“This Is Our Bank”: Agricultural Associations and Their Role in Two Swabian Villages in Satu Mare From the Regime Change to the Present

The study examines the impact of the agricultural associations of two Swabian settlements – Mezőfény (Foieni) and Mezőpetri (Petrești) – on the local economy and society. Agricultural associations played an important role at the beginning of the process of agrarian transformation after the regime change in Romania. The successor organisations of the socialist agricultural associations, now established on a voluntary basis, were able to counteract the impoverishment caused by the reparcelling or forced reparcelling of land during the long transitional period, while at the same time exploiting their monopoly position to prevent the emergence of individual and family farmers. The risk-averse, self-reliant economic model of the associations is reminiscent of the peasant, self-sufficient farm organisation. The associations can thus be seen as a very specific form of post-socialist post-peasant production systems.

Collections of Hungarian Folk Literature from the 19th Century and Their Canonisation

In the first half of the present article, I review collections of folk literature which include 19th-century folktales, placing a special emphasis on trying to establish the extent to which these texts and the associated collectors have been studied, explored, and published. 1 Next, I demonstrate which of the texts in question may be considered as part of the canon 2 of folk literature that emerged in the latter third of the 19th century, which works and authors defined the approaches that were considered relevant, and what the selection criteria for canonisation were. Alongside the interpretative canon, I shall also attempt to record the textual canon and its changes – to capture the act by which certain texts were clearly excluded from the canon while others were included by the individuals who wished to create or modify the canon. I would also like to show how the image of 19th-century collectors and collections created in the second half of the century became gradually transformed during the 20th century, and how these changes affected the place the collections in question occupy in folkloristics in general.

The “Re-Tuning” of János Arany's Life and Work in the Popular Education of the 1950s

In 1948, in the year it came to power, the Hungarian Communist Party began building its legitimacy, using the occasion of the centenary, by appropriating the legacy of the Revolution of 1848. The need for a revolutionary transformation of culture heralded the advent of the scientific materialist worldview. The popular education system, created as a channel of the cultural revolution, conveyed the findings of the various branches of science and arts, combined with the rhetoric of political propaganda, to the “working people.” Revolutionism, which the Marxist view of history elevated to prominence, soon gained ground in the interpretation of Hungarian literary history via the compilation of “progressive literary traditions.” Public educators' literary presentations in villages and cities, as well as articles and cheap publications produced in large quantities all served to promote this central principle. The author examines the representation and interpretation of János Arany's life and work in various textual and visual popular education products. Certain junctures and directions in Arany's life, used as guidelines of the presentations, were highlighted in the image of Arany mediated by filmstrips and newspaper articles to make him one of the “poets of freedom.” Publications intended for the cultural and political education of “working people” set out the way in which to relate to the poet and the framework for interpreting his writings. Through the Arany poems that popular educators employed in scientific education, the author points out the way in which textual and visual representations became carriers of added content in a given context and a possible means of the “rural class struggle.”

The Third-level Digital Divide among Elderly Hungarians in Romania

The aim of the present study is to examine the characteristics of the third-level digital divide among elderly Hungarians (over 65 years of age) in Romania. The third level of digital divide indicates the emergence of digital habits in the Bourdieusian sense, which provide real benefits in different areas of everyday life. Hungarian elderly people in Romania are clearly lagging in terms of the third-level digital divide. The explanation for this is partly to be found in the limits imposed by the characteristics of their age and partly in their socio-economic situation. Elderly Hungarian people in Romania tenaciously adhere to their usual ways of life and previously established daily habits, and their repertoire does not integrate the use of digital technology. The results obtained in this study of elderly Hungarians in Romania are in line with the research results of digital inequalities, according to which there is a relationship between the degree of digital competence, the structure and usefulness of digital activities, and inequalities according to the traditional dimensions of social stratification (economic, cultural, individual).

The Influence of the Grimm Tales on the Tale Textology of László Arany

László Arany's Eredeti népmesék (Authentic Folktales, 1862) is an iconic collection of folktales. The tales in this publication have been entrenched in the national identity as classic Hungarian folktales, and the narrative style of the tales has been established in the public consciousness as the narrative style of Hungarian folktales. The Arany family's collection of folktales ultimately had a similar function in Hungarian culture as the Kinder- und Hausmärchen of the Brothers Grimm had in Germany, but while the text formation of the Grimm tales had been thoroughly explored by philology, the Arany tales had not been accompanied by folkloristic interpretations or in-depth philological analyses. To László Arany, the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm were the ideal, which he indicated in his many theoretical writings as well as his role as a collector and editor of tales. To form the individual texts found in Eredeti népmesék, László Arany used the tale manuscripts transcribed by his mother and sister in the 1850s, modifying them considerably, primarily by employing stylistic devices, many of which can also be observed in the work of the Grimms. This essay examines the extent to which László Arany's editorial and text formation practices were determined by the textological practice developed by the Brothers Grimm, and ultimately the extent to which the stylistic ideals of fairy tales developed by the Grimms contributed to the development of the written, literary version of Hungarian folktales.