Hungarian Studies Newsletter, 1983 (11. évfolyam, 35-38. szám)

1983 / 38. szám

HUNGARIAN STUDIES NEWSLETTER

No. 38 ISSN: 0194-164X WINTER, 1983-84

Published quarterly by the Hungarian Research Center of the American Hungarian Foundation: Winter, Spring (two numbers included), and Autumn. Founder and editor: Bela Charles Maday. Communications concerning content should be addressed to the Editor, 4528-49th Street, N.W., Washingotn, DC 20016. Communications concerning subscriptions, advertising, and circulation should be addressed to American Hungarian Foundation, 177 Somerset Street, P.O. Box 1084, New Brunswick, N.J. 08903. Annual Subscription in the U.S.A. $5.00. Abroad $7.00. Current single copy $3.00; back issues $3.50 each.

BOOKS (Continued)

Banac, Ivo ed. THE EFFECTS OF WORLD WAR I: THE CLASS WAR AFTER THE GREAT WAR: The Rise of Communist Parties in East Central Europe, 1918-1921. Brooklyn College Press, distributed by Columbia U. Press, 562 West 113 Street, New York, NY 10025,1983. xv + 278 pages. $27.50 cloth. (Brooklyn College Studies on Society in Change, no. 32; War and Society in East Central Europe, no. 13; and East European Monograps, no. 137.)

This is the 13th volume in the Brooklyn College Studies on Society in Change, with general editor, Bela K. Király, who provides an introduction entitled Red Wave in East Central Europe: A Repercussion of a Total War. Studies of the volume, as of most other books in the series, represent scholars of various disciplines and national backgrounds. This collection of essays focuses on the period immediately following World War I and proposes that the Red Wave erupted throughout East Central Europe as the result of the war. In the past, a victor was likely to attain his present objectives through negotiating a compromise with the vanquished. Not so in World War I, when the powers of Europe went to war without clearly defined objectives. The peace knew no victors, but rather it created more problems than existed before its commencement. Among them the consequences of the partition of Hungary and the establishment of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, “the most substantial success and failure of Communism in East Central Europe.” The editor discusses the emergence of Communism in the region and the history of the Yugoslav party in particular. Five other authors discuss the Bulgarian, Czechoslovak, Hungarian, Polish, and Romanian parties. The Hungarian essay was written by Peter Pastor (Montclair State Coll.). He points out that the Hungarian party was initiated in Russia in 1918 and dissolved in Russia in 1922.

The editor is professor of history at Yale U.

Dreisziger, Nádor F. et al, STRUGGLE AND HOPE: The Hungarian-Canadian Experience, a volume in the GENERATIONS, A HISTORY OF CANADA’S PEOPLES series, published by McLelland and Steward Ltd., 25 Hollinger Road, Toronto, ONT, Canada M4B3G2, in behalf of the Multiculturalism Directorate, Department of the Secretary of State and the Canadian Government Publishing Center, 1982. viii + 247 pages, tables, charts, illus. $18.95 cloth; $9.95 paper.

The Canadians of Hungarian background will soon celebrate the 100th anniversary of Hungarian immigration to Canada. The first Hungarian farmers settled in Saskatchewan in 1885, and throughout the past 100 years Hungarians came to Canada to form a diverse and dynamic community whose

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achievements are very much in evidence. The primary aim of the volume is to discuss phases of Hungarian-Canadian development. Fundamentally, it concerns itself with Canadian social history, but it encompasses forces of “push and pull,” evolving settlement patterns, assimilation, ethnic organizations, demographic trends, values, social stratification, language patterns, political behavior, and alike. Five of the eight essays contained in the book, were written by the editor of the other three, one by Bennett Kovrig (The Magyarsand their Homeland), one by Paul Body (Emigration from Hungary, 1880-1956), and one by M.L. Kovács (The Saskatchewan Era, 1885-1914). The volume should be of special interest in view of Julianna Puskas’ recent book on US-Hungarian immigration. See HSN no. 37, p. 3. We share the hopes of the editor that this basic study will serve as a convenient point of departure for Hungarian-Canadian oriented social science research.

The author is prof, of history at the Royal Military College of Canada.

Fehér, Ferenc and Agnes Heller, HUNGARY 1956 REVISITED: The Message of a Revolution — a Quarter of a Century After. George Allen and Unwin, 9 Winchester Terrace, Winchester, MA 01890, 1983. xx + 166 pages. $28.50 cloth.

The volume offers a polemic and restless interpretation of the events of 1956 and their consequences. It begins with a highly critical assessment of the role and responsibility of the superpowers in bringing about an international political climate in which the revolution took place and then abandoning the scene without offering a viable solution to the crisis. According to the late István Bi bei, whose political thoughts are heavily represented in the volume, “the Hungarian situation is a scandal, first of all, of the Western world,” which could have offered a conference with Soviet participation in an attempt to bring about freedom and independence for Hungary. But American policy-makers were blind to the distribution of power. “The creators of American strategy introduced a misplaced ‘Hegelian dialectic’ into the plans.” A discussion of the impact of the revolution on both, Western governments and communist parties, is followed by an assessment of its significance in the East European context. To the question “was the revolution necessary?” the authors say that “the communist leaders had left their people with no other choice but that of a total revolt against them.” The volume concludes that the greatest historical merit of the revolution was “to question the existing concept of social ism.”

Heller is reader in sociology at La Troba U. (Melbourne, Australia). Both, she and Fehe'r are authors of a number of publications on socialism and socialist society.

Kourilsky, Chantal, Attila Racz, and Heinz Schaffer, eds. THE SOURCES OF LAW: A Comparative Empirical Study; National Systems of Sources of Law. Budapest: Akadémiai kiadd, 1982, in behalf of the European Coordination Center for Research and Documentation in Social Sciences. 375 pages, table of terminology. $28.00 cloth.

This book resulted from a research project, proposed in 1976 and directed ever since by Imre Szabó', director of the Institute of Legal and Political Sciences, HAS, and by Erwin Melichar, president of the Constitutional Court of Austria. The project was organized by the European Coordination Center for Research and Documentation in Social Sciences, better known as the “Vienna Center.” Created by UNESCO in 1963 as an autonomous body of the International Social Science Council, the center aims at stimulating international

NO. 38. WINTER 1983-1984, HUNGARIAN STUDIES NEWSLETTER