Hungarian Studies Newsletter, 1980 (8. évfolyam, 23-26. szám)

1980 / 23-24. szám

model contracts, copyrights, and pertinent legislation. The sections on journals and books includes 60 periodicals published throughout the world, and a bibliography of 236 basic works. The list of some 3,000 translators and interpreters, representing 73 languages in 65 countries, includes a good number of Hungarians. The final section is the Translators’ & Interpreters’ Market Place with information on potential employers, governmental and private.

The editor is a linguist and scholarof Russian culture.

Hnik, Thomas ed EUROPEAN BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SOVIET, EAST EUROPEAN AND SLAVONIC STUDIES. Vol. II (1976). Main Library and Centre for Russian and East European Studies, U. of Birmingham, P.O. Box 363, Birmingham B15 2TT, Great Britain. 479 pages. $18.00 paper, for individuals; $22.00 paper, for institutions. (Bulk orders: special price.)

This is the second volume of the bibliography, which promises to become an annual. (For vol. 1. see HSN no. 18,p.I.) It contains 4,559 entries: 1,525 British, 1,546 German and Austrian, and 1,488 French, including some Belgian and French-language Swiss items. The introduction and detailed table of content are in English, German, and French. According to the East Central Europe, “the bibliography fulfills a long-felt need by making most of Europe’s scholarship on Communist Eastern Europe available in one publication.”

Huszár, Tibor, Kalman Kulcsár and Sándor Szalai, eds., HUNGARIAN SOCIETY AND MARXIST SOCIOLOGY IN THE NINETEEN SEVENTIES. Budapest: Corvina, 1978. 280 pages. $4.60 paper.

Journalistic sociography was the forerunner of scientific sociology in Hungary until the 1960s. Writers and poets produced a good number of monographs in the Oscar Lewis style during the 1930s. (A good example of their empirical work is Illyés’ People of the Puszta reviewed elsewhere in this column). Sociological works comparable to those in the West began to appear in the 1960s in Hungary. They proliferated in the 1970s. The present volume is only the latest of summary reports. It was preceded by Hungarian Sociological Studies, edited by P. Halmos and M. Albrow (see HSN no.2,p.5).This was followed by Soziologie und Gesellschaft in Ungarn (Sociology and Society in Hungary) a four-volume opus edited by B. Balia and published by Enke in Stuttgart, 1974. The journal, Szociológia, published a special Englishlanguage issue in 1974 on Sociology in Hungary: Recent Issues and Trends (see HSN no. 8, p.6). Another survey of sociology in the 1970s is planned to be published as a speical issue of Cronologie (in English) some time in 1980. The present volume contains the contributions of prominent sociologists. Major themes center around social change as brought about by the political transformation during the past 35 years, such as change and its social effect in the economic sphere; in settlement patterns; in social structure (especially in the family and the stratification within the labor stratum); the role of schools in the socialization process; social mobility; the “commuting class”; leadership training; and planning. Contributors are S. Szalai, J. Lick, Z. Ferge, A. Szegő, G. Wiener, K. Kulcsár, L. Héthy, C. Makó, Z. Hantó, Z. Kárpáti, A. Vagvölgyi, T. Huszár, R. Angelusz, Z. Balogh, M. Körmendi, P. Lederer, M. Székelyi, R. Andorka, J. Illés, L. Cseh-Szombathy, F. Gazsó, and I. Vitányi.

Barth, Fredrick H. A TRANSYLVANIAN LEGACY; the Life of a Transylvanian Saxon. Transylvania, P.O. Box 11175, Salt

BOOKS (Continued)

4

Lake City, UT 84147, 1979. 301 pages, maps, list of place names, and over 100 illus. $11.00 prepaid, $14.00 postpaid cloth. Foreword by Stephen Fischer-Galati.

History is frequently told in terms of dynasties, legal measures, wars, land acquisition or loss, chronological events of political moves. Seldom is the reader told how the individual person sailed and survived among these forces. This volume is quite different. Through his autobiographical account, the author reveals the everyday life in a Transylvanian Saxon village during the critical decades of this century. “The purpose of the book, then, is to preserve on paper a portion of the spirit of peasant life in a Saxon village as lived by myself and those who came before me” says the author. He and many of his ancestors were born in Jidvei (Hungarian Zsidve, German Seiden) north of Sibiu (Hungarian Nagyszeben, German Hermannstadt) near the confluence of the Tirnava Mare and Tirnava Mica (Nagy Küküllő and Kis Kükülló) rivers. In the 1930s he was torn by the conflicting loyalties demanded of him by the changing power centers. He decided, as so many, to leave his village and go to Bucharest and from there to Germany. He served as a German soldier on the Russian front and later in German Intelligence in Berlin. After the war he emigrated to the U.S. and joined the staff of the Genealogical Society of Utah, which provided him with numerous opportunities to revisit Eastern Europe. The autobiographical account ends with 1939, but a sequel (The Grand Delusion) is promised to follow this volume. We agree with Fischer-Galati that “it isan invaluable record of the centuries-old Saxon traditions and customs, now rapidly disappearing.” We noticed with regret the virtual absence of diacritical marks in Hungarian and Romanian words, and severe shortcomings in the list of place names. Hopefully, they can be corrected in the forthcoming volume.

Sanborn, Anne Fay and Géza Wass de Czege, eds., TRANSLYVANIA AND THE HUNGARIAN-RUMANIAN PROBLEM; A Symposium compiled by the Danubian Research and Information Center. The Danubian Press, Rt. 1, Box 59, Astor, FL 32002,1979.275 pages, maps, tables, biblio. $18.00 cloth.

What is the just share of power between majorities and minorities, between haves and havenots, between rulers and ruled? Legions of answers have been offered mostly by philosophers and political scientists, but few satisfactory solutions have eased the inhuman burden individuals have to suffer from the consequences of such unresolved struggles. At times, outrages over local power struggles grow into international dimensions as in the case of Transylvania, where Hungarians and Romanians claim historical rights to the land. The Romanians believe in a monocultural centralized nation in which the Hungarians justifiably fear cultural extinction. There is now concern that the debate may escalate into violence. This book tries to present the Transylvanian problem as seen from different perspectives and offers several options toward its solution. It begins by presenting geographical, demographical, and culturalhistorical facts. Three authors, Eugene Horvath, Andrew Haraszti, and Stephen Török, offer papers on historical research into the early history of the land and its role in the Carpathian Basin. Four authors present essays on the contemporary problem. Gyula Zathureczky writes about the fundamentally western character of Transylvanian culture; Julian Nanay presents a paper on the Hungarian minority; Jonel P. Margineanu describes recent ideological and

NO. 23-24, SPRING, 1980, HUNGARIAN STUDIES NEWSLETTER