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• Cultural Policy of Russia and Hungary: Modern Discourse and New Actors

  11 p.

  Olga Szűcs

  Tatyana Yudina

  Views:

  360

  The authors of the article argue that contemporary cultural policy discourse is in the focus
  of attention of scientific communities, social and political organizations and government institutions.
  It represents a sort of symbolic struggle and nominations and has necessitated a
  new approach to cultural policy structuring. The article shows that this necessity is demonstrated
  by the development of cooperation between Russia and Hungary in terms of cultural
  sectors and cultural heritage. Expert communities and non-governmental organizations are
  becoming significant elements in the structure of cultural policy subjects. The association
  “For Hungarian-Russian cooperation named after Leo Tolstoy” has become such a key issue.
  The authors of this article attempt to highlight the most essential contemporary issues in
  the sphere of cultural policy in general and in relation of two separate countries – Russia and
  Hungary – through the scientific project “Hygiene of culture”.

• The Hungarian reception of Dostoevsky until the 1920s in the context of European and Hungarian Modernism

  Ágnes Dukkon

  Views:

  283

  This paper deals with the questions Dostoevsky’s reception in Hungary in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The author investigates the growing interest in Dostoevsky in the context of the new trends of art and literature and gives a detailed survey of the most characteristic reactions (i.e. reviews, studies, introductions to books) about the new translations and editions of Dostoevsky’s works. Among the most relevant questions addressed arestereotypes about Russian culture and people, living in Hungary duringthe past centuries, the various interpretations of Crime and Punishment, and some comparative aspects in the analyses of this novel.

• The first steps in the study of the Bulgarian language in Hungary

  Veneta Yankova

  Views:

  281

  The article analyzes the handwritten notes from a book in the ELTE library (BOL/ Или-002), which preserves the testimonies of the activities of the first Hungarian Slavist, prof. Oszkár Asbóth (1852–1920). The only copy of the Collection of At. Iliev (1889) contains unique information about the beginning of academic Bulgarian studies in Hungary and restores lost traces of professional and personal contacts between Hungarian and Bulgarian scholars.

• From Gregory of Nyssa to Boris Akunin and Eugene Vodolazkin – and beyond : “the language, which I spake and fram’d”: Linguistic Presence: Collection of Academic Papers in Honour of Arpad Kovacs’s 80th Jubilee. Edited by A. Molnár and M. Hoványi. Budapest, ELTE Eötvös József Collegium, 2024, pp. 416. ISBN: 978-615-5897-67-2

  Márk Murányi

  Views:

  188

  This review discusses the Festschrift published in honour of Professor Árpád Kovács’s 80th birthday. Professor Kovács is an eminent Hungarian scholar whose research on Russian Literature (mainly on Dostoevsky’s oeuvre) and innovations in literary theory are well-known, respected and followed by the Slavic studies specialists throughout the world. The volume consists of 30 papers written by Professor Kovács’s friends, colleagues and admirers. In the high standard and innovative approach of each paper, the volume is undoubtedly worthy of Professor Kovács’s legacy and represents the unique approach to literary texts which he established during his career.

• Notes on a Russian four-part icon

  György Ruzsa

  Views:

  230

  The study analyses a 19^th century four-part Russian icon primarily from iconological viewpoints. In the upper left compartment of the icon the depiction of the Theotokos can be seen as the “Softener of Evil Hearts” (Russian: “Умягчение злых сердец”). Another name for it is “The icon of Simeon’s Prophecy” (Russian: “Симеоново проречение”). In the upper right field of the icon a high priest is shown in an open coffin (perhaps Metropolitan Nicephorus of Kiev (†1121)). In the lower left part of the icon Saint Nicholas appears with Christ and the Mother of God. In the lower right field of the icon, the Metropolitan Saint Alexius is painted in the middle, with Saints Catherine on his right and Alexandra on his left.

• The Emigré Writers of the Empire : Other Coasts of Russian Literature and Culture: Ideas, Poetics, Contexts. Collective Monograph. Eds. Elżbieta Tyszkowska-Kasprzak, Ilona Motiejunaite and Alfija Smirnova in cooperation with Maria Gej. Scriptum, Wroclaw ‒ Krakow 2021, p. 494 ISBN 978-83-66812-37-6

  Lajos Pálfalvi

  Views:

  224

  This volume of studies on Russian émigré literature was published during the last year before the war in a form of scholarly cooperation between Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, and Czech scholars unthinkable today. The theme of joint research makes the work even more interesting, because Poles have a very different understanding of the mission of émigré writers than Russians. In the first chapter of the monograph, entitled The History of Emigration, we find interesting biographical portraits of prominent figures such as Alexander Herzen and Gleb Struve. In the next part we read mainly about ideological problems and ethnic stereotypes. The third chapter focuses on the problems of poetics, and the last on heterotypes. The aspects of the analyses also touch upon the poetics of space and imagology.

• Russia and Hungary: A dialogue of cultures in the space of literary texts: Book Review: Through "Alien" to "Own": Dialogue of Russian and Hungarian Cultures: Monograph / Edited by M.A. Lappo, V.V. Marosha. NGPU Publishing House, pp. 240. ISBN 978-00226-049-2, Novosibirsk, 2023

  Olga Sedelnikova

  Anastasia Shatokhina

  Views:

  283

  This monograph presents the results of a joint interdisciplinary project of Russian and Hungarian philologists to study the facts of interaction between Russian and Hungarian cultures in the space of literary texts. It examines various manifestations of the interaction of cultures: from the study of cases of direct influence to intertextual forms of assimilation and interpretation of elements of a foreign culture, current trends in translation reception. The volume includes papers by a wide range of authors whose texts made up the material of the study (from F.M. Dostoevsky and S. Veresh to E. Vodolazkin and Y. Berg).

• Interferences in the Field of Literature and Philosophy: Contact Points in the Poetry of Russian and Hungarian Authors: Dukkon Ágnes: A veszélyes szépség útjain. Eszmék, témák, kapcsolatok a klasszikus orosz irodalom világában, L'Harmattan Könyvkiadó – Uránia Ismeretterjesztő Társulat, Budapest, 2021, 340. p. ISBN: 978-963-414-702-2

  Ildikó Regéczi

  Views:

  151

  The Hungarian literary scholar Ágnes Dukkon set herself a great task to complete in her new monograph by undertaking to offer a broad overview of the entire 19^th century epoch of Russian literature through monitoring the transformation and evolution of the literary motive of dangerous beauty [ужасная красота]. While focusing on the concrete correspondences between a variety of literary worlds, the study presents interpretations of works by A.S. Pushkin, M.Y. Lermontov, F.I. Tyutchev, N.V. Gogol, I.S. Turgenev, F.M. Dostoyevsky, M.Y. Saltikov-Shchedrin, N.S. Leskov, and L.N. Tolstoy. At the same time, however, the author of this monograph never fails to keep in mind the conceptual context of the artistic texts by analyzing their relationship with the topical contemporary philosophical ideas of the age. For the Hungarian readers, the chapters incorporating the conclusions of research aimed at Russian–Hungarian connections, conducted with the methodology of historical poetics, comparative literary studies, intertextuality, and biographism, are of special interest. The scholarly findings of this renowned researcher would definitely deserve to be translated in the future into an international language.

• Identity Problems from Historical, Cultural and Literary Aspects

  7 p.

  Andrea Posta

  Views:

  384

  This critique focuses on the latest part of the publication series by the Slavic Historical and Philological Association entitled “Individual and Collective Identities”, which is of great importance for the field of Russian Studies in Hungary as it provides a regular platform for academics with annual conferences. In the three main chapters of the book, identity is approached in different contexts from a historical, cultural, and literary point of view. For this reason, we can say that this collection stands out due to its interdisciplinary nature and complexity serving as a useful resource for those who deal with identity issues.

• Books have their own fate…: Gregor, Ferenc: A szlovák nyelv magyar elemei [The Hungarian elements of the Slovak language]. Budapest, Kairosz Kiadó, 2023, pp. 953. ISBN: 978-963-514157-9

  Klára Agyagási

  Views:

  182

  Ferenc Gregor, the most prominent Hungarian researcher of the Slovak language, did not live to see the publication of his magnum opus. The present review has two goals: on the one hand, to commemorate an outstanding scholar who persevered on his own path in the pursuit of scholarly value, accepting all the difficulties of a lonely struggle, and whose efforts were crowned with success, albeit posthumously, thanks to the next generation of scholars; and, on the other hand, to draw attention to the significant linguistic and cultural influence that Hungarian dialects have had on the language of the Slovaks living in the northern region of the historical Kingdom of Hungary. This influence manifested itself in several waves and in several geographical regions and took on different thematic characteristics depending on the historical situation. Using a wide range of written sources, Ferenc Gregor identified nearly 1,000 Hungarian lexemes in the vocabulary of local variants of the Slovak language. Since Gregor accurately documented all cases where the Hungarian words in question also entered other Slavic languages of the Carpathian Basin, his work is significant not only for its outstanding value in contact linguistics, but also from an areal linguistic perspective.

• Linguistic Means of Constructing “Own” and “Other” in B. Akunin’s Novel "The Diamond Chariot"

  Nava-Vanda Sahverdova

  Alina Urazbekova

  Views:

  240

  The article discusses the ways of linguistic construction of the concepts of “own” and “other” in B. Akunin's novel The Diamond Chariot. The methodological basis of the study is cognitive discursive analysis. The protagonist of the novel arrives in Japan and meets with new realities, objects, places, social organization of life. In this process, we observe the contact of two cultures – the Japanese and European-Russian. Japanese appears in the novel in a wide layer of Japanese vocabulary, which is introduced into the text in a variety of ways (translation in the text, translation in a footnote, explanation, repetition with translation, the use of a foreign word in a typical context).The process of cognition of a foreign culture is accompanied by constant assessments through the prism of one's, previously learned experience. Evaluation is a structural characteristic of the construction of one's “own” and “others'” and reflects the dynamic nature of the process of acquaintance with a foreign culture. Other way stoembed foreign words in the text – using the structure of the concept – are also presented in the article. The experience of the meeting of two cultures also appears in the linguistic form in the communication of multilingual heroes of the novel among themselves, the characteristics of this discourse of strangers are described (interspersed in English, as well as interspersed in English and Japanese, written in Cyrillic).

• Hungarian–South Slavic film relations: An introduction

  Imre Szíjártó

  Views:

  240

  This study is an introduction to a larger work on Hungarian and Southern Slavic film relations. After reviewing the theoretical and conceptual considerations, the paper attempts to interpret the concepts of national film and transnational film, and it also outlines the types of Hungarian–Slovenian, Hungarian–Croatian, and Hungarian–Serbian film relations. Thus, from the Southern Slavic community, the study focuses on Slovenian, Croatian, and Serbian culture and film. Films from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria and Northern Macedonia, and their Hungarian dimensions are also referenced, but the primary focus is the film culture of the three countries neighboring Hungary.

• "React with Cobra's Speed to Everyday Life" On the Trap of Actuality - Andrzej Stasiuk's Beskidy and World Chronicles (2018)

  11 p.

  Agnieszka Janiec-Nyitrai

  Views:

  245

  The goal of the paper is to analyze and depict the essays written by Polish contemporary
  author Andrzej Stasiuk in the wider context of writing strategies. The essays were collected
  in Beskidy and World Chronicles (2018). The paper also deals with Stasiuk's "workshop
  comments" about the art of writing and is concerned with author's attitude to changes in social,
  cultural and political life. Stasiuk searches for harmony and calmness. What he writes
  about is not topicalities but universal themes: nature, philosophy of living, everyday life.
  All that he can see in mass media is very strange and outlandish for him, while he looks for
  eternal values, describing chaos in modern world.

• On the threshold of change: Annamária Vass: Down with Socialist realism – Long live postmodernism! Paradigm shift in Russian literature in the second half of the 1980s. Debrecen, Debrecen University Press, 2024, pp. 184. ISBN: 978-963-615-163-8

  Nárcisz Gajdos

  Views:

  202

  The review examines a new book by Hungarian researcher Annamária Vass on paradigm shift in Russian literature. The volume analyses in detail the literary and cultural changes that began in the mid-1980s, shedding light on how socialist realism was transformed into postmodernism. Annamária Vass focuses on understanding the characteristics of postmodernism and provides a fascinating historical overview of how socialist realism gradually lost its dominance. By analysing the works of Yevgeny Popov and Vasily Aksyonov demonstrate the specific characteristics of postmodern literature. The volume provides an excellent overview of this chaotic period of Russian literature.

• Aglaya Returns Home, The Mystery of The Apocryph of Aglaia. Ed. by Elena Kozmina. INTMEDIA, Yekaterinburg 2020, 231 pp. ISBN 978-5-6040560-8-0

  Lajos Pálfalvi

  Views:

  235

  This collection of studies is a unique example of a collective monograph written by Russian, Polish and Hungarian scholars on a contemporary Polish literary work. The novel by Jerzy Sosnowski entitled Aglaia’s Apocrypha is an ideal subject of analysis because of its complicated narrative structure, multilevel composition and genre complexity. The authors of the studies describe the connections between the storytellers and the author, define the context of the novel both in high and popularculture. Some of them represent the best traditions of Russian poetics of prose. Jerzy Sosnowski began his career as a literary critic and literary historian, he was an influential interpreter and promoter of the new tendencies in the Polish literature of the eighties.When he became a prosewriter, he followed the new aesthetic trend of Polish postmodernism. Jerzy Sosnowski as the author of a novel written about an erotic cyborg, its/her admirer and the operator was a forerunner of posthumanism.

• Szigethi András: A szellem anyajegyei – Lermontovtól Ulickajáig, Андраш Сигетхи: Родинки духа – от Лермонтова до Улицкой

  6 p.

  Diána Komjáti

  Views:

  237

• The Heritage of Tolstoy’s Artistic Detail in the Poetics of Chekhov (Defamiliarization and „Randomness”)

  Dominika Zoltán

  Views:

  330

  One type of the “random Chekhovian detail ”can be referred to as a special cognitive phenomenon arising during the perception of the background and foreground within the depicted perception of the hero. In this paper, I suggest that this technique works if we perceive Chekhov’s laconicity against the detailed descriptions of the inner world of Tolstoy’s characters in the process of their estrangement. In the first part using the example of “War and Peace” I examine the “random” details concerning various features of Tolstoy's defamiliarization and show their transformation in Chekhov’s poetics. The examples from Chekhov’s early short stories “Grisha” and “Polinka” demonstrate an intermediate level of this transformation. In the second part I turn to the story “The Lady with the Dog” and consider the transformation of Tolstoy's technique through parallels with the novels “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina”. The situation of Gurov and Tolstoy’s characters (Natasha, Prince Andrei, Levin) is similar with regard to the fact that they retain true love in their hearts and get  into an everyday social situation, where they are exposed to the the automatism and lies of everyday life with special intensity.

• Issues of Translation from Russian to Hungarian and from Hungarian to Russian: Studia Litteraria 2020/1-2, LIX. évfolyam. Orosz irodalom fordításokban. Debrecen 2020, 146 p. HU ISSN 0562-2867

  Zsófia Varga

  Views:

  213

  This review is a content overview of the issue 1-2/2020 of Studia Litteraria, a Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies. This collection of scholarly articles is an excellent material for a varied and comprehensive look at current matters of translation and contemporary literature. The authors of the articles are practicing translators, therefore the general positions are explained through their own, specific works and practical experience. The purpose of this review is to briefly acquaint readers with the content of scholarly papers which have been categorized by topics for convenience.

• Images of the East in the Short Fiction of Ivan Bunin

  16 p.

  Kata Juracsek

  Views:

  405

  The article examines the images of the East in the short fiction of Ivan Bunin. With the help of the narrative model of Jan van der Eng, consisting of three basic thematic levels (action, characterization, geographical and social setting) we read and arrange the works of Bunin through the prism of postcolonial criticism. On the one hand, we will consider the arguments of traditional postcolonial studies; on the other hand, we will also take into account the postcolonial theory regarding the “second world” (Russia, Eastern and Central Europe).We start our analysis with the texts in which images of the East are only featured on one thematic level, gradually directing our attention towards the short stories in which these images determine the whole semantic structure.

• The abnormal “new normal”: The concept of the “new normal” as a framing structure in social media discourse: A cognitive-discursive analysis

  Nava Vanda Sahverdova

  Views:

  274

  This study is devoted to the analysis of the concept of the "new normal" and the description of its frame structure in everyday usage within social media discourse. Based on a cognitive-discursive approach, the study examines the transformation of the meaning of the expression "the new normal" from its original economic-political term into a polysemous linguistic tool for expressing evaluation, anxiety, and rejection. Using comments from social media platforms (such as Facebook, Telegram, and LiveJournal), the study identifies frames and thematic groups in which this concept is actualized: the moral and value devaluation, the cultural-civilizational crisis, ideological pressure, the normalization of violence, the mediatization of tragedies, and the social adaptation to post-COVID realities. The analysis shows that the "new normal" functions in media discourse as a marker of normative transformation and a cognitive representation of crisis phenomena. The concept serves as an ironic label, a means of stigmatization, emotional evaluation, and as a tool for expressing identity and describing the "other" amid global and local changes.

• The Generational Narrative in Criticism of New Realism

  Zsuzsanna Kalafatics

  Views:

  363

  At the end of the 20th century, New Realism emerged in contrast to postmodern literature. The representatives of this school defined themselves in their manifestoes and critical writings as a generation with the same aesthetic and ideological principles. The anthology of New Russian Criticism, edited by Roman Senchin, is a demonstration of this common action. The present study aims to present how and what elements of this generational consciousness and cultural identity are created, i.e. how thinking about literature has changed.

• Biblical parallels in Chekhov’s short story Murder

  Kata Juracsek

  Views:

  255

  The paper explores biblical allusions in Anton Pavlovich Chekhov’s short story Murder. It aims not merely to identify certain biblical themes, but, through an analysis of Chekhov’s text and its biblical parallels, to attempt to provide a deeper understanding of the main character’s changing worldview (a question interpreted by researchers in different, often conflicting ways). The paper also points to motivic and semantic connections between the biblical text and the internal struggle of faith that affects Chekhov’s heroes. On one hand, two Old Testament stories from the Book of Genesis are examined: the fratricide of Abel by his brother Cain, and Jacob acquiring first-born status and the paternal blessing instead of his brother Esau, as well as Jacob’s struggle with the angel. On the other hand, certain sections of the New Testament Gospel according to Matthew are explored, as referenced in Murder, which point to two groups of ideas: the argument between Jesus and the Pharisees concerning proper religious practice and the true essence of faith, and Jesus’s allegory about the camel, as well as his words on murder, which both ratify and amend the Ten Commandments. Through the prism of these references, Yakov’s (and also Matvey’s) internal journeys are interpreted as a shift between the law of the Old Testament and the teachings of the New Testament.

• On the Existence of Expletive Subjects in Russian

  11 p.

  Beáta Györfi

  Views:

  286

  According to traditional grammars, Russian does not contain expletive subjects. However,
  investigations in the generative framework suggest, that the pronoun это with certain
  predicates can be perceived as an expletive subject. The present article gives a short overview
  of previous investigations and aims at providing a unified analysis of constructions with -o
  final adverbial predicates or with the verbs бывать and нравиться.

• Rácz, Ildikó Mária: A lét és a szerelem szentsége. Ivan Bunyin művészi világképe. L’Harmattan, Budapest 2020, 373 pp. ISBN 978-963-414-681-0

  Ágnes Dukkon

  Views:

  274

  This review presents a critical analysis of the monograph on Bunin by the Hungarian researcher Ildikó Mária Rácz. The author describes the main thematic blocs of the volume, for example, the influence of classic Russian literature on Bunin (Turgeniev, Tolstoi, Chekhov, and Tiutchev), the role of Eastern philosophy in the evolution of Bunin’s art, the connection between the modern psychological concepts (Freud, Jung) and the short stories as Mitya’s love or The grammar of love.

• Язык и общество. Энциклопедия. Чл.-корр. В. М. Алпатов, чл.-корр. В. А. Виноградов, чл.-корр. А. В. Дыбо, академик В. А. Плунгян, академик В. А. Тишков, академик Е. П. Челышев Главный редактор д.ф.н., проф. В. Ю. Михальченко

  6 p.

  Vanda Sahverdova

  Views:

  295