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The Diversity of Knowledge Concerning Geographical Areas Based on Surveys Conducted in Institutions of Primary Education in Hungary
217-251Views:99My study will discuss the Hungarian public education system, more specifically, the knowledge about and the measurement of the concept of geographical areas as they appear in the subject Hon- és népismeret [approximately: Our Homeland and Its People(s)] in the Hungarian primary education system. The cultural landscape formed by human activity is an important part of Hon- és népismeret education, which also includes knowledge of spatiality, ethnographic geographical areas and maps.
In my research, I was interested what students taking Hon- és népismeret courses think and know about geographical areas; moreover, if they can use maps and place major Hungarian and ethnographic geographical areas (provinces) on blind maps. In my search, I have conducted a survey among students learning Hon- és népismeret in primary schools in Debrecen with the aim of measuring their knowledge of geographical areas and ethnographic geographical areas, especially related to the use of maps. So, in my study, I present all the tasks of the survey and the students’ answers. Furthermore, I describe the method used during the survey and the data processing.
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Youth Education Efforts of the 1940s: Representative Activities of the Mass-dance Cult-programme and the Beginnings of the Scientific Dance-research in Budapest
51-93Views:27My paper aims to present the dance culture of the 1940’s and explore its scientific approach to dance. According to results of my research, the “national-rescue activity” originating in Budapest looked for the promise of demonstrating “cultural-superiority” in youth-education. Movement-artists and newly formed amateur ensembles also played role in this. The initial dance-research followed the European research direction, considered the application of ethnological theories as the basis. When examining the interaction of city and countryside with a cultural-historical anthropological approach, my questions formulated in my writing: Did the village research and Scientific Institute-work in the 1940’s have an impact on the style of dance that also played a representative role, appearing as a result of the youth education efforts in Budapest? How does appear in the source-works that published the research-results of that time? My paper seeks the answers to these questions.
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The New Challenges and Situation of an Ethnic Minority within a Local Community in the Light of Social Changes
151-177Views:79Our memory is largely shaped by the way we look at the peoples currently living within the Carpathian Basin. Once a well-known tobacco-growing village in Historic Hungary, Torda (also known as Torontáltorda in Hungarian) is now a dispersed settlement with a Hungarian ethnic majority located in the Banat region of Vojvodina, Serbia.
The shifting of national borders, the two World Wars, the events of the Yugoslav Wars and migratory movements have collectively changed and decimated the lives of Hungarians who had found themselves outside their motherland’s borders after the 1920s.
In spite of the decline in population, the emigration of young people, and the everyday struggles resulting from hard living conditions, this village in the Central Banat district could attract further socio-ethnographic interest. In the micro-communities of rural settlements, education and religion play a key role in creating social value, maintaining Hungarian culture in the area and forming a national, local sense of identity within the community. Commemorative rituals, local traditions and national holidays often cross each others’ paths and blend together through education and religion, highlighting the reality and cultural values of the community, as well as the array of connections between community life and ethnic culture. This study discusses Torda’s present in the light of social change and the process of cultural mapping, touching on the importance of the local cultural association in the community’s life. This study also explores the events of the past few decades that have left a deep imprint on the micro-community’s life in a cultural, social and ethnic sense.
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Literacy of lower social classes at the turn of the century: Letters in the First World War
37-50Views:163The paper discusses the literacy of lower classes in the last decades of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and focuses on the correspondence of the First World War. Besides briefly reviewing the general contexts for the literacy of lower social classes (education, legislation), the paper discusses language/ethnicity issues as well. By summarizing linguistic remarks from selected research papers, the author underlines that the large number of letters was due to the increased need for communication and these pieces of writing reflect the literacy and the language of the masses; consequently, wartime correspondence is an accurate reflection of the communication of lower social classes.
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Ethnic Peculiarities and Inter-ethnic Parallels in the Traditional Material Culture of the Hungarians of Ugocsa
233-252Views:15The Hungarians living in the present-day Transcarpathian region have lived peacefully for centuries together with the majority Ruthenian/Ukrainian population, as well as with the Romanian, German, Roma and other ethnic groups, who live in a similar minority to the Hungarians. Ethnographers and tourists visiting the region are convinced that these nationalities have retained the characteristics of their culture to this day. At the same time, it is worth observing how this long historical coexistence is reflected in the way of life and mentality of these people. The parallels between Ruthenian and Hungarian language and folklore, folk customs are excellent examples of interethnic relations, but I have also encountered similar examples when researching the traditional material culture of the villages in Ugocsa. In the field of folk architecture, for example, the gate called tőkés kapu, as well as the abora, aszaló [the dryer] and the barn. Interethnic phenomena between Hungarians, Ruthenians and other nationalities of the region can also be observed in folk costumes (the guba, or the shoes called bochkor). Throughout history, in Transcarpathia, which belonged to different state formations, it was noticeable that culture was not strictly tied to peoples. Thanks to the tolerance shown towards each other, the nationalities of the region have preserved their ethnic and religious characteristics and identity, but we can also find many similarities in their cultures. When studying the interactions that mutually enrich each other's culture and provide a colorful and attractive image to the region, it is often impossible to find out who borrowed from whom and when. During the ethnographic research of the local communities, the main point is to take into account the ethnic interaction of the nationalities living here, as the folk culture of the local Hungarians is determined by the aggregation of the cultures of different ethnicities.
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Remain of a Dialect in an Urban Cultural Medium by Means of Folk-tales: Role of Some Tale-tellers of a Hungarian Ethnic Group Székelys of Bukovina in Hungary
31-46Views:52The aim of the paper is to show the role that storytellers can play in the transmission of traditions, identity and dialect today. The paper focuses on a Hungarian ethnic group: Szeklers of Bukovina settled in Hungary in 1945. The main aim of this paper is to present the function of dialects in tales and tale-telling after the change of traditional peasant way of life and dialects. In Bukovina this ethnic group was isolated from the Hungarian mother-country and the majority of Hungarians, their cultural and language changes did not reach them, therefore the members of this ethnic group could retain their traditional culture and dialect. However, in Hungary they were settled into 38 settlements, thereby their original communities broke up. The dialectal and sociolinguistic data of this paper comes from the storyteller’s websites, written and oral personal stories, the text and sound-recording of folk-tales, and also data of formal dialectal researches of this ethnic group is used. This paper presents an analysis of some storytellers who use several dialect elements of this ethnic group, besides the role of dialects in tale-telling is studied too. It is an important aspect of this analyse how some storytellers utilize their dialect in tales and during tale-telling, and why they usually use it. The results of research present that these storytellers can use dialect elements in different ways in their tale-telling. The main conclusion is that use of a dialect can be a part of language education, a dialect is an identity marker, and by the help of it a storyteller can create a pictorial experience during the tale-telling, besides it can be a source of humour too.
