Hungarian American Connections from Stephanus Parmenius through Lajos Kossuth

Type of Abstract (select): Individual Presentation

Abstract (max. 250 words):
Hungarian-American connections are older and more complex than most of us realize.
In fact, as early as the 16 th century, a Hungarian scholar at Oxford accompanied
Humphrey Gilbert to the new world and wrote of his adventure. In the Revolutionary
War, Michael Kovats de Fabriczay fought on the American side and died at the battle of
Charleston. The Civil War saw many more Hungarians, mostly on the Northern side
and in fact Ödön Vasvary published a book on Lincoln’s Hungarian heroes. Many of
these had come to the US after the failure of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. Lajos
Kossuth’ tour of the US in 1852 Excited the population but unfortunately did not result in
the support he had hoped to garner. Finally, I wish to mention Joseph Pulitzer, journalist
and magazine publisher best known now as the founder of the Pulitzer prize.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Enikő Molnár Basa has a PhD in Comparative Literature and has presented papers on
Hungarian and Comparative Literature at several conferences and has published
articles on Hungarian studies. Whe was editor of the Hungarian series in the Twayne
World Authores series where she also wrote the volume on Sándor Petőfi, and was
editor for the volume on Hungarian Literature for the series Review of National
Literatures (Council on National Literatures). After teaqching at various Washington,
DC area universities, she accepted a position at the Librarary of Congress from where
she retirred in 2004, afteer spending a year as a Kluge Fellow at the Library. She is a
founding member of the AHEA, and was for many years the Executive Director.