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Hungarian History In North American Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

N. F. DreisziGer
Affiliation:
The Royal Military College Of Canada, KiNgston, ONTARIO

Abstract

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Type
Review Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

1 Magyar töréneti bibliogràfia 1825–1867 [Hungarian historical bibliography, 1825–1867] (Budapest, 1950–9)Google Scholar. For a brief discussion of this and other Hungarian bibliographies see Wagner, 's Hungarian contributions... pp. 110 fGoogle Scholar. North America's most honoured bibliography of Hungarian history (and other disciplines), is Bako's, ElemerGuide to Hungarian studies, 2 vols. (Stanford, 1973)Google Scholar. Another massive bibliography is Telek's, J.History of Hungary and Hungarians, 1848–1977: a select bibliography (Toronto: by the compiler, 1975–7), 2 volsGoogle Scholar. The second volume of this work contains 9,374 entries; it is available from the University of Toronto Bookstores. A recent, general bibliography of Hungary is Kabdebo's, ThomasHungary (Oxford, England, and Santa Barbara, California, 1980)Google Scholar.

2 Hungary's most prestigious historical periodicals are: Ada Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, Szàzadok [Centuries], and Történelmi Szemle [Historical Review]. Ada Historica is a quarterly which offers studies, reviews and communications in the major European languages; Szàzadok is a bulky bi-monthly periodical in Hungarian, while the Szemle is a quarterly. There are other journals devoted to specialized fields such as art history, military history and party history. Many interdisciplinary journals often also print historical studies. Two of these are published in English: the Menu Hungarian Quarterly and Hungarian Studies in English. The most respected academic publisher is Adakémiai Kiadò, but other publishing houses such as Kossuth Könyvkiadò, Zrìnyi Katonai Kiadò and Corvina Books, also regularly publish scholarly historical works.

3 A felszabadulàs utàni étizedek magyar törteneUrdsa. Rövid àttekintés [Hungarian historical writings of the post-liberation decades: a brief survey]; special issue of Szàzadok[Centuries] cxiv, no. 1 (January-February 1980).

4 The obivious exception that comes to mind is Oscar Jaszi, the noted Hungarian émigré scholar and publicist, and the author of well-known books on the Hungarian revolutions of 1918–19 and the dissolution of the Habsburg monarchy.

5 R. W. and Hugh Seton-Watson, and C. A. Macartney. Until his death a few years ago, Macartney was probably the most respected historian of Hungary living in the West.

6 Vardy, Steven Bela, ‘Hungarian studies at American and Canadian universities’, Canadian-American Review of Hungarian Studies, 11, 2 (fall 1975), 91121 (particularly pp. 95 and no).Google Scholar

7 The A.A.S.H.H.'s founders are known to have been Professors Bela K. Kiraly, Peter Pastor, Peter Sugar and S. B. Vardy. Chairmen of the association to date have been P. Sugar, G. Barany, R. J. Rath, J. Bak, E. S. Balogh, T. L. Sakmyster, I. Deak and B. K. Kiraly.

8 This journal is distributed by the University of Toronto Press. At present it is undergoing a reorganization, including the transfer of its editorial headquarters from this reviewer's office to the University of Toronto's recently established chair of Hungarian studies.

9 For my more detailed survey of the contents and merits of this book see the Canadian Journal of History, xvi, 2 (April 1981), 181–3.Google Scholar

10 Part of the explanation for this lies in the fact that much of this history is written by North American political scientists. Kovrig himself is one of these. Some of the others are Ferenc Vali, Charles Gati, Ivan Volgyes, Andrew Janos, Andrew Gyorgy, Rudolph Tokes, Paul Zinner and Janos Radvanyi.

An accurate list of North American students of Hungarian political and diplomatic history would be difficult to compile. Some of the older, more prominent members of this group are mentioned by Wagner (pp. 112 f.). Most past chairmen of the A.A.S.H.H. also belong to this category (see note 7 above). Missing from both of these lists are such quite well-known scholars as Laszlo Deme, Stephen D. Kertesz, Peter Pastor, Denis Sinor, Thomas Spira and L. C. Tihany.

11 Barany, George, Stephen Széchenyi and the awakening of Hungarian nationalism, 1791–1841(Princeton, 1968)Google Scholar. A work of more limited scope is Body's, PaulJoseph Eötvös and the modernization of Hungary, 1840–1870(Philadelphia, 1972)Google Scholar. Also, Kiraly, Bela K., Ferenc Deàk(Boston, 1975)Google Scholar. There are other, partly biographical works, one of which is Tokes, RuldolphBéla Kun and the Hungarian Soviet Republic(New York, 1967).Google Scholar

12 Besides Wagner, the people who have published on historiography include Stephen Borsody, Thomas Szendrey and S. B. Vardy. The best known North American work on the subject is the latter's Modem Hungarian historiography (Boulder, Colorado, 1976)Google Scholar. In literary history, several works have been published in the Twayne World's Authors series. In the history of education the most prominent authors have been Astrik Gabriel and one of his students, Laszlo Domonkos. For samples of the latter's works see his State of education in Hungary on the eve of the battle of Mohàcs (1526)’ in the Canadian-American Review of Hungarian Studies, ii, 1 (spring 1975), 320Google Scholar; and Jànos Vitéz, the father of Hungarian humanism, 1408–1472’, New Hungarian Quarterly, xx (summer 1979), 142–50.Google Scholar

13 Among others by Lee Congdon, George Bisztray, Ivan Sanders and Mary Gluck. For articles by the first three of these scholars see the Canadian-American Review of Hungarian Studies ii, 2 (fall 1975)Google Scholar, iii, 1 (spring 1976) and iv, 1 (spring 1977) respectively. Gluck's most prominent study to date is Politics versus culture: radicalism and the Lukacs circle in turn of the century Hungary’, East European Quarterly, xiv, 2 (June 1980), 129–53.Google Scholar

14 Scott M. Eddie and, to a lesser extent, John Komlos. For one of Eddie's articles see his The terms and patterns of Hungarian foreign trade, 1882–1913’, Journal of Economic History, xxxvii, 2 (June 1977), 329–58.Google Scholar

15 One well-known work touching on many aspects of social history is Bela Kiraly's, K.Hungary in the late eighteenth century: the decline of enlightened despotism (New York and London, 1969)Google Scholar. An excellent excursion into military history is Ingrao's, Charles W. ‘Guerrilla warfare in early modern Europe: the Kuruc war (1703–1711)’, in Kiraly, B. K. and Rothenberg, G. E. (eds.), War and society in East Central Europe, 1, (New York, 1979), 4865.Google Scholar

16 Emil Lengyel has published a highly readablebut under-researched history of Hungarians in the United States: Americans from Hungary (Philadelphia and New York, 1948)Google Scholar. John Kosa has written a sociological study: Land of choice: Hungarians in Canada (Toronto, 1957)Google Scholar. Leslie Konnyu has published a few booklets on Hungarians in the United States. See, for example, his Hungarians in the U.S.A.: an immigration study (St Louis, 1967)Google Scholar. Susan M. Papp has very recently completed a study of the Hungarians of Cleveland: Hungarian Americans and their communities of Cleveland (Cleveland, 1981)Google Scholar. Up-to-date comprehensive surveys are lacking, but there are two which should do much to remedy this hiatus very shortly: S. B. Vardy's history of the Magyars in the United States, and the present reviewer's (with M. L. Kovacs et al.) history of Hungarians in Canada (expected in 1982 from McClelland and Stewart Publishers).

Ethnic and minority problems in Hungary are also a somewhat neglected field in North America, with the exception of the subject of the Jews. On the latter see Barany, George, ‘Magyar Jew or Jewish Magyar’, Canadian-American Slavic Studies, vii, 1 (spring 1974), 144Google Scholar; also McCagg, William O., Jewish nobles and geniuses in modern Hungary (Boulder, Colorado, 1972).Google Scholar

17 Two years ago a new biography of Bela Kun was published in Hungary by a prominent party historian, György Borsànyi: Kun Béla egypolitikai (éetrajz [Béla Kun: a political biography]) (Budapest, 1979). After its appearance the work was withdrawn from public circulation. Apparently the author had been too candid and earned the displeasure of higher-ups in the communist hierarchy. A review of Borsanyi's book by Peter Gosztony of the Swiss East European Library, appears in the spring 1982 issue of the Canadian-American Review of Hungarian Studies.

18 This is especially true of earlier works published in Hungary on this subject. The most recent Hungarian study of Hungary's inter-war foreign policies is a very competent and quite objective work, yet it does not share Sakmyster's overall conclusions. See Juhàsz, Gyula, Hungarian foreign policy, 1919–1945 (Budapest, 1979), especially chapter 3.Google Scholar

19 Illustrative of this fact is the lengthy and quite favourable review Deak's book received in Szàzadok, cxiv (1980), 1048–53.Google Scholar

20 Vardy, ‘Hungarian studies’, pp. 101–3, 112.

21 Ibid.. p. 116.