Abstracts of Submitted Papers 2015

Identitásdráma tér és idő határain túl, kognitív narratológiai nézetben

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Ignácz Rózsa: Torockói gyász (In memoriam Görömbei András)
A kommunizmus évtizedeiben méltatlanul félreállított, erdélyi származású, kiváló írónő, Ignácz Rózsa Torockói gyász című történelmi regénye (1958) a szerző által alaposan megkutatott, megtörtént eseményeken alapul. Az 1702-es torockói „bányászforradalom” eltiprásáról, a kivégzésekről, a templom szétlövetéséről, a gyalázatos jogfosztásról szól. A szörnyű tettekre az osztrák zsoldban álló francia generális (Rabutin de Bussy gróf) adott parancsot, a királyi adomány- és kiváltságleveles szabad bányásznépet önös érdekből örökös jobbágysorba taszítani akaró kapzsi Toroczkay grófok ármányának köszönhetően. Az intenzív kognitivitású mű a torockói nép identitásdrámájának is tekinthető. A Torockói gyász alapvonása, hogy a lehetőségek gazdag tárházát kínálja a kognitív narratológiai közelítésmódhoz, hiszen szerzőjének, narrátorának, cselekvőinek kognitív világfeldolgozásával, intenzív mentális tevékenységével, pozícionáltságával, önpozícionálásával és át- meg átpozícionálásával (vagy erre képtelen rugalmatlanságával), intra- és intermentális folyamataival van dolgunk. A szövegvilág beszélőjének közvetlen diszkurzusában megjelenő, valamint a történetvilágbeli cselekvők nyílt vagy fedett motívumaiból közvetetten kibomló gondolkodás révén képződik meg a mű „fiktív tudatosság”-nak mondható tudati-gondolati tartománya. Ebben a tartományban szövi Ignácz finoman azt a gondolatiságot is, mely az erdélyi magyarság 20. század eleji identitástraumájáig és onnan tovább, az elnyomott magyar önazonosság 1956-os forradalmáig és szabadságharcáig vezeti – terek és évszázadok határain túlra – az erdélyi kulturális emlékezetben oly mély nyomot hagyott 18. század eleji identitás-tragédia relevanciáját. Ennek az összefüggésnek a kimutatása kognitív narratológiai elemzéssel lehetséges. Kritikai és elméleti eszköztáramat a kulturális narratológia, kognitív narratológia, regényelmélet, történetfilozófia és az Ignáczra vonatkozó kritikai irodalom eredményeiből veszem. Munkámat a határon túli magyar irodalom nemrég elhunyt jeles tudósa, Görömbei András emlékének ajánlom.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Abádi Nagy Zoltán, Ph.D., az irodalomtudomány doktora, a Debreceni Egyetem Észak-amerikai Tanszékének emeritus professzora, a kolozsvári Babes-Bolyai Egyetem díszdoktora. Volt British Council research fellow (University of Leeds, 1967-68), ACLS Fellow, (Duke University, N.C., 1972-73), Fulbright vendégprofesszor (U of Minnesota, U of Oklahoma, U of California, Irvine, 1987-90); “distinguished visiting professor” (TCU, 1998-2000). Tanított a Salzburgi Szemináriumban és a finn Joensuu Egyetemen. A Magyar Anglisztikai Társaság korábbi elnöke, a Magyar Amerikanisztikai Társaság társelnöke. Évekig a magyar-amerikai Fulbright Board tagja, két ciklusban elnöke; a Maastricht Center for Transatlantic Studies igazgató tanácsának alapító tagja. Szolgált tanszékvezetőként, intézetigazgatóként, bölcsészdékánként és a Kossuth Egyetem rektoraként. Doktori programok majd az Irodalomtudományi Doktori Iskola vezetője Debecenben. 17 évig a HSE és a HJEAS főszerkesztője; az Orbis Litterarum monográfia-sorozatnak 12 évig alapító sorozatszerkesztője. Számos könyv és tanulmány szerzője. Kortárs amerikai irodalmi műveket fordított magyarra, amerikai íróinterjúkat publikált Amerikában és Magyarországon.

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Images of Armenians in Hungarian Literature

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The Armenian ethnic group appears on the linguistic landscape of Transylvania and of the Carpathian Basin in the 17th century when Mihály Apafi (1632–1690), Prince of Transylvania allows this ethnic group, having fled from the East across Moldavia, to settle in the principality. This paper tries to answer the question regarding how the Armenian, as an ethnotype, emerges in the Hungarian common consciousness and, within this, what kind of ethnic and cultural Armenian-related images of alterity the Hungarian literature has produced. My research is mainly conduct on a Hungarian literary corpus, starting from the 19th to the 21st century. After a brief examination of this corpus I draw conclusions regarding the variations of the stereotypical Armenian hetero-image.


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Zsuzsanna Ajtony is senior lecturer at the Department of Humanities, Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania, Miercurea Ciuc, Romania, where she teaches courses in linguistics (syntax, pragmatics, lexicology). She received her PhD in Philology in 2011 at the University of Bucharest and in 2012 she published her dissertation in the volume Britain and Britishness in G. B. Shaw’s Plays – a Linguistic Perspective. She has published several articles and book chapters on the linguistic representation of ethnicity and identity both in Romania and abroad. Her main areas of interest cover the interdisciplinary field of language and literature, including the areas of imagology and translations studies. She is co-editor of the volume Discourse of Space (published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013) and editor of the journal Acta Universitatis Sapientiae – Philologica.

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Hagyomány, történelem és az én elbeszélése

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Előadásom középpontjában Závada Pál szociográfiája és regényei állnak. Mindenik a múltat igyekszik megragadni, az emberek, az adott közösség, földrajzi egység életét és gondolkodását meghatározó történelmi, társadalmi, gazdasági, politikai vonulatok identitás-meghatározó erejét tárja fel. Mind a Kulákprés című szociográfiában, mind szépirodalmi munkáiban a történelem kiemelt szereppel bír, a mikro- és makrotörténelem perspektívái, a különféle narratív struktúrák megjelenítései, a történetmozaikokból felépülő regények szövegdarabjai vizuálisan és textuálisan egyszerre konstruálnak történelmet. Történelem- és hagyományfelfogásuk felől vizsgálva, a múlt elbeszélésének lehetőségeiként értelmezve a műveket azt láttuk, hogy olyan tágan értett közös térbe és időbe íródó történetmozaikokról beszélhetünk, amelyek identitásformálói egy tótkomlósi szlovák-magyar identitással rendelkező, szlovák-magyar kevert nyelvet beszélő közösségnek.

A múlt elbeszélését narratív struktúraként fogja fel, annak tudatával, hogy a múlt elbeszélései (akár történelmi, akár irodalmi alkotás) konstrukciók, sosem ábrázolhatnak teljesen, hiszen mindig szelekció eredményei, minden írott dokumentum szöveg, amely korlátot szab az objektivitásnak. Az elbeszélt történelem nyelvbe és kulturális diskurzusba ágyazott, a múlt komplex szöveghalmazként érthető, a posztmodern metafikciós történelmi regény pedig reflektál a múlt szövegszerűségére, az elbeszélő szöveg intertextualitására és parodisztikusságára.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Bucur Tünde Csilla 2013-ban védte meg doktori dolgozatát a Babeș-Bolyai Tudományegyetemen. Tágabban értett kutatási területe a kortárs irodalom. Doktori disszertációjában Závada Pál munkásságával foglalkozott. A János Zsigmond Unitáius Kollégium magyartanára.

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An Invisible Border: The Reduced Identity of Poor People

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The problem of poverty is one of the most sensitive questions of Hungarian society. The discussion of poverty has been a taboo subject throughout the twentieth century. Yet, there are many novels and studies in Hungarian literature depicturing the life of the poor in the twentieth century.
This is the case with the novels of Sándor Tar also, one of the most important writers in Hungary in the last century. His novels are about people living on the periphery of society: in little poor villages, in suburbs, in mental hospitals, etc. His characters have no chance of living a better life and vegetate on the periphery of civilized human life. Sometimes they try to break out, but all the attempts are fated to fail from the very beginning. These dark stories reveal the real living standards of large segments of Hungarian society during the nineteenth century. Poor people live on the other side of an invisible border. They do not have access to the common goods, such as culture, education, sport, wealth, etc. They construct their identity not on the basis of these goods but on their lack of these assets. People living in need have no possibility to identify themselves as autonomous human beings. The codes and narratives of self-identification are reduced to the experience of poverty and deprivation. Tar’s writings will be analyzed from this perspective of identity.


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Sarolta Deczki, who received her Ph.D. in Philosophy at the University of Debrecen, 2012, works as a scientific assistant at the Institute for Literary Studies of Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The topic of her dissertation was the problem of crisis in the husserlian phenomenology. Now she researches the history of the Hungarian "Geisteswissenschaftliche Schule", writes a monography of Sándor Tar, and writes regularly on contemporary Hungarian literature. She has published a collection of essays in 2013. (Az érzékiség dicsérete; The Laudation of Sensuality), and her dissertation in 2014 (Meredek sziklagerincen: Husserl és a válság problémája; On the Rocky Ridge: Husserl and the Problem of Crisis)

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On Literary Translingualism by Terézia Mora

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
The Hungarian born Terézia Mora (b. 1971) was 19 when she moved to Germany/Berlin and in a decade time she became one of the leading and most prolific prosaists of contemporary literature written in German. For her works she has already received all of the most important German literary prises. However German critics seems to not being able to decipher the secret of her writing. Beside translating the best Hungarian prosaists into German (i.a. István Örkény or Péter Eszterházy), writting screen plays she is the author of three novels and a collection of short stories. The present paper demonstrates how do the two most important Hungarian prosa traditions influenced her style, and how does Hungarian existencial poetry manifest in the metaphoricity of her work.


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After teaching at several European and American univestites, Prof. Domokos holds a position at Károli University Budapest. Author of two monographies on Sámi culture, 8 translation and 7 poetry volumes and around one hundread article, Prof. Domokos' research field includes multilingualism and multiculturalism in North and Central European literatures.

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Moving Silences: Holocaust Trauma Memory in Hungarian Women’s Poetry

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The compulsion to speak about the unspeakable permeates Holocaust literature. But how can poetry be a medium that assists survivors in making sense of their life experience? Is poetry of any use for remembering, particularly in the manner in which it exposes an underlying problematic with a general privileging of life narratives, in which the ‘use-value’ of these texts is taken at face value? Often the remembering voice is exploited for its historical value, rather than allowed to take control of its own meaning. The main assumption that underpins the widespread use that researchers make of life-stories or survivor testimonies is that they are authentic (in terms of their sincerity in reflecting real life events and experiences) and that they have the capacity to give voice to the victims. Although literary outputs, including poetry, are most often valued because of their individuality and uniqueness, when it comes to Holocaust-literatures the authenticity of both the author and the content comes especially to the fore as political and/or ethical pressures are exerted on writers to produce meaning cognisant of their lived experiences.
In this context the question arises whether poetry could be read as an alternative to life-narrative or testimony, where the offered readings reveal, rather than exploit, what happens within the text. The works of the Hungarian women poets in this paper – Éva Láng, Stefánia Mándy, Zsófia Balla - explore the circuitous and indirect path from experience and memory to imagination, offering readers an opportunity to become sensitised to empathy and affect and look for meanings in the moving silences of trauma.



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Borbála Faragó currently lectures at St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra. Previously she held a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship in the Central European University Budapest, Department of Gender Studies. Dr Faragó holds a PhD from University College Dublin. 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 monograph on the work of Medbh McGuckian (Medbh McGuckian, Bucknell and Cork University P, 2014) a number of articles on contemporary Irish poetry and is also co-editor of a collection of essays, entitled Facing the Other: Interdisciplinary Studies on Race, Gender and Social Justice in Ireland (with M. Sullivan, 2008), an anthology of Irish immigrant poetry entitled Landing Places: Immigrant Poets in Ireland published by Dedalus Press (with Eva Bourke, 2010), and Animals in Irish Literature (with K. Kirkpatrick), which is forthcoming from Palgrave P.

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Names of Musical Instruments in 16–18th century Transylvania

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
The study presents the meaning and semantic changes of general words, expressions related to musical instruments used in 16–18th century Transylvania. I do not undertake musical terminology, I do not include in my analysis the words denoting musical genres or words of musical theory. The historical linguistic study regards the words such as: virginál, doromb, ütőgardon, tambura, lant, koboz, tilinkó, pikula, etc. and their family. The data used were collected from the Historical Dictionary of Transylvanian Hungarian Language, and my analysis rely only on these data. In my presentation I work only with linguistic data, the musical historical background is not being used.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Fazakas Emese, born in 1967 Marosvásárhely (Tg-Mures, Romania); 1989-1994 MA studies at Babes-Bolyai University (Kolozsvár, Romania), 1994-1995 MA at Central European University Budapest College (Hungary), 2005 PhD at Babes-Bolyai University (Kolozsvár, Romania); senior lecturer at Babes-Bolyai University, vicedean of Faculty of Letters; research domains: linguistics, Hungarian historical linguistics

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The Construction of a New Minority: Language and Identity between the Two World Wars in Transylvania

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
“Keleti Újság” [‘Eastern Newspaper’] was a Hungarian daily newspaper published in Cluj-Napoca between 1918 and 1944, and is considered one of the most important periodicals of the period between the two World Wars. Covering a large range of topics, it also includes articles on the Hungarian language, as in 1936 Jenő Dsida, one of the most important poets of the period started a column (or a ‘movement’, as they called it) dedicated to the cultivation of the Hungarian language in Romania, entitled Anyanyelvünkért (‘For the protection of our mother tongue’). It published articles on the state of the community in the new political context, as well as overtly and covertly outlining attitudes towards the mother tongue and the language of the state that determined the way in which the new minority identity of the community was to be shaped. My paper discusses these ways in which the new minority was constructed in the articles and texts published in the Keleti Újság newspaper from the point of view of displacement and the issues of multi- and plurilingualism.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Gál Noémi, PhD is 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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Twice Told Tales—Narrative and discourse features of ethno-cultural identity construction in re-storied life episodes

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
In this paper I discuss the narrative and discourse features of meaning making and identity construction in selected life episodes told more than once by second and third generation Hungarian Americans. The stories are part of a database of 34 qualitative interviews with 12 persons. According to Elliot G. Mishler, the process of restorying lives has long been a dilemma in identity related narrative and discourse studies. A generally held view about the retelling of the same event in multiple discourse settings is that each telling is different from the other and such anomalies decrease the truth validity of these narratives. I argue, however, that the qualitative interview setting triggers a special rhetorical interaction of small story and Labovian (or big) story templates, which remain identical or close to identical at each telling, thus making the identity work of the individual accountable.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
I have been teaching various subfields of American Studies and occasionally courses in TEFL at the University of Pécs for 14 years. In my research I combine the two areas through the study of narrative. So far I have published 17 articles in scholarly journals and volumes, and presented 24 conference papers. Currently I am working on a book on the narrative construction of ethno-cultural identities.

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Parallel Processes in Canadian/American-Hungarian Language Contact Situation

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
Languages in contact are the outcome of the people in contact and the consequence of communities of people of dissimilar language surroundings in contact. Language contact is a multidisciplinary, multidimensional field in which mutual effects control the comprehension of how and why people use the languages they do. In language contact research there is an interrelationship between language systems, social and communicative factors and psycholinguistic processing (Clyne 2003). The focus of the present paper is on the dynamics of the language systems in contact, i.e. to see how bilinguals make their languages more synonymous/similar (convergence) and how these languages are distinguished in certain aspects (divergence). In other words, attention is paid to how the language systems converge, and how and to what degree material from one language is integrated into the other. The two languages involved are genealogically non-related and structural-typologically non-identical languages.
This paper considers aspects of language contact on the basis of data across dyads in an environment of English language dominance where the Hungarian community is of a minority. The research employs the corpus of written language samples taken from the Hungarian community’s newspaper titled Kanadai Magyarság, which is the largest Hungarian weekly in the Western World.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Forintos, Éva is an associate professor at the English and American Studies Institute of the University of Pannonia, Veszprém, Hungary lecturing in linguistics, applied linguistics and contactlinguistics. She has carried out the contactlinguistic study of the language of the Hungarian community in Australia. She has published a number of articles focusing on different linguistic aspects of English-Hungarian language contact situations as well as the language use of Hungarian communities in different domains.

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Jékely Zoltán útjai -- 1913-1982

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
„csak hangyamódra matarásztam a földtekén.”
Néhány életrajzi tény ismertetése elengedhetetlen a költőről, íróról, műfordítóról szólva; egész életét meghatározta az az erdélyi irodalmi műhely, amelyben a mestere, édesapja, Áprily Lajos volt.
Első verskezdeményei Enyeden születtek. A gimnázium első három osztályát Enyeden végezte.Tizenhárom éves korában az első barátságok és szerelmek élményével gazdagítottan el kellett hagynia a ,,Maros-parti Athént”, mert a család ismét Kolozsvárra költözött a megélhetés gondja, és az 1926-ban bontakozó erdélyi magyar irodalom okán. Jékely Zoltán 1931-ben középiskolai tanulmányi versenyt nyert s a 7-8. osztály elvégzése után érettségi vizsgát tett. Az Áprily-család otthonra lelt a budai Baár-Madas leánynevelő intézetben, lévén Áprily Lajos 1934-ben elnyerte az igazgatói kinevezést. Jekely a középiskolai verseny elismerésnek köszönhette, hogy mint magyar-francia-német szakos bölcsészhallgatót felvették a híres Eötvös Kollégiumba. A német szakos képzést az első félév végén művészettörténeti tanulmányokra cserélte. Egyetemi tanulmányait 1935-ben fejezte be, s még ez év decemberében bölcsészdoktorrá avatták. Lévén egyetemi évei alatt Jékelyre a legnagyobb hatást Horváth János lenyűgöző személyisége és hatalmas tudása tette, doktori értekezését Az erdélyi magyar irodalom kezdetei a háború után és Kuncz Aladár címmel Horváth Jánoshoz nyújtotta be.
1935 decemberében az Országos Széchenyi Könyvtárban helyezkedett el, mint fizetés nélküli gyakornok, s csak 1938-ban kapott könyvtárosi kinevezést. Első jelentős külföldi útjának időpontját 1937. júniusára tehetjük, amikor is az 1937-ben megjelent Kincskeresők című regényének tiszteletdíjából Velence, Verona, Firenze, Chiavari felfedezése után öt hetet Párizsban töltött.1939. nyarát ismét Velencében és Firenzében töltötte. S Jékely 1939 végén és 1940 elején már mint ösztöndíjas tért vissza Rómába.
Jékely Zoltán életében sorsdöntő dátum 1941, amikor a kolozsvári Egyetemi Könyvtár munkatársa lett.
1946 nehéz év volt Jékely Zoltán számára, mert megjelentetett műveinek örömét az új állampolgársági rendelkezések beárnyékolták. Döntéskényszerbe került 1946. augusztusában befejezte a Világosságbeli szerkesztői munkáját, s november végén Budapestre költözött. Hazatérését örömmel fogadták. Munkahelye ismét az Országos Széchenyi Könyvtár hírlaptára lett. 1948-ban ismét Itáliába utazott. A Római Magyar Akadémia élén Kardos Tibor állt, aki mondhatni irodalmi műhelyt hozott létre a Palazzo Falconieriben. Visszatérése után napi könyvtárosi munkája mellett, mondhatni az asztalfióknak írta verseit. Nyugalmat csupán a Szentgyörgy-pusztai ház nyújtott. Visegrád és Dunabogdány között Jékely nyaranta itt hódolt horgászszenvedélyének, amely ihlető forrása is volt. 1982-ben bekövetkezett haláláig számtalan külső és belső utazást tett meg a költő, aki mindvégig hű maradt szülőföldjéhez.


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

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To the Memory of Benő Karácsony and Ernő Salamon

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
Following the Treaty of Trianon, Hungarian intellectual and literary life developed its own identity in cities such as Cluj-Napoca, Oradea, Arad, Timisoara and Targu Mures within a multiracial and multilingual Transylvania in the newly-created greater Romania. Both Benő Karácsony and Ernő Salamon, though a generation apart, are regarded as solitary figures in Transylvanian Hungarian literature. Benő Karácsony expressed the mood of his generation which, having returned from the trenches was bitter and disillusioned. His characters come from the small town of Alba Julia and his sympathy lies with those, who are at the periphery of society. In comparison to Karácsony, who was a successful novelist and playwright, the much younger Ernő Salamon was a poet of poverty. Salamon believed that there will be a better world and his poems bear a strong link to the poetry of Attila József, as well as to the avant-garde poets of his age. In different ways , both Karácsony and Salamon were nonconformists. Benő Karácsony regarded himself a Hungarian writer who was also loyal to his Jewish roots, similarly to Ernő Salamon, who was much attached to his beloved native region, Gyergyó.

This is intended as a performance presentation, Ildikó Szántó giving an overview of the two writers, with prose and poetry readings by Judit Havas.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Judit HAvas, PhD ELTE, is a research fellow at the Petőfi Literary Museum.

Ildikó Szántó received her M.A. degree in History from Macquarie University, N.S.W. She has taught interdisciplinary courses focusing on the ideological movements of the twentieth century in East-Central Europe at the Budapest University of Economic Sciences, Pázmány Péter Catholic University and the Budapest Business School.

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Parallels in Difference – A Typological Comparison of Isaac Babel and Károly Pap as Two Cases of Jewish Writing in Different Languages

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
In spite of the fact that Babel (1894–1940), a Soviet Jewish writer and Pap (1897–1945), a Hungarian Jewish one, were assimilated in the very different circumstances of Tsarist Russia and Austro-Hungarian empires, have strikingly many comparable moments in their biographies and—what is more important—in their writings that are concentrated around the possibility of a double cultural and personal identity of Jews.
They were both involved in the revolutionary movements and later disappointed in Socialist ideas; they both took distance of their Jewish background. They died nearly the same age, both a violent death, both victims of a dictatorship, of the two totalitarian regimes of the 20th century.
My paper’s aim to of outline some typological conclusions of these seeming coincidences for the impasses of the Jewish assimilation among the intellectuals of 20th century.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Zsuzsa Hetényi is Professor and PhD-program director in the Institute for Slavic Studies, ELTE University, Budapest, DSc of Academy of Sciences and a literary translator (Babel, Bulgakov, Kharms, Nabokov, Russian-Jewish prose anthology, and others). Her main works include a monographic study on Biblical and messianic motifs in Babel's Red Cavalry (1991); In the Maelstrom: The History of Russian-Jewish Literature (in Hungarian 2000, in English 2008, CEU-Press). She edited and co-authored the 2-volume History of Russian Literature (v. 1: 1997, v. 2: 2002). Her fields of interest are the Russian Prose of 20th century, bilingual authors, literature of dual identity and exile, Biblical motifs in literature and Jewish Prose. She is currently at work on the first Hungarian monograph on Vladimir Nabokov’s oeuvre.

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The Borders of Identity in the Poetry of László Kürti

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The edition of László Kürti’s latest poems (Masses of the Body, 2012) shows that the new language of his philosophical poetry sruggles to find the borders of the always-changing self. In my paper I study the experimental borders of the identity through his poems, that are sought in sexuality, in family relations and in the relation to the transcendent.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Dr. Borbála Kulin rceived her PhD degree at the University of Debrecen, Department of Literature and Cultural Studies, in January 2015. The title of her thesis: „The objects shine. Poetic representation of the transcendent in the œuvre of Gyula Illyés”. Since 2009 she is the editor of the Hungarian periodical of arts, culture and literature „A Vörös Postakocsi” (www.avorospostakocsi.hu)

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Observation as Action: the Holocaust Journal of Miksa Fenyő

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
Diaries and notes were written in every place where Jews lived under Nazi rule—ghettos, camps, hideouts, forests—by men and women of all professions. It is impossible today to assess the scope of this written material, for much was lost. Still, it seems that about 400 diaries have been traced so far—more than half of them written in Poland—and that most of the diaries published now were written by adults in the ghettos of Warsaw, Vilna and Lodz.
(Dina Porat, The Vilna Ghetto Diaries)

As someone first introduced to Holocaust literature through The Diary of Anne Frank, Dina Porat’s examination of the Vilna Ghetto diaries not only opened my eyes to the relative scarcity of extant Holocaust journals, it also underscored my already high consideration of Az elsodort ország. A journal recorded by the Hungarian author and Nyugat editor, Miksa Fenyő, this work details the author’s months in hiding during the Hungarian Holocaust, as set to paper by a vivid personality whose literary skill was only surpassed by an intimate familiarity with Hungary’s art and political scene at this time. While my lecture will draw from examinations of Polish Holocaust journals—including studies by Aharon Appelfeld, David Engel, Robert Moses Shapiro—in an attempt to place Fenyő’s journal within the broader context of narrative techniques relevant to Holocaust literature, it is my intent to interpret Fenyő’s frequent references to “active observation” through the lens of his work as an impressionistic critic for the literary journal, Nyugat. As true as it is that Holocaust diaries form an individual’s struggle to preserve a sense of self in the face of a daily destruction, I would like to pose the question of whether Holocaust narratives can only be analyzed within the constraints of then or possibly after—what about the role of before?


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Maya J. Lo Bello received her B.A. in Central European Studies (with a concentration in Hungarian and Polish literature) from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 1999. In 2012 she attained her M.A. degree in Modern Hungarian Literature and Language at Eötvös Loránd University, following completion of her thesis on the impressionistic criticism of Miksa Fenyő. Maya Lo Bello has been continuing her research of Miksa Fenyő’s role in the early Nyugat period as a PhD student of the Modern Literature Program at Eötvös Loránd University. Her doctoral advisor is the Attila József scholar, Dr. György Tverdota. She is a resident of Hungary. Other than her publications in literary history, Maya Lo Bello’s translations have appeared in Germany, Hungary and the USA.

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Book Presentation: Cseh Tibor: Csernátontól a Reménység Taváig

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
Cseh Tibor élete (1925–2004) szorosan összefügg a szétszórtságban élő magyarok sorsával. Ezen belül példaképe és szellemi vezetője volt a külföldre szakadt magyarságnak, főleg a magyar cserkészmozgalom és az ITT-OTT folyóirat köré csoportosult Magyar Baráti Közösségen (MBK) keresztül.
Székelyföldön született, de Csernátonról még hatéves korában áttelepült Magyarországra. Onnan D.P.-ként került Ausztriába 1948-ban, és onnan Brazíliába 1949-ben. Már Ausztriában bekapcsolódott a cserkészmunkába és szervezésébe. Brazíliában fontos szerepet vállalt az ottani magyar cserkészet létrehozásában Rio de Janeiro városában. Itt aktív mozgatója volt a magyar kulturális életnek, mind a cserkész regös mozgalomban, mind a szabadegyetem irodalmi és művészeti előadásainak megszervezésében. Ezt a munkát feleségével, Gábor Annával végezték együtt. Miután munkahelye, a Cynamid vállalata új megbízatással küldte Észak-Amerikába, New Jersey államba, ott folytatta ezt a munkát is haláláig, 2004-ig. Ez lett életének meghatározó feladata, mert minden szabad idejét a cserkészetnek és az írásnak szentelte. 1972 után pedig – a herefordi találkozó után – állandó munkatársa lett a Magyar Baráti Közösségnek.
Megjelent cikkeiből témakör alapján antológiát állítottunk össze. Így élete fél évszázadának legértékesebb termését szeretnénk megmenteni az utókor számára. Írásai a Magyar Cserkész, a Vezetők Lapja, a Transsylvania és az ITT-OTT folyóiratokban és az MBK Kalendáriumában láttak napvilágot. Így e könyv potenciális olvasóközönsége a három kontinensen szétszórt magyarság, főleg a külföldi Magyar Cserkészszövetség és a Magyar Baráti Közösség tagjai. A könyv terjesztését a fenti két szervezeten kívül biztosan támogatja majd, a családi kötelékek miatt is, a Haszmann család és néprajzi múzeumuk Csernátonban.

Írásait témakör alapján többféleképpen feloszthatjuk (l. a mellékelt ismertetőt). Több kiváló nevelő szándékú írása van fiatalok, cserkészek számára a néprajz, az irodalom és a történelem témakörében. Írásaiban a külföldre szakadt magyarság lélektani állapotát is hatásosan boncolgatja. Egyik kedvenc témája a „szétszórtsági” és a „hazai” magyarság kapcsolattartása. Sokat foglalkozik szervezési kérdésekkel mind a cserkészmozgalom, mind az MBK életében. Írásait mindenkor áthatja a megmaradásért és a fejlődésért való elszántsága! Ezt mind kiváló stílussal, jó példázattal és érdekes okfejtéssel tárja az olvasó elé. Hézagpótló antológia lesz a szétszórtsági magyarok életéről.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Andrew Ludanyi (Szikszó, 1940) is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Ohio Northern University. His specialty subfields are Comparative Politics and International Relations. His research has focused on interethnic and inter-nationality relations in East Central Europe with particular attention on developments in Transylvania and Voivodina. He has published numerous articles and reviews and edited three book in his research area. His latest publication is “The Legacy of Transylvania in Romanian and Hungarian Historiography” (2011).

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"Nem sokat tud csinálni?" A nyelv megőrzésének lehetőségei szórvány- és diaszpóraközösségekben

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
A nyelv és az identitás kapcsolata sokféle lehet. Az identitás megőrzésének gyakorlata közösségenként és családonként is eltér. A legtöbb modellnek része azonban a szülők, nagyszülők nyelvének megőrzése: olyan érték, amiért érdemes erőfeszítéseket tenni. Előadásomban arra a kérdésre igyekszem megtalálni a választ, hogyan segítheti az alkalmazott nyelvészet ezeket a törekvéseket, és mit jelent a származásnyelvi szemlélet.
Amikor kétnyelvűségről beszélünk, az egyén nyelvhasználata szempontjából írjuk le tapasztalatainkat. A közösségi és az oktatási feladatok meghatározása szempontjából azonban érdemes megvizsgálni a származásnyelvi szemlélet nyújtotta lehetőségeket is, hogy a hétvégi és délutáni magyar iskolák diákjainak és önkéntes tanárainak is segítséget nyújthassunk.
A magyarul tanuló magyar származású diákok nyelvtudása olyan mintázatot mutat, amelynek leírása segítheti oktatásuk hatékonyságának növelését. Sokan a magyarországi tanulókhoz hasonlónak tekintik őket, máskor éppen ellenkezőleg történik a besorolás: haladó szintű külföldi nyelvtanulók között találjuk őket. Nehéz feladatot jelent számukra mindkét csoporthoz tartozás. Az előbbiben komoly gondot jelent számukra a magyarországi iskolások számára készített tananyagok nyomasztó összetettsége, az utóbbiban elsikkadnak olyan részterületek, amelyeknek fejlesztésére a külföldieknek nincs szükségük.
A megoldás a tanárok és a tanulók tudatosságának fejlesztésében rejlik: a nyelvtudás értékének hangsúlyozása mellett a feladatok meghatározására is szükség van. Ezzel a szemlélettel csökkenthetjük a származásnyelvi diákokra nehezedő pszichés terheket és valódi segítséget nyújthatunk nekik.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Orsolya Maróti (MA Hungarian Literature, Linguistics and Language Pedagogy, ELTE University, Budapest; MA Hungarian as a Second Language and Hungarian Studies, ELTE University, Budapest; MA Cultural Anthropology, ELTE University, Budapest; PhD in Linguistics, University of Pécs) is working as the Head of the Hungarian Language Department at the Balassi Institute and as a lecturer at the Department of Hungarian as a Foreign Language, Eötvös Loránd University.
She has experience in teaching foreign (HSL) and heritage students (HHL) for 17 years in the Balassi Institute and at the Corvinus University in Budapest.. She teaches linguistics and language pedagogy at Eötvös Loránd University and at Károli Gáspár Protestant University. 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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Mágikus kép és mágikus nyelv a két világháború közötti magyar irodalomban és képzőművészetben

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Tervezett előadásom a következő kérdésekre keresi a választ: Léteztek-e mágikus céllal írt irodalmi, illetve képzőművészeti alkotások magyar nyelvterületen a húszas, harmincas években? Azaz van-e a képeknek és a nyelvnek mágikus funkciója a két világháború közötti irodalmi és képzőművészeti irányzatokban? Hogyan jelent meg a mágia témája a két világháború közötti irodalmárok, írók, költők gondolkodásában? A korszak képzőművészei és költői milyen elméleti felkészültséggel rendelkeztek a mágiáról és alkalmazták-e tudatosan művészetükben? Mi az összefüggés a mágikus kép és az ún. archetípusok között? Milyen képek szerepelnek az irodalmi művekben? Hogyan tipologizálhatóak az irodalmi alkotásban megjelenő képek és azok hogyan viszonyulnak az ún. archetipikus képekhez?


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Molnár Eszter (1985) – művészettörténész, az Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem 'Irodalmi modernség' programjának harmadéves hallgatója, témavezetője Tverdota György professor emeritus.

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Interlingual Characteristics of the Family Names Found in the Carpathian Basin in the 18th Century

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
In Europe, contemporary research of family names places great emphasis on the importance of digital atlases, sources that render information about the spatial extension of names and allonyms, their localization and dialectal differences. The past five years has witnessed the emergence of Hungarian geonomastics, resulting in genuine achievements in the synchronic as well as the diachronic analysis of this field.
In order to start these historical examinations, a homogeneous corpus was needed that would best represent the regional distribution of surnames. The first country-wide census of Hungarian Kingdom in 1715 is the earliest record to suit this purpose. The second part of the database consists of the census from 1720. The two censuses yield a total of 344 thousand names, an amount of data that provides a significant base source for the analysis.
An advantage of the The Atlas of Historical Hungarian Surnames (AHHS 1715–1720) is among others, that the organic “unity” of personal names of the Carpathian Basin could be represented on maps in the way how name-systems of different languages took effect on each other. The corpus of personal names of different languages appears free from external influences (e. g. changing or “Hungarianisation” of names) reflecting the natural language contacts of centuries. When sorted by language, the collected names found in the database provide a reliable indication of the percent of minority populations in this era. According to our estimates, roughly half of this corpus is comprised of Hungarian names. Researchers from neighboring countries have yet to exploit the linguistic and onomastic possibilities offered by digitalized national censuses, even though at least one-fourth of the personal names gathered are Slavic in origin (mostly Slovak, Ruthenian, with smatterings of Czech or Polish), while one-fifth is either Romanian or Southern Slavic.
In the multilingual Carpathian Basin, the meeting and mingling of languages affects not only language, but names as well. The name systems utilized by different languages influence name-giving, resulting in the emergence of interferential properties in name usage. These characteristics are found where languages come in contact, appear on language borders and therefore provide an ample source of study. My paper’s main focus will concentrate on an examination of name-contact phenomena emerging from Hungarian and Slavic connections.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
János N. Fodor, PhD, is senior lecturer in the Department of Hungarian Historical Linguistics, Sociolinguistics and Dialectology of Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. His main research interests are historical onomastics, mainly anthroponymy, and Hungarian dialects. He researches the linguistic geography characteristics of the Hungarian dialect islands. He has published papers on historical name studies (mainly on the origin and history of Hungarian family names) and on the dialectology.

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Book Presentation: 21st Century Hungarian Language Survival in Transylvania, Published by Helena History Press.

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
Multilingualism, as opposed to the ideology of linguistic homogenization, is at the core of the European Union’s linguistic political discourse, and instruction in minority languages is an important part of it. Although the social and ideological environment has drastically changed since the fall of the Communist regimes, the goal of achieving multilingualism, especially that of minorities reaching full bilingualism in both their mother tongue and the majority language, is facing as nearly unsurmountable obstacles. In fact, where nationalist linguistic ideology drives homogenization, the EU has been unable to implement its policy of protection of cultural diversity, with lethal consequences for the minorities’ survival as citizens equal in rights and opportunities to the members of the majority.

The six essays of the volume were written by academics from Hungary and Transylvania, all associated with the Babes-Bolyai University and/or AHEA, and deal with historical, political, educational, legal, social, and linguistic aspects of minority language survival in Transylvania: They refer specifically to the East-Central European traditions shaping language policy, to educational policy concepts, to Transylvanian public education regarding languages of instruction, to the revitalization possibilities of Hungarian in the Transylvanian diaspora, to the official register of Hungarian, and to its use in electronic media. An overview of majority-minority relations today and their governance through international covenants, and a brief review of the history of Transylvania within the history of Hungary and its minorities precedes the texts.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Judith Kesserű Némethy is Clinical Professor in New York University’s Department of Spanish and Portuguese. She obtained a PhD in History (Hispanic Studies) from the University of Szeged. Her research and teaching interests include foreign language teaching methodology, curricular training, second language acquisition, bilingualism, historical linguistics, Spanish dialectology, and ethnic, minority and diaspora studies.
She is past president of the American Hungarian Educators Association, Executive Committee member of the Hungarian Scout Association in Exteris and administrator of scholarship applications to the Balassi Institute's Hungarian Language and Cultural Studies program for students of Hungarian descent. She is a recipient of the 2012 Knight Cross Merit Award of the Republic of Hungary and of NYU’s 2013 Golden Dozen Teaching Award.

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Language as a Marker of Identity: the Diaries and Memoir of Hungary 1944-1948 of Sándor Márai

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The concept of identity is quite complex and dynamic and it is something that concerns us in every phase of our life. The topic is even more fascinating when we deal with the importance and the meaning of identity to a person such as Sándor Márai. With the aid of his diaries, in this paper I try to explore what identity meant to Márai, which were the elements of his selfhood, how he perceived himself and how the others perceived him just before and during his first exile in Naples (from October 1948 to April 1952). I’ll discuss the significance and the (symbolic) role of the mother tongue to him as a crucial factor of identity: the Hungarian language to him was something that represented “the only significance of life”…



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Judit Papp is Lecturer in Applied linguistics at the University of Naples “L’Orientale”, Italy. In 2007 she earned her Ph.D. in Linguistics and literature (dissertation topic: European war poetry between the first and the second world war) at the European School of Advanced Studies, University of Suor Orsola Benincasa and University of Naples “L’Orientale”. In 2012 she’s completed a 4 years long post-doctoral research fellowship in Hungarian Language and Literature (Research topic: Formulaic style in the XVI century Hungarian Epic) at the Department of Eastern European Studies of the University of Naples ‘L’Orientale’.

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Space and Body in György Faludy’s Sonnets (Hungarian emigrant poet) - Tér- és testkonstrukciók egy emigráns költő, Faludy György szonettköteteiben

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
Faludy György (1910-2006) több mint 300 szonettet írt, amelyek nagy része emigrációban született. 1995-ben két könyve is megjelent, amelyek összegyűjtik szonettjeit, az egyik az első kétszázat, amelyek 1943 és 1989 között születtek, a második pedig az azutánikat, amelyek nagy része, egy-két kivételtől eltekintve már Magyarországon, főképp Budapesten íródott. Ebben a korpuszban vizsgálom a Faludy poétikájában megjelenő térkonstrukciókat, mind annak topográfiai, mind annak elvont értelmében – amely megengedi a test mint táj képzetét is mozgástérbe hozni. A testiség Faludyval kapcsolatban közismert, nemcsak szonettjei, költészete egészére jellemző téma, mint ahogy emigráns létformája is, azt azonban kevéssé vizsgálták, hogyan jelenik meg és függ össze e kettő a versekben, ezek közül is a szigorú formai szabályoknak megfelelő szonettben, amely Faludy életművéből kiemelkedik, hiszen nincs még egy versforma, amelyből több mint háromszázat írt volna, noha balladaköltészete is jelentős. A szintén 1995-ben megjelent, gyűjteményes Versek című kötete a Michelangelo utolsó imája című szonettel indul, amelyet 1935-ben írt, Firenzében – a kronologikus kötet szerint ez Faludy első verse. Faludy életműve műfordítóként sem elhanyagolható, többek között Louise Labé, Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Keats, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Valéry, Rilke vagy Lorca szonettjeit ültette át magyar nyelve, s rajtuk kívül még sok, kevésbé ismert szerzőnek is lefordította egy-egy szonettjét, ha mást típusú versét nem is (pl. Baffo, Palacio, Mirón, Othón, Pálánász stb.) –7-800 oldalas versfordítás-gyűjteményének csaknem felét szonett fordítások töltik ki.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Magyar nyelv és irodalom, összehasonlító irodalomtudomány és drámapedagógia szakokon diplomázása után az ELTE BTK Általános irodalom- és kultúratudomány doktori programjára nyert felvételt, jelenleg itt végzős hallgató, illetve az MTA-ELTE Általános Irodalomtudományi Kutatócsoport munkatársa. Elsősorban huszadik századi magyar költészettel, kiemelten a szonettformával foglalkozik. Tanulmányokat, kritikákat ír, szerkeszt, a Kortárs Online szépirodalmi rovatát vezeti, a Pesti Bölcsész Akadémia főszervezője és a Magyar Drámapedagógiai Társaság tagja.
http://www.aitk.hu/pataky_adrienn/

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Writing in Exile. The Value of Work of a Mid-Nineteenth Century Hungarian Novelist

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
Miklós Jósika a Transylvanian baron devoted himself to literature in his forties; foundling the historical romance in Hungarian literature with his first published novel Abafi in 1836. His merits as a novelist were instantly recognized and awarded in Hungary, the reading public and the critics too were delighted by his novels, which followed one another with rapidity. The Revolution/ War of Independence in 1848 could be seen as a line of demarcation in his literary activity. On account of his role as member of the Honvéd Government he was forced to go into exile, eventually he settled down in Brussels. His estates were confiscated and he himself was condemned to death by the vindictive Austrian Government, fact being satisfied by burning him in effigy. Brussels became his foreign but free homeland where he lived entirely by his pen.
The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of this Hungarian writer’s ways of preserving national values and identity abroad, his efforts of making a living from writing in a foreign linguistic, cultural, and political context by mapping the steps of a successful career from recommencement to gradual fade. Miklós Jósika as a functional name was a prestigious representation label in the Hungarian literary field, but after 1849 it was prohibited. The emigree writer managed to reconnect with his Hungarian readership, when his publisher Heckenast had helped him to get printed in Pest anonymously his first novel of the exilic period Eszther in 1853. Since then almost for a decade Jósika had been using a pen name to sign his novels, „by the author of Eszther”. The paper also analyses the dualistic approaches to his literary work.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Orsolya-Petra Pavelka is recently pursuing her PhD in Hungarian Studies at Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca. Her research interests are Anglo-Hungarian cultural contacts, literary prose in the first half of the nineteenth century. She completed her university degree in Hungarian language and literature and English language and literature at Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca in 2007. She received her Master degree in Literature and Society at the same university in 2009.

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The Poetry of 1.5 and Second-Generation Israelis of Hungarian Origin

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
In my 2014 presentation at the AHEA annual conference at Gainesville, Florida, I presented an inclusive and generational typology of Israeli writers of Hungarian origin, starting from the early twentieth century up to the present, and then focused on the prose works of a few of the 1.5 and second-generation writers among them. My readings in those works showed that they are governed by recurring concerns, or literary themes, such as: the memory or post-memory of the Holocaust, Hungarian-to-Hebrew language and translations peculiarities, preoccupation with the family's past or remote relatives, journeys back and forth between Israel and Central Europe, letters and other embedded texts, and fascination with home objects, dishes, and recipes representing the family's Hungarian past. In my 2015 presentation, I wish to focus on the works and worlds of 1.5 and second-generation poets and explore, first, the presence of the above listed concerns or themes and then examine issues of identity and of the relationships of these poets -- mostly second-generation women -- and their parents, most often their mothers. Thus I wish to trace these poets' Hungarian-Jewish past, Israeli literary figure, moral legacy, and role of transmitting and explicating their past Hungarian worlds to contemporary Israeli audiences.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Ilana Rosen studies the documentary literature of Jews of Central Europe as well as the multi-ethnic narrative of emigration to and foundation of the south of Israel. Her publications include: Sister in Sorrow: Life Histories of Female Holocaust Survivors from Hungary (Detroit, MI: Wayne State UP, 2008); Soul of Saul: The Life, Narrative, and Proverbs of a Transylvanian-Israeli Grandfather (Burlington, VT: Vermont University, 2011).

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The Role of Terminology in Keeping our Identity as Hungarian Professionals

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
Without terminology there is no professional communication and without professional communication there is no transfer of knowledge. That is why we consider that the elaboration of an adequate and accurate Hungarian professional terminology in the countries outside the borders of Hungary is essential to keep our identity as Hungarian scientists, engineers, lawyers, doctors, teachers. One of the main sources of terminology formation is the translation of special texts from the official language of the country (Romanian, Slovak, Ukrainan, Serbian, German, English, etc.). In the paper we will deal with some translation related items of terminology.


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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Sándor Kányádi: The Champion of Szekler Survival

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
This talk concentrates on one aspect of the celebrated poet’s oeuvre, his ongoing struggle for the right of minority cultures to assert themselves against oppressive national powers and now, increasingly, against the tidal waves of globalization.

After WW I the Hungarian community of Transylvania became isolated and subject to efforts to submerge it in the dominant nation state of Romania, especially under the Ceausescu regime. Its very survival became precarious when Hungarian schools and institutions of higher learning were closed; an ethnic group cannot maintain itself without its language. Hungarian poets and writers became beacons in the fight for the preservation of Hungarian identity. Among them perhaps Sándor Kányádi has been the most effective, not only because of his strong personal commitment to the cause, but also because he realized from the beginning that the key to Szekler survival lay in peaceful coexistence and finding a common ground with the dominant Romanian culture. He started his career by befriending and translating the contemporary Romanian poets, including the aging Arghezi, the founder of modern Romanian poetry. In addition, he waged his battles without using nationalistic slogans; he tied the Szekeler cause to the survival of all ethnic minorities all over the world, such as Indian tribes in North America or the indigenous peoples of South America. In effect he is a cosmopolitan nationalist. His campaign for his embattled community is amply illustrated with my new translations of his poems on the subject.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Paul Sohar, a poet and translator, came as a teenage refugee from Hungary to the United States, where he studied philosophy and worked in a chemistry lab. His work has appeared in publications such as Chelsea, The Kenyon Review, and Rattle, and in Homing Poems, a collection of his poetry (Iniquity Press, 2005). He was also the editor of True Tales of a Ficticious Spy: An Hungarian Gulag Grotesquerie (SynergEbooks, 2006). He lives in Warren, NJ.

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A romániai magyar médianyelv egyes sajátosságai

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
A nemzeti kisebbségek anyanyelvhez való viszonya, anyanyelvének megőrzése és fennmaradása jelentős mértékben függ az oktatás, a vallás és a tömegkommunikáció nyújtotta nyelvi mintáktól. Annál is fontosabbak ezek a nyelvi modellek, mivel a kisebbségi léttel együtt járó két- és többnyelvűség jelenségével kapcsolatban számolnunk kell egy harmadik jelenséggel is, a diglosszia állapotával, amely ugyancsak kapcsolódhat a kétnyelvű személyiség kommunikációs potenciáljához.
Éppen ezért ezúttal a nyelvőrzés egyik alappillérének tekintett tömegtájékoztatás néhány nyelvi és nyelvhasználati jellemzőjének feltárását kíséreljük meg, a romániai magyar audiovizuális média nyelvhasználati sajátosságaira vonatkoztatva.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
dr. Reka Suba,
Sapientia Erdélyi Magyar Tudományegyetem
Műszaki és Humántudományok Kar - Marosvásárhely, Alkalmazott Nyelvészeti Tanszék

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Rival Ethnicization of Hybrid Identities in the First International Journal of Comparative Literary Studies

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
The reception of the Acta Comparationis Litterarum Universarum (1877-1888), the first international journal founded in Cluj / Kolozsvár / Klausenburg (formely in Hungary, today in Romania) by Sámuel Brassai and Hugo von Meltzl / Meltzl Hugó, has always suffered from a certain "methodological nationalism”. While it has always stressed the transgressing of national boundaries and the transnational network of scholars around the new idea of the comparative method in literature, it has also recurrently emphasized the ethnic and national "belonging” of both of the founders and the collaborators. Hugo von Meltzl has been portrayed as the civilizing "German” who founded the journal after returning from its "Western” studies. The other founder, Sámuel Brassai was largely neglected as he was viewed as "the Eastern figure”, "the Hungarian” who had never been abroad, and in contact with "the West” before. Many of the extremely large network of scholars were mainly thought of as clear-cut figures of a single ethnic group. For instance, Dora d’Istria came to be viewed mostly as an "Italian”, and less as a "Romanian” or „Macedonian”. Ludwig-Adolf Simiginowicz-Staufe has been regarded as a "German”, even though his identity could not be simply described in such clear-cut ethnic terms.
Even though the first international journal foregrounds many culturally hybrid figures among the founders or permanent collaborators, the reception of the journal in the last century reshaped them into changing, and often biased clear-cut ethnic identities. My paper will reassess several ethnically biased narratives through which the founders and the hybrid, cosmopolitan international collaborators of the first international comparative literary journal were ethnicized, monopolized and appropriated.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Associate professor in nineteenth-century Hungarian and comparative literature at Babes-Bolyai University (Cluj, Romania). Specialized and PhD in literary sociology and the social history of literature. Author of two successful books and several papers on models of nineteenth-century Hungarian literary modernization, respectively the construction of the national space in nineteenth-century Hungarian literature, literary professionalization and comparative literary nationalisms. Currently working on an English-language book on the history of the first international journal of comparative literature. http://hunlit.lett.ubbcluj.ro/en/professors/t-szabo-levente

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Dezső Kosztolányi, Miroslav Krlezsa and Mateiu Caragiale: Modernist Perspectives on the European East and West

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
Two stories written by Modernist authors who are representative in their respective cultures (Hungarian and Croatian) describe the complex and complicated relationship between the European East and West. The two stories I am referring to are Kosztolányi’s “Bandi Cseregdi in Paris” and Krleza’s “Hodorlahomor the Great.” I would like to begin my presentation by discussing the challenges of translating “Bandi Cseregdi in Paris” into English, and then moving on to contrast the abovementioned stories. Furthermore, I will compare Krleza’s approach to the East-West relationship to that of Kosztolányi as well as to that of a third Modernist, the Romanian Mateiu Caragiale, who was a contemporary of both Kosztolányi and Krleza. The goal of this presentation is to further explore the ways in which three representative Modernist authors understood and negotiated the relationship between the European East and West, through language, aesthetics, and politics.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Adriana Varga teaches English and global and historical studies at Butler University, Indianapolis.

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The Politics of Textuality: Fenyő Miksa’s Wartime Memoirs in 1946 and 1986

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
My proposed paper aims to present the textual and publishing history of Miksa Fenyő’s wartime diary Az elsodort ország ( A Country Adrift). Fenyő, a founding editor of Nyugat and manager and contributor to the periodical for its whole lifespan, suffered persecution after the German occupation of Hungary in 1944: both for his earlier condemnation of Nazi Germany and also for his Jewishness. Whilst sheltered by friends and also by complete strangers in Budapest in 1944-45, he kept a detailed journal of his daily experiences, political views, musings about history and his hopes for the post-war future. Fenyő survived the war, did not emigrate until 1948, and saw through the first publication of his complete diary in 1946 by the Révay . The memoir did not see a second edition until 1986, when Magvető brought out again, under the epithet javított (improved) edition, whilst, in 2014, Park Publishers brought it out again, reverting to the original, 1946 version, which is also the basis of its first English translation, to be published by Helena History Press, US in 2015. The present paper intends to provide a close examination of the first, 1946 edition in comparison with the 1986 edition, which, defying the adjective ’improved,’ was in reality abridged and bowdlerised. The differences between the two texts offer meanig ful insights into political sensitivities and taboos of the Kádár regime.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Z.Varga studied at ELTE of Budapest, and the Edinburgh and Strathclyde Universities. She has taught Hungarian Studies at Glasgow University since 2008.

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Crossing Language Borders – as shown by the Historical Dictionary of the Hungarian Language in Transylvania

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
Transylvania has always been a space of multiculturalism which is reflected in the fact that the Hungarian regional standard contains more Romanian and German elements than the central standard. And that is not only characteristic to the present state of the language but it is a historical phenomena.
During the process of editing the Dictionary, Attila Szabó T. and his co-workers realised that the language material gathered from Transylvanian archives contain a number of Hungarian words of Romanian origin that the literature has no knowledge of. Thus came the idea of a smaller dictionary which would present the Romanian loanwords of Hungarian spoken in Transylvania in the period of the 16–19th centuries. By the mid 1980’s the editorial work was finalized, however it has never been published, the material is kept at the Department of Hungarian and General Linguistics, Babes–Bolyai University, Kolozsvár.
In my paper I attempt to present the words of Romanian origin listed in the Historical Dictionary of the Hungarian Language in Transylvania which the general literature of loan words has no knowledge of in the context of crossing borders in the sense that neighbouring languages always have huge impact on each other even if they are genetically completely different.



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

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