Hungarian Studies Newsletter, 1986 (14. évfolyam, 47-50. szám)

1986 / 47-48. szám

Botár, Oliver A. I. “Ernő Kállai and The Hidden Face of Nature." The Structuralist (U. of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada) no. 23-24, (1983-84) 77-82.

Ernő Kállai’s name (1890-1954) is usually associated with the culture of Weimar Germany, especially as related to the Bauhaus. He took active part in the Bauhaus culture though he was treated as an outsider. He had his first contact with the avant-garde in 1918 through an exhibition at Lajos Kassák’s Ma (Today) gallery in Budapest. He went on a scholarship to Berlin in 1919 and stayed there until 1935. While in Berlin he participated in the Hungarian avant-garde in exile, publishing mainly in Kassák’s journal also entitled Ma, where he developed his theory of Constructivist Art. After World War II Kállai joined with likeminded persons in the establishment of a gallery called “Gale'ria a Négy Vi lágtájhoz.” Because he took a strong stance against “socialist realism,” he was silenced. He died in 1954. The article is amended by an excerpt from The Hidden Face of Nature, published (in Hungaran) in Budapest by Misztótfalusi kiadó in 1947. This essay points out a unifying theme in two major streams of modern art; those of geometrical and “organic” abstraction. Botár completed graduate studies at the U. of Toronto and was a recipient of an exchange scholarship.

Chaszar, Edward, “Minorities in Czechoslovakia: The Theory and the Reality, or Hungarians in the Slovak Socialist Republic Today.” Published by the Minority Rights Research Program, Institute for Advanced Research in the Graduate School of the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, 1985,33 pages, mimeo. N.p.

This report focuses on the contemporary conditions of the Hungarian minority in Czechoslovakia and on three principal factors which influenced these conditions: (1) The use of the Hungarian language of instruction in schools located in geographical areas with Hungarian population concentrations, (2) The arrest of Miklós Duray, a spokesman for the Hungarian minority and leader of the movement to protect Hungarian schools in Slovakia; and (3) The construction of the Gabcikovo- Nagymaros hydroelectric project on the Danube River, which will have an indirect effect on the situation of the Hungarian minorities. The study is introduced by a brief survey of the historical setting in which these actions are taking place. Discussed are also in the framework of the above topics, the comparative endowment of Hungarian and Slovak schools in Slovakia, political and social maneuvers on the part of the Slovak government, the form extent of the popular demand for justice. The arrest, trial, and release of Miklós Duray is presented as a case study characteristic of similar occurences*

The author is prof, of political science at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He attended the 1985 session of the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland as an observer for ISA. His report, dealing with a problem the Commission has been confronted with since 1978, was originally presented at Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s Symposium on April, 1985, and it is reproduced in itsentirety on pages 5 and 6 of International Studies Newsletter, September 1985. The HSN has reviewed his Decisions in Vienna in no. 19, p. 2. Chaszar also wrote a monograph A nemzeti kisebbségek nemzetközi problémája (The international problems of national minorities). The comprehensive, 88 page essay, also published by Indiana U. of Penna, is available from the author: Minority Rights Research Program, 107 Keith Annex, Indiana, PA 15705. □

Csillag, András. “Pulitzer József makói származásáról.” (The Hungarian origins of Joseph Pulitzer.) A makói múzeum füzetei

NO. 47-48, SPRING-SUMMER 1966 HUNGARIAN STUDIES NEWSLETTER

(Publications of the Makó Museum) no. 46 (1985) 28 pages.

As far as Joseph Pulitzer’s biography is concerned, there is only one item on which all biographers seem to agree: Pulitzer’s date of birth. We know, due to the author’s thorough research, that Pulitzer was born in Makó in 1847, and that he died at Charleston, South Carolina in 1911. The name “Pulitzer” usually is associated with the well-known Pulitzer Prize awarded annually for achievements in journalism, letters and music. After having taken part in the Civil War, Pulitzer founded the St. Louis Dispatch, acquired the New York World, and later established the Evening World. Much has been written about this talented but controversial individual, mainly in the U.S. Less is known of him in his native Hungary, and in neither place has anything been written on his family background and affiliations, until now. The pamphlet is in Hungarian, but a two-page long English summary may satisfy those interested in the basic facts. The author is curator of the Edmund Vasvary collection in the Szeged Museum. □

Gastony, Endre B. “Hungarian Foreign Minister Kálmán Ka'nya’s Grand Design, 1933-1936.” East European Quarterly 19:2 (June 1985) 175-190.

According to the author, “Kálmán Kánya was an able, influential and highly representative foreign policy maker of interwar Hungary. His political importance reached its summit while foreign minister from 1933 to 1938. Gaining a revision of the Treaty of Trianon in Hungary’s favor was his overriding long-term objective. Toward that end, Kánya intended to construct a multilateral alliance consisting of Hungary, Germany, Italy, Austria and perhaps Poland. The policy he conducted for the implementation of his “grand design” and its apparent failure by the end of 1936, reveal much about Hungary’s troubled national soul and about her precarious international position during the interwar era. Hungary’s predicament also clearly reflected the existing political antagonism among the states of East Central Europe, during a period when unfolding external pressure from both National Socialist Germany and the Soviet Union were to endanger the region’s independent existence.” The pragmatism of Kánya’s foreign policy served his country well. His sense of caution and abhorrence of adventurism kept Hungary out of the war. The author is on the faculty of Augustana College. a

Hidas, Peter I. “The Peasants of Hungary between Revolution and Compromise.” East European Quarterly, 19:2 (June 1985) 191-200.

“The history of the peasantry in Hungary during the first half of the nineteenth century has little in common with the political history of the Habsburg kingdom and empire." The continuous competition for power between Vienna and Buda resulted in the Age of Reform, the rebirth of Magyar national consciousness, the War of Independence, and the Compromise of 1867. The peasants did not take part in these efforts, though they were courted, wooed and feared by both sides. The peasantry remained politically neutral and uncommitted. They exploited the Habsburg-Hungarian conflict in the interest of their own social class. Joseph II terminated serfdom, and the Hungarian “gentry-reformers” further eased the burden of the peasant population. The ultimate gift, total emancipation, was delivered by Kossuth in 1848 and finalized by the Habsburgs in 1853. “The peasants were grateful; they remained loyal to the House of Habsburg and learned to love Kossuth, whom, however, they never confused with the “nation.” Eventually, droughts, floods, rinder-pest and the occasional lull in the

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