Hungarian Studies Newsletter, 1978 (6. évfolyam, 16-18. szám)
1978 / 16. szám
material provides a solid base for description of burial customs, settlement history, and ethnic composition of the period. Interestingly, there seems to be a 100-year gap between the disappearance of the Avars as demonstrated by the most recent burial finds, and the appearance of Magyar graves. The author presents two hypotheses for the hiatus, and he believes that dating methods may be responsible for the missing link. Kovács, Tibor. THE BRONZE AGE IN HUNGARY. Corvina Press, Budapest, 1977. 100 pages plus 79 plates, bibiio., chronological table. $6.90 paper. Intensive archaeological explorations reveal a great deal of information on cultures that existed in the Carpathian Basin before the Hungarian conquest. The author covers the bronze period which characterized the area between the 20th and 9th centuries B. C. The 3,000 year old bronze culture appears to have been based on agriculture and animal husbandry. Unearthed artifacts of rare beauty offer insights into the ancient peoples' belief system, rituals, and social organizations. Other books in the same HEREDITAS series include I. Dienes’s The Hungarian Cross the Carpathians (seeHSN, no. 1); Clay Gods by Nándor Kalic; The Celtic Heritage in Hungary by Miklós Szabó, and The Dawn of the Dark Ages by Iván Bona. Under preparation is The Birth of Pannónia by Jenó' Fitz. Pamlenyi, Ervin, et al, A HISTORY OF HUNGARY. Corvina, Budapest, and Collet’s Ltd., Denington Estate, Wellingborough, Northants, Great Britain. 1975. 676 pages, chronology, maps, biographies, illust., bio. $15.35. Distributed in North America by Pannónia Books, P.O. Box 1017, Postal Station “B", Toronto, Ont. Canada M5T 2T8. Written by eight members of the Institute of Historiography of the HAS, this volume encompasses Hungarian history in a Marxian frame of reference from the 10th century B.C. to the present. László Makkai has written the first five chapters on prehistory, feudal monarchy, the battle of Mohács, and Habsburg absolutism up to 1790. A chapter on “burgeois transformation”, revolution and the War of Independence (1790-1849) was written by István Barta. The period of neoabsolutism and the Dual Monarchy was authored by Peter Hanák. Zsuzsa L. Nagy discusses the 1918-1919 communist revolution. Iván T. Berend and György Ránki jointly wrote a chapter on the Horthy era. The concluding chapter on the People’s Democracy was written by Miklós Lacó. Skillful editing virtually eliminated differences in writing style of the eight authors. Though bibliographies aregiven by chapters, they do not substitute for footnotes. One looks in vain for references to such historians as C.A. Macartney or D. Kosáry, or for definitions of terms which have different connotations in the East and the West. Pamlényi is head of the Inst, of Historiography, HAS, and editor of Századok and Acta Historica. Radnóti, Miklós. SUBWAY STOPS. Ed. and trsl. by Emery George. Ardis/RLT, 2901 Heatherway, Ann Arbor, Ml 48104, 1977. 95 pages, biblio. $10.00 cloth; $2.95 paper. The poems of Radnóti (1909-1944) have now been translated into most Western and Slavic languages as well as Romanian and Hebrew. He published six volumes of poetry BOOKS (Continued) and was recipient of the Baumgarten Prize of Poetry in 1938. Some critics compare him with Petőfi, because both were influenced by the excitement of the moment as well as by scholarship. Critics further stress Radnóti’s youthfulness, universality of interest and outlook, his status as a translator, and his “engagement on the left.” This translation of 50 poems, some of them for the first time, include poems from his Bor Notebook, the seven last poems of which were written in a forced labor camp at Bor, Yugoslavia. In the introduction, Emery George, who did the translations by himself, gives a critical biography and describes translation techniques used. He teaches German and Comparative Literature at the U. of Michigan. Scheer, Steven C. KALMAN MIKSZÁTH. Twayne Publishers, 70 Lincoln Street,Boston, MA 02111, 1977. First in the Hungary section of Twayne’s World Authors Series, general editor Enikő' Molnár Basa. $10.50 cloth. This book is an account of the evolution of Mikszáth as a writer and of his thematic preoccupations. It is the only critical-analytical work on Mikszáth in English, and it is intended for those who do not know Hungarian but who nevertheless would like to know something about Hungarian literature. It is a useful volume for advanced Mikszáth scholars as well, especially because of its thorough discussion of Mikszath’s metafication. The author focuses on recurrent themes and evolving narrative techniques that occupy the interior dynamics of Mikszáth’s stories. He concludes that the literary style of Mikszáth “happens to be one of the major languages in the world of literature.” The book includes a chronology of Mikszáth’s life, a photograph, notes, references, a selected bibliography, and an index, The author is Assist. Prof, of English at Saint Mainard Coll., Indiana. Sinor, Denis, ed. MODERN HUNGARY; Readings from the New Hungarian Quarterly. Indiana U. Press, 10th and Morton Streets, Bloomington, IN 47401. 448 pages, append. $17.50 cloth. The volume contains thirty articles concerned with the period following 1956. Selected from the 1966-1976 issues of the New Hungarian Quarterly, they reflect various facets of Hungarian life, from sketches on daily routine to philosophical problems of Marxist thought; from Georg Lukács s essay on Béla Bartók, and János Kadár’s reflections on his sixtieth birthday, through articles dealing with contemporary Hungarian economic, cultural policy, social conditions, education, and foreign policy. Almost all of the articles were written originally by Hungarians in Hungarian, and were published in Hungarian periodicals. Hence, they “tend to reflect the thinking of the current political, economic and cultural leadership." This collection may be considered as an emic reader in modern Hungarian social sciences. A prefactory essay by the editor and an appendix giving biographical data of contributors enhance the usefulness of the volume. The editor is Distinguished Prof, and Chairman of the Dept, of Uralic and Altaic Studies at Indiana U. Sozan, Michael. THE HISTORY OF HUNGARIAN ETHNOGRAPHY. U. Press of America, 4710Auth Place, S.E., Washington, DC 20023,1977.437 pages, biblio. $11.50 paper. This volume, based on the author’s Ph.D. dissertation (see 4 NO. 16, 1978 HUNGARIAN STUDIES NEWSLETTER
