Hungarian Studies Newsletter, 1979 (7. évfolyam, 19-22. szám)
1979 / 22. szám
/Ul AMGRICAN HUNGARIAN FOUNDATION HUNGARIAN STUDIES NEWSLETTER BOOKS Hofer, Tamás and Edit Fel. HUNGARIAN FOLK ART. Oxford U. Press (in cooperation with Corvina Kiadó) 200 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, 1979. 63 pages plus 639 illustrations (37 colored plates), biblio. $29.95 cloth. (Original title: Magyar népművészét, Corvina Kiadd, 1975. Trnsl. by Mária Kresz and Bertha Gaster.) This volume is a masterful combination of a picture album and a scholarly and concise description of representative peasant art of Hungary. The authors set out to “give an idea of the distinctive quality of Hungarian folk art and its characteristics." They succeeded eminently by giving preference to masters of folk art over imitators, by seeking out quality over quantity, and by selecting representative objects rather than representing all genre and all regions, i.e. a national cross-section of peasant art. Folk art is generally known as hand-made objects, such as ornaments, tools, pottery, weapons, apparel, especially when decorated. A collection of such objects (often referred to as artifacts) reveals not only the technology of a group of people but also their way of thinking, their rules of interaction, their values. Each decorated object reflects a tiny part of the collective culture as against other cultures. The volume achieves this objective well. It begins with pictures and descriptions of painted ceiling panels and church furnishings from the 17th through the 20th centuries, it shows simple household vessels and utensils, some pottery and furniture, herdsmen artifacts, and concludes with a wide selection of embroidery. (American readers will be struck by the similarity between the geometric patterns of the torontáli rug and the design of American Indian rugs.) The authors are distinguished ethnographers who authored a number of books in English, among them Proper Peasants; Traditional Life in a Hungarian Village. Chicago: Aldine, 1969. Schoenman, Theodore, ed. THE FATHER OF CALIFORNIA WINE: ÁGOSTON HARASZTHY. Including GRAPE CULTURE, WINES & WINE-MAKING. Capra Press, Box 2068, Santa Barbara, CA 93120.1979.192 pages, illus., biblio. $10.00 cloth. This book is American history. It is also a proud volume of Hungarian ethnic history. It is about a man who came to America to promote trade between his native land and the U.S. He was impressed by the seemingly inexhaustible opportunities this land offered to persons with a dream of freedom and prosperity, and who had sufficient imagination, skills, and stamina to invest. He settled first in Wisconsin in 1840, where soon a village was named after him (now Sauk City). His pioneering activities of that period are romanticized in several historical novels such as Restless is the River by August Derleth (NY: Schribner’s, 1934), and A House too Old by Mark Schorer (NY: Reynal and Hitchcock, 1935). No. 22, Winter 1979-1980, Hungarian Studies Newsletter FOUNDATION OBSERVES 25th YEAR Chartered in Illinois on December 28, 1954, the American Hungarian Foundation shall observe its 25th anniversary during 1980 in a series of events scheduled throughout the country. With the beginning of the anniversary year the foundation adopted a new logo that shall be used on all of its publications. The banner head of HSN also has been redesigned with the inclusion of the new logo. Before moving to California, he returned briefly to Hungary to arrange the publication of his Utazás Éjszakamerikában [Travels in North America] (Pest: Gustav Heckenast, 1844). His California career is well known history by now. "When speaking of wine and grapes,” says Schoenman, “the name of Ágoston Haraszthy is indelibly inscribed on the pages of California history. Although this ‘Johnny Appleseed' of grapes did not accumulate wealth or political influence in his lifetime, one hundred years after his death a grateful Congress honored him in a joint resolution and officially acknowledged him ‘Father of California’s Viticulture’.” A 24- page biography with an exhaustive bibliography and some family pictures are presented by the editor. This is followed by a reprint of Haraszthy’s best known and most important work GRAPE CULTURE, WINES, AND WINE-MAKING; with Notes upon Agriculture and Horticulture. New York: Harper & Bros., 1862. The editor is a chemist and a free lance writer and translator of Hungarian books. See HSN no. 13, p. 12, and no. 14, p. 3. Ligeti, Louis, ed., PROCEEDINGS OF THE CSOMA DE KŐRÖS MEMORIAL SYMPOSIUM held at Matrafiired, Hungary, 24-30 September 1976. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1978. 586 pages, charts, tables. $51.00 cloth. (Vol. 23 of the Bibliotheca Orientalis Hungarica.) This is a monumental volume, not only because of its size and price (the most expensive book yet received from Hungary) but because of its ambitious objective in comprising 41 essays (21 of them in English) into a single tome. These are transcripts of the papers delivered at the conference arranged by the Kó'rösi Csorna Society. Sixteen countries were represented and the topics of the essays were drawn from fields in which Csorna de Kőrös himself was active, such as Tibetan linguistics, history, sociology, Lamaism, Tangut studies, and Central Asian cultures. In this same column we are reviewing the life history and accomplishments of a Hungarian adventurer in America. The Festschrift in honor of Csorna recognizes another adventurer whose intellectual curiosity became mesmerized by the unknowns of Hungarian ethnogenesis, and by the remote chance that some traces of Hungarian prehistory maybe found on the Indian subcontinent. He trained himself well for the task. “He learned to sleep on the floor, without bed or blankets, he learned to suffer hunger, he trained himself in (Continued on Page 2)
