History/Cultural History

 

  • Studies. SZEKLERS: THE LAND OF SZEKLERS
    • Publishing House: KAM- Regional Centre, Székelyudvarhely, Romania
    • Year of Publication: 1999
    • Number of Pages: 200
    • Traditional Cultural Patterns - Mental Maps - Ecstasy in Fenyőkút - Joking Relationships in Rural Setting - Ceremonies of the Private Sphere in Socialism - Migration - An Overview of the Pre-History of Migration in the Szeklerland The Influence of the Seasonal Migration on the Szekler Local Community The Social and Econonmic Problems of Transition - Economic Elite in the Szeklerland - 1993 - Pauperisation Phenomena in the Csík Basin Interethnic Relationships - Exclusion and Incorporation Techniques in Interethnic Relationships - Romanian-Hungarian Interethnic Relationships in Csíkszereda - Gypsy-Hungarian Relationships Symbolic Space Occupation - Monument - Symbol - Identity -
  • MEDIUM REGNI (Medieval Hungarian Royal Seats)
    • Translated by: Erika Zoltán
    • Publishing House: NAP Kiadó
    • Year of Publication: 1999
    • Number of Pages: 210
    • In the Middle Ages the Esztergom-Székesfehérvár-Buda triangle was regarded as the middle of the country, medium regni, first of all because it was easily accessible from every part of the country. In the first centuries of the Middle Ages the sovereigns had no seats, thus at least in the present meaning no capital either. The kings and princes regularly travelled through their country, consuming the tax in kind. From the 11th century on there already existed more or less permanent centres. Five settlemets performed the central duties, and there were several royal mansions and hunting-seats. One of the most important of them was Esztergom, the ecclesiastical centre. The second was Székesfehérvár, where the kings were crowned and buried for a long time. The role of the third and fourth centre, Óbuda (the queen’s city) and Buda (the richest medieval city) was the least known but today these are part of our capital. The fifth, Visegrád, was the place where the royal crown was guarded. This book gives the readers a good overlook on the medieval places.
  • BALÁZS Géza: The Story of Hungarian. A Guide to the Language
    • Translated by: Thomas J. DeKornfeld
    • Publishing House: CORVINA Kiadó
    • Year of Publication: 1998
    • Number of Pages: 200
    • This book was written for the benefit of those who wish to learn more about the Hungarian language, a unique, non-Indo-European language spoken in the heart of Europe. It constitutes a journey of discovery into the nature and workings of Hungarian, supported by cultural as well as linguistic arguments which, when considered together, add up to the discovery that Hungary is Europe in a nutshell. It is a book for all those who, after admiring Budapest, the Hortobágy and Lake Balaton, will also want to become better acquinted with Hungarian, a language, which sounds like no other. It is also meant for those second and third generation Hungarians who are curious to find out more about the language of their parents and grandparents. And last but not least, it was written for the benefit of the more than 25 thousand people now living in Hungary, whose mother tongue is English.
  • BART István: Hungary and the Hungarians. The Keywords
    • Translated by: Judit Szollosy
    • Publishing House: CORVINA Kiadó
    • Year of Publication: 1999
    • Number of Pages: 200
    • Language is not just words and grammar, it works by methaphors and allusions, that make up ( and also hide away) meanings which are indecipherable without the knowledge of the culture code. Every student of any foreign language is painfully aware how this meta-language lurking behind even the simplest of turns can make reception of even everyday speech such a precarious affair. For there may be worlds in a word, not unlike the boxes within boxes within boxes of a Chinese puzzle. Languages are made up of popular memories, myths and beliefs, customs and ever changing usage; words ring bells and if our ears don’t hear their toll, life is merely a silent movie. This book was born out of innumerable futile efforts to explain to visitors what is behind a gesture or a melody, a name, an attitude. It is both a guide to the secrets of the Hungarians code-language and a concise cultural encyclopedia of Hungarianness.
  • CUSHING F George: Chapters from the History of Hungarian Literature
    • Publishing House: CORVINA Kiadó
    • Year of Publication: 1999
    • Number of Pages: 416
    • George F. Cushing (1923-1996), college professor, literary historian and translator, was for decades the best known English expert of Hungarian literature who devoted his life to the popularisation of Hungarian literature and culture in English. The works of many major Hungarian writers, from Zsigmond Móricz, Margit Kaffka, Géza Gárdonyi and Gyula Illyés were made available to English readers in his translations. The present volume is a collection of his writings on Hungarian literature. Their contribution lies in the fact that he sees the most important chapters of Hungarian literary through English eyes and treats them with the scholarship and tools characteristic of the English treatment of literature. The volume was complied and edited by literary historian Lóránt Czigány who lives in England, is a professor at various English and American universities and for decades was a colleague of Professor Cushing. He is also the author of the by now classic The Oxford History of Hungarian Literature.
  • CSETE Örs: Budapest, 1956 - Faces and Stories
    • Translated by: Balázs Földvári
    • Publishing House: Magyar Napló
    • Year of Publication: 1999
    • Number of Pages: 160
    • We have a great number of photographs of the events of the 1956 revolution. Unfortunately, those images later became the betrayers of the people in them who stayed at home. Today a young man, Örs Csete commemorates the revolutionaries. While taking photos of their faces, he also records their conversation. The lives recorded on the tapes and the tormented faces in the photographs are all similar. In one of the portraits we see someone whose eyes are impossible to look into. A pair of eyes that does not look back at us, it is hidden by dark glasses. Our years in prison have passed, but the man in the sunglasses has been sentenced to life in a dark cell, the blindness. With three bullets in his head and lungs he is still alive, among us. Look at the faces of fifty-six! You shall meet the people who manned the barricades for Hungary, who suffered for our country. And none of them have ever regretted it! (Maria Wittner at the opening of the exhibition). Since 1993, the author has taken several thousands pictures and recorded almost twenty thousand minutes of oral history of the everyday heroes of the 1956 Hungarian revolution. The bilingual album presents a personal selection of the work so far.
  • ENGEL Pál: Realm of St. Stephen
    • Translated by: Tamás Pálosfalvi
    • Publishing House: Tauris, London
    • Year of Publication: 1999
    • Number of Pages: 416
    • This is a comprehensive survey and major contribution to the historiography of medieval Eastern and Central Europe. Pál Engel traces the establishment of the medieval kingdom of Hungary from the conquest by the Magyar tribes in 895 until defeat by the Ottomans at the battle of Mohacs in 1526. Documenting the economic, social, political, cultural and military development of the dominant Magyars, Engel presents an accessible history of this important area.
  • JOBBÁGYI Gábor: Top Secret Memoir 1956
    • Translated by: Emma Roper-Evans
    • Publishing House: SZABAD TÉR Kiadó
    • Year of Publication: 1998
    • Number of Pages: 120
    • How extraordinary that so much could come to light from trial documents after 40 years. This album is a period document, the photographic and written material of which was used as evidence in the reprisal trials after 1956. Most of these documents come from a collection made by Tibor Beke and László Fettig in 1956, a crime for which both of them were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment charged with incitement. The documents consist of amateur photographs, jokes and verses which were used as a damning proof during the trials. Thanks to chance and the twists and turns of bureaucracy these documents were found and now reveal a slightly different aspect of 1956. The man in the street, the ordinary Hungarian speaks through these jokes and verses, and until now unseen photographs show with dramatic power the ferocity of the battles and the incomprehensible destruction. The album sheds a new light on the feverish autumn of 1956. A bilingual edition.
  • KONTLER László: Studies on Hungarian Culture from the Beginnings until Now
  • KÖRÖSÉNYI András: Government and Politics in Hungary
    • Translated by: Alan Renwick
    • Publishing House: CEU Press
    • Year of Publication: 1999
    • Number of Pages: 350
    • Based on unprecedented access to information, this book provides not only a historical overview but also an analysis of the main political actors, constitution, electoral system, parliament and political parties of Hungary. This timely and detailed analysis contains a wealth of important data which serves two major objectives. The first is to survey the most important institutions of the political and governmental systems and the cultural and behavioural characteristics of Hungarian politics. The second is to provide the reader with a clear understanding of the two-way relationship between cultural-behavioural and constitutional-institutional levels of politics in Hungary.
  • KUN Miklós: Prague Spring - Prague Fall. Blank Spots of 1968
    • Translated by: Hajnal Csatorday
    • Publishing House: AKADÉMIAI Kiadó Rt.
    • Year of Publication: 1999
    • Number of Pages: 252
    • Miklós Kun, the noted Hungarian historian, spent nearly a decade researching the blank spots of Prague Spring of 1968. The interviewees, who were on opposite sides of the barricade, reveal many secrets not found in archive materials and memoirs hitherto published. What they tell, however, is indispensable for a reconstruction of what actually happened in Czechoslovakia in 1968. For instance, we gain an insight into the role the Kremlin played in Alexander Dubcek’s election to the post of first secretary, about President Ludvík Svoboda’s secret contacts in Moscow, and how Vasil Bil’ak made a bargain with Piotr Shelest in János Kádár’s summer residence in Balatonaliga, Hungary, one month before the August intervention. An interesting picture emerges, containing hitherto unknown details, of the part Kádár played in the events preceding the occupation. In the introduction to each interview, Kun confronts the results of historical research with the personal accounts of the interviews. Although the two do not always correspond, and sometimes the interviews contradict each other, they bring the events of thirty years ago closer to us.
  • LÁSZLÓ Gyula: The Magyars. Their Life and Civilisation
    • Translated by: Timothy Wilkinson
    • Publishing House: CORVINA Kiadó
    • Year of Publication: 1999
    • Number of Pages: 128
    • Renowned professor of archeology, Gyula László is also a first-rate story-teller, who in this impressive volume brings excitingly alive the everyday activities of the ancestors of the Hungarians who appeared in the Carphatian Basin 1100 years ago. The results of fifty years of research are turned into lively descriptions of what graves and other archeological finds have to tell us of ancient lands, people and events, while the facts and deductions bring up fascinating questions about the past that still await answers. The author has also compiled a Reader for those interested in contemporary or near-contemporary chronicles as well as what historians, other archaelogists, linguists and natural scientists have contributed to an understanding of the ancient home of the Magyars and their lives during what has become known as the Conquest Period.
  • ROMSICS Ignác: Hungary in the 20th Century
    • Translated by: Timothy Wilkinson
    • Publishing House: CORVINA Kiadó
    • Year of Publication: 1999
    • Number of Pages: 350
    • Ignác Romsics’s book is the first comprehensive, systematic and authorative account of the economic, social political and cultural history of Hungary in the 20th century. It has been designed to present the serious reader, the scholar who is not a specialist in modern Hungarian history and the student who is considering such a specialization with a detailed and balanced picture. The eight chronological chapters of this highly readable and thoroughly researched volume cover the years of peace at the beginning of the 20th century; the events of World Was I and its consequences; the interwar period and Hungary’s participation in World War II; the cruel sovietization of the country as well as the heroic answer of the Hungarians to it: the uprising of 1956; the more liberal form of state socialism that emerged after the defeat of this revolution; and finally the collapse of communism and the re-integration of Hungary into the Western world during the past ten years. The chapters are supported by numerous maps, charts and tables, a chronology of major events, and up-to-date list of relevant publications for further reading.
  • RÓNA TAS András: Hungarians and Europe in the Early Middle Ages
    • Translated by: Nicholas Bodóczky
    • Publishing House: CEU Press
    • Year of Publication: 1999
    • Number of Pages: 500
    • Lavishly illustrated, the book contains seventy five illustrations including fourty- nine historical maps and fourteen colour plates which visualize historical background of Hungary and introduces its early history to a broader readership. The early history of Hungarians is embedded into the history of Eurasia and special attention is given to the relationship of the Hungarians with the Khazars and the Bulghar-Turks.
  • SZABÓ N József: Hungarian Culture - Universal Culture Cultural Diplomatic Endeavours of Hungary, 1945-1948
    • Translated by: Tamás Vrankó
    • Publishing House: AKADÉMIAI Kiadó Rt.
    • Year of Publication: 1999
    • Number of Pages: 300
    • Prior to now there was no serious domestic or international research into the topic discussed in the book. As a result of József N.Szabó’s extensive work, a synthesis has been produced that highlights the universal nature of the culture of the world from a particularly Hungarian point of view. The information available from the period of history analyzed by the author (1945-48) is scarce and ideologically heavily biased. As a result of a careful examination of the documents and other resources a work has been produced that is indispensable in higher education, foreign diplomacy, and it is also a useful and interesting work to all those dealing with the history of civilization and education. One of the major purposes of the author’s book is to show what factors contributed to the increased significance of Hungarian cultural diplomacy. From the analysis it is learnt that Hungarian cultural diplomacy had an outstanding importance after both World Wars. In certain cases only the universal nature of culture made it possible for Hungary to break out of international isolation and to modernize the country. The structure of the book informs the reader about Hungary’s connections with other nations, and the order followed in the book is at the same time the order of priorities of Hungarian cultural diplomacy after the war. The book is complemented by a rich list of sources and notes that offer a good orientation to the topic discussed in the book, which also contains summaries in French and German. As József N.Szabó’s book fills a gap in the history of Hungarian culture and education, it is heartily recommended to all those interested in the topic.
  • The faces of the City. Studies. THE SZÉCHENYI CHAIN BRIDGE AND ADAM CLARK, Hajós Géza
    • Translated by: Ákos Farkas, Orsolya Frank, and Rachel Hideg
    • Publishing House: Sík Kiadó
    • Year of Publication: 1999
    • Number of Pages: 200
    • In 1999 the Chain Bridge in Budapest, the first permanent and the most beautiful bridge of the city, became 150 years old. This volume contains essays in cultural, art and technological history, all devoted to the conditions under which the Chain Bridge was built and to the completed work of Adam Clark, a Scotsman turned Hungarian. Szilvia Holló describes earlier attempts at constructing a bridge on the Danube, and the part played by Count Széchenyi before passing the Bridge Act. Nichols Parsons examines the intellectual and cultural exchanges between Great Britain and Central-Eastern Europe at that time, Judit Bródy writes on Tierney Clark the famous English bridge-designer. Paul Stirton’s essay is about the enterprising spirit of Clark and some of his contemporaries, Annamária Vígh draws a portrait of Clark, quoting amply from his letters written to his parents. Imre Gáll gives us a stage-by-stage account of the history of the construction of the bridge, and István Bibó a laudation of the bridge as architectural creation, Júlia Szabó discusses representations of the Bridge in fine arts.
  • A COMPANION TO HUNGARIAN STUDIES, Kósa László
    • Translated by: Vera Gáthy, Dezso Bánki and Thomas Cooper
    • Publishing House: AKADÉMIAI Kiadó Rt.
    • Year of Publication: 1999
    • Number of Pages: 500
    • Contents: The Hungarian Language by Jeno Kiss and Gábor Tolcsvai Nagy; History of Hungary by András Gergely; Literature and Arts from the Beginnings to the 18th Century by Péter Koszeghy, Literature and Arts from the Beginning of the 18th Century until Today by Mihály Szegedy Maszák; Etnography and Folklore by László Kósa and Ágnes Szemerkényi) The book was written with the purpose of giving a comprehensive presentation of Hungarian studies and of offering an introduction to those who wish to become acquainted with the subject more profoundly, or even consider it for graduate studies.
  • HISTORY OF THE HUNGARIAN PARLIAMENT, Mezey Barna
    • Publishing House: OSIRIS Kiadó
    • Year of Publication: 1999
    • Number of Pages: 300
    • The Parliament is a permanent participant of the more than 1000-year-old Hungarian State. At the beginning, the Parliament was the decision-making organ of the nomad state, later became the nobles’ assembly of the young Christian state, in the era of the feudal dualism it became the most important stage of the division of powers between the land (regnum) and the king (rex). Regarding the centuries under the Habsburg dynasty, the fight for constitutional independence was the most important aim of the Hungarian estates: the Parliament became the protector of the estate rights and the traditional Hungarian constitutional system. In 1848, the representatives of the Parliament in a unique way in Hungarian history refused their privileges and elaborated the Hungarian bourgeois Constitution (the so-called Acts of April). Since that time, apart from dictatorial periods the Austrian dictatorship 1849 - 1867 after the suppression of the 1848 - 1849 revolution, the firs attempt at a Soviet-type state in 1919, the Nazi state under German occupation in 1944, and the Communist regime between 1948 and 1989 the Parliament has had key-role in the Hungarian state life and parliamentarianism. The illustrated book, History of the Hungarian Parliament introduces the 1000-year-old institution: the history, the structure, the procedures, the acts and the documents of the Hungarian Parliament. The pictures illustrate events, places, buildings, plenary sessions and significant decisions of the parliamentary assemblies.
  • A CULTURAL HISTORY OF HUNGARY, Ryan Christopher
    • Translated by: Tünde Vajda
    • Publishing House: CORVINA Kiadó
    • Year of Publication: 1999
    • Number of Pages: 480
    • The authors, historians, literary historians, archeologists and ethnographers, eminent researchers in their field, provide a comprehensive overview of the history of Hungarian culture. The first volume of the two-volume work traces the culture of the Magyars from their centuries-long history in the Carphatian Basin until the end of the 18th century. The various chapters of the volume provide a picture of the great historical periods and stylistic trends, but without limiting themselves to culture (the arts, education and science) in favour of including a discussion of lifestyle, mentality and the changing relationship of man and nature through time, including a discussion of health and the individual.
  • GESTA Hungarorum. The Deeds of the Hungarians by Simon of Kéza (XI. century), Veszprémi László, Schaer Frank
    • Translated by: Veszprémi László
    • Publishing House: CEU Press
    • Year of Publication: 1999
    • Number of Pages: 236
    • Simon of Kéza was a court cleric of the Hungarian King, Ladislas IV (1272-1290). He travelled extensively in Italy, France and Germany and culled the epic and poetic material from a broad range of readings. Written between 1282 and 1285, the Gesta Hungarorum is an ingenious and imaginative historical fiction of prehistory, medieval history and contemporary social history. The author divides Hungarian history into two periods: Hunnish-Hungarian prehistory and Hungarian history, giving a division which persisted in Hungary up to the beginning of modern historiography. Simon Kéza provides a vivid retelling of the well known Atilla stories, using such lively prose as the battle lasted for 15 days on end, Csaba’s army received such a crushing defeat that very few of the Huns or the sons of Attila survived, the river Danube from Sicambria as far as the city of Potentia was swollen with blood and for several days neither men nor animals could drink water."

 

 

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