The Eighth Tribe, 1981 (8. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1981-03-01 / 3. szám
March, 1081 THE EIGHTH TRIBE Page 13 DR. VICTOR MOLNÁR: Hungarian Varieties THE DUQUESNE UNIVERSITY HISTORY FORUM Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was the scene of another great event that also had a Hungarian touch to it. The Fourteenth Annual Duquesne University History Forum, held October 27-29, 1980 at the William Penn Hotel, is the largest and most comprehensive history conference sponsored by a single institution of higher learning in the United States. Under its current director, Professor Steven Béla Várdy, it has increasingly become an international meeting of historians and of scholars in the related fields. The History Forum included a total of over 200 scholars, who represented 150 institutions of higher learning and research, Thirty states (of the USA), plus six other countries. The International aspects of this forum were supported by a grant from the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) of New York. Some of the panels at this Forum were -o-sponsored by the following organizations or entities: the American Military Institute, American Professors for Peace in the Middle East, American Society for Environmental History, Chair of Hungarian Studies, Indiana University and the Byzantine (Greek) Catholic Archdiocese-Metropolitan of Pittsburgh. Of the forty-nine panels presented, eight dealt directly with Hungary or Hungarian related topics that were great appeal to anyone interested in their heritage and everything historically dealing with it. A total of seventeen Hungarian-born, or of Hungarian heritage, scholars presented papers, or were either panel moderators or commentators: Gustav Bayerle, Indiana University; Ruth G. Biró, Duquesne University; Paul Body, Pittsburgh; Edward Chászár, Indiana University of Pennsylvania; Leslie S. Domonkos, Youngstown State University; Géza Grosschmid, Duquesne University; Joseph Held, Rutgers University; Béla K. Király, Brooklyn College of the City of New York; Zoltán Kosztolnyik, Texas A&M University; Martin Louis Kovács, University of Regina, Canada; Andrew Ludányi, Ohio Northern University; Msgr. Basil Shereghy, Byzantine Catholic Seminary, Pittsburgh; Jenő Sziics, Institute of History, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest; Ágnes Huszár Várdy, Robert Morris College, Pittsburgh; Béla Vassady, Elizabethtown College; Bulcsu Veress, Columbia University and Francis S. Wagner, The Library of Congress. Four other scholars in this category scheduled to be here, but due to illness and/or governmental bureaucracy or whatever, could not be present. They included: Elemér Illyés, Munich, Germany; Adam Makkai, University of Illinois at Chicago Circle; Péter Püspöki-Nagy, Bratislava (Pozsony) Czechoslovakia and Robert Simon, Institute of History, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest. However, the papers by Elemér Illyés and Péter Püspöki-Nagy were read as I will note later on in this review. Upon receiving and reading the program for this History Forum, I knew I would be one of those interested, and consequently, one of those in attendance. I might add here, that although I am a dentist by profession, I graduated from college with a B. A. in History (1949 University of Pittsburgh) and I always create time to hunt up historical data, especially if concerns Hungary or is Hungarian-related. After registering on Monday morning for a mere fee of $6.00, which also included the evening receptions I headed down the hallway toward the suite where they would be holding the first panel that had a Hungarian-related espect. I knew the rooms and surroundings well, since the Greater Pittsburgh Area Dental Conferences have been held there at the William Penn Hotel. This morning the sounds of the Magyar language filled the corridor. The Forum Director, Dr. Steven Béla Várdy, was introducing the various scholars to each other and an opportunity to use the Magyar language arose. Through the gracious efforts of the Forum Director, I, too, was introduced to all present. The History Forum, as far as I was concerned, was off to a good start. Listed here are the panel subjects, the authors, as well as the titles of the papers they presented; just the Hungarian-related ones are mentioned here: Panel 8 — The Paris Peace Treaties and the Question of Self-determination — Béla K. Király: Total War and Peace Making after World War I; Edward Chászár: The Problem of National Minorities Before and After the Paris Peace Treaties of 1947. Panel 10 — Islamic and Ottoman Turkish Cultural Influence upon the People of Central and Southeastern Europe — Jenő Szűcs: Islamic Influences on Hungarian Society and Culture from the Ninth to the Thirteenth Century. Panel 24 — Immigrant Responses to Forces in American Society and the Problems of Ethnic Resources— Martin Louis Kovács: Benke and the Officialdom: A Peasant’s Uncommon Response to Bureaucrocay on the Prairie.
