Hungarian Studies Newsletter, 1985 (13. évfolyam, 43-46. szám)

1985 / 43-44. szám

writers, when asked to recollect and reminisce about olden times, and curiously with similar effect, i.e., ideas receive more careful scrutiny and clearer expression. The reader is provided with an insight into those crucial days which is not available elsewhere. After the war the author was elected to Parliament and to the Budapest City Council. He now is prof, of ecomonics at Butler U. D

Hungary: The Third Wave of Reforms. Special issue of the Journal of Comparative Economics 7:3 (September 1983).

Edward A. Hewett, special editor, says in the introduction that this is a collection of articles about the Hungarian economy in the early 1980s, with an emphasis on how Hungarian institutions operate, and how they are changing. In part the articles are a ‘postmortem' on the reform of 1968, which resulted in systemic changes that were rather remarkable by East European standards, but nevertheless fell far short of the aspirations voiced ... It is that disappointment with earlier reform efforts, combined with substantial pressure from an unfavorable world economic environment, that has led Hungarian leaders and economists to broaden a debate, which had been going on since the early 1970s. Originally, these papers were presented at the Conference on the Hungarian Economy and East-West Relations, held at Indiana U. (Bloomington) during March 21-24, 1982, and sponsored by the Hungarian Chair and other related programs of the university. This conference included the 7th U.S.-Hungarian Roundtable on Economics, sponsored by IREX and the Institute for Cultural Relations, HAS. Only papers relating to the Hungarian economy were included in this special issue. According to the editor, these essays represent “one of the best and most up-to-date statements in English on recent reforms in Hungary.” They include Interrelations between Policy and the Economic Reform in Hungary by Rezső Nyers; Comments on the Present State and the Prospects of the Hungarian Economic Reform by Janos Kornai; Reformng the New Economic Mechanism in Hungary by Bela Balassa; The Increasing Role and Ambivalent Reception of Small Enterprises in Hungary by Márton Tardos; Investment Allocation: A Comparison of the Reform Experiences of Hungary and Yugoslavia by Laura D’Andrea Tyson; the Hungarian Alternative to Soviet-Type Planning by Tama's Bauer; Economic Management and Organization of Hungarian Agriculture by Csaba Csáki; and Agricultural Policy and Performance in Hungary by Michael Marrese. The editor is on the staff of the Brookings Institution, Washington. □

Kroő, György. “New Hungarian Music.” (With bibliography and discography.) Notes [of the Music Library Association. New series.] 39:1 (September 1982)43-71.

A major change occurred in Hungarian music history in 1905-6: the “Hungarian peasant song with its thousand-yearold Asian roots and more recent 19th century stylistic strata still undergoing change, was discovered.” At about the same time, Bartók and Koda'ly emerged. Bartók’s oeuvre presented a continuous link between new Hungarian art music and the European avant-garde of the period between 1908 and 1940.” With war and Bartók’s emigration to the U.S. (1941) began the isolation of Hungarian music which continued after World War II. A new eclectic school took over in the mid- 1950s, and by the end of th 1960s a third generation was emerging, who founded the Budapest New Music Studio in 1970. Gradually, the new musical centers of the world were exerting influence, study trips abroad were within reach

NO. 43-44, SPRING-SUMMER 1985 HUNGARIAN STUDIES NEWSLETTER

again, information on styles and techniques was streaming to Hungary, and Hungarian compositions were frequently programmed at major international festivals. The comprehensive article is augmented by a list of 138 scores and records, complete with a brief description which between them constitute a repertoire of new Hungarian music and contain the most important and typical works of representative composers. D

LÁRMAFA is the name of a 173-page booklet published by the Ra'koczi Foundation (P.O. Box 67, Stn. “L” Toronto, ON M6E 4Y4, Canada). For description of the Foundation, see HSN no. 34, p. 6. It summarizes in Hungarian the background of an essay contest on which the HSN has reported in no. 38, pp. 3 and 7. One of the winning essays on Magyar Consciousness Abroad by Gábor Földváry (Australia) is in English. So is an accompanying leaflet which says that the U.S. census data on Hungarian ethnics reveal a rather bleak picture. Only 10 to 20 percent of those of Hungarian descent in the U.S. have actually lived in Hungary, and less than one percent are active in immigrant organizations. In view of these facts preservation of Hungarian, says the Foundation, culture becomes even more meaningful. D

Owings, W.A. “The Roles of the Intellectuals in the South Slav and the Hungarian Social Democratic Movements: A Comparison.” East European Quarterly 17:1 (Winter 1983) 09-18. A review article.

“The history of social democracy has been enriched by the publication of a monograph by TiborSüle (Sozialdemokratie in Ungarn: Zur Rolle der Intelligenz in der Arbeitsbewegung, 1899-1910. Köln: Böhlau Verlag, 1967), who describes the origin, orientation, and activities of groups of universitytrained intellectuals cultivated in the doctrines of positivism and Marxism, and in one case of syndicalism, who first served and then attempted to gain directing influence in SD labor movements with an established tradition of leadership by ‘practical’ labor leaders.” A discussion of the same nature relative to the South Slav context has also appeared. (Owings, “The Role of the Intellectual in the South Slav Social Democratic Movements," Florida State University Slavic Papers, 1970.) “From the South Slav example came the inference that intellectual-led movements had a clear advantage in developing new approaches — that the intellectuals ‘justified their university degrees by showing a superiorskill in working out rationalizations within the formal framework of Marxism to justify their pursuit of common-sense policies. With the exception of Count Ervin Batthyány, an advocate of peasant anarchism of the Kropotkin variety, none of the intellectuals in the countries under consideration developed a peasant program. “That suggests the narrow limits of elasticity in Marxist thought even among the intelligentsia.” The author is on the faculty of the U. of Arkansas, Little Rock. □

Sanders, Ivan, “Freedom’s Captives: Notes on George Konrad’s Novels,” World Literature Today 57:1 (Winter 1983) 210-4.

This is a critic of George Konrad, who is widely acclaimed as one of the leading writers of contemporary Hungary. The author says that Konrad, not unlike other East Central European novelists, “deals with historical givens, unique social and political configuerations, unalterable realities” yet he tends to be universal. For example, his first novel, The Case H/or/cer(1969) offers a “devastating picture of Budapest

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