Hungarian Studies Newsletter, 1979 (7. évfolyam, 19-22. szám)
1979 / 22. szám
ARTICLES & PAPERS Balassa, Bela, “The Economic Reform in Hungary:Ten Years After," European Economic Review 11 (1978), pp. 245-268. The author examines the possible policy of improvements for ensuring continued rapid growth in an outward-oriented economy. The achievements of the reform (1967-73) and the structure of Hungary’s exports are reviewed. An acceleration of the growth of Hungary's exports to market economies is seen as desirable to ensure a high state of economic growth, but it would require greater adaptability and changes in the structure. Greater flexibility and attention to real costs is also needed in price determination. “A reform of the Hungarian export incentive system aimed at ensuring the automaticity, certainty, and equality of incentives” would also be beneficial. Manufactured exports, because they generate technological change and effect labor training, should be given preferential treatment. Less centralized and monopolistic marketing practices would also favor increased trade, e.g. increasing indirect marketing by producers and competing trading firms. More role for the profit motive, including the closingdown of inefficient plants and improving labor efficiency should be considered. In the labor-DISSERTATIONS (Continued) through the period of twenty years. The most important finding to emerge is that the large majority of Slovak students attended schools in small towns and cities across Slovakia. There were few Czechs in these schools. The Slovak students were likely to retain a local outlook, and were thus less receptive to the idea of a Czechoslovak nationality. A review of the institutions of higher education and the students who passed through them shows that the university did little to foster the development of a Slovak awareness. Rather, it provided leaders for Slovakia’s long-range cultural and scientific development. Brown, Bess Ann (Indiana U., 1979) “The Emancipation of the Peasants of North Hungary in 1848: A Study in Social Reform and Nationalism.” 185 pages. Microfilm and xerox order no. 7916946. The revolutionary National Assembly approved in March 1848 a law which formally ended the services and dues owed by peasants to their landlords. The law was clear in intent but vague in its language, so that its promulgation was followed by endless disputes between landlords and peasants over the exact interpretation. In the northern counties the main source of grievance was the limitation of the reform to those peasants whose land was registered in the Urbárium of Maria Theresa. Those peasants received land in ownership, while others did not share in the privileges of the reform. The situation was complicated by an ethnic factor: most of the northern counties had Slovak-speaking majorities, and in some cases the population was entirely Slovak except for a few Hungarian landlords. A Slovak nationalist movement has begun to develop among intellectuals early in the 19th century. They were joined by nationalist peasants after 1848, who hoped to gain immediate benefits for themselves from the movement. Thus, the Slovak nationalists’ rather feeble efforts to use peasant discontent over the landholding reform to advance nationalist goals resulted in an attempt by Slovak peasants to use the intellectuals’ ideas for the improvement of their own economic position. full economy of Hungary, these measures need not lead to unemployment. Changes in investment allocation should also favor the more profitable firms or industries, as well as greater flexibility. It is the skill-intensive industries that can best be exploited given Hungary’s abundance of skilled and technical labor, and several such industries would generate a good return of foreign exchange. To fully exploit this potential, even more contractual relationships between domestic and foreign firms are needed. The author is professor of political economy at Johns Hopkins U. □ Dreisziger, Nándor F. “Contradictory Evidence Concerning Hungary’s Declaration of War on the U.S.S.R. in June 1941,” Canadian Slavonic Papers XIX:4 (December 1977), pp. 481 - 488. The events leading to Hungary’s joining of the German invasion of Russia in June of 1941 have been the subject of considerable debate by historians. The most commonly accepted explanation of the Budapest government’s decision to go to war is that it was prompted by a staged border incident involving the bombing of Hungarian targets by “German aircraft disguised as Soviet bombers.” This theory has been the cornerstone of Hungarian communist historiography and has been accepted by several historians in the West. But the evidence marshalled to support it is demonstrably weak. In fact, one hitherto neglected source, an eyewitness account published in 1946 in an obscure Hungarian periodical, completely contradicts this theory. In light of this and other, already known contradictory evidence, it will be necessary to discard the “conspiracy hypothesis” and begin the search for a more acceptable explanation. The author is assist, professor of history at the Royal Military Coll, of Canada. □ Magocsi, Paul R. “The Ruthenian Decision to Unite with Czechoslovakia,” Slavic Review 34 (June 1975), pp. 360-381. Subcarpathian Ruthenia had been part of the Hungarian Kingdom since the Middle Ages. In 1910 the Ruthenians numbered 447,566. They lived primarily on the northeastern rural rim of the country, with a few settled in Pre&ov (Eperjes), Uzhorod (Ungvár) and Mukachevo (Munkács). While no real political gains were made between 1849 and 1867, there were cultural activities which resulted in a kind of Ruthenian national renaissance. Several lasting traditions emerged: the idea of political cooperation with the Slovaks, adoption of the Russian language for local publications, and the deepening of politico-cultural relations with Russophiles in Galicia. After 1867, there was a period of Magyarization and some losses in the cultural sphere, but in World War I the exposure to new ideas and related peoples (Czechs, Serbs, Croats, etc.) led to a revival of a Slavic consciousness. Numerous ideas of political and cultural autonomy were discussed, and by early 1919 a series of national councils proposed four alternatives: federation with Czechoslovakia (Pre^ov), autonomy within Hungary (Uzhorod), union with the Ukraine (Maramarosh Sighet), or independence (lasnyia). Generally, the Czechoslovak orientation gained ground, and a delegation led by Mykhailo Komarnytski left a memorandum with Milan Hodia, a representative of the Czechoslovak Republic in Budapest, to the effect that the Subcarpathian Rus’ seek union (preferably) with the Ukraine, or, failing that, with the Czecho-Slovak Republic. On January 15, Czechoslovak Legionnaires arrived in Uzhorod and in the following months the union with the Czechs and Slovaks pretty well won out. The autonomous province of Rus’ka Kraina, established 4 NO. 22, WINTER 1979-1980, HUNGARIAN STUDIES NEWSLETTER
