Submitted Papers - 2017

János Pilinszky's Apocrypha: A Wavering Catholic's Reflections on God, Human Suffering and the Relationship Between History and the Past

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
János Pilinszky's poem "Apokrif" (Apocrypha), initially published in 1954, was the first time that the poet's work was permitted to appear in print, following a state-imposed period of silence for what Hungary's Stalinist authorities labelled as his excessive "pessimism." In 1944, Pilinszky--at 23 years of age--was drafted into the Hungarian army, spending the final months of the Second World War in soon-to-be defeated Nazi Germany. This paper argues that Pilinszky and his poems, most notably "Apocrypha" and "The Passion of Ravensbrück," occupy a unique place in postwar Hungarian literature and discourse, due to the infusion of Christian spirituality when reflecting on the War and for deconstructing notions of memory, history and the past.

Pilinszky approaches the Second World War past, a tragedy still very much within living memory in postwar Hungary, from the perspective of Catholic and Christian faith--albeit, a faith that is deeply uncertain, ambivalent and even tormented.

The experience of war and destruction, and having witnessed first-hand the Ravensbrück concentration camp, not only informed Pilinszky's poetry, but also shaped an outlook that one may describe as a postwar, twentieth century version of Deism; the Creator is distant, silent and possibly even indifferent to what has become a perverse and depraved creation, while each individual human is isolated, forsaken and insignificant. Pilinszky not only provided a distinctive prism through which to explore recent Hungarian and European history, but pushed Hungarian thinkers to question the relationship between memory, history and the past.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Christopher Adam has a B.A. (Honours) from Concordia University in History and English Literature, an M.A. from Carleton University in East/Central European and Russian Area Studies and a PhD in History from the University of Ottawa. Dr. Adam teaches as a sessional lecturer at Carleton University and also serves as the Executive Director of St. Joseph's Parish in Ottawa, which runs day programs and a soup kitchen for the marginalized.

Dr. Adam's research has focused on the relationship between Hungarian Canadian diaspora communities with the one party state apparatus in Hungary during the Cold War. He has also launched two Hungarian online publications--the Hungarian Free Press and the Kanadai Magyar Hírlap--and was the recipient of the Free Press Award (Szabad Sajtó-díj) in Hungary in 2015 for his work. Dr. Adam is currently working with the German Historical Institute in Washington DC on a forthcoming publication on postwar refugee crises.

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Endre Ady--New Perspectives and New Ideas after the Compromise

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
While Endre Ady was born ten years after the significant date of 1867, he symbolized and expressed the new era that was ushered in by the Compromise. He was keenly aware of the social problems not solved by the political compromise and dealt with these in his journalistic work. In his poetry, he sought to bring a new voice to the table, one that married Western forms with native traditions. I will examine his poetry rather than his journalistic work, and focus on the ways in which he revolutionized Hungarian poetry. His 1908 volume, Uj versek, laid down the challenge and was a manifesto for a new voice that broke with the Romantic/Classical tradition of Arany and Petőfi. He was a voice of the future in a society that clung to the past. But it is as a consummate poet that he earned his fame. Ady’s love of the Hungarian people was only one of his themes. His love poems are striking in their originality and their mystical approach to physical love. His religious poems, which seemed blasphemous to many, reveal his search for God “who is at the bottom of all things, to whom all the bells toll and on whose left I, alas, sit.”



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
PhD University of North Carolina in Comparative Literature. Taught at Washington, DC area universities then on the staff of the Library of Congress. Publictions: Sándor Petőfi (Twayne) and Hungarian Literature (Review of National Literatures), numerous articles and addresses at professional organizations snd encyclopaedia entried. Founder: AHEA, Founding member Southern Comparative Literature Association;
Established Hungarian Discussion Group/Forum at the Modern Language Assocaiton.

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…lenn a porban / emlékestül…Az emberi létezés értékei és korlátozott lehetőségei…

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
Jékelynél az idő, a szerelem, a halál mindig központi kérdés volt. A köznapi élet mögött mindegyre az elmúlást fedezi fela költő. Az ünnepelt színésznő arcán a halál árnyékát látja, a rádióból kiszűrődő éneket hallgatva a végleges elnémulásra gondol s megírja a Caruso emlékének című remekét, a folyón sodródó rönkök az örök alámerülést juttatják eszébe. A szerelem önfeledt perceiben is a majdani elmúlásra kell eszmélnie:
Az életműben sajátos feszültség jön létre a szorongásos képzeletet és az ellenőrzést gyakorló értelem között. A fantázia sorra felrajzolja az elmúlás következményeit, félelemre és önsajnálatra indítja az izgatott szívet, az értelem viszont kérdőjeleket rak a szomorú képek után, idézőjelbe teszi a félelmet és az önsajnálatot. Ennek a feszültségnek feloldása az irónia. S miközben meg akarja érteni a történelmi gondokat és választ keres magában az emberi létezés kérdéseire és korlátozott voltára, ugyanakkor gondolati és érzelmi tekintetben egyaránt küzd a végső reménytelenség ellen.


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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Failure to Thrive: The Frustration of Human Flourishing in the Provincial Hungary of Móricz’s Az Isten háta mögött

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
When Zsigmond Móricz took it upon himself in 1911 to revive some of the themes addressed in 1856 by Gustave Flaubert in Madame Bovary, he did so not with the intention of emulating Flaubert’s by then classic novel, but rather of portraying the deplorable gap that separated the middle class of early twentieth rural Hungary from that of nineteenth-century provincial France, An investigation of the fate of Móricz’s characters in Az Isten háta mögött reveals the author’s conclusions regarding the long path that lay before Hungarian society in order to assure its bourgeoisie of the means necessary to live an acceptably good life. In fact the empty and meaningless nature of Veresné’s existence in particular seems calculated to make Flaubert’s Emma Bovary seem like more of a self-serving hedonist than a lovesick romantic. In analyzing the interactions between Móricz’s characters and their provincial environment in Az Isten háta mögött, I will show the limitations Móricz saw as informing the efforts of the provincial Hungarian middle class to “exert their own particular agency,” in spite of the increased political agency afforded the Hungarian nation as a state during the age of the Dual Monarchy. Rural life in particular reveals itself in this novel as a barren landscape of failed ambitions and wrecked hopes of anything resembling a life worth living.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Professor Ginny Lewis earned her Ph.D. in Modern German Literature from the University of Pennsylvania, after earning majors in French, Art, History, and German as an undergraduate student. Lewis has written numerous articles on German, Austrian, and Hungarian Literature, as well as a study of Global Literature as a reflection of Globalization which came out in 2009 under the title Globalizing the Peasant: Access to Land and the Possibility of Self-Realization. Her research centers on rural narratives from the modern era, particularly those written in Hungary and Germany.

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A Pece-parti Párizs és a francia művészet hatása

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
„Olyan gyönyörű szép Nagyvárad, mint egy kis Pece-parti Párizs” – mondta Ady Endre, mikor visszatért a francia fővárosból. Ebből az idézetből kiindulva készítettem el dolgozatomat,amelyben a francia művészet és irodalom különböző hatásait elemzem a koszmopolita városban, amely különleges építészeti sokszínűséggel, valamint gazdag kulturális és vallási hagyományokkal rendelkezik.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Bukarestben születtem. A fővárosi Ady Endre Elméleti Líceumban végeztem az elemi és gimnáziumi osztályokat. Középiskolába a „Nicolae Tonitza” Művészeti iskolába jártam és ott érettségiztem 2oo8-ban. A Bukaresti "Ion Mincu" Műépítészeti Egyetemen és a Bukaresti Művészeti Egyetem Design Karán államvizsgáztam 2o12-ben, illetve 2o11-ben, majd a Bukaresti Műépítészeti Egyetemen szereztem magiszteri oklevelet 2o13-ban. Jelenleg II. éves doktorandusz hallgató vagyok a műépítészet területén a Nagyváradi Állami Egyetemen.

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Identity in Fateless and Son of Saul

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
Separated by almost ten years, two films produced after Hungary’s entry into the European Union explore identity, separation, and loss. Both use the concentration camps as the setting for an examination of how an individual loses identity, recreates it, and then struggles to return to a previous identity in a changed world.
The 2006 Fateless begins in a somewhat conventional pre-war Budapest, and ends in the same location, changed because of the war. The concentration camp serves as the central non-Hungarian landscape, inhabited by inmates from throughout Europe. The road to, and then from, this descent into hell cannot but change the trajectory of the human lives that have undertaken the journey. The war proves a catalyst by which Hungary, and Hungarians, must mutate to survive.
Son of Saul (2015) presents a bleaker vision of human possibilities. Viewed entirely from the perspective of the inmate, the viewer knows almost nothing of his past life, only his present function within the multi-national concentration camp. From the dramatic moment when his past joins him in the camps in the form of a dead boy, past and present identity cannot be clearly separated. Identity appears only as a collective entity through ritual, but by film’s end it is precisely this renewed identification which proves hopeless.
In both films, Hungarian Jews negotiate their identity in extreme circumstances as they struggle to survive.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
CLARA ORBAN is professor of French and Italian at DePaul University. She received her Ph.D. in Romance Languages from the University of Chicago. She has eight published books including a novel and two wine books, several book chapters, articles, and presented papers on surrealism, futurism, language pedagogy, AIDS literature, sports, TV, and Italian film. She is also a certified sommelier and teaches a geography course based on wine at DePaul. Her current projects include Hungarian Cinema.

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