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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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The Saddle: Our Eastern Cultural Heritage
149-193Views:117The study summarizes the most important knowledge about the saddle, the eastern heritage of Hungarian culture, based on the results of the research and an exhibition. Animal husbandry, especially keeping horses, has always played a very important part in Hungarians life. Saddling horses was significant up until the middle of the 20th century in Hungary, we have information about it from noblemen, the aristocracy, the upper social stratas, as well as from peasants and market town inhabitants. Objects and memories connected to riding culture, riding as a way of life, were present in the memory of the upper social classes and in folklore. There were different types, varieties of saddles, just as there were varieties of almost all the objects in our culture, depending on who used them and for what purposes. In general we can say that as the terms and conditions of life changed so objects were transformed and developed. The same is true for saddles, they belong to a group of objects which gained their final, almost perfect shape very early in time, so very few changes were made to them. The saddles used by Hungarians were very suited to riding. The big advantage of wooden saddles is that they spare horses. There are two basic types of saddles usually known as the western and eastern types. From a professional point of view, on the basis of examined material, we speak of the pommel-sole/panel type and the fork-side panel/bar type. The Hungarian saddle belongs to the Eastern type. A unique and famous variety of the Hungarian saddle is the Tiszafüred saddle. Light cavalry equipped with Hungarian harness spread around Europe, so Hungarian type saddles (Hussar saddle ) were an essential part of military equipment. Nowadays there is an increased interest in the riding tradition, and the historical past, and attention is focused on the Hungarian wooden saddle that has been used successfully over the centuries.
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The Use of National Minority Culture in Tourism Development
7-25Views:34In our tourist travels, we seek experiences in locales distinct from our places of residence or work. Tourism developments strive to fulfil this desire by showcasing and making tangible some unique local characteristic, thus attracting visitors to a specific place. In resource-poor areas, one of the simplest and least investment-demanding ways to achieve this is by turning a unique element of local culture into an attraction and celebrating it. This does not require costly infrastructure development, but it can still attract tourists. Our study focuses on these local celebrations, which are most often referred to as festivals, feasts or competitions. In the first part of this paper, our goal is to draw attention to a specific group of local festivals, events that focus on the culture of national minorities. Along with examples from Hungary, we present in more detail two festivals: one in Southwest Hungary’s Feked and the other in Southeast Hungary’s Deszk. In the second part of the study, we categorise local festivals based on the cultural elements they highlight. According to my research, four basic categories can be determined. Festivals can be created to celebrate a well-identifiable local cultural or economic phenomenon. There are local celebrations aimed at preserving or reviving disappearing or vanished local cultural elements. There are festivals that emphasise newly invented traditions. Finally, events based on humour or randomness can also be the basis of a tourist attraction.
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Posthumous Culture of Montenegrins on a Timeline between Past and Present : The Pattern of Behavior
33-53Views:125Montenegro is a country with a valuable and long tradition of everything related to life, especially death. Posthumous culture is remarkably detailed and significant for the people, most importantly in the earlier period when it represented the only foundation that held society together in difficult historical moments. This type of partially morbid way of self-expression of people has its roots in the deep and troubled past, often difficult and cruel to the inhabitants of Montenegro. The attention was pointed at the many traditional aspects, unwritten rules, and customs different from place to place, but in general, preserving the same function. From the type of clothes for the deceased, the eulogies uttered at the gravesite, to the male and female roles at the commemorations – the article handles the typical funeral processes. The aim of this paper is to acquaint the reader with the manner of behaviour of the Montenegrins towards the phenomenon that occurs when a person in the community dies and how a typical family handles the situation. For the sake of the research, interviews with two subjects providing their own perspectives were conducted. The significance of the study is personified by the sometimes contradictory stances of the people on death and the inevitable merging of secular and religious life.
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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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An Informal Group of Hungarians in the Multicultural, Urban Culture of Berlin
67-86Views:91Minority groups leave their traces in the cultural life of cities and it is an important task of science to track down and document these traces. The formation of ethnic communities through self-initiative has been intensively researched and ethnic groups play an increasingly important role in the representation of cities. This study gives a brief insight into the present research work that shows and documents an example of ethnic community organization in the urban space of a large city. The focus of this research is an informal group of Hungarians in Berlin, the Berlin Szalon, which already looks back on 50 years of history. After a brief excursion into the history of salon culture in Berlin, the historical roots of the Berlin Szalon are described. In the second part of this study, some results of an online questionnaire survey carried out amoung the audience of the Berlin Szalon are presented. An important objective of the data collection was to determine the motivation factors and attitude of the salon guests when attending the salon evenings and find out the audience’s opinion of the salon events.
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Alligators in the Sewers: Urban Legends about Terrifying Animals and Frightening Places
7-29Views:163The aim of the present study is to provide an overall picture of the nature of urban folklore using the “Alligators in the Sewers” urban legend type circulated in both the Hungarian and international press and by word of mouth. While contemporary legends have attracted only sporadic attention in Hungarian research to date, by illustrating the historical development of this legend type the aim of the present case study is to demonstrate how the phenomenon has existed in the Hungarian press for almost 200 years.
The present study attempts to identify the kind of opportunities for interpretation offered by these stories in the field of folkloristics; the extent to which they are relevant beyond their literal meaning; and the ways in which they shed light on modern-day understandings of the world. Giant reptiles that are not indigenous to Europe are terrifying to the average individual, while at the same time they evoke a yearning for the natural world in city dwellers trapped amid concrete walls. Urban sewers and storm drains hold similar terrors: on the one hand, they are there to remove filth and symbolize the more unsavory aspects of urban life, while on the other hand their hidden presence beneath the ground offers ample opportunity for the projection of numerous fantasies. Animals that lurk in the sewers, from where they emerge to attack people, are manifestations, contained within simple, traditional narrative frameworks, of the murkiness of highly structured societies and of the sense of danger that this opacity engenders in us. The emergence and persistence of such stories can be attributed to a number of social practices, such as circuses, sideshows, and the keeping of reptiles as pets, along with the respective press reports and rumors.
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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.
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Folk Dress Revitalization as a Component of Language Revitalization: The Case of Wilamowice
179-204Views:111Although the main goal of language revitalization is keeping a language alive, the expression of ethnic identity and belonging is not exclusively limited to the linguistic phenomenon. In the case of Vilamovians – a small ethnic group living in the town of Wilamowice on the border of Upper Silesia and Lesser Poland, language revitalization has been supported by a group of people wearing the Vilamovian folk dress. This was accompanied by greater engagement of young people learning the Wymysorys language as well to other elements of Vilamovian culture, including the folk dress. In this case revitalization does not mean copying old patterns, but reviving its importance for local community. The Vilamovian folk dress is not limited to the costume of local dance ensemble, it is crucial for ethnic belonging of Vilamovians. The patterns, styles or words (in the case of the language) were less important for them. The reconstructed elements or even whole sets of dress, e.g. the mourning dress, different types of wedding dress and the whole male dress do differ from the historical ones. The ethnographers should not criticize this situation, as it used to be in the past, but focus on their choices and motivations connected to their ethnic belonging. In this text, I have tried to show that the reconstruction/revitalization of a folk dress could proceed in a specific way if combined with language revitalization.
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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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“We Came to a Village...”: Value Systems in a Changing World
71-98Views:91Although we experience an increasing level of cultural foreign experience in our time intensified by the pressure of migration and the development of information technologies, the conventional view of value systems still prevails in modern nations. Change in culture is a never-ending process, though. The persuasive power of stability and uniformity seems to decline in postmodernity transforming the role of nation states, as well. Peripheries and “partial truth” come into view. Value systems are also affected by these changes. Value systems are no longer cast from a single mold, but rather derive from a dynamically changing framework that is shaped by the dialogistic connection of the elements of the sociocultural realm, the central role of the subject’s interpretation and the positioned meaning of values. This paper attempts to describe the changes brought about by postmodernity through the everyday life of four families settled down in Hosszúhetény. After having embraced traditional values at a certain point in their life as a result of a conscious decision, families are compelled to reevaluate their former worldview. This process results in the revision of their identity, as well. In the end, they are trying to establish themselves through various representational practices in a village that has already been modernized. While trying to analyze the components of their value system, I define so-called correlations in the hope of realizing a more relevant understanding of the postmodern age.
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The Functional Sites of “Sites of Memory” in Hungarian-Chinese Bilingual School in Budapest
55-66Views:107Various aspects of the culture and educational practices of the bilingual school in Budapest’s 15th district, including educational materials, educational drama, and educational rituals, among others, reflect the functional sites of Pierre Nora’s memory sites. These sites are crucial in shaping students’ cultural identities and connecting them to their heritage. By incorporating sites of memory into their school life can help students understand and identify their cultural roots, develop a sense of belonging, and acquire the linguistic and cultural competencies needed for cross-cultural communication. In this paper, based on related memory theories, I explore the definition of functional sites in the sites of memory in schools. Combining the fieldwork in Hungarian-Chinese Bilingual School, it is believed that there are many functional sites of the sites of memory in the bilingual school. The representative functional sites are educational textbooks, dramas, and rituals. This article studies the three main functional sites of memory. It examines how these sites are used in bilingual schools to enhance cultural understanding, promote linguistic and cultural competence, and foster a sense of belonging among students. We will also discuss how these functional sites of memory sites reconstruct or reinterpret Chinese cultural memory.
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The Concept of Dissimilation in the Study of Inter-ethnic Marriages within Homogeneous Meskhetian Turkish, Azerbaijani Marriages in Turkestan
95-114Views:16While analyzing the preservation of cultural heritage is more straightforward in homogenous households, inter-ethnic marriages present a captivating lens through which to examine cultural integration, social identity, and the preservation of tradition within diverse societies. This study explores the dynamics of inter-ethnic and homogeneous marriages among Meskhetian Turks and Azerbaijanis in Kazakhstan, applying the theoretical framework of dissimilation theory. By drawing on fieldwork conducted in 2024 which involved 45 interviews from two research villages, Turki Poselkasy and Kentau, located in the Turkestan province in the southern part of Kazakhstan, the research investigates the historical context and contemporary realities faced by these communities. In doing so, it highlights differences in culture, language, and social norms that can influence the formation of both mixed and homogeneous marriages among minority groups in the region. The theoretical background of the study is grounded in dissimilation theory, which posits that individuals in inter-ethnic marriages tend to distance themselves from their own ethnic groups to establish new identities within the context of their relationships. Through interviews and surveys conducted across diverse settlements, the study explores social identities and groups as well as concepts of cultural and social differences including gender dynamics, to uncover the intricate mechanisms of dissimilation.
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The Traditional Village Represented in Romania’s Open-Air Ethnographic Museums
205-216Views:110This paper work is a very brief presentation that brings the reader into the front of the most important open-air museums from Romania and tries to emphasize the value of their identity. This work is, in fact, a presentation of an extensive doctoral program, after which we will publish a book, and we hope that we will be able to develop certain topics right in the pages of the journal Ethnographica et Folkloristica Carpathica. The quick development of museums has generated a veritable Romanian school of museography, recognized both nationally and internationally. The source of this development is represented by the speech of museum; that is how the museum manages to revaluate its available potential and to get imposed in areas of interest from most various: scientific, educational, cultural, touristic, ensuring the representation of as many ethnographical areas as possible. Although the concept of ethnographical museum allows multiple approaches and definitions, this essay highlights the role of the identity of museums and their way of representing the traditional village, given the dynamics and the abandonment of traditions.
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Considerations Regarding some Transylvanian-Saxon Manuscript Collections from the Folklore Archive of the Sibiu Socio-Human Research Institute
189-207Views:14The archive of the Association of Folklorists and Ethnographers of Sibiu County, currently in the patrimony of the Sibiu Socio-Human Research Institute, was founded in 1977, at the initiative of Professor Ilie Moise. The archive contains collections and recordings, questionnaires, manuscripts, studies and ethnographic works, carried out by more than one hundred researchers of traditional culture in the main folkloric and ethnographic areas of Romania, since 1950 until today. The study presents the most important manuscript collections from the archive's inventory, with a focus on materials of some minorities, especially the Transylvanian Saxons, proof of the cultural interferences so evident in the southern Transylvanian area.
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Marginalized Texts of a Glorified Genre: The Valorization of the (Folk)tale in Hungary
23-42Views:176Attention towards and interest in the genre of the tale began rather belatedly in Hungarian culture. The paper provides a concise overview of the history of assigning value to this narrative genre: how it transformed from a trivial genre of idle amusement of the uneducated people into a precious cultural item that is an essential part of national heritage being safeguarded and studied from a number of perspectives. Parallel with the rise of the genre, a decline of the earliest known tales has taken place due to certain authenticity criteria retrospectively applied by newly formed disciplines as well as the standardization and naturalization of a specific mode of narration.
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Memory and Enculturation
253-274Views:26It may be safely stated at present that the triad of past, tradition and memory has accelerated at an incredible pace. Memory seems to keep the events of the past alive for ever shorter periods of time. Rites, memories and remembrance are now handed down as written sources in the form of textbooks. How does the narrative of the teaching aids that have emerged in the 21st century then evolve and what are/have been their achievements in the construction of national identity? How do hon- és népismeret [Our homeland and its people] textbooks function as tools for building a national community? The subject hon- és népismeret taught in grade schools examines and discusses national culture and the processes of cultural reconstruction in a rather specific cross-section. Beyond exploring the interdependence and interlocking of the context and practice of ‘knowledge creation’/‘knowledge transmission’ in primary educational institutions, this paper aims to explore some salient observations on its generational relationship to memory. The importance of this subject and textbook is/has been undeniable, both as a tool for national and social community-building on the one hand and as a tangible archive of the process of heritage transmission/patrimonization on the other hand.
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Preserving Traditions as a Perspective for the Future? The Integration History of German Expellees in the Context of Current Discourses on Diversity
7-31Views:172Diversity is a central keyword of our time that has found its way into the academic discussion of (historical) migration phenomena and their consequences. This also applies to the history of the forced migration of the German-speaking population from Eastern Europe as a result of the Second World War, which confronted both the refugees and expellees as well as the “host societies” with major challenges including those concerning “integration”. Based on a critical reading of a historically informed contribution to the debate on the evaluation of the integration history of the German expellees in the Federal Republic of Germany, the article reflects on the question of the extent to which orientation points for current debates on a social self-understanding under the guise of diversity can be derived from this history.
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The image of the multi-ethnic Habsburg Empire: From its dismissal in 1919 to its rediscovery for the European Union after 1989
167-188Views:166This article delineates the image of the Habsburg Empire in the 20th century in order to analyse its current representation in historiography in the German language. Before the Great War, the comprehensive compendium „Die österreichisch-ungarische Monarchie in Wort und Bild“ (The Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy in Word and Image) presented the old Habsburg Empire in a very positive light. According to the compendium, the strong and progressive multi-ethnic state served as a model for the institution of the nation state. After the Great War, the Habsburg Empire appears as a weak, even non-functional state in historiography in the German language. It is described as internally divided due to ethnic conflicts of interest. However, after 1990, following the publication of Claudio Magris’ renowned works, in particular his book on the river Danube, the image of the multi-ethnic Habsburg Empire as a culturally and politically dynamic actor has been reclaimed. After the enlargement of the European Union in 2004, the state’s multi-ethnic character has frequently been presented as a role model for European integration. To further illustrate this point, this article will examine the reasons for which Temeswar in the Banat was selected as European Capital of Culture.
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New Settlements in Bishkek: Law, Urban Space, Culture and Socio-Economic Development
99-122Views:105In Kyrgyzstan, internal migrants in search of a better life left high mountains, clean air, and their native village. There are tens of thousands of such people around the capital city of Bishkek. Physically, they are in the capital in the status of city dwellers, but living conditions, the level of access to public services are at the level of remote regions. And this is how these internal migrants live for tens of years, a new generation of children is growing up who were born in these slums where lack of infrastructure such as schools, drinking water, medical facility, electricity, and transport.
This study is aimed to explore the living conditions of residents in the new settlements and their rights for decent housing. The study was prepared in order to attract the attention of the state authorities to solve the urgent problems of the residents.
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The expulsion as historical turning point in the religious and cultural life of the German-Hungarian village Budaörs/Wudersch?
87-118Views:180The expulsion of the German minority in Hungary at the end of World War II started on the 19th of January 1946 in the small village Budaörs/Wudersch close to the capital Budapest. The village has become well-known in the interwar period for its flower carpets prepared for the feast Corpus Christi, made by its German-speaking population until over 90% of the inhabitants were forced to leave the country for the American occupation zone of Germany, a moment that has been long established as the historical turning point in the history and culture of the German minority in Hungary. The expulsion thus divides the tradition of making flower carpets for Corpus Christi into two eras. Previous research has often struggled with connecting these two eras with each other, when analyzing the development of the feast. The main goal of the research paper is to describe the situation of the Catholic Church in Hungary in the times of transition to Socialism, both on national and local level and to deconstruct the idea of the year 1946 being the one and only possible turning point when considering the changes in the tradition. A newly found source in the Esztergom Primatial Archives, an album with photos taken of the flower carpet in 1948, a present made for Cardinal Mindszenty, shows that the route of the procession has stayed the same, although changes in the number of observants and the lack of women wearing the traditional costume of Budaörs can be observed. These findings demonstrate a continuity of tradition and village life, straddling the supposed divide, and hence suggest a re-interpretation of the feast’s significance as demonstration of the catholic inhabitants’ resistance to the slowly establishing soviet system.
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Imaginary and Real Bridges as Connecting Elements in Communal Relations?
209-232Views:14The meaning of bridges is often mentioned in town twinning and other international contacts. In general, this word has positive connotations, as bridges enable interaction and communication and ideally create close relationships. Bridges are usually referred to in a metaphorical sense, but in sometimes they are real structures, such as those dedicated to a specific partner or between two partner communities from different countries. While the significance of the former is symbolic, the latter also fulfill a function in the real sense. In a figurative sense, common elements of everyday life can also form a bridge and bring people together, such as customs, origins, sources of economic income, geographical location and historical experiences. Real bridges can not only connect people and cities, but also act as monuments that remind us of a relationship again and again. By describing selected examples of imaginary and real bridges, the article also addresses the following questions: Is the bridge metaphor mostly just an empty phrase? How are imaginary and real bridges perceived by the public? Are imaginary bridges (e.g. relevant activities, everyday cultural similarities) and physical bridges really connecting elements in European diversity? To what extent are they helpful in understanding the foreign? The article draws primarily on the author's many years of research into town twinning but also on a number of other bilateral relationships in the Central European context. Observations, surveys, media analyses and other research tools serve as sources.
