Abstracts of Submitted Papers 2013

Building a National Diaspora: the Kádár Regime and Hungarian Communities in North America

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
National governments often see their respective diasporas as strategic political assets. The successive Hungarian regimes—including the country’s World War II authoritarian leadership and postwar communist dictatorship—were no exceptions. In many instances, the more underdeveloped and poverty-stricken the home country, and the more dramatic a recent regime change has been, the more likely it is that the government will place a heavy emphasis on exerting political influence over its diaspora. Countries with sizeable diaspora populations and the need to improve their fledgling regime’s image abroad make political use of their diaspora populations.

This paper explores Hungary's relationship with its diaspora population in North America during the Kádár regime, and examines how Budapest attempted to build what political scientists frequently refer to as "governmentality" within Hungarian communities in Canada and the United States.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Christopher Adam earned his B.A. (Honours) in History from Concordia University, an M.A. degree in East/Central European and Russian Area Studies, and a PhD in History from the University of Ottawa. He teaches history at Carleton University.

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Initiation into a World with no Future: Ferenc Barnás's The Ninth (A Kilencedik) and Görgy Dragomán's The White Knight (Fehér Király)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Two contemporary novels, published within a year of each other, transport us back to life under Soviet control in Kádár's Hungary and Ceauşescu's Romania. Ferenc Barnás's The Ninth (A Kilencedik) and György Dragomán's The White King (A Fehér Király), published in 2006 and 2005 respectively and rendered into English by the gifted translator Paul Olchváry, are initiation or coming-of-age novels that can also be classified as trauma literature. Since the novels are semi-autobiographical with narrators about the same age as their authors were at the time the stories take place, they are historically important as literary forms of “bearing witness”. The narrator protagonists of these novels are young boys, aged 9 and 11. They are “outsiders”, not because of anything they have done, but simply because of who they are: sons of fathers deemed “unreliable” by the all-powerful Communist Party. Thus, their crises have existential dimensions. If they are literally going to survive, they must find some way to adapt. However, their environment offers little in the way of acceptable options. How are they to cope in a world which seems to offer them no viable future?
Basic to their predicament is an unjust legal and social system, based not on “the communal establishment of universal values”, but on the will of a small group of Party members whose chief function is to promote themselves and perpetuate the system. To keep the Party in power, it doles out perks and privileges to the Party faithful and terrorizes anyone who might object. Long gone is the world of the classic education novel (Bildungsroman) Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre), where the process of maturation leads to a more or less harmonious integration into society. Instead, these protagonists live in a post-Nietzschean world of lost values that has more in common with the experience of the Absurd in Camus's The Outsider (L'Étranger)or Beckett's Waiting for Godot than the more harmonious world of Goethe's masterpiece.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Marguerite Allen has a Ph.D. in Comparative Studies in Literature from the University of Chicago, where she was a Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation Dissertation Fellow. In 2008 she conducted research as a Fulbright Scholar in Hungary and was a Visiting Scholar at the Roberta Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies at Northwestern University. She has written about her Hungarian family: a memoir about her uncle and an article about her father's work as a Counter Intelligence Corps officer in the U.S. Army and his arrests of Arrow Crossers in Austria, as recorded in his private diary. She had a scholarship in 2007 to attend the Holocaust Educational Foundation Summer Institute. She has published a book on the 1587 Faust chapbook and Thomas Mann's Doktor Faustus, The Faust Leg end: Popular Formula and Modern Novel, as well as articles in major academic journals. Most recently, Marguerite wrote a chapter in The Faustian Century: German Literature and Culture in the Age of Luther and Faustus (Camden House, February 2013). After receiving her Ph.D., Marguerite taught German courses at Princeton University and World Literature at Loyola University of Chicago. She also won a National Endowment for the Humanities travel grant to conduct research at the Thomas Mann archives in Zurich, Switzerland.

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From Kálmán Imre to Emmerich Kálmán: Framing Hungary in "Der Zigeunerprimas"

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
Viennese operetta often reduced Hungary to gypsies, uncontrolled passion, “paprika,” and an elemental link with a mythic past. But for the most successful Hungarian composer of operettas, Kálmán Imre—or Emmerich Kálmán, as he became known after moving to Vienna in 1908—these tropes could not be taken seriously. This paper examines how Kálmán both embodied and exploited Hungarian clichés and simultaneously put these clichés in quotation marks, enjoying their pleasure but clearly marking them as fantasy.

Kálmán began writing operettas in Budapest, where his early works (such as “Tatárjárás” [1908] and “Az Obsitos” [1910]) contained relatively little that the Viennese would recognize as Hungarian—as was conventional for operetta in Budapest at the time. “Der Zigeunerprimas” (1912), however, his first operetta written for Vienna, presents a different picture. Loosely based on the life of the real violinist Rácz Pali, it concerns a multigenerational family of Roma musicians struggling with tradition and modernization. Despite “gypsy” music and characters, and a marketing campaign touting his Hungarian authenticity, Kálmán and his Viennese librettists treated the material with a light hand, portraying characters with humanity and depth who assume Roma garb and clichés to make a living rather than possessing the wild souls of legend. Yet he still offered a tribute to the artistry of Rácz Pali. This suggests that the Hungarian in Viennese operetta could be more self-conscious and more multifaceted than simple exoticism, and its cosmopolitanism transcended self versus other binaries.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Micaela Baranello is a doctoral candidate in musicology at Princeton University, where she is writing her dissertation on “Silver Age” Viennese operetta, focusing on the works of Franz Lehár, Emmerich Kálmán, Leo Fall, and Oscar Straus. She has presented work at the American Musicological Society’s annual meeting as well as conferences at Harvard and Oxford. Her work has been published in Opera Quarterly, The New York Times, and MLA Notes. In the 2009-10 academic year she held a Fulbright study grant in Austria.

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The Enduring Legacies of Kossuth's American Visit--with quotations about Kossuth from Presidents Abraham Lincoln & Theodore Roosevelt

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.

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Hungarian Poets: Using Historical Narrative to Prepare for a Better Future

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Hungarian literature has often looked to the past not with nostalgia but with an agenda. Zrinyi praised his ancestor for heroic deeds to encourage his country to throw off the Ottoman yoke through a united effort. The Romantic poets, notably Vörösmarty and Arany also reached into the past to revive pride in athe nation and to urge it to step forward into a country in livelly dialogue with its future. The vatic vision of Petőfi was less motivated by history than by folklore, yet even thisd reaches back to an earlier, presumably simpler and better times. The goal of all was to create a nation proud of its past and unified by a shared tradition. Their example can show us how the past can be a gateway to the future.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Enikő Molnár Basa received her PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After teaching for several years at universities in the Washington, DC area, she took a position at the Library of Congress. In 2002-2004 she held the Kluge Staff Fellowship at the Library working on what will eventually be a book examining Hungarian literature from the point of view of its political and social commitment. Dr. Basa is the author of Sándor Petőfi in the Twayne World Author Series (G.K. Hall) and editor of volumes in the series on Mihály Vitéz Csokonai, Imre Madách, Kálmán Mikszáth, and Ferenc Molnár, as well as Dezső Kosztolányi and Miklós Radnóti prepared for the series but published by the Finnisch-Ugrarisches Jahrbuch at the University of Munich. She was guest editor of Hungarian Literature in the Review of National Literatures series, and contributed some articles to it. Author of several articles on Hungarian and comparative literature, she has also been active in Hungarian and literary professional organizations, presenting papers at a wide variety of venues. She is the Executive Director of the American Hungarian Educators Association, and received the Presidential Gold Medal of Hungary from Árpád Göncz in 1997. In 2010 she received the Péter Basa Award of the American Hungarian Educators Association. Dr. Basa taught at the U. of Debrecen in the Fall semester of 2004 and at the U. of Szeged in the fall of 2009.

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The Origin and History of the Kossuth Hat

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
At the beginning of December 1851 countless thousands of New Yorkers eagerly awaited the imminent arrival of Lajos Kossuth, Hungary’s leader in the struggle against the ruling Hapsburg dynasty during the revolutionary years of 1848-49. Americans followed the conflict with interest and sympathy. When the movement failed, Kossuth, along with thousands of other patriots, fled to the neighboring Ottoman Empire. On September 10, 1851 Kossuth and some fifty of his companions boarded the warship Mississippi, dispatched by the Fillmore administration. Kossuth disembarked at Gibraltar to pay a quick visit to England. The Mississippi entered New York harbor on November 11 while Kossuth arrived on December 5 aboard the steamer Humboldt. His triumphant entry and official welcome took place on the following day.

Kossuth’s enormous popularity wasn’t lost on local businessmen. They knew that any link of their products and/or services to Kossuth, however tenuous, would boost sales and revenues. None was more aware of the power of aggressive publicity than John N. Genin, the city’s leading hatter. The year before Kossuth’s visit Genin scored a remarkable marketing coup when Jenny Lind, the world-renowned Swedish Nightingale, made her American debut. Kossuth’s arrival presented a similar golden opportunity.

Genin’s storehouse was bursting with a new style of hat – low-crowned, soft, and made of felt – which he hoped would be the next trend-setter among American men. What better way to advertise this hat by having Kossuth, the hero of millions, wear it? Sticking an ostrich feather in the band of the hat, he christened it the Kossuth hat. He then presented the headwear to Kossuth and his entourage as they were about to make their entry into the city. Because Genin was a staunch supporter of the Hungarian cause and since the hat had a pleasing appearance and was comfortable, Kossuth and his companions agreed to wear it.

The hat immediately became a rage. Men – young and old, rich and poor, distinguished and humble – rushed to buy it, newspaper enumerated and extolled its appealing characteristics, and even serious supporters of Kossuth felt obligated to comment on it.

Kossuth’s departure in July 1852 did not diminish the penchant for the hat. Indeed, American men would continue to favor the hat, with and without feathers, for another fifty years or so; an astounding feat considering the vagaries of fashion.

The presentation will discuss the life and career of John N. Genin, his relationship to Kossuth and the other Hungarian exiles, and the reasons advanced by various parties for the longevity of the Kossuth hat. There are a number of discrepancies in the literature regarding certain details about the hat and its endorsement by Kossuth – these will be reviewed and resolved utilizing the most reliable evidence available.



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.

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Reprising the Raoul Wallenberg Commemorative Year in Hungary: Generations Remember Moral Courage and Humanitarian Leadership in the Holocaust

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Presentation celebrates the moral courage and humanitarian leadership of Raoul Wallenberg, Swedish diplomat sent to Hungary in July 1994 under the auspices of the US War Refugee Board to save the Jews of Budapest, the center of the largest concentration of Jews left on the continent of Europe. In the waning days of Nazi tyranny, Wallenberg is credited with saving 100,000 Jewish lives in six months before he was taken in January 1945 by the Soviets to a fate not completely confirmed today.
The Wallenberg Commemorative Year was inaugurated in Hungary in 2012, the 100th anniversary of his birth. The website listed extensive materials on Wallenberg's life, his Holocaust actions in Budapest, and accomplishments in the crucible that was Hungary, thereby providing resources on his courage and leadership in 1944-1945 for past generations to inform and inspire future generations. Honors from Hungary, Israel, Sweden, USA, and other nations remember Wallenberg's mission to Budapest.
Wallenberg's worldview and humanitarian leadership skills were forged by experiences in his youth and adulthood (after Banks ethnic /cultural topology). Moral reasoning stages (after Lawrence Kohlberg's schemata) demonstrate Wallenberg's advanced stance of moral courage. Literature implications from theory and practice (literature web) signal the importance of curriculum programs and intergenerational reading. Study of the humanitarian mission of Raoul Wallenberg is significant for families, schools, universities, and democratic societies. Wallenberg's legacy is memorialized by those who experienced the Hungarian Holocaust, noted scholars, and monuments, stamps, awards, and other commemorations in Hungary, USA, and around the world.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Ruth G. Biro earned a B.A. in Political Science from Chatham College, a Master's in Library Science, and Ph.D. in Higher Education from the University of Pittsburgh. Now retired from the Department of Instruction and Leadership in Education at Duquesne University, she taught courses in children's and adolescent literature, multicultural and international literature, cultural diversity, and intercultural dynamics, and advised dissertation students in the ILEAD doctoral program in instructional leadership. She directed two Fulbright-Hays Group Projects in Hungary for university professors and in-service teachers. Dr. Biro earned two certificates from the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, Israel. She researches aspects of prosocial development and influences in the lives of Righteous Gentiles who rescued Jews in the Hungarian Holocaust. Her presentations and/or publications relating to Raoul Wallenberg have been in Hungary, Israel, Poland, Italy, the UK, and USA.

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“Doctor's Families”: Social History of Hungarian Jewish Health Professionals

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
It is an interesting question, what constitutes dynasties devoting themselves to certain professions. The author examines many reasons, among them seeking financial and existential stability, but others, such as accumulating knowledge and a strong commitment to science also comes to consideration. The history of three generation of doctors is consulted and also interviews prepared to investigate the question.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Julia Bock completed her dual master’s degrees in History and Library Science, and her post graduate training at the Eötvös Lóránd University in Budapest, with a Ph.D. in History. The subject of her dissertation was the Minority Problem in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. She worked as a research librarian at the Library of Parliament in Budapest.

After immigrating to the United States, she held various positions, first at the International Law section of NYU’s Law Library, later at the Bakhmeteff Archive at Columbia University as an Assistant Archivist. She studied for her MLS degree at Columbia University’s School of Library Service graduation she worked as a Technical Service librarian for a major law firm in New York. In 1994 she became the Head Librarian of the Leo Baeck Institute library, a German Jewish research collection. In 1998 she was invited for a position to create and to be the Head of the Library at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. Presently, she is the Acquisition Librarian at Long Island University Brooklyn Campus in an Associate Professor rank.

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Memories: A short play about the Hungarian Holocaust that preserves the past and connects to the future.

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
“Youth want to relate their learning to their everyday lives, rather than abstract thinking” (Choy and Delahaye 2005). A collection of five works of nonfiction literature by Hungarian Holocaust survivors about their experiences as teens transforms abstract history into relevant situations.

Elder, L. Tom Perry wrote: “The lessons of the past … prepare us to face the challenges of the future (2009). Combining literature and theatre, Memories is an original short play about the Hungarian Holocaust. It preserves truths from the past and connects to the present, so we find a positive future in these days of turmoil and uncertainty.

The play begins with the words of Livia Bitton Jackson and Isabella Leitner that sound familiar: “Did you go to the movies? Did you have a date? What did he say? That he loves you? And “In my daydreams I am a celebrated poet . . . beautiful, elegant and very talented.” History comes to life as audiences feel with the authors who share important historical memories.

As the 15 minute script of Memories is presented and made available, educators discover a tool to enhance history, the Holocaust, and literature. The play is a collection of excerpts from the diary of teenager Eva Heyman of Nagyvarad who did not survive the Holocaust, but perished in Auschwitz at age 13 along with books by Holocaust survivors Aranka Siegal raised in Beregszasz, Isabella Leitner born in Kisvarda, Judith Magyar Isaacson from Kaposvar, and Livia Bitton Jackson from Czechoslovakia. These works of literature and writers have made and are making a significant impact on young people who encounter this history. Through their memories, we hear them say – “One is one’s memories. One cannot exist without memories. Memories connect the past, present and future. They connect oneself with the world. Memories.”



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Wayne Brinda, Ed.D. Wayne is Director of Teacher Education at The University of Pittsburgh at Bradford. He is also the Co-Founder/Artistic Director of Prime Stage Theatre in Pittsburgh. A reviewer for Middle School Journal, Wayne is published in Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, Journal of Aesthetic Education, Literacy Learning: The Middle Years, Australian Literacy Educators’ Association, National Middle School Journal, The ALAN Review, and Youth Theatre Journal. He delivers presentations for the American Hungarian Educators Association, National Council of Teachers of English, the American Alliance for Theatre and Education, Association for Middle Level Education, and the International Reading Association. As a Museum Teaching Fellow at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC, he delivers presentations and produces theatre using young adult literature to teach the Holocaust.

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The Role of Tales in Socialization

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Tales are strongly associated to humanity; they are as old as mankind, and they follow us through the whole life. Without tales, the childhood, the parent-child relationship, and the primary school years are unimaginable.
My presentation investigates the causes of the importance of different types of tales such as fairy tales, folk tales and modern tales. On the one hand, I explain how the tales work from a psychological point of view. In this regard, tales are full with symbols and archetypes. These elements provide a common humanity context, protagonist and events reflecting the psycho-emotional thoughts of the children. This way the audiences ¬can identify themselves with them. On the other hand, I explain the role of tales in socialization. First of all, tales play a specific role in the intrapersonal development of children; they help them to cope with their distress and solve emotional problems. Secondly, tales contribute to the socialization through the parent-child relationship, which is made stronger by bedtime stories, and through the behavioral pattern showed in tales.
This way the tales provide the heritage of a collective wise and follow a person through the life in personal relationships and challenges.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Ildikó Brockhauser received her MA in Psychology at the Károli Gáspár University, Budapest, in 2012, and worked as Psychologist at the Children's Hospital of Buda, Rehabilitation Department. Currently she is continuing her studies at Trocaire College, Buffalo, NY, through a scholarship with the Calasanctius Training Program.

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Eyewitness to History: Follow up on the Hungarian Scholar Program at Rutgers University

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Following up on their 2012 AHEA paper, the authors present their findings about the professional and personal history of a small group of Hungarian scholars and graduate students. All were selected to participate in an intensive language immersion program at Rutgers University upon the initiation of the National Academy of Sciences in January 1957. With the help of online and library resources, most of the refugee scientists have been located in the past year. Fascinating life stories unfolded from the pieces of the puzzle, drawn from official biographies, traditional archives, social media applications, or the personal memories of the handful survivors contacted. Setting a great example to new immigrants, these Hungarian refugees contributed greatly to science and culture in their new homeland. Chronicling their history utilized some best practices of information science in a multicultural setting, and will be of interest to broad audiences from a methodological perspective too.


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.

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National Socialist Germany’s East European Allies and Ethnic Cleansing

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The topic I seek to investigate concerns the relations between Germany and its numerous East European allies, as well as the relations among these allies. My first argument is that, far from having been powerless satellites, Slovakia, the Czech-Moravian Protectorate, Hungary, Romania, Croatia and Bulgaria were, to a large extent, masters of their own fate. The second argument is that the main wartime goal of the government and the majority population in these countries was to engage in ethnic cleansing, an endeavor in which they were generally successful. In this respect, it did not make any difference whether the East European country emerged victorious or defeated from the war; while all triumphed in their goal of ethnic cleansing, they all paid a heavy price in moral, cultural, and economic setbacks.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Istvan Deak, who is Seth Low Professor Emeritus at Columbia University, was born in 1926 in Hungary and began his university studies there. Following his departure from Hungary in 1948, he studied history at the Sorbonne in Paris and worked as a journalist and librarian in both France and Germany. Since 1956, he has been residing in New York City where he studied modern European history at Columbia University. He obtained his PhD degree in 1964 and has been teaching at Columbia University, with some brief intermissions, ever since. He was the Director of the University's Institute on East Central Europe between 1968 and 1979.

Professor Deak's teaching and research interests are mainly in the history of Central and East Central Europe. His publications include, Weimar Germany's Left-wing Intellectuals: A Political History of the "Weltbuhne" and Its Circle (The University of California Press, 1968); The Lawful Revolution: Louis Kossuth and the Hungarians, 1848-1849 (Columbia University Press, 1979), for which he received the Lionel Trilling Book Award of Columbia College, and which also appeared in German and Hungarian, as well as Beyond Nationalism: A Social and Political History of the Habsburg Officer Corps, 1848-1918 (Oxford University Press, 1990), which received, among other things, the Wayne S. Vucinich Book Prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, and which also appeared in German, Hungarian, and Italian. His most recent publication is Essays on Hitler's Europe (University of Nebraska Press, 2001), which appeared also in Hungarian. He edited and partly wrote, together with Jan T. Gross and Tony Judt, The Politics of Retribution in Europe: World War II and Its Aftermath (Princeton University Press, 2000).
In 1990, Istvan Deak was elected into the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and in the course of his career, he received, among other things, the John S. Guggenheim fellowship and was invited as a fellow to the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, N.J., the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., and the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, Austria. In 1999, he received the George Washington Award of the American Hungarian Foundation. The István Deák Visiting Professorship at Columbia University was established in 2005.

Since his retirement in 1997 Istvan Deak has been teaching at Columbia University as a special lecturer. In the spring of 1999 and in the fall of 2002 he was visiting professor at Stanford University.

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1956 and its ’lieux de mémoire’ in Hungary and the USA as evidence of Hungarian cultural heritage

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Lieux de mémoire/Places of memory for the 1956 revolution and war of independence in Hungary and globally still keep the message of the freedom fight very much alive. I’m going to examine the types of memory places such as monuments, statutes, plaques, memorial sites in Hungary and the United States in particular; in terms of both physical and virtual spaces that symbolize the events and/or the essence of the revolution; and how they tie in with recent cultural heritage projects such as Köztérkép (Publicmap), launched and developed by volunteers, and the Julianus-project, which was announced by the Deputy State Secretary for Hungarian Communities Abroad.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Nóra Deák is currently a PhD student in American Studies at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. Her research topic is the reception of the 1956 Hungarian refugees in the United States.
She graduated in English and Russian languages and literatures in 1990 in Debrecen, then received a LIS MA in 1997 in Budapest. She has been working as Head of the Library at the School of English and American Studies Library, ELTE, in Budapest, since 1995. She was a Fulbright scholar at the American Hungarian Foundation in the AY 2007/08.

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Sister of Social Service, Sara Salkahazi, Beatified Martyr of the Hungarian Holocaust

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
This presentation will celebrate the life, death and beatification of Sr. Sara Salkahazi. On September 17, 2006, the Catholic Church beatified Sr. Sara, a Hungarian nun who saved Jews during World War II. The beatification took place at St. Stephen Basilica in Budapest. Sr. Sara’s beatification was the first in Hungary since 1083 when Hungary’s first king, St. Stephen was beatified along with his son, St. Imre. Sr. Sara was the first Hungarian to be beatified who was not royalty or a member of the country’s aristocracy. In 1969 Sr. Sara was recognized by Yad Vashem as a righteous gentile for her courageous deeds. Yad Vashem believes the righteous are a diverse group whose common denominator is the humanity and courage they displayed by standing up for their moral principles during a period of total moral collapse. Salkaházi was born on May 11, 1899 in Kassa, Hungary (now Kosice, Slovakia). A member of the Sisters of Social Service, a charity organization helping the poor, Salkaházi was a journalist, a writer and a cultural activist. She helped to shelter hundreds of Jews in a convent in 1944. Sr. Sára was denounced and the ruling Arrow Cross Party discovered the Jews in hiding. On December 27, 1944, she was murdered along with the people she sheltered on the banks of the Danube River in Budapest. The Sisters of Social Service remain in existence today operating in nine countries including Hungary and the United States.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Kathy DeRose, Ed. D. has worked at Duquesne University for the past 25 years and is currently Director of Faculty Development and Professional Education Programs in the School of Pharmacy. In addition she is the Assistant Director of the Post baccalaureate Weekend PharmD. Program. Dr. DeRose holds both Administrative and Instructor positions in the School of Pharmacy.

In her current position in the School of Pharmacy, she has developed an education methods rotation, a 12-credit academic concentration and currently works with Pharmacy Residents and Fellows in the teaching methods component of their residencies and fellowships.

Dr. DeRose earned two certificates from the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, Israel. Her research focuses on Hungarian women leaders of the Holocaust. Her presentations relating to women leaders of the Hungarian Holocaust have been in Hungary, Israel, Poland, Italy, and the United States.

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Márai Sándor Nápolyban és Nápolyról

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Márai Sándor poétikai fejlődésében fontos szerepet töltött be a nápolyi tartózkodás. Köztudomású, hogy akkor született Halotti beszéd című verse, amely a nyugati emigráció egyik legnagyobb irodalmi alkotása. Az idegenség-tapasztalat elbeszélői, költői szinten megjelenő összetevői szoros kapcsolataban állnak – néha paradox módon – a nápolyi élet elevenségével. Nincsenek kétségeim afelől, hogy a halál motívuma, jobban mondva az élet és a halál titkának motívuma és értelme mindig érdekelte Márait, két szempontból is. Először is a halál úgy, mint egzisztenciális, filozófiai, metafizikai rejtély; másodszor a halál, mely az embert saját hazáján kívül éri. Itt találjuk csiráit a San Gennaro vére koncepciojának is, amely Nápoly regénye, de ugyanakkor a hontalanságé és otthontalanságé is. Márai melankoliájának, nyugtalanságának, belső vándorlásának középponti motívuma a gyász, a halál, az élet értelmének a keresése, a mitikus múlt és a megrendítő jelen viszonya. Emellett nagy feladatának tartotta a magyar kulturális identitás megőrzését, ápolását.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Dr. Amedeo Di Francesco a „L’Orientale” Nápolyi Tudományegyetem professzora, magyar nyelvet és irodalmat tanít. A Miskolci Egyetem és a Debreceni Egyetem díszdoktora. 1971-ben a Római Tudományegyetemen szerzett diplomát magyar szakon. 1975-ben a Magyar Tudományos Akadémián szerzett kandidátusi fokozatot. 1994-ben kulturális tevékenységéért a Premio Internazionale Sebetia-Ter per la Cultura díjjal tüntették ki Nápolyban. 1995-től az Annali dell’Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale” – Studi Finno-Ugrici főszerkesztője. 1996-ban a Magyar Köztársaság művelődési és közoktatási minisztere a Pro Cultura Hungarica emlékplakettet adományozta számára. 1996-tól 2006-ig a Nemzetközi Magyar Filológiai Társaság (majd Nemzetközi Magyarságtudományi Társaság) elnöke, jelenleg választmányi tagja. 2002-ben a Hungarica et Slavica könyvsorozat alapítója (Boris Uspenskijjel és Aleksander Wilkoń-nyal) a nápolyi M. D’Auria kiadónál, 2008-ban az Ister – Collana di Studi Ungheresi sorozaté (Edizioni dell’Orso, Alessandria). 2002-ben Magyar Köztársaság elnökétől a magyar–olasz kapcsolatok ápolásáért és fejlesztéséért A Magyar Köztársági Érdemrend Középkeresztje kitüntetésben részesült. 2006-ban Nemzetközi Magyarságtudományi Társaság Lotz János-emlékérmet adományozott neki a hungarológia terén kifejtett nagy jelentőségű kutatói, oktatói és szervezői munkájáért. Több mint kétszáz publikációja van, olasz, magyar, angol, francia, német, horvát nyelven. Világszerte tartott tudományos előadásokat hungarológia témakörben.

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Preserving Hungarian Language and Culture among Young People of Hungarian Descent. The example of the Hungarian Scout Association in Exteris.

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Many parents of Hungarian descent wish their children to become good citizens of their adopted country, while at the same time cherishing and preserving their Hungarian heritage. Two organizations stand out as vehicles towards this objective: the local week-end “Hungarian Schools” and the Hungarian Scout Association is Exteris (HSAE). The schools operate independently, generally with individual curricula, and are united mostly in a loose bond with the other schools. The HSAE, on the other hand, is a structured legal entity, which has been operating outside of Hungary for 67 years on four continents: Western Europe, South America, North America and Australia.

In addition to its mission of developing young people within the spirit of international scouting, the HSAE has developed a palette of programs aimed at transmitting and preserving the knowledge of Hungarian language and culture among its scouts. The scout activities are held in Hungarian and many of the aspects of Hungarian culture – folklore, history, literature, etc. – are transmitted informally as part of typical scout activities: camping, excursions, competitions, campfires. Future leaders participate in more formal classes and sit exams at various levels. This is complemented with visits and training programs in Hungary and in the Hungarian-populated areas of the neighboring countries.

The presentation will provide an overview of the programs as well as of the results and experiences of the Scout Association.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Gábor Dömötör is an engineer by training, taught at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro and was an executive of IBM both in Brazil and in the United States. He has been a member of the Hungarian Scout Association ever since early childhood and advanced through all levels of the organization. He is currently Chairman of the Board and Vice-Prersident of the Association and also holds the responsibility for the teaching and preservation of Hungarian language and culture.

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Hungary's Immigrant Women Poets: Reading the Works of Zsófia Balla

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The diversity of languages and cultures in motion is central to contemporary European experience. Such diversity is represented in a variety of textual forms that challenge existing concepts of genre, audience and cultural production which shape our current European experience. These emerging varieties of cultural expressions connect diverse communities and have the potential to better contextualise our understanding of cultural patterns within Europe.
A significant body of migrant women’s textual expression has been produced in contemporary Hungary by native speakers of Hungarian who have immigrated to Hungary from neighbouring countries such as Romania, Slovakia, Croatia or Slovenia. The present paper’s objective is to examine this phenomenon through the lens of the poetry of Zsófia Balla and also to problematise the manner in which this work has been conceptualised within, and integrated into, the Hungarian literary establishment. In addition, the findings will be placed in a European context.
The paper proposes to contribute to a better understanding of current cultural developments in postcommunist spaces, and the ways contemporary migrants tend to articulate their positions within the European cultural framework; it will also add to the mapping of contemporary women’s writing in Europe. The central objective of this project is therefore the investigation of Hungary’s immigrant women’s textual production in the context of reinterpreting their past positioning within the Hungarian literary canon and offering alternative future readings.





Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Dr Borbála Faragó is currently a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellow in the Central European University, Budapest. The title of her research project is Migrant Women Writers on the Margins of Europe: The Case of Hungary. She holds a PhD from University College Dublin, Ireland. Her research interests include literature and cultural studies, poetry, literary theory, gender, ecocriticism and discourses of migration and transnationalism. She is the author of a number of articles on contemporary Irish poetry and is in the process of publishing a monograph on the work of Medbh McGuckian. Her other publications include Facing the Other: Interdisciplinary Studies on Race, Gender and Social Justice in Ireland (2008) and Landing Places: Immigrant Poets in Ireland (2010).

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Bishop Ottokár Prohászka and the Formation of the Horthy Regime in Hungary

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Ottokár Prohászka (1858-1927, bishop of Székesfehérvár, was an important politician in the public life of Hungary after World War I, the revolutions and the Trianon Treaty. This presentation will show his activities in the first half of the 1920s. He was one of the founders of the official ‘Christian national’ ideology of the Horthy Regime. He became a member of Parliament and for a few months he was the president of the unified governing party. Prohászka was the ‘spiritual father’ of the closed number (‘numerus clausus’) Act of 1920. He was very popular, large crowds followed his public speeches, e.g. in assemblies of different ‘Christian national’ organizations and parties. He wrote many interesting articles in right-wing newspapers, to spread widely his political and religious ideas.
In Hungary there are many debates about Prohászka’s political ideas, mainly his connection to Anti-Semitism. This presentation aimes to point out Prohászka’s place in Hungarian political history, to show his public activity in political life. In a separate chapter I will speak about Prohászka’s connections to Hungarian Catholics in the United States, with special regard to his correspondence with Rev. Francis Grosz, parish priest of Hungarian Catholics in New Jersey.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Csaba Fazekas, a historian, received his MA and PhD degrees in Modern Hungarian history, from the Eötvös Lóránd University, Budapest. He started to teach at the University of Miskolc, Faculty of Arts, in 1992. He lectures and gives seminars for history and political science students. Currently he is an Associate Professor and director of the Institute for Political Sciences at the University of Miskolc. Between 2005 and 2009 he was the dean of the faculty. His research focuses on the history of political ideologies in the 19th and 20th centuries in Hungary, especially history of the Church and Church-State relations in the past. He has published, both in Hungarian and in English, on the debates of Church policy in the first half of the 19th century (‘Reform Era’ and the 1848 Revolution), Church-State relations of the Horthy Regime, and Church policy of the Communist period.

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Istvan Farkas, Painter, Books and Magazines Publisher, an Outstanding Representative of the Twentieth Century Hungarian and European Paintings and my Savior during the Siege of Budapest

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Istvan Farkas was an expressionist and a modern painter and also was the owner and director of a famous books and magazines publishing house in Budapest. He was a prominent painter in Paris, member of the Ecole de Paris during the interwar years. In his paintings of the 1930’s and 1940’s, he depicted an alien and a mysterious world full of ghostly figures, which could be understood as meditations on the frailty of the human existence. Some of his paintings were recalling his service in the Austro-Hungarian Army during the First World War. His mentor was the famous painter Laszlo Mednyanszky. Upon the death of his father in 1932, he assumed the leadership of his family’s prominent publishing company in Budapest, Singer & Wolfner. Publishing writers and artists like Ferenc Herczeg, Geza Gardonyi, Sandor Brody, Ignotus, Zsolt Harsanyi, Gyula Krudy, Lorinc Szabo, Lajos Posa, Karoly Lyka, Juliana Zsigray among many others. Also, he published the magazines “New Times” (Uj Idok) a literally journal, which catered to the, Hungarian middle classes, “Hungarian Women” (Magyar Aszonyok), and “My Newspaper” (Az En Ujsagom), a children magazine. The publishing house motto was: “Hungarian to the Hungarians” ( “Magyart a Magyarnak”). When the Germans occupied Hungary in March, 1944, Farkas was among the first ones arrested by the Gestapo. Some of his prominent friends who were close to Admiral Horthy, like the writer Ferenc Herczeg, tried to save him, but it was either too late or as the legend goes, he did not want to be saved. His life ended in the concentration camp. My own personal connection to him that I knew him quite well as a little boy, since my mother was his confidant and his personnel secretary. Both my mother and I survived the siege of Budapest during the Second World War, staying in his specially built, reinforced, concrete underground shelter during the biggest street fighting.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Andrew P. Fodor (Andras), 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 certificate and a degree 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 Project Engineer to Chief Consultant. He has researched and designed undersea, deep water structures, offshore oil and gas platforms and sea bed mining facilities, concentrating on “sub-sea completion systems” all over the world. After his retirement, he continued work as a consulting engineer; also he has returned to his basic interests, literature and doing research on the history of science. In the last twenty years he has given lectures at various conferences: AHEA Conferences, Bolyai Conference and at various engineering meetings. Presently working on a literary book, covering his experiences, during the siege of Budapest, 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).

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World War II War Crime Trials in Hungary

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
War Crimes Trials began in Hungary in January 1945, before the end of the war in the West. These trials tried to distance the nation from the deeds of its fascist leadership. Small fry trials delved deeper into the stench of wartime behavior, and spread its tentacles into the parishes, threatening politicians, priests/pastors, schoolteachers, as well as the local thugs of communities. At the time, the trials were understood and feared by the Hungarian majority population as Jewish revenge. Yet, death or severe sentences were comparatively small.

War Crimes Trials are being roundly criticized as setting the stage for the Purge Trials just a few years later. This paper will argue, the trials also served to water down, systematize and distance the public from guilt. The trials reassured Hungarian Jews of the possibility of re-assimilation. Surviving Hungarian Jews were more likely to decide not to emigrate. Increasingly, Jewish survivors came forward as defense witnesses in rather dubious circumstances. The trials defined the new social ethos; the narrative of the trial transcripts developed defenses of the “hard working.” A quick switch of party, especially Communist party membership, washed away the past. The trials also seem to have served as a social palliative, establishing the accepted social narratives (and silences) regarding World War II for the coming 50 years.


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.

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The Smithsonian Folklife Festival

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The Hungarian Heritage: Roots to Revival program at the 2013 Smithsonian Folklife Festival will highlight the vitality of Hungary’s cultural heritage in these areas. It will bring to the National Mall in Washington highly skilled masters and apprentices from rural Central Europe who maintain the traditional knowledge acquired in their native environments. The Festival program will also bring musicians, dancers, and artisans from more urban settings who have revived many of these older traditions to make them part of their daily lives.
The Hungarian Heritage program will provide a one-of-a-kind opportunity to experience the rich and authentic traditions of Magyars, to better understand the significance of the Hungarian folk revival movement, and to serve as a meeting place for folk aficionados from around the world.
The Hungarian Heritage program is produced by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage in partnership with the Balassi Institute, Budapest.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Ágnes Fülemile (PhD) is currently the director of the Balassi Institute Hungarian Cultural Center in New York. She has degrees in Ethnography, History and History of Arts from the University of ELTE, Budapest. She has been a senior research associate at the Institute of Ethnology of Hungarian Academy of Sciences. She has been teaching American university students at Education Abroad Programs in Budapest for 20 years. She has been a Fulbright scholar twice (UC Berkeley, Metropolitan Museum of Arts, Rutgers University) and was the visiting Hungarian Chair Professor at Indiana University, Bloomington in 2006-2009.

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English Teaching Upside Down

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
„Translate these sentences and make these multiple choice tests” – this is what I mainly heard in my English lessons 20-25 years ago. Now being an English teacher in the same school, same classrooms – even the desks and the posters on the walls are exactly the same – I give completely different instructions to my students. Is the old method so out of date? Is there anything wrong with the old teachers, books or the reason for the drastic alteration of teaching attitude is due to the changing requirements of the 21st century? How can teachers adapt to these changes and what help do they get in case they have some problem? Can they apply the latest technology in the classroom considering there were even no computers in the schools 20 years ago and they have no idea what gadgets their students use on an everyday basis? What motivation do they have to improve taking their miserable salaries and the uncertain economic situation into consideration?
With its ups and downs, positive and nagative points I have seen teaching history in the making from the beginning of the 80s up till the present day. Also, being in the last place in terms of foreign languages Hungary has to face serious problems. What I’d like to focus on is what I can do for a better future working in a secondary school of a small town.

Some points I’d like to focus on:
- comparison of the grammar-translation method of the 80s and the present communicative one
- presentation of the text book of the past and the present
- presentation of an interview with a retiring teacher
- discussing changes in teacher training at Pannon University, Veszprém
- perspectives for a teacher in 2013 in Hungary
- differences between big citites and the countryside in terms of language teaching
- finding the reason why Hungarians are the worst in Europe at foreign language speaking



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Julianna Gaál is a teacher of English and tourism in Lóczy Lajos secondary school in Balatonfüred, a small town in the western part of Hungary. The secondary school where she teaches specializes in languages and tourism.
After graduating from Pannon University, Veszprém, Julianna started to work as a teacher in her old secondary school and meanwhile got a post-graduate degree in tourism at the University of Pécs. Four years later she decided to move away from her little town and she worked in Budapest for a couple of years as a private English teacher and at a private language school. From 2008 to 2011 she worked as a full-time journalist for the regional newspaper, where her field was culture and education. Now she is back in her old school teaching English and tourism. Beside teaching, she regularly writes articles for the regional and local newspapers and works as an examiner for state language exams. She has been to Washington as a journalist making reports about about the opening ceremony the Hungarian Cultural Year and has taken part in workshops about education in Oslo, Berlin and Vilnius.

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The effects of the EU's language policy on revitalizing endangered languages: the case of Hungarian in minority contexts

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
In my presentation I aim to outline the general linguistic context of the EU because preserving the Hungarian language and finding its future depends highly on the linguistic rights and language policies of the different countries.
One of the starting points of my paper is a quote from the Council Resolution on a European Strategy of Multilingualism (2008): “Linguistic and cultural diversity is part and parcel of the European identity; it is at once a shared heritage, a wealth, a challenge and an asset for Europe.” On the one hand preserving cultural and linguistic diversity is a response to globalization, which is becoming more and more accentuated, motivating individuals to find their origins, their roots and some necessary benchmarks, language being one of these. On the other hand language is a symbol of cultural identity and resistance to any foreign domination.
One of the goals of my paper is to discuss the concepts of linguistic diversity and multilingualism as understood within the European Union, as well as their manifestation on the level of national language rights in the different countries of the European Union where Hungarian is present as a minority language.



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.

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Witch Trials in Transylvania in the Early Modern Period

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
In the 16th and 17th centuries, Transylvania was known as Fairyland (Tündérország), a name that is today evoked in praise of the region’s natural beauty. However, it was not Transylvania’s natural splendor that had earned it this moniker, or even a belief in the eponymous mythical beings, but rather the principality’s reputation for political inconstancy and internal feuding. It is against this backdrop of mercurial politics owing to the Habsburg dynasty’s expansionist aspirations and Turkish dominion in parts of Hungary and its neighbors in the Balkans that the first witch trials and executions took place in Transylvania. The witch persecutions began in the Kingdom of Hungary in the mid-16th century, a good century later than in Western Europe, and began to reach their peak toward the end of the 17th century, although never taking on the horrifically formidable dimensions they did in the French and German regions. What prompted the wheels of the judicial system to spring into action against accused witches? What led people to make such allegations in the first place? How did the accused fare once formally charged and convicted? I aim to address these questions and more by examining individual cases as well the social and cultural context in which these trials took place, with a special focus on the rich system of magical beliefs and rituals in a world in which witchcraft was a fundamental reality and permeated every aspect of daily life.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Angela K. Gazda (City University of New York) is an anthropologist specializing in East-Central 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.

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Budapest Startups - A new tech hub after Silicon Valley and Silicon Roundabout?

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
During the last 6 to 8 years, several successful Hungarian tech companies have sprung up in Budapest. Exactly what is spurring this growth? Why is there a hustling and bustling startup scene emerging in Budapest despite of the economic crisis?
This presentation will highlight parallel phenomena in the development of the Silicon Valley in the US, the Silicon Roundabout in the UK and the Budapest startup scene. It will showcase some of the most prominent companies of this new generation: Prezi, LogMeIn, UStream, Antavo. We are going to examine the links that tie these companies and places together.
Finally we will try to connect the dots and answer the question: Could Budapest be the newest tech hub in Europe or in the world?



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Tamás Gémes is a project manager and lead programmer in Information Technology at Catholic Health System, Buffalo, NY.
He graduated from Obuda University in Computer Engineering and Budapest Corvinus University in Entrepreneurship, and later finished his Master of Business Administration (MBA) studies at Niagara University, NY in 2011. He has worked for Nokia Siemens Networks, a telecommunication backbone supplier, where he developed the newest 4th generation mobile networks as a Software Engineer.
He is also a long time volunteer in the CTP Youth Business Program that teaches entrepreneurship, business and presentation skills to high school students around the Carpathian basin.
His main interests are Hungarian and international high-growth high-tech companies, their opportunities and challenges.

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Emil Kiss, a Hungarian Success Story

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
According to the Annual Report of the Commissioner-General of Immigration, in fiscal year 1899, 13,777 Hungarian speakers immigrated
to the USA, of whom 17.6% settled in New York State. One of the immigrants was Emil Kiss, who like most of the immigrants, arrived penniless. This paper will look at his start as a ticket agent to his founding of a private bank in 1903. Both businesses prospered. The accomplishments of his travel agency will be shown by the advertising placed in various English and Hungarian language newspapers, while the bank’s success will be evaluated on the quarterly balance sheets that were submitted to the Superintendent of Banking in New York. His bank through various mergers still exists.

Though he never married, he was not all work. Emil Kiss was an active member in several Hungarian social and fraternal organizations. Post WWI he was one of the founders of the American Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and in this capacity in 1923 he wrote an article for the American Academy of Political and Social Science advocating that “debtor countries present and future capacities to pay” should determine the size of war reparations. Kiss died in 1930, and in his will he left a Munkacsy painting to the New York Public Library and funds to several New York institutions.

This paper is not only a testimony of an immigrant's success story but also of his trials and tribulations in achieving his goals.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Susan Glanz is a professor of Administration & Economics at St. John's University, Queens, NY.

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The Story of Theodore von Kármán - Pioneer in Aviation and Pathfinder in Space

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Szőlőskislaki Kármán Tódor (1881-1963) was a Hungarian American aerospace engineer and physicist, who was active in aeronautics, astronautics and mechanics of fluids and solids.
He is responsible for many key advances in aerodynamics with focus on supersonics and hypersonic air flow. He studied mechanical engineering at the Royal Joseph Technical University (today Műegyetem). After graduation in 1902, he joined Ludwig Prandtl at the University of Göttingen, receiving his doctorate there in 1908. He taught first at Göttingen, and later at Aachen. He interrupted his teaching with service in the Austro-Hungarian army (1915-1918).
Apprehensive about developments in Europe, in 1930 he accepted the directorship of GALCIT in Pasadena, CA and emigrated to the US. In 1936 he helped found the Aerojet Company to manufacture rocket motors. Today, Aerojet is the largest rocket company in the world. In 1944 he and others from GALCIT founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which today is a NASA laboratory whose main mission is robotic exploration of our solar system. Kármán officially left GALCIT in 1945, and became a consultant to the US military, with the rank of general. At age 81 von Kármán was the recipient of the first National Medal of Science, bestowed in a White House ceremony by President John F. Kennedy. He has authored six books, hundreds of scientific papers and received more than 30 honorary doctor degrees.




Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Dr. John P. Gyekenyesi is presently the Structures and Materials Division Engineer at the NASA Glenn Research Center and Adjunct Professor of Mechanics at Cleveland State University. He holds a bachelor and a master degree in Mechanical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University and a Ph.D. in Mechanics from Michigan State University. He authored and coauthored more than 80 scientific publications. He lectured widely in the USA, Europe and the Far East, mainly on durability and structural integrity of aircraft and spacecraft using advanced materials. For 20 years, he was manager of one of NASA’s largest mechanics research departments, focused on propulsion and power systems.

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Becoming NET SMART – Dos and Don’ts in Teaching International Joint Courses

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Knowing how to make use of online tools without being overloaded with too much information is an essential ingredient to personal and professional success in the 21st Century. Delivering different class contents to our students online has increased dramatically during the last decade. Universities have entered the online education market in order to satisfy the growing demand of their students as well as to face their existing and growing financial and facility constraints. In pursue of happiness for both consumers (students) and employers (universities), educators jumped worldwide willingly on an intriguing new method of teaching: joint courses. This teaching method does not only incorporate the latest (video)technology into our teaching – highly appreciated by universities – but also ‘brings the world into the classroom’ by connecting students from different countries to work together on projects, case studies, or discuss current issues in any field. The joint course method can be very beneficial for teaching a wide variety of subject matters: Hungarian language, history, management, or sports. Knowledge as well as classrooms turned borderless at the beginning of the 21st Century!
But the question remained the same: how to use the new social and digital media tools intelligently, humanely, mindfully, and above all ethically? Several books and academic articles discuss the advantages of distance learning and online education but none of them addresses the legal and ethical issues of this method of academic collaboration between professors and universities. These issues are growing in number namely, related to intellectual property and copyright, right to participation and access to materials, or ethics of academic online/distance learning collaborations just name a few. After teaching joint courses between the US and Hungary for a couple of years this presentation overviews our experiences and addresses questions such as: What should be asked (contracted) clearly before we enter into a commitment to teach an international joint course? What are our expectations as educators? What is there in for our students? How should future international joint course development benefit for past practices?



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Dr Emese Ivan is an Assistant Professor of Sport Management at St John’s University (New York). Her teaching and research focuses on sport sociology, management, and role that sport plays in building a more just society worldwide. She has been teaching online and has participated in international joint course development since 2007. She is also the President of Hungarian Studies Association. Contact info: emese.ivan@gmail.com

Edit Nagy is Lecturer in Hungarian Language Program in the Center for European Studies at University of Florida. She will complete her Ph.D. in History at the University of Pécs, Hungary where she has got her M.A.'s in History (1999) and Hungarian Language and Literature (2001).
Her current research focuses on the Hungarian Economic History between 1945 and 1956. Previously she has worked on the Indebtedness of Hungary in 1970-80's and the Structural Changes of the Hungarian Economy during Communism.
She's been teaching at the University of Florida since 2004. Her language classes are Beginning/Elementary/Intermediate Hungarian 1-2, and her area studies classes are Secret Police under Communism; Socialist Control and Resistance (Eastern-Europe After 1945) and Socialist Economy behind the Iron Curtain. Contact info: nagyedit@yahoo.com

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Educating in an International Environment: The Role of the Fulbright Commission in Budapest

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Effective November 1, 2012, I have been appointed the Executive Director of the Hungarian-American Fulbright Commission for Educational Exchange.As the Director of the Fulbright Commission in Hungary, I expect to build on the heritage of excellence initiated by Dr. Huba Brückner during the first twenty years of the Commission. I plan to expand Fulbright's reach to traditionally underrepresented scholars from rural areas, the Roma community as well as to people with different disabilities. Furthermore, strengthening ties with private sector donors as well as establishing new relationships with American universities are both important objectives for me.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Károly Jókay was born in Chicago and moved to Hungary in 1994. During the past years he gained experience in educating in an international environment at the Central European University in Budapest, and earned intensive consulting experience in Central and Eastern European countries in the municipal services sector and municipal debt regulation.

Jókay received his PhD in Political Science (minor in International Economics), from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, in 1990. He is active in several civil society organizations, established a family foundation (www.jokay.hu) to support the education of talented children with disadvantageous backgrounds in the High School of the Reformed Church in Pápa.

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From Detroit to Padova. The Romance of a Gypsy Violinist and the Daughter of a Millionaire

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Jancsi Rigó, the world famous Hungarian Gypsy violinist met Clara Ward at the end of the 19th century in Paris. Clara was born in 1873 in Detroit, she was the daughter of captain Eber Brock Ward, who had iron and steel manufacturing in the United States and he was one of the richest men of the State of Michigan. Clara married a Belgian prince Marie Joseph Anatole Erie de Chimay-Caraman, although she fell in love with Jancsi Rigó. Finally, she divorced in 1897 and married Jancsi. This was one of the biggest scandals in high society in the 19th century in Europe, moreover, all around the world. Later Clara became a dancer in the Folies Bergère and in the Moulin Rouge. The famous French painter, count Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec made a lithograph of her and Rigó, called „Idylle Princière”. This painting now can be seen in Cleveland. Clara was photographed on numerous postcards. The publication of her photos was forbidden in the German Empire by Kaiser Wilhelm II. After their famous marriage Clara and Jancsi divorced fairly soon. Clara moved to Italy and met her third husband. After a few years she married her fourth husband, also an Italian.In the last years of her life she lived in Padova. She died there in 1916. Rigó remained in the United States working as a violinist in a Hungarian restaurant in New York, called Little Hungary. He was not as successful as earlier in Europe. He died probably in 1927. His tomb can be found in the Kenisco Cemetery.
The story of Clara Ward and Rigó Jancsi’s scandalous marriage reflects the cultural and social history of that time, and especially women’s and minorities’ status in a changing civil society, carrying the remains of the feudal society. At the same time it is a special item in the American–Hungarian relations.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Csaba Katona, historian, graduated from the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, specializing in modern Hungarian history. He started working at the National Archives of Hungary in 1998 as Archivist (1998–2010), later as communication officer (1999–2011) as the Secretary of the Director General (2003, 2005–2001), as Head of Department (2003–2004), as councillor (2010–2011) and as editor, responsible for several historical and archival journals (Levéltári Közlemények [2002–2004; 2006–2010], Levéltári Szemle [2000–2005; 2009–2010], ArchivNet [2003–2004; 2007–2010] and Turul [2010]). He was also a member of the Committee of the Association of Hungarian Archivists (2008–2011). Now he works at the Institute of History, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences as an associate research fellow and as communication officer of the Research Centre. His research field is the cultural and social history of Hungary in the 19th and 20th centuries. Since 2007 he has held the positions: secretary of the Hungarian Historical Society, member of the editorial staff of the historical journal Múlt-kor, was one of the editors of Világtörténet and Turul and editor of the homepage of the Research Centre for the Humanities and of the Institute of History.

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The Forgotten Author, Julianna Zsigray

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Julianna Zsigray [1903-1987] was a prolific and a very popular author in Hungary before WWII. She published over two dozen novels and was an established person in the Hungarian literary scene. Her early works were publishes in the prestigious NYUGAT periodical, suggesting that she was accepted by her contemporaries. During the period, from 1931 to 1948, she published a novel almost every year, and the books enjoyed great popularity. In 1944 she was persecuted for her anti-German behavior, however during the Communist dictatorship, her censorship continued and she was not allowed to be published. After the 1956 revolution, she was able to publish some works but only with great difficulty. The generation, which grew up the decades after WWII did not have a chance to become acquainted with Zsigray's books and she became a "Forgotten Author". Today she is not recognized among the Hungarian literary personages. What we face with, in this case, is not singular in our example. There are many "Forgotten Authors" in Hungarian history and maybe it is time to review the works of those writers?


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Judit Kerekes is an Associate Professor of Mathematics Education at the City University of New York College of Staten Island. She has published extensively on the educational aspects of mathematics and she was a co-author of two books on the same topic. She also lectured and presented numerous papers on education and has been involved in teaching in Hungarian Schools within the community. Kerekes is the niece of Julianna Zsigray, who is the subject of her talk.

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Second Generation American Hungarian Soldiers in the US Army During World War II 1942-1945

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
The analysis of the lecture based on a collection of letters, which were written by young second generation American Hungarians who were drafted into the Army of the United States of America during World War II. The soldiers were the sons of Hungarian immigrants of New Brunswick, NJ and the letters were sent to Andrew Kosa the minister of the Magyar Reformed Church in the city who also served as the president of the Hungarian Defense Council. Following WW II he donated the letters to the Special Collection and University Archives, Rutgers University Libraries, New Brunswick, NJ. The letters give an insight of the world of the immigrant Hungarians in 1940s. It is a unique opportunity to find such a group of historical sources representing the same generation from the same period. The letters have their importance because of both their content and their language conserving and presenting the past for the next generations either for researchers or for the general public. In the collection there are 350 letters in English and 36 in Hungarian giving an idea of their language skill in both languages. The letters also give information about their Hungarian identity, their loyalty toward America, their value system. They show the cohesion of the Hungarian community and the process of their adjustment to American society and their assimilation. During the war they faced new perspectives which generated a new mobility that contributed later to the breaking up and change in the immigrant Hungarian community life.
The letters edited by Ilona Kovács were published by the Ethnographic Museum, Budapest in 2012.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Ilona Kovács librarian, retired department head of the National Széchényi Library, Budapest.
She gained her diplomas at the Budapest University (ELTE, 1961) and at Kent State University, Ohio (MLS, 1975), and her doctoral degree at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA 1993). Her research area is Hungarians abroad focusing on American Hungarians. As head of the Hungarica Documentation she was director of grants for collecting information and documentation and build up Hungarica databases and also conducting surveys to publish a series of publications on Hungarica material of libraries in Europe, Australia and Canada. She attended several international conferences in Europe, USA, Canada and Hungary and published over 100 articles, studies and books.

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Jews on the Borders – Some Fragments of the Activities of KEOKH

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Between 1930 and 1945, KEOKH (National Central Authority for Controlling Aliens) was an important branch of the Hungarian Ministry of the Interior. The head of the Authority was directly subordinated to the Minister of the Interior. The Authority included a central office (in Budapest) and a few local offices (in the countryside, near the state borders). For as much the clerks worked for the Ministry of the Interior, the clerks were, at the same time, police officers as well.
KEOKH started focusing on the Jews, especially of “unclear citizenship”, particularly after 1938. Usually, they were refugees escaping from neighboring countries to Hungary. The vast majority of these refugees had some kind of family lineage in or from Hungary. KEOKH treated these Jews as enemies. KEOKH organized raids both in Budapest and near the borders. We know KEOKH was tasked to organize the “cross-border transfer of Jews”. One of the most known and important stories is the massacre at Kamenets-Podolsk. In addition, we know of other cases when the Hungarian organizations did the same as at Kamenets-Podolsk.
On the other hand, when the military or political situation started to change, KEOKH’s policy also changed. They protected the Jewish refugees like the Western European prisoners of war. The German occupation changed the political situation. From this date, German organizations (RSHA, SD, Gestapo) took over control. The Hungarian Ministry of the Interior became both a collaborationist and an executor.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Tamás Kovács earned a MA (in history) from University of Pecs, in 2003. He is a Ph. D. candidate; he is expected to defend his doctoral dissertation in 2013. He worked for Holocaust Memorial Center (2003-2008), currently work for National Archives of Hungary. In addition, he teaches at the University of Pannonia. His special field the Hungarian police, military and civil secret service during Horthy era and the holocaust in Hungary.

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The Correspondence of Alexander Lenard

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
This paper presents the correspondence of Hungarian writer and translator Alexander Lenard (1910-1972). As an émigré during World War II in Italy and later in Brazil, Lenard maintained his ties to Hungary through an extended correspondence. He exchanged letters and books with Weöres Sándor, Károlyi Amy, Passuth László, Karinthy Ferenc, Kardos Tibor, Nemes Nagy Agnes, Devecseri Gábor, Klára Szerb, etc. He also corresponded with Neo-latinists from around the world, including Robert Graves. Later in his life, when Lenard was living as a hermit at the edge of the Brazilian rain forest, these letters became his only lifeline to the outside world.


Lénárt-Cheng Helga: Lénárd Sándor levelezése

A dolgozat Lénárd Sándor magyar író és fordító (1910-1972) levelezését mutatja be. A második világháború előtt Olaszországba, majd késobb Brazíliába kivándorló író elsősorban levelek útján tartotta fenn szülőhazájával a kapcsolatot. Évtizedeken át levelezett Weöres Sándorral, Károlyi Amyvel, Passuth Lászlóval, Karinthy Ferenccel, Kardos Tiborral, Nemes Nagy Agnessel, Devecseri Gáborral, Szerb Klárával, és a magyar irodalmi élet más nagyjaival. A világ számos neolatinistájával, köztük Robert Gravesszel is gyakran váltott levelet. Élete vége felé, amikor Lénárd már remeteként élt a brazil őserdő szélén, ezek a levelek jelentették számára a külvilág felé az egyetlen kapcsolatot.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Helga Lénárt-Cheng studied at ELTE, Budapest and completed her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at Harvard University in 2007. She has been on the faculty of the Modern Languages Department of Saint Mary's College of California, Moraga, CA, since 2008.

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Hungarian Autonomy in Vojvodina: Hungarian-Serbian relations – Past, Present, and Future

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Serbia’s northern province of Vojvodina is important to Central and Eastern Europe for several reasons: The Hungarian community living there, the history of the province, and the issue of autonomy for that community. This autonomy issue plays a vital role in the political atmosphere of the region. Lately however, this has become less important than other issues, such as Serbia’s accession to the European Union, Kosovo, and pipeline politics; as a result, has faded into the background. Research undertaken for this Master’s thesis examined academic texts and journals, government websites, and newspapers from the region. Some archival research has been conducted as well. Information found in the above materials has shown that the issue of Vojvodina autonomy is a delicate one, though while government leaders have maintained their commitment to it, simultaneous obligations have required them to carefully select which to pursue and in what order. Despite this, the province of Vojvodina will continue to play a significant role in the region in the years to come. UI: Szakdolgozatom a vajdasági autonomiáról és az ottani magyarok a magyar-szerb kapcsolatokra tett hatásáról szól.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Tara lotstein’s academic focus is Hungary, including the language; ethnic Hungarians in the Carpathian Basin, and the indigenous (Finno-Ugric) peoples of the Soviet-Russian and Scandinavian Arctic. She has an International Masters in Russian, Central, and East European Studies from the Department of Central and East European Studies at the University of Glasgow, and an MA in Political Science (Politikatudomány MA) from the Institute of Political Science at the Corvinus University of Budapest. Her Master’s thesis focused on the extent to which the Hungarians in Serbia affected Hungarian-Serbian relations, and she is proficient in Hungarian, Romanian, and Russian.

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Cultural Components of Successful Communication: about Pragmatic Competence Regarding Polite Refusals

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
How can we refuse something or someone in a polite way in Hungary? What are the rules? How can we be successful in refusing a request and still remain polite? How can we refuse another person without insulting him/her? Are there different politeness rules in diaspora language communities? Linguistic politeness is a part of our social image, our cultural tradition, although it rarely becomes conscious knowledge. While communicating in everyday life, we are not necessarily aware of following certain pragmatic rules about the proper way of language usage. We communicate with each other without keeping the pragmatic rules in mind, only become aware of them if our partner deviates from the norms and conventions.
Our concepts about correct/successful use of language forms are being determined by our cultural background: the culture of developed industrial societies; of Europe; of Hungary, of the diaspora community (in continuous interaction with the culture of the country), as well as the cultural standards of the social group we are part of. Therefore researching the manifestations of politeness in language usage actually means the research of those social elements that can be detected in communication although not being expressed intentionally. Familiarity with the various theories about expressing politeness helps us to know more about our language usage that can lead us to communicate consciously and successfully. For example differences in social status can be a determining factor in chosing the proper way for refusing someone politely. However, there are other cultural elements as well that can affect our evaluation about politeness/impoliteness in a certain community. We should be aware of the results of researches in the subject so they can be part of our practical knowledge.


Cultural Components of Successful Communication: about Pragmatic Competence Regarding Polite Refusals
Melyek az udvarias visszautasítás szabályai a mai Magyarországon? Hogyan utasíthatunk vissza egy kérést úgy, hogy ne sértsük meg beszédpartnerünket? Hogyan befolyásolhatja mindez a diaszpórában élők nyelvhasználatát?
A nyelvi udvariasság része társadalmi önképünknek, kulturális hagyományainknak, ritkán válik azonban mindez tudatossá számunkra. A hétköznapokban nem érzékeljük, hogy bizonyos nyelvhasználati szabályokat követünk, amikor mondanivalónkat formába öntjük. A zökkenőmentes kommunikációban a felek együttműködése nem tudatos, hiszen csak akkor válik számukra is érzékelhetővé saját normarendszerük, ha beszédpartnerünk eltér a beszélgetés általuk helyesnek tartott menetétől. Elképzeléseinket a helyénvaló és/vagy sikeres nyelvi érintkezésről a kultúránk, azaz – a tágabban értelmezettől a kisebb közösségek felé tartva – a fejlett ipari társadalmak kultúrája, az európai, a magyarországi, a diaszpóra magyar közösségének (az adott ország többségi kultúrájával kölcsönhatásban álló) kulturális háttere és annak a társadalmi csoportnak a kultúrája határozza meg, amelynek tagjai vagyunk. A nyelvi udvariasság kutatása ebből következően azoknak a társadalmi tényezőknek a vizsgálatát jelenti, amelyek akkor is megjelennek a nyelvhasználatban, ha nem törekszünk tudatosan kifejezésükre. A különböző udvariassági elméletek biztosította fogalmi keret megismerésével többet tudhatunk meg saját nyelvhasználatunkról, ami elvezethet a tudatos és eredményes kommunikációhoz. Visszautasításaink megfelelő nyelvi formába öntésekor például fontos tényező a beszédpartnerek közötti hatalmi és társadalmi távolság, de ezek mellett egyéb kulturális elemek is befolyásolják annak eldöntését, mi számít egy adott közösségben udvariasnak, mi udvariatlannak. A témához kapcsolódó kutatási eredmények megismerése egyben a gyakorlatban is hasznosítható tudást is jelent.



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 foreign (HSL) and heritage students (HHL) for 15 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 (HSL and HHL) in Canada, in the Netherlands, in Germany and in many other countries where there are Hungarian language courses for heritage and HSL students.

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The Market and Its Space. The Spatial Representation of Capital Investment in Debrecen

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
In the focus of this presentation is the development of modern capitalist market relations and how these appeared in different forms and levels in Debrecen’s traditional yet changing economy during the first half of the long nineteenth century. The spatial aspects of these processes will also be examined. There will be an analysis of the shift from the traditional structures of mercantile privileges given to royal camarilla, to landlords, and royal free cities over to capitalist competition. The spatial evolution with their impact on fairs, the rise and decline of peddler trade, the varieties of trade over a distance, crafts, the bifurcation of retail and wholesale trade, and the increase of urban commercial practices represented by stores and facilities such as restaurants and hotels will be examined.

Piac és tere – a kapitalizálódás térszerkezeti reprezentációi Debrecenben
Az előadás fókuszában az áll, hogy a kapitalizáció (a modern tőkés piaci viszonyok kialakulása) hogyan, milyen szinteken és formákban jelent meg Debrecen tradicionális gazdálkodásának gyakorlatában és térbeli reprezentációiban a 19. század „hosszú első felében”, 1870-ig.
A kiváltságrendszerre (királyi-kamarai, földesúri és szabad királyi városi) valamint a tradicionális árutermelés logikája épült városi térszerkezet konkrét ( geográfiai) értelmezése mögött a városi tér használatában és reprezentációjában a kiváltságrendszer és a hagyományos gazdálkodás intézményesüléseként létrejött telekszervezet mint deriváló és meghatározó struktúra működött. A telekszervezet hatását a városi tér szerkezetének értelmezésére és gyakorlati használatára merevségében a 19. század elejétől folyamatosan oldotta a piaci viszonyok átalakulása, az áruforgalom, hitelviszonyok fejlődése, a kiváltságrendszer keretei között is egyre jobban érvényesülő verseny a többszintű (interregionális, regionális, kistérségi, lokális) piacközponti szerepet is betöltő város gazdálkodásában. A kapitalizálódás a város gazdasági életében, a térhasználat gyakorlatában változó alakzatokban jelent meg: vásárok átalakulása, házaló kereskedelem felfutása és hanyatlása, a távolsági közvetítő kereskedelem differenciálódása, a kézműves termelés és árusítás illetve a kiskereskedelem és nagykereskedés szétválása, az urbánus kereskedelmi formák - bolt, üzlet, vendéglátás - gyarapodása.
Mindezek a városi térhasználat gyakorlatában és reprezentációjában a tradicionális alakzatok lassú átalakulását és marginalizálódását, az új formák megjelenését és elterjedését hozták magukkal. Ezt a folyamatot vázolja az előadás Debrecen esetében, különös figyelmet fordítva a folyamat eredményének egy időpontban (1870) rögzült térbeli rögzülésének elemzésére.


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, 825–1914". 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. "Tanulmányok a magyar értelmiség társadalomtörténetéhez". Gondolat.Budapest, 2012.

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Why the Counter-Reformation Failed in Seventeenth-Century Hungary

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The paper examines the concerted efforts of Hungarian magnates, Catholic hierarchs, and the Habsburg court to convert a predominantly Protestant society to the Catholic faith. The focus will be on the conversion campaigns of the 1660s and 1670s that culminated in the systematic confiscation of churches, the closure of congregational schools, and the mass expulsion of the Protestant clergy. I will argue that these campaigns failed for four principal reasons: the resilience of the county nobility, the resistance of peasants and townsmen, the mass defection of Protestant soldiers, and the proximity of the Ottoman border. This unique combination of resistance and border location distinguishes the Hungarian case from other Habsburg territories (such as Austria, Bohemia, and Silesia) and neighboring Poland. In the final analysis, Hungarian Protestantism would probably not have survived without the Ottomans who provided refuge and protection to persecuted communities. What England was for Dutch Protestants during the sixteenth century the Ottoman Empire became for Hungarian Lutherans and Calvinists during the seventeenth century: a safe-haven from which military invasions were launched to overthrow Habsburg power and restore the Protestant faith.
My paper takes issue with the current state of research on the Hungarian Counter-Reformation, particularly with recent contributions by Antal Molnar and Istvan G. Toth. Most importantly, I think that historians have insufficiently addressed the violent overtones of the Hungarian Counter-Reformation and its traumatic impact on local society. While undoubtedly achieving great successes on the surface--large territories without Protestant clergy, the establishment of Catholic parishes, and mass conversions—these achievements were only temporary. They quickly evaporated in the face of local resistance and rebel incursions from Ottoman territory. Rather than relying on the reports and letters of Catholic missionaries—the mainstay of recent interpretations—or Protestant martyrologies and polemics—the basis of Protestant historiography--I draw on previously unstudied documentary records from the Austrian State and Hungarian National Archives. These records reveal the Hungarian Counter-Reformation as an unmitigated failure that deeply alienated society and crucially contributed to large-scale popular revolts well into the eighteenth century.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Georg B. Michels is Professor of History at the University of California, Riverside and currently working on a book about the impact of the Habsburg Counter-Reformation on late seventeenth-century Hungarian society. His recent articles include “The 1672 Kuruc Uprising: A National or Religious Revolt?” Hungarian Studies Review, Vol. XXXIX, Nos. 1-2 (2012): 1-20; “Ready to Secede to the Ottoman Empire: Habsburg Hungary after the Vasvar Treaty (1664-1674),” E-Journal of the American Hungarian Educators Association, Vol. 4 (Fall 2012), pp. 1-11; and
a forthcoming study in Történelmi Szemle (published by the Institute of History, Hungarian Academy of Sciences) critically reexamining the expulsion of the Protestant clergy from Hungary during the early 1670s. Michels’ interest in Hungary and the early modern Habsburg Empire emerged from his studies on religion, society, and revolt in early modern Russia and the discovery of significant similarities between Russian and Hungarian popular resistance against a centralizing imperial power. Trained as a Russian historian and Slavic linguist at the University of Göttingen (Germany), UCLA, and Harvard (Ph.D. 1991) he has written At War with the Church: Religion and Dissent in Seventeenth Century Russia (Stanford, 1999) and co-edited Russia’s Dissident Old Believers (1650-1950) (Minneapolis, 2009).

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The Role of the Mother Tongue in Foreign Language Teaching

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Mother tongue has an indispensable and inevitable role in foreign language teaching. However this role changes continuously in its intensity, character, methods, and in its strategies. There are subjective and objective differences between mother tongue acquisition (L1) and foreign language learning (L2) and we should take into consideration the effects of mother tongue in FLT. We talk about positive and negative transfers. Postivie transfer is if mother tongue is similar to foreign language in some aspects but if mother tongue is different this effect will have negative transfer. The main reasons why students make mistakes (errors) are partly because of negative transfer and partly because of mother tongue interference.
Students use mother tongue in order to fulfil their needs and mother tongue becomes their tool in order to express themselves. In the case of L2 students are aware of the fact that they can use their mother tongue when they want. We can distinguish four fields in terms of similarities and differences in the language: phonetic-phonological, grammatical, lexical, conversational routines The usage of mother tongue is unavoidable in some cases: in the exploration of the meaning of the foreign word, clarifying grammatical rules, comparing the mother tongue and the target language, explaining new structures, in translations, etc. The discussion of the role of the mother tongue has arisen lots of very interesting responses from around the world. The formerly strict dogma that there is no room for the mother tongue in the EFL classroom (a product of acquisition-based teaching methods), has been replaced by a more differentiated approach which may depend heavily on the cultural and educational situation where each individual teacher is working.



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 half dozen textbooks, three dozen 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.

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Finding the Future in the Past: Péter Pázmány’s Felelet

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
This paper examines the historical perspective articulated by Péter Pázmány, the future primate of Hungary, in the Felelet, his first major vernacular work, produced in answer to what he saw as the calumniation of Hungarian Catholicism by the preacher István Magyari. In this text, Pázmány offered an alternative providential explanation for the disaster of the Turkish conquest in sixteenth century Hungary. In his published work, Magyari had ascribed the Turkish invasion to divine chastisement of the Hungarian nation for the sins of its Catholics, particularly because of the idolatrous nature of Catholic worship. Drawing heavily on the Old Testament, Magyari had argued that Chosen People had been heavily punished for Idolatry on several occasions and suggested that only the pure religion of Hungary’s Lutherans had preserved a remnant of the old kingdom from the Turks. Pázmány’s text offered an alternative reading which linked the fall of the Hungarian kingdom to the advent of Lutheranism so that a realm which had stood for hundreds of years while the Catholic faith had been preserved was swiftly overthrown when heresy began to sap it from within. Not only does the text offer an alternative historical narrative but Pázmány engaged also with Magyari’s biblical examples. While accepting that idolatry was a feature of God’s anger with the chosen people (and of course denying any idolatrous component in Catholic worship), his discussion concentrated on the punishment of the Jews for the crime of innovation in religion, in effect for heresy. The implications of Pázmány’s argument was that by preserving the critical element of the Hungarian past, its Catholic identity, the nation could once find a future as God would assist in the turning back of the Turkish conquest.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Tadhg Pól Ó hAnnracháin is Senior Lecturer in the School of History and Archives, University College Dublin. He studied at the National Univerity of Ireland and received his PhD in 1995 from the European University Institute, Florence, Italy. Dr. Ó hAnnracháin's major research interest concerns the Catholic Reformation in Early Modern Europe, with a particular emphasis on peripheral areas of the continent, especially, Ireland, Britain and Hungary.

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What are the Communication Patterns of Hungarian Americans?

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The summary of Krisztina Olah's 2012 master paper helps to better understand the trends and patterns of the Hungarian-American communication.
Since when has there been Hungarian-American communication at all? How do the different Hungarian communities and organizations throughout the United States organize (or not organize) their communication? Why is communication so important for the ethnic minorities? Ms. Olah’s creative project looked for answers for these questions.
The speaker conducted a qualitative research in the Cleveland Hungarian community during the years of 2011 and 2012. Analyzing the past and finding the communication patterns of the present helped to create a more effective and well-based communication strategy for the future. The multiple interviews with individuals, families, leaders of Hungarian organizations, businesses and churches, local journalists and minority organizations provided interesting findings not only about the Cleveland region but also about other regions and cities where Hungarians live. The paper gives direct suggestions and the best examples of practices for the Hungarian communities and organizations who want to improve the communication and information sharing among their members.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Krisztina Olah is a marketing and communication expert. She finished her master studies in Communication Management at the John Carroll University in University Heights, Ohio 2012. She graduated from the University of Miskolc in Hungary with a bachelor’s degree in Business Economics and Marketing 2002. In the past ten years, Krisztina have been working in Germany, the U.S., and Hungary as a marketing professional for several large and small companies and non-profit organizations. She is interested in leadership, gender studies, medical communication, and tourism.

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YouTube as Hungarian Dance Archive: Mining for Gold in a Popular Culture Source

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
New technology in web presentation has resulted in an explosion of availability of material that formerly could only be found in libraries. This has included projects such as the Hungarian Academy’s Film Library Database Archive of Folkdance (Néptánc Adatbázis Filmtár).

These projects have been met and matched by the efforts of amateur folk dancers and musicians developing their own libraries on the popular website, YouTube. Many take as their goal to reproduce and experience the dances and events of Hungarian villagers in Transylvania and other rural Hungarian areas during the mid-Twentieth Century and before, under the rubric of táncház.

Whereas in the late 20th century, táncház enthusiasts passed tape cassettes and files among themselves to share records of great folkdancers and musicians and learn from them, now these films are posted on the web, joined by demonstrations and lessons by teachers and interpreters. Also available are performances by contemporary dancers, musicians, and dance groups. A new category of material has emerged as well—videos created by participants to convey their personal meanings and experience of folk music and dance through content and presentation.

This paper will explore the range of material relating to Hungarian folkdance posted on YouTube, discussing the sorts of questions that can be explored though this rich source. YouTube collections offer us a way to assess contemporary creativity within a revival movement and changes in attitudes toward aspects of dance while building a picture of the significance and specific meanings within social dance in current practice.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Judith E. Olson is a historical musicologist working in the area of traditional Hungarian music and dance in Romania, Hungary, and among Hungarians in the United States and Canada. She enjoys combining research of activity in Hungarian dance camps and within revival groups with analysis and discussion of dance structure, process, creativity and improvisation. Another favorite topic is the overlap of traditional and revival and constructs of authenticity among participants. She presents frequently at venues such as the International Council for Traditional Music, the International Musicological Society, the Society for Ethnomusicology and AHEA, She performs this research, and also organizes táncház, dance parties, in New York, under the auspices of the American Hungarian Folklore Centrum.

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"Meeting of Worlds, Melting of Cultures" -- A journey from East to West

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
This presentation aims to provide an insight into how an Eastern European journalist and professor’s way of thinking and story meets the Canadian culture and academic practice at universities while teaching different courses in journalism and political science.
While in Hungary, the constitutional system and the rule of law were weakened following the last elections of 2010, and the system of checks and balances has almost ceased to exist, the freedoms of speech and expression are continuously challenged and suppressed; the fundamental rights and freedoms —especially the freedom of assembly and opinion— have been thought to be subdued in Canada following the G20 Summit of 2010 in Toronto and the 2011 Vancouver Stanley Cup riot.
While teaching journalism ethics and theory of radio and television at different universities in Ottawa and Toronto, students and professors often claim that the incumbent party in Canada has already launched an attack against fundamental freedoms. During lectures and class debates, two different worlds and different experiences met each other and generated heated discussion about where the point of no return lies in a democracy. According to some stereotypes, Canadians are forbearing citizens and Hungarians are said to be warm-blooded, yet every lecture and debate proves that both Canadian born students and first generation immigrants to Canada have learnt the same lesson. In Canada, from the very first moments, the country makes her citizens able to protect democracy and not to accept harm on freedom. The Hungarian example reveals the fact that a newborn democracy can easily be the victim of social instability, political populism, and apathy, while a country over the Atlantic enables her citizens to safeguard freedom. The experience of witnessing how Canadian professors and students learnt the lesson about functional multiculturalism and different ethnic groups’ peaceful coexistence evokes opposite sentiments back in Hungary. Besides teaching the compulsory curriculum, differing backgrounds and understandings come face-to-face, resulting in the melting of different cultures and the emergence of the very same democratic ethos.
This journey of a Hungarian immigrant is an apparent demonstration of mutual understanding and interaction between contrasting cultures and experiences.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Jozsef Orosz is an adjunct professor teaching journalism ethics, theory of radio and television and media policies at different universities in Ottawa and Toronto. Before his landing in Canada, he was one of the top-notch broadcast journalists hosting radio and TV shows in Hungary, also a human rights activist and founder of the Hungarian Democratic Charter of 2007. He did some landmark interviews, radio and TV shows in his country of birth. He covered the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe, sent his reports from Baghdad during the Gulf Wars in 1991 and 2003, covered the Yugoslav war and the aerial bombing of Belgrade. Mr. Orosz worked at ABC Evening News with Peter Jennings in 1991, and gained a scholarship to the University of Texas, Austin in 1995. He received recognition for his journalistic works, was awarded with the Hungarian Pulitzer Prize and Hemingway Prize for Lifetime Achievement in journalism.

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The Pervasiveness of a Libel: Count Mihály Károlyi as the Traitor Responsible for the Peace Treaty of Trianon

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
On January 1, 2012, Hungary’s basic laws replaced the previous constitution. The text of the new
constitution was published by the government in a souvenir edition which includes facsimiles of commissioned contemporary paintings depicting scenes from Hungary’s thousand-year history. The painting entitled “Trianon” was done by Tibor Kiss an associate professor of the Hungarian University of Fine Arts. His painting depicts in the forefront one of the Allied leaders, the French Premier Georges Clemenceau, and Count Albert Apponyi, who was the head of the delegation that received the preliminary terms of the harsh treaty from the victors. From the mirror behind them are reflections of the three ghost responsible for Trianon. These, as the painter described it in an interview published in early February 2012, are “Charles IV, who appointed the practically half-idiot aristocrat, Mihály Károlyi as prime minister….[In turn] On March 20,1919, when the Vix Ultimatum arrived which drew the border of our country at the Tisza River, Károlyi’s first act was to name Béla Kun as his successor….” Kun on the painting holds a hand grenade between his fingers and the painter identifies Kun as the man “responsible for the collapse.” The description of the artist is falsified history where only the date of the Vix ultimatum is correct. The painting itself is not art, but crass propaganda which is now included in the fancy volume containing the basic laws of Hungary.

The painting and Kiss’s words demonstrate the fact that the vicious attacks on Károlyi, which started with the counterrevolutionary Horthy regime in 1920, that also confiscated the property of the “wealthiest Hungarian”—still continue almost one hundred years later. The removal of Károlyi’s statute from Kossuth Square by the Parliament, the renaming of Károlyi Mihály Street, and Kiss’s painting are the latest symbols, reminding the historian that one regime after the other used Károlyi--alive or dead--as a scapegoat to distract the Hungarian population from the real issues. This presentation will provide an overview of the scapegoating of Károlyi since 1920 to the present.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Peter Pastor is professor of history at Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ. He received his BA from the City College of CUNY and his PhD from New York University. He is the author, editor, or coeditor of seven books. His most recent co-edited volume is Essays on World War I (2012). He is also the author of more than forty articles focusing on Hungarian-Russian relations, or on twentieth century Hungarian history. He is also the president of the Center for Hungarian Studies and Publications, Inc., a non-profit corporation specializing on publishing the works of Hungarian historians in English. He is a frequent visitor to Hungary and is on the faculty of the Doctoral Program in History of Eszterházy Károly College in Eger, Hungary, as an invited foreign instructor. In 2003 he received the Commander’s Cross of the Hungarian Republic (a Magyar Köztársasági Érdemrend Középkeresztje) for exceptional contributions to the furthering of Hungarian-American cultural ties.

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1 Hungarian Folk Tale + 1 French Fairy Tale = Paul Fejős’ Fantasy Film: Preserving Images of Hungary Between the Two World Wars in Marie, Légende hongroise (1932)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Film director Paul Fejős left his native Hungary in 1923 for Hollywood, then in 1928 moved to Paris to make “talkies.” The French company Osso had set up studios in Budapest, allowing Fejős a return to native soil for the French-Hungarian co-production Marie, Légende hongroise (Tavaszi zápor; Spring Shower) 1932, made simultaneously in 4-5 other languages. Marie, a village servant girl seduced and abandoned by the wealthy fiancé of her employer’s daughter, is cast out from home and village. Finding work as a maidservant in a Budapest bordello, she gives birth. Dressed in folklore costume, Marie presents her baby to the Virgin Mary during a Catholic religious ceremony. The local authorities decide to confiscate the baby. Marie, maddened with pain, dies of grief. Having assumed a Madonna-like persona, we find her scrubbing the floors of Heaven, and upon seeing her daughter about to be seduced, she pours out her bucket of water, causing a spring shower that will separate young lovers, warning them of the dangers of physical passion. Film historian István Nemeskürty referred to this film as a solitary jewel of Hungarian cinema. The narrative is simple with little dialogue although much music, relying on striking, repeated motifs (the flowering tree), presenting a world of feeling, not fact, a fairy tale of an archetypal Cinderella mistreated by archetypal bad people, but who in the end magically achieves consolation and the capacity to influence events. The sparse, stylized cinematography renders it one of the most intensely metaphoric works of the 1930s, while simultaneously suspending on celluloid a lost world of Hungary between village and capital.


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.

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Planning for the Future: the István Deák Visiting Professorship at Columbia University

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The István Deák Visiting Professorship in East central European Studies at Columbia University pays tribute to the eminent historian István Deák and his distinguished legacy of scholarship, teaching and cultural engagement. The Deák Chair brings distinguished scholars and teachers from East Central Europe to Columbia. Normally the stay is one semester; visiting scholars are selected through the joint collaboration of the Blinken European Institute, the East Central European center, and the Harriman Institute who host the Chair. At Columbia, the visitors teach, share their research and more generally, dedicate themselves to raising awareness about the history and society of Hungary and East central Europe.
For a few of years now I have been making efforts to stabilize the financial foundations of the István Deák Visiting Professorship. Currently we are trying to widen the scope of activities supported by the István Deák Endowment. In addition to the visiting professors we also would like to offer scholarships and prizes to students and would like to have more public events: film shows, conferences, book launches etc. In this work we receive help from the Hungarian Consulate General and our Cultural Center New York. I suggest that we organize a fund raising session for the activities connected to the endowment named after him. My point is to call the attention to the István Deák Endowment.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Attila Pók is deputy director of the Institute of History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest. His publications and courses cover three major fields: 19th-20th century European political and intellectual history, history of modern European historiography, theory and methodology of history. Currently he is István Deák Visiting Professor of East Central European Studies at Columbia University, NY.

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Ferenc Molnar's Play "Liliom" Blooms Anew in "Carousel"

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Ferenc Molnar's masterpiece "Liliom" premiered in Budapest in 1909. It revived numerous times in various repertories and was filmed many times. Its musical version, "Carousel," by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein opened in 1945 on Broadway. It's movie version by 20th Century Fox was released in 1956. The play does not fade away; it bloom anew in the film as well as in the musical because of the protagonists imperishable human and artistic values. The musical relocates the amusement park scene from Europe to New England but not the character of the shiftless sharper but also a barker of pure heart.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Rajec, Elizabeth Molnar
Independent Scholar. Retired professor emerita, academic librarian from City College of the City University of New York. Among her many published writings the Bibliography (vol. 1-2) on Ferenc Molnar should be mentioned here, published by Bohlau in Vienna in 1986.

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Family Documentary Lore - Reading a 1970s-1980s Correspondence between Jerusalem and Nagyvárad

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Documentary literature is a mega-genre including diary, memoir, jubilee/regional book, minutes, and correspondence. This literature does not aim at artistry and its writers are far from acclaimed authors. Rather, they come from all social strata and wish to pass on their experiences and knowledge as people who lived through meaningful events and as part of their community/nation. In the Jewish-Israeli context, this motivation is amplified by the magnanimous events that befell the Jewish people in the last century and a half. My presentation offers a reading in the letters of my parents, Israeli immigrants from Erdély/Transylvania, to their sisters (each had one) in Nagyvárad/Oradea in Romania of the late 1970s and early 1980s (my paternal aunt later returned me the letters). The letters depict my parents' lives as eternal immigrants raising Israeli-born (sabra) children, and their longing for their past families and for the Várad/Erdély that once was. The very last of them bluntly tell their anguish about their deteriorating health. In my reading of the letters I wish to illustrate their nature and traits as documentary materials and their contribution to understanding Hungarian-Jewish immigrants, mostly Holocaust survivors, living in Israel of the 1950s-1970s. I shall also deal with the ways in which my reading re-writes the letters through a combination of literary-cultural research and personal memorial journey.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Ilana Rosen is Associate Professor of Hebrew Literature at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev at Beer Sheva, Israel. She studies documentary literature of Jews of Central-Eastern Europe, with stress on their Holocaust memory and narrative, as well as the multi-ethnic narrative of emigrants to south of Israel. Her publications include: Sister in Sorrow – Life Histories of Female Holocaust Survivors from Hungary (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2008), winner of the 2009 American Folklore Society (AFS) Elli Köngäs-Maranda prize for women's studies; Soul of Saul – the Life, Narrative, and Proverbs of a Transylvanian-Israeli Grandfather (Burlington: Vermont University, 2011).

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Joseph Goldmark and How the Ideals of 1848 Transformed the United States

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The defeat of the 1848 revolutions brought many ‘48ers to the United States. These immigrants became integral to the various political and social reform movements occurring throughout the US at this time. This study will look at the impact of one man in particular, Joseph Goldmark. He was one of the most prominent heroes of 1848, a leader of the student rebels in Vienna and a co-author of the liberal constitution of 1849.
The idea of “emancipation” in Europe turned into the fight for emancipation in the US and a passionate support for Abraham Lincoln. For Joseph Goldmark, the ideals of 1848 animated not only his political and professional life, but also that of his children. His son-in-law, Louis Brandeis (wife of his daughter Alice) became one the most important jurists in US history. He worked closely with another daughter, Josephine Goldmark.
The halls of the Supreme Court of 1930 did not seem distant from the heady revolutionary days of the Hapsburg Empire of 1848 to Josephine Goldmark. She published Pilgrims of '48: One man's part in the Austrian revolution of 1848 well after the Great War.
This study will remind us of the influence of the ‘48ers on science, law, religion, and connect Hungarian history to the Progressive movement of the early 20th century.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Raul Rothblatt graduated the University of California, Berkeley with a double major in Music and Political Science, receiving honors in both. He then studied classical composition at the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest with composer György Orbán, followed by a Masters in Musical Theatre Composition from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. For the last twenty years he has actively supported Hungarian culture through playing bass with Életfa Hungarian Folk. He is also the manager and cellist of Kakande, a West African band lead by traditional musician (a.k.a. djeli or griot) Famoro Dioubate of Guinea. Raul is a co-founder of Jumbie Records.
Raul Rothblatt was the Executive Director of the Four Borough Neighborhood Preservation Alliance 2007-2011 and successfully protected an Abolitionist home in Downtown Brooklyn from destruction via eminent domain abuse. In 2010, he co-founded Alliance Guinea, a non-profit made up of Guineans and friends of Guinea working to promote civil society in that country. He is currently the Vice President of Prospect Heights Democrats for Reform.
Raul’s love of Hungarian culture was nurtured by his mother, born and raised in Budapest and his grandmother who wrote Flavors of Hungary.

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A Hungarian American Collector and his Contribution to Hungarian Museums

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Hungarian Americans contribution to American culture is remarkable in its abundance of scientific, philanthropic and artistic achievements. Some of them, like award winning scientist and collector, Laszlo Gyugyi created a remarkable 19th century Zsolnay collection, of which a great part was repatriated to Hungary. Dr. Gyugyi’s decision to sell back and gift half of his collection to the Zsolnay Museum in Pecs became a widely admired attraction of Pecs’ cultural district. This presentation unpacks how Mr. Gyugyi set out to build a collection of Zsolnay ceramic artworks, how he learned about available new pieces, acquired, and added them to his collection. The major theme of this investigation is how he became interested and decided to place part of his collection back into the factory where they were originally designed and made. Some of the most aesthetically-accomplished works will be presented during the lecture.




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.

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A Linguistic Institute in the service of Hungarians living in Transylvania

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Being the researcher of the Szabó T. Attila Linguistic Institute for 10 years now, I considered it would be interesting to present the social and institutional background, aims and objectives of this Institute that was established due to the complexity of those problems that occurred after the regime change in 1989, when minorities regained their right to use more widely their mother tongue again. Insecurity, inconsistency and strong influence of the Romanian language, the lack of information and of public awareness about linguistic rights are just some of the many problems. These problems are characteristic for all the regions outside the borders of Hungary where there live Hungarians (the territories taken away after the Trianon Treaty) and called for the establishment of linguistic research institutes in these regions. Thus in 2001 in Transylvania the Szabó T. Attila Linguistic Institute was constituted.
The main objectives of the Linguistic Institute:
1. to establish, maintain and develop demographic, juristic, sociolinguistic and educational databases,
2. to take part in language and statute planning
3. to make research in sociolinguistics,
3. to offer language services to Hungarian institutions and private entities
The institute also proposes to collect, analyze and facilitate access to every Romanian law and statutory rule that governs language use. Linguistic human rights, bilingualism, contactology, Hungarian minority language variants are also research topics of the Institute. The Institute also creates digitized linguistic databases (glossaries for the public administration, loanwords glossary and monolingual interpretive dictionaries).



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Sárosi-Márdirosz Krisztina is an Assistant Professor PhD. at Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania (Târgu-Mureş, Romania). She gratuated the Faculty of Letters at Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca and the Faculty of Political, Administrative and Communication Sciences at Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca. She received her PhD. in philology at Babeş-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca in 2009. She has published studies on linguistics, translation studies and terminology. She is a member of External Public Body of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and at present she is working on the Hungarian-Romanian cultural dictionary and on an electronic data-base of legal terminology in collaboration with Szabó T. Attila Linguistic Institute (Cluj-Napoca). She has also taken part to numerous national and international conferences and scientific sessions (New York, Budapest, Eger, Szeged, Wien, Novi Sad, Cluj-Napoca, Miercurea-Ciuc etc).

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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 MLA and AHEA conferences and lectures at Centennial College, NJ. His magazine credits include Agni, Kenyon Review, Rattle, Salzburg Poetry Review, Seneca Review, etc.

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Bicultural Bridges: Cultural Diplomacy at the American Corner Budapest

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Today cultural diplomacy is not just an area of international relations but also a well-known field of academics. According to political scientist Milton Cummings, cultural diplomacy is "the exchange of ideas, information, values, systems, traditions, beliefs, and other aspects of culture, with the intention of fostering mutual understanding". Osojnik describes the concept the following way: cultural diplomacy is not used in the narrow sense of diplomacy referring to relationships between diplomats and government representatives but it describes various modes of cultural exchange.

The term cultural diplomacy may have only been defined recently but the practice of cultural diplomacy can be seen throughout history. “Explorers, travelers, traders, teachers and artists can be all considered living examples of informal ambassadors or early cultural diplomats (for example, the establishment of regular trade routes enables a frequent exchange of information and cultural gifts between traders and government representatives)”. Today any person who interacts with someone from a different culture facilitates a form of cultural exchange. The interaction of people and the sharing of language, religion, ideas, arts and traditions constantly improve relations between nations.

Cultural diplomacy can be practiced by the public sector, private sector or civil society. In my present talk, I will shed light on how cultural diplomacy is practiced in the American Corner Budapest, an information and resource center that was established in 2009 as part of the U.S. State Department’s American Corners initiative. AC Budapest is a cooperation between the U.S. Embassy in Hungary and Corvinus University of Budapest. At the beginning of the presentation, I will provide historical background of the American Corners worldwide and describe the goal and the mission of the centers. With specific examples, I will underline the importance of cultural diplomacy and introduce the types of events the American Corner Budapest is involved with, highlighting the Bicultural Bridges series with its programs that aim at connecting Hungarian and American cultures through history, people, events, exhibitions, books and films. The presentation will conclude with the importance of global intercultural dialogue, reached by respect and recognition of cultural diversity and heritage. American Corners around the world are helping nations to respect and recognize such cultural diversity.
Milton, Cummings. "Cultural Diplomacy and the United States Government: a Survey."
Cultural Diplomacy News. Institute for Cultural Diplomacy. Web. 10 Apr 2013.
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Osojnik, Marta. “Cultural Diplomacy and the European Union: Key Characters and Historical Development.” .
Constantinescu, Emil. "What is Cultural Diplomacy." . Institute for Cultural Diplomacy. Web. 10 Apr 2013. .
US Department of State, Bureau of International Information Programs, March 2006 Newsletter.

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.

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The Collection: Past and Present Acquisitions. An Ongoing and Changing Exhibition.

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Founded on December 28, 1954, the American Hungarian Foundation holds as its primary goal the nurturing of “understanding and appreciation of the Hungarian culture and historical heritage in the United States of America,” and serving as a bridge between Hungarian and American cultural traditions to enhance a better understanding of the contributions of each.

The Collection, Past and Present Acquisitions tells the story not only of Hungary, but also of American Hungarians through the display of fine art, sculptures, artifacts, textiles, folk art and photographs that have been acquired by the Foundation throughout the years. Over the course of the next year, it is our goal to display the majority of the Foundation’s collection so please be sure to visit our website or contact us from time to time as we substitute pieces on display with other pieces from our collection


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Lilla Szabó, art historian, was born in Bratislava. She received her degree in History of Art at the Hungarian Language and Literature faculty of the Eötvös Loránd University. She completed her doctorate at the ELTE's History of Art department in 1983; the topic of her dissertation was the medieval architectural history of the Saint Martin coronation church in Bratislava. She has worked at the Hungarian National Gallery since 1979. Since the nineties, her main area of interest has been the cultural relationships within the Central European region during the period between the two world wars and research into the lives and work of Hungarian artists who lived or are still active outside the borders of Hungary in the neighbouring countries and around the world. She publishes regularly, is the author of several monographs and has held many lectures and organised varied exhibitions both in Hungary and internationally. She has spent longer periods abroad completing research in Germany (1988), India (1995; 2003) and the USA (1997; 2009). Fulbright Grand research scholar (2011-2012, New Brunswick).

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Deportations During the Worst Communist Terror in Romania (1948-1964)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
After World War II, the forced abdication of the king, and the complete communist takeover, intensive sovietization started in Romania. This included, just as in other satellite countries, the persecution of the ”class enemies” and of course anybody who did not agree in any way with the regime. The objective of the different deportations and other retaliations was to liquidate these people. The lecture is about the mass deportation of former landowners, the then so-called kulaks in 1949; deportations to the Danube-Delta and Dobrudja starting from 1950; deportations from the Yugoslav border area in 1951; the deportees in forced labor camps at the construction of the Danube Channel. There was a partial amnesty in Romania in 1954, but the release of all deportees came only in 1964. However, the communist dictatorship continued with the horrors of the Ceausescu regime.


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.

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Only 10% of Hungarian-Americans speak Hungarian at home. Why?

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Of more than a million Americans who listed Hungarian ancestry in their census questionnaires, only about 8% speak Hungarian in the family. In Ohio, that ratio is about 10%, and in Cleveland, about 11%. Why? What are the factors that allow some second and even third generation Hungarian-Americans to maintain their Hungarian language despite these overwhelming odds? Nine in-depth interviews were conducted with a variety of second and third generation members of Cleveland’s Hungarian community, most of whom were born in the Cleveland area and all of whom grew up in Cleveland’s Hungarian community, to ascertain the factors impacting their language use in the family and in the community, as well as to analyze the formation of their cultural identities. Using their own insights garnered from the interviews, the presentation will show the importance of consistent parenting and peer friendships, and illuminate the role that involvement in scouting and other community events can play. It will show the value the interviewees placed on speaking a second language, as well as the importance of strictness. The presentation will also share linguistic insights, reasons for assimilation, and the role of American spouses. Odds are that 89-92% of those with Hungarian ancestry will assimilate into American culture. These case studies, examples of Cleveland Hungarians who maintain their language and culture even late into the 2nd and 3rd generations, will show how to beat those odds. By preserving the past of their parents and grandparents, these interviewees show how to find a way to the future.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Endre Szentkirályi studied English and German at Cleveland State University and earned an MA in English at the University of Akron. He has edited several books of oral histories including 56 Stories (assistant editor and website content manager) and Clevelandben még élnek magyarok? He published a study of the émigré writer Áron Gábor in Hungarian Quarterly, and consulted for the 56Films documentaries Inkubátor and Hazatérés. Material from this presentation will appear in the forthcoming issue of Hungarian Studies Review. He currently teaches English and German at Nordonia High School near Cleveland.

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Antipolitics in Hungary

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Political extremism is a form of rejection of the political institutions of a community. In some cases it may be both a form of “internal” dissidence within one’s own political community and at the same time anti-cosmopolitan. My analysis addresses two opposing forms of “internal” dissidence in the last three decades of Hungarian political history: pro-democratic anti-Soviet opposition and the present extreme right-wing opposition. The pro-democratic, anti-Soviet antipolitical opposition as conceived by György Konrád in 1982 did not propose indifference toward politics but rather the alternative of an autonomous civil society functioning parallel to the official political power. As such it was cosmopolitan and anti-essentialist advocating the joint pursuit of political agreement through deliberation instead of one group claiming to represent one single truth. In contrast, the “apolitics” of the extreme Right is anti-cosmopolitan by advocating one single truth of a particular national community and by rejecting the joint pursuit of consensus through deliberation. My thesis is that whereas pro-democratic antipolitics is dissident in its critical stance toward political power, extremist apolitics is dissident toward any deliberative society.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Dr. Mihály Szilágyi-Gál (1971) is assistant professor at the Institute for Art Theory and Media Studies, ELTE University of Sciences in Budapest. Szilágyi-Gál studied philosophy and political science in Budapest, Debrecen, and Tübingen. His area of research is focused on topics in aesthetics and modern political philosophy. Some of his most important publications are „The disinterested Authonomy of Judging. Kant’s, Schiller’s and Arendt’s Shared Conception of Freedom”. (Az ítélés érdekmentes autonómiája. Kant, Schiller és Arendt közös szabadságfelfogása) in: Fogódzó nélkül. Hannah Arendt Olvasókönyv (Suportless. A Hannah Arendt Reader). Bratislava. Kalligram, 2008; „Thomas Hobbes’ Criticism of the Public Sphere” in: Berliner Vorträge der Deutsch-Ungarischen Gesellschaft für Philosophie.

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Béla Tarr and the Past and Future of Hungarian National Cinema

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Cinema studies in Hungary have expanded and diversified significantly in the last 25 years. What seems to have remained constant however is the analytical framework that defines Hungarian cinema in terms of a self-contained national tradition and places it within the cultural project of nation building. For instance, very little has been said about Hungarian films’ transnational circulation and reception or about the impact of the global flow of visual culture on Hungarian cinema. Does the idea of a Hungarian national cinema make sense in the post-1989 political and economic reality defined by European integration and a heavily globalized media culture? And if yes, how do we describe what “national” means? In other words, what did “Hungarian cinema” mean in the socialist era and what significance does the notion have today for film fans around the world?
Béla Tarr’s oevre will serve as a case study to demonstrate that Hungarian cinema can maintain its intensely local character, while also gain supranational relevance under dramatically changed global production, distribution and reception practices. Looking at Tarr’s geopolitical landscapes, this paper will argue that his films’ seamlessly intersect the politically poignant critique of Hungary’s late socialist reality with an existentialist meditation over human imperfection. The harsh landscape of the Hungarian countryside anchors the characters’ lives in an intensely material way. The crumbling walls, relentless rain, and flat, dreary landscape could not be more concrete and tangible. Yet, the overwhelming images of decay and isolation are also symbolic of the transience and eternal passing of everything man-made. The continuous oscillation between these two interpretative dimensions: the universal and the local, the abstract and the concrete, the atemporal and the historically specific makes Tarr’s movies prime examples of how Hungarian cinema can prevail in the rapidly changing global film culture.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Lilla Tőke is an Assistant Professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology. She obtained her PhD in May 2010 from Stony Brook University in Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies. Her doctoral dissertation with the title “Communism with Its Clothes Off: Eastern European Film Comedy and the Grotesque” examines the genre of communist film satire, asking why, after 1989 with the dramatic political, economic, and cultural changes, these films became cult classics, widely circulated and appreciated amongst all audiences. She also has an MPhil degree in Gender Studies from the Central European University, Budapest. Her research interests revolve around the subject of Eastern European cinema, transnationalism and Hungarian television, and feminist theory.

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Olvasófüzetek - szöveg- és feladatgyűjtemény nyelvi készségek fejlesztésére

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Az Olvasófüzeteket olyan idegen nyelvi környezetben élő, magyar nyelvi gyökerekkel rendelkező felnőttek számára állítottuk össze, akik a magyar alapszókincs birtokában magyar kommunikációs, valamint alapfokú olvasási készséggel rendelkeznek. A nyelv ismeretének ezen a szintjén legtöbbjük már motivált, hogy a tankönyvek mesterséges szövegein túl élő magyar nyelvi szövegeket olvassanak. Ám szembesülnek azzal a ténnyel, hogy a szépirodalmi szövegek komoly - nemvárt - nehézséget jelentenek számukra.
A magyar irodalom néhány célszerűen választott alkotását - a kiválasztott részleteket hallgatóink nyelvi ismereti szintjéhez igazítva – használjuk a tanítás során. Célunk, hogy az irodalmi művel való ismerkedés illúziója megmaradjon, de az írások számukra nyelvileg érthetőek legyenek.
A 2012-2013-es tanévben 2 csoportban, csoportonként 5 hallgató használta az Olvasófüzeteket (1. és 2. füzet). Tanári vezetés mellett, tizenkét, alkalmanként kétórás foglalkozásokon dolgozták fel a tanítási egységeket:
- Olvasmány, mely féloldalnyi, minimális mértékben változtatott irodalmi szöveg;
- Szómagyarázat, a „nehéz” szavak megbeszélése;
- A szókincs bővítése, szólások, szóláshasonlatok és közmondások segítségével;
- Szövegértelmezés, irányított kérdésekkel;
- Írásbeli feladatok, a részlet mondanivalójának megerősítésére;
- Nyelvtani gyakorlatok, a szöveg nyelvtani struktúrájának tudatosítására;
- Kiejtési feladatok, az élő magyar beszéd fejlesztésére.

A hallgatók az Olvasófüzeteket nagy örömmel fogadták. Tapasztalataink szerint a csoportok igen különböző tudásszintű tanulóival is lehetett együtt dolgozni a strukturált, következetesen felépített olvasmány-egységek segítségével.
A 3. és a 4. Olvasófüzet a 2013 őszi szemeszterében kerül kipróbálásra.
Az Olvasófüzeteket ajánljuk egyéni és tanár vezette tanuláshoz.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Éva M. Tömöri, graduated from Nagy Lajos High School in Pécs, Hungary. She received her bachelor's degree from the University of Toronto and her master's degree from York University. She is currently working on her Ph.D. at the University of Pécs, expecting to receive her degree in 2013. Since 2009 Eva M. Tomory has been teaching Hungarian language at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. Éva M. Tömöri has been published in the Hungarian Studies Review and has presented papers at the annual conferences of the Hungarian Studies Association of Canada held by the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences and at academic conferences in the Czech Republic, Croatia, Lithuania, the United States and Hungary.
eva.tomory@zing-net.ca

Velki Magdolna magyar-orosz szakos tanár, az Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetemen (ELTE) végzett. Végzése után budapesti középiskolákban tanított. Bekapcsolódott az ELTE Szlavisztikai Tanszékének munkájába. Disszertációjában a szovjet-orosz irodalmat kutatta, egyetemi doktori címet szerzett. A felnőttoktatásban kanadai tartózkodása során szerzett tapasztalatokat. Tanított a Université du Québec à Chicoutimi megbízott oktatójaként. Segédanyagot dolgozott ki a diákok tudászintjének megfelelően.
Kanadában a magyar nyelv tanításának lehetőségeit 2000 óta kutatja. Szakterülete: A magyar mint idegen nyelv oktatása idegen nyelvi környezetben, különös tekintettel ä másod-, harmad-generációs magyarokra. E témáról szerzett ismereteit, kutatásainak eredményeit, valamint gyakorló tanári tapasztalatait cikkekben (Nyelvünk és Kultúránk) és előadásokon Hungarian Studies Association in Canada) mutatja be, valamint magyarországi felsőoktatási intézményekben tett látogatásai alkalmával (Pécsi Tudományegyetem, Balassi Bálint Intézet, Veszprémi Egyetem, Eger Tanárképző). Az ELTE Idegennyelvi Továbbképzö Központ (ITK) Origó nyelvvizsgájának hivatalos vizsgáztatója. Az államilag elismert, magyar egynyelvű vizsgának meghonosítója Kanadában. mvelki@videotron.ca

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Discriminatory Discourse as the Means to Political Ends

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Coinciding with the 2008 global economic downturn has been an escalation in violent attacks and intimidation against Roma and the resurgence of extremist groups with explicit anti-Roma agendas all across Europe. The Roma face widespread discrimination as social institutions and other elites have not only been complicit in the reproduction of prejudiced discursive representations, but also in allowing or denying access to social goods for subordinated minorities. The geographical scope of this study will be limited to Hungary in order to focus the contextualization and develop a more in-depth investigation into the discursive mechanisms used to rationalize discriminatory rhetoric and naturalize the criminalization of a subordinated demographic. While human rights groups have published reports criticizing the way the Hungarian government and local police forces have handled such incidents, this study will focus specifically on exposing how Jobbik, Hungary’s right-wing nationalist political party, uses discriminatory discourse in their founding documents as a means to gain more political supporters through a positive self-representation and simultaneously blame economic hardships on the Roma, which ultimately leads to the reproduction of prejudiced attitudes and their further marginalization.
Drawing from Ruth Wodak’s historical-discourse approach to critical discourse analysis and Teun van Dijk’s investigations of discriminatory discourse, this study will attempt to make explicit how the Jobbik party is complicit in reproducing discriminatory practices against the Roma, how such discriminatory discourse continues their marginalization and serves as an obstacle to their social integration, and how power relationships are generated and sustained through linguistic mechanisms within particular historical contexts and existing social structures.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Nora Tyeklar is a graduate student at University Massachusetts Boston studying Applied Linguistics. She graduated from Boston University with a Bachelor’s degree in English, minoring in International Relations. Upon receiving her Bachelor’s, she returned to Hungary on a scholarship to study at the Balassi Institute (a school established by the Hungarian Ministry of Education and Culture to promote Hungarian language and culture studies) in Budapest. The purpose of the scholarship was the education of the Hungarian diaspora through intensive Hungarian language instruction alongside classes in various subject areas including the history of Hungary, contemporary Hungarian literature, and Hungarian culture. While still in the incipient stages of her work in critical discourse analysis (CDA), her two proposals were accepted and she will be presenting research and data concerning how discursive mechanisms are used in the positive self-representations of voluntary agencies and the negative representations of refugees assisted through the U.S. refugee resettlement process at two respective conferences in 2013. Her research interests include critical discourse analysis, literacies of displaced peoples, and migration studies.

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Displaced Persons among Hungarian Immigrants

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Although the dipis [DP = Displaced Persons] constituted the elites of interwar Hungary’s “neo-Baroque” world, and although as immigrants to the United States they significantly altered the structure of Hungarian-American society, as compared to the other waves of immigrants, they are hardly known. The primary reasons for this is the fact that they represented a social and political system that was not really welcome in America. They were also in the category of “ex-enemies,” which did not endear them to Americans and their Western allies. Equally important is the fact that – for whatever reason -- they left relatively few historical sources – memoirs and archival material – behind them.
In the course of the past 160 years several waves of Hungarian immigrants left their homeland and settled in the United States. Beginning with the so-called “Kossuth Immigration” after the defeated Hungarian Revolution of 1848-1849, followed by the massive turn-of-the-century “economic immigration” from Austria-Hungary (1890-1914), then by several waves of political immigrants before and after World War II (1919, 1933-41, 1944-45, 1947-48). This immigration process climaxed in wake of the violent anti-Soviet Revolution of 1956, which resulted in the exodus of nearly 200,000 Hungarians, of whom over 40,000 ended up in the United States. The last major Hungarian immigration took place after the fall of the communism in 1989-90, which brought additional thousands of Hungarians to the USA. They were not really immigrants, but people who hoped to improve their economic wellbeing by working in America. Their position is best described by the German term “Wohlstandsflüchtlinge,” which is best translated into Hungarian as “Jólétmenekültek,” and into English as “Guestworkers in search of a better life”.
Discounting the “Wohlstandsflüchtlinge” still in the process of migrating to the United States, the post-World War II immigrants came in two waves. These were the 45-ers, many of whom represented the elites of the interwar Horthy-regime; and the 47-ers who were of more modest origins and wanted to change the nature of the regime. They hoped to achieve this goal by cooperating with the occupying Soviet forces and the Communist Party. This hope, however, was crushed by the communist take-over of Hungary in the course of 1947-1948.
While all of immigrant waves possess a great deal of scholarly literature, this does not hold true for the 45-ers and 47-ers (the DPs). My goal is to remedy the situation by writing a synthetic work about these “forgotten immigrants.”




Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Steven Béla Várdy, Ph.D. (Indiana) is Distinguished McAnulty Professor of European History at Duquesne University and an elected Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He is the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of two-dozen books and over 200 scholarly articles and book chapters. – some written jointly with his wife, Dr. Agnes Huszár Várdy. Professor Várdy is the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Miskolc, and the Honoree of two Festschrifts written and published by his former students, colleagues, and friends. The recent volume, Hungary Through the Centuries (2012), was dedicated both to him and his wife. In Hungarian Professor Várdy writes under the name “Várdy Béla.”

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Special Challenges of Teaching Hungarian Language in the American Higher Education

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
In order to create effective syllabi, class lesson plans, and offer the best help we can to our students, we need not only to be aware of the needs of our institutions, programs and departments, but also of a much bigger context of Hungarian language teaching. Hungarian language faces special challenges as part of the LCTL (Less Commonly Taught Languages) in the context of American university language programs.
What features should we take into consideration when we teach Hungarian at an American university? How can the ACTFL guidelines, the ILR and the OPI testing systems help us in our everyday teaching? How can a Standards-based Hungarian curriculum or syllabus contribute to the quality of our language programs? But first of all, how can the Hungarian Standards be created? How can Standards assist us, language teachers, in developing our Standards-based curricula? The basic document, “Standards for Foreign Language Learning: Preparing for the 21st Century” (1996) reflects a progression in our understanding of how language is used and also gives a basic concept of what we currently think about foreign language teaching in the USA.
The goal of my presentation would be not only to draw our attention to the existing contexts of teaching Hungarian language in the USA or how to be part of a Standards-based system, but also to explore what Standards are and what they are not. I would also like to invite my colleagues, teaching Hungarian at other American universities to cooperate developing the Hungarian Standards, the model of which could be the existing documents of other LCTL Standards.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Valeria Varga has been a visiting lecturer, later a lecturer of Hungarian language since 2005 at Indiana University, Bloomington. She graduated from Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest in Hungarian, English and Russian language and literature. She received her Professional Teacher's Degree in 2005, with specialization in mentoring, teacher training, testing and test developing. She first taught Hungarian at IU between 1995 and 1998 as a visiting lecturer.

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Hungarian Women's Traumatic Embodied Narratives of the Holocaust

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
I will examine how women of different cultural backgrounds narrate their Holocaust experiences pertaining particularly to [the loss of] their gender identity, and, more broadly, to female-centered “politics of the body.” I will discuss how gendered bodily experience is foregrounded in their recording of events about their physically and psychologically traumatized war experiences, illustrating that the human body is itself a politically enscribed entity. I will discuss, among others, the memoirs of two women from Transylvania, Gisella Perl, an Orthodox Jew and noted gynecologist, who with her bare hands aborted 1,500 fetuses in Auschwitz, and that of Olga Lengyel, who, in contrast, tried to deny her origins, but did write at length about sexual activity in the camp. I will also discuss the work of Edith Bruck, who unlike Perl and Lengyel, came from an impoverished shtetl background, and whose whole oeuvre is suffused with issues of women’s bodily experiences, beginning with her recounting of undergoing menarche at age twelve while enclosed in the cattle cars on the way to Auschwitz, to her postwar life ,where she willfully aborted numerous times. Bruck’s work also illustrates that bodily trauma, particularly that related to rape and to motherhood, did not end with the liberation, where many women had to struggle to restructure their gender identity.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Louise O. Vasvári, who received her M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of California in Berkeley, is Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature and of Linguistics at Stony Brook University & Adjunct Professor of Linguistics at New York University. She has also taught in various visiting capacities, including at the University of California, Berkeley, at the Eotvos Lorand University and at the Central European University, the University of Connecticut (Storrs), and the Université de Jules Verne (Amiens), and Szeged. 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. She has recently published with Steven Tötösy, Imre Kertész and Holocaust Literature (2005), Comparative Central European Holocaust Studies (2009), and Comparative Hungarian Cultural Studies (2011). She has also published a monograph-length work in Hungarian on memoirs of Hungarian women survivors (2009),

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Magyars, Serbs, and Slovaks: An Apparent Paradox in Magyar-Slav Relationss

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Pan-Slav agitation centered in those areas of Old Dualist Hungary that were heavily populated by Serbs. Yet, Magyar reaction to Pan-Slavism was largely directed against the Slovaks.

My paper would attempt to explain the reasons for this apparent paradox.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
I was born and raised in Budapest Hungary; I left the country in 1956. After working for nearly two years in the United States, I went back to college. to Stanford University, where I had received my graduate degrees, my MA and Ph.D.in history. I had taught at Rutgers Univer-
sity, Newark for 29 years. I published several articles, essays in edited books, and book reviews, as well as 2 books. The first one, Istvan Tisza, the Liberal Vision and Conservative Statecraft of a Magyar Nationalist was awarded the Book Prize of the Association of Hungarian-American Historians. The second book was
published in Budapest, in Hungarian translation. Its title in English would be: From Feudalism to Revolution: Hungarian Politics and Culture in the Habsburg Monarchy, 1711-1848.

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The Role of Hungarian Diplomacy in Preserving and Promoting Hungarian Culture and Business Relations

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Hungary and the United States recently celebrated 90 years of diplomatic relations. Until the 1990's Hungarian representation was limited to the East Coast, to Washington DC, New York and Chicago. In 20 years our consular network has expanded nationwide to 2 career and 16 honorary consulates, in addition to the Embassy. The Hungarian Consulate General in Los Angeles opened in March 1992. At the same time I was asked to establish the first Honorary Consulate in San Francisco, and was appointed after accreditation by the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the US Department of State in 1993. I have followed this expansion as an observer and as a participant and have been assisting Northern Californians with Hungarian Consular matters. I wish to present a brief historical and personal perspective and discuss the role of Hungarian diplomacy in preserving and promoting Hungarian culture, arts, trade and business.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Éva E.Voisin, Esq. is the Honorary Consul General of Hungary for Northern California since1993. In that capacity, she represents all diplomatic, business and commercial interest of Hungary in her jurisdiction. She is the President & CEO of Voisin & Associates, an AV rated Law Firm, providing legal solutions in establishing a US presence to a global clientele in the high tech, biotech and cleantech areas. She also advises an extensive clientele in International Estate Planning and is the VP & Director of Business Development for SOV Interactive Media, LLC. She founded the Hungarian American Chamber of Commerce, in the US. Inc., in 1991 and serves as Chairman of the Board. She is active in all Hungarian American organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. She belongs to numerous professional organizations and serves on several corporate and non-profit boards nationwide. Éva E.Voisin was educated at the University of California in Los Angeles, Middlebury College and the Sorbonne and holds a JD degree. She speaks Hungarian, French, German and Spanish.

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Childless in Nők Lapja

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Literature across various disciplines, as well as geographical and cultural borders, suggests that women without children, particularly those who have chosen to be child-free, often find themselves portrayed negatively in media. In this essay, a part of my PhD research, I contribute to this scholarship, examining representations of women without children in Hungary. Hungary makes for an interesting study, given the nation’s history of low fertility rates and reproductive and family policies. During communist control, various reproductive and family policies were created to encourage women to procreate. Hungarian women’s reproductive choices were curtailed—sometimes eliminated—during periods of intense pro-natal policy and they were politically pressured and cajoled into motherhood. After the regime change in 1989, party leaders blamed women’s workforce participation for the nation’s shrinking population and subsequent problems. Women in Hungary continue to face political pressure concerning their reproductive rights and in 2011, the new constitution included language that threatened Hungarian women’s access to abortion. In light of this history, my project examines how Hungarian women without children have been, and continue to be, represented in Hungarian society. For my study, I use the popular women’s magazine Nők Lapja, from 1989 to present, as a barometer for the dominant representations of child-free women in post-socialist Hungarian society, contextualizing the content of the magazine within the historical, political and cultural history of the country. This essay presents the working results of my research.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Tanya Watson is a PhD Candidate at the Institute of Women’s Studies at the University of Ottawa, Canada. She holds both an Honor’s Bachelor of Arts and a Master’s degree in philosophy. Her PhD research examines representations of women without children in the Hungarian women’s magazine Nők Lapja.

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The Hungarian Jewish Museum’s Attempts in the Years 1939-44 to Preserve the Past in the Face of an Uncertain Future

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The idea of a Hungarian Jewish Museum was born soon after the millennial exhibition of 1896, collecting was started in 1909 and the Museum was opened to the public in a minimal way in 1916. It moved into a purpose built space in 1932 (next to the Dohany synagogue where it still is today) and struggled during the 1930’s to find its feet, define its purpose, and develop its activities. During WWII, on the eve of the destruction of a large segment of Hungarian Jewry, it became perhaps the most important institution in the country for researching, documenting, collecting, exhibiting, and safeguarding Hungarian Jewish culture and history. But what is specially remarkable and poignant about the work of the Museum at this time is the conscious attempt to create not merely a repository for documents and objects illustrating Jewish life in Hungary but a testament to the integral part Jews had played in Hungarian life over the centuries. A good part of this work was undertaken in the mostly unspoken hope that appreciation of this linkage would be beneficial for the Jewish community.
Based on research in the Hungarian Jewish Archives, where the remnants of the Museum’s documents are housed today, this paper will examine how in the years between 1939-1944 despite serious limitations in human and financial resources and the increasingly threatening war-time situation, the leaders, advisors, and tiny professional staff of the Museum made a concerted and heroic effort to seek out and save what they could of the past; for them this was not just about saving the Jewish past but the Hungarian past also. They understood that their role was no longer just to remain a store-room of memories from the past (“a múlt emlékeinek tárháza”) but to become a lasting memorial for the future, however uncertain that future was.
In parallel with the devastation of the Jewish communities in the countries surrounding Hungary, a feverish round of activities began. These included: rewriting the organization’s charter and objectives, expanding its advisory board, creating a new association for scholarly and cultural research, making trips around the country on rescue missions, organizing and curating exhibitions, delivering public lectures, publishing a journal to disseminate research, among others. Little of this activity has been researched and written about although much of the current collection is a living testimony to the efforts of those years. The question may well be asked: was their effort to preserve the past in vain?



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Judy Young has a B. A. (Hons) and M.A. in Modern Languages (Oxford 1966, 1972), M.A. in German Literature (McGill, 1970), Certificate in Hungarian (=Part I of Mod Langs BA from Cambridge, 1967), Grad Diploma in Jewish Studies (Oxford, 2000). After teaching German language and literature courses at McGill, Concordia and the University of Ottawa, she worked for some 25 years in the Canadian Government’s Multiculturalism Programs, developing and managing arts and academic programs. During the last twelve years she has undertaken some joint projects in Central and Eastern Europe in the management of cultural diversity, with respect to the participation of minorities in the social, political, and cultural life of the societies in which they live. She has presented papers and published articles on Canadian multiculturalism, Canadian literature, ethnic studies, Miksa Fenyo’s wartime diary, the media reception in Hungary to Imre Kertesz’s Nobel prize and most recently co-edited the papers of an international conference , The 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Hungarian and Canadian Perspectives (University of Ottawa Press, 2010). She is President of the Canada-Hungary Educational Foundation and Secretary of the Hungarian Studies Association of Canada.

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The complete thesaurus of the old Hungarian language used in Transylvania

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The motto of this year’s conference refers to exactly what the editors of the Historical Dictionary of the Hungarian Language in Transylvania have tried to achieve throughout the long decades ever since the first volume appeared in 1975, that is: preserve the language of the past and make it accessible for future generations.
The aim of the paper is to present the past, present and future of the monumental work, which is the Historical Dictionary of the Hungarian Language in Transylvania.
The past refers on the one hand to what the dictionary represents: it is the complete thesaurus of the (spoken and written) Hungarian language used in Transylvania in the period of the 16th–19th centuries (and from this perspective it is a unique lexicological work). On the other hand the history of the dictionary itself is quite long, as Szabó T. Attila started thinking about the idea of such a work as early as the 1920’s, 50 years passed until the first volume was published in 1975, and now, in 2013 the last volume is about to appear.
The present is in fact another historical moment, as the final editorial touches are made on the last volume.
The future refers to the future plans we have with the Historical Dictionary of the Hungarian Language in Transylvania and that is its complete digitalization. This is very important because in this way scholars all over the world will be able to use this extremely rich database.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Dr. Zsemlyei Borbála is currently an assistant professor 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 recieved her master’s degree in Hungarian linguistics in 2002. In 2009 she defended her PhD thesis with the title Diminutive suffixes in the 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 Historical Dictionary of the Hungarian Language in Transylvania (Erdélyi magyar szótörténeti tár).

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