Hungarian Studies Newsletter, 1986 (14. évfolyam, 47-50. szám)
1986 / 49. szám
BOOKS (Continued) Agnes Huszar Vardy (Robert Morris Coll., and U. of Pittsburgh). The essays constitute an initial effort of the author’s long-range goal to produce a multi-volume opus in this field. The author is prof, of East European History at Duquesne U., and Agnes Vardy is assoc, prof, of comparative literature at Robert Morris Coll. Vardy, Steven Bela. THE HUNG ARI AN-AMERICANS. Twayne Publishers, 70 Lincoln Street, Boston, MA 02111, 1985. 215 pages, biblio. $17.95 cloth. This volume is a scholarly history of Hungarian Americans, as expressed in their social, economic, religious, intellectual and political life and institutions. The ten chapters encompass studies on Hungarian history; conditions which motivated emigration; on immigrant social organizations; the role of religious institutions; the role of the ethnic press; adaptation to the new cultural environment; the internal life styles including formal education and scholarship. The study is based on extensive primary and secondary sources as well as on a limited extent of fieldwork. Paul Body, reviewing the book in The Eighth Hungarian Tribe: Hungarians in America (vol. 12, no. 8 (1985), says that a growing public and academic interest in ethnic studies badly needs guideposts in regard to quality of output in writings. The author makes sincere efforts in this book to aid the Hungarian ethnicoriented reader. The author is prof, of East European history at Duquesne U. Vermes, Gabor , ISTVÁN TISZA; The Liberal Vision and Conservative Statecraft of a Magyar Nationalist. East European Monographs no. 184, distributed by Columbia University Press, 562 West 113th Street, New York, NY 10025,1985. 627 pages, biblio. $50.00 cloth. Count István [Stephen] Tisza (1861-1918) son fo Kalman [Coloman] Tisza was twice a premier of Hungary, from 1903 to 1905, and from 1913 to 1917. He believed in a strong personal government and sought to make Hungary a forceful partner in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. He strongly opposed the aggressive policy of Count Leopold Berchtold, who was foreign minister in 1914 when World War I broke out. Tisza’s influence waned after the accession of Charles IV. He left politics and took a command in the army on the Italian front. He was assassinated by soldiers, who believed him to be a chief instigator of the war. “It was in Tisza’s lifetime that Hungary evolved from an agrarian country into a moderately advanced agrarian/industrial state.” He enthusiastically supported industrialization and urbanization, but he recoiled from most of their social and political consequences. He advocated the right of ethnic minorities to free expression in their own language and culture, while setting strict limits to how far they could advance in their quest for autonomy. “He was a man of two worlds, who tried but failed to reconcile them.” The author is assoc, prof, of history at Rutgers U. Wagner, Francis S. NATION-BUILDING IN THE UNITED STATES; The American Idea of Nationhood in Retrospect. With the research and editorial assistance of Christina Wagner-Jones. Alpha Publications, 1079 DeKalb Pike, Center Square, PA 19422, 1985. 182 pages, tables, biblio. $16.00 cloth. This essay tries to analyze the peopling of America and the institutionalizing the principles and tenets they thought to be useful for establishing a new nation on the continent. “At the outset, the American Weltanschauung was devised as a synthesis of Christianity and Republicanism by many an intellectual. The integration of racial and nationality entities into the American framework has been possible by means of the peculiar political philosophy the American experience has produced since the pre-revolutionary decades. The American independence movement had a universal appeal, which cannot be compared in effectiveness and sincerity to any othersimilarphenomenon in history, including medieval Christian universality which could not address racial and national differences.” The author believes that ‘One World’ can come about only if ethnicity, religion, and social class have no exclusive powers in the nation-making process. "Multi-national states like the Habsburg Empire could not establish a lasting framework for coexistence because their systems overaccentuated cultural differences.” Hungarian references, though numerous, are hard to discern mainly because Hungary or Hungarian do not constitute entries in the index. The author raises questions in chronological sequenceand isgenerousin providing references especially in the “integration through the Civil War" section of the book. The author retired from the Library of Congress and has written extensively on Hungarian-related historical topics. His most recent book, a biography of Zoltán Bay, was reviewed in HSN no. 46, p. 3. Flakierski, Henryk. ECONOMIC REFORM & INCOME DISTRIBUTION; A Case Study of Hungary and Poland. M E. Sharpe, 80 Business Park Drive, Armonk, NY 10504, 1986. xi + 194 pages, tables, notes, $35.00 cloth. The study analyzes the relationship between economic reforms and changes in the degree of inequality, i.e., whether the increased use of the market mechanism in some East Central European countries has changed the patterns of income distribution, and whether or not these changes are linked with decentralization of the economic system. Such a study should be made by observing a country in which a decentralized model with a regulated market has been introduced consistently and implemented over a considerable length of time. There is only one country in East Central Europe where these conditions exist: Hungary. In all other socialist countries the economic reform has fallen short of implementing the decentralized market model, and the new measures have in most instances been quickly withdrawn and followed by a retreat to the old days. In Poland, for example, the Gierek reforms of 1973 were abandoned even before the mechanism and its new rules could start to work on a full scale, and before its economic consequences could be observed. In Hungary, however, the new economic mechanism is already seventeen years old; and although certain changes and corrections have taken place, by and large the basic core of the model has been maintained. In 1980 a further decentralization of the economy took place, whereby market pressures would increase on the firms and “harden,” the budget constraint. The comparison of the two countries in this frame of reference seems to advantageous, because Hungary is the most advanced COMECON country in implementing a market mechanism, whereas Poland is a country in which the economic mechanism has not changed very much. 4 No. 49. AUTUMN 1966, HUNGARIAN STUDIES NEW5LETTER
