Hungarian Studies Newsletter, 1982 (10. évfolyam, 31-34. szám)

1982 / 31-32. szám

rights standards. Bulgaria’s record in this regard is one of the worst in Eastern Europe. The author investigates each area of human rights, i.e., freedom of religion and conscience, freedom of speech and press, freedom of movement, assembly, association and participation in the political process, minority rights, privacy of correspondence, and ownership of property. He also discusses organized dissent (or the lack of it), and political trials and prisoners. In most instances the Hungarian government shows greater leniency than the Bulgarian. Differences are especially remarkable in the areas of trial and imprisonment for political behavior. Hungary is known to have few in camera trials while Bulgaria keeps several hundreds of political prisoners and secret trials. Hungarian citizens have access to legal process when mistreated during detention, while no such provisions exist in Bulgaria. The author is member of the Swedish foreign service. □

Papp Carrington, Ildikó de, “From ‘Hunky’ to Don Juan: the Changing Hungarian Identity in Canadian Fiction,” Canadian Literature 89 (Summer 1981) 33-34.

The immigrant novel written by non-Hungarians tended to concentrate on the need for assimilation and the frequently painful process it entailed. Under the Ribs of Death John Marlyn portrays the pre-World War II immigrant from a Canadian point of view. After the war a good portion of the new immigrants were educated, middle class people. This was especially true for the refugees of 1956. Novels about such immigrants tend to emphasize their reluctance to be assimilated. They arrived with attitudes expressing their superiority over the native Canadians. Stephen Vizinczey’s In Praise of Older Women, while really only a novel with an immigrant hero rather than one about the immigrant experience, is a case in point. Andrew Vajda, the hero, prides himself on teaching the rather simple local folks about life as he sees it. Similarly, A Stranger and Afraid by Marika Robert chose the heroine unwilling to change because she feels superior to her native Canadian husband. A similar refusal to come to terms with the new life is found in The Good Wife by Robert Fulford, although heretheemphasis ispresented by a Canadian rather than a Hungarian writer. But We Are Exiles, also by a native Canadian, Robert Kroetsch, portrays a complicated relationship between the successful and charismatic Mike Hornyak, his Canadian wife, and the young Canadian from whom he has stolen his wife. In fiction written by Hungarian-Canadian writers the theme of assimilation is present, but the Don Juan type is not. Furthermore, most stories argue against accelerated steps of assimilation, such as changes in names, intermarriage, loss of interest in Hungarian language and culture. The stories in the Anthology of Canadian Authors’ Association explicitly reject the early immigrants painful, ironic metamorphosis. D

Rich, Vera, “Hungarian Research; Cost of Elitism.” Nature 291 (14 May 1981) 101.

A public debate on the role of the university has been in progress on the pages of Magyar Tudomány since 1979. The outcome of the debate seems to favor a reorganization of universities into large departments. A new science building for the Eötvös L.U. would perhaps be the first step in this direction. Some 44 small science “chairs” would be united under one roof and grouped into four departments: mathematics and physics, chemistry, life sciences, and earth sciences. Scientists are reluctant to leave cozy niches in research institutes of the HAS to enter the harsher world of

ARTICLES & PAPERS (Continued)

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industry and academe. One situation which seems to act in favor of change is the bureaucratic difficulty of purchasing equipment and reagents from abroad. Lack of hard currency is not the only problem, says the author, since similar delays occur with acquisitions from Comecon countries. □

Rozsa, György. “Information and Documentation on Social Sciences in Hungary: An Outline.” Information Processing Management 14 (1978) 235-241.

This essay is of great assistance in understanding the organization, activities, and ambitions of social science research in Hungary. Social sciences are defined as including: politics, law, public administration, economics, management, science of science, sociology, and education. Research in general, is taking place in HAS-affiliated research institutes, in academe, and in other public agencies, such as museums and archives. Research policy is based on the Science Policy Directives (1969) of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party. Research priorities are guided by the National Long-Range Research Plan (1970-1985). The leading executive body for social science research is the Committee on Social Science Coordination, a subsidiary of the Science Policy Committee, headed by a Cabinet member (presently by a deputy prime minister). Information-documentation work is carried out in a multi-disciplinary library network, with a strictly defined specialization. E.g., information-documentation of sociological nature is the responsibility of the Szabd E. Library in Budapest, while research of international in character is the specialty of the Parliament Library. The author presents an extensive description of specialization and services by fields of research. Hungary is member of the International Social Science Information System and is actively participating in a score of international efforts for the improvement of the system. Difficulties include the language barrier, slow processing of data, lack of foreign currency for mechanization, and conceptual, material, and technical problems, not unique to Hungary. □

Tárka'ny-Szúcs, Ernő". "Collecting Legal Folk Customs in Hungary.” Acta Ethnologica 29:1-2(1980)181-205.

Law in ethnographic terms is a politically formulated rule supported by sanctions. Most every institution or established custom has one of its facets a “constitution” or “charter” which gives it validity in the eyes of the group concerned. Law maybe a local group decision or an externally imposed rule, which is either obeyed or evaded. The latter occurs when the written or imposed law clashes which unwritten customs. In either case the attitudes toward law or specific laws are passed on to consecutive generations. Collection of local (folk) laws and their relationship to the formal lawofthe political institutions in which they operate, has not been a highly popular research topic in Hungary. The first collection was published in 1904 by M. Mattyasovszky on inheritance laws and customs. The author of the paper with some other scholars feels that systematic collection of relevant data is of utmost importance for the study of relations between legal aspects and actual conditions of life in Hungary between 1700and 1945. The undertaking will soon result in a volume on Hungarian Legal Folk Customs, by the same author, of which this paper constitutes the first chapter. The author is a member of the Ethnographic Research Institute of the HAS, and author of numerous writings on the same general subject, including Magyar jogi népszokások [Hungarian Legal Folk Customs], a comprehensive 900-page volume (Gondolat, 1981) which would, if translated, enrich both the ethnographic and the legal literature. □

NO. 31-32. SPRING-SUMMER, 1982 HUNGARIAN STUDIES NEWSLETTER