Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1994. [Vol. 2.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 22)

BOOK REVIEWS - Miklós Kontra: Vadon, Lehel: Országh IJszló. Eger: Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Nyomdája, 1994. 93 pp

in the profession, that is the teachers in the English departments of the three universities and two teacher's colleges with such departments. Scholarships to English-speaking countries were a rather rare commodity for Hungarian university professors and almost unavailable for others. Books and visiting professors from England or America were equally rare. The profession was small and resources were shared through intensive networking. At the center of it all was Országh, the matchless, demanding authority in Hungary who maintained, and had us maintain, high professional standards. In post-communist Hungary, British and American studies look very different. Now there are more institutions that call themselves universities than I can count. Each has something that they call an English department. Some of the heads of these departments have hardly anything to qualify them to be university professors of English. When Russian ceased to be a mandatory school language in Hungary, the demand for English and German skyrocketed, and no higher educational institution has a place in the sun if it doesn't have an English department. Unfortunately, the attempt to address the demand for English across the country has resulted in lowering our standards. Paradoxically, some of the new teachers are better trained than we were 20 years ago, but there are also masses of unqualified teachers teaching English in public schools. English and American books are readily available today in Hungary (if one has the money to buy them), but the market indiscriminately hawks quality books and professionally worthless volumes alike, volumes that would never have been published or distributed in communist Hungary. Some of our younger colleagues have obtained MA or Ph.D. degrees in English-speaking countries, are active in Hungarian and international associations, and publish in refereed journals abroad. At the same time the quality of some papers presented at conferences in Hungary is far below any acceptable standard. As we struggle through these times of change, we may need to be reminded of where we come from, and what earlier standards are all too often being ignored. This elegant book on Országh comes at the right time. 183