Hungarian Studies Newsletter, 1982 (10. évfolyam, 31-34. szám)
1982 / 31-32. szám
HUNGARIAN STUDIES NEWSLETTER No. 31-32 ISSN: 0194-164X SPRING-SUMMER, 1982 Published quarterly by the Hungarian Research Center of the American Hungarian Foundation: Winter, Spring-Summer, 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, N. J. 08903. Annual subscription in the U.S.A. $4.00. Abroad $5.00 Current single copy $2.00; back issues $2.50 each. BOOKS (Continued) peace treaties which resulted in making 3V4 million Hungarians into aliens in their own home. Once, when he was asked in Paris where Hitler was born, he answered: “In Versailles.” His journalistic career brought him to most every European country and to East and West Africa, China, and New Guinea. Most of the time he served as correspondent for various British and French papers. After the war, he joined the staff of the Voice of America as a news analyst, joining the battle for the minds of men, and fighting the “parochial professionalism” which characterized American efforts in international communication for a considerably long period of time. The author has retired from active service and now lives in Washington, D.C. Fischer-Galati, Stephen, ed„ EASTERN EUROPE IN THE 1980s. Westview Press, 5500 Central Avenue, Boulder, CO 80301, 1981. xvii + 291 pages, tables. $26.50 cloth, $11.50 paper. This volume, notunlike its predecessor: Eastern Europe in the Sixties (1963), attempts to assess future developments in Eastern Europe in the general framework of “the entity that the socialist community of Eastern Europe actually represents.” It also relates development in Eastern Europe directly and intimately to the present and future objectives of the Soviet Union. It questions the validity of the assumption that the convergence between the Western capitalist and the Eastern socialist systems by the end of the 1980s would be greater than any time in the past. The assessment is an area-wide rather than a country-by-country treatment underlining the applicability of the “bloc” concept. The volume, written by East European specialists, comprises ten chapters, one on each of the following topics: agriculture, industry, trade, political order, education, arts, relationship to worldcommunism, relationship to the non-communist world, major trends, and a conclusion. The Hungarian case is well represented especially in Joseph Held’s chapter on the arts and humanities. Theoverall conclusion of the contributors is that “the course of Eastern Europe in the 1980s will remain a function of Soviet interests and concerns.” Economic and military coordination is likely to become tighter, barring a succession crisis in Moscow, i.e., “the socialist countries of Eastern Europe will remain socialist, politically and economically insecure, and ultimately depending on Russia’s power for their continuing existence as Communists states. And their continuing existence as Communist states will always 2 be a sine qua non of Russian foreign policy no matter who succeeds Brezhnev.” The editor is prof, of history and dir. of the Center for Slavic and Eastern European Studies, U. of Colorado. Gardality, Steve, GIVE ME LIBERTY. With foreword by Harold Lancour. Danube, P.O. Box 136,157 S. Water Street, Kent, OH 44240, 1981. 294 pages, $12.95 cloth. This is the true story of a Hungarian teenager who after finishing high school found the limits of civil liberties in Hungary too restrictive, often unbearable. Since the only avenue promising fulfillment of personal ambitions and improvement in status led through party membership, a course he tried to avoid, the only remaining alternative seemed to be emigration, legal or illegal. Once this decision was reached, the story concentrates on the details of the flight, illegal border crossings, life in such refugee camps as Sezana, Latina, and Capua, and finally, admission to the U.S. It is a lively documentary of life under various authorities, of naivete as to the forces and organization of power, and of the never diminishing flame of hope and trust in one’s own abilities. In the foreword Lancour says that the author “not yet out of his twenties, is a splendid example of what one of his generation, given the proper amounts of courage, audacity, intelligence, drive, honesty, and above all will, can do with his life.” It is a pity that a Hungarian-owned publishing house felt it unnecessary to show diacritical marks on Hungarian words. We hope that this and typos will be corrected in the next edition. The author received his B.A. in architecture at Kent St. U. and plans to establish his own architectural firm. Hitchins, Keith ed„ STUDIES IN EAST EUROPEAN SOCIAL HISTORY, Vol. 1. E.J. Brill, P.O. Box 1305, Long Island City, NY 11101,1977. 191 pages. Dutch guilders 68.00, cloth. Vol. 21 in the Studies in East European History series. General editor is Keith Hitchins. The series is devoted to “various aspects of social development” in the East European countries. “It seeks to present new work by scholars from these countries and their Western European and American colleagues” who have interest in social history between 1500 and the present. Social history is conceived as to include major political movements and local politics; class movements; transformation of peasantry; legal systems and institutions; urbanization; nationality (ethnic) problems; and demography, including emigration. This first volume in the social history series is concerned with social democracy and the Habsburg Monarchy. It contains nine essays of which two are concerned specifically with Hungary. One is in German: “Das wirtschaftliche und soziale Program der nationalen Wiedergeburtsbewegung in Osteuropa” [The economic and social program of the national revival movement in East Europe.] by Emil Niederhauser (Budapest), pp. 153-176. The study in English is “Some Aspects of the Development of the National Movement amongst the Ruthenes of Hungary (Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia), 1849-1914,” by Maria Mayer (Budapest), pp. 177-191. The latter essay takes a thorough look at Ruthenia's social dynamics especially as it involved those who were for assimilation vs. those who were more markedly ethnic oriented. The pro-ethnic or national movement took nearly 100 years to develop partly because of the social and economic backwardness of the region. It lost its raison d'etre with the dissolution of the Monarchy. Related books by Paul R. Magocsi were reviewed NO. 31-32, SPRING-SUMMER 1982 HUNGARIAN STUDIES NEWSLETTER
