Hungarian Studies Newsletter, 1978 (6. évfolyam, 16-18. szám)
1978 / 16. szám
ARTICLE & PAPERS (Continued) MEETINGS other dues while the tithes were being collected. The nona pars was abolished and the rents were reduced. Amnesty was granted to all the leaders and provisions were made for a peasants’ assembly to review violators and punish them. The agreement reached satisfied many of the lesser nobility. A second agreement was more disastrous to the peasants who continued to request the patents of their rights granted by Sts. Stephen and Ladislaus and which were petitioned but not received from Sigismund. The revolts were not over.CI Florescu, Radu R., “Captain John Smith and Romania,” East European Quarterly XI.4 (Winter 1977) 413-419. Captain John Smith undoubtedly served in Transylvania and defeated three Turkish champions in single combat. Florescu documents this connection between the Old and the New World, ignoring to a large measure, the Hungarian aspects of the setting and the events. REVIEWER’S NOTE: A memorial tablet at Jamestown, Va. placed by the American Hungarian Federation in 1962 commemorates Captain Smith’s ventures in Transylvania. □ Száz, Z. Michael, “Contemporary Educational Policies in Transylvania," East European Quarterly, XI:4 (Winter 1977) 493-501. While from 1948 to 1958 there was a more adequate school system for Hungarian and Germanspeaking children of Romania, since that time minorities have been less fairly treated. Under one guise or another, Hungarian-language classes have been discontinued (German-language classes were even more quickly eliminated), although between 1969 and 1971 some accommodations were made. Presently, the number of ethnic or language minority students needed for classes to be held in their native tongue were increased from 25 to 36. The same rule does not apply to Romanians, who are given instruction regardless of their numbers in a school. Few of the nationality schools offer secondary education, and the low number of Hungarian language secondary schools is out of all proportion to the population. Even in counties with an 80% to 90% Hungarian population only a few such schools operate. Textbooks ignore Hungarian contributions and distort history by effectively denying all Hungarian influence during the past 1000 years. The author is Vice-President, American Foreign Policy Inst. □ Schoenman, Theodore and Helen, "The First Grief," by Kálmán Mikszáth, Cricket V (November 1977) 78-85. This is a translation of Mikszáth’s story in a children’s magazine. The language is idiomatic and the style clear and correct without being obtuse. A nice note is the explanation of the coins Florin and Kreutzer (krajcár) in a hand-lettered “foot-note” that blends with the illustrations. D Hoppál, Mihály. Proxemics: Private and Public (Community and Communication in a Hungarian Village). Tanulmányok IX: 5 (1977) a publication of the Center of Mass Communication. In Hungarian (pages 1 to 98, "A tér, a közösség és a kommunikáció"); Russian (pages 99 to 120); and English (pages 121 to 141). The MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION’S annual conference in December, 1977 featured a special session on Hungarian Literature chaired by Enikő Molnár Basa and Dalma Hunyadi Brunauer. The theme of the session was “Endre Ady's Generation and Cosmopolitanism in Hungary.” Papers read were “A Comparative Study of the Attitudes toward God and Sin in the Lives and Works of Charles Baudelaire and Endre Ady,” by Esther H. Leser; “The Landscape of the Apocalypse: Themes in the Work of Two Prophetic Poets: Endre Ady and D.H. Lawrence," by Mitzi M. Brunsdale; “Kosztolányi and Ady,” by Dalma H. and Stephen Brunauer; “Sound Symbolism in the Poetry of Endre Ady,” by Julius S. Nyikos; and “Symbolist and Decadent Elements in the Early Twentieth-Century Hungarian Drama,” by Ivan Sanders. An introduction to the poet Ady and his significance for 20th century literature was given by Enikő7 Molnár Basa. Following the session, plans were made for a Special Session on Shakespeare in Hungary at the 1978 meeting of the MLA (New York City) with the participation of: Stephen C. Scheer, Anna Katona, Dalma Brunauer, Peter Basa, and Kent Bales. Group status will be requested for Hungarian literature in 1979. MLA members in particular are asked to support this petition. Dr. Basa also spoke about uses of the SCORPIO (computer retrieval) system in the Library of Congress. Data on Hungarian records (books, serials, etc.) are now being made available through the system. The possible use of the bibliographic data by publishers was also discussed, d The Center for Great Plains Studies of the U. of Nebraska- Lincoln held a symposium on the Ethnicity on the Great Plains in April 1978. Organized under the chairmanship of Fred C. Luebke, Prof, of History, the symposium had a good (Continued on page 12) Proxemics refers to the manner in which man, consciously or unconsciously, structures his space as an elaboration of culture. Traditional and modern ways of life and space arrangements overlap in the village of Varsány in Nógrád County. Places of social contact shifted from sitting out (in front of the house), from the community well, and from the inn to the espresso (or briefly presso) and to the core of the village where the building of the village council, the cultural center, the movie, the bus stop, the church, and a school are situated. Of these only the role of the church has remained traditional. In architecture the conventional long-house accommodating an extended family is being replaced by square houses occupying twice the land as the old homes did, but not accommodating the older generations. Interior furniture arrangements also reflect a process of transition. The old spacial order reflecting social prestige relations and functionalism has not been replaced by any newly established order but rather by a scattered arrangement of furnishings lacking harmony and stability. Relevant aspects of spacial arrangements in communal work, church attendance, courting, wedding, visits, baptism, pig-killing and funerals are also discussed. The author refers to the present state of affairs as a certain “cultural schizophrenia” which may persist for some time to come. NO. 16, 1978 HUNGARIAN STUDIES NEWSLETTER 11
