common with the ideas of Marx and Engels on the nature of socialist revolution than with the theories that had dominated the communist movement since 1917.” (Continued on page 3) 2 NO. 17, 1978, HUNGARIAN STUDIES NEWSLETTER
