Hungarian Studies Newsletter, 1983 (11. évfolyam, 35-38. szám)
1983 / 35-36. szám
reviews. The format of this volume is not unlike that of its predecessor, i.e., part I covers “General and Interrelated Themes,” such as general reference works of the area, economics, government and law, and international relations; part II includes the “Russian Empire before 1917 and the USSR, Non-Russian Republics, and Jews”; part III “Eastern Europe,” offers works in general studies and on individual countries. Hungarian topics are represented by 35 entries. Students of East Central European studies will find this volume a comprehensive source. The compiler is prof, of history at Eastern Illinois U., Carleston, III. THE LAWS OF HUNGARY. About 20 volumes in the Russian and East European Law Collections for the Western Reader series. Peter I. Hidas editor-in-chief. Charles Schlacks, Jr. publisher, P.O. Box 28317, Tempe, AZ 85282. Publication dates: Spring and Fall 1983. $125.00 cloth with some 400 pages per volume; $75.00 paper with some 250 pages per volume. Latin and Hungarian text is not included in the paperback addition. The editors and the publisher have certainly undertaken a momentous task in publishing bilingual editions of the laws of Russia, the Soviet Union, Hungary, and other East Central European legal texts. The Hungarian legal texts and translations are planned to be published in five major categories: series I will contain 4 volumes and will cover years 1000 to 1526. Edited by János Bak (U. of British Columbia), volume 1 will contain a complete critical edition of the early legislation in the Kingdom of Hungary. It will include the laws of St. Stephen and of the other rulers of the House of Árpád. It will reach retailers close to the 400th anniversary of the issuance of the first printed collection of legal documents in Hungary. Series 11 is planned for 12 volumes to cover the years 1526 to 1867. Series III will cover the years 1867 to 1919. Series IV will encompass the period between 1919 and 1945, and series V will present the laws from 1945 to date. Each volume consists in addition to the original legal texts, on the left page and the English translation on the right facing page, a historical introduction, an annotated bibliography, and a chronological name and subject index. For readers whose native tongue is not English, the introductions to volumes will appear also in French, German, and Spanish. Nagy, Lajosed. and Ignác Pappcomp. HUNGARIAN LITERATURE OF THEORY OF STATE AND LAW (Magyar állam —es jogelméleti bibliográfia) 1950-1980. Department of Theory of State and Law, School of Law and Political Science, József A. University, Szeged, 1980. xv + 202 pages, list of abbreviations, author index, n.a., paper (mimeo). This tri-lingual bibliography of Hungarian works on the theory of state and law comprises 1,121 entries in Hungarian, English, and Russian, enabling the interested reader to follow the course of development in Hungarian political and legal theories during the past 30 years. Teaching of Marxist- Leninist based concepts of political and legal theories commenced in the early 1950s replacing the traditional subjects of political science and law. The bibliography presents a thorough review of subjects as taught at the schools of law of the various Hungarian universities. It incorporates books, articles, and papers in 13 chapters: textbooks, monographs, collections, reference books, theory, methodology, critical views on theory, the state, the socialist state, concepts of law, socialist law, teaching theory, and conferences on theory of state and law. A preface, written by the editor, also appears in three languages. NO. 35-36, SPRING-SUMMER 1983 HUNGARIAN STUDIES NEWSLETTER Niederhauser, Emil. THE RISE OF THE NATIONALITY IN EASTERN EUROPE. Budapest: Corvina kiadd, 1981. 339 pages. $7.80 cloth. This is a book written in journalistic style for the general public. It uses a Marxian frame of reference and gives no documentation. It enters the scene of history in the middle of the 19th century when nationalism reached new heights and nation-states began to develop in East Central Europe. The author points out the similarities in political, economic, and social systems as well as dissimilarities originating in the differring cultural and environmental circumstances. After enumerating the principal factors which were responsible for and resulted from the development of ethnic identity and national movements such as language, music, fine arts, historical awareness, the author describes conditions in country-specific chapters. The chapter on Hungarians (pp. 195-208) points to certain characteristics which contrast to those in other countries of the region, e.g., while the elite (nobility) alone constituted the body politic, “the proportion of those who could claim to be nobles was high (onetwentieth of the population), and a large part of them was just as impoverished, living on serfs’ plots, or earning their living in various undertakings.” The author says, that “nobility” implied free men as opposed to the great mass of bondmen, or serfs, below them, and this structure of nobility and serfs, with burghers and townsfolk under royal protection somewhere in between, was peculiar to Hungary, Croatia and Poland, and has been the cause of much confusion to English-speaking readers.” Okey, Robin. EASTERN EUROPE 1740-1980; Feudalism to Communism. University of Minnesota Press, 2037 University Avenue Southeast, Minneapolis, MN 55414,1982.264 pages, maps, chronology, glossary, and biblio. $29.50 cloth; $12.95 paper. This study surveys East European history in the framework of liberalism, by scanning the period and the region for conflicting ideologies. According to the author “Nowhere has the fate of small nations become so caught up in the ideological and strategic confrontations of great powers as in the nineteenth-century struggles of Teuton and Slav, and the twentieth-century struggles of fascism, capitalism and communism.” The history of these various peoples is skillfully interwoven reflecting on Hungarian development throughout the volume. “Austria, Poland and Hungary were the focal points of East European liberalism in the first half of the nineteenth-century.” The author also states that the differentiation between various forms of nationalism should be perceived as more significant than the acknowledgement of the presence of nationalism. He also believes that “Kádár’s Hungary best represents the sort of society that seems possible within the limits set by the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.” The author is lecturer in history at the U. of Warwick, England. Roider, Karl A., Jr. AUSTRIA’S EASTERN QUESTION, 1700- 1790. Princeton U. Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, NJ 08540, 1982. xiii + 256 pages, maps, biblio. $25.00 cloth ($33.00 abroad). Mohács was a tragic turning point in Hungary’s history. It brought the houses of Habsburg and Osman into direct conflict. The severest test of Habsburg determination to resist further Ottoman advances came at the abortive siege of Vienna in 1683, which was followed by a gradual expulsion (Continued on Page 4) 3
