Adam, Christopher

Carleton University, Canada

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

Type of Abstract (select):

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.




Angi, János

University of Debrecen, Department of History

National Tragedy and Urban Development: The Influence of the Trianon Peace Treaty on Debrecen

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The paper treats the history of Debrecen after World War I, through the prism of new advantages, which were used to rebuild the educational and cultural infrastructure of the city. In the shadow of a national tragedy the city of Debrecen benefited a lot from the new political situation. I will examine that process using the example of University of Debrecen and Deri Museum of Debrecen.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Janos Angi is Associate Professor of History at University of Debrecen and also director of Deri Museum of Debrecen. His special interest is the history of Eastern Europe in the 18th-20th centuries. He is author of some articles, coauthor, editor and coeditor of several books, textbooks, including the volume, Hungary Through the Centuries: Studies in Honor of Professors Steven Béla Várdy and Ágnes Huszár Várdy (with Richard P. Mulcahy and Tibor Glant).




Bagi, Katalin

Torontói Magyar Gimnázium

Pelcz Katalin – Szita Szilvia: MagyarOK tankönyvcsalád bemutatása és értékelése a korszerű magyar mint idegen nyelv tanítás követelményei szerint

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Magyar mint idegen nyelvet oktató tanárok körében általánosan elterjedt vélemény, hogy máig nem készült modern, a tanulói és tanári igényeket egyaránt kielégítő, hatékonyan használható, élvezetes tankönyv.

Ennek következtében a tanárok arra kényszerülnek, hogy megalkudjanak egy félig-meddig használható tankönyvvel, amelyet aztán mintegy irányadóul használva csak, igyekeznek azt óráról órára kiegészíteni, színesebbé, teljesebbé, diákjai céljainak megfelelőbbé tenni saját maguk által készített feladatokkal.

Pelcz Katalin – Szita Szilvia MagyarOK című tankönyvcsaládja a legújabb kiadvány a magyar mint idegen nyelvi tankönyvpiacon. A tervezett négy kötetből, mely a Közös Európai Referenciakeret kezdő (A1) szintjétől a haladóig (B2) hivatott eljuttatni a nyelvtanulót, 2017 elejéig az első három kötet látott napvilágot. A Pécsi Tudományegyetem kiadásában megjelenő tankönyvcsalád a honlappal együtt 2013-ban elnyerte az innovációért járó Európai Nyelvi Díjat.

A magát erősen kommunikációközpontúnak nevező tananyag ígérete szerint “minden készséget egyformán fejleszt, és szilárd grammatikai alapokat ad a továbbhaladáshoz”.

Dolgozatomban arra keresem a választ, hogy a MagyarOK tankönyvcsalád, számos elvitathatatlan innovatív megoldásán túl (tanári kézikönyv, nyelvtani összefoglaló, interneten elérhető hanganyag stb.), segít-e, és ha igen, hogyan, a magyar mint idegen nyelvi tankönyvpiac hiányosságain?

Milyen mértékben jelent előrelépést az általánosságban vett magyar mint idegen nyelvi tananyagfejlesztésben, és miben marad adós a tanulókkal és tanárokkal szemben?

1. A tankönyvcsalád felépítésének, szerkezetének bemutatása

2. Az eddig megjelent három kötet értékelése...

a. egyrészt a korszerű nyelvoktatás jellemzőinek tükrében: élményszerűség, kooperativitás, kommunikativitás, infokommunikációs technológiák használata, osztálytermi és órán kívüli tanulás szerves kapcsolata, projektmunka stb.
b. másrészt módszertani megoldásai alapján, különösen ami a nyelvészeti résztudományok legutóbbi eredményeinek alkalmazását vagy azok hiányát illeti.

3. Alkalmazhatósága idegen nyelvi környezetben, azon belül is észak-amerikai kontextusban.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Katalin Bagi has a bachelor’s degree in French and Hungarian Language and Literature. She received her master’s degree with honors from the University of Pécs, Hungary, in 2010, in teaching Hungarian as a Second Language.

Since 2006, she has been teaching Hungarian at the Torontói Magyar Gimnázium. Since 2005 she also teaches Hungarian as a Second Language at beginner, intermediate and advanced levels in Toronto at the courses organized by the Hungarian Helicon Society.

She is a professional language exam administrator, accredited by the Centre for Advanced Language Learning (ITK) of the Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest, in Canada. She has been involved in the organization and conduct of Hungarian language proficiency exams in Toronto since 2010.

Katalin Bagi has presented papers at the conferences of the Hungarian Studies Association of Canada and at academic conferences in Hungary.





Basa, Enikő M.

Library of Congress

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

Type of Abstract (select):

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.




Bock, Julia

Long Island University

The Nationality Problem and the Compromise.

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The unsuccessful 1848 revolution left many theories of the causes of its fall. One of them was not being able to mitigate and solve the discrepancy between what the Hungarian nobility was ready to give to satisfy the need of the nationalities. The recognition of this failure made the majority of Hungarian statesmen to deal with the problem and try to find solution. Whether to treat the nationalities on an equal basis, or from the position of power by satisfying minimal rights divided the political arena.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Education: Columbia University Library Science; 1988 Eötvös Loránd University, Ph.D History; 1981;
Work: Long Island University, Brooklyn
Publications:
The Fate of Hungarian Jewish Dermatologists during the Holocaust at "Clio Dermatologica" Volume 34(2016): 216-298.
Famous Hungarian Jewish Doctors in the Shadow of the Holocaust (In Hungarian) at "Remény" Volume 3 (2010) 3.
The Holocaust in Hungary: A Selected and Compiled Bibliography 2000-2007 edited by Randolph L. Braham and Julia Bock. [New York]. The Rosenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies. Distributed by Columbia University Press, 2008.

Miscarriage of Justice: The Elimination of Jewish Attorneys in Hungary During the Holocaust. The International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, 2006.
Article on Holocaust for the new edition of New Book of Knowledge. Danbury, CO: Grolier Pub. Co., 2002. V.8. p. 172-173.





Bodó, Béla (withdrawn)

University of Bonn

Teaching Political Violence: the Memory of the Hungarian Civil War (1918-1921) in High-School and University Textbooks, 1945-Present

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
This presentation examines the memory of the post-WWI period through the prism of high-school and university textbooks from 1945 to the Present. It touches on such import issues as: changing personnel and editorial policies; history education under Communism; political reforms and the memory of the civil war after 1956; and the transformation of the education system after 1990. However, the focus of the presentation will be on language: on emotionally and ideologically-laden words, sentence fragments and semantics used to convey the basic tenets of competing ideologies and political interests. Special attention will be paid to what is not in the texts: to omissions, deleted sentences, absent images and taboos which are meant to hide, sweep under the carpet or push into the collective subconscious the memory of events, which the elites and the population are unable or unwilling to face. What events have become taboos after 1945 and how the list of taboos has changed in the last seventy years are the subjects of the presentation.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Béla Bodó was born in Hungary, and completed his undergraduate education at the University Debrecen and the University of Toronto in 1990. He received his Ph. D. from York University in Toronto, Canada in 1998. He is an Associate Professor at the University of Bonn, Germany. His latest book, Paramilitary and Mob Violence in Hungary after the First World War is scheduled to appear in 2018.




Csenkey, Kristen

York University

Landscapes of Loneliness in Benedek Fliegauf’s Tejút

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Tejút (2007) or “Milky Way” (dir. Benedek Fliegauf) subtlety captures the essence of loneliness caused by the detachment between humans and nature. Framing the landscape is important in showing this disconnection and isolation. In this paper, I provide a synopsis of the film through a breakdown of the highlighted landscapes, explore the chronology, and interpret the further meaning of this disconnection and breakdown of society. In Tejút, humans must navigate the artificial world they have created for themselves and take with it the unsettling aspects of man-made life. This paper provides a new interpretation of a modern Hungarian film.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Kristen Csenkey is a PhD Candidate in Social Anthropology at York University (Toronto) with graduate diplomas in German & European Studies and Refugee & Migration Studies. Her research focuses on political identities and nationalism among the Hungarian Diaspora in Canada. Csenkey is also interested in exploring issues of identity in Hungarian literature. She has founded a number of student organizations at the Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies, Munk School of Global Affairs, organized conferences, and is involved in other aspects of Hungarian Studies research.




Czeglédy, Nina and André Czeglédy

Ontario College of Art and Design University, Toronto

Beyond Borders - Art as a Catalyst

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Distinctly dissident under Communist rule, experimental art, served as a cultural
barometer in Hungary throughout the years of oppression. In the face of adversity and
political repression, many of the artists have continued to produce, stimulating, dynamic
and often provocative work. While production was tolerated exhibitions were disallowed
particularly abroad. When in 1984, Laszlo Révész and Andras Böröcz, two young
Hungarian artists toured across Canada presenting Hungarian experimental artwork, the
tour marked the first milestone of contemporary Hungarian-Canadian art exchanges since
the Second World War. I was the lucky curator of this touring project as well as the
Beyond Borders, Hungarian Video Art from the late 1980 compilation of experimental
videos for the Free Worlds: Metaphors and Realities in Contemporary Hungarian Art
exhibited at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1991. The cultural exchange continued in 1993
at the Budapest Spring Festival with the extensive Welcome Canada program. In addition
to concerts and lectures we have shown the experimental films of Michael Snow and
others and the first Canadian First Nation film program. The comprehensive Canadian-
Hungarian art-exchange is outside the scope of this presentation this is only a bird’s eye
view narrative based on my personal experience from those years.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Nina Czeglédy, artist, curator, educator, works internationally on collaborative art& science& technology projects. The changing perception of the human body and its environment as well as the paradigm shifts in the arts informs her projects. She has exhibited and published widely, won awards for her artwork and has initiated, researched, lead and participated in forums and symposia worldwide. She is an Adjunct Professor at Ontario College of Art and Design University, Toronto, Senior Fellow, KMDI, University of Toronto, Senior Fellow Intermedia, Hungarian University of Fine Arts, Budapest, Member of the Governing Board Leonardo/ISAST and Board Member AICA International Association of Art Critics Canada.

André Czeglédy, social/cultural anthropologist, policy advisor and management consultant whose work focuses on both site-based projects and broader cultural analysis dealing with corporate culture, urban change, museums and visualization practices. He is Associate Professor of Anthropology and former Chair of the Anthropology Program at Wilfrid Laurier University, holding degrees from University of Toronto (B.A. Hons.), the London School of Economics and Political Science (M.Science Econ.), and Cambridge University (Ph.D.). Since 1998, he has engaged in a broad-ranging writing project with Nina Czeglédy as co-author of a series of publications that inject social and cultural perspectives on the triad of Technology, Art and the Body.




Deak, George

Harvard University (Davis Center Associate)

Ervin Sinkó's Path to Communism, 1914-1919

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Ervin Sinkó was a Hungarian writer born in Szabadka in 1898 and died in Zagreb in 1967 after a peripatetic and in some ways emblematic twentieth century life. He was an active participant in the Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919, an experience about which he wrote his best known work, Optimists. Sinkó was only 20 years old when the events described in that book took place. His experiences in World War I, before he was drafted and after, when he served on the Russian Front, were critical in setting him on the path to Revolution.

My presentation, in preparation for what might eventually become a biography of Sinkó, will explore in some detail aspects of Sinkó’s life during the war. Most of this material will be taken from Sinkó’s diaries, his newspaper articles, and from his fictional account in Optimists (to the extent that we can verify from other sources that the events described are based on real experiences). My intention is to see how the precocious, adolescent Sinkó’s political opinions developed. I will explore the following questions and issues: Sinkó’s positive and negative attitudes towards military service; his years of service behind the lines as well as his time at the Russian Front in 1917-1918; was Sinkó redeployed to the Italian Front after the war with Russia had ended following Brest-Litovsk; how did the war turn Sinkó towards Lenin’s project of world revolution; and finally, what role, if any, did Sinkó’s Jewish background play in this trajectory.

I would like to propose a paper for the section on World War I, in which Peter Pastor will also be presenting a paper.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
76 Florissant Ave.
Framingham, MA 01701 (USA)
deakgy62@gmail.com
508 877-6937

Education:

B.A. in History from University of Chicago, 1971
Ph.D. in History from Columbia University, 1980

Dissertation topic:
Industry and Politics: The Hungarian National Association of Industrialists, 1902-1914.

After earning my doctorate, I switched fields to Computer Science and worked as a programmer and later as a manager in industry between 1980 and 2011, at which point I retired from the field of information technology and commenced my work as a historian.

Teaching:

Adjunct instructor at University of Massachusetts, Lowell from 2011-2015:
Courses in Modern World History, Russian History, Modern Revolutions.

Currently working on a translation of Sinko’s Novel of a Novel (Egy Regény regenye).

Papers:

Short comment on Sinko’s “Novel of a Novel” at the VIII. Nemzetközi Hungarológiai Kongresszus at Pécs, Hungary, in August, 2016. An expanded version of this paper will appear in print in 2017 in a book edited by Pál Pritz.

Paper entitled “Ervin Sinkó's Search for a Universal Identity: A Hungarian Jewish path to Communism and Beyond.”, ASEEES Conference, November, 2016.

Publications:

The Economy and Polity in Early Twentieth Century Hungary, The Role of the National Association of Industrialists, Boulder: East European Monographs, (Distributed by Columbia University Press) 1990





Dreisziger, Nandor

Royal Military College of Canada

Survey of the Historiography of Unconventional Explanations of the "Hungarian Conquest" by Hungarian Academics Since 1867

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The survey would start with Laszlo Rethy's theory, published in 1871, that the Hungarian language evolved in the Carpathian Basin in the millennium before 895, and probably end with Imre Farago's theory, published recently, that Hungarian place names have thousands-of-years of presence in the Carpathian region of Central Europe. (Réthy was a member of Hungary's National Museum and Farago teaches at ELTE).
My list of scholars is too long to have their theories described in a conference paper but I will try to keep my presentation to 20 minutes.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
From 1970 to 2008 Nándor Dreisziger taught history at the Royal Military College of Canada. He has published widely on North American and East European subjects. Since 1974 he has been editing the Hungarian Studies Review. His most recent field of interest is Hungarian ethnogenesis.




Evans, Allan (withdrawn)

Mannes College, The New School for Music

Bartók's Lost Interpretive Style and Its Continuity Through Irén Marik

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
An examination of field recordings made on cylinders by Bartók and how the songs and instrumental works became parts of his own compositions.
As few other than Bartók could play them with such a background, it came as a surprise to discover Irén Marik, a pupil of the composer's, who approaches Bartók's own pianism closer than anyone else. We will hear how both capture a musical language whose style could only have been transmitted as an oral tradition, displaying how music notation is secondary to the concept of sound and how it represents its origins.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Allan Evans began guitar lessons as the last pupil of Rev. Gary Davis and continued to study composition and ethnomusicology at the Mannes College of Music and graduate studies at the Aaron Copland School of Music (CUNY). Interest in the lost musical traditions of the 20th century led Evans to develop Sound Archaeology, a practice that retrieves, researches, restores, and publishes CDs and books through Arbiter of Cultural Traditions, a non-profit arts organization he founded in 1995. Author of several music biographies and an Italian cookbook, Evans is on the faculty of the College of the Performing Arts at the New School University and is co-founder/director of the Scuola Italiana de Greenwich Village.




Fodor, Mónika (withdrawn)

University of Pécs

Narrative Perspective on the Sites of Subjective Ethnicity

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
In this paper, I describe ethnic identity formation as a spatialized process tied to recognizable geographical locations—places that prompt ethnic activities or make the already existing practices memorable. I interpret four interview-based narratives within their discursive and narrative environment to discuss how storytellers relate to their subjective ethnicity against the backdrop of ethnically marked sites and locations. The four stories will highlight four modes of conceptualizing space related to ethnicity: 1) the ethnic neighborhood, 2) ethnic reclamation sites, 3) sites of heritage tourism, and 4) heterolocalism. I probe the space-centered stories in this conceptual matrix of ethnic geography to explore under which circumstances storytellers find ethnically imbued sites meaningful. I also reveal how narrators locate these sites as centers of cultural-social networking and thus a source of symbolic capital. Furthermore, the analysis pinpoints the ways in which investment becomes a necessary prerequisite to community formation and maintenance. I suggest that traditional ethnic identity sites as well as those newly designed cultural geographical formations rooted in the subjectivization of ethnicity gain long-term meaning and become sustainable if they are seen as an investment and their capacity to bring profits as symbolic capital.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Monika Fodor works as assistant professor in the Department of English Literatures and Cultures at the University of Pécs. Her research interest includes narratives, identity, ethnicity, oral histories and ethnographic fieldwork. Since she has her degree in Applied Linguistics, she has also published in multidisciplinary fields such as teaching culture and narrative and translation studies. Most of her recent publications in English and Hungarian have been on exploring uncertainty and the complexity perspective in the context of assimilation and narrative identity construction. Her most recent work coedited with Eleftheria Arapogentitled “Mobile Narratives: Travel, Migration and Transculturation” that came out in the “Interdisciplinary Approaches to Literature” series of Routledge in 2014.




Gábos, Judit

Eszterházy Károly University, Eger

Bartók and Kodály's Transylvania, as Reflected in their Piano Works

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Bartók and Kodály’s oeuvre and their wide production of works using folk music had not only made transriptions of Folk music grow in scope and gain international exposure, but also became the most powerful tool in the formation of 20th century Hungarian national identity.
19th century music reform, identified as Hungarian: the verbunkos style, the csardas dance-style, later called „fabricated” by Kodály; 20th century: back to folk music roots, the authentic Hungarian and more widely: Carpathian basin peasant music tradition. Bartók and Kodály’s folklorism: the reinforcement of national feelings.
Transylvania: the Eastern part of Hungary, Western part of Romania, the common land of two nations: the fairy land, where they could still find the ancient folk song types and scales. As collectors, they divided their work as follows: Kodály researched Hungarian folk music in Hungary and neighbouring countries (Romania, Slovakia), seeking the origin of Hungarians and their music; while Bartók was a pioneer collector of not only Hungarian, but other nation’s folk music as well. Bartók never spoke about his „nation’s” folk music, but always about his „homeland’s peasant music. His ideal was to establish a larger-scale, Carpathian-basin musical dialect.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
A concert pianist, Dr. Judit Gábos is head of the music department of Eszterházy University of Eger. In 2003 received DMA in piano performance from the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest and in 2012 obtained a habilitation also in piano performance from the Liszt Academy. Between 2000-2006 – as the artist of the Hungarian Radio – played numerous live solo and chamber music recitals; has been performing regularly at the Liszt Museum in Budapest, played at the Spring Festival of Budapest, Pecs and Eger. In Europe gave solo and chamber music concerts in Belgium, Finland, Serbia, Spain. In Romania has been frequently soloist of the State Philharmonics of Targu-Mures. In the United States played Bartók (Concerto no.3 for piano and orchestra, the Sonata for two pianos and percussions) and also all-Bartók recitals in New York (2013, 2015), Canada (Ottawa, Toronto). In 2011, as a Fulbright grantee, played concerts and recitals in California (Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco), Cleveland (Ohio), Atlanta (Georgia), in South and North Carolina, honouring the Liszt bicentenary. Outside Europe and the North American continent, toured Indonesia, Brazil, India.





Gárdosi, Rita (withdrawn)

Independent Scholar

Preparing for Hungarian Junior Language Exam: Experiences with Young Learners in Montreal

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
In November, 2016 five young learners passed successfully the ELTE Origó Junior Level Hungarian Language Exam in Montreal. This test is specially designed for children in primary and lower secondary education between ages 10-16 who have learned the Hungarian language for at least 200 hours and are interested in finding out their knowledge level. The junior level takes part of the range of the Hungarian State exams as starter level (A2). Every child who takes a test gets a certificate – it’s a great way to reward achievement.

My presentation is intended to show how to prepare young learners for such a challenge in Canada and to encourage curriculum development. The preparation had been taking part every Saturday morning for seven weeks in the Hungarian School of Montreal and was designed to make a child’s early language learning experience positive and fun as well as increase their self-confidence and language skills. The light of the foregoing, class materials cover familiar, interesting topics and develop the skills learners need to communicate in Hungarian.

The junior exam assesses how competent the young candidate is not just in understanding or speaking but reading and writing in Hungarian. For all these reasons, after placement test, a specially designed curriculum was also needed to develop in the following areas: spelling, vocabulary (ex. geography, literature), proverbs, cultural knowledge (ex. Hungarian national holidays, famous people, and customs). It was also very important to prepare children how to speak independently, how to describe a picture or how to complete a listening test in Hungarian.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Rita Gárdosi graduated in 2007 from ELTE in Budapest, with Masters Degrees in Hungarian Language and Literature and Hungarian as a Foreign Language. While working at University of Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris III as Hungarian lecturer, she earned a doctorate in Linguistics and Language Teaching, graduating in 2012. In 2014/2015 Dr. Gárdosi was in residence in the Department of Modern Languages at Cleveland State University, in the status of a Fulbright Visiting Professor in Hungarian language and culture. Since 2015, she has been living in Canada and working as independent scholar. Recently she published a paper in THL2 focusing on Hungarian language maintenance in Cleveland, Ohio. In 2017, a chapter about Teaching Hungarian as heritage language in North-America will be published in the Handbook of Research and Practice in Heritage Language Education (Ed. Springer).




Glanz, Susan

St. John's University

The Long Road of Paul Samuelson’s Economics, an Introductory Textbook, to Hungary

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Paul A. Samuelson (1915-2009), was the first American Nobel laureate in economics and one of the foremost academic economists of the 20th century. He is quoted as saying” "I don't care who writes a nation's laws, or crafts its treatises, if I can write its economics textbooks," and he did. Paul Samuelson’s Economics is one of the most successful textbooks ever published in the field. The first edition was published in the USA in 1948. It immediately became a bestseller with sales of more than 120,000 copies in the first year. While this text, in various editions, was used in the majority of American colleges’ introductory economics courses, students in Hungary remained cut off from the concepts and theories described in the book. This presentation will look at two interrelated issues; the long road the book had to travel before it reached Hungarian college students in 1976, by then the 10th edition of the American textbook hit the US market; and the discrepancies between the English text and the Hungarian translation. The paper will also look at the Hungarian reception of the textbook.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Professor of Economics, St. John's U. in NY.




Göllner, András B.

Concordia University, Montreal

Portrait of an Abusive Relationship. Parliamentary Sovereignty vs The Rule of Law in Hungary.

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
In line with this year’s conference theme of “Sovereignty and Compromise” this paper addresses the conflict between the Rule of Law and Parliamentary Sovereignty, and the challenges of achieving an acceptable compromise between the two concepts that are the foundations of modern democratic governance. It is acknowledged, that even under the best of circumstances, the relationship between parliamentary sovereignty and the rule of law, is problematical. Wherever parliament is sovereign, such as the British system, or Hungary, the rule of law must be given special protection against potential abuses by parliamentary majorities. Parliamentary sovereignty must be counterbalanced by rigorous systems of public scrutiny (in and out of parliament), and must be exercised in a manner that respects the basic principles of justice and constitutionalism. This paper looks at the state of the “marriage” between parliamentary sovereignty and the rule of law in Hungary, a Central European country that is a member of both the European Union and the North Atlantic Community. The author argues that in the case of Hungary, the “marriage of convenience” between parliamentary sovereignty and the rule of law has broken down. It details how the government of Viktor Orbán, elected to office in 2010 and re-elected once again in April 2014, abuses the rule of law, via its supermajority in parliament. How to achieve a balance, or a compromise, how to put an end to this abusive relationship ? The paper argues that political leadership and accountability play a strategic role in the re-establishment and maintenance of the needed compromise. New mechanisms of accountability, nationally and internationally, must be put in place and followed, in order to uphold the “original marriage contract”. Without appropriate leadership and accountability, the abuse will continue, and there will be no compromise. The paper begins with a conceptual “re-boot” of the values that Europe and the North Atlantic Community claim are the cornerstones of their constitutional democracies. It then moves on and examines the salience of these values in Hungary’s political culture. The third part of the essay focuses on the political leadership of the Orbán regime vis á vis these values and the political-cultural challenges this poses for democratic governance. In the final section, the paper outlines the leadership strategy and the mechanisms of accountability that Hungary and the European Union together could implement in order to restore harmony, between the rule of law and parliamentary sovereignty.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Dr. András B. Göllner is Emeritus Associate Professor of Political Science at Montreal’s Concordia University. His field of experties is political economy, political communications, Central and East European affairs. He received his Ph.D. in political economy from the London School of Economics and higher degrees in International Relations from Carleton University and the Université de Montreal. Dr. Göllner played a prominent role in Hungary, during that country’s attempt to create the foundations of democratic governance and a free market system between 1990-2010. He is the author of three books and hundreds of articles in scholarly journals and mainstream media worldwide. He is a frequent speaker at international conferences on both sides of the Atlantic.




Havas, Judit

Petőfi Irodalmi Múzeum

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

Type of Abstract (select):

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.





Holec, Roman

Comenius University and Institute of History of Slovak Academy of Sciences

The 1867 Austro-Hungarian Compromise from the Slovak and Czech Point of View

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
* Czech idea of the reconstruction of the Habsburg Monarchy in the 60th : federalization of the state based on the so-called “historical nations” (Palacký: The Idea of the Austrian state), dualism can only mean the end of the monarchy
* Slovak idea of the reconstruction of the Habsburg Monarchy in the 60th : centralization: all nations under one centre in Vienna (equality of rights), dualism can only mean the end of the Slovaks
* 1867 as a result of the “divide et impera” policy
* The consequences: Slovaks without Czechs and the Emperor and under the pressure of Hungarians; Czechs tried to push for the coronation of the Austrian Emperor to the Czech King
* The Czechs refused to participate in the 1867 Slovak idea of reconstruction of the Habsburg Monarchy in the 60th : centralization: all nations under one centre in Vienna (equality of rights)
* Compromise – the making of a modern Hungary or
* The Austro-Hungarian Compromise and Dualism as an example for the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Roma Holec is a full professor at the Faculty of Art of Comenius University and Research Fellow of the Institute of History of Slovak Academy of Sciences, both in Bratislava, Slovakia. His scientific interests are Economic and Social History, Environmental History and History of Aristocracy – all from 1848 till 1945 in Central-Europe. An author of 17 books, he has more than 240 conference presentations and invited lectures (from them 140 in abroad)and participated in many study visits at European universities and international projects. (f. e. European Science Foundation, Kommission für die Geschichte der Habsburgermonarchie, Volkswagen-Stiftung).






Hornyák, Árpád

Hungarian Academy of Sciences

National Self-Defence and Imperialism. The Balkan Policy of István Tisza’s Hungary during World War I

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
My paper to be presented at the 2017 AHEA conference deals mostly with the political views of Count István Tisza on the Balkans. Count Tisza was the most prominent Hungarian politician of the examined period. From 1913 he was the prime minister of Hungary, the ”strong man” who dominated Hungarian parliamentary life. He also enjoyed the full confidence of the Emperor-King Francis Joseph. Tisza’s views, therefore, can be considered as the official position of the Hungarian government and the political establishment.
His Balkan policy was influenced shaped by a three-pronged consideration: the economic interests of Hungary, rather than Austria-Hungary; the maintenance of Hungarian supremacy in the multi-national Hungarian Kingdom and lastly security of the Dual Monarchy.
It is worth to notice that the Hungarian political elite showed little interest towards foreign affairs before the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 since it was a common assumption that it is useless to deal with international relations as long as problematic issues of domestic politics remain unresolved. This point of view changed rapidly following the outbreak of the Balkan Wars and led to Tisza’s reformulation of Hungarian goals in the Balkans which were backed by most of the Hungarian establishment.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Arpad Hornyak is associate professor of history at the University of Pécs (Hungary) and senior research fellow at the Institute of History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He gratuated at University of Pecs where he also obtained his PhD in history. His specialty is the history of the Balkans during the nineteenth and twentieth century, and twentieth-century Hungarian foreign policy. He has numerous essay publications that appeared in scholarly journals. He has a monograph publication that also appeared in English under the title Hungarian-Yugoslav Relations, 1918-1927 (2013) distributed by Columbia University Press. He recently edited a collection of articles written by Hungarian scholars and edited a volume of documents on Hungarian-Yugoslav relations.




Jobbitt, Steven and Éva Kovács

HSAC and AHEA

Round-table discussion: Nation and Narrative; Challenges Moving Forward

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
This round-table aims to foster lively discussion on the past, present, and future of nation-building in Canada, Hungary, and other successor states of the former Habsburg Empire. Using examples of national narratives that have been employed in some cases since 1867, participants will examine the meaning of sovereignty and the nation-state in a globalized world, as well as the situation and representation of national, ethnic, and indigenous minorities within their respective societies. By encouraging discussion with the audience, the round-table will explore aspects of the overall Congress theme from an international and multidisciplinary perspective.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):





Kovács, Éva

Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Sociology, Centre for Social Sciences, and Vienna Wiesenthal Institute

The Politics of Memory in the Long Twentieth Century: The Hungarian Case in a European Comparative Perspective

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Over the last hundred and fifty years, Hungarian memory politics has oscillated between the poles of martyrdom and victimhood, between cultivation of revolutionary traditions and the rituals of national mourning. As part of the nation-building process, national historiography and the politics of history everywhere often provide well-developed narrations to justify current commemoration practices. Is Hungary unique in this respect? Did it lose its European orientation, as the great Hungarian poet Endre Ady asked in 1913? Through an analysis of current debates about the major events of twentieth-century Hungarian history and its representations in social memory, my talk will describe this pendulum effect of Hungarian memory politics. It will also explore the transformation of the “culture of defeat” into the culture of victimhood from the First World War to the post-Communist period in a European comparative perspective.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Éva Kovács is Prof. of Sociology, Academic Programme Director of the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute of Holocaust Studies and Head of Department of Methodology and History of Sociology at the Institute of Sociology at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. She studied sociology and economics at the Universities of Economics in Pécs and Budapest (Ph.D. 1994, Habilitation 2009). Her research fields include the history of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe, research on memory and remembrance, and Jewish identity in Hungary and Slovakia. She authored five monographs, edited eight volumes and published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals. She is the founder of the audio-visual archive "Voices of the Twentieth Century."




Kovács, Tamás

National Archives of Hungary

Who Was Hungarian or a Hungarian Citizen Before 1948, According to the Documents of the Ministry of the Interior

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Many Hungarian writers, historians, sociologists have asked the question, who is Hungarian. A possible answer to the question is given in the title of this presentation. That is, who can be considered a Hungarian citizen by the Hungarian State or by the Hungarian authorities?
After the Compromise with Austria in 1867, the need emerged in the Kingdom of Hungary that the state should regulate who qualifies to be viewed as a Hungarian citizen, as previously Austrian law and customary laws had been applicable. “Hungarians” still had to wait another 12 years to adopt the first Hungarian citizenship law, but three laws had also addressed the issue of the so-called “Village residence” before.
These may be considered essentially the precedence of the citizenship law. This presentation analyzes the 1879 Citizenship Law, which was valid until 1948. Thus, during all the great cataclysms of the Hungarian history – the Trianon Peace Treaty, the Holocaust and the population exchanges – the law had to be interpreted and applied. We shall show how the application of the law was implemented by the Hungarian Ministry of the Interior, especially if decisions had to be applied using the narrowest definitions. We shall also address how other laws overwrote the Citizenship Law during and after the Second World War, like for example to justify the deportation to Kamenets-Podolsk and/or the forced population exchanges after the war. The presentation addresses, amongst others, which departments dealt with citizenship issues within the Ministry of the Interior and also the activities of the National Central Authority for Controlling Aliens (NCACA, well-known Hungarian abbreviated name KEOKH), established in 1930. The timeliness of the topic is based on the event that NCACA’s successor organization will hand over its documents to the National Archives in 2017.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Kovacs Tamas earned a MA and a Ph. D (in history) from University of Pecs. He worked for Holocaust Memorial Center (2003-2008), currently work for National Archives of Hungary as vice-head of the Department of pre 1945 Governmental Organ. In addition, he teaches at the University of Pannonia. His special field the Hungarian Ministry of Interior, police, military and civil secret service during Horthy era and the holocaust in Hungary.




Lewis, Ginny

Northern State University, Aberdeen, SD

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

Type of Abstract (select):

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.




Lincu Andreea

Nagyváradi Állami Egyetem

A Pece-parti Párizs és a francia művészet hatása

Type of Abstract (select):

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.




Mazsu, János (withdrawn)

University of Debrecen

War and Collective Remembrance-Cemetery of Heroes. Channels of Representation in Geographical Information Systems (GIS)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Recently, the first steps of preparation have been made for the Centenary of World War I (2014-2018) on both international and Hungarian grounds. There has been a government committee founded to address the various duties in respect to the centenary.

Since until 2013 even the number of wartime burial places had not been cleared, the Hungarian Ministry of Defense initiated a national wartime burial place and War Memorial Survey Program. With the participation of the Ministry of Domestic Affairs all the local governments were contacted to collect the relevant data and the processing of the collected information is in progress. It is planned that by the end of the centennial of World War I in 2018 the data pool containing the Hungarian military losses will be completed.
With its specific GIS representation experience a development team based in the city of Debrecen contributed greatly to the works significant from the points of view of collective remembrance and identity.

The Cemetery of Hungarian Soldiers, or as many of the local civilians call it, the Cemetery of Heroes is one of the most respected eternal treasures and memorials of the city. The first dead buried here were the fallen soldiers of the battle at Debrecen on August 02, 1849 during Hungarian Revolution and Freedom Fight 1848-1849.
The cemeteries were re-opened again at the time of WW I and WW II to bury the heroes who died on the battlefield and in local hospitals.
Under the trees of the Cemetery of Hungarian Soldiers and the Cemetery of Heroes rest the 112 soldiers of the 1849 War of Independence, 634 soldiers of the Tsar Army and other Hungarian and German soldiers who fell at the time of WW I and WW II.
Roughly, an estimated 4,000 people lie here in peace.

The 5. István Bocskai Marksmen Brigades of the Hungarian Army and the Debrecen Organization of the Army & Society Friends’ Circle (HTBK DSZ) are renowned for their outstanding tradition-bound works to pay tribute to the deceased. Besides, in communion with the above organizations, upon civil initiation a program was started entitled “The resting heritage of the City of Debrecen” that primarily addresses the processing and accessing the data of the Cemetery of Hungarian Soldiers and the Cemetery of Heroes by up-to-date information technology.
Our presentation is aimed at the description of this GIS representation project aimed at the continuous rekindling of the collective remembrance concentrating to the burial places of World War I.

(Access in Hungarian: http://gis.erda.hu/erda/html/projects/temeto_debrecen_hosok/honvedtemeto/)



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. 250.p. “ Jewish settlement in banned cities: Jewish immigration in Debrecen (Hungary) in the periods between 1790-1870”.Metszetek: 2014/1
„Piac, kereskedelem, kapitalizálódás és piactér Debrecenben a 19. században I-II.” (Market and marketplace – forms and spatio-structural reprezentations of capitalism in Debrecen),2012/2-3, 2013/4





Medvedev, Katalin

University of Georgia

The Transformation of Budapest Fashion and Retailing over a Century

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Budapest from its beginnings in Buda around the early 19th century until the early 1950s. It aims to bring to light that even though today Budapest does not register as an important European fashion center, before World War II, its fashion consumption and retail scene were significant. The development of its fashion industry infrastructure and the fact that by the turn of the 20th century it was the fifth most recognized fashion city in Europe after Paris, London, Vienna and Berlin, was a crucial component of Hungary’s modernization process. This paper contends that Budapest’s fashion industry momentum was intended to demonstrate that Budapest was a true equal of Vienna, its co-capital in the Austro-Hungarian Empire that existed from 1867 to 1918. It also argues that Hungarian fashion deliberately followed French fashion to culturally and visually distance itself from Austria’s influence. It discusses how in this effort the Hungarian retail scene began to flourish from the 1910s onward and describes the critical retail institutions in Budapest that were mostly established by the Jewish minority. In closing, it addresses the ideological and economic reasons Budapest’s robust fashion scene disappeared after the Communist takeover of Hungary in 1948.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Katalin Medvedev is an Associate Professor in the Department of Textiles, Merchandising and Interiors at the University of Georgia, USA. Her articles have been published in peer-reviewed journals, such as Women’s Studies Quarterly, Fashion Practice, Dress, International Journal of Fashion Studies, Clothing Cultures, Paideusis-Journal for Interdisciplinary and Cross Cultural Studies, International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology, and Education, as well as in book chapters published by Berg, Fairchild, Pennsylvania University Press, Springer, Purdue University Press and University of Minnesota Press, among others. She is currently co-editing a book on Dress and Empowerment for Bloomsbury.




Miklós, Ágnes Kata

Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Hungary

Magyarization and Early Childhood Care in Late 19th Century Hungary

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The paper aims to highlight the importance of the 1891/XV law about early childhood care (“A kisdedóvásról”) in the Magyarization of the minorities. Although the Law on Nationalities (1868/XLIV) and the Law on Public Education (1868/XXXVIII), both part of broader legislation bound to the Compromise itself, established a wide range of linguistic rights, including primary education in the mother tongue, nationalities politics gradually took a Magyarizing turn, influencing early education.
In the decades following the foundation of the first Hungarian early childhood education center (1828, the “Angel Garden” of Therese Brunswick at Buda) the number of kindergartens increased exponentially. In the early 1890’s there were 757 kindergartens and 11 institutes for kindergarten teachers in Hungary, and their proliferation made it pressing to regulate the rules and requirements of early childhood care and education.
The bill, prepared by Count Albin Csáky (minister of education and religion), became the subject of a long parliamentary debate. The parliamentary representatives of minorities argued that its sole purpose was the early childhood Magyarization of their children. Although the final text didn’t mention it explicitly, the goal the representatives of minorities suspected behind it often manifested itself during its execution. Using the almanachs of the first school for kindergarten teachers established after the passing of the law, the Archiepiscopal Institute for Kindergarten Teachers in Esztergom (1892, Esztergomi Érseki Kisdedóvónő-Képző Intézet), the paper intends to demonstrate how Magyarization became one of the main goals of early childhood care and how it was aligned with broader pedagogical considerations.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Ágnes Kata Miklós is a literary historian and college professor at Pázmány Péter Catholic University (Vitéz János Centre for Teacher Training). After graduating as kindergarten and primary school teacher, she studied Hungarian literature at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. Her PhD theses at ELTE’s “Modern Hungarian Literature Doctoral Programme” was written about generation change in the Transylvanian Hungarian literature in ‘70s.
Currently she’s also a first-year PhD student at the “Education and Society” Doctoral School of Education, University of Pécs, working on a thesis in Sociology of Education, about the connections between early childhood education/care centers and the local society.





Milliman, Zachary (withdrawn)

McGill University

The Opera Erkel Should Have Written: Decolonizing Bánk bán

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Composed in 1861 by Ferenc Erkel, Bánk bán is widely considered the greatest example of nineteenth-century Hungarian national opera. In this syncretic work, Erkel amalgamated Western operatic topoi with indelible national musical elements. Based on the once-banned play by Jozsef Katona, Bánk bán had powerful political implications with its heavy allegorical representation of Hapsburg domination. The fact that Hungary’s position had shifted from colonial subject to duel monarchy in the mid nineteenth century made performance of such politicized content possible. In the early twentieth century, however, its standing as the opera of the people was challenged in the wake of the polemics surrounding Hungarian music in general and Erkel’s music in particular. Ideas of national identity were strengthened and rearticulated during the brief period of interwar independence, and Bánk bán became mired in a position of being an established Hungarian national symbol that was not considered Hungarian enough. In response, dramaturge Kálmán Nádasdy and composer Nándor Rékai drastically revised the work in 1940. Their version usurped the place of the original in the repertoire. With a goal of making Bánk bán the ultimate expression of Magyarság (Hungarianess), they brought opera’s libretto closer to the original play. The revision also undermined the putatively colonial “intrusions” of Western operatic norms, as well as anything antithetical to Magyarság. Bánk bán emerges as an example of what scholar Christopher Balme has identified as the triadic progression from imperialism to colonization and ultimately to decolonization, highlighting what was a troublesome search for an autochthonous artistic voice.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Musicologist Zachary Milliman was first trained as an opera singer, attaining a Bachelors of Music and a Master of Music from Brigham Young University and the University of Utah respectively. His research has been featured in several conferences, including one he created called Opera Periphereia, and has been published in the Journal of IAWM. From 2013-2015, Zachary taught at the Univeristy of Alaska, Anchorage, and in 2015 he co-founded the non-profit firm The Composer Discovery Initiative. That same year he was awarded a Fulbright Research Fellowship to the Hungarian Musicological Institute in Budapest. Zachary is currently working toward a PhD in historical musicology at McGill University.




Nagy, Éva

Ministry of Education, Bucharest

Tanügy és Egyház - magyar anyanyelvű oktatás az 5oo éves Reformáció tükrében, Romániában

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
”Erős várunk a nyelv”, vallja Kosztolányi Dezső híres költőnk, a református zsoltár szerint: ”Erős várunk nékünk az Isten”. Ezekkel a sokatmondó gondolatokkal köszöntöm a 2o17-es AHEA-konferencián részt vevő meghívottakat, tanárokat, diákokat és minden tisztelt érdeklődőt azon események iránt, amelyeken különös hangsúlyt fektetünk a magyar nyelv, kultúra, oktatás, történelem stb. megőrzésére, ápolására, és továbbvitelére nemzedékről-nemzedékre.
Előadásomban szó lesz a romániai magyar anyanyelvű oktatásról és a több mint 2oo évvel ezelőtt megalakult bukaresti református egyházról és magyar nyelvű oktatásról, annak sikereiről és nehézségeiről, fontosabb történelmi pillanatokról, kiemelkedő személyiségekről, pedagógusokról és diákokról, valamint más sajűtosságokról.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Dr. Nagy Éva 2o1o-től Államtitkári Kabinetigazgató a bukaresti Tanügyminisztériumban. Tizenhárom évig a Román Rádió illetve a Román Televízió bukaresti Magyar Adásainak szerkesztő-bemondója volt, öt évig sajtó-referens a bukaresti Magyar Nagykövetség Kereskedelmi Kirendeltségének-ITD-H Irodájában. Két évig Parlamenti Kapcsolatokért felelős igazgató volt a bukaresti Tanügyminisztériumban és több éven át magyar szakos tanár külső munkatársként, a bukaresti Ady Endre Líceumban, valamint a Bukaresti Tudományegyetemen, ahol doktori címet is szerzett nyelvészet/média-kommunikációból 2oo8-ban.
E-mail: evanagy_nagyeva@yahoo.com






Nagy, Ildikó

New York Hungarian House

Hungarian Freedom Fighters in America -- An Oral History

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):

On the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the 1956 uprising and freedom fight the Hungarian House of New York organized an oral history research that was followed by an exhibit depicting the stories of the freedom fighters and immigrants, displaying their personal artifacts and portraits from 1956. Our goal was to contribute in this way to deepening awareness the stories of Hungarians living as immigrants. The 1956 uprising and freedom fight is a pivotal point not only in the history of Hungary but in the history of American-Hungarian immigration as well. Of the 200,000 people who left Hungary then, 60,000 found a new home in North America. 1956 remains ever a keystone of respect accorded Hungary on the international plane. During the time of the Hungarian uprising the public in the West observed with helpless amazement as the people in a country behind the Iron Curtain rose up against the far stronger Soviet super power, putting their lives, their families and their livelihoods at risk in a heroic, tragic, according to the prevailing political logic irrational, struggle for freedom. Fighting for the same ideal which in the West is "the most abstract, but at the same time, the most indispensable" (Csaba Békés). The West received the refugees coming from Hungary with open arms. And in turn, the refugees became rapidly and successfully integrated into American society while, at the same time, they played and continue to play an active role in creating institutions, which preserve the social life of their local American-Hungarian communities.

This presentation describes how this project was accomplished and analyzes the results, comparing the lives and perspectives of Hungarians from the New York area who participated.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Ildikó Nagy has a degree in sociology from ELTE. She is curretly the managing director of the New York Hungarian House.




Niessen, James P.

Rutgers University

Heritage and Repatriation in the History of Habsburg and Hungarian Archives

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
How long has Hungary had a national archives? It’s a trick question: the Hungarian National Archives (Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár) was created only in 2012 with the integration of the central repository of the country (Magyar Országos Levéltár) and the county archives. The Országos Levéltár arose by stages beginning in 1723 as the repository of the state offices of the country. Formal definition of “the country” became more complicated after 1918, but Hungary’s archives fared better than those of Austria in the sense that Hungary retained possession of major bodies of public records for regions that were now part of neighboring countries—whereas many of the records in Vienna were “repatriated” to Austria’s successor states. The aspiration to create an archives “of the nation” arose well before 2012. Today’s nation is cultural and sociological more than administrative, and the archives increasingly shared the ambition of the National Library to document Hungarians everywhere. Repositories in Hungary have accepted donations by Hungarians in the diaspora for decades, but especially since the establishment of the Mikes Kelemen Program in 2014 for the shipment to Hungary. My paper will examine the results of the program and the disadvantages of separating the national heritage of diaspora populations from that of their host countries.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
James P. Niessen earned his Ph.D at Indiana University with a dissertation on religion and politics in Transylvania during the 1860s. He has published various studies on Hungarian religious history, libraries and archives, and most recently on refugees from the Revolution of 1956. He is World History Librarian at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, external public member of the Hungarian Academy, and currently serving his second term as President of AHEA.




Nyirady, Kenneth

Library of Congress

Yet Another North American Editor Opposes Kossuth: James Watson Webb

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
In my previous AHEA papers I discussed the opposition of two editors to Kossuth and the Hungarian War of Independence 1848-49: Francis Bowen, editor of the North American Review, and Orestes Brownson, editor of Brownson’s Quarterly Review. The third member of the trio of editorial opponents was James Watson Webb, of the New York Courier and Enquirer (Q&E). The Q&E was a commercial paper, which Webb had edited since the late 1820s. Although Q&E mostly consisted of advertisements and business news, a considerable space was devoted to foreign news by the 1840s.

Webb was appointed by President Zachary Taylor to be Charge d’Affaires to Vienna in 1849. (He believed his early support of Taylor earned him a diplomatic post and was disappointed to be appointed to what was considered a minor post). However, Webb neglected to wait for confirmation by the Senate, and took up residence in Vienna. When the Senate rejected his appointment by a 34-7 vote, an embittered Webb was obliged to return to the United States. The public reason given was that the Senate intended to keep the post vacant as a “punishment” for Austria’s brutal suppression of the Hungarian rebels after their defeat in August 1849. A secondary (or perhaps primary) reason was that Webb, an outspoken, pugnacious character, had many political enemies. Upon Webb’s return, the Courier’s coverage of Hungary and Kossuth turned negative. Although he was one of the invited speakers at New York City’s Municipal Dinner for Kossuth in December 1851, the crowd shouted down the unpopular Webb both times as he attempted to give his speech. Webb’s opposition lasted throughout Kossuth’s time in the United States, and when Kossuth returned to Europe in July 1852, Webb claimed to find incriminating documents that Kossuth left behind.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Kenneth Nyirady is Reference Specialist for Hungary in the European Division, Library of Congress, a position he has held since 1990. From 1983 to 1990 he was a research analyst in the Library's Federal Research Division. He received an M.A. in history from the State University of New York at Binghamton (now Binghamton University) in 1976, and an M. Phil. in Uralic Studies from Columbia University in 1979.




Olson, Judith E.

American Hungarian Folklore Centrum, NJ

Dancer or Musician: Contrasting Relationships to Improvisation, Rural and Urban

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The process of transferring Hungarian music and dance from a rural setting to a new social context, that of the urban táncház or dance party (from 1972 to the present), has resulted in a new code of improvisation, different from that of the village people it is meant to closely emulate. In addition, while both táncház dancers and musicians hone close to their rural models, the differing social roles and responsibilities of dancers and musicians in the village suggest to táncház participants improvisational approaches that are similar, but freer in contrasting ways from their models.
Táncház dancers have imposed on themselves the directive to learn the improvisational rules of their village models and follow them, but also to not do anything they have not seen a village person do, whether live or on film, in the belief that only a person raised in a culture can authentically create new dance figures. Musical improvisation, while coming from the same impulse, stems from a difference in focus and source—musicians tend to be Roma/Gypsy, in the position of providing service music. They must structure the dance, play at the proper tempo with the right intensity, and give appropriate musical cues, but beyond this, both rural and táncház musicians tend to have more freedom in what they play.
This discussion will use recorded examples to illustrate, discuss, and contrast improvisational techniques for dancers and musicians, both in the village and in a táncház context.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Judith E. Olson (M.Phil, NYU, M.M. University of Colorado) is an 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 combines research in traditional settings, in Hungarian dance camps, and within revival groups with analysis and discussion of dance structure, process, and improvisation. 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 organizes táncház (dance parties) in New York City under the auspices of the American Hungarian Folklore Centrum. A secondary research area is 19th century German music and musical culture.




Orban, Clara

DePaul University, Chicago

Identity in Fateless and Son of Saul

Type of Abstract (select):

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.




Pack, Martha (Marty)

Northeastern Illinois University

Catholicism / Orthodoxy and Domestic Violence in Eastern European States

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Eastern Europe’s religious historical perseverance has come into conflict with the changing role of women. Influence from the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Catholic Church have direct and indirect political influence in Eastern Europe. Strong influences still exist for the subjugation of women into family roles and fierce pressure from women’s organizations has caused a backlash from the political apparatus. This backlash exacerbates the inequality of women. I will do an in depth comparison of Hungary and other emerging democracies through the lens of international human rights norms. How will a country hold onto its identity while adapting to ever changing societal demands?

This paper will be a comparative study on domestic violence in Eastern European countries and their adherence to stated UN norms. I will look at the issue of gender identity, with an emphasis on religious influence towards societal behavior. This paper compares the compliance of Hungary with newer Eastern European states through the lens of domestic violence.




Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Martha (Marty) Pack is a Political Science graduate student at Northeastern Illinois University located in Chicago, IL. She graduated Suma Cum Laude with her bachelor’s in Communication/Production from NEIU in 2010. The majority of her undergrad was spent as a Women’ Studies major. Balancing her family and school life, she finished her program through a self directed degree, which led to human rights documentary film making. She would like to pursue her PhD researching women’s issues in Eastern Europe.




Pál, Judit

Babes-Bolyai University

1867: Compromise – Coronation – Union

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
With Compromise from 1867, Transylvania’s more than three century-long separate status and development came to an end. The union of Transylvania with Hungary was concomitantly the precondition for the Compromise and its direct consequence. Also as a consequence of the Compromise Franz Joseph was crowned in Pest-Buda as King of Hungary. “The Compromise and Coronation completed a shift in Hungarian loyalty, after which Franz Joseph and Elisabeth were commonly referred to in Hungary as ‘King’ and ‘Queen’” – as Alice Freifeld emphasized – and the alliance between the dynasty and the Hungarian political elite had been reinvigorated. The new concept of the state was visualised by the coronation ceremonies.
The presentation will mainly focus on the ceremonies associated with the coronation hill. All the counties and cities were asked to send earth for the coronation hill from “historically important” places. The hill was intended to symbolize the unity and extent of the state, and it was supposed to summarize the whole of Hungarian history. It also had to legitimize the new situation created by the Compromise. The coronation was a splendid opportunity for the application of a whole range of political symbols, on the other hand it increased the aversion and nationalist feelings of the marginalized nationalities (in Transylvania the Romanians and Saxons).


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Judit Pál, PhD, is a Historian, professor at Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj (Romania), Faculty of History and Philosophy. She specializes in the history of 18th and 19th century Transylvania, in urban history, social history (elite history), and in the history of Armenians.
Author and editor of several volumes. Some recent volumes: András Vári, Judit Pál, Stefan Brakensiek, Herrschaft an der Gränze. Mikrogeschichte der Macht im östlichen Ungarn im 18. Jahrhundert. Köln – Weimar – Wien, Böhlau, 2014. (Adelswelten, 2.); Pál Judit, Vlad Popovici (eds.), Elites and Politics in Central and Eastern Europe (1848−1918). Frankfurt am Main etc., Peter Lang, 2014; Judit Pál, A Habsburg Monarchia története, 1526−1848 (The History of the Habsburg Monarhchy). Kolozsvár, Mega, 2014.




Papp, Klára; Walter, Kristina

Case Western Reserve University; Shaker Heights High School

Content Analysis of Hungarian Folktales

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The purpose of this study is to analyze the contents of Hungarian folktales compiled in a popular book by Illyés Gyula, titled "Hetvenhét Magyar Népmese" Móra Könyvkiadó, 2015. Our purpose is to identify the themes addressed in the 77 folktales selected for inclusion in this book. The thematic analysis was guided by previous research on folktales seeking to identify patterns of altruism, qualities of character, themes of morality, emphasis on mate preferences, and differing emphases on male and female physical attractiveness. The analysis consisted of several steps, namely, choosing the collections of folktales, developing the coding form, coding the folktales, analyzing the results, assessing reliability, and providing illustrative examples. A coding form was developed to identify and qualify the characters of the folktales. The paper provides an overview of the scope of the themes in popular Hungarian folktales and considers whether these themes are relevant today in helping children develop their moral compass and whether these themes may still be viewed as important in today’s culture and merit retelling.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Dr. Klara Papp is professor and director of Student Assessment and Program Evaluation in the School of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University. Her areas of expertise include program evaluation, learner assessment, and educational research and scholarship. Dr. Papp, brings a national research perspective and programmatic experience to the importance of outcomes-based education. She earned her Ph.D. in educational psychology from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Kristina Walter teaches Art at Shaker Heights High School and leads the Hungarian Summer School in Sik Sandor Cserkeszpark, in Fillmore, NY.




Papp, Susan M.

University of Toronto

The Politics of Retribution Through the Lens of Igazoló Bizottságok [Certification Committees] in the World of Stage and Screen in Hungary, 1945-1947

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
This presentation will examine what happened after 1945 within the world of stage and screen in Hungary. Who was left alive? How did individual actors/actresses situate themselves? How did the politics of retribution unfold in the reorganization of the field of theatre and film in Hungary? Who never worked again? What happened to the film community when Communism became firmly entrenched in Hungary?
This chapter will examine the inner workings of one such certification committee, the Magyar Szinészek Szabad Szakszervezete Igazoló Bizottság (Hungarian Actors Free Union Certification Committee), the union that was established to examine the details of the activities of actors, actresses and technical workers in the theatre and film world and to determine whether they would be certified to work again. For actors and actresses, to obtain certification was a matter of primary importance. This paper will examine the inner workings of the certification committee through the historical lens of the post war era and the methodology and decisions of the examiners. It will also look at the language utilized in their interviews, and why certain individuals were certified quickly and with very little administrative process, while others received several months or years or lifetime ban from acting in film and/or stage again.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Susan M. Papp, Director/Producer, earned a Master of Arts in North American Social History at York University in Toronto in 1985. She began her career in journalism at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Radio Drama department in 1981 as a historical researcher. In 1988, Ms. Papp became a current affairs producer in the regional news department at the CBC. Susan Papp developed a profile and reputation as an on-camera current affairs reporter specializing in social issues for CBC TV. In 1991, she was chosen to work as field producer for The Journal, and its subsequent retitled version Prime Time News. While at the CBC, she was awarded two of the top journalism awards in Canada: The Michener Award and the Best Investigative Award by the Canadian Journalists Association.

In 1993, while on leave of absence from the BBC, Ms. Papp founded her own television production company, Postmodern Productions, and has since produced documentaries for CBC, BRAVO, WTN, Discovery Channel and OMNI Television. She has published extensively in the field of Hungarian immigration and settlement in North America. Presently, Ms. Papp teaches Hungarian Studies at the Munk School for Global Affairs at the University of Toronto.




Pastor, Peter (withdrawn)

Montclair State University

The Hungarian Home Front during the Great War

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
On June 28, 1914, Gavrilo Princip assassinated the Austro-Hungarian heir to the throne Francis Ferdinand and his wife, Sophia while they were on a ceremonial visit to the Bosnian Capital Sarajevo. The nineteen year old Bosnian Serb youth was a member of a group of conspirators whose weapons were supplied by officials of the Serb state who were also members of the nationalist Black Hand (otherwise called Union or Death) organization. A month later Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, but within days the local war developed into a World War due to the bipolar nature of the alliance. Though the belligerents expected the war to end by winter, it lasted for four years. The conflict evolved into total war with the successful mobilization of the home front was crucial for sustaining the fighting at the war front. The history of the Hungarian war front indicates that although prewar problems came into sharper focus, the home front was able to hold; it collapsed into revolution only following military defeat at the war front.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Peter Pastor is Professor Emeritus of History at Montclair State University, New Jersey. His special interest is the history of diplomatic and military relations between Hungary and Russia/USSR. He is the author of numerous articles, a monograph, and editor or coeditor of several books, including the 2012 publication, Essays on World War I (with Graydon A. Tunstall).




Petrás, Éva

Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security

Romantic Elements of Hungarian Nationalism and Their Transformations in the Compromise Era

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Nationalism as a coherent idea emerged at the beginning of the 19th century under the inspiration of romantic worldview in Hungary. However, numerous concepts and elements, which romantic nationalism developed, survived the founding period of the so-called “reform era” and occurred later at crucial moments of national history. From time to time they served as a mobilizing force and symbols of national unity, but sometimes they changed their face and became bases of political, cultural or social exclusions.
In my contribution I’d like to present and follow the history of some of the substantive romantic ideas of Hungarian nationalism as they were used and instrumentalized in the Compromise era with an outlook to their later use. Romantic worldview influenced most of the Hungarian national symbols and cults, but its influence has also been significant in the history of Hungarian national identity. The evolving political romanticism of the late 19th century used the elements of the national past to visualize a triumphant national future, developed the contradictory concepts of state and cultural nationalisms, presented the cult of the Hungarian national mythology in an era of economic and social change. As a consequence, the originally liberal nationalism was channelled to the neo-conservative political ideas by the end of the Compromise era.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Éva Petrás made extensive researches in the field of 20th century church history in Hungary. She obtained her PhD at European University Institute, Florence (Italy), dealt with the intellectual and social history of the Hungarian Catholic church between the two world wars. Since January 2009 she is a researcher in the Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security, Budapest, and conducts researche in the history of the Catholic Church after World War II.

Dr. Petrás also spent three years of research in a scientific research institute in Budapest, which hosted researches in the field of comparative history of ethnic and national minorities. She dealt with the problem area of Hungarian national consciousness and with the comparative analysis of Hungarian and Slovakian national concepts, controversies of national pasts. Since then, she is also a dedicated researcher of Central European nationality questions.





Rosen, Ilana

Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel

Jews and Hungarians in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Hungarian Proverb Collections

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Proverbs are concise formulations of folk wisdom and views, and as such, when seen in masses, they may well express the spirit of their time and place. In Hungarian proverbial lore Jews figure prominently in the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century collections but fade out of such collections as of the mid twentieth century. While still present in Hungarian proverb collections, Jews are invariably portrayed in them as dishonest, greedy, physically weak and unattractive. Largely, this portrayal as well as the dynamics of presence versus disappearance matches the shared history of Hungarians and Hungarian Jews since the 1867 Emancipation of the country's Jews, through their growing integration in significant arenas of their host society, up to their persecution and annihilation in the Holocaust, and later their decade long forced merging into the general Hungarian society by communism. This presentation traces the occurrence and disappearance of Jews in Hungarian proverb collections as well as analyzes the content and messages of proverbs about Jews in the collections. Finally, by way of presenting a possible counter corpus, it examines the Hungarian-Jewish sense of belonging to Hungarian society based on a few much humbler proverb corpora of former Hungarian Jews.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Ilana Rosen is a Professor of Hebrew Literature at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Beer Sheva, Israel. She studies the folk and documentary literature of Diaspora Jews and of Israelis in the twentieth century and has devoted to these topics five books and over forty articles. Her last study, Pioneers in Practice, about the documentary literature of veteran residents of the Israeli south, was published in 2016. As of 2013, she is the Book Review Editor of Hungarian Cultural Studies, the AHEA E-Journal published by the University of Pittsburgh.




Szenczi, Eszter

Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest

Who Are We? Hungarian and Canadian Identifications in the Modern Era

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
1867. A year which had a considerable significance and life-changing consequences on the formation of national identity both for Canadians and Hungarians, too. The Canadian Confederation and the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of the same year were turning points in Canada’s and Hungary’s respective histories and generated unique social, cultural, political, and economic destinies for their populations. They went on a long journey that created a nationally and culturally specific self-definition, which determined who they are today. Since then, Hungarians and Canadians continue to create spaces to exert their own particular agencies.
In my paper, I intend to provide a contrastive analysis of the long-lasting repercussions of these two transformative events on the evolution of the Hungarians and Canadians’ national collective identities. They all have a sense of who they are in relation to their larger communities, and based on race, ethnicity, religion, language, and culture, they distinguish themselves from other groups. By comparing the major Canadian and Hungarian historical and political developments since 1867, I seek to detect some similarities and differences between their identification processes in the modern era. In doing so, my ambition is to raise awareness, challenge and deconstruct some petrified stereotypes that define and box in the perception of nations.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
In 2006, she graduated as a teacher of English and French. Two years later, she received her MA degree in Canadian Studies. She was awarded a research grant in Toronto in 2008 and after that she engaged in teaching for seven years. She started her PhD studies in 2009 and since then she has published articles on Canadian Indigenous Literature, has taught preparatory courses, and has been attending international conferences. In 2012, she participated in the Thinking Canada Study Tour and did internships in Ottawa. She has done research in Brno, Bolzano, and Ottawa and is currently completing her doctoral studies.




Szentkirályi, Endre

Nordonia Hills City Schools

Identity in the Modern Era: Cleveland State University's Online Beginning Hungarian Course

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Sovereignty, compromise, and the making of modern Hungary is a concept that can be applied not only to modern Hungary, but also to émigré Hungarian communities in the diaspora, as well as to individuals trying to learn the Hungarian language independently, for the construction of identity always involves some compromise with language barriers and with assimilation. The Hungary Initiatives Foundation is a program funded by the current Hungarian government and is one of several programs designed to strengthen the identity of Hungarian communities abroad; one beneficiary of a recent HIF grant was Cleveland State University, which has seen a rebirth of its Hungarian program. Tracing the development of its fully online course for beginners, the course pedagogy and methods are detailed, as well as its use of short teaching films using everyday interactive Hungarian language filmed at locations throughout Cleveland’s Hungarian community, including on campus and at Hungarian businesses such as bakeries, a butcher, churches, and a restaurant. With students from California to Nova Scotia and everywhere in between, the course offers an easy introduction to the Hungarian language for the learner starting from scratch, and is fully accessible online from across the globe. Yet despite its ease of use, it is also an appropriate first step or a useful review for those wishing to gain an advanced understanding and knowledge of the Hungarian language.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Endre Szentkiralyi studied English and German at Cleveland State University, earned an MA in English at the University of Akron, and earned a PhD at the University of Debrecen. He has edited several books of oral histories, and worked on the 56Films documentaries Inkubátor and Megmaradni. His books include Cold War to Warm Cooperation: the Military Service of Cleveland Hungarians 1950-2014 (Zrínyi Publishing) and he has a manuscript forthcoming with Helena History Press. He currently teaches English and German at Nordonia High School near Cleveland, Ohio.




Szpura, Beata

Queensborough Community College

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy – Innovator of the Avant Garde; His Artistic Journey Towards the Light

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Laslo Moholy- Nagy (1895-1946) was a major creative force among the 20th century artistic avant garde- first in Europe and later in the USA. He is famous for constant experimenting with new media-using photomontages, photograms, collages, oil painting, film and shadow- casting kinetic sculpture. First exposed to modernism in Berlin, he was influenced by Dada, Surrealism, Cubism and especially Russian Constructivism. The paper explores light as a crucial element in his oeuvre. It is mainly based on the recent retrospective exhibition that took place at the Guggenheim Musuem in New York City. Moholy Nagy's fascination with light and its spacial effects shows his two and three-dimensional work crated throughout his life, whether it is in the imaginative, geometric transparencies of his paintings and designs, or in the reflective, shadow- casting surfaces of his plexiglass and alumnium sculptures. Especially in the last phase of his life, the artist’s creative exploration seems to be at its boldest phase. He works with thick plexiglass which he heats in the oven and bends into exuberant, flowing forms. Exposed to the rays of his beloved light, they cast complex shadows and become almost animated entities. This work is a precursor to contemporary artists like Donald Judd, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Christian Boltanski, Pipilotti Rist.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Beata Szpura is a fine artist, illustrator and an art educator.
Her editorial illustrations appeared in New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, New Yorker and other national publications. She has also illustrated several book covers for Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Beata teaches painting and color theory at Parsons the New School for Design in Manhattan and painting and drawing at Queensborough Community College. She has been exhibiting her oil paintings, collages and watercolors in New York and in Europe. She is a member of College Art Association and an elected board member of the Allied Artists of America. She lives in Woodside, NY.
website: bszpura.com





Szűcs, Melinda

ELTE Origó Nyelvi Centrum

Magyar nyelv mint idegen nyelvvizsga

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Az ELTE Idegennyelvi Továbbképző Központ Kft. (ITK) 2012. április 12-én kezdte meg működését a több mint negyvenéves múltra visszatekintő ELTE Idegennyelvi Továbbképző Központ tevékenységi jogutódjaként.
Az ITK több évtizedes múltra visszatekintő kétnyelvű magyar vizsgarendszere mellett kidolgozta a jelenleg négyszintű, egynyelvű Origó vizsgarendszert, mely 2000. január 1-jén felváltotta a korábbi kétnyelvű magyar vizsgát. Az Origó vizsgarendszer jelenleg az alábbi szintekre van kidolgozva: belépő szint (A2), alapfok (B1), középfok (B2), felsőfok (C1).
2016 januárjától a korábban önálló egyetemi intézetként működő szervezet új vállalkozási piaci alapra helyezve folytatta tevékenységét ELTE Origó Nyelvi Centrum Kft. (ONYC) néven, változatlan tevékenységi körrel.
Az ONYC nyelvvizsgáztatással és idegennyelv-oktatással foglalkozik. Vizsgahely-hálózatában Magyarországon több mint 60 akkreditált helyen szerezhető Origó típusú nyelvvizsga-bizonyítvány. Egyedülálló módon az év mind a 12 hónapjában, több mint 30 nyelven kínál vizsgalehetőséget.

Az Origó magyar mint idegen nyelvvizsga a négy nyelvi alapkészség tudásszintjét méri. A szóbeli vizsgán a beszédkészséget és a beszédértés készségét értékeljük, az írásbeli vizsgán pedig az íráskészséget és az olvasott szöveg értésének készségét. Az egyes feladatok megoldása során közvetítő nyelvet nem használunk, a közvetítő készséget nem mérjük. A szóbeli és az írásbeli vizsga külön is letehető. A kettő együttes letétele esetén egy összesített vizsgaeredményt kap a vizsgázó. A megfelelési minimum 60 % részvizsgánként.
Intézetünk emellett a 10-14 éves korosztály számára Junior nyelvvizsgát dolgozott ki angol, német és magyar nyelvből, amely A2 szintű nyelvtudást mér.
A magyar mint idegen nyelvi vizsga Magyarországon kívül Kanadában, Oroszországban és Romániában is letehető.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Történelem-, német nyelv és irodalomszakos középiskolai tanár. 1989 óta az ELTE Idegennyelvi Továbbképző Központ nyelvtanár-fővizsgáztatója, 2005 óta a német szakcsoport vezetője, 2015 óta az ELTE Origó Nyelvi Centrum vizsgafejlesztési és vizsgaszervezési igazgatóhelyettese. Több tankönyv szerzője és társszerzője, a Nyelvvizsgáztatási Akkreditációs Központ szakértője, az Európai Nyelvtudásmérők Szövetségének (ALTE) tagja.




Vasvári, Louise O.

Stony Brook University & New York University

Béla Zsolt, the Last Chronicler of the Hungarian-Jewish Assimilated Bourgeoisie

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
Zsolt Béla, a leftist journalist and one of the most prolific writers of the interwar period, was as a typical coffeehouse figure (polgári kavéházi író), who today is known primarily for his Kilenc Koffer (1946), one of the very earliest memoirs of the Hungarian Holocaust. In this paper I focus rather on his literary works written between the mid-twenties and thirties, with particular emphasis on his only novella collection, Polgári házasság (1935), in the context of the sociocultural and political discourse in interwar Hungary. This collection, which has received no critical attention to date, illustrates all the themes that preoccupied Zsolt throughout his oeuvre, principally his pessimistic and merciless inside criticism of the empoverished Jewish petit bourgeoisie of Erzsébetváros as well as of the ridiculous pretensions of the upwardly mobile Jews who attempt to mimic the mores of a hostile semi-feudal gentile society. Ultimately, Zsolt’s work is centered in the tragic irony of the ideological illusions of assimilation, for which he foresaw a tragic outcome, as few others were able (or willing) to see.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Louise O. Vasvári is Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature and of Linguistics at Stony Brook University. Currently she teaches in the linguistics department at NYU and is also Affiliated Professor at the University of Szeged. She works in medieval studies, diachronic and socio-linguistics, 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).




Velki, Magdolna

Atelier Hongrois au Canada

Teaching Decoding in Hungarian Foreign Language Textbooks (Semiotic approach)

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
In our experience, there is very little to no attention paid to teaching decoding in Hungarian as a Foreign Language (MID) textbooks written for adults.
In this study, the objective was to show the importance of teaching decoding when learning Hungarian language as a foreign language and the layers of the language (word structure, the relation between words and their meanings in a sentence), which recognition greatly facilitates communication and comprehension if it is taught from the initial stages of language learning.
Following a short overview of the theory behind decoding, we attempt to characterise four MID textbooks (two written in Hungary and two in foreign language environment) considered successful in teaching decoding of the Hungarian language using quantitative and qualitative semiotic analyses. Representative examples from these textbooks will be used to illustrate these characteristics.
Using the characteristics found in the textbooks examined, we want to draw the attention of future textbook-writers on the importance of language decoding according to the students’ proficiency level and provide the authors with templates that could be used in upcoming textbooks.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Teacher of Hungarian and Russian languages, graduated at the Faculty of Arts and Letters, of Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary (ELTE). She prepared and defended her Ph.D. thesis in Russian literature, at ELTE, as well. Since 2000, as independent scholar, she conducts research on the possibilities of Hungarian language teaching in foreign language environment. She publishes her results; regularly lectures and conducts workshops in Canada, Hungary and USA. Ancillary teaching booklets, elaborated by her, are used, among others, in the Hungarian language programs at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs.bShe brought to Canada the "Hungarian as second language" exams, which are officially recognized by Hungarian State authorities. Dr. Velki is a professional language exam interrogator, accredited by the Centre for Advanced Language Learning (ITK) of the Eötvös Loránd University, in Canada.




Vermeki, Boglárka

University of Pécs

“Teacher, Hungarian is not that hard.” – Teaching Hungarian to Migrant Children in Hungary

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
When we talk about teaching Hungarian as a foreign language in Hungary the target learners are young adults, usually university students. Since 2012, when the civil war broke out in Syria, more and more migrant children have gotten into the school system and the demand for teaching Hungarian as a foreign language in primary and secondary schools have been growing.

Hungary as a Member State of the European Union ought to observe the international rules of immigration. Foreign students are to be assured the same opportunities as the Hungarian students have. They have to be given Hungarian as a foreign language lessons to make them able to learn more and integrate. They ought to have the opportunity to use or study about their mother tongue and their culture at the same time they have to learn about the Hungarian culture, history, art history, public life and present. But are we ready for this?

In my presentation, I would like to talk about not only the current state of Hungarian teaching, the necessary developments and changes in the educational system, what challenges teachers ought to face with and opportunities they have to improve their teaching methodology, but also describe what happens to children with no Hungarian knowledge when accepted to a school. From the first day until they claim “teacher, Hungarian is not that hard”.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
After graduation as a teacher of Hungarian language and literature, Hungarian as a foreign language and History in 2009 I continued my studies and became an English teacher in 2013 at the same university, at Károli Gáspár University of the Reform Church. Currently, I am taking my PhD studies in Applied Linguistics at the University of Pécs, and have taught Hungarian, English and History mostly for foreigners at an international school for five years.