Bártfay, Arthur A.

Independent scholar

Louis Kossuth's Life Story & 1100 Years of Hungarian History - in 20 Minutes [withdrawn]

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
This paper succinctly traces Lajos Kossuth's life story from the 1848 freedom fight, his vision for a federal democracy in Hungary, his American visit & legacy, to his death at age 91 in 1894. It also blends some key events in Hungarian history from the entrance of Chief Arpad into central Europe in 896, the creation of Austria-Hungary in 1867, WW I & the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, the Communist period, to EU membership in 2004.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Arthur Allan Bartfay graduated from Central High School in Flint, Michigan; earned a BA and MA from Michigan State University in East Lansing. He served on the faculties of Northern Illinois University in DeKalb and Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant. Arthur earned ABD credits at The Ohio State University in Columbus and, after 25 years, retired from the staff of The Ohio State University.




Beszedits, Stephen

Independent Scholar

The Kossuth Sisters and Their Families in America

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
A most memorable event in the history of the United States was the visit of Lajos Kossuth, leader of Hungary during the 1848-49 War of Liberation against the ruling Hapsburg dynasty. The renowned patriot toured the country as “the nation’s guest” from December 1851 to July 1852 seeking support to continue the struggle. He addressed vast crowds, spoke at banquets hosted by sundry groups, and met many of America’s leading public figures. Everyone was deeply impressed by his demeanor and sincerity as well as his superb command of the English language and spellbinding oratory. Popular enthusiasm, however, didn’t translate into any form of official help and a disappointed Kossuth returned to Europe, settling in England.

Numerous plaques and statues throughout the land recall Kossuth’s seven-month sojourn. He has also been honored by the U.S. Post Office; he is one of the individuals pictured in the Champion of Liberty series. Kossuth’s every step in America was closely followed by the press and interest in his activities did not cease with his departure. There is no shortage of information on Kossuth; biographies abound and he appears prominently in innumerable books.

While Kossuth did not remain in the United States, three of his sisters – Zsuzsa, Lujza and Emilia – and their families became permanent residents. Unlike Kossuth who has been accorded massive publicity, their lives have been chronicled far less. Even Hungarians and Hungarian-Americans well-versed with Kossuth and his deeds are often surprised to learn about these sisters or know very little about them. Indeed, several Hungarian writers refer to Kossuth’s sisters as his "nővérei", whereas in fact they were all younger than him and hence should be denoted as his "hugai".

Although their arrival in America was duly reported and they were given a cordial welcome, it was without the fanfare lavished upon Kossuth. Despite the aid rendered by generous Americans, the three sisters experienced great difficulties in adjusting to the new homeland and establishing a secure foothold. Their initial years in New York City were fraught with hardships and marred by a series of misfortunes and tragedies. The children – totaling nine – grew up Americanized but retained a strong awareness of their Hungarian heritage. Five of the nephews participated in the Civil War. Because four of them were officers in the so-called colored regiments, their names have been inscribed on the African-American Civil War memorial.

As years passed, the three families became dispersed, contact between family members diminished, and all of them lost touch with New York’s tiny Hungarian community. Consequently, a multitude of erroneous stories began to proliferate in the émigré folklore and literature, a phenomenon which persists to this very day. American commentaries have also contributed to the storehouse of incorrect statements.

The chief objective of this presentation is to give a succinct but thorough account of all members of the three Kossuth families. Facts employed to buttress the narrative were drawn from reliable sources after exhaustive research and careful assessment. The Kossuth sisters, like their illustrious brother, made considerable sacrifices for the sake of liberty and in behalf of their children. Their stories deserve to be told accurately.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Stephen Beszedits obtained his B.Sc. in chemical engineering from Columbia University and his master’s degree, also in engineering, from the University of Toronto. Long involved in historical topics, he has authored some fifty publications during the past decade about Hungarian-Americans and Hungarian-Canadians. Although his primary interest revolves around the participation of Hungarians in the American Civil War, he has also touched upon artists, musicians, physicians, architects and his celebrated grand-uncle, the writer Lajos Zilahy.




Biro, Ruth G.

Duquesne University

Hungarian Émigré Women Reveal Resiliency in Their Life Stories on the Holocaust: Overcoming Results of Persecution and Reestablishing Identity in the USA

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
Presentation emphasizes literature in English by Hungarian Jewish women who experienced the Holocaust, immigrated to the United States in the aftermath of WW II, and exhibited resiliency in their transcultural life journey. Women in this study were either hidden, protected by international passes or convert papers, relocated to ghettos and camps, or became displaced persons in the American Zone following the Holocaust. Their individual strengths, support garnered from earlier memories, and assistance from others helped these women achieve resiliency when rebuilding their lives in a new land.
From torn down elements on Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of self-actualization that the Holocaust destroyed, these women sought to reconstruct the decimated basic needs (physiological, safety and security, love and belonging, and esteem and self-esteem) and move on through growth levels of knowledge, aesthetics, and self-actualization --toward transcendence (assisting and mentoring others). Poignant and inspirational messages recall lost families, communities, and culture, reveal accomplishments in reestablishing themselves in transplanted locales, and attest to myriad contributions to families, schools, communities, professions, and Holocaust education centers.
In this study, research questions were posed, over twenty-five books were examined by women over age five, teenagers, or in their early twenties in the Holocaust, and a resiliency framework was developed to assess their success in the USA. These courageous women overcame the consequences of Holocaust persecutions through remembrance, memorialization, and celebration and demonstrated a resiliency that ultimately denied the perpetrators of the Holocaust a victory.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Ruth G. Biro holds a B.A. in political science and secondary education from Chatham College, an MLS in K-12 librarianship and international comparative librarianship, and Ph.D. in higher education curriculum from the University of Pittsburgh. Now retired from Duquesne University, she taught courses in children’s and adolescent literature, multicultural and international literature, cultural diversity, intercultural education, and Holocaust perspectives, among others. She was curriculum coordinator for the AHEA Ethnic Heritage Studies Project in 1980-1981. She co-authored the Hungarian –English Picture Dictionary for Young Americans with Miklós Kontra and Zsófia Radnai (Tankönyvkiadó, 1989.) In 1990 and 1991 she directed two Fulbright –Hays Group Projects to Hungary for the US Department of Education. Dr. Biro researches, presents, and publishes on children’s and young adult literature, Righteous Gentiles, Raoul Wallenberg, youth resistance against the Nazis, Hungarian Holocaust literature by women in the USA, and other Hungarian and Hungarian-American topics.




Bock, Julia - Library Science

Long Island University

The Hungarian Content in Virtual Access

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
In my presentation I will talk about electronic access of Hungarian content and how does it change the usage of the library. Accessing electronic sources from all over the world makes possible to build libraries without walls and eliminates borders.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Julia Bock was born in Budapest, Hungary. She has been working at Long Island University since September 2005. She completed her studies at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest with master’s degrees in Library Science and History and a Ph.D. in History. Her dissertation dealt with the Minority Problem in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. She worked as a research librarian at the Library of Parliament in Budapest. In the United States she received an MLS degree from Columbia University’s School of Library Science. She held various positions, first with the Special Collection of International Law at NYU’s Law Library as a Document Librarian, than with the Technical Services Department. In 1988 she started to work at the Bakhmeteff Archive at Columbia University as an Assistant Archivist. From 1989 to1994 she worked as a technical service librarian for a major law firm in New York. In 1994 became the Head Librarian of the Leo Baeck Institute, a German Jewish research collection. From 1998 to 2004 was the Head of the Library at the Museum of Jewish Heritage and finally in 2005 she started to work as an Acquisition Librarian at Long Island University Brooklyn Campus. She participated in various professional conferences and held several lectures on wide range of subjects, including history, library software and special collection related matters and published articles and bibliographies. Dr. Bock co-authored two books and wrote several articles.





Borgos, Anna

Hungarian Academy of Sciences Research Institute for Psychology

Displaced Gardens: The Friendship of Anna Lesznai and Edit Gyömrői in Emigration

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
Anna Lesznai met Edit Gyömrői in 1918, at the gatherings of the Sunday Circle, and their friendship lasted till the end of Lesznai’s life, despite the great geographical distance between them. In my lecture I explore the traces of their friendship and try to present some parallels and differences in their life course, circumstances and character. Lesznai and Gyömrői belonged to roughly the same generation, and they came from a more or less similar family background – assimilated Jewish middle-class/landowner families. They both came into contact and were active participants of nearly all intellectual and artistic circles of the age. Gyömrői’s career related to psychoanalysis (among many other activities), Lesznai worked in the field of literature and art. (They also wrote about each other’s works.)
The political circumstances forced both of them (especially Gyömrői) to change their places of living several times. Their 1919 emigration to Vienna and their most significant 1939 overseas emigration to the United States/Ceylon was the consequence of political and racial persecution concerned both of them. Her language, poetic and visual world, and social relationships kept especially Lesznai strongly attached to Hungary. Although Gyömrői seemed to adapt herself to the different environments and life conditions more easily, the loss of roots and language was a constant problem and pain for her, too. Their friendship represents the “brave old world” for them above all: the social and intellectual environment that both of them abandoned.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Anna Borgos (1973) psychologist, women’s historian. She is a fellow at the Research Institute for Psychology, Budapest. She holds a PhD in psychology from the University of Pécs. Her research field is situated at the borderland of psychoanalysis, gender studies and literary history; she has been exploring and publishing studies on Hungarian women intellectuals of the early 20th century. She is also engaged in feminist and LGBT history and activism. Her book, Portrék a Másikról (Portraits of the Other) came out in 2007. She published a monograph with Judit Szilágyi in 2011: Nőírók és írónők. Irodalmi és női szerepek a Nyugatban (Women writers and poetesses. Literary and women’s roles in Nyugat).




Clark, Sylvia Csűrös; Ward, Judit Hajnal; Stewart, Molly

Rutgers University, Center of Alcohol Studies

56ers 56 Years Later: The Hungarian Scholar Program at Rutgers University

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
The President's Committee for Hungarian Refugee Relief facilitated the settlement of over 30,000 Hungarian refugees in the United States, who fled the country after the 1956 Revolution. Among them was a small group of promising scholars and graduate students, who were selected to participate in an intensive language immersion program organized at Rutgers University upon the initiation of the National Academy of Sciences in January 1957. Based on the documents from the papers of Rev. Bradford Abernethy, University Chaplain and Program Director, the authors explore the story of these talented scientists while also trying to discover what happened to them in the following 56 years. The authors utilize a variety of resources to retrieve information ranging from traditional archival records to modern social networking applications. Search techniques in multicultural setting as well as methods and best practices to evaluate online information are also discussed. The presentation is recommended to audiences interested in applying innovations of information science when creating a chronological and contextual history of events, however it also aims to contribute to the history of Hungarian immigrants after 1956.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Sylvia Csuros Clark is an Associate Professor of Marketing at St. John's Unversity's Tobin College of Business on Staten Island. She holds a Ph.D. in Consumer Behavior from CUNY, an M.B.A. in Quantitative Analysis from New York University, and a B.B.A. summa cum laude from Baruch College. She is also an alumna of the Hungarian Studies program at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, having fulfilled the requirements for a Hungarian minor and earned a certificate in Hungarian language. She passed the Hungarian State Proficiency Examination Advanced Level, certifying native proficiency of the educated speaker. Dr. Clark has taught a menu of courses in marketing over a thirty-year span, primarily at the upper-level undergraduate and master's levels. Her research interests cover such diverse areas as cognitive age, travel marketing, fashion marketing, teaching/learning style constructs, and aspects of Hungarian culture.

Judit Hajnal Ward is an information professional at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. She holds a doctoral degree in linguistics from the University of Debrecen, Hungary, and a Master’s in Library and Information Science from Rutgers. Her areas of specialization include library and information science. digital libraries, medical communication and informatics. She taught courses in linguistics, foreign languages and medical communication at the University of Debrecen before joining Rutgers as visiting professor of Hungarian Studies. Her research interests include human information behavior, cross-cultural and interdisciplinary research methods, evaluation of information in the electronic environment, and Hungarian Studies in the United States. Currently she is the Director of Information Services of the Center of Alcohol Studies and Adjunct Faculty at the School of Communication and Information. She is also the North American Director of the European Consortium for the Certificate of Attainment in Modern Languages.

Molly Stewart is a part time reference librarian at the Center of Alcohol Studies Library, Rutgers University. Additionally, she works part time as an adult services librarian at Bridgewater Public Library. Prior to completing her MLIS at Rutgers University, she received a BA in Sociology from Douglass College, Rutgers University. During her time at CASL she has participated in several research projects and conference presentations including a longitudinal bibliometric study, profiling researchers, and creating user centered library applications for scholarly research.




Corbett, Joyce Berczik

Mingei International Museum

Eva Zeisel: A Tourist in Life

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
On December 30, 2011, ceramics designer Eva Zeisel passed away at the august age of 105. Her amazing career spanned most of the 20th century and continued into the 21st. Her status as a designer and her artistic influence is unquestionable. Her personal story as a citizen of the world through the exigencies of history is equally compelling.
Eva Polanyi Stricker was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1906 into an affluent, intellectual family. An unconventional spirit from early on, she learned the craft of pottery making by joining the local potters’ guild. Her talent and her sense of adventure took her to Berlin in the early 1930’s. There she designed Bauhaus-influenced designs for commercial production. In 1932 she made an adventuresome visit to Russia. Surprisingly finding employment there, she eventually became official Director of the China and Glass Industry in Moscow. She was falsely arrested in 1936 in a Stalinist purge, was imprisoned for 16 months, then was suddenly released. She returned to Vienna, but was forced to flee in advance of the Nazi occupation. She left for England, married Hans Zeisel, and emigrated to the United States.
Arriving in New York in 1938, Eva began life anew. She successfully found freelance work designing china, had a groundbreaking exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, and was the director of the industrial design curriculum at Pratt Institute. Her elegant, always contemporary designs made her a design icon and her reputation only increased with time. Eva Zeisel always looked to the future, and never mourned the past. She survived the ordeals of fate, observing life dispassionately with grace, charm and humor, as a perpetual tourist in life.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Joyce Berczik Corbett (MFA University of Washington, Seattle; Fine Art and Art History). is a California based museum consultant, curator and independent scholar, with research specializing in Central and Eastern European folk art, costume and textiles. She was curator for 2010-11 exhibition “Between East and West: Folk Art Treasures of Romania”“, “Hungarian Folk Magic: the Art of Joseph Domjan”, 2008, Mingei International Museum, San Diego, CA and “Eva Zeisel: Extraordinary Designer at 100”, Mingei International Museum, San Diego, 2006-07, and Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles, CA, 2007. She is a member of the International Advisory Board, Mingei International Museum, San Diego, CA, and Founder of the Ethnic Textile Council, San Diego. She chairs the Mid-Century Modern Section, Far West Popular Culture/American Culture Association, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Fulbright Scholar, Hungary, Slovak Republic IREX Research Scholar, Romania, Hungary.





Érdy, Miklós

Independent Researcher

A magyarság keleti eredete és hun kapcsolata

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
A MAGYARSÁG KELETI EREDETE ÉS HUN KAPCSOLATA
[The Magyars: Their Eastern Origin and Hunnic Connection] Budapest, Kairosz Kiadó, 2010 (With English Table of Contents) 462 oldal

Vajon léteznek-e új bizonyítékok, amelyek választ adnának arra hogy helyes irányban kereste-e a magyarok keleti eredetét Kőrösi Csoma Sándor, Szentkatolnai Bálint Gábor és a többi kutató?

A szerző aki már számos írással gazdagította a magyar őstörténet irodalmát, az utóbbi évek során végzett nem publikált helyszíni kutatómunkájának gazdag eredményét hozza most nyilvánosságra. A vizsgált területeket négy nagy folyó szeli át: a Duna, a Kur folyó a Dél-Kaukázusban, a Jenyiszej Ázsia közepén és a Sárga Folyó észak-Kínában, valójában az egész Eurázsia. Elérte az ősi Khorezmet, Szamarkandot, Buharát, az ujgurok lakhelyét Kelet Turkesztánt, Ordos-pusztát és Mongóliát. Tíz különálló szakterületet mutat be, köztük van a
- díszítőművészet a tulipánnal
- öltözködés, néprajz : ködmön és szűr
- tarsolylemezeink
- a népzene Bartók végkövetkeztetésével
- modern genetika
- a magyar és hun lovastemetkezések azonossága.
- az arany vagy ezüstlemezes szemfedök használata.

Az így nyert eredményekből a lelőhelyek térképeit elkészítette, majd a "térkép rétegezés elvét" használva (az átlapoló közös területeket keresve) közelítette meg származásunk legvalószínűbb területét. Új felismerés az, hogy a leletek két csoportja: közülük egyik a részleges lovastemetkezés, mely azonos a hunokéval, és a másik, a magyarokra a baskir (=főfarkas) népelnevezés használata a kínai, arab és perzsa forrásokban bennünket a hunokhoz kötnek (14. és 21. fejezet). Ezek eddig ismeretlen régészeti és írott adatok.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Érdy Miklós független kutató, a korai Közép-Ázsia lovasnomád kultúráival foglalkozik. Keleti tanulmányait jól segitik korábbi iskolái, így kémiai PhD -je a hun bronzüstök vizsgálatánál hasznos, míg fogorvosi doktorátusa, DDS, a koponyák és más csontok kiértékelését segíti. 1990- és 1999-ben a HARVARD Egyetem kétszer hívta meg hogy hun régészeti eredményeiről előadást tartson a Belső-Ázsiai Committee sorozatában. Érdynek harmincon felüli tudományos közleménye van az eurázsiai hunokról két könyve mellett és számos nemzetközi konferencián adott elő (Oroszorszag, US, Kína, Kazahstan, Törökország,Olaszország, Magyarország.) Legutóbb a Mongol Akadémia hívta meg 2005-ben. Régészeti eredményeiből a térkép rétegezés elvét használva keresi a több térképen azonos átlapoló területeket vizsgálva a magyarság őshazájának legvalószínübb térségét.





Eshbach, Robert W.

University of New Hampshire

The Violinist and the Exiles of 1849: The Case of Ede Reményi

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
In 1849, after the Hungarian military surrender to the combined forces of Russia and Austria, a small group of exiles from Komárom under the leadership of Count Lajos Ujházy arrived in the United States. They were accompanied by a gifted young Hungarian-Jewish violinist named Ede Reményi, who, prior to the surrender at Világos, had been an aide-de-camp to General Görgey. The Americans greeted the exiles with extraordinary warmth as their country’s equivalent of America’s founding fathers. New Yorkers greeted them at the boats, and took them into their homes. As Lajos Kossuth’s representative, Ujházy passionately argued the Hungarian cause to the large throngs that greeted the exiles wherever they went, and he met with President Zachary Taylor in the White House to try to secure Kossuth’s release from detainment in Turkey. Throughout their sojourn, the exiles were aided by Reményi, who raised significant sums of money with a series of high-profile benefit concerts in New York, Philadelphia and elsewhere. The following year, Kossuth was released from detention and journeyed to America. Ujházy and his fellow exiles remained in the US, eventually founding the settlement of New Buda in Decatur County, Iowa. Reményi returned to Europe, where he remained active in the Hungarian resistance, perhaps as a spy.
Ede Reményi has peen poorly treated by history. Once a famous concert violinist, he is now known principally for his discovery of a young Hamburg piano teacher named Johannes Brahms. Reményi’s concert tour with Brahms in 1853 paved the way for Brahms’s subsequent “discovery” by Joseph Joachim, Franz Liszt, and, most famously, by Robert Schumann. Reményi’s relationship with Brahms ended badly, with mutual recriminations. As a result, Brahms’s biographers have almost universally dismissed Reményi as being unreliable, of poor character, and a musical charlatan. But is this a true picture? Some of the most respected Brahms biographers continue to write that Reményi never traveled to the United States in 1849, despite easily obtainable proof to the contrary. Slanders of Reményi’s character have been repeated uncritically for more than a century. Reményi was a colorful, flamboyant figure, an enthusiastic Magyar, who spent his entire life and career promoting Hungarian culture in the most far-flung corners of the world. Through his embrace of Hungarian folk and national music, he can be considered an early example of the “crossover artist.” Who was the real Ede Reményi, and what was his true contribution to the cause of Hungarian nationalism? This paper will attempt to establish some of the facts of his early life.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Violinist, conductor, and historian Robert Whitehouse Eshbach is an honors graduate of Yale University (BA), where he majored in music history and minored in German literature. He studied violin at the Vienna Conservatory (now the Konservatorium Wien Privatuniversität) with Walter Barylli, concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic and State Opera Orchestras, and earned a Master of Music degree in violin at New England Conservatory, studying with Eric Rosenblith. His recent publications and invited papers have focused on nineteenth-century musicians: Joachim, Brahms, Schumann, Reinecke, and Wilhelmine Norman-Neruda (Lady Hallé). His most recent article, “Joachim’s Youth — Joachim’s Jewishness,” is published in the current (Winter 2011) issue of The Musical Quarterly. Eshbach is an associate professor of music at the University of New Hampshire.






Fábián, Gyöngyi

Pannon University, Veszprém

Developing Students’ Critical Thinking in Hungarian Schools [withdrawn]

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Advanced thinking in general, and more specifically, advanced critical thinking appears to be one of the crucial competencies in the survival of the invididual among the paraphernalia of ideas, values and conceptions in our modern times.
Recent changes in the social, cultural and political environment within Hungary have triggered a boost in studies in foreign languages at all levels of the education system. Besides the obvious potentials of the foreign language classroom, which is the improvement of the students’ communicative competencies and the knowledge of the foreign culture, the presentation suggests that education in the foreign language is one of the domains providing excellent possibilities for the improvement of the critical thinking of learners.
First, the presentation intends to reveal some typical features of the educational contexts and practices with a special focus on the current situation of developing the critical thinking of students in Hungary. It will do so through presenting the results of a small scale research based on the distinctive features of individualist and collectivist cultures, a theory of an anthropological character developed by Hofstede (1986). Furthermore, the crucial features of educational environments facilitating beneficial changes in students’ thinking processes will be discussed.
In addition, an insight into the potentials of foreign language encounters in developing critical thinking will be provided through the portray of the ‘intercultural speaker’ (Byram 1997) in order to emphasize the new role and the responsiblities of education in the foreign language in Hungarian schools.
Finally, the short-term and long-term benefits of the above educational efforts will be highlighted.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Gyöngyi Fábián is EFL teacher and teacher trainer, lecturer at the University of Pannonia, Hungary. She holds a Ph.D. in Education (Foreign Language Teaching) from the University of Pannonia. Since 1990, she has been teaching English as a Foreign Language at all ages and levels at various higher education institutions in Hungary. Since 1995 she has been coordinating novice teachers’ teaching practices and conducting courses in various aspects of foreign language teaching methodology as well as of general education.
Her field of research is at the cross section of psychology, sociology and education; recently she has been engaged in exploring the social aspects of learning and teaching. Her publication accomplishments include EFL course materials, tests and research into teacher role. She has read papers at national and international conferences. Currently she is materials developer at Pannon Language Examination Center and the institutional head of the board coordinating the studies of disadvantaged students at Pannon University.





Fenyő, Mario

Bowie Sate University, Maryland

Hungarians in Africa

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
This paper is a selective study of outstanding Hungarian travelers who have crossed borders, geographically and figuratively speaking, into the African continent. There is considerable distance between Hungary, their homeland, and Africa, if we take culture and civilization into consideration. Africans are not neighbors, except maybe in a spiritual sense.

My selection would include the careers of Moritz Benyovszky, Laszlo Magyar and Emil Torday from the 18th and 19th centuries. These names are vaguely familiar to many Hungarians, but almost unknown to the world at large. They deserve better. Unlike their West European counterparts (Burton, Baker, Stanley, Brazza, Evans-Pritchard, but even the relatively liberal Livingstone and Leo Frobenius), they have distinguished themselves by their receptive and respectful attitude toward Africans in the Congo, in Angola, in Madagascar in particular. Two of the three travelers became African rulers or chiefs, not by dint of force, but by earning the friendship of the native population. The third, Torday, had to abandon Africa because of a hunting accident.

The three Hungarian travelers distinguished themselves in different fields. In addition to familiarization with cultures and languages, one became a self-taught anthropologist, an art collector, and a historian. Torday wrote grammars and compiled vocabularies in half a dozen African languages. It was only in 2011 that his contributions became amply recognized in Hungary proper, thanks to a scholarly expedition focusing on his legacy to the continent and the touring exhibition resulting from it.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Dr. Fenyo has been a fixture at Bowie State University since 1988. He represents the ethnic diversity of the institution in microcosm, having lived, worked, taught and studied in Europe (Eastern and Western), Africa (Nigeria, Sudan, Namibia), Asia (Korea), the Caribbean (Puerto Rico, Trinidad) and, of course, various regions of the United States. He has served as President of the Association of Third World Studies. Dr. Fenyo teaches world civilizations, history of the United States, history of Europe and, occasionally, African-American and Latin American history as well. He writes books, essays and articles on a variety of topics, but his favorite ones include the "Third World” (compared), and 20th /21st century East-Central Europe, particularly Hungarian history. He has the habit (some say the “bad habit”) of challenging and revising commonly accepted notions, seeking controversy, and getting it. He prefers asking questions to giving answers (mainly because he has too few of the latter). He would rather work in groups, as opposed to compete individually. He models himself on Thoreau, Neruda, Neto, Nkrumah, and many other peace-loving people. His favorite writers are those of the Nyugat generation.





Fodor, Andrew (András)

Independent Scholar

László Tisza Belonged to the Giants of Physics: Traveler, Researcher, Observer, and Major Contributor to 20th Century Science

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Most people, when asked to name a few giants of physics of the 20th century, they might name Edward Teller, Robert Oppenheimer, Werner Heisenberg, etc. If they are of Hungarian origin, they might add Eugene Wigner, John von Neuman, Leo Szilard, Theodore von Karman and Albert Szentgyorgyi (who actually was not a physicist). Laszlo Tisza career spanned almost all through the 20th century. He is not only witnessed the developments of physics at close hand and worked with many of the major figures, but he also made significant contributions on his own. As a young man, he grew up in Hungary, when at that time the country was the seat of science, culture and arts, the center of intellectual life. The 20th century was the golden age of physics, covering from the cosmos and the universe, down to the nano world of science and down to the subatomic particles. His travels and his career took him from Hungary to Germany, then back to Hungary, the Soviet Union , again back to Hungary, then to France and finally to the United States. His life reflected the cultural and intellectual life in Europe between the two world wars, the turmoils and the arising conflicts in that continent, which finally resulted in the 2nd World War. His major contributions to physics involved among them, the statistical analysis of thermodynamics, solving the mystery of super fluids and he also did work in the exciting area of quantum physics.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Andrew (András) Fodor, Independent Scholar, “Deep Sea” Consulting Engineer, left Hungary after his participation as a cadet, in the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. He has attended the University of California, Berkley on a WUS scholarship and received his engineering degree from the Polytechnic University of New-York in 1969. He has also received a degree and a certificate in mathematics and telecommunications (computer technology) from Columbia University and from Birbeck College, University of London. During his professional career, he was stationed in London, England as his base, for over 10 years, working in various positions from Principal Engineer to Chief Consultant. He has researched and designed, undersea-deep water structures, offshore oil and gas platforms and sea bed mining all over the world, concentrating on “sub-sea completion systems”, deep-sea seabed arrangements, structures and technologies. After his retirement, he continued to work as a consulting engineer, also he has returned to his basic interest, doing research on the history of science. In the last twenty five years, he has given engineering and history of science lectures at various engineering meetings, AHEA Conferences, a Bolyai Conference and others. His main interests are, the history of the 20th century physics, the history of technology and the new sciences, when art and science converge into one. Also, he is avid photographer and was given honorary mention at several photography exhibitions, during his stay in England. At the present, fulfilling his family’s literary traditions, he is working on a literary book, covering the 1956 revolution and the various seas and oceans around the world, where he has been working during his professional career. Andrew Fodor is a member of ASME, API, and NCIS (National Coalition of Independent Scholars).





Freifeld, Alice

University of Florida, Gainsville

The Chastened to the Unchastened Crowd; Crowd Politics from Kossuth to Orbán

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Just a couple of years ago the way you knew it was a holiday (like March 15) was the streets were empty. Families were afraid to take their children to potential violent events. This January the opposition brought out a huge crowd to protest the new Constitution and a few weeks later an even larger crowd collected to show their support for Viktor Orban. This paper will place the role of crowd politics (oppositional crowds as well as state-sponsored and official festivities) in its historical context from the 1848 revolution,through 1956 and 1989.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Alice Freifeld received her PhD (1992), M.A. and B.A. from University of California, Berkeley. She joined the University of Florida in 1994 after teaching at Wheaton College, University of New Hampshire-Durham, University of Connecticut-Storrs, University of Nebraska, and Transylvania University, Lexington, KY. Professor Freifeld has published Nationalism and the Crowd in Liberal Hungary, 1848-1914 (2000), which won the Barbara Jelavich Book Prize in 2001. She also coedited East Europe Reads Nietzsche with Peter Bergmann and Bernice Rosenthal (1998). She has published numerous articles and is currently working on a manuscript entitled Displaced Hungarian Jewry, 1945-48.




Fuchs, Márta

Drew School, San Francisco, CA

Hungarian Holocaust Legacy: A Daughter's Tribute to Her Father's Christian Rescuer

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Marta Fuchs was born in Hungary after the war to parents who survived the Holocaust. While her mother Ilona with two sisters lived through Auschwitz, Marta’s father Morton (Miksa) endured five years of forced labor battalions attached to the Hungarian Army in Russia. He survived as the only member of his family due to the courageous intervention of his last Commanding Officer, Zoltán Kubinyi, a devout Seventh Day Adventist who saved him and 100 other Hungarian Jewish men under his command. Unfortunately, Zoltán Kubinyi was taken as a POW by the liberating Russians, died a year later in a labor camp from typhus, was buried in an unmarked grave, and left behind a young wife and infant son.
This presentation will focus on the aftermath, the research and multigenerational impact of this extraordinary story of rescue and the recently published book, Legacy of Rescue: A Daughter's Tribute. Through Morton and Marta’s efforts, Zoltán Kubinyi was posthumously given the designation Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in Jerusalem in 1990. In a televised ceremony in Budapest in 1994, his son received the Certificate of Honor and medallion on behalf of his father.
The story of rescue came full circle in Summer 2011 when Marta and her brother took their children (all in their '20s) back to Hungary to meet the rescuer's family. The rescuer’s son, now in his late '60s, of course never knew his father. With his wife and granddaughters – two teenage girls who are the great granddaughters of the rescuer Zoltán Kubinyi -- Marta's family discussed the heroic actions of this man of compassion and courage none of them knew but who has made an indelible impact on all their lives.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Marta Fuchs was born in Budapest and lived with her family in Tokaj until they escaped to the U.S. in the wake of the ’56 Hungarian Revolution. She holds a BA in Linguistics and an MA in Library Science, both from UC Berkeley, and an MA in Clinical Psychology from JFK University in Orinda, CA. Marta is a professional librarian and Director of Library Services at Drew School in San Francisco, CA. She is also a licensed Marriage & Family Therapist in private practice in Albany, CA. With her brother Henry Fuchs she wrote the multigenerational extended family memoir, "Fragments of a Family: Remembering Hungary, the Holocaust, and Emigration to a New World" c1997). Her new book is "Legacy of Rescue: A Daughter’s Tribute" (c2011).




Fülemile, Ágnes

Hungarian Cultural Center, New York

Roads toward Extinction – Hungarian Diasporas around Cluj/Kolozsvár

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The ethnic and cultural map of Transylvania has often been likened to a mosaic with good reason. Nowadays more than half of the ethnic Hungarian population in Romania lives in a diaspora situation. The actual local variations of diaspora situations and the stations of the diasporization process together with the answers and strategies to meet the challenges posed by a diaspora situation on the community and the individual level are influenced by a great number of historical, demographic, social, cultural, and mental factors. The paper is based on the results of fieldwork and archival research which has been carried out by Ágnes Fülemile and Balázs Balogh in several rural settlements around the Kalotaszeg region and Cluj/Kolozsvár since 1991.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Ágnes Fülemile is currently the director of the Balassi Institute Hungarian Cultural Center, New York and is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Ethnology of Hungarian Academy of Sciences. She holds degrees in History of Art, History and Ethnography and Ph. D. in Ethnography from ELTE, Budapest. She has been György Ránki Chair of Hungarian Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington 2006-2009 and Fulbright scholar in 1992-1993 and 1999.




Gál, Noémi

U. of Marosvásárhely

The Hungarian Language in Transylvania: Diaspora Existence and the Possibilities of Revitalization

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The Hungarian Language in Transylvania: Diaspora Existence and the Possibilities of Revitalization

In my paper I aim to outline the present situation of the Hungarian language in Transylvania, the complexities of language shift and maintenance, as well as the possibilities of revitalization. One of the questions I wish to address is whether the Hungarian language can or cannot be considered endangered in Transylvania and thus in need of urgent help. I present the three types of demographic and linguistic situations of the Hungarians in Transylvania (hopefully using some of the data of the newest census): the compact territory of the Székely Land, the island situation as well as the diaspora situation of North-East and South Transylvania, where the number and proportion of the Hungarian minority is very low and thus it can be considered endangered. I connect these situations to Fishman’s Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale which helps identify the level of endangerment as well as some actions that need to be done in order to reverse language shift.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Gál Noémi, PhD is currently a lecturer at the Sapientia University of Marosvásárhely, at the Department of Humanities. She completed her university studies in 2003 at the Babeş–Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca majoring in English language and literature and Hungarian language and literature. She received her Master’s degree in Irish Studies at the same university in 2004. She completed her doctoral studies in 2009, the title of her thesis being Language Revitalization. Theory, Methodology and Perspectives. Her main field of research is sociolinguistics and the revitalization of endangered languages. She has presented her results at numerous national and international conferences and workshops.





Gazda, Angela K.

City University of New York

Forced Assimilation and Language Shift Resistance through Education in Csángóland

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The Csángó Hungarians of Moldova in Eastern Romania are among the most economically, politically, and linguistically marginalized communities in the country. The Csángós were and continue to be denied at every turn the right to educate their children in their native Hungarian, even to worship in their native tongue. The process of language loss and assimilation is hastened not only by various coercive measures taken by the state, the leadership of the regional Roman Catholic diocese, local teachers’ groups and so on, but also by a more subtle process by which the local Csángó Hungarian is losing prestige among the younger generation in many villages. Currently, the Csángó Hungarians have, for the most part, little influence on the political forces controlling their economic, political and cultural fate. The Csángós have appealed to the European community for help, but their success at marshalling EU support has been limited. November 2011 marked the tenth anniversary of the largely ignored Recommendation 1521 of the Council of Europe regarding Csángó minority culture in Romania. Grassroots efforts to educate Csángó children in Hungarian have begun to bear fruit. In response to the repeated refusal by officials to institute Hungarian language teaching in schools, the Association of Csángó Hungarians in Moldavia organized an expanding extracurricular Hungarian language education program for Csángó children. The program, operating for about a dozen years now, provides Hungarian instruction to more than 2000 Csángó children in 25 villages as well as the opportunity for high school students to attend Hungarian boarding schools in Székelyland, which increasingly serves as a springboard for pursuing higher education in Hungarian. The successful program is financially supported by donations as well as the Hungarian Ministry of Culture. In recent months, a dispute over funds between the Hungarian government and the Association of Csángó Hungarians in Moldavia has placed the future of the program and thus Hungarian instruction in Moldova in jeopardy.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Angela K. Gazda (City University of New York) is an anthropologist specializing in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Her broad research interests include ethnicity and minority cultures, citizenship and transnationality, immigration and globalization, cities and modernity, sexuality and gender.




Gémes, Tamás

CTP Ifjúsági Üzleti Program USA koordinátor

High School Entrepreneurship Education in Practice: What Makes a Hungarian Bill Gates, Steve Jobs?

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
How does a nation, a region become an economic powerhouse? What makes a young, talented student a successful entrepreneur, professional, leader?
The answer does not lie behind the GDP numbers, but mainly in the entrepreneurial spirit, knowledge and risk taking attitudes of the young generation. The presentation describes the subject of entrepreneurship education as a crucial factor in economic progress. It gives an overview of the entrepreneurship education landscape of the Carpathian Basin today. Using multiple perspectives it observes the common ways of entrepreneurial skill and competence development.
As a practical example of Central European entrepreneurship education, the presenter will talk about an independent, not-for-profit initiative, the Calasanctius Youth Business Program. The mission of this program is to educate the next generation of young leaders in the Hungarian communities throughout the Carpathian basin. The program aims at providing Hungarian-speaking high school students with knowledge of key ethical business principles, entrepreneurial skills and values that strengthen their ability not only to stay in their homelands, but to successfully develop their communities as well.
These objectives are realized through establishing a network of programs that tightens the personal relationships of our students across borders in the Carpathian basin, develops their Hungarian-American connections, and educates them on key business and professional areas such as teamwork, communication, problem solving, ethical decision making, volunteering, that are immensely valuable in their future success.





Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Education:
- Master of Business Administration, Niagara University, 2011, Major: Strategic Management
- Computer Engineering, BS, Budapest Polytechnic (Budapesti Műszaki Főiskola), 2009, Major: Software Technology
- Business Economics, MS, Corvinus University of Budapest (Budapesti Corvinus Egyetem), 2008,
Majors: Entrepreneurship, Organization Development
Professional Background:
Nokia Siemens Networks, Budapest, 2008-2010 - Developed the newest 4th generation mobile networks as a Software Engineer
Catholic Health System, from 2011 - IT Project Manager in ITIL best practices implementation projects
Volunteer Activity: CTP Youth Business Program, from 2003: Organizer, presenter, workshop leader in Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Slovakia
Main Interest: Hungarian and international high-growth high-tech companies, their opportunities and challenges





Gergely, Marianna

University of Pécs, Department of History, Hungary

"How Many Roads Must a Man Walk Down?" - Individual Lives Examined Through the Lens of Economic and Political Transitions in Hungary in the 20th Century

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Based on the study of Virág Rab, I further examine the economic and political transitions of Hungary during the 20th century through the viewpoint of the individual. In my study, I would like to present the effects of political and economic transitions on the lives of the individuals, with specific focus on the problems of starting a life over again.
Through the lives if István Bibó (1911-1979) a prominent Hungarian politician and internationally recognized political theorist, Béla Király (1912-2009), a chief colonel and politician well-known in the USA, and finally, through the turns of the life of a common man, I will examine the impact of such large scale tranitions on the lives of contemporary individuals.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Marianna Gergely studied History and English Linguistics and Literature at the University of Pécs, Hungary and graduated in 2012. The title of her thesis was: "Brussels' Therapy: Attempting to Evict the Financial Traumas of the First World War" (2011). She had also attained first place in the foremost Hungarian inter-university competition on modern history (OTDK) with this research. Her current research still focuses on economic history of modern Europe and Hungary.





Greene, Jackie and Vazquez-Montilla, Elia

Florida Gulf Coast University

Bridging Cultural Borders: American Students Cross-Cultural Teaching Experiences in Hungary

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Many cultures and languages populate contemporary classrooms in the United States of America which challenges educators to meet the needs of English language learners and overcome the cultural perceptions formed by the media and marginal textbook information. In exploring best practices for preparing new teachers to meet the challenges of the changing demographics present in contemporary classrooms, cross-cultural internship experiences emerge as an important component to teacher training curriculums (Dennis, 2003; Lane, 2003). According to Bruce, Podemski, and Anderson (1991), incorporating a global perspective into teacher education will ensure that educators have the knowledge and skills to promote the development of a global perspective in their students. In recent years the College of Education at Florida Gulf Coast University has initiated an international agreement for internship exchanges with Szent Istvan Egyetem in Hungary.
This presentation will highlight the international field experience of pre-service teachers from Florida and Hungary and their initiatives to meld cultural understanding and English Language Learning by using culture kits prepared by students in American and Hungarian early childhood and elementary classrooms.
The purpose of this presentation is to chronicle the journey of translating standards into practice by engaging pre-service teachers in experiences and environments that required them to utilize pedagogy to construct new knowledge for themselves and their students in the United States and Hungarian Laboratory Schools. It is also hoped that this presentation will motivate practicing professionals, at all levels, to explore trans-cultural opportunities within their own environments and abroad.

References:
Bruce, M. G., Podemski, R. S, & Anderson, C. M. (1991). Developing a global perspective: strategies for teacher education programs. Journal of Teacher Education, 42 (1), 21-27.

Dennis, M. (2003). Nine higher education megatrends, and how they affect you. Distance Education Report, 7 (24), 6.

Lane, K. (2003). Reports, educators call for more study-abroad programs. Black Issues in Higher Education, 20 (22), 11-12.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Elia Vázquez-Montilla, Ph.D., Professor.
Dr. Vázquez-Montilla completed her B.A. and master’s degree (M. Ed.) in Education, Administration and Supervision at the University of Puerto Rico. In 1991, she received her Ph.D. from the University of Florida with majors in curriculum and instruction, elementary education, and multicultural bilingual education. Dr Vázquez-Montilla has been working with linguistically and culturally diverse students and families in Florida since 1987 and is a founding faculty and professor of the College of Education at Florida Gulf Coast University. In 2003 she was the recipient of the University Senior Faculty Teaching Excellence Award. She has published numerous articles and has presented at state, national, and international professional conferences.

Jackie Greene, Ed.S., Student Teaching Coordinator.
Jackie Greene completed her B.A. and master’s degree (M.Ed.) in Early Childhood Education and Child Development at Kent State University. She completed her Ed.S. in Curriculum and Instruction and is currently completing her Ed.D. in Curriculum and Instruction at Florida Gulf Coast University. Mrs. Greene has been working with pre-service teachers as Student Teaching Coordinator and as a member of the Literacy Faculty since 2005. Mrs. Greene is a National Board Certified Teacher and has worked with the faculty of Szent Istvan’s Egyetem since 2008 to facilitate multiple student teaching exchanges. She has been a Guest Lecturer at Szent Istvan Egyetem and presented at state, national and international professional conferences.





Haba, Kumiko

Harvard University (1 year), Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo

Hungarian Borders and Hungarian Minorities after the Collapse of the Cold War and Joining the European Union

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
This presentation will investigate the Hungarian Minority question after the end of the Cold War (1989 -), during the15 years before and after Hungary joined the European Union. Emphasis will be on comparing the different policies of the governing parties, like the Democratic Forum (lead by Jozsef Antal), the Socialist Government (Laszlo Kovacs), and the FIDESZ-People’s Party (Victor Orban). The various political parties’ views on the Status law, the Dual Nationality, and other minority policies will also be analyzed.
The presentation will examine the different policies of each party toward the Hungarian Minority outside the borders (határontuli kisebbség), and their social status, issues of education and political participation.
Though these investigations, the author would like to consider how co-existence and collaborations of nations and minorities inside the European Union is possible, and how is it possible to improve the situation of minorities under the EU regime, and if it is possible, comparing the desperate Balkan situation with Central European Situation.

Full paper at
http://ahea.net/sitefiles/2012.conf/haba.paper.pdf



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Kumiko Haba, Professor, PhD(International Relations), currently at Harvard University's WCFIA (Weatherhead Center for International Affairs) Cambridge, MA. Specialty: EU Enlargement, Cold War, Nationalism, Asian Regional Cooperation and the US Role. Professor of Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo, Japan SIPEC (School of International Politics, Economics and Communications). Member of Japanese Academy; SCJ (Science Council of Japan); Vice Chair of CEAC (Council of East Asian Community); Vice President of ISAC (International Society for Asian Community); Jean Monnet Chair of the EU (European Union); Directorate of JPSA (Japan Political Studies Association) EUSAJ (European Union Studies Association in Japan). JSSEES (Japanese Society for Slavic & East European Studies); JAREES (Japan
Association of Russia & East European Studies).





Haba, Kumiko

Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo, Japan and Harvard U.

Hungarian Borders and Hungarian Minorities after the Collapse of the Cold War and Joining the European Union

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
This presentation will investigate the Hungarian Minority question after the end of the Cold War (1989 -), during the15 years before and after Hungary joined the European Union. Emphasis will be on comparing the different policies of the governing parties, like the Democratic Forum (lead by Jozsef Antal), the Socialist Government (Laszlo Kovacs), and the FIDESZ-People’s Party (Victor Orban). The various political parties’ views on the Status law, the Dual Nationality, and other minority policies will also be analyzed.
The presentation will examine the different policies of each party toward the Hungarian Minority outside the borders (határontuli kisebbség), and their social status, issues of education and political participation.
Though these investigations, the author would like to consider how co-existence and collaborations of nations and minorities inside the European Union is possible, and how is it possible to improve the situation of minorities under the EU regime, and if it is possible, comparing the desperate Balkan situation with Central European Situation.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Kumiko Haba, Professor, PhD(International Relations), currently at Harvard University's WCFIA (Weatherhead Center for International Affairs) Cambridge, MA. Specialty: EU Enlargement, Cold War, Nationalism, Asian Regional Cooperation and the US Role. Professor of Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo, Japan SIPEC (School of International Politics, Economics and Communications). Member of Japanese Academy; SCJ (Science Council of Japan); Vice Chair of CEAC (Council of East Asian Community); Vice President of ISAC (International Society for Asian Community); Jean Monnet Chair of the EU (European Union); Directorate of JPSA (Japan Political Studies Association) EUSAJ (European Union Studies Association in Japan). JSSEES (Japanese Society for Slavic & East European Studies); JAREES (Japan
Association of Russia & East European Studies).




Havas, Judit

Petőfi Irodalmi Múzeum, Budapest

Az utolsó szó keresése -- Jékely Zoltán, Szent György és a sárkány

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Jékely Zoltán április 24-én, Szent György napján született, s talán éppen ezért nem találhatjuk különösnek, hogy a mesében és a néphitben egyaránt szereplő figura, Szent György, valamint a sárkány és a kettejük viszonya tematikájának, életművének jelölt vagy jelöletlen formában kardinális motívuma. Ez előadásom tárgya.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Havas Judit irodalomtörténész, előadóművész felsőfokú tanulmányait az Eötvös Loránd Tudomány Egyetem Bölcsészettudományi Karán magyar-könyvtár szakon végezte. 1975 óta előadóművész. 2003-ban PhD fokozatot szerzett az ELTE Irodalomtörténeti Intézetében. Témavezetője Dr. Kenyeres Zoltán professzor volt. Jelenleg a Petőfi Irodalmi Múzeum tudományos főmunkatársa. 2006. március 15-én a Köztársasági Elnök a Magyar Köztársaság Érdemrend Lovagkeresztje kitüntetésben részesítette irodalmi munkássága elismeréseként.




Igricz, Dorottya

Corvinus University, Budapest

The Relationship of Cultural Traits and Cultural Consumption in Hungary and France

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
During my presentation I would like to present the results of my undergraduate thesis which examines the relationship between the cultural traits and the cultural consumption of Hungary and France.
The first part of my research paper is focusing on the two nations’ cultural traits based on Geert Hofstede’s five well-known cultural dimensions, such as Uncertainty Avoidance, Power Distance, Masculinity vs. Femininity, Individualism vs. Collectivism, and Long vs. Short Term Orientation. These cultural traits – more precisely the dimensions’ indexes – illustrate different values in different national cultures, and these cultural values can usually determine how the individuals of different nations think and behave. By using sociology researches and studies I examined how these indexes measured by Hofstede are reflected in the real values and behavior of the Hungarians and French.
In the second part based on my qualitative analysis – using my own experience and observation acquired in Hungary and France during my exchange semester – I have demonstrated in a case study how these cultural traits appear in and affect the citizens’ cultural consumption in terms of festival goods. I analyzed the annual festivals of two cities, Szeged and Angers, according to the following aspects: the festivals’ aims and values, program structure, target groups and their behavior, and communication tools. By comparing these results to the cultural dimensions’ indexes I was able to conclude whether these indexes are verified in terms of the festival consumption.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Dorottya Igricz studies at the Széchenyi István College for Advanced Studies and the Corvinus University. She also spent a semester at teh École Superieure des Sciences Commerciales in France and has been accepted to Kingás College, London for the upcoming academic year. Her interest is in cultural outreach and cultural programs at various levels. Currently she is an intern with the Hungarian American Coalition.




Ivan, Emese

St. John's University

Personal Values and Sports Consumption of Hungarians – At Home and in the USA

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Between 1985 and 2005 several surveys had been conducted – by the Hungarian State Offices and EU institutions – to monitor changes in consumer values of Hungarians following the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Sport is an organic part of culture as well as its strong ties to social, educational, political, ideological and economic developments of a country. Similar studies had also been carried out in the US with a specific focus on minorities’ and ethnic groups’ sports participation and consumption.

While sport symbolizes some values of individualistic character such as success, health, achievement, and performance, it also represents values of social belongingness and collective achievements. If personal values serve as ‘path to meaning’ (Powell & Royce, 1978), a promising approach for studying sport behavior is to investigate the linkage between personally held values and their contribution to participating in sport and physical activity under the specific timeframe.

The aim of this presentation is twofold. First, it aims to give an overview of change in personal values in Hungary during the transition period, specifically those related to sport consumption. Second, it compares and contrasts these findings with the results of the research conducted on Hungarian-Americans’ sport consumption and behavior.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
2006, Ph.D. in International Sport Management from The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada. 2009, Assistant Prof. of Sport management, St. John's U., NY




Kádár Lynn, Katalin

Eötvös Loránd University Budapest

The Unknown Tibor Eckhardt: Politician, Statesman, Cold War Intelligence Operative

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The complex life and activities of Tibor Eckhardt have been a subject of my research and publication for over a decade. My book on the American years of Tibor Eckhardt published in 2009 will in 2013 be followed by an expanded biography of Eckhardt's American and Hungarian years as well as a recounting of his activities and collaboration with American intelligence during the height of the Cold War. This presentation will introduce the unknown side of Eckhardt's activities developed from archival material classified until recently.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Katalin Kádár Lynn is a senior researcher at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest and an independent scholar based in Budapest and California. Her principal area of research is WWII and the Cold War with an emphasis on Central and East European exile leaders, their organizations and activities.

She earned a PhD from ELTE BTK in 20th Century Hungarian history and a Masters in Liberal Arts from Washington University in St. Louis, MO. Her undergraduate degree was earned at the University of Colorado.

Kádár Lynn is the biographer of the Hungarian political figure Tibor Eckhardt. Her book on Eckhardt, Tibor Eckhardt: His American Years 1941-1972 was published in the US (East European Monographs) and in Hungary (L'Harmattan Press). She edited and published Eckhardt's memoir Tibor Eckhardt: In His Own Words in English and in Hungarian. Her most recent book in collaboration with Hungarian historians Károly Szerencsés and Péter Strausz is titled Through an American Lens, Hungary 1938: Photographs by Margaret Bourke-White (English edition: East European Monographs 2010 - Hungarian edition, L'Harmattan Press 2009).

She is the editor of an upcoming compendium of essays on the history of the National Committee for a Free Europe, The Inauguration of Organized Political Warfare: Cold War Organizations Sponsored by the National Committee for a Free Europe which will include her essays on the history of the Hungarian National Council and the NCFE as well as contributions from scholars worldwide. She is currently researching and writing an expanded biography of Tibor Eckhardt, which will encompass his Hungarian years and his wartime and Cold War intelligence activities. The expected date of publication of both books is late 2012, early 2013.

In March of 2011, she was awarded the Gold Cross of Merit (Arany Érdemkereszt) of the Hungarian Republic by President Pál Schmitt.






Kecskés, Gusztáv D.

HAS Research Center for the Humanities

The Anatomy of a Humanitiarian Miracle [The Case of the 1956 Refugees]

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The paper presents a synthesis based on source material from the archives of the United Nations Secretariat (New York), the European Office of the UN (Geneva) and the UN High Comissioner for Refugees (Geneva), as well as from NATO, International Red Cross Committee and French foreign ministry archives (Brussels, Geneva and La Courneuve, respectively).
Following the end of the 1956 revolution, which had been violently put down by the Soviet Union, a wave of Hungarian refugees appeared, whose accommodation and integration was aided by an international aid initiative, which together form an important chapter in the history of international migration. These refugees received far more favourable treatment than earlier Hungarian expatriates or other European refugees had. The mass of refugees, totalling 200.000 persons and thus constituting a significant group even in a broad, European perspective meant that their successful transportation to host countries and their subsequent integration represented an exceptional success for international aid efforts. This success merits investigation especially in light of the fact that the institutions dealing with refugees had to face chronic shortages of funding.
How can their efficiency be explained? The humanitarian sentiment motivated by the memory of the 2nd World War and the resulting clarification and strengthening of refugee rights contributed to it just as much as did the support of the highly sympathetic West European societies. Also, the highly advantageous composition of the refugees in terms of labour market skills and competitiveness coincided favourably with the era of the „wonder years” in West European economic history. The most important component, however, was the political will of NATO governments, which – in part as a result of the ideological confrontation with the Soviets – ensured continued attention and support for the problem of the Hungarian refugees even once the waves of popular sympathy had receded in the host societies.





Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
DEGREES: 2003 - PhD degree at the University of Pécs (Hungary) (Hungary and Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries, 1996-1998). The topic of the thesis is French Diplomacy and the 1956 Hungarian Revolution (summa cum laude). 2003 Doctoral degree at the University of Paris III, Sorbonne (History of international relations). The subject of the thesis is the same as above (Très honorable avec félicitations du jury à l’unanimité). 1993 Diploma in History and Hungarian Language and Literature, University of Szeged.
CURRENT POSITION: Senior research fellow, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Institute of History.
AREAS OF RESEARCH AND INTEREST: International relations after World War II; History of international organizations, especially relations between United Nations and Hungary; International migration, Hungarian refugees of 1956; History of French diplomacy after World War II.







Kish, Kathleen V.

San Diego State University, CA

Delicate Depictions of Bloody Women: Domján's Folk Art Heroines

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The artist József Domján drew inspiration from the folk traditions of his native Hungary, especially during his lengthy--and challenging--life outside its borders. Like his countrymen Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály, Domján incorporated elements of Hungarian folk art into his own work. Those familiar with his masterful woodcuts will know that his images were filled with decorative lacy details similar to motifs found on Hungarian folk textiles, pottery, and furniture. They might also be aware that some of these same motifs came to adorn a series of magnificent tapestries modeled on Domján woodcuts. Domján devotees are sure to be acquainted with his spectacular trio of monumental color woodcuts on the theme of Bluebeard's Castle (a tribute to Bartók's opera), whose hapless heroine Judith was to have the same bloody end as her husband's previous wives. What they might be surprised to learn is that Domján also depicted other, less celebrated bloody female protagonists. This presentation will introduce four of them, selected from the suite of woodcuts that illustrate the text of TÍZ MAGYAR NÉPBALLADA 'Ten Hungarian Folk Ballads': "Clement Mason" (or "The Walled-Up Wife"), " Kate Kádár (or "The Two Chapel Flowers"), "Anna Molnár (or "The Enticed Wife"), and "The Dishonored Girl" (or "A Woman in Trouble"). The source for these images is a slim volume that has all but disappeared from circulation since its 1982 publication.

Equipment needed: Computer set-up for PowerPoint on thumb drive and/or CD.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Kathleen V. Kish (BA: UC-Berkeley, MA and PhD: UW-Madison) is Professor Emerita at both San Diego State University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her publications include three editions of 16th-century translations (Italian, German, and Dutch) of the Spanish classic CELESTINA. An Honorary Fellow of the Hispanic Society of America and Past Editor of the journal LA CORÓNICA, she co-edits the docent newsletter for the Mingei International Museum in San Diego, where she also enjoys leading tours, including those for children from Baja California. Dr. Kish is the owner of Kish Academic Editing (www.kishediting.com).




Kovács, Mária and Kecskés, Judit

University of Miskolc

Együtthaladó - Oktatási program a Magyarországon tanuló migráns gyermekek számára

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
A Miskolci Egyetemen kidolgozott Együtthaladó program fő célja a magyar közoktatásban tanuló migráns gyermekek magyar nyelvi kompetenciáinak fejlesztése annak érdekében, hogy integráltan oktathatóvá, az iskolai tananyagban osztálytársaikkal „együtthaladó”-vá váljanak, továbbá a migráns gyermekeket tanító pedagógusok szakmai felkészítése. A magyar közoktatásban jelenleg nincs olyan tankönyvcsalád, amely figyelembe venné a nem magyar anyanyelvű diákok eltérő magyar nyelvi kompetenciáit, s interkulturális pedagógiai programmal is csak kevés iskola rendelkezik. Ezért az Együtthaladó program keretében olyan magyarnyelv-oktatási segédanyagokat készítettünk a 11–14 éves korosztály számára és jelenleg készítünk a 9–10 éveseknek, amely három (A1–B1) nyelvtudási szinten használható, illeszkedik a Nemzeti Alaptantervhez, s a matematika, biológia-környezetismeret, magyar nyelvtan, magyar irodalom tantárgyak tartalmi alapját használja fel a magyar nyelvi fejlesztéshez. Előadásunkban bemutatjuk a program tartalomalapú, nyelvközpontú oktatási szemléletét, a segédanyagok társadalmi-nyelvi integrációt segítő feladattípusait és a migránsok kultúrájának, anyanyelvének megőrzését célzó feladattípusainkat. A programot eddig négy iskolában, különböző tanítási módszerekkel próbálták ki, ennek is köszönhetően 2011-ben elnyerte az Európai Nyelvi Díjat. Email:


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Kovács Mária, Ph.D. egyetemi docens (photo) 1996-ban diplomázott a debreceni Kossuth Lajos Tudományegyetemen, magyar nyelv és irodalom szakos középiskolai tanár, orosz nyelv és irodalom szakos általános iskolai tanárként. 1986-ban Ph.D. fokozatot szerzett az ELTE Nyelvtudományok Doktori Iskolájában. Főbb kutatási szakterülete a leíró grammatika, szaknyelvkutatás, alkalmazott nyelvészet. 1994-től a Miskolci Egyetem Magyar Nyelvészeti Tanszékének oktatója, 1998-tól tanszékvezetője. 2001-től a Miskolci Egyetem Bölcsészettudományi Karának dékán-helyettese, 2009-től dékán. Email: bolmari@uni-miskolc.hu

Kecskés Judit, Ph.D. egyetemi docens 1996-ban diplomázott a Miskolci Egyetemen magyar nyelv és irodalom szakos bölcsész és középiskolai tanárként. Ph.D. fokozatát a Debreceni Egyetem Nyelvtudományok Doktori Iskolájában szerezte 2005-ben. Főbb kutatási területei a magyar névtan, történeti grammatika, alkalmazott nyelvészet. 1996-tól a Miskolci Egyetem Magyar Nyelvészeti tanszékének oktatója, 2009-től egyetemi docens, az Együtthaladó program projektvezetője. Email: bolkecsi@uni-miskolc.hu




Kürti, László

University of Miskolc

“To Die in a Foreign Land”?: Notions of Death and Burial in the American-Hungarian Diaspora

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The purpose of this presentation is to describe narratives surrounding death and burial by Hungarian immigrants living in the United States. Material was collected during the 1970s and 1980s through participant observation in the East Coast; in addition 150 extensive life-history interviews of Béla Máday collected during 1979-1981 and never been published before has also been utilized to gain a better understanding of the beliefs surrounding death and interment by American-Hungarians. Many commonalties were found across age, gender and class. One of the pervasive themes was a nostalgic belief about being buried in Hungary, or more specifically in the cemetery where the families’ resting place was. However, this also caused problems for many who already had family members buried in the US, in which case they were willing to consider either Hungary or the US as their final resting place. At times, interviewees had difficulty separating notions of nostalgia and reality (wish-fulfillment): they wished to be buried in their birthplace but knew well that it will not happen. Many were also completely unconcerned about the way in which they would be buried or the location of their interment. Finally, data proves that in some cases – even though it was specifically requested so – the last will/testament of the dying was not carried out.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
László Kürti is a professor of social anthropology currently teaching at the University of Miskolc, Hungary.




Magyar, Kálmán

American Hungarian Folklore Centrum, NJ

American Hungarian Cultural Diplomacy; Lessons and Proposals.

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Cultural Diplomacy is a concerted effort of a nation to supplement its traditional diplomatic mission and establish a positive image and favourably influence the opinion of a host country about its cultural values. Cultural Diplomacy should be a facet of every nation’s diplomatic strategy, because a person’s understanding of a nation’s heritage and cultural treasures are formed primarily through the arts and cultural communication channels. This, in turn, becomes the groundwork for the opinions and general images about a specific Nation and its people in the minds of the host country’s general population.

There is a long history underlying Hungarian Cultural Diplomacy in North America, warranting a closer study than this Paper provides. However, this history – and the lessons of the past – should be kept in-mind when planning future Cultural Diplomacy strategies. As a general overview, therefore, we will summarize Hungarian Cultural Diplomacy in North America relative to the recent historical time period, that is, the communist occupation of Hungary from 1945 to 1989 and the following 20 years.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Kalman Magyar, is the Director of American Hungarian Folklore Centrum, NJ. He has been involved in Hungarian Cultural Diplomacy for 50 years as member of the Hungarian community and also as a professional Art Manager. He has participated in the facilitation of the Hungarian Cultural Center, New York at its formation and the following 2 years.






Maróti, Orsolya

Balassi Intezet, Budapest

A Pragmatic Approach to Heritage Language and Its Relation to HSL

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
New roads in language teaching, new ways in cultural exchange: the continuous search for new possibilities characterizes every teacher eager to develop his or her craft. Yet a debate concerning new methods or approaches cannot be held in the case of how best to educate language students who are of Hungarian descent, yet still need to learn Hungarian. Even now, little attention has been paid to the unique requirements posed by heritage language learners. Indeed, at most we can consult a scattering of studies that—according to laymen—employ methods used in native language training while those working in the field interpret these studies as examples of Hungarian as a Second Language (HSL).
Students capable of producing correct utterances displaying proper vocabulary and grammar usage no longer receive the kind-hearted forbearance generally extended to foreigners trying to speak Hungarian; native speakers do not view them as being foreign, which is why natives rarely realize that the mistakes being made are not a negative aspect of the speaker’s personality, but rather the product of pragmalinguistic or sociopragmatic deficiencies.
It is time we use complex methods to map the interlanguage of heritage language learners to help them find their own way to develop their language ability and pragmatic competence to make them feel comfortable when using the language of their (grand)parents.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Orsolya Maróti (MA Hungarian Literature, Linguistics and Language Pedagogy, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest; MA Hungarian as a Second Language and Hungarian Studies, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest; MA Cultural Anthropology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest; working on her doctoral thesis on Pragmatics) is working as the Head of the Hungarian Language Department at the Balassi Institute. She has experience in teaching heritage students for 12 years in the Balassi Institute, at Eötvös Loránd University and at the Corvinus University in Budapest as well. She has worked with Hungarian language teachers as a teacher trainer in Canada, in the Netherlands, in Germany and in many other countries where there are Hungarian language courses for heritage students.




Mazsu, János

University of Debrecen

Inside Borders - Jewish Settlement in Banned Cities: Jewish Immigration in Debrecen in the Periods between 1790-1870

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Most of the free royal cities and all mining cities of Hungary banned Jewish in-settlement by 1840. Nevertheless, we are first focusing our attention to the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, because in effect the roughly 50 years preceding the settlement permits for the inner areas of the indicated cities saw several waves of Jewish immigration in Hungary and it was the first important stage of mutual acculturation of the above-mentioned urban societies and Jewish communities. It was a period of time that is essential for the understanding of urban settlement, the subsequent integration and the controversial processes of assimilation/dissimilation and intra-urban spatial segregation.

The closing date of our study falls on the year of 1870 because my intent was to do an extensive survey of space and society structures relying on the data of the poll taken in that year, or to be more precise on the basis of the analytic sources of the Geoinformatic Social History Database of Debrecen (GISHDD) created by the digital processing of the manuscript maps and the statistical sheets of the age in Debrecen.

The present lecture also examines the fundamental legal, economic and social contexts of the immigration process and draws a comprehensive picture of the specific chronological segmentation and the various aspects of the settlement process in the environs of cities starting from the 1790’s and in the inhabited inner urban areas after 1840.
The second part of the lecture is devoted to the presentation of the spatial patters of Jewish settlement in Debrecen according to the following points of views:
• Initial steps of settlement, moving in the settlements in the vicinity of the city (-1840);
• Aspects and waves of settling to cities (1840-1867);
• Housing conditions and residence segregation, neighbourhood relations, rented and owned family homes, family structure and residence patterns of Jewish families (1869/70);
• The spatial layout of the established Jewish ritual and community institutions (1840-1870).
• Comparison of Debrecen Jewish settlement case to the others in Hungarian banned cities (urban in-settlements types in Hungary)

Apart from the comparative summary of the various research conclusions, the closing part of the final section of the lecture strives to raise and reconsider the research methodology issues of integration, acculturation and urban residence segregation on the basis of the study based on the findings and resources of the Geoinformatic Social History Database of Debrecen (GISHDD).
Research results provide a way to rethink the interpretations of the birth of modern Hungarian Nation, acculturation/integration, inside borders, segregation or/and cooperation of communities creating Hungarian Nation inside or outside of the National State.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
János Mazsu is Professor of Social and Economic History at Debrecen University (Faculty of Economics and Business Administration), Debrecen, Hungary. He is an expert in Social and Intellectual History, he served as Ránki György Chair (Indiana University) and has been active in the Jean Monnet program. Selected publications: "The Social History of the Hungarian Intelligentsia, 1825–1914". Atlantic Research and Publications, Boulder. Atlantic Studies on Society in Change 89. New York, Columbia University Press, 1997. 292.p. G. Szabó-Módi-Mazsu. "Debrecen, a cívis város" (Debrecen, the civis city). Hungarian, English, German). Budapest, 2003. 320.p. "A jó polgár" (The good citizen) with Setényi János. Debrecen, 1996. "Iparosodás és modernizáció"(Industrializations and modernization) ed. and co-author, Debrecen, 1991.




Medalis, Christopher

Global Scholarship Programs (IIE)

The U.S. Higher Education Community's Response to October 1956: the Emergency Program to Aid Hungarian Students in the U.S., 1956-1958

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The October 1956 Revolution in Hungary created a wave of émigrés in the Hungarian global diaspora. Of the more than 80,000 who arrived in the U.S., approximately 2,000 were university students. The U.S. academic community was sympathetic to their plight and concerned with their welfare. University leadership, faculty, and students were anxious to assist these students not only with humanitarian aid, but to use their position within universities assist the Hungarian students to continue their education. My paper will explore this response, and elaborate on the efforts of U.S. higher education institutions, national academic organizations, and scholarship agencies to aid the Hungarian university students who found themselves at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. The paper will discuss the collection and distribution of scholarship funds, efforts to negotiate admission into U.S. universities, and the creation of support networks and counseling services for these students’ unique needs.

The long-term impact of this assistance was great, as many of these students later became active members of U.S. academia. These efforts were not solely a humanitarian matter, but also a question of preserving and advancing the intellectual knowledge and skills that the Hungarians brought with them. This is significant, as ultimately the presence of Hungarian refugee scholars and students added a cultural richness and wealth of human talent to U.S. higher education institutions. The paper will also discuss efforts to document and preserve the impact of these scholars on U.S. higher education and scholarship.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Christopher Medalis is the Director of Global Scholarship Programs at the Institute of International Education (IIE) In New York. From 1998 to 2007 he was Director of IIE’s European Headquarters in Budapest. He holds a PhD from Columbia University’s Department of History (2009), where his dissertation focused on the role of the Fulbright Program in higher education transformation in Hungary. He also holds a MA in History (Columbia 1993) and a BA in International Relations (George Washington University, 1989). His research focuses on the cultural and political relationship between the United States and Hungary throughout the 20th century through the mechanisms of educational exchanges.




Molnár, Erzsébet

University of Miskolc

The Role of the Mother Tongue in Foreign Language Teaching

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
A distinction has been made between the instinct way of language acquisition and the organized, partly conscious form of language learning. Mother tongue has an indispensable and inevitable role in foreign language teaching and learning. During this process foreign language teachers must always anticipate the effects of the native language as it has an impact on second language acquisition; in a positive and a negative way, as well. Knowing the scientific background of language acquisition significantly helps language teachers better understand students’ mistakes and hardships with receptive and productive skills.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
MOLNÁR, ERZSÉBET (b. 1953) is a Senior Lecturer at the University of
Miskolc, Hungary. She has degrees from Esterházy Károly Teacher Training College
(B.A.) in Eger, as well as from the University of Budapest (M.A.) and the
University of Szeged (M.A.). She received her Ph.D. from Pannon University in
Veszprém, based on a dissertation about the great Transylvanian-Hungarian
Polymath, Sámuel Brassai (1797-1897). After teaching on the secondary school
level, in 1999 Dr. Molnár was appointed to the Department of English
Linguistic and Literature at the University of Miskolc. Her specialty is language
pedagogy and the main issues of foreign language teaching. Her publications
include textbooks, related articles in English and Hungarian, as well as a book on the topic of her dissertation, Sámuel
Brassai. The Last Transylvanian Polymath (2008). She is a frequent participant at
various international conferences, including those in Great Britain,
Ireland, Norway, Portugal, Albania, Malta, Canada, and the United States.




Nagy, Éva

Ministry of Education, Reserch, Sport and Youth; Romania

Látni, hallani a szöveget a romániai magyar audiovizuális médiában

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Előadásomban hangsúlyt fektetek a rádióban és televízióban használt nyelvezetre és az elhangzó szöveg interpretálására, kommunikativítására. A beszéd általános jellemzéséből kiindulva, a megszólalás, megszólaltatás kérdését fejtegetem. Ezeket követi a szöveg és a hangzásforma kapcsolata, a műfaj és az akusztikus stílusideál kapcsolata, valamint a szöveg (mondatok) hangzásának (intonálásának) szerepe, hangsúlyt fektetve a szöveg és a szupraszegmentális eszközök kapcsolatára, a szöveg megszólaltatásakor. Ez a kérdés a rádió- és tévé-hírek szövegformájára és megfogalmazási, megszólaltatási gondjaira épül. Szó van a kommunikatív, informatív megfogalmazásról, az ún. kétarcú szerkezetről, a hírmondatok tagolásáról, a típushibákról, a hírek logikai felépítéséről és kommunikativításáról, mondhatóságáról. Mindezek aktuális példákkal vannak alátámasztva a Román Rádió Nemzetközi Szolgálatának Magyar Adásában és az RTV bukaresti Magyar Nyelvű Adásaiban elhangzott szavakkal, mondatokkal, szószerkezetekkel, valamint kérdésekkel.

Seeing, Hearing the Text, in the Hungarian Audio-Visual Mass-Media in Romania.

In my talk, I stress the importance of the use of language in the radio and television, and the interpretation of text, as a means of communication. Starting from the general description of speech, I develop the question of uttering words, the speech. These are followed by the written text, the of hearing, the link between the literary work and the ideal acoustic style, as well as the text (sentences), the role of intonation, underlying the importance of text and upper segments of means of communication, when uttering a word.
This question is lying on the form of text at the radio and Tv news declaration, uttering. It is about the creation of communication, information, “double faced” construction, about uttering of speakers, types of mistakes, about logistics of the news and communication of their message. All these are founded on examples from the Hungarian Department of the Romanian Radio, International Broadcasting section, and RTV Hungarian language broadcastings, words, sentences, word clusters and questions.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Dr. Nagy Éva, jelenleg Államtitkári Kabinetigazgató, a bukaresti (Románia) Oktatási, Kutatási, Ifjúsági és Sport Minisztériumban, s magyar tanár (külső munkatárs) a Bukaresti Egyetem-Idegen Nyelvek Fakultása-Hungarológia Tanszékén és a bukaresti Ady Endre Elméleti Líceumban. A Bukaresti Egyetem-Idegen Nyelvek Fakultása-Hungarológia Tanszékén fejezte be PhD tanulmányait, a nyelvészet/média-kommunikáció terén, 2008-ban. Témavezetője dr. Murvai Olga professzor volt.
E-mail:eva.nagy@medu.edu.ro

Dr. Nagy Éva holds the positions of Chief of Cabinet, Under Secretary of State in Bucharest, and at the Ministry of Education, Research, Youth and Sport. She also teaches Hungarian at the Hungarology Department of the Faculty of Foreign Languages in Bucharest, and at the Ady Endre High School. She completed her PhD studies in languages/media in 2008; her coordinating Professor was Dr. Murvai Olga. Email: eva.nagy@medu.edu.ro





Némethy, Judith Kesserű

New York University

Exiled Hungarians in Argentina: The Formation of a Community

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
This paper presents the cultural activism of a group of Hungarian émigrés who fled their homeland following Soviet occupation at the end of World War II and arrived in Argentina around 1948. It deals with the intellectual activity of these exiles, especially through their cultural and educational institutions. Within five years of their arrival as dispossessed “D.P.’s,” they founded a Hungarian Center (“Centro Húngaro”) that housed, among others, a theater group, a free university, a cultural and scientific academy, a weekend school, and scout troops. At the same time, new periodicals appeared, and a substantive number of books banned in Hungary were published. I argue that it is due to the work of these institutions that the community flourished and is vital to date, in spite of its isolation and lack of reinforcement through new emigrant waves, of its hostile relationship with the government of the People’s Republic of Hungary, and of a series of Argentine economic crises that forced many of its members to re-emigrate.
I also discuss the impact the exiles had on their descendants, contending that as a result of the strong cultural foundations laid by them during their first twenty years of emigration, third- and fourth-generation Hungarian-Argentines have maintained to this day a strong cultural and ethnic identity, while fully integrating into Argentine society at large.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Judith Kesserű Némethy is Clinical Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese of New York University. She holds a Ph.D. in History (Hispanic Studies) from the University of Szeged. She is President and Program Committee member of AHEA, Executive Committee member of the Hungarian Scout Association in Exteris, and administrator of scholarship applications to the Balassi Institute's Hungarian Language and Cultural Studies program for students of Hungarian descent.




Niessen, James P. - Library Science

Rutgers University

Rutgers and the President's Committee for Hungarian Refugee Relief

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
James Niessen will talk about the digitization of Rutgers' Hungarian refugee relief papers on adding records from other repositories to the digital collection. The President's Committee for Hungarian Refugee Relief oversaw the processing of 32,000 refugees from Hungary at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey in 1956-1957. Rutgers' collection of the papers of Tracy S. Voorhees contains a key portion of the records of the committee. We have digitized these records and made them freely accessible online. We also hope to add related records from other repositories to this virtual collection.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
James P. Niessen (Photo: Courtesy of Rutgers Today)World History Librarian
Alexander Library - Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
BA in History, Notre Dame, 1975
MA and PhD in History, Indiana, 1979 and 1989 MLIS, U of Texas at Austin, 1994
Librarian for History and Foreign Languages at Texas Tech, 1994-2001
World History Librarian at Rutgers since 2001
Author of 15 articles on Hungarian and Romanian history, many with a focus on modern Transylvania
Director of the Institute for Hungarian History at Rutgers, 2010-2011




Nyírády, Kenneth - Library Science

Library of Congress

Digital Hungarica on the Library of Congress Web Site

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The Library of Congress aims to be a universal library; most of its 33 million cataloged books are in languages other than English and, in many cases, it possesses the largest collection of materials from and about a given country outside of that country. This is certainly true of its Hungarian collection, which numbers more than 200,000 volumes, making it the largest collection of Hungarica outside of Hungary.

Nevertheless, in the new digital era, the Library does not have unlimited resources and staff, so it must be highly selective in what it does digitize. Thus it concentrates on Americana—items related to American history and culture. Its digitized collections encompass millions of items, mostly photographs, documents, sound recordings, but also books, in cooperation with the Internet Archive and Hathi Trust. Although there are no separate “Hungarian” digital collections, there is digitized Hungarian material contained within other collections. This paper will attempt to describe some of the more notable examples.

The European Reading Room’s site is devoted to help researchers better find materials related to Europe. Of interest here are not digitized items but rather finding aids that direct readers to materials in more traditional formats, such as a guide to the Library’s Hungarian collections, an index to its Hungarian telephone directory collection, an index to its microfilmed collection Records from the War History Archives in Budapest, and a forthcoming index to Hungarian newspapers at the Library. The one digitized book concerning Hungary on the European Reading Room site is the bibliography Hungarians in Rumania and Transylvania, originally published by the Government Printing Office in 1969.

Elsewhere on the Library of Congress site, one can find Hungarian material in the Detroit Publishing Company’s postcard collection (ca 1900) and the American Memory project’s National Jukebox, which contains commercial recordings of Hungarian music. Hungarian folk songs sung by Hungarian-Americans form part of the collection California Gold: Northern California Folk Music from the Thirties.

The above represents a selective sample, not a comprehensive listing of digital Hungarian material on the Library of Congress site. A finding aid for this material would be most useful and is in the works.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
A third-generation Hungarian-American, Kenneth Nyirady was born in New York City and grew up on Long Island. In 1976 he received an M.A. in Russian History from the State University of New York at Binghamton (now Binghamton University) and in 1979 an M. Phil. in Uralic Studies from Columbia University. From 1983-1990 he was a research analyst in the Library of Congress= Federal Research Division, and from 1990 onward he has served in the Library's European Division as the Reference Specialist for Hungary and the Finno-Ugrian Areas of Russia.

His publications include the microfilm collection Materials for an American-Hungarian Lexicon: the Biographical Files of the Hungarian Reference Library of New York, 1937-1942 (1993), The History of the Feleky Collection and its Acquisition by the Library of Congress (1995), as well as a dozen other articles, chapters, and book reviews.




Oláh, Krisztina

John Carroll University

The Image of Hungary. What Kind of Picture is Promoted About Our Country?

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The Magyar Turizmus Rt. (Hungarian Touristic Board) is officially responsible for the touristic image marketing of Hungary. In the last few years, the picture we show for foreigners about our country and touristic sights have been more and more detailed and targeted. What kind of messages, promotional channels are used, and who are our main target groups? What are the results of image communication process? What do we think in Hungary about our own sights and image? What do the foreigners think? The presentation will answer these questions.
Nearby the touristic image of Hungary, the overall national, political, social, and economic image of the country would be analyzed. What do the other countries do, and how they promote their image and touristic sights? What does the national brand mean?
Several pictures, videos, and music will be shown during the presentation to illustrate the colorful image of Hungary.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Krisztina Olah is currently a graduate student in the Communication Management master’s program at John Carroll University in University Heights, Ohio. She graduated from the University of Miskolc in Hungary with a bachelor’s degree in Business Economics and Marketing. In the past eight years, Krisztina worked in Germany and Hungary as a marketing professional for companies in the healthcare sector. Her interests are leadership, women in management, marketing and public relations, internal communication of organizations, tourism and hospitality.




Papp-Aykler, Susan M. and Papp, Klára K.

University of Toronto and State University of New York Downstate College of Medicine, New York

Softening the Edges of Hungary’s Borders: A Student-Centered Program for Hungarian Youth in Diasporas

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Purpose: This is an observational study of a program, Students without Borders, that brings together ethnic Hungarian students who live in minority status in four different countries: in Transylvania and Moldova in Romania, Slovakia, Transcarpathia in Ukraine and Voivodina, part of Serbia. The program began in 18 years ago when the importance of borders were lessening with the expansion of the European Union. The purpose of the program is to strengthen ethnic ties and build relationships and connections between young people within the Carpathian Basin. Method: The program is of two weeks’ duration held annually since 1994 for young men and women between the ages of 13-17. Students who participated in the last two years completed a 20-item questionnaire that includes 11 structured questions asking them to rate [on a 6-pt scale where 1=strongly disagree to 6=strongly agree] their opinion of statements being made; 8 demographic items; and 10 open-ended questions. Results: In all, students agreed or strongly agreed that, “I’ll gladly come to visit Hungary again.” and “I formed strong friendships while on this trip.” Many indicated a desire to travel more often to Hungary. When asked whether they experienced human rights violations because of their ethnicity, several indicated that they had and that this first-hand experience of Hungary strengthened their self-esteem and enabled them to connect with others in different countries in Europe and share common background and experiences.
Conclusions The program provides students first hand experiences of Hungary as well as opportunities to form bonds of friendship with students who live in minority status in other countries in Central Europe. Several years’ data provide solid framework for the strength and meaning that participation in such activities have in identify formation. The experiences gained by students during the program have the effect of “softening the edges” of Hungary’s borders.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Susan M. Papp (photo), MA earned a Master of Arts in North American Social History at York University in Toronto in 1985. Since 2009, she is teaching in the Hungarian Studies Program in the Munk School of International Studies at the University of Toronto. Ms. Papp has published widely in the field of Hungarian immigration to and settlement in North America. Her publications include the history of Hungarians in Cleveland. Susan Papp is also a producer/director of documentary films. She is recipient of several prestigious awards, including the Michener Award. Ms. Papp most recently authored a book titled Outcasts: A Love Story. This book has been translated into Hungarian (2010) and Hebrew (2011), and has been made into a documentary film. Susan Papp, along with her husband, initiated the Students without Boundaries program in 1994. They have both been actively involved in leading and organizing it every year since its inception.


Klara Papp, PhD is an Educational Psychologist and works currently as Associate Dean for Student Assessment at the College of Medicine at State University of New York Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York. Klara has been the chair of the research committee for the Clerkship Directors in Internal Medicine and received its Charles H. Griffith III Educational Research Award. She has numerous peer-reviewed publications. She is on the Board of Directors of the Cleveland Hungarian Heritage Society and is president of the United Hungarian Fund. For the last several years, she participated in Students without Boundaries Program and has been an avid supporter since it began.




Pereszlényi-Pintér, Mártha

John Carroll University (Cleveland, OH)

A Hungarian ‘Madwoman in the Attic’: Rehabilitating Elizabeth Báthory, a Seventeenth Century ‘Serial Killer,’ a.k.a. ‘The Blood Countess Dracula’

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Countess Elizabeth Báthory lived in the late 1500s and early 1600s in the former Kingdom of Hungary. According to legend, while combing the aging and widowed Countess’s hair, a servant girl snagged and pulled it, whereupon Elizabeth slapped the girl, drawing blood, which fell upon the Countess’s skin. Upon rubbing the bloody spot, the skin underneath appeared fresh and rejuvenated. Thereafter, the Countess supposedly bathed in the blood of virgins, to stay forever young. She and four collaborators were accused of torturing and killing over 600 girls and young women. Because of aristocratic privilege, Elizabeth was never formally tried in court, but in 1610, as punishment and upon orders of the King, she was imprisoned in Čachtice [Csejte] Castle (located in today’s Slovakia), where she remained bricked in a room until her death four years later.
Today, Elizabeth’s legend has left Hungary and “immigrated” world-wide. She appears in novels and over 200 films, many of which emphasize the sexual side of the trials to the degree that they become sexual sadism and sometimes outright “torture porn” – a fascinating tweak on her terrible tale - but not a topic for the squeamish! Most novelists and filmmakers try to ingratiate themselves to a male audience, with lots of naked-flesh and eye-candy, Dracula-style biting, and bloody gore. This paper alleges that: 1) Elizabeth because of her female gender was a “victim” rather than the perpetrator; 2) the stories of witchcraft, insanity, and cruelty were either grossly exaggerated or outright lies.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Mártha Pereszlényi-Pintér is Chairperson of the Department of Classical and Modern Languages and Cultures and Associate Professor of French at John Carroll University in Cleveland, OH. She earned her Ph.D. in Romance Languages from The Ohio State University, and studied at the Institut de Touraine (Tours) and the Bryn Mawr Program (Avignon) in France. Her research and publication accomplishments include French and also Hungarian Literature and Culture of the pre-modern period (Medieval, Renaissance, 17th century), Film, and Language for Business & the Professions. She has read papers at national and international conferences. While at OSU, she wrote or co-wrote 16 manuals for individualized instruction in both French and Hungarian with group grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Annenberg Foundation. She was born in Austria and emigrated to the USA with her Hungarian parents. She is also a past President of AHEA, and chaired or co-chaired four past AHEA annual Conferences.




Peter, Christina - Library Science

Frick Art Reference Library, New York

Collections Without Walls: Art Libraries Collaborate to Build Digital Repositories

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
As libraries’ roles are gradually shifting from serving as physical repositories for printed material towards becoming discovery portals for a digital world, new opportunities are opening up for building collections that are not confined to single institutions. The NYARC partnership, a consortium of art museum libraries in New York, has made headway in collaborative collection development. Two examples will be presented: the Macbeth Gallery Collection, a collaborative project the Frick Art Reference Library and the Thomas J. Watson Library of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to digitize the exhibition checklists and pamphlets of an important New York art gallery, and the ’Documenting the Gilded Age’ project of the Frick and the Brooklyn Museum Library, featuring documents from small galleries, societies and art clubs from the late 19th – early 20th centuries. By virtually combining collections originally held in separate repositories, these institutions pave the way for dismantling physical and geographical borders between libraries. Implications to further cooperation with libraries in East Central Europe will be examined, and some initial efforts to enhance the discovery of Hungarian collections will be explored.




Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Head, Acquisitions, Frick Art Reference Library; MA in English and Russian Literature and Linguistics, ELTE, Budapest; MLS, Long Island University, New York. Served as Chair of the New York chapter of ARLIS/NA (Art Libraries Society of North America).




Pigniczky, Réka - Documentary film

Independent filmmaker

The Life of László Hudec: In His Own Words

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The Life of László Hudec: In His Own Words
Documentary Film (26 min. 2011, Hungary)
Hungarian spoken with English subtitles.
Dir: Réka Pigniczky

László Ede Hugyecz (1893-1958) -- later L.E. Hudec -- was a Central European (Hungarian/Slovak) architect who fled the vicissitudes of Europe in the early 20th century, taking with him the style and knowledge of European building design and construction. His work – spanning nearly 30 years of Shanghai’s economic and cultural ‘glory days’ – includes the first skyscraper from London to Tokyo.

In 2008 new archive materials – including original letters, photos and 16mm film – surfaced from his descendants in Hungary and the U.S. These archives paint a complex and thinking man living at the crossroads between Europe and China. The new archive materials reveal the man behind the architect that even his children barely knew.

Through their testimony, through his incredible film footage, and through our research of his footsteps, his story gives an extraordinary inside look at the first rush of Europeans to China, of its first modernization (skyscrapers!), and of the turmoil of the 20th century. A perspective all the more fascinating that, today, once again, China looks like the new El Dorado.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Réka Pigniczky is a television journalist, producer and independent documentary filmmaker. She has worked for Associated Press Television News for over 10 years, both in New York and in Budapest, Hungary. She completed her first feature-length documentary, Journey Home: a story from the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, at the end of 2006. It won awards in Hungary and was invited to screen at a number of international film festivals. She completed her second feature-length documentary, Inkubátor, in 2010, which saw a wide audience in Hungary through a national theatrical release as well as television broadcast, and it enjoyed wide critical acclaim after the Hungarian Film Festival. The film was also voted one of the 25 best films released in Hungary in 2010.

56 Films is actively involved in Hungary’s documentary community, and Réka has taken part in a number of festival juries and international documentary projects. She is also a member of the European Documentary Network (EDN) and the International Documentary Association (IDA).

Réka has an MA in journalism and international relations from Columbia University in New York, and she also has an MA in political science from the Central European University in Budapest. She has a BA in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego. Réka was born and raised in the U.S. by Hungarian refugee parents, and has been living in Hungary since 2002 with her husband and three children. Réka spent the early 1990’s working as a political consultant and volunteer organizer for women’s NGO’s in Hungary.





Portuges, Catherine - Plenary Speaker

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Hollywood on the Danube: Hungarian Filmmakers in a Transnational Context

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Exile, emigration and displacement have marked the trajectories of Hungarian filmmakers over the past century. Michael Curtiz, the Korda brothers, André de Toth, Emeric Pressburger, Vilmos Zsigmond, Miklos Rozsa, Peter Lorre, Géza von Radvány and other talented artists have crossed geographical, cultural and linguistic borders, creating such classics as Casablanca, Somewhere in Europe, The Red Shoes and The Lost One. Yet the legendary sign: "It is not enough to be Hungarian, you have to have talent, too!" evokes the ambivalence that accompanied their presence in Hollywood and elsewhere. Illustrated by film extracts, rare footage, personal interviews, and archive photographs, my presentation explores the transnational odysseys of these Hungarian directors, producers, cinematographers, composers, actors and screenwriters whose artistic expertise and European sensibility became an indispensable part of international cinema, suggesting that the challenges of emigration may also offer unexpected opportunities.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Catherine Portuges is Director of the Interdepartmental Program in Film Studies, Professor of Comparative Literature, and Curator, Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival, University of Massachusetts Amherst where she received the Chancellor's Medal for Distinguished Teaching (2010). She was awarded the Pro Cultura Hungarica Medal (Republic of Hungary, 2009) for her contributions to Hungarian cinema, and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (2007) for her project on Jewish identities in Hungarian filmmaking. With a PhD in French from UCLA, her books include Screen Memories: the Hungarian Cinema of Márta Mészáros (Indiana, l993) and Cinemas in Transition: Post-socialist East Central Europe (co-edited with Peter Hames, Temple, 2012). Her most recent essays have appeared in Cinema's Alchemist: The Films of Péter Forgács ( 2012); The Reception of the Holocaust in Post-Communist Europe (2012); Blackwell Companion to East European Cinema ( 2012); and The Modern Jewish Experience in World Cinema (2012). She is a frequent lecturer at international conferences, an invited programmer, curator and consultant for film festivals and colloquia, and a delegate to international film festivals.




Poznan, Kristina

College of William & Mary, Virginia

“Hungary Exposed”: Hungarian Surveillance, Pan-Slavism, and the American Front of Identity Politics, 1902-1903

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Emigration to the United States opened a new front for identity politics of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The years 1902-1903 are an illuminating moment in the decades-long debate in the New World between multiethnic cooperation and increasing separatism. After the turn of the century, Hungarian government officials and leaders of minority nationality communities in the United States became embroiled in a new round of church politics and an accompanying press war to influence national feeling. The Hungarian Ministry of Religion and Instruction, citing the threat of Greek Orthodox propaganda leading Roman Catholics astray and the disorder wrought by “pan-Slav sympathizing priests,” took a renewed interest in overseeing the spiritual and political welfare of Catholic emigrants from the Kingdom of Hungary. In response, a group of Slovak and Ruthenian priests published the pamphlet “Hungary Exposed,” in which they identified themselves as the oppressed “Irish of Hungary” and revealed the government’s “secret” plan to use espionage against them. Using the pamphlet and relevant documents from the Hungarian National Archives (MOL) and the American press, this paper will explore the different arguments of Hungarian authorities and Slovak-American leaders in advancing their interests and courting immigrant and American public opinion. Furthermore, it will discuss the unique conditions of the United States as venue in Austro-Hungarian minority relations.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Kristina Poznan is a Ph.D. candidate in History at The College of William and Mary in Virginia, specializing in the transnational history of the United States and Central & Eastern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She earned her M.A. from W&M in 2011 and a B.A. from Vassar College in History and Education in 2008. Her dissertation will explore cooperation and conflict between different ethnic groups from the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the United States and the continuing role of the Hungarian government in emigrants’ lives abroad. During the 2009-2010 academic year, she was the Fulbright Visiting Lecturer in English Studies at Károli Gáspár Református Egytem in Budapest.




Prékopa, András

Rutgers University

Commemorating János Bolyai, the World-Famous Hungarian Mathematician

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
János Bolyai (1802-1860) was the man who put Hungary on the map of international science. By the discovery of Non-Euclidean geometry he changed the course of mathematics, made possible the formulation of the modern physical theories of the 20th century, changed our way of thinking and had an impact on the universal human culture. He is also the greatest figure in Hungarian science. He first reported about the discovery in a letter written on November 3rd to his father, Farkas Bolyai: “Out of nothing I have created a new, different world”. Two years ago was the 150th anniversary of his death and we commemorated it by an international conference held in Budapest and Marosvásárhely between August 30-September 4. At the same time there was a pilgrimage to the grave of this great man, who, in his life, received no recognition at all, even though he was aware of the significance of his scientific discovery. The purpose of this lecture is to pay tribute to him abroad as well, and present to a wide audience, in an easily understandable way, a brief summary of his life and scientific achievements.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
András Prékopa graduated from the the University of Debrecen in mathematics, physics and received PhD from Eötvös University (1960). He was assistant and later associate professor at the Department of Probability Theory of the Eötvös University, until 1968. Between 1968-83 he was full professor of mathematics at the Technical University of Budapest. In 1983 he returned to the Eötvös Univesity, and became the founder, professor and first chairman of the Department of Operations Research (OR). Since 1985 he has been distinguished professor of OR, statistics and mathematics at Rutgers University. He published more than a dozen books about 350 papers and supervised 52 PhD students. He is full member of the HAS, member and honorary president of several academies and scientific societies. He is recipient of the Széchenyi Prize (1996), the Middle Cross of the Republic of Hungary (2005) and the Gold Medal of the European OR Societies, a major international distinction (2003).




Rab, Virág

University of Pécs, Institute of History, Department of Modern History

Political and Economic Transitions in Hungary in the 20th Century

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
In the course of the 20th century there were six political transitions in Hungary, three immediately after WWI (October, 1918, March, 1919, August, 1919). These were followed by an extreme right turn in 1944, and then a democratic transition took place in 1945. The communist dictatorship started in 1948, with the fusion of the two left-wing parties. The 1956 revolution started a new era within the communist dictatorship; however, structural changes were only realized in 1989, when after 40 years the communist system collapsed. Political changes must, after a certain time, be followed by economic and social changes. However, in most cases Hungary lacked these changes, due to the rather frequent transitions. This was the same in the case of the relatively longer political eras, like the Bethlen-era or the Kádár-era, as well, which were both interrupted by serious economical crises, the Great Depression and the Oil Crisis, respectively. In this presentation I would like to present the effects of the frequent political changes on Hungarian economy, bearing in mind the fact that more than 20 years have passed since 1989, and the complete economic and social transition have not yet been realized.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Virág Rab is an assistant professor at the University of Pécs, Hungary. She holds a PhD in History. The title of her doctoral dissertation was: "Diagnoses and Therapies: Financial Experts’ Ideas to Solve the Post-war International Financial Problems, 1919-1920".(2007). She has been involved in both teaching activities and research at the Department of contemporary History. Her courses include lectures on political and economic history of 20th century Hungary and Central-Europe. Her current research focuses on Hungarian economy from a global perspective.




Rácz, Barnabás

Eastern Michigan University, Emeritus

Problems and Prospects of the 2012 Electoral Law and Dual Citizenship in Hungary

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The Fidesz-KDNP right-of-center coalition won a two-third majority in Parliament in 2010. Prime Minister Victor Orban's government immediately began the "reorganization" of the country starting with constitutional replacement. This includes shrinking Parliament to half-size, re-legislating the electoral system and extending citizenship to Hungarians abroad, creating dual citizenship status cum voting rights. The measures appeal to nationalist emotions and also may influence the outcomes of future elections. This novel approach to minority problems, however raises serious questions: The legislation affects the sovereignty of surrounding countries and was undertaken without diplomatic negotiations and agreements, creating legal vacuums both in public and private law relationships. The extension of voting rights in foreign countries upsets regional stability and appears to be contradictory to European Union principles. This is a policy of confrontation instead of reconciliation and may be perceived as "irredentist" rejection of European borders. The actions of the Hungarian government may satisfy (un)realistic aspirations but may also weaken both the minorities' prospects and the positive inter-state relations in the Carpathian basin.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Dr. Juris, Budapest
PhD. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor




Rajec, Elizabeth Molnár

Independent Scholar

Deportation of the Hungarian Minority from Czechoslovakia to Hungary

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Under the leadership of President Eduard Beneš of Czechoslovakia on February 27, 1946 a “Czechoslovak-Hungarian Population Exchange Agreement” was proposed and was reluctantly signed by the Hungarian Government whereby Slovaks from Hungary would voluntarily relocate to Slovakia but Hungarians from Slovakia would forcefully be deported to Hungary. The agreement demanded to cleanse Slovakia from Hungarian minorities. Slovakia was striving to become a monolingual national state. About 200,000 Hungarians from Slovakia, aka Felvidék were targeted to be deported. The civil rights of law-abiding Hungarians citizens were severely abused. Atrocities and crimes were committed under the pressure of nationalistic political decisions. The forced deportation committed against Hungarians was a tribulation that defines the suffering of human dignity. 71,787 Slovaks voluntarily left Hungary while 86,616 Hungarians were forcefully taken away in army trucks or freight wagons to be relocated from Slovakia to Hungary. The deportation came to a final halt on June 1, 1949.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Elizabeth Molnár Rajec retired from City College of the City University of New York as Professor Emerita in 1996, after a long career of Academic Librarian and professor. The latest among her many publications is "Climbing Out From Under the Shadow", New York, 2010.




Révay, Máté

Medaille College, Buffalo, NY

Value Systems and Role Models Among Hungarian High School Students

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Role models are essential in the socialization of adolescents. Do the examples and values of parents count for the teenagers? What are the important values for high school students? Who are their role models?
My research answer these questions. This research was conducted in Szent Margit High School, Budapest in 2011, with more than 330 student participants between the ages of 12 and 18. Results are interesting and valuable for both educators and parents.
This research generates further studies in Hungary as well as in the U.S. My presentation’s goal is to discuss results that are also useful in a cross cultural context especially for American educators.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Currently, Máté Révay is a graduate student in the Psychology MA program at Medaille College, Buffalo, NY. He was awarded a scholarship from the Hungarian-American Calasanctius Training Program (CTP). He earned his Masters in Psychology at Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Piliscsaba, Hungary and his Educational Psychologist degree at Eötvös Lóránd University, Budapest. He works in Budapest as a school psychologist in Szent Margit High School.




Sabolcsi-Boros, Susanna

Rutgers University, School of Communication & Information

Do Artists Have Nationalities? Oral Histories of Hungarian Artists at the Archives of American Art

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The Collections of the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution preserve the papers and oral histories of several influential Hungarian born artists. My project examines the role of Hungarian heritage in the lives and works of these key artists.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Susanna holds an MA from Roman Archaeology and History, an MLS from Rutgers, and currently a PhD Candidate at the School of Communication & Information at Rutgers. She has been working since 1978 as a subject bibliographer and reference librarian. Her publications are in the fields of Roman archaeology, museum studies and chat reference services. In 1998 she co-curated the Jozsef Domjan Retrospective Exhibition at the American Hungarian Foundation.




Sanders, Iván

Columbia University, New York

Would-be Émigrés and Internal Exiles in Péter Nádas’s Parallel Stories

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
In my paper I would like to focus on three important characters in Péter Nádas’s monumental novel: János Kovách (also known as Hans von Wolkenstein), Ágost Lippay-Lehr and András Rott. The three of them are close friends, having spent a significant part of their lives abroad. All three of them work for the Hungarian counter-intelligence service, and are themselves secret agents. Because of their profession and family background and connections, they are privileged members of the nomenklatura. These three men are in many ways strangers to Hungary; they speak Hungarian with a foreign intonation, and have a disdain for ordinary Hungarians. What complicates their situation is that one of them (Kovách) is of aristocratic birth, and the other two are Jewish-born or half-Jewish. Yet Hungary is their home. There are important and highly interesting reflections in the book about the state of mind of these and other communist “internationalists”, so I would like to explore their “displaced” “internal exile” status.

One of the more likeable characters in the novel is an architect of great promise, Alajos Madzar, who is half Hungarian and half sváb, i.e., ethnic German, and forever wavers between his two identities. During his youth in the 1930s he planned to immigrate to America, but it didn’t happen, and he never became an important architect either. He remained a “would-be émigré”. Then there are the holdovers from the prewar elite and middle-class Budapest Jews who did not leave the country after the war or in ‘56. These people are either comforted by the past or tormented by it; what they cannot do is find their place in the present.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Ivan Sanders is Professor Emeritus of English at Suffolk Community College, SUNY, and Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University. He has also taught at the New School, New York University, New York Jewish Theological Seminary and Central European University. Sanders has written extensively on modern Hungarian literature in American as well as Hungarian journals. He has translated works by György Konrád, Péter Nádas, and other major Hungarian writers; for his translations, he was awarded a Soros Translation Award (1988), the Füst Milán Prize (1991), and the Déry Tibor Prize (1998). His reviews and articles have appeared in the New York Times Book Review, New Republic, Commonweal, Nation, and other periodicals.




Sárosi-Márdirosz, Krisztina-Mária

Sapientia University of Marosvásárhely

The Official Register of Hungarian Language Used in Transylvania

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
According to the Constitution of Romania the only official language of the country is the Romanian language. Yet, according to the legislation in force, in the public administration of those settlements in which the minority represents at least 20% of the population, the language of that minority may be used. Thus in some areas of the country Hungarian may also be used in the public administration. The problem is that the official register of Hungarian language in Romania is underdeveloped and thus the users encounter many problems which they try to solve by translating laws, acts and documents from Romanian to Hungarian. Unfortunately these translations are sometimes incorrect and unusable. The aim of the paper is to present the linguistic phenomena occurring in the administrative and official register of the Hungarian language used in Transylvania due to the translation of the above mentioned text types the source language of which was the Romanian language. The research is based on the data base elaborated as a result of an extended monitoring of the Hungarian electronic media in Transylvania. The project was realized in 2010 and 2011 by the researchers from Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania in cooperation with the researchers from Babeș‒Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. My analysis will focus on the specificities of the Hungarian language used in the official, administrative and political discourse of the monitored electronic media.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Dr. Sárosi-Márdirosz Krisztina-Mária is currently an assistant professor at the Sapientia University of Marosvásárhely, at the Department of Humanities. She completed her university degree in Hungarian language and literature and English language and literature at Babeș‒Bolyai University in 2002. She continued her studies at the same university and received her master’s degree in Hungarian linguistics in 2004. In 2009 she defended her PhD thesis with the title Problems of Translation in the case of the Language of Official Documents (regarding Romanian-Hungarian Relations) Her main field of research is translation studies focusing on the official translations and on the problems occurring in the domain of legal translation. She presented the results of her research in numerous national and international conferences.




Saunders, Will

Project Harvest Hope

Community Development and Civil Society - The Work of Project Harvest Hope in Transylvania

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
In our interconnected and interdependent world, the framework of civil society -- trust, respect, honesty, transparency, self-determination, collaboration and a sense of human agency -- is necessary for healthy and sustainable community life. Our world has become a global village in which the close proximity of differences -- racial, ethnic, religious, cultural and economic -- is magnified by rapid changes in technology and communication.

Since 1993, Project Harvest Hope has partnered with Unitarian communities in Transylvania seeking to renew their economic, civil and religious base in a post-Communist, early-stage capitalist environment. We capitalized a mill, a bakery and a ninety cow dairy farm in the Homorod Valley. We have established a donor-advised fund with the Szekelyudvarhely Community Foundation (szka.org) to support local initiatives in Unitarian communities. This paper explores the history, successes and challenges of Project Harvest Hope.





Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Will Saunders is President of Project Harvest Hope. Raised a Unitarian Universalist in Ithaca, New York, he holds degrees from Oberlin College, Union Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in Church History from Columbia University. From 1976 to 2005, he served congregations in Brunswick, Maine, Urbana, Illinois and Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which elected him Minister Emeritus. He lives in Portland, Maine. Will has long-standing friendships and connections in Romania beginning with his 1968 trip to the celebrations marking the 400th anniversary of the Diet of Torda.




Sherwood, Peter

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Forty Years in the Wilderness: Teaching Hungarian in the UK and the US, 1972-2012

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The paper draws on my experience of teaching Hungarian in universities in the Anglo-Saxon world, indicating some of the lessons of the past and offering some ideas for the future.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Peter Sherwood taught Hungarian in the University of London before being appointed the first László Birinyi, Sr., Distinguished Professor of Hungarian Language and Culture in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2008.




Sohar, Paul

Independent Scholar, Writer, Translator

Major Themes In György Faludy's Poetry

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The year after Faludy’s death I expected an avalanche of papers presented on the poet at the subsequent AHEA conference so I restricted my presentation to one aspect of his oeuvre, his concern about the environment and the way its deterioration threatened the future of mankind. Perhaps the poet’s death had caught some scholars off guard, because as it turned out, there were no other papers presented on his work. Now that a selection of my 123 Faludy translations is about to come out in an e-book form from The WriteDeal publishers under the title of “Silver Pirouettes” I would like to give a more general talk on every aspect of Faludy’s work from every period of his life, illustrating them with my translations that have appeared in 23 literary magazines in the US, UK, Canada and Austria. In order to conform to the theme of this upcoming 2013 conference I will again demonstrate the poets disillusionment with industry and the havoc it was wreaking on the environment, but in addition I will show another development that gave him cause to worry about the future: the general dumbing down of the people of the West, especially the younger generation. Preserving the past was also on his agenda; he had a deep commitment to Western Civilization and its roots in the Greco-Roman world, because he saw the past as a guide to the future. A people without a past had no future, he always maintained.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Paul Sohar ended his higher education with a BA in philosophy and took a day job in a research lab while writing in every genre, publishing seven volumes of translations, including "Dancing Embers", his Kanyadi translations (Twisted Spoon Press, 2002). Now a volume of his own poetry (“Homing Poems”) is available from Iniquity Press. His latest “The Wayward Orchard”, was a Wordrunner Prize winner: www.echapbook.com/poems/sohar (2011). His Faludy translations are scheduled to be published by The WriteDeal. His prose work "True Tales of a Fictitious Spy" was published by SynergeBooks in 2006. He has given talks at AHEA and MLA conferences and lectures at Centennial College in NJ. His magazine credits include Agni, Kenyon Review, Rattle, Salzburg Poetry Review, Seneca Review, etc.






Sólyom, Erika

Corvinus University of Budapest

The Importance of Cultural Competence in Teaching Hungarian as a Foreign Language

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Cultural competence generally refers to an ability to interact effectively with people of different cultures. Although cultural competence has been widely analyzed in the professional world (e.g. in the works of NGOs, government agencies, policy making institutions, HR offices, health care practitioners, etc.), it has also attracted considerable academic interest in the field of education. Within education, however, the discussion has concentrated on the training and the education of teachers and school staff and the developing of their cultural competence, especially with the growing diversiy of students in the classrooms both in the US and worldwide. Being a culturally competent educator means valuing diversity and respecting differences of students who come from very different backgrounds in order to understand them and communicate with them efficiently.

As a sociolinguist, an educator and a foreign language instructor, I find it important to expand the question of “Who is a culturally competent educator?” to the following inquiry: “Who is a culturally competent second/foreign language teacher?” As Kramsch puts it, “despite the advances made by research in the spheres of the intercultural and the multicultural, language teaching is still operating on a relatively narrow conception of both language and culture. Language continues to be taught as a fixed system of formal structures and universal speech functions, a neutral conduit for the transmission of cultural knowledge.” She concludes that in the future the language teacher has to be defined “not only as the impresario of a certain linguistic performance but as the catalyst for an ever-widening critical cultural competence.”

In my present talk, I will shed light on how Hungarian culture is incorporated in our Colloquial Hungarian course book, providing particular examples from various dialogoues and cultural notes of the book. With the specific examples, I will underline the fact that “beyond knowing words and grammar, learning a language involves acquiring a role, and knowing how to act according to that social definition.” I firmly believe that linguistic competence, communicative competence, cultural competence are equally important parts of foreign language teaching and foreign language learning.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_competence
http://www.opb.org/education/minisites/culturalcompetence/teachers.html
Kramsch, Claire. "The Cultural Component of Language.” In Language, Culture and Curriculum. London: Routledge. 2010, Volume 24.
Rounds, Carol H. & Erika Sólyom. Colloquial Hungarian. London: Routledge. 2011. 3rd edition.
Ogulnick, Karen. “Learning Language/Learning Self.” In Intercultural Discourse and Communication. Eds. Scott F. Kiesling & Christina Bratt Paulston. Oxford: Blackwell. 2005: 250-54.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Erika Sólyom earned a B.A. degree in Russian and English Studies (EKTF, Eger) and received her first M.A. in English Language and Literature (ELTE, Budapest) in Hungary. In 2003 and 2005, respectively, she earned an M.A. and an M.Phil. in Linguistics at New York University. Her research interests are in intercultural communication, minority language education, linguistic human rights, language and gender as well as language change and globalization. Since 2004, she has been teaching Hungarian as a Foreign Language for US study abroad students of ELTE and Corvinus University of Budapest, where she is also the director of the American Corner Budapest cultural center. In 2002, she published with Carol H. Rounds Colloquial Hungarian, Routledge’s well-known language learning series. In 2003, she was awarded a US Fulbright-Hays fellowship and conducted research on Hungarian language change. Her sociolinguistic findings appeared in Comparative Hungarian Cultural Studies edited by Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek and Louise O. Vasvári in 2011.




Szabó, Juliet

Independent Scholar

The Emigration Policy of the Kádár Regime

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Although emigration from Hungary has a long and sorrowful past, it was from the years around the beginning of the 20th century that the number of those leaving Hungary were of such magnitude that various Hungarian governments acted to form policy and instigate programs designed to both assuage the problem and also to encourage the return of Hungarian (e)migrants. Later, during and immediately after World War II Hungary was to again lose a part of her population nearing the number and quality of the previous migration to North America. It was in the wake of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and in the months to follow that approximately 200 000 Hungarians fled their homeland. Although the official propaganda of the Kádár regime was that the majority of the refugees were young people, misled by imperialist or “fascist” propaganda and for whose return the homeland waited with open arms, the regime did not, in fact, do everything possible to encourage their return. Indeed, ensuing policies often did more to hinder the return of Hungarian refugees than those of the previous stalinist Rákosi regime. Between 1956 and 1989 the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party instituted a number of policies and set up several organizations which, working within the framework of various foreign and internal Hungarian state bodies, and with not an insignificant amount of state financing, were designed to bring back to Hungary “desirables”, (i.e. those whose return would serve the interest of the regime, including those who left earlier than 1956), to hinder the return of “non-desirables”, and at the same time hamper the activities of emigré communities deemed to be unfriendly to the regime.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Returning as an adult to the land her father left in 1956, Juliet Szabó spent a brief interval in the Hungarian civil sphere, and then a much longer time in Hungarian state administration working mainly with European Union legal harmonization matters. Several years ago she began the Ph.D. program at the Eötvös Loránd University researching the policy of the post-1956 Hungarian government towards its emigré community. Although her research concentrates on policy introduced by the Kádár regime, it also touches on emigré policy by Hungary towards its (e)migrant community throughout the 20th century as well as provides an overview on similar policy by other former Soviet satellite countries towards their respective emigré communities. She divides her time between Budapest and the Hungarian countryside where she has a peasant home.




Szabó, Lilla

Hungarian Nationa Gallery, Budapest

Az American Hungarian Foundation and Heritage Center képzőművészeti gyűjteménye

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Fulbright kutatói ösztöndíjjal 2011. november 1-én érkeztem az American Hungarian Foundation and Heritage Center (New Brunswick) képzőművészeti gyűjteményének a kutatása és szakmai feldolgozása céljából. Művészettörténészként, a nem Magyarországon élt/élő magyar képzőművészek kutatásával és életműveik feldolgozásával foglalkozom. A rendszerváltás óta több tanulmányom, és könyvem jelent meg a témakörből. Számos kiállítást rendeztem Magyarországon és külföldön, illetve tartottam előadásokat a Magyarország határain kívül, és az egykor az emigrációban élt/élő művészekről. 2000-ben Budapesten nemzetközi művészettörténeti konferenciát rendeztem 20. századi magyar képzőművészet Magyarország határain kívül címmel. Az amerikai földrészen élt képzőművészekről több előadás is elhangzott. A háromnapos konferencia ötven előadása „Külön világban és külön időben.” 20. századi magyar képzőművészet Magyarország határain kívül 1918-tól napjainkig címmel 2001-ben jelent meg.

2008-ban, Domján József festőművész és grafikus születésének 100. évfordulója alkalmából San Diegoban, a Mingei Múzeumban rendezett kiállításra hívtak meg előadást tartani. Témám, Domján József emigráció előtti képzőművészete és az 50-es évek magyarországi kultúrpolitikája volt. Ugyanezen utam során, New Brunswickban, az American-Hungarian Foundation and Heritage Center épületében a 3T – Tiltott, tűrt, támogatott képzőművészet címmel a korabeli hivatalos jegyzőkönyvek és törvények alapján beszéltem az 1945 utáni kultúrpolitikáról és a szocreál művészetről. (1945 után és a Kádár korszakban tiltott volt a külföldön élt/élő magyar képzőművészekről írni, kiállítást rendezni műveikből, stb.)
Molnár Ágoston Professzor úr ekkor mutatta be az Alapítvány minden szempontból rendkívül jelentős és fontos művészeti gyűjteményét.

1979-től dolgozom a Magyar Nemzeti Galériában. Pontosan tudom, hogy a 20. századi magyar művészettörténet egyik legkevésbé kutatott és ismert területe az Amerikában élt magyar képzőművészek munkássága, életpályája. Ezért kettős, kétszeres feladatomnak tekintem az AHF Múzeum gyűjteményében végzett munkát. Az amerikai magyarság történelme, léte, kultúrája és a magyarországi művészettörténet szempontjából.

Az AHF jegyzőkönyvei és az AHF Múzeum képzőművészeti alkotásai alapján, 1955-től rendszeresen érkeztek/érkeznek be művek a gyűjteménybe. A leltárkönyvek alapján minden ajándékba kapott alkotásnál szerepelnek az ajándékozó neve és címe mellett a beérkezésre vonatkozó szükséges adatok.

A gyűjtemény alapját (festmények, grafikák, vázlatok, szobrok)
-Magyarországi,
-amerikai magyar,
-Nyugat-Európában működött magyar képzőművészek alkotásai képezik.
-ezen kívül több műalkotás található az amerikai, német, osztrák, olasz, stb. képzőművészektől.

Az AHF Múzeumában találhatók továbbá:
-régi városmetszetek, történelmi portrék, régi történelmi nyomatok
-plakátok
-fotók (dokumentum, művészi, családi)
-és egyéb művészeti dokumentumok

Fontos megjegyeznem, hogy a vegyes anyagban, az egész Kárpát-medencéből kivándorolt művészek közt számos olyan név is szerepel, akiről szintén semmit sem tudtunk/tudunk Magyarországon.

A szakmai leltározás szerint meghatározott és feldolgozott műtárgyak alapján, az AHF and Heritage Center Múzeumában lévő művekről
-szakmai, művészettörténeti és
-kultúrtörténeti szempontok alapján egyaránt szeretnék előadásomban beszélni.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Szabó, Lilla has been an art historian of the Hungarian National Gallery in Budapest, since 1979. Her area of specialization is Hungarian fine arts of the 20th Century, both in Hungary as well as abroad. Dr. Szabó published many articles, studies, and monographs on this subject and organized exhibitions.








Szapor, Judith

McGill University, Montreal

Disputed Past: The Friendship and Competing Memories of Anna Lesznai and Emma Ritoók

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Anna Lesznai (Amália Moscovitz), (1885-1966) was a celebrated poet and artist of the first Nyugat generation, a member of the Sunday Society, the first wife of Oszkár Jászi, and the niece of Lajos Hatvany. While Lesznai’s early life has been explored by Erzsébet Vezér and, recently, Judit Szilágyi, much less is known of Lesznai’s life after 1919 when she joined the ranks of the emigration. She lived in Vienna, then at Körtvélyes, Czechoslovakia on her family’s estate, moving back to Budapest in the 1930s and New York City in 1939 where she died in 1966.

Emma Ritoók (1868-1945) also forged a unique path: she attended university in Budapest, Paris and Berlin, to become a writer and a member of the Sunday Society. She found her intellectual home and peers there, developing especially close ties with Balázs and Lukács. By the end of 1918, however, while Lukács and most of the others began their road to Communism, Ritoók took a sharp turn to the Right. With Cecile Tormay, she became one of the founders of the National Association of Hungarian Women, publicly denounced her old friends and played an important role in shaping the post-war period’s viciously anti-Semitic discourse.

In this paper I explore the relationship of Lesznai and Ritoók in the crucial revolutionary and counter-revolutionary months. While their personal relationship can be traced in their respective diaries, their autobiographical novels, Lesznai’s In the Beginning Was the Garden (Kezdetben volt a kert) and Ritoók’s A szellem kalandorai (The Adventurers of the Spirit), both romans à clef, provide highly conflicting views of their shared past. They managed to mutually erase one another out of the history of the Sunday Society, demonstrating, in the process, the fatal fissures dividing the post-1919 Hungarian intellectual scene and the power of memories in creating lasting legacies.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Judith Szapor teaches modern European history at Montreal’s McGill University. She is the author of The Hungarian Pocahontas: The Life and Times of Laura Polanyi Stricker, 1882-1959 (Boulder, Co.: East European Monographs, distributed by Columbia University Press, 2005) and numerous articles on Hungarian women’s, gender, and intellectual history. She is a co-editor of the volume, Jewish Intellectual Women in Central Europe, 1860-2000, forthcoming at Edwin Mellen Press. After many years of working on progressive political and intellectual movements, her recent research, supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, explores the emergence and gendered nature of right-wing, nationalistic rhetoric in post-1918 Hungary.




Széchenyi, Kinga

Independent scholar

Deportations in Hungary During the Rákosi Dictatorship

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
After the Soviet occupation of Hungary in 1945, in 1948 the communist takeover was complete in Hungary and the Rákosi dictatorship (1948-1956) followed. Stalin demanded faster sovietization of the satellite countries. Deportation was a form of persecution of ”class enemies” and their families. Mass deportations to forced labor camps in Hortobágy and 137 villages in Eastern Hungary took place between 1949-1953. Different forms of deportations were used with the same objective: to ruin and liquidate class enemies from the elderly to young children. After Stalin’s death in 1953 Prime Minister Imre Nagy released the deportees with certain restrictions. Surveillance and discrimination continued.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Kinga Széchenyi, educator, writer, and sculptor graduated from Loránd Eötvös University, Budapest in 1970. Then taught at Toldy Ferenc Secondary Grammer School, and later became a teacher trainer for Loránd Eötvös University. Translates English and American literary works and psychology publications. Researched the deportations of the Rákosi dictatorship and published a book on the topic: Stigmatized (Megbélyegzettek, Kráter Kiadó, Pomáz, 2008.) She studied sculpturing at Dési-Huber Art School, Budapest, makes plaquettes and statuettes. Her János Bolyai and Gyula Farkas plaquettes are awards for mathematicians at international conferences. Her large János Bolyai plaquette is on a memorial tablet in Marosvásárhely, Transylvania. She received the Silver Order of Merit of the Hungarian Republic for her achievements in education in 1998.




Szilágyi, Janka and Szécsi, Tünde

Florida Gulf Coast University and State University of New York, Brockport

Hungarian-American Immigrant Children’s Use of Media Technologies to Maintain Their Heritage Language and Culture

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Despite the increasing number of culturally and linguistically diverse immigrants in the USA, more than 90 % of the population uses solely English for communication. Research also indicates that within three generations the heritage language is completely lost (Fishman, 1991). The consequences of such language loss are often devastating (Wong Fillmore, 2000), because it impacts immigrant children’s identities, their relationship with parents and grandparents, and their academic accomplishments in the second language.
This presentation reports on the findings of a study that delved deep into the media-related perceptions of dispersed Hungarian immigrant professionals who have been successful at raising bilingual and bicultural children in the United States. Open-ended interviewing and autoethnography was used to explore perceptions of three Hungarian immigrant families about the role of new media technologies in their children's successful development and maintenance of heritage language skills, relationships with relatives in the heritage country, and cultural identity. Participating bilingual families found new media technologies beneficial in all three areas: the development and maintenance of heritage language and heritage culture, and relationships with Hungarian speaking relatives. Parents and grandparents also repeatedly pointed out the significance of adults’ active involvement in the process, and their responsibility in selecting appropriate resources and in being available to support children in their optimal use of new media technologies while children are improving their skills in the heritage language and culture.
The presentation will offer recommendations for families and educators for nurturing children’s heritage language, culture, and for the development of well founded social-emotional well-being of bilingual children through using new media technologies.

References
Fishman, J.A. (1991). Reversing language shift: Theoretical and empirical foundations of assistance to threatened languages. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Wong Fillmore, L. (2000). Loss of family languages: Should educators be concerned? Theory into Practice, 39(4), 203-210.




Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Dr. Janka Szilágyi (photo) is an Assistant Professor at the College at Brockport, State University of New York. . She obtained her master’s degrees in Mathematics and English Language and Literature in Hungary in 1999. She earned her Ph.D. in Elementary Education/Early Childhood Education from the University at Buffalo, in 2007. She has published articles on multicultural education, best practices, and culturally responsive teacher preparation, both in Hungarian and English. During the past ten years, she has presented at national and international conferences in Hungary and the United States. She has served on the ACEI Intercultural Publication and Awards committees. jszilagy@brockport.edu

Dr. Tünde Szécsi is an Associate Professor at Florida Gulf Coast University, USA. She earned her Master’s degrees in Teaching English as a Foreign Language and Teaching Russian and Hungarian Languages in Hungary. In 2003, she obtained her Ph.D. in Early Childhood Education at University at Buffalo, USA. Over the last decade she has made numerous presentations in Hungary, Denmark, Bolivia, Russia, Italy, France, Greece and USA. She has contributed over thirty articles in child development, multicultural education, foreign and second language leaning, and culturally responsive teacher preparation. Currently, she is also the coeditor of the Teaching Strategies column of the Childhood Education journal.






Tarsoly, Eszter

University College London School of Slavonic and East European Studies

Language Without Borders – Heritage Languages and Language Education in Cultural Identity Formation: The Case of Hungarian

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
My paper contrasts the processes of learning and acquiring, as well as the motives of transmission, of Hungarian, in two contexts: Hungarian, as a heritage language in the United Kingdom v. Hungarian as a minority language in Romania. Evidence is based on my experience as a teacher working with heritage speakers of Hungarian from a variety of backgrounds at UCL, and on fieldwork in various minority communities Eastern Europe.
Languages, and even small contrasts between dialects, are powerful markers of one’s cultural affiliation, identity, and status. Heritage and minority Hungarian speakers acquire Hungarian outside of Hungary, thus, they form a social and cultural identity inclusive of Hungarian in a different way from speakers of Hungarian in Hungary. It is instructive to explore the differences between the two groups in terms of perceived linguistic vitality, other H speakers’ expectations towards them, processes of Othering, and how these factors are influenced by, or impinge on, their actual use of Hungarian. This contributes to a better understanding of how languages are interwoven with the thought, custom, and culture of their speakers.
The model ‘one language – one nation’, which underlies ‘foreign’ language learning, and which has been recently reiterated in the new Constitution of Hungary, is dismissive towards heritage and minority speakers’ language competence, and towards contact varieties of a language. I discuss how purist tendencies in the case of a language which is imagined as monocentric jeopardise the sustainability of multilingualism and multiculturalism involving the language, in this case Hungarian, in question.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Eszter Tarsoly (BA/MA in Hungarian Literature, Linguistics, and Language Pedagogy, 2004, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest; MA in Central and South-East European Studies, 2005; MPhil/PhD, 2006 to present; both at University College London School of Slavonic and East European Studies; hereafter: UCL/SSEES) is a Senior Teaching Fellow in Hungarian at UCL/SSEES. She started her employment as a Teaching Fellow in 2007, while also working on her doctoral thesis on linguistic purism and attitudes towards language. Research interests: bilingualism, language contact, minority and endangered languages, language typology, ideas on language correctness, and language teaching methodology, in particular teaching reading and translation.




Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven

Purdue University

About the Problematics of (E)migration in the Work of Kertész and Márai

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
In his paper "About the Problematics of (E)migration in the Work of Kertész and Márai" Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek discusses the underlying ideological perspectives of emigration and its corollary aspects in the work of Imre Kertész and Sándor Márai. Since the demise of communism in Central and East Europe in 1989, Márai's works experience remarkable interest not only in Hungary proper but in Europe and the Anglophone world owing to the translation of his works. Márai wrote with nostalgia about the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and its multi-ethnic history and in several of his novels described post-World War II Hungary under Soviet and communist rule. Although he can be considered a proponent of bourgois society, he did not subscribe to the anti-Semitic worldview of his contemporaries whether in Hungary or among other exile Hungarian authors. Kertész, the first and only Hungarian Nobel laureate in literature expresses in his work the horrors of both fascist and communist rule. In his later works he deals extensively with the recurrence of anti-Semitism and anti-Other in conemporary Hungarian society and culture. Both authors' works are also relevant to questions of identity, home, and emigration and it is this aspect Tötösy de Zepetnek explores in his paper.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Author's profile: Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweblibrary/totosycv taught comparative literature at the University of Alberta and comparative media and communication studies at the University of Halle-Wittenberg, as well as at various universities in the U.S. and Asia. In addition to numerous articles he has published three dozen single-authored books and collected volumes in various fields of the humanities and social sciences, most recently the collected volumes Comparative Hungarian Cultural Studies (with Louise O. Vasvári, 2011), Mapping the World, Culture, and Border-crossing (with I-Chun Wang, 2010); Perspectives on Identity, Migration, and Displacement (with I-Chun Wang and Hsiao-Yu Sun, 2009), and Comparative Central European Holocaust Studies (with Louise O. Vasvári, 2009). Tötösy de Zepetnek's work has also been published in Chinese, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Macedonian, Mahrati, Polish, Portuguese, and Spanish translation. He resides in Boston.




Vasvári, Louise O.; Borgos, Anna; Kürti, László; Portuges, Catherine; Sanders, Ivan; Sherwood, Peter; Sólyom, Erika; Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven

Stony Brook University & New York University;

About Comparative Hungarian Cultural Studies

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Based on the collected volume Comparative Hungarian Cultural Studies. Ed. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek and Louise O. Vasvári. West Lafayette: Purdue UP, 2011. contributors to the volume from Hungary and the U.S. discuss aspects of the study of Hungarian culture (i.e., in fields of the humanities and social sciences) since the 1989 end of Soviet and communist rule in Hungary and the region of Central and East Europe. A main postulate of the notion of "comparative Central European cultural studies" is that scholarship achieves new insights when Hungarian culture is studied in a contextual manner.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Louise O. Vasvári (photo)(Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley) is Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature and Linguistics at Stony Brook University and presently teaches in the Linguistics Department at New York University. She works in medieval studies, historical and socio-linguistics, translation theory, Holocaust Studies, and Hungarian Studies, all informed by gender theory within a broader framework of comparative cultural studies. Related to Hungarian Studies she has published with Steven Tötösy, Imre Kertész and Holocaust Literature (2005), Comparative Central European Holocaust Studies (2009), a special issue of CLCWeb (2009), as well as Comparative Hungarian Cultural Studies (2011), all in Purdue UP. In the 2010 issue of this journal she published “A töredékes (kulturális) test irása Polcz Alaine ‘Asszony a fronton’ című művébem.” She is the Editor of AHEA E-Journal.

For bios of Borgos, Kürti, Portuges, Sanders, Sherwood, Sólyom, and Tötösy de Zepetnek see their papers.




Waters, Leslie

UCLA

Erasing Borders: The Reacquaintance of Trianon and Felvidék Hungarians

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
This paper explores the reconnection of Hungarians in Felvidék and Hungary proper after the expansion of Hungary’s northern border in November 1938. During the previous twenty years of Czechoslovak rule, contact between Hungarians living within the Trianon borders and those in Felvidék had been curtailed and regional distinctions became more pronounced during the separation. The minority experience and exposure to democratic processes in Felvidék had transformed the area’s Hungarian residents in the eyes of many. The two sides became reacquainted first through extensive press coverage of the Grand Re-Entry of the Hungarian Army as both groups celebrated the first major triumph of Hungarian revisionism. A stream of civil service migration into Felvidék followed shortly thereafter, along with a smaller flow of leading Felvidék politicians to represent the region in Budapest. Later, tourism opportunities arose for average citizens to visit sites in the redeemed territory as travel restrictions in and out of Felvidék gradually eased. This paper examines these encounters, the two sides’ mutual suspicions, and the attempts to overcome them. It reveals that despite widespread support for the re-annexation both in Hungary proper and Felvidék, practical concerns abounded and solutions were difficult to achieve.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Leslie Waters is a PhD Candidate in History at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her dissertation, “Resurrecting the Nation: Felvidék and the Hungarian Territorial Revisionist Project, 1938-1946,” explores contested political, ethnic, linguistic, and national loyalties in southern Slovakia during the period of Hungarian rule following the First Vienna Award. Leslie was a Fulbright Scholar to Hungary in 2009-2010 and is currently a visiting instructor in European Studies at The College of William and Mary.




Zsemlyei, Borbála

Babeș‒Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Uncertain Suffix-Use in the Hungarian Electronic Media of Transylvania

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The aim of the paper is to present the uncertainties of the use of suffixes in the Hungarian electronic media (radio and TV) of Transylvania. The research is based on the data base gathered as a result of an extended monitoring of the Hungarian electronic media in Transylvania. This project was realized with the cooperation of researchers from Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania and Babeș‒Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania in 2010 and 2011. The monitoring focused on the language use of reporters and presenters of Hungarian radio and TV stations in Transylvania, and included exclusively news and cultural programs.
The present paper focuses on the misuse of both derivative and inflexive suffixes (eg.: -ba/-be instead of -ban/-ben) and tries to determine the causes of why this may happen (eg.: in a bilingual context as Romanian influence, the emotions of live shows etc.).





Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Dr. Zsemlyei, Borbála is currently a teaching assistant at the Department of Hungarian and General Linguistics,Babeș‒Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. She completed her university degree in Hungarian language and literature and English language and literature at Babeș‒Bolyai University in 2000. She continued her studies at the same university and received her master’s degree in Hungarian linguistics in 2002. In 2009 she defended her PhD thesis with the title Diminutive Suffixes in Old Hungarian in Transylvania. Her main field of research is the old Hungarian language used in Transylvania. She presented the results of her research in numerous national and international conferences. She is one of the editors of the Transylvanian Hungarian Historical Dictionary (Erdélyi magyar szótörténeti tár).