Accepted Abstracts

The Calvinist Women Education in Baranya County between the Two World Wars (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The Calvinist community in Baranya was formed in the sixteenth century, during the Ottoman occupation of the area and has survived to today. Although Pécs is the centre of a Catholic Bishopery, it is also an important Calvinist center (8100 belivers), which includes an elementary and high school, as well as two churches. The number of the Calvinist today in Baranya is about twenty five thousand believers. The presentation gives an overview on ideas and methods, femal education in the high school for female pupils of the Felsőbaranyai Református Egyházmegye. This paper is part of a project titled „Protestant women’s education in the Horthy era”. The aim of this paper is presenting the importance of female education in the education policy of the Dunamelléki Református Egyházkerület until 1948. The main finding of the study is that the schools established for women mirror the Christian conservative approach, represented by the leaders's view of the church regarding the social roles of women. The research concentrates on the written primal sources of the archive of the Felsőbaranyai Református Egyházmegye.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Marianna Ács PhD is an assistant professor of the University of Pécs (UP), Faculty of Humanities. She was born in Székesfehérvár (Hungary). Studied at the UP, Hungarian and Italian Language and Literature. She got PhD degree at the same university in the Education and Society Doctorate School in 2016. Her PhD thesis was about the history of religious women education concerning a highschool was run in Siklós and Pécs between 1916-1948.

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The Shabrak and the Mounted Warrior (Accepted)

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
My presentation at the 2019 AHEA conference (Csorba, M.: ‘Haute Couture in Ornamented Fur, Skin and Felt in Iron Age Burials’) surveyed the cache of organic material recovered from five frozen tombs (K I – V) dating from the fourth to the third century BCE at Pazyryk, in the Altai region of Southern Siberia. In this paper, I highlight specific commodities and motifs preserved in Pazyryk burials to demonstrate the kaleidoscopic but still selective nature of cross-cultural exchange with coeval neighbors extending beyond the Siberian grasslands into dynastic China and Achaemenid Persia. A prime example, highlighted by American scholar Karen Rubinson, is evidenced by an equestrian commodity -- the shabrak or saddle blanket—preserved in K5 in multiple versions with differing ornamentation and in materials of nomadic felt and exotic oriental silk. Further, the later appearance of the shabrak with its fleece construction on the Magyar puszta illustrates the tenacity of an element immanent to the csikósi lifestyle, while its subsequent spread among cavalry across Europe is arguably a more current case of cross-cultural pollination. Lastly, I use the insightful analysis of John Haskins, together with the authoritative parsing of the Ős legend of St. Ladislav by Helmut Nickel to link a narrative scene involving a mounted warrior represented on a felt wall hanging in K5 with an enigmatic scene on an ancient gold plaque in Peter the Great’s Siberian collection, elements of which later surface in the medieval folk ballad of Ana Molnár.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Art Historian Mrea Csorba received all three of her academic degrees from the University of Pittsburgh. She has been teaching courses in art history at the University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University as an adjunct faculty member since the early 90’s. Her MA thesis (1987) investigated horse-reliant cultures associated with Scythian steppe culture. For her Ph.D. (1997) she expanded research of pastoral groups to non-Chinese dynastic populations documented in Northern China. Part of this research was published in the British prehistory journal ANTIQUITY (70, 1996, 564—587). Her research may be viewed at http://edtech.msl.duq.edu/Mediasite/Play/2ea00c36fc2b4050ba46072efc0b80111d and at http://www.duq.edu/academics/schools/liberal-arts/centers/interpretive-and-qualitative-research/video

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Sándor Márai: Looking Back from Cultural Crossroads (Accepted)

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
In his prime in interwar Hungary, Sándor Márai became widely regarded as the chronicler of the dying European bourgeoisie, and in particular, its Hungarian subspecies. Most of his novels were set in Hungary, and any outward focus served to illuminate Hungarian cultural concerns. After his emigration in 1948, the settings of his novels ranged widely: Homeric Greece, postwar Naples, pre-Imperial Rome, Rome at the turn of the 16th to 17th centuries, biblical Israel – and, astonishingly, the semi-arid northeastern hinterland of 19th-century Brazil. Focusing on his Judgement in Canudos, we consider how Márai uses this cultural and geographical setting so alien to his own experience. Is it mere cultural appropriation, to use a currently trending term? Or is it something else? Márai uses the Brazilian War of Canudos – incidentally, also the setting of Mario Vargas Llosa’s The War of the End of the World, written a decade after Márai’s work – in fact to examine the surprising power of an irrational ideology over even the well-educated bourgeoisie. Its application to modern Hungarian history becomes clear. Márai uses an alien culture in order to illuminate his own homeland’s contemporary woes, and Europe’s. Similar concerns lie behind Peace in Ithaca: an exile’s fear of returning home; San Gennaro’s Blood: an exile’s guilt at not being able to save his homeland; Something Happened in Rome: how people position themselves in a sudden regime change; and The Enforcer: how personal resistance to a totalitarian ideology can take shape.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Peter Czipott (B.A. 1975, physics, University of California, San Diego; Ph.D. 1983, physics, UCSD) has had four decades’ experience in R&D and management of projects, personnel and intellectual property. He has contributed in areas ranging from oceanography of the Arctic Ocean to development of sensors for detection of threats and contraband, medical diagnostics, and nondestructive evaluation. He holds 12 patents and is co-author of over 40 technical publications. He is a literary translator with three book-length publications and two more seeking a publisher, plus over thirty shorter translations and scholarly articles. He is a 2010 Balassi Memorial Medallion laureate.

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Várkonyi Nándor irodalom- és kulturtörténész szellemisége és Pécs (Accepted)

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
Kutatásomban Várkonyi Nándor (1896-1975) életútját és munkásságát vizsgáltam, különös tekintettel Péccsel való kapcsolatára. Várkonyi 1924-től haláláig élt és alkotott a városban. Ez idő alatt az Egyetemi Könyvtárban dolgozott főállásban nyugdíjba vonulásáig (1956), emellett egy évtizeden át óraadóként tevékenykedett az Erzsébet Tudományegyetemen (1935-45), alapító tagja volt a Janus Pannonius Irodalmi Társaságnak (1931-1945; a társaság 1945-48 között Batsányi nevét vette fel), és szerkesztette az egyesület folyóiratát (Sorsunk, 1941-48).
Élete során szerteágazó kapcsolati rendszert tudott kiépíteni, tanítványai, barátai közé olyan jeles személyeket sorolhatunk, mint például Weöres Sándor, Hamvas Béla vagy gróf Révay József.
Várkonyi súlyos testi fogyatékossága (siketség) ellenére tudott létrehozni egy olyan értelmiségi kört, amely a fővárostól való távolsága ellenére sem vált provinciálissá, és hatása bőven túlnyúlt a régió határain. Kutatásomban megpróbáltam feltárni azokat az okokat és tényezőket, melyek hozzásegítették sikeres működéséhez. A második világháború utáni rendszerben ugyan háttérbe szorult (szorították), így emléke mára megkopott, de érdemei így is vitathatatlanok a hazai, különösen a pécsi művelődés történetében.
Kutatási módszerem a személyes- és publikus források tartalmi elemzésén, valamint az egyetemi hivatalos dokumentumok és a szakirodalmi források összevetésén és feldolgozásán alapult.
Felhasznált forrásaim a teljesség igénye nélkül: Bertók László: Várkonyi Nándor bibliográfia; Kende Kata (szerk.): Várkonyi Nándor élete képekben; Miklóssy Endre: Várkonyi Nándor olvasókönyv; Nagy Imre: Várkonyi Nándor – Portré és tabló; Várkonyi Nándor: Pergő évek; Várkonyi Péter: Várkonyi Nándor öröksége.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
András Hegedüs graduated from University of Pécs in History and Folklore (2014). Now he is a doctoral candidate at the ”Education and Society” Doctoral School of Education, and a member of the Supervisory Committe at The Doctoral Student Association of PTE. His research area is the networks between masters and disciples, with special regard to the network of Nándor Várkonyi.

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An Exceptional Case of Women’s Self-Advocacy in Interwar Hungary: Cécile Tormay (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The career path of the novelist, pamphlet writer and political leader Cécile Tormay (1875-1937) is an exceptional case of women’s self-advocacy in Hungary after World War I. Despite being unmarried, she was able to ascend to the highest social circles in the conservative Horthy Era (1920-1944) that pursued a restrictive policy on women's participation in public life. On the one hand, her ascendancy might be attributable to her alertness: she almost instantly joined to the counter-revolutionary conspiracy of the former ruling elite that tried to regain power following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the outbreak of the democratic revolution in 1918. On the other hand, her successful move to the top was probably due to her shrewdness in editing of her both famous and infamous memoir, the strongly anti-Semitic Bujdosó könyv (1920-21) [‘The Hiding Book’, in English translation: An Outlaw’s Diary, 1923]. The cleverly propagandizing memoir that was published when modern propaganda was just emerging supported the old political elite in getting their power back effectively, and in return for Tormay’s services, they helped the writer become a person of eminence who was called Grand Dame of Hungarian Irredentism (‘a Magyar Irredenta Nagyasszonya’) in contemporaneous government-controlled media. Based on the analysis of her memoir, this essay will explain what behaviors and (editing) practices helped her succeed.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Judit Kádár, Ph.D., habil. associate professor at the English Department of Eötvös Loránd University, Savaria Campus in Szombathely. Her main field of research is nineteenth and twentieth century Hungarian women writers. She has published an anthology of twentieth century Hungarian women poets (Térdig születésben, halálban), a collection of critical essays (Royal Flush), and a monograph on pre-World War II Hungarian women writers (Engedelmes lázadók). Her latest book,Az Új Idők az első világháború alatt, 1914-1918, was published in 2018.

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Cultural Experiences of a Hungarian Visiting Professor in the US (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
One’s life is deeply rooted in his/her own culture. In the presentation the author shares some of his experiences he gained in the US as guest researcher. He’ll discuss his experiences related to cultural differences of everyday life in the US and Hungary. As a researcher, the author spent one year in the US on two occasions. The first stay occurred after the 1990 political changes as a John Marshall Fellow in the Regional Research Institute in West Virginia University. The second time he was the Senior fellow of HAESF (Hungarian American Enterprise Scholarship Fund) in the Rural Policy Research Institute (RUPRI) of the University of Missouri, Columbia, MO. His experiences in the US induced him to draft a paper about everyday events, stories and compare their relevance in different social context. These everyday stories reflect the cultural and social differences in attitudes of people living in these different societies. The stories often better illuminate the differences and aspirations of people than "serious" social studies. Everyday people often create their American or Hungarian pictures through these kinds of stories.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
The life of Dezső Kovács is centered around rural issues: rural tourism, rural policy, rural women, rural experience economy etc. He conducted research and lectured on various rural subjects at two universities in Hungary, Gödöllő University and Sopron University, as associate professor and honorary professor. He was also a rural researcher in the Center for Regional Studies in Pécs, a former Academic Research Institure. He has about 120 publications, 5 books written and edited and several other activities, drafting and managing EU projects, supporting NGO-os. Kovács had frequently participated in the international scientific life of rural researchers, mainly in Europe.

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The Role of Personal Stories and Documents in the Research and Representation of the Malenkij Robot (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The term “malenkij robot” refers to the “little work” that prisoners were subjected to in Soviet lagers at the end of World War II. In 1944 Stalin ordered the transportation of Germans from the areas “liberated” by the Red Army to the former Soviet Union for reparation works. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were deported and one third of them never returned. The roundups and kidnappings began in December 1944. Transports included not only members of the German minority but also Hungarians with German-sounding names or German spouses. Pécs is an appropriate place to talk about the malenkij robot because 5000-6000 civilians were deported from Baranya county. The trains left Pécs in January 1945. For four decades, the topic remained taboo. In 2015, the 70th anniversary of the events was marked by a series of commemorations and public history projects. This presentation will discuss recent cultural, cinematic and museological representations of the malenkij robot (such as the film Eternal Winter, Örök tél, 2018 and the Malenkij Robot Memorial Space) and the role of personal diaries, letters, and oral history in these representations.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Helga Lenart-Cheng grew up in Hungary, and studied French and German at JATE (Szeged) and ELTE (Budapest). She completed her PhD in Comparative Literature at Harvard University. She is Associate Professor in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Saint Mary’s College of California. Her areas of research include auto/biography, theories of subjectivity and community, phenomenological hermeneutics, and East European literatures. Lenart-Cheng has published articles in numerous books and journals. Her co-authored book on the exiled writer Alexander Lenard was published in 2016.

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Where the Angels Lived: One Family’s Story of Exile, Loss, and Return (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
The moment she discovered the existence of Richárd, a long-lost relative, at Israel’s Holocaust Museum, Margaret McMullan began her quest to uncover the forgotten history of her ancestors, the Engel de Jánosis. In Where the Angels Lived: One Family’s Story of Exile, Loss, and Return she shares her family’s journey to Pécs, Hungary, where she uncovered her Jewish ancestry, a part of her past which her grandfather kept hidden.

“The question of why my grandfather never thought to recall and record his own family history accurately has haunted me,” said McMullan. “My grandfather was an ambitious, forward-thinking man who did not want to be slowed down by his past or his family. He may have just wanted a fresh start when he came to America.”

Throughout her new book, McMullan quickly discovers just how distinguished and influential her relatives appear to have been before the Holocaust. However, no one seemed to recall the man whose name she saw that day in Israel: Richárd Engel de Jánosi. With the help of students, strangers and long-lost relatives, McMullan slowly pieces together bits of information about Richárd’s past she never would have found without venturing to her family’s homeland.

Straddling memoir and reportage, past and present, this story reminds us all that we can escape a country, but we can never escape history.

Note: I would also be happy to join a Panel.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Margaret McMullan is the author of nine award-winning books including In My Mother’s House and Where the Angels Lived. Her essays have appeared in USA Today, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, and other periodicals. A recipient of a National Endowment of Arts Fellowship and a Fulbright at the University of Pécs in Pécs, Hungary, Margaret served as a faculty mentor at the Stony Brook Southampton Low-res MFA Program. She was the Melvin Peterson Endowed Chair in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Evansville, where she taught for 25 years.

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Magyar nyelv és kultúra a román fővárosban/Hungarian Language in the Romanian Capital (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
A különböző rendezvények, konferenciák, mindig alkalmat adnak arra, hogy nagyobb figyelmet szenteljünk évezredes hagyományainknak, gyökereinknek, nemzeti tudatunk erősítésének, hogy felmutassuk és továbbadjuk a múltunkat idéző szellemi és tárgyi értékeinket. Előadásomban szó lesz röviden a 205 éves magyar nyelvű oktatás és református egyház történetéről a román fővárosban. Kiemelem, hogy különböző korokban érkeztek Bukarestbe Erdélyből elszármazott elődök egy jobb élet reményében, talapalatnyi helyet keresve maguknak a román fővárosban. Itt keresi Sükei Imre református lelkipásztor a magyar egyházkerületek ún."elcsángált" híveit. A Sükei Imre által felépített első református templom és iskola, a máig is működő bukaresti magyar nyelvű oktatás és kultúra egyik alappilére.Az előadás egy másik pontja azon állami közszolgálati intézmények működése, amelyben magyar szakemberek is dolgoztak. Ilyen volt a Román Rádió is, amelynek magyar nyelvű szerkesztősége első adását 1945. május 2-án sugározta. Erdélyben, a magyarlakta területeken, a Kárpátokon túl pedig Bukarestben és környékén hallgatható. A Rádió után másik fontos közszolgálati intézmény a Román Televízió, amely 1969. november 23-án sugárzott először magyar nyelven, s alig pár hónapja töltötte ötven éves évfordulóját a Magyar Adás. Továbbá, beszélek az 5o éves Kriterion könyvkiadóról, amely a kommunista időszakban egyetlen kiadó volt, amely nem csak magyarul, hanem minden romániai nemzeti kisebbség nyelvén adott ki könyveket.
Egy nép kultúrájának szerves része a Zene. Ebből a szempontból is büszkélkedhetünk kimagasló személyiségekkel Bukarestben.
Bukaresti magyar történészekről, képzőművészekről, mérnökökről, tanárokról és kutatókról is szó van előadásomban.
A magyar történelmi egyházak: református (2), római-katolikus, evangélikus, unitárius, egyaránt fontos szerepet játszottak és játszanak a magyar nyelv és kultúra megőrzésében, fennmaradásában.




Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Dr. Nagy Éva hungarológus, a Bukaresti Egyetem Hungarológia Tanszékén tanult és szerzett licensz, mesteri és doktori oklevelet, majd a román fővárosban, a magyarság érdekében/szolgálatában dolgozott, mint szerkesztő-bemondó a Román Rádió illetve a Román Televízió Magyar Adásánál, mint szakreferens a Magyar Nagykövetség Kereskedelmi Kirendeltségén, mint tanár, a bukaresti Ady Endre Líceumban és a Bukaresti Egyetemen, továbbá, mint osztályvezető/szaktanácsos és államtitkári kabinetigazgató, a Tanügyminisztériumban, mint tudományos kutató a Neveléstudományi Intézetben, Ezek mellett több szakmai, közéleti és egyházi szervezet/szövetség vezetőségi tagja. Szakkönyvvek és cikkek, beszámolók, riportok szerzője, fordító és tolmács. Számos hazai és külfüldi konferencián, szakmai rendezvényeken vett részt előadóként, intézmények képviselőjeként, az országban és külföldön.

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Magyarországon világhírű? (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
„Nyelvében él a nemzet” – így szól a gróf Széchenyi Istvánnak tulajdonított szállóige. Nos, a magyar diaszpórában élők más értelemben is használhatják ezt a kifejezést, mert gyakran a magyar identitás legkitartóbb megőrzője már nem a beszélt nyelv, hanem az ételek, a magyar konyha ízvilága. Vagyis a nyelv. ;-) Magyarországon az emberek szeretik azt gondolni, hogy a magyar konyhakultúra nemcsak a magyar gyomornak kedves, de egyenesen világhírű. Ez azonban több kérdést is felvet. Miért lett fogalom a világban mindenütt az ír pub, a francia bisztró és az olasz trattoria, míg a magyar csárda vagy korcsma nem? Miért olyan nehéz magyar éttermet találni az Egyesült Államokban, ha egyszer minden sarkon vannak más nemzetek vendéglátóhelyei? S miért nincsenek „magyar napok” a McDonald’s-ban? Az előadás három kérdésre keres választ: 1. Mi kell ahhoz, hogy egy amerikai magyar étterem sikeres legyen? 2. Egyáltalán beszélhetünk-e amerikai magyar konyháról? 3. Vajon a magyar konyha alkalmas-e arra, hogy világszerte felkapott legyen?


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Rudolf Paksa: I majored in History and as History Teacher at Loránd Eötvös University of Budapest and received my degrees in 2006. I received my „summa cum laude” PhD in Modern Hungarian History from the same University in 2012, my Doktorvater was Prof. Dr. Ignác Romsics Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Since 2009 I have been working at the (former) Institute of History of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, where I am a Research Fellow since 2014. My research interests are: Hungarian far-right movements, interwar period in Hungary, Modern Hungarian historiography and gastrohistory.

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Aspects of Kossuth's Oratory: His Final Speech in English in the USA, June 21, 1852. (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Aspects of Kossuth's Oratory: His Final Speech in English in the USA, June 21, 1852.


Lajos Kossuth astounded audiences sometimes numbered in the hundreds of thousands both in England and the USA with his extraordinary English-language performances during his political-cum-fundraising tour of these countries in 1851-1852, when he is said to have made more than 600 public speeches in America alone. While the political aspects of his activities in the Anglo-Saxon world have been extensively chronicled by historians both in Hungary and the USA, and the mythopoeia of his acquisition of English has also been explored in some detail, less attention has been paid to the specifically linguistic aspects of his rhetoric. This paper focuses on what was probably Kossuth's final English-language speech in the USA, attempting to shed light on his rhetorical techniques as well as on some of his hitherto unidentified sources and the remarkable ways in which he re-purposed them.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
I spent 42 years teaching mainly Hungarian language and culture at the Universities of London and North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I have compiled bilingual dictionaries, written a textbook, and published dozens of articles and reviews, as well as translating numerous works from Hungarian, including novels, short stories, excerpts from books, poems, memoirs, and film scripts, among other genres. Awards received include the Officer's Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit (2007) and, most recently, the László Országh Prize of the Hungarian Society for the Study of English (2016).

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Coverbs at Linguistic and Cultural Crossroads: Neologisms and the ‘Unexpected’ Use of the Coverb ‘be-‘ in Contemporary Hungarian Discourse (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Coverbs are verbal prefixes that are attached to the beginning of verbs to modify their meaning. The most common coverbs expressing motion in Hungarian are: be-, ki-, le-, fel-, ide- and oda-. Other coverbs such as meg- and el- are used to refine the meaning of a verb to express the completion or intended completion of a verb’s action. (Rounds and Sólyom, 2011). Teaching the use of coverbs is one of the most difficult topics and pose challenges for both teachers and students of Hungarian as a Foreign Language. The topic is particularly complex as coverbs undergo constant change. One of the most intriguing questions in linguistics nowadays is the functional examination of the be- coverb, with special emphasis on the new neologisms that have emerged for the past 10-15 years (Varga 2012 and Ladányi 2007). In present paper, the author examines neologisms (such as besír, beröhög, bealszik, beelőz, etc.), mainly expanding on the studies of Kiefer (1992), Nádasdy (2002), Sólyom (2012, 2014) and Szili (2015). Creative uses of be- will be presented from everyday speech, youth discourse, online data, media as well as articles on politics. (e.g. Rogán bekóstolta Goodfriendet. Or: Férje nőügyeivel támadta be Clintont Trump.) The author will point out that in the neologisms of the be- coverb, the lexical aspect plays and important role. Based on her research, the author will share her findings and offer a new discovery in the field: an insofar unknown and ‘unexpected’ use of the be- coverb in present-day Hungarian discourse.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Erika Sólyom is a sociolinguist, a foreign language instructor (ESL, HFL) and a writer. She earned her M.A. and M.Phil. in Linguistics at NYU. In addition to her academic training, she worked for various human rights, cultural and educational institutions in Budapest and New York. She has 25 years teaching experience at every level of instruction, from elementary to university level. Erika Sólyom is a co-author with Carol H. Rounds of the best-selling Hungarian textbook in Routledge`s well-known language series Colloquial Hungarian. In 2020, her new book Szenegálom - a unique travel diary from Dakar - was published by Napkút.

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Deterritorialized Identites in György Dragomán´s Rendszerújra [‘System Reboot’] (2018) (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
In the present paper, I will examine the questions of minority identity in György Dragomán´s Rendszerújra. The short storied presented in this volume have all called tales of liberation, whereby the task of their heroes is to put an end their own closed, subjugated and humiliated existence and strive toward freedom. In these stories, the reader is confronted with the dynamics between the several forms of institutionalised power, such as political and police control, or the hierarchies in the individual’s personal relationships. In his book, Dragomán uses countless references to Kafka’s work, from the individual’s nightmarish flight from the institutionalised regimes in The Process (1925) to Gregor Samsa’s metamorphosis. For Kafka, becoming, rather than being, a minority signifies an ethical action and an existence, whereby minority groups are determined by their identities and the resistance to the power structure they are subjected to. In my talk, I will highlight that the notion of “becoming a minority” is present in Dragomán’s stories in multiple forms, whereby this concept refers to all those groups that are subjected to and enslaved by tyranny. I will discuss how the process of deterritorialization, i.e. those cultural and social practices that make this “becoming” possible are represented in Dragomán’s book, and what consequences can be drawn to our modernised and globalised culture, where the social media and the newest technological developments new manifestations of totalitarian control have been emerging.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Dávid Szőke, Ph.D. student in the Comparative Literary Department at the University of Szeged, Hungary does research in the area of English, German, and Hungarian literatures, gender studies, transculturalism, and minority studies. He has held a guest lecture about the influence of Central European Jewish exiles on British culture after 1945 at Käroli Gáspár University, Budapest, October 3, 2019. He is currently researching the influence of the German Jewish exile literature on Iris Murdoch’s early novels, with a special focus on the Holocaust, post-war trauma, the European memory culture and the coming to terms with the past. [beszelo86@gmail.com]

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Panel Proposal: The Appalachian Hungarian Heritage Project: A multidisciplinary overview (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Turley, Briane, Corvinus Institute for Advanced Studies, Corvinus University, Budapest. bturley@mail.wvu.edu

Fenyvesi, Anna, Institute of English and American Studies, University of Szeged. fenyvesi@lit.u-szeged.hu

Török, Péter, Karoli Gáspár Reformed University, Budapest. Torokp@gmail.com

Panel proposal:

The Appalachian Hungarian Heritage Project: A multidisciplinary overview

The proposed panel discussion introduces a team of American and Hungarian scholars who recently organized Appalachian Hungarian Heritage Project (AHHP). The group explores the role of Hungarian immigrants in the coalfields of West Virginia, southwest Virginia, eastern Kentucky and several counties in Ohio and the historical, social, and linguistic aspects of these communities in a comprehensive and multidisciplinary fashion. As recent findings show, the earliest immigrant coal miners in the southern Appalachian coal mines were Hungarians, and Hungarian laborers dominated some of America’s largest coal mines, including the massive US Steel facility in Gary, West Virginia.

Comprehensive works on immigration (e.g. Puskás 1982) mention that Hungarians worked in the Appalachian Mountains but indicate that those who went there lived in boarding houses and eventually left the region to return home or to find better jobs in the US North and Midwest (while it is equally true that Hungarian migrants tended to live in boarding houses in other regions of the US where they were similarly transient). We demonstrate that many Appalachian Hungarians settled in this uniquely southern region of the US, reared families, and played a vital role in community development.

We propose three talks on the historical, social, and linguistic aspects of the Appalachian Hungarian communities.

Presenters include Dr. Briane Turley (Corvinus University and West Virginia University), Dr. Anna Fenyvesi (University of Szeged), and Dr. Péter Török (Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary).



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
A native Appalachian, Briane Turley is a Research Fellow at the Corvinus Institute of Advanced Studies, in Budapest. He also serves as a member of the Department of History’s Graduate Faculty at West Virginia University. He received a PhD in Modern European and American Religious History from the University of Virginia. Turley’s current research interests include Hungarian-Appalachian Labor History and the History of American Incarceration. He is the recipient of four Fulbright awards, each of which he served in Hungary. In 2011, the University of Szeged awarded Turley the Pro Facultate Philosophiae Medal in recognition of his work done for the Szeged community including organization of the mobility program between West Virginia University and the University of Szeged.

Anna Fenyvesi is Associate Professor of English Linguistics and Director of the English and American Studies Institute at the University of Szeged. She received her PhD in Linguistics from the University of Pittsburgh in 1998 and habilitation from Debrecen University in 2013. Her specialization is in sociolinguistics, contact linguistics, and bilingualism, with her primary research focus being the bilingualism of American Hungarians, Hungarian minorities outside Hungary, language attitudes, and, of late, the digital language use of bilinguals. She participated in the European FP6 project LINEE (“Languages in a Network of European Excellence”), in 2006–2010, as head of the Hungarian team of researchers, work package leader, and researcher. She is coauthor of the Routledge Descriptive Grammar of Hungarian (1998) and editor of Hungarian Language Contact Outside Hungary (Benjamins, 2005).


Péter Török is a Professor of Sociology at Karoli Gaspar Reformed University in Budapest. He received a PhD in sociology from the University of Toronto in 2000. He has served as Deputy Director of Research in the National Institute of Family- and Social Policy and was an Assistant Professor in Religious Studies at the University of Szeged. From 2006 until 2016, Török served as a Professor and Chair at the Institute of Mental Health, Semmelweis. Török has published three books on church-state relationships and new religious movements and authored numerous articles. Recently his research has focused on Roma/Gypsy studies and Appalachian Hungarian studies.

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Béla Zsolt's A királynő családja [The (Beauty) Queen's Family] (1932) In the Context of His Literary Oeuvre (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Zsolt Bela, a leftist bourgeois journalist, was also a prolific novelist and playwright, who in his literary work wrote sharp insider criticism of the pretentions of the Hungarian Jewish petite bourgeoisie. After the war his oeuvre totally fell out of favor and today he is known, if at all, for his 1946 Holocaust memoir, Kilenc koffer [Nine Suitcases]. In 1929 when Böske Simon, daughter of a provincial Jewish doctor, made headlines by winning the very first Miss Magyarország/Hungaria title, and later the Miss Europa title, Zsolt extolled her in the Magyar hirlap as representing the most perfect European beauty ideal in whom were combined features of the Western Latin-German and the Eastern Slav-Levant. Yet three years later he was to publish A királynő családja [The Queen's Family] (1932), in its first part a barely masked recounting of Simon's pageant experiences, cribbed from the pages of Szinházi élet. But as the "család" of the title indicates, in the novel Zsolt also provides the insipid beauty queen with a family with social pretensions, allowing for the broader socio-cultural exposé of life in interwar provincial Hungary and Budapest. In this study I will discuss the connection of the novel to actual historical events, highlighting in particular its descriptions of rapid urban modernization and commercialization in Budapest, aspects not commented on in the sketchy criticism devoted to it, either at the time of the work's publication, or to date.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Louise O. Vasvári (M.A. and Ph.D., UC, Berkeley) 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 sociolinguistics, Holocaust studies, and Hungarian Studies, all informed by gender theory within a broader framework of comparative cultural studies. In relation to Hungarian Cultural Studies she has published numerous articles, as well as, with Steven Tötösy, Imre Kertész and Holocaust Literature (2005), Comparative Central European Holocaust Studies (2009), and Comparative Hungarian Cultural Studies (2011). During the academic year 2014-2015 she was Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies at the Central European University. She is also an elected member of the Hungarian Szépírók Társasága and since 2011 Editor-in-Chief of Hungarian Cultural Studies.

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“The Wise Men from Transylvania and Egypt”: Ritual and Nation in Hungarian Neoshamanism (Accepted)

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
In this paper, I examine the place of neoshamanic ritual in the post-communist Hungarian religious environment, situating it within the broader context of questions of modern Hungarian national identity. This paper explores competing notions of what it means to be both Hungarian and religious in the post-communist period through an analysis of how Hungarian neoshamans deploy the language and symbols of Roman Catholic devotion in Hungary alongside and within shamanic worldviews. This ritual creativity, drawing on Siberian and Turkic shamanisms, Roman Catholicism, and Hungarian táltos culture, is one way in which Hungarian neoshamans are reacting against the repressiveness of the former communist era while seeking to negotiate the shifting boundaries of the practical religious sphere from private to public with rituals that are consciously performed for viewers, both in-person and online. This paper analyzes two examples of neoshamanic practice in Hungary: one, a ritual cleansing of the crown jewels of St. Stephen of Hungary in 2012, and the other, a “táltos Christmas” on the outskirts of Budapest in 2009. By juxtaposing these two cases, this paper demonstrates that the outward-facing, public, and performative practices of Hungarian neoshamans contrast with and challenge the norms of the preceding decades while retaining a connection to perceived “Hungarian-ness” via Roman Catholicism. This approach to performative ritual practice, which draws on Siberian and Turkic shamanisms within an explicitly Hungarian context, results in a conception of Hungarian nationhood that invokes the ancient past while redefining what it means to be Hungarian and religious, today and beyond.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Alina Williams is a graduate student in the department of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University specializing in post-Communist Hungarian religion. Her current project examines the relationship between neoshamanic ritual practice and Roman Catholicism in contemporary Hungary, situating it within the broader context of questions concerning national identity and ritual creativity.

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