Fatefulness and falling into sin in István Szilágyi’s novel KŐ HULL APADÓ KÚTBA («A stone drops in a dwindling well»)

The study analyses István Szilágyi’s widely known novel Kő hull apadó kútba («A Stone Drops in a Dwindling Well») from the viewpont of fatefulness and falling into sin. The novel is an outstanding work in the 20th century hungarian literature, written by István Szilágyi who lives in the present Romania, Transylvania. The main character, Ilka Szendy faces with ethical dilemmas which can be examined from newer trends of cultural studies such as xenology. This study focuses on the following questions: how does the social system and compunction distort the personality? How does Ilka Szendy become a foreigner in the milieu in which she grown up? What kind of poetical pecularities, motifs, time and place usage represents the girl’s fate in the 20th century by the author? In the beginning of the study I explain the process how the literary historians realised the significance of this novel. This is an important issue because the history of hungarian literature and the history of hungarian literature across Hungary’s border developed differently in the 20th century – different experiences and poetical pecularities can be found in a novel. There are three different reading and canonizing strategies which outlined from the criticisms and studies: in the case of the first one, the emphasize was on the novel’s social aspects. The second one focused on the poetical aspect and structure. In the 2000s occurred the newest strategy which analyses the novel from the viewpoint of cultural studies. In this study I apply this third strategy. With the help of close reading I try to attempt connecting the own body’s alienation and the multiplication of the main character’s (Ilka Szendy) personality with the traumas that she experienced at her young age. Several experiences preceded the fall into sin (murdering), but the narrator tells them only later in the novel. As a reader we can explore the most effectively the fall into sin and the fulfillment of destiny through the context of Ilka Szendy’s experiences, deeds, thoughts, motifs, metaphors and the secrets that lead us into the family’s past. In the end of the study I connect Ilka Szendy’s destiny with her family’s past. The girl died beceause she rode for the fall. She knew that she could never be relesead from her guilt, she could receive absolution only by death.

Levels of transculturalism and bilingualism in the Hungarian literature of Slovakia

The phenomenon of transculturalism is capable of activating and generating meaning within various spaces, levels and layers of literature. The study discusses different levels of transculturalism through certain authors and texts in Slovakian Hungarian literature, along with transcultural authorial identity, the transcultural meaning-making machinery of texts, transcultural practices of the social context, and transcultural directions and gaps in reception. The purpose of the paper is to classify some of the transcultural phenomena we encounter and to unravel the relevant conceptual and interpretative levels.

Four major literary code-switching strategies in Hungarian literature. Decoding monolingualism

The field of literary multilingualism has quickly grown over the last decades. Multiple studies have examined the way linguistic diversity manifests itself in literature by focusing on specific strategies such as code-switching, code-mixing, code-shifting, hybridization, etc. However, the current understanding of multilingual practices is still dominated by a remarkable terminological inconsistency. In this article, we provide a new theoretical framework called ‘literary code-switching’ (Domokos 2018–2020), that can be used to examine most literary multilingual practices – from the most hidden or latent to the more manifest ones. This formulation, which is scaled into degrees from 0 to 5, will be applied to some key examples taken from the works of Imre Madách, Mihály Tompa, Imre Oravecz, Attila Jász, Ferenc Karinthy, Terézia Mora and Anne Tardos. The aim of picking up these heuristic examples from Hungarian literature is to point towards the necessity of investigating literature more systematically according to its hidden and manifest linguistic diversity.

A Missed Opportunity? Transylvania as a Virtual Central Europe

The article focuses on the analysis of the ideas of Aladár Kuncz, a writer, literary critic and editor who defined Transylvanian Hungarian literature after 1918 in a European context. The concept of Transylvanism is discussed through the debates of the interwar period, and is situated within the context of Hungarian literary modernism. In the light of the Transylvanian literary ideas of the 1920s and 1930s, minority / regional literatures would have been directly related to a new concept of European and world literature beyond national literatures, along a line of thought that acknowledged the deterministic character of regionalism, and prioritized it also at the level of cultural memory, considering it to be primary over linguistic, national, and the changing geographical boundaries. These endeavours sought to revive an emphatic idea of Central Europe with its strict ideals of quality besides strong local, decentralized, yet transnational aspirations, while making them compatible with the preservation of linguistic and cultural ties with the three traditional Transylvanian nations. The article also discusses the reasons why, in the midst of the 1930s, facing political restrictions, the literary form of Transylvanism became outdated in the eye of the younger generations of the Hungarian community.

Archetypen und das kollektive Unbewusste in hermann hesses Demian (1919) und in Urtrost (1924) von Áron Tamási. Ein Vergleich

The aim of the present article is to provide a comparative analysis between two important works of German and Hungarian literature on the background of the theory of Carl Gustav Jung’s theory of archetypes. Both works (the novel Demian by Hermann Hesse and the drama Erstwhile Solace [Ősvigasztalás] by Áron Tamási) approach the theme of the search for identity as well as for the absolute and the divinity, with the focus on the archetypes of the collective unconscious. Motifs such as androgyny, shadow or dream, the issue of polarity and unity form common points of contact between the two analysed literary works.

Lessons Learnt: Changes in the Methodology of the Entrepreneurial Discovery Process in Defining the Priorities of Hungarian Smart Specialisation Strategies

This study shows how one of the fundamental methods of designing and implementing the Smart Specialisation Strategy (S3), the Entrepreneurial Discovery Process (EDP), was applied in the period of 2014–2020 and how, taking accrued experience into account, it has been adjusted in the new planning cycle in Hungarian practice. Based on Hungarian strategies and other policy documents, international and Hungarian literature, the study shows that although the involvement of relevant actors in strategic planning and prioritising was achieved in both cycles, the nature of the actors’ participation differed fundamentally in the two periods. We found that learning from the experience of planning the S3 for 2014–2020, the design of the 2021–2027 strategy required improving the focus of priorities, validating priorities and creating an institutional system capable of making EDP continuous during the cycle 2021–2027, in line with the European Commission’s expectations. We concluded that a well-functioning EDP methodology is an essential part of the substantive realisation of an S3 that can be dynamically shaped according to the challenges.

A területi tőke szerepe a vidékfejlesztésben

In the rural development trends related to Hungary, the approach of territorial capital can be an effective tool for creating synergies not only for the development of villages, but also for thinking in the region. The presentation of the international and Hungarian literature related to the theory and practical application of territorial capital contributes to the examination of Hungarian relations. In this study, my aim is to present how the concept of territorial capital can be applied and why it is needed in rural development. As a prelude to this, I will briefly show how the countryside is changing after the change of regime and why its development is important.

Introduction: Translating from Hungarian into English

Introduction: The three papers in this cluster are very diverse as regards genre, focus and approach, but what their authors share is a passionate devotion to the promotion of Hungarian literature in the English-speaking world.

Parent-Child Resemblance in Literature Before the Age of Genetics: A Physiognomic Interpretation of the Novels of Zsigmond Kemény and Miklós Jósika

Although Zsigmond Kemény (1814-1875) and Miklós Jósika (1794-1865) inevitably figure among the most significant writers of nineteenth-century Hungarian literature, the interpretation of their novels is embedded within international historical contexts that are often inaccessible to the present-day reader. This study examines the physiognomic meanings of parent-child similarity in nineteenth-century novels and thus situates the examined works within the context of European literary and intellectual history. Such an interpretation of the novels reveals the diverse and strong current in the history of European ideas with which the analyzed texts engage in a lively dialogue.