HUN-REN Research Centre for the Humanities - Publications

RCH Institute of Philosophy

Demeter, Tamás: Hume’s Science of Mind and Newtonianism. In Schliesser, Eric; Shmeenk, Christopher (eds.): The Oxford Handbook of Newton. Oxford: Oxford UP. 2019.

This chapter explores the prospects and consequences of various ways to forge Newtonian connections to Hume’s philosophy. Two points of view are offered from which these connections are visible and evaluable: first, Hume’s experimental method for the studying of the mind, particularly his reliance on analysis, synthesis and successive approximations in relation to Newton’s method and Newton-inspired methodologies; and second, the relation of Hume’s model of the mind to Newton’s model of the natural world, particularly the congruence of Hume’s theory of association with the chemical idea of elective affinities as opposed to gravity. In conclusion, the chapter summarizes the significance of these connections for competing interpretations of Hume’s science of the mind.

Hörcher, Ferenc: A Political Philosophy of Conservatism. Prudence, Moderation and Tradition. Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. 

Bringing prudence back into the centre of political philosophical discussion, this book assesses how far the Aristotelian notion can be of use in thinking about politics today. Antique, medieval and early modern discussions on practical wisdom are reconstructed and re-contextualized to show not only how our understanding of the virtue of ‘prudence’ has changed over time, but why it should be revived. The book demonstrates that Aristotelian notions should be used to describe the actions and speeches of people active in politics, without losing sight of the normative dimension. In doing so, it presents an original argument which is both different from mainstream contemporary political philosophy and beneficial to our understanding of the role of practical reason in politics.

RCH Institute for Literary Studies

Kecskeméti, Gábor: Hungarian and Transylvanian Ramism. In The European Contexts of Ramism, eds. Sarah Knight, Emma Annette Wilson, Turnhout: Brepols, 2019. (Late Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 27, 285–329.)

Recent schools of intellectual history do not study the ‘influence’ of one outstanding personality primarily, but more the way numerous thinkers receive and utilize elements of the sets of ideas connected to the name. This is especially true in the case of Petrus Ramus. The interpretation of Ramism is not feasible if we focus on exploring one coherent intention of the author (or several of them). It seems more fruitful to study the multi-faceted community of interpreters that was driven to hold certain positions by personal conviction, institutional needs or confessional identity. These people found the suitable framework for asserting their positions in one or the other of the many processes of Ramism, that is, they connected their aspirations to paradigms that they believed to be Ramist. The study reviews the impacts of Ramism on the scholarly, pedagogical and cultural life of the Kingdom of Hungary and of Transylvania, including the local publications in grammar, rhetoric, homiletics and logic, as well as the presence of Ramist considerations and components in domestic education.

Dieter Breuer, Gábor Tüskés (Hrsg./Eds.) In Zusammenarb. mit/In collab. with Réka Lengyel: Aufgeklärte Sozietäten, Literatur und Wissenschaft in Mitteleuropa. Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter. 2019.

Die einunddreißig Beiträge in deutscher, englischer und französischer Sprache behandeln systematische, programmatische, diskurs- und soziohistorische, aber auch fall-, personen- und werkbezogenen Aspekte des Sozietätswesens mit dem Schwerpunkt auf dem Wirkungs- und Vernetzungsbereich des östlichen Mitteleuropa.

The 31 German, English and French language contributions in this volume address systematic, programmatic, discursive, sociological and historical aspects of societies according to individual cases, people and work. The focus lies on the effects and interrelationships of the societies in Central and Eastern Europe.

RCH Institute of Art History

Barral i Altet, Xavier and Lővei, Pál and Lucherini, Vinni and Takács, Imre, eds. (2018) The Art of Medieval Hungary. Bibliotheca Academiae Hungariae – Roma. Studia (7). Viella, Roma.

With this book, the Hungarian Academy of Rome offers to the medievalist community a thematic synthesis about Hungarian medieval art, reconstructing, from a European perspective, more than 400 years of artistic production in a country located right at the heart of Europe. The book presents an up-to-date overview from the Romanesque period through Late Gothic up to the beginning of the Renaissance, with an emphasis on the artistic relations that evolved between Hungary and other European territories, such as the Capetian Dynasty, the Italian Peninsula and the German Empire. Situated at the meeting point between the Mediterranean regions, the lands ruled by the courts of Europe west of the Alps and the territories of the Byzantine (later Ottoman) Empire, Hungary boasts an artistic heritage that is one of the most original features of our common European past. The book, whose editors and authors are among today’s foremost experts in medieval art history, is divided into four thematic sections – the sources and art historiography of the medieval period, the boundary between history, art history and archaeology, church architecture and decorations, religious cults and symbols of the power – with a selection of essays on the main works of Hungarian medieval art held in museums and public collections.

Sisa, József (ed.): Motherland and Progress: Hungarian Architecture and Design 1800-1900. Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag GmbH, 2016.

In the 19th century, Hungary witnessed unprecedented social, economic and cultural development. The country became an equal partner within the Dual Monarchy when the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 was concluded. Architecture and all forms of design flourished as never before. A distinctly Central European taste emerged, in which the artistic presence of the German-speaking lands was augmented by the influence of France and England. As this process unfolded, attempts were made to find a uniquely Hungarian form, based on motifs borrowed from peasant art as well as real (or fictitious) historical antecedents. "Motherland and Progress" – the motto of 19th-century Hungarian reformers – reflected the program embraced by the country in its drive to define its identity and shape its future.

RCH Institute of Ethnology

Vargyas, Gábor:  Photoshopped Ancestors. Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology Working Papers, Halle/Saale, No.194. 34 p. (2019) 

On the basis of a case study among the Bru of the Central Vietnamese Highlands, I examine how the recent introduction of Photoshop-manipulated photographs into the Bru ancestor cult fits with their traditional religious conceptions about pollution and oblivion. I propose three possible explanations for the entrance of these photographs into Bru culture: culture change, mimicry, and syncretism. Based on this, I raise the question of how to interpret the effects of photographs on the Bru: what do they mean or express in terms of identification with and integration and assimilation into Vietnamese society? After discussing some instances of general photo use among the resettled Bru of Ðắk Lắk, I present a case study on how the photos taken from the identity cards of a deceased man and his widow were transformed into a manipulated Bru ancestor photo in a Vietnamese-run photography shop. At the end of my paper I rephrase the question of photo manipulation in a wider context – that of the relationship between subjects and objects, i.e. human persons and the material world.

Sárközi, Ildikó Gyöngyvér: From the Mists of Martyrdom: Sibe Ancestors and Heroes on the Altar of Chinese Nation-Building. Halle, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology: LIT, 2018.

The Sibe mostly live in China’s north-eastern provinces, but a large number of them can be found in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the north-west. This extreme geographical separation is accounted for by historical circumstances. The Sibe, who originally lived in Manchuria, served as military border guards of the Manchu Empire. In 1764, one group of the Sibe was ordered to move to Xinjiang to defend the borders there. Over the past 250 years, these two groups of the Sibe gradually lost their original unity: a significant part of their language, writing system, and traditions have been preserved only by the Sibe living in Xinjiang. The starting point of this book is the construction of the Chinese nation from 1949 onwards. The frames for the ethnic nationalist aspirations of the Sibe to reinterpret their shared past and identity were determined by the above ideological and political directions. The author of this book focuses on this process.

RCH Institute of Archaeology

2023/II

Dániel Gerber, Bea Szeifert, Orsolya Székely, Balázs Egyed, Balázs Gyuris, Julia I Giblin, Anikó Horváth, Kitti Köhler, Gabriella Kulcsár, Ágnes Kustár, István Major, Mihály Molnár, László Palcsu, Vajk Szeverényi, Szilvia Fábián, Balázs Gusztáv Mende, Mária Bondár, Eszter Ari, Viktória Kiss, Anna Szécsényi-Nagy: Interdisciplinary Analyses of Bronze Age Communities from Western Hungary Reveal Complex Population Histories. Molecular Biology and Evolution, Volume 40, Issue 9, September 2023, msad182, https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msad182

In 2003–2004, excavations on the outskirts of Balatonkeresztúr along the M7 motorway revealed Bronze Age burials at a multi-period site. In cooperation with the research programme of the Momentum Mobility Research Group of the HUN-REN RCH Institute of Archaeology, the human remains of the graves were genetically analyzed by the researchers of the HUN-REN RCH Institute of Archaeogenomics. The primary aim of the whole genome study was to uncover the population history events that took place over a time span of almost a thousand years. In addition to the population genetics results, the publication also contains a number of methodological innovations, including research on genetic diseases.

Kolláth, Ágnes: Typology and Chronology of Early Modern Pottery in Buda. Budapest: HUN-REN RCH Institute of Archaeology, Archaeolingua Publishing. Hardcover, 344 p., with colour illustrations. ISBN 978-615-5766-65-7

Buda, the capital of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary became a border fortress between the Holy Roman and the Ottoman Empires in 1541, when the troops of Sultan Süleyman I occupied its walls, and the political situation remained the same until 1686. Its particular position in the clash zone of the two superpowers of an era which was a transitional period between the Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution, resulted in a rich and diverse archaeological material. This volume analyses the Early Modern pottery from closed assemblages excavated on Szent György Square, one of the most important and extensively researched archaeological sites in Buda Castle District. Everyday wares of local Hungarian, Austrian, Balkan, and Ottoman origin, as well as Western European, Middle, and Far Eastern luxury ceramics, can all be found among the approximately one hundred different ware types. Besides their classic typology and chronology, the author presents their research history, technical characteristics, and cultural connections. The results regarding the settlement history of the site are summarised from the perspective of historical archaeology. The book also includes a comprehensive bibliography on the topic, and all pottery types are illustrated by easy-to-search colour plates.

2023/I

Bartosiewicz, László – Daróczi-Szabó, Márta – Gál, Erika: A dog's life: interpreting Migration Period dog burials from Hungary. Anthropozoologica 58(2), 9-22, (10 February 2023). https://doi.org/10.5252/anthropozoologica2023v58a2

Of all domestic animals, dogs have developed the tightest bond with humans during the history of civilization. Regardless of their chronological affiliation, articulated dog skeletons discovered in structured deposits show individuals within their biological contexts; their ageing and sexing are usually possible and even pathological histories can be reconstructed. This paper is a concise review of five Migration Period (5th-6th century CE) deposits from western Hungary, the former territory of Roman Pannonia province. These burials are examples of dogs being interred with other animals (horse and lynx) as well as humans under various circumstances. The integration of multidisciplinary information in reconstructing both the morphotype and likely socio-cultural status of 13 individuals showed the presence of unusually large dogs in human burials by both late Antique and present-day standards. Langobard dogs in the studied archaeological contexts tend to represent high status and apparently strength.

Oross, Krisztián – Jakucs, János – Marton, Tibor – Gál, Erika – Whittle, Alasdair: Pioneers, carpenters, outsiders: radiocarbon dating of early farmers in western Hungary. In: Marić, Miroslav – Bulatović, Jelena – Marković, Nemanja (eds) Relatively Absolute : Relative and Absolute Chronologies in the Neolithic of Southeast Europe. Belgrade, Szerbia : Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts Institute for Balkan Studies (2023) 165 p. pp. 135–158. , 24 p. ISBN 978-86-7179-122-9

https://www.academia.edu/102755830/Kriszti%C3%A1n_Oross_et_al_Pioneers_carpenters_outsiders_radiocarbon_dating_of_early_farmers_in_western_Hungary

Archaeological research of Neolithic southern Transdanubia between Lake Balaton and the Drava river has received special attention in the Institute of Archaeology, HUN-REN Research Centre for the Humanities (the former Institute of Archaeology HAS) over the last 20 years. Hundreds of AMS radiocarbon measurements were carried out in the course of several research projects. The Times of Their Lives ERC Advanced Grant has explored radiocarbon chronology as its main task, later a series of research projects funded by the National Research, Development and Innovation Office of Hungary and other institutions have also enriched databases with essential data.The paper focuses on the 6th millennium cal BC, thus the emergence and consolidation of the Neolithic in the region. Radiocarbon dating programmes based on Bayesian statistical modeling provide substantial information on the evolution and density of the regional settlement system as well.

2022

Benkő, Elek – Berta, Adrián – Bondár, Mária (szerk./eds): Magyarország Régészeti Topográfiája 12. Hódmezővásárhely északi határa. [Archaeological Topography of Hungary 12. The Northern Outskirts of Hódmezővásárhely]. Budapest: Institute of Archaeology Research Centre for the Humanities – Archaeolingua, 2022. Hard cover, 716 pages, black-and-white and colour illustrations. ISBN 978-615-5766-58-9.

http://real.mtak.hu/165880/1/Moregeszetitopografia_12.pdf

To compile and publish the volumes of the series Archaeological Topography of Hungary has been a central tasks of the Institute of Archaeology, HUN-REN Research Centre for the Humanities (the former Institute of Archaeology HAS) since its foundation. Altogether eleven volumes of the series have been completed between 1966 and 2012. During the decade since the publication of the last volume, both the organisational and legislative framework of heritage protection and management in Hungary underwent several fundamental changes; the pace of industrial development has increased significantly, which, alongside a rapid evolution in GIS-based archaeological research and field investigation methods urged the updating of the methodology and publication characteristics of the results of topographic research. This book, the twelfth volume of the topographic series, includes the survey of the second largest district in Hungary, the northern outskirts of Hódmezővásárhely. The presented data have been gleaned from previous MA and BA dissertations as well as the results of new field surveys, which, by applying state-of-the art technology and GIS-based statistical methods, resulted in an approach that provided archaeological and settlement historical research with reliable data and enabled archaeologists to determine the extents and intensity of sites significantly more precisely than ever before. In this way, it also helps facilitating the assessment of the measure of necessary archaeological intervention in the case of future development projects. Studies by researchers of the Institute and archaeology-related institutions in Csongrád-Csanád County (Department of Archaeology of the Szeged University, Móra Ferenc Museum of Szeged, Tornyai János Museum of Hódmezővásárhely, and the administrative Government Office in charge) complete the topographic entries of the volume. The digital dataset of the book also allows to search and query the data from different criteria.

Szőke, Béla Miklós: Zalavár-Rezes. Gräberfeld und Siedlungsreste aus dem frühen Mittelalter. Mosaburg/Zalavár 2. Budapest: Institute of Archaeology Eötvös Loránd Research Network, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian National Museum, Martin Opitz Publishing, 2023. Hard cover, 431 p., with black & white and colour illustrations. ISBN 978-615-6388-40-7

https://www.academia.edu/106470058/B

After the collapse of the Avar Khaganate at the beginning of the 9th century AD, the easternmost province of the Carolingian Empire, Pannonia, emerged on the territory of Transdanubia. From AD 838/840 onward, Priwina and his son Chezil developed their province with their seat in Mosaburg on Zalavár Castle Island in the Lower Zala Valley (South-west Hungary), which gradually had become an ecclesiastical and administrative centre of the province. North of the main castle in Zalavár-Castle Island lies an island group made up of differently-sized, more or less contiguous sandhills, the suburbium, inhabited mainly by the service people of the settlement agglomeration of Mosaburg. A part of it, an area of 12,300 m² of the site of Zalavár-Rezes was excavated between 1961 and 1989 by Ágnes Cs. Sós. Her fieldwork yielded 205 burials of a Carolingian-age cemetery and a total of 128 settlement features of a Carolingian-period and an Early Árpádian Age settlement. This book presenting the results of these excavations is the 2nd volume of the Mosaburg/Zalavár series, supported by the NRDIO, the Árpád House Programme, and the ELRN.

Bács, Tamás A.–Bollók, Ádám–Vida, Tivadar (eds)
Across the Mediterranean — Along the Nile: Studies in Egyptology, Nubiology and Late Antiquity Dedicated to László Török on the Occasion of His 75th Birthday
Budapest, Hungary : Archaeolingua (2018) , 980 p.
The present two-volume book, dedicated to the distinguished nubiologist László Török to celebrate his 75th birthday, is made up of 60 English, German, and French essays authored by a community of internationally renowned scholars. The volume covers thousands of years of Mediterranean, Egyptian and Nubian history, archaeology, religious history and art history from prehistoric times to the Middle Ages. As a clear reflection of the Jubilant’s scholarly interest, the bulk of the published papers are centered around Egyptian, Nubian and late antiquity studies, besides which contributions on prehistoric Europe, the ancient Near East, and the Roman world are also included. A separate chapter is dedicated to the early-modern and modern European reception of the ancient world. Besides larger syntheses and overviews, a rich array of new excavation results and re-evaluations of famous sites and finds are offered to the reader. All these studies provide new insights into the vibrant and colorful lives of past societies and contribute to a better understanding of the ancient and late antique world of the Mediterranean and its wider environment. The first volume of the book focuses on Ancient Egypt, Ancient Nubia, prehistoric Europe, the ancient Near East and the Roman world, while the second volume discusses Late Antique Nubia, the Byzantine world in Egypt and the ancient world in modern Europe.

Veronika Csáky, Dániel Gerber, István Koncz, Gergely Csiky, Balázs G. Mende, Bea Szeifert, Balázs Egyed, Horolma Pamjav, Antónia Marcsik, Erika Molnár, György Pálfi, András Gulyás, Bernadett Kovacsóczy, Gabriella M. Lezsák, Gábor Lőrinczy, Anna Szécsényi-Nagy & Tivadar Vida
Genetic insights into the social organization of the Avar period elite in the 7th century AD Carpathian Basin
Nature: Scientific Reports volume 10, Article number: 948 (2020)

After 568 AD, the Avars settled in the Carpathian Basin and founded the Avar Qaganate, which was an important power in Central Europe until the 9th century. Part of the Avar society was probably of Asian origin; however, the localization of their homeland is hampered by the scarcity of historical and archaeological data. Here, we study mitogenome and Y chromosomal variability of 26 individuals, a number of them representing a well-characterized elite group buried at the centre of the Carpathian Basin more than a century after the Avar conquest. The studied group has maternal and paternal genetic affinities to several ancient and modern East-Central Asian populations. The majority of the mitochondrial DNA variability represents Asian haplogroups (C, D, F, M, R, Y and Z). The Y-STR variability of the analyzed elite males belongs only to five lineages, three N-Tat with mostly Asian parallels and two Q haplotypes. The homogeneity of the Y chromosomes reveals paternal kinship as a cohesive force in the organization of the Avar elite strata on both a social and territorial level. Our results indicate that the Avar elite arrived in the Carpathian Basin as a group of families and remained mostly endogamous for several generations after the conquest.

RCH Institute of History

Fodor, Pál (ed.): The Battle for Central Europe : The Siege of Szigetvár and the Death of Süleyman the Magnificent and Nicholas Zrínyi (1566). Brill, 2019.

In The Battle for Central Europe, specialists in 16th century Ottoman, Habsburg and Hungarian history provide the most comprehensive picture possible of a battle that determined the fate of Central Europe for centuries. Not only the siege and the death of its main protagonists are discussed, but also the wider context of the imperial rivalry and the empire buildings of the competing great powers of that age.

Contributors include Gábor Ágoston, János B. Szabó, Zsuzsa Barbarics-Hermanik, Günhan Börekçi, Feridun M. Emecen, Alfredo Alvar Ezquerra, István Fazekas, Pál Fodor, Klára Hegyi, Colin Imber, Damir Karbić, József Kelenik, Zoltán Korpás, Tijana Krstić, Nenad Moačanin, Gülru Neci̇poğlu, Erol Özvar, Géza Pálffy, Norbert Pap, Peter Rauscher, Claudia Römer, Arno Strohmeyer, Zeynep Tarım, James D. Tracy, Gábor Tüskés, Szabolcs Varga and Nicolas Vatin.

“These were hard times for Skanderbeg, but he had an ally, the Hungarian Hunyadi” Episodes in Albanian–Hungarian Historical Contacts. Csaplár-Degovics, Krisztián, ed. Budapest, 2019.

Although there has been no organized Albanian research in Hungary, the chapters in this book clearly demonstrate that researchers well-versed in the various historical periods have engaged in a joint investigation of the Albanian-Hungarian past. The reader of this book will find that the two peoples have, over the last 500 years and more, come into more than merely superficial contact: their histories are closely intertwined. The authors have looked into – for example – how the relationship between Skanderbeg and John Hunyadi may be reconstructed from historical sources; how the Araniti family rebuilt their lost power in areas of Hungary occupied by the Ottomans, and how Muslim and Catholic Albanian military commanders found themselves facing each other on the 17th century battlefields of Hungary. The authors are among the finest in their fields. Their studies reveal new research findings, many of which will cause a sensation in the world of Albanian studies. The book is thus a distillation of contemporary Hungarian work on Albanian studies and also a salute by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade to the joint Albanian-Hungarian and Austro-Hungarian past.

RCH Institute of Musicology

Czagány, Zsuzsa: Antiphonale Varadinense saec. XV. Critical Edition with Essays. Musicalia Danubiana 26/1-3, red. Gabriella Gilányi and Gábriel Szoliva. Budapest: Research Centre for the Humanities, Institute for Musicology, 2019.

A facsimile edition of the monumental codex of the medieval Várad Cathedral with critical commentaries and essays in three volumes, in Hungarian and English: Vol. I Proprium de tempore. Index cantuum cum apparatu critico Vol. II Proprium de sanctis et commune sanctorum. Index cantuum cum apparatu critico Vol. III. Essays. The huge, richly illuminated and fully notated manuscript of the Várad Cathedral (Waradinum, Großwardein, today Oradea in Romania), the Antiphonale Varadinense was commissioned by John (Jan/János) Filipecz, diplomat of King Matthias Corvinus and Bishop of Várad in the last third of the 15th century. The manuscript was copied in an outlander workshop: its decoration, magnificent miniatures and musical notation were the work of contemporary Bohemian craftsmen. However, with its content, the inclusion of the chant repertory of the officium divinum in a specific system, and about 1,600 notated melodies, it is an unrivalled monument of the liturgical and musical tradition of late medieval Várad.

RCH Institute of Archaeogenomics

2023/II

Dániel Gerber, Bea Szeifert, Orsolya Székely, Balázs Egyed, Balázs Gyuris, Julia I Giblin, Anikó Horváth, Kitti Köhler, Gabriella Kulcsár, Ágnes Kustár, István Major, Mihály Molnár, László Palcsu, Vajk Szeverényi, Szilvia Fábián, Balázs Gusztáv Mende, Mária Bondár, Eszter Ari, Viktória Kiss, Anna Szécsényi-Nagy, Interdisciplinary Analyses of Bronze Age Communities from Western Hungary Reveal Complex Population Histories, Molecular Biology and Evolution, Volume 40, Issue 9, September 2023, msad182, https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msad182

In this study, we report 21 ancient shotgun genomes from present-day Western Hungary, from previously understudied Late Copper Age Baden, and Bronze Age Somogyvár–Vinkovci, Kisapostag, and Encrusted Pottery archeological cultures (3,530–1,620 cal Bce). Our results indicate the presence of high steppe ancestry in the Somogyvár–Vinkovci culture. They were then replaced by the Kisapostag group, who exhibit an outstandingly high (up to ∼47%) Mesolithic hunter–gatherer ancestry, despite this component being thought to be highly diluted by the time of the Early Bronze Age. The Kisapostag population contributed the genetic basis for the succeeding community of the Encrusted Pottery culture. We also found an elevated hunter–gatherer component in a local Baden culture–associated individual, but no connections were proven to the Bronze Age individuals. The hunter–gatherer ancestry in Kisapostag is likely derived from two main sources, one from a Funnelbeaker or Globular Amphora culture–related population and one from a previously unrecognized source in Eastern Europe. We show that this ancestry not only appeared in various groups in Bronze Age Central Europe but also made contributions to Baltic populations. The social structure of Kisapostag and Encrusted Pottery cultures is patrilocal, similarly to most contemporaneous groups. Furthermore, we developed new methods and method standards for computational analyses of ancient DNA, implemented to our newly developed and freely available bioinformatic package. By analyzing clinical traits, we found carriers of aneuploidy and inheritable genetic diseases. Finally, based on genetic and anthropological data, we present here the first female facial reconstruction from the Bronze Age Carpathian Basin.

Deven N. Vyas, István Koncz, Alessandra Modi, Balázs Gusztáv Mende, Yijie Tian, Paolo Francalacci, Martina Lari, Stefania Vai, Péter Straub, Zsolt Gallina, Tamás Szeniczey, Tamás Hajdu, Rita Radzevičiūtė, Zuzana Hofmanová, Sándor Évinger, Zsolt Bernert, Walter Pohl, David Caramelli, Tivadar Vida, Patrick J. Geary, Krishna R. Veeramah, Fine-scale sampling uncovers the complexity of migrations in 5th–6th century Pannonia, Current Biology (2023), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.07.063

As the collapse of the Western Roman Empire accelerated during the 4th and 5th centuries, arriving ‘‘barbarian’’ groups began to establish new communities in the border provinces of the declining (and eventually former) empire. This was a time of significant cultural and political change throughout not only these border regions but Europe as a whole. To better understand post-Roman community formation in one of these key frontier zones after the collapse of the Hunnic movement, we generated new paleogenomic data for a set of 38 burials from a time series of three 5 th century cemeteries at Lake Balaton, Hungary. We utilized a comprehensive sampling approach to characterize these cemeteries along with data from 38 additional burials from a previously published mid-6th century site and analyzed them alongside data from over 550 penecontemporaneous individuals. The range of genetic diversity in all four of these local burial communities is extensive and wider ranging than penecontemporaneous Europeans sequenced to date. Despite many commonalities in burial customs and demography, we find that there were substantial differences in genetic ancestry between the sites. We detect evidence of northern European gene flow into the Lake Balaton region. Additionally, we observe a statistically significant association between dress artifacts and genetic ancestry among 5th century genetically female burials. Our analysis shows that the formation of early Medieval communities was a multifarious process even at a local level, consisting of genetically heterogeneous groups.

2023/I

Borbély, Noémi, Orsolya Székely, Bea Szeifert, Dániel Gerber, István Máthé, Elek Benkő, Balázs Gusztáv Mende, Balázs Egyed, Horolma Pamjav, and Anna Szécsényi-Nagy. 2023. "High Coverage Mitogenomes and Y-Chromosomal Typing Reveal Ancient Lineages in the Modern-Day Székely Population in Romania" Genes 14, no. 1: 133. https://doi.org/10.3390/genes14010133

Here we present 115 whole mitogenomes and 92 Y-chromosomal Short Tandem Repeat (STR) and Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) profiles from a Hungarian ethnic group, the Székelys (in Romanian: Secuii, in German: Sekler), living in southeast Transylvania (Romania). The Székelys can be traced back to the 12th century in the region, and numerous scientific theories exist as to their origin. We carefully selected sample providers that had local ancestors inhabiting small villages in the area of Odorheiu Secuiesc/Székelyudvarhely in Romania. The results of our research and the reported data signify a qualitative leap compared to previous studies since it presents the first complete mitochondrial DNA sequences and Y-chromosomal profiles of 23 STRs from the region. We evaluated the results with population genetic and phylogenetic methods in the context of the modern and ancient populations that are either geographically or historically related to the Székelys. Our results demonstrate a predominantly local uniparental make-up of the population that also indicates limited admixture with neighboring populations. Phylogenetic analyses confirmed the presumed eastern origin of certain maternal (A, C, D) and paternal (Q, R1a) lineages, and, in some cases, they could also be linked to ancient DNA data from the Migration Period (5th–9th centuries AD) and Hungarian Conquest Period (10th century AD) populations.

Szeifert, B., Türk, A., Gerber, D., Csáky, V., Langó, P., Sztashenkov, D. A., Botalov, S. G., Szitgyikov, A. G., Zelenkov, A. S., Mende, B. G., and Szécsényi-Nagy, A. (2023). A korai magyar történelem régészeti és archeogenetikai kutatásának legfrissebb eredményei Nyugat-Szibériától a Középső-Volga vidékig. Archaeologiai Értesítő 147, 1, 33-74, Available From: AKJournals https://doi.org/10.1556/0208.2022.00031

We present the archaeological findings of the Volga–Ural region and Western-Siberia in relation to Hungarian prehistory. Based on archaeogenetic analyses of the human remains, we discuss relationships between these populations and the Conquest Period Hungarians in the Carpathian Basin.

2022.

Bea Szeifert, Dániel Gerber, Veronika Csáky, Péter Langó, Dmitrii A. Stashenkov, Aleksandr A. Khokhlov,  Ayrat G. Sitdikov, Ilgizar R. Gazimzyanov, Elizaveta V. Volkova, Natalia P. Matveeva, Alexander S. Zelenkov, Olga E. Poshekhonova, Anastasiia V. Sleptsova, Konstantin G. Karacharov, Viktoria V. Ilyushina, Boris A. Konikov, Flarit A. Sungatov, Aleksander G. Kolonskikh, Sergei G. Botalov, Ivan V. Grudochko, Oleksii Komar, Balázs Egyed, Balázs G. Mende, Attila Türk, Anna Szécsényi-Nagy: Tracing genetic connections of ancient Hungarians to the 6th–14th century populations of the Volga-Ural region, Human Molecular Genetics, 2022; ddac106, https://doi.org/10.1093/hmg/ddac106

Most of the early Hungarian tribes originated from the Volga-Kama and South-Ural regions, where they were composed of a mixed population based on historical, philological and archaeological data. We present here the uniparental genetic makeup of the mediaeval era of these regions that served as a melting pot for ethnic groups with different linguistic and historical backgrounds. Representing diverse cultural contexts, the new genetic data originate from ancient proto-Ob-Ugric people from Western Siberia (6th–13th century), the pre-Conquest period and subsisting Hungarians from the Volga-Ural region (6th–14th century) and their neighbours. By examining the eastern archaeology traits of Hungarian prehistory, we also study their genetic composition and origin in an interdisciplinary framework. We analyzed 110 deep-sequenced mitogenomes and 42 Y-chromosome haplotypes from 18 archaeological sites in Russia. The results support the studied groups’ genetic relationships regardless of geographical distances, suggesting large-scale mobility. We detected long-lasting genetic connections between the sites representing the Kushnarenkovo and Chiyalik cultures and the Carpathian Basin Hungarians and confirmed the Uralic transmission of several East Eurasian uniparental lineages in their gene pool. Based on phylogenetics, we demonstrate and model the connections and splits of the studied Volga-Ural and conqueror groups. Early Hungarians and their alliances conquered the Carpathian Basin around 890 AD. Re-analysis of the Hungarian conquerors’ maternal gene pool reveals numerous surviving maternal relationships in both sexes; therefore, we conclude that men and women came to the Carpathian Basin together, and although they were subsequently genetically fused into the local population, certain eastern lineages survived for centuries.

 

Guido Alberto Gnecchi-Ruscone, Anna Szécsényi-Nagy, István Koncz, Gergely Csiky, Zsófia Rácz, A. B. Rohrlach, Guido Brandt, Nadin Rohland, Veronika Csáky, Olivia Cheronet, Bea Szeifert, Tibor Ákos Rácz, András Benedek, Zsolt Bernert, Norbert Berta, Szabolcs Czifra, János Dani, Zoltán Farkas, Tamara Hága, Tamás Hajdu, Mónika Jászberényi, Viktória Kisjuhász, Barbara Kolozsi, Péter Major, Antónia Marcsik, Bernadett Ny. Kovacsóczy, Csilla Balogh, Gabriella M.Lezsák, János Gábor Ódor, Márta Szelekovszky, Tamás Szeniczey, Judit Tárnoki, Zoltán Tóth, Eszter K.Tutkovics, Balázs G. Mende, Patrick Geary, Walter Pohl, Tivadar Vida, Ron Pinhasi, David Reich, Zuzana Hofmanová, Choongwon Jeong, Johannes Krause: Ancient genomes reveal origin and rapid trans-Eurasian migration of 7th century Avar elites. Cell (2022). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2022.03.007

The Avars settled the Carpathian Basin in 567/68 CE, establishing an empire lasting over 200 years. Who they were and where they came from is highly debated. Contemporaries have disagreed about whether they were, as they claimed, the direct successors of the Mongolian Steppe Rouran empire that was destroyed by the Turks in ∼550 CE. Here, we analyze new genome-wide data from 66 pre-Avar and Avar-period Carpathian Basin individuals, including the 8 richest Avar-period burials and further elite sites from Avar’s empire core region. Our results provide support for a rapid long-distance trans-Eurasian migration of Avar-period elites. These individuals carried Northeast Asian ancestry matching the profile of preceding Mongolian Steppe populations, particularly a genome available from the Rouran period. Some of the later elite individuals carried an additional non-local ancestry component broadly matching the steppe, which could point to a later migration or reflect greater genetic diversity within the initial migrant population.

RCH Institute of Philosophy

2023/II.

Péter András Varga: An eyewitness account of Edmund Husserl and Freiburg phenomenology in 1923–24: Towards reclaiming the plurivocity of historical sources of the Phenomenological Movement. Continental Philosophy Review 56 : 4 pp. 517-533. (2023)

The early phenomenologist József Somogyi was one of, if not the first to write a monograph specifically dedicated to the history of the nascent phenomenological philosophy. The two letters written by him during his stay in Freiburg in WS 1923/24, which are hereby published and discussed for the first time, are, similarly, of interest first due to the rare, valuable insight they can provide – when combined with a detailed microhistorical reconstruction of the surrounding constellation – into the elaborate structures of mid-1920s Freiburg phenomenology around Edmund Husserl (directly after Martin Heidegger’s departure to Marburg). Ranging from Husserl’s teaching style to interactions between phenomenology and Catholic thought and to preconditions of the extraordinary philosophical creativity that distinguished early phenomenology, they offer a snapshot that differs significantly from the established narratives of subsequent privileged members of the Phenomenological Movement.

Ádám Tamás Tuboly-Emil C. Toescu (eds): Critical perspectives on science: Arguments for a richer discussion on the scientific enterprise. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, Volume 48, Issue 2, 2023.

Science, as a body of knowledge, process or an interactive network of individuals and institutions, is a central component of contemporary society. This privileged position attracts some potential dangers of over-reaching, analysed by a variety of commentators. Central to these discussions is the importance and relevance of values to the practice of science. Far from being ‘value-free’, science takes place in a social environment that brings its values and influences the contract between scientists and society. In addition to the internal values of scientific practice, the individual scientists are unavoidably influenced by their personal views and biases, acting as external sets of values. This issue, aimed at the young practitioners of science, addresses some of these topics and represents an occasion to (re)examine the assumptions underpinning scientific practice(s). The eclecticism of topics illustrate the rich offerings humanities can provide and such interdisciplinary efforts contribute to the burgeoning field of science humanities.

2023/I.

János Tőzsér: The Failure of Philosophical Knowledge: Why Philosophers are not Entitled to their Beliefs. Bloomsbury Open Access, Philosophy, London, 2023.

Philosophy begins and ends in disagreement. Philosophers disagree among themselves in innumerable ways, and this pervasive and permanent dissent is a sign of their inability to solve philosophical problems and present well-established substantive truths.

This raises the question: “What should we do with our philosophical beliefs in light of philosophy’s epistemic failure?” In this open access book, János Tozsér analyzes the possible answers to this question, develops them into comprehensive metaphilosophical visions, and argues that we cannot commit ourselves to any of them in peace, with a clear intellectual conscience, and without self-deception.

Tozsér calls this disheartening insight “the experience of breakdown,” claiming that no matter how we struggle, we are unable to create substantive philosophical knowledge that goes beyond the cost-benefit analysis of philosophical theories. He makes the case that, at the same time, we cannot suspend all of our beliefs about the most fundamental facts of our world once and for all, and so forever give up on seeking substantive philosophical truths.

Gábor Gángó (ed.): Early Modern Natural Law in East-Central Europe. Brill, 2023. (Early Modern Natural Law: Studies & Sources, Volume: 5)

Which works and tenets of early modern natural law reached East-Central Europe, and how? How was it received, what influence did it have? And how did theorists and users of natural law in East- Central Europe enrich the pan-European discourse? This volume is pioneering in two ways; it draws the east of the Empire and its borderlands into the study of natural law, and it adds natural law to the practical discourse of this region. Drawing on a large amount of previously neglected printed or handwritten sources, the authors highlight the impact that Grotius, Pufendorf, Heineccius and others exerted on the teaching of politics and moral philosophy as well as on policies regarding public law, codification praxis, or religious toleration.

2022

Ádám Tamás Tuboly (ed.): The History of Understanding in Analytic Philosophy: Around Logical Empiricism. Bloomsbury, London, 2022.

Charting the various reformulations of verstehen as proposed by Wilhem Dilthey, Max Weber, R.G Collingwood and Peter Winch, the volume explores the reception of the social sciences prior to logical empiricism, before surveying the positive and negative critiques from Otto Neurath, Felix Kaufmann, Viktor Kraft and other logical empiricists. As such, chapters reveal that verstehen was not altogether rejected by the Vienna Circle, but was subject to various conceptual uses and misuses. Along with systematic historical coverage, the book situates verhesten within contemporary interdisciplinary developments in the field, shedding light on the 21st-century 'turn' to understanding among analytic philosophers and opening further lines of inquiry for philosophy of social science.

Ferenc Hörcher: Art and Politics in Roger Scruton's Conservative Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2023. (Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism)

This book covers the field of and points to the intersections between politics, art and philosophy. Its hero, the late Sir Roger Scruton had a longstanding interest in all fields, acquiring professional knowledge in both the practice and theory of politics, art and philosophy. The claim of the book is, therefore, that contrary to a superficial prejudice, it is possible to address the philosophical issues of art and politics in the same oeuvre, as the example of this Cambridge-educated analytical philosopher proves. Accordingly, the book has a bold thesis on the general, theoretical level, mapping the connections between politics, art and philosophy. However, it also has a pioneering commitment on the level of the particular, offering the first full-length study into the philosophical legacy of Roger Scruton, probably the most important British conservative philosopher of the late 20th and the first decades of the 21st century. It also allows reader to look into the philosopher’s fascination with Central European art and culture. Finally, it also provides a daring analysis of the late Scruton’s metaphysical inspirations, connecting the arts, and especially music, with religion and the bonds of love.

RCH Institute for Literary Studies

2023/II

Camoenae Hungaricae 8 (2023). editor-in-chief Kecskeméti, Gábor, ed. Móré, Tünde and Szilágyi, Emőke Rita

In 2023, after a 12-year hiatus, the most important publication platform for the study of Neolatin literature in Hungary, the journal Camoenae Hungaricae, was relaunched, publishing studies in English, German, Italian and French. The journal has been partially renewed (online access, editorial board, new design), but its main objective is to make the results of research on Hungarian Neolatin literature accessible to the international community, in line with previous traditions. The eight articles (in English or German) in this issue, ranging from Janus Pannonius to István Agyich, from traditional philology to the latest achievements in digital textology, provide a selection of research questions and topics.

Hajdu, Péter és Zhang, Xiaohong, ed., Literatures of the World and the Future of Comparative Literature (Leiden: Brill, 2023).  

This volume contains a selection of 24 high-quality papers from the 2019 Congress of the International Comparative Literature Association (ICLA/AILC) in Macau.  The papers are grouped into four sections, each introduced by a separate theoretical overview, reflecting the most exciting areas of the discipline at present. Seven articles perform classical comparative studies, eight focus on national, minority, and diaspora literatures and their literary representations, three on translations, and six on the concept of world literature and the possibilities of writing its history. The contributions cover a wide range of geographical and cultural areas, with a particular focus on the connections between Western (American and European) and Asian (especially Indian and East Asian) literatures. Although the literatures of the world may differ, they are interconnected.

2023/I

Garbacik-Balakowicz, Magdalena, „Individual, Society, and System: Philosophy of History in Sándor Márai’s Late Fiction”, Central European Cultures 3, 2 (2023): 79–98.

The study examines the Hungarian writer's views on the nature of historical processes, starting with the late novels of Sándor Márai. The author shows how Márai's philosophical interest shaped his novels and essays, and also draws attention to the fact that in the Hungarian author's writing the philosophical ideas and categories that inspired him are transformed into a coherent reflection that can be interpreted in terms of phronesis. The author also deals with the philosophical analysis of Márai's works in her earlier monograph in Czech, Filozofické souvislosti v literárním díle Sándora Máraiho [Philosophical Connections in the Literary Works of Sándor Márai], which offers a comprehensive analysis of the philosophical inspirations of Márai's work and proposes a new approach to the interpretation of his oeuvre.

Tüskés, Gábor, Christoph Schmitt-Maaß and Michel Marty, ed., Jansenisms and Literature in Central Europe / Jansenismen und Literatur in Mitteleuropa / Jansénismes et littérature en Europe centrale (Bern, Svájc, Berlin, Németország, Bruxelles, Belgium: Peter Lang Verlag, 2023).

This volume, in English, French and German, examines how the currents of Jansenism were transmitted to the countries of Central Europe and shaped the literatures of the region. It describes the role of authors, translators, publishers, patrons and libraries, and analyses the impact of Jansenist ideas on literature. It brings together previously disparate research methods, explores new sources and critically evaluates previous findings. It places the anthropological and moral discourses on Jansenism in a new perspective, with particular attention to their literary, ideological, cultural and aesthetic implications. It reassesses the literary work of Ferenc Rákóczi II and places it in an international context.

2022.

Nicolaus Olahus, Epistulae Pars II 1534–1553. ed. Szilágyi, Emőke Rita (Budapest: Reciti Kiadó, 2022).

The second volume of the critical edition series of the correspondence of Miklós Oláh, archbishop, chancellor and renowned humanist of Esztergom, covers the period between 1534 and 1553. Most of the items in the volume are previously unpublished letters preserved in archives in Hungary and abroad. Compared to the first volume, this corpus is more mixed in terms of language, style and subject matter, and includes letters in German as well as Latin. The collection of letters offers insights into Oláh's career and image-building strategy in Hungary, as well as a number of new insights into the political and cultural history of the Kingdom of Hungary after Mohács.

Nemes Nagy Ágnes, Les Chevaux et les Anges: Anthologie poétique 1931–1991, ed. Tüskés, Anna (Sainte-Colombe-sur-Gand: Éditions La rumeur libre, 2022).

After several volumes by Ágnes Nemes Nagy in German and English, this is her first collection of poems in French. The translations come from three sources: some, which appeared in various journals and anthologies, were made by Paul Chaulot (1914–1969) in the 1960s and by more than twenty Hungarian and French poets and translators in the fifty years since. Others have remained in the authors' estates, in private hands, and appear here for the first time, along with modern adaptations made especially for this edition, translated by Guillaume Métayer (1972–), the most knowledgeable contemporary French interpreter of contemporary Hungarian poetry.

  • Csörsz Rumen István: „»My shepherd stick is better than the crown«: The Image of the Shepherd in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Popular Literature in Hungary”. In: Ivánek, Jakub – Malura, Jan (eds.): Portraying Countryside in Central European Literature. Ostrava: University of Ostrav. (2021) 56–73. http://real.mtak.hu/133613
  • Fórizs, Gergely: Nation-Building or Nation-Bricolage? The Making of a National Poet in 19th-Century Hungary. In: Kučinskiené, Aisté – Šeina, Viktorija – Speičyté, Brigita (eds.): Literary Canon Formation as Nation-Building in Central Europe and the Baltics 19th to Early 20th Century. (National Cultivation of Culture, 24). Leiden: Brill. (2021) 165–182. http://real.mtak.hu/121153/
  • Hites, Sándor: National Internationalism in Late 19th-Century Utopias by Mór Jókai, Edward Bellamy, and William Morris. World Literature Studies, 13: 2 (2021) 69–80. https://www.sav.sk/journals/uploads/07051507WLS2_2021_Hites.pdf
  • Kalavszky, Zsófia: О трансформации одной украинской песни на венгероязычных землях в первой половине XIX в. (Transformations of an Ukrainian Song in Hungarian Territories during the First Half of the 19th Century). Slavianskii Almanakh, 25: 1–2. (2021): 420–451. https://doi.org/10.31168%2F2073-5731.2021.1-2.4.06
  • Papp, Ingrid: Komu patrí Nikola Šubić Zrínsky? (K inšpiračným zdrojom a ideovej koncepcii historického eposu Andreja Sládkoviča Gróf Mikuláš Šubić Zrínsky na Sihoti). Slovenská literatúra: Revue pre literárnu vedu, 68. (2021) 432–441. http://real.mtak.hu/136076
  • Török, Zsuzsa: Mrs Vachott’s Haunting Memories: Walter Scott and the Female Gothic in Nineteenth-Century Hungary. Women’s Writing, 28. (2021) 472–489. http://real.mtak.hu/135036/
  • Tüskés, Gábor: The Re-Evaluation of Ferenc Rákóczi II’s Confessio peccatoris. Neulateinisches Jahrbuch / Journal of Neo-Latin Language and Literature, 23. (2021) 279‒289. http://real.mtak.hu/133376

RCH Gyula Moravcsik Institute

  • Szovák, Kornél: Literature (Oral Tradition and Literacy; The Birth of Latin Language Literature; The External Conditions of Literature; The Characteristics of the Contents of Literature; The Authors; The Works; The Level of Education; Authors, Genres and Works; Latin Literature). In: Szentpétery, József Psalmus Hungaricus. A Hungarian Cultural History. Volume I: From the Beginnings to 1526. Budapest, Magyarország: Research Center for Humanities (2023) 309-316.
  • Tusor, Péter: Il Collegio Germanico-Ungarico di Roma ed il suo “Liber Ordinationum” In: Alessandro, Boccolini; Matteo, Sanfilippo; Péter, Tusor (szerk.) I COLLEGI PER STRANIERI A/E ROMA NELL’ETÀ MODERNA. I. CINQUE-SETTECENTO. Viterbo, Olaszország: Sette Citta (2023) 31-56.
  • Takács, László: L’introduction de De clementia de Sénèque et celle de Lucrèce. In: Manuel, de Souza Autour de Néron Mélanges en hommage à Yves Perrin. Bordeaux, Franciaország: Ausonius Éditions (2023) 197-203.
  • Adorjáni, Zsolt: Worträtsel, Etymologie und Ideologie in der Ektheosis Arsinoes des Kallimachos. Archiv für Papyrusforschung 62 (2022) 233‒244.
  • Adorjáni, Zsolt: „Die Lieblichste der lieblichen Gestalten“. Eine motivische Spurensuche von Kallimachos bis Goethe und darüber hinaus. Gymnasium 130 (2023) 305‒312.
  • Adorjáni, Zsolt: Der Artemis-Hymnos des Kallimachos. Einleitung, Text, Übersetzung und Kommentar (Texte und Kommentare, 66). Berlin: De Gruyter (2021) 436 p. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110698480/html?lang=de
  • Adorjáni, Zsolt: Plato Pindaricus. Eine übersehene pindarische Allusion in Platons Phaidros? Hermes, 141. (2021) 31–42. https://elibrary.steiner-verlag.de/article/10.25162/hermes-2021-0003
  • Tusor Péter – Sanfilippo, Matteo (szerk.): Gli agenti presso la Santa Sede delle comunità e degli statistranieri: II. Secoli XVIII-XX (Studi di storia delle istituzioni ecclesiastiche 9). Viterbo: Edizioni Sette Città. (2021) https://institutumfraknoi.hu/kiadvany/%09kulfoldi/gli_agenti_presso_la_santa_sede_delle_comunita_e_degli_stati_stranieri_ii_secoli

RCH Institute of Art History

2023/II

Miklós Székely: Schools and museums of modern design in Transylvania around 1900. Institute of Art History, Research Centre for the Humanities, Budapest, 2023.

The time limits of the volume are marked by a fundamentally short historical period, the two decades of the half-century history of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, when the economic catch-up of Transylvania and the clarification of the presence of Hungarian culture were intertwined in many cases. The memories of industrial vocational education in Transylvania bear witness to the spread of modern technologies and educational methodology and the thin border between the artisan’s and the designer's activities.

The author's museum and collection experience influenced the research methodology and determined the approach to processing. Through the analysis of artifacts, archival documents, and photographs unknown to international humanities research until now, the Hungarian political, economic, and cultural ideas related to Transylvania in the decades around 1900 are revealed. In addition to artifacts unearthed from the depths of archives and museums, in certain cases, the objects were excavated from decades of oblivion in museum and school attics. Some of the objects published in the volume come to the reader as the results of nearly a decade of exploration and rescue work.

In the architectural and artistic creations of the turn of the previous century, in addition to striving for harmony between the parts and the whole, the balance of function and decoration determined the approach of architects, industrial artists, and creative people in general. This was also the case in the art of the book of the time, the experience of which inspired the author and the graphic design studio while collaborating on the creation of this book. As a result of their joint thinking, the typography, the separation of content units and the visuality of the volume also refer to the perception of the years around 1900. The sporadically preserved objects and documents of the individual institutions rarely overlap, but they complement each other beautifully, thus the individual chapters, when read together, reflect the whole of the Transylvanian museum-school practice of the previous turn of the century.

2023/I:

Borbála Gulyás: The Art of the Calligrapher George Bocskay. Institute of Art History, Research Centre for the Humanities, Budapest, 2023.

The calligrapher George Bocskay, “scribe to the rulers” Ferdinand I and Maximilian II, was an important officer of the royal Hungarian household in Vienna. Bocskay’s oeuvre is unique in the art history of the late Renaissance in Hungary: he was the only court artist of Hungarian origin who ever served at the joint court established in Vienna after the Kingdom of Hungary was incorporated into the Habsburg Monarchy.

Bocskay created calligraphic artwork for each of the sovereigns who came to power during his time in Vienna, for Hungary’s ecclesiastical and secular elites, and for a broad cross section of its nobility.

The calligrapher produced his three manuscripts for the two Habsburg sovereigns in a period marked by the fashion for princely Kunstkammern or cabinets of curiosities, which created significant demand for unique manuscripts and distinctive book-like rarities.

RCH Institute of Ethnology

2023/II

Báti, Anikó – Umbrai, Laura (2023). Eating in Budapest's Soup Kitchens. Versions and Aversions from the History of Public Catering (1860–1918). Acta Ethnographica Hungarica (published online ahead of print 2023). https://doi.org/10.1556/022.2023.00020

The growth in Budapest's population at the end of the 19th century was based on the influx of migrants from the countryside, mostly industrial workers. The examination of the social tensions generated by their arrival provides a good illustration of the changes in social policy, one element of which was the operation of soup kitchens. The present study examines the development of soup kitchens in Budapest based on the historical sources: official documents, and the contemporary press. Using the ethnographic findings of food culture research, it seeks to explain why official soup kitchens were not popular. Through a historical and ethnographic approach, the transitional, evolving features of urban foodways emerge in the context of soup kitchens in parallel with the change in lifestyle.

Gulyás, Judit (2023). Was the Tale a Women's Genre? Tellers, Collectors, and Writers of Tales in 19th-Century Hungary. Acta Ethnographica Hungarica, 67(2), 467–495. https://doi.org/10.1556/022.2023.00009

In 1858 a leading Hungarian literary critic as well as collector and editor of folk poetry started a debate about the possible literary career of women, arguing that literature and other forms of public artistic activity are fields that should not be open to women as it may cause serious moral and social problems. Yet, he noted that in case women still insist on becoming literary authors, they should turn only to certain genres, such as tales. The article investigates how the tale became a gendered genre, and presents women tellers, collectors and writers of tales as well as the diverse ways they were represented in Hungarian culture in the 19th century.

2023/I

Sárközi, Ildikó Gyöngyvér (2023). A Piece of Qing History: The Historical Value of a Sibe Self-taught Historian’s Collection of Genealogies. Ming Qing Yanjiu, 27(1), 54–94. https://doi.org/10.1163/24684791-12340069

The roots of the genealogy writing tradition of the Chinese Sibe go back to the Qing Dynasty. This tradition has played a crucial role to create a genealogical community of the Sibe: genealogies were the material carriers of knowledge preserved about their ancestors and their past. However, many of the genealogies were lost during the turbulent time of the twentieth century, and although numerous Sibe clans embark on reproducing their own family trees, it is only the memory of the elderly they can most often draw on. This study is intended to present and highlight the significance a specific collection of genealogies compiled by a self-taught Sibe historian, offering valuable sources for conduct research on the history of the Qing-dynasty and the Sibe.

Sharifian, Abolfazl – Gantuya, Batdelger – Wario, Hussein T. – Kotowski, Marcin Andrzej – Barani, Hossein – Manzano, Pablo – Kratli, Saverio – Babai, Dániel – Biró, Marianna – Sáfián, László – Erdenetsogt, Jigjidsüren – Qabel, Qorban Mohammad – Molnár, Zsolt (2023). Global principles in local traditional knowledge. A review of forage plant-livestock-herder interactions. Journal of Environmental Management 328. Paper: 116966. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.116966

An understanding of traditional ecological knowledge systems is increasingly acknowledged as a means of helping to develop global, regional and national, but locally relevant policies. Pastoralists often use lands that are unsuitable for crops due to biophysical and climatic extremities and variabilities. Forage plants of pastures are utilized by herding communities by applying locally relevant multigenerational knowledge. We analyzed the forage-related knowledge of pastoralists and herders by reviewing scientific papers and video documentaries on forage plants and indicators, their use in land management, and plant-livestock interactions. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with key knowledge holders in Iran, Mongolia, Kenya, Poland and Hungary. Although pastoralists vary greatly across the globe, the character and use of their traditional forage-related knowledge do seem to follow strikingly similar principles. Understanding these may help the local-to-global-level understanding of these locally specific systems, support bottom-up pastoral initiatives and discussions on sustainable land management, and help to develop locally relevant global and national policies.

2022

Borsos, Balázs – Cseh, Fruzsina – Mészáros Csaba (eds.) (2022). Reckoning and Framing. Current Status and Future Prospects of Hungarian Ethnography in the 21st Century. Münster – New York: Waxmann Verlag Gmbh, 366 p.

It is necessary for every discipline to take stock of its own current state every 20-30 years. Such review helps determine the discipline’s path and tasks for the coming decades, and it also facilitates reflection upon the changes and challenges of the scientific and non-scientific world around it. For this purpose, the Committee of Ethnography of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences organized a series of conferences on the current state and the future of ethnography between 2018 and 2020. Those papers of international interest have been translated and are presented in this volume.

  1. Litovkina, Anna – Barta, Péter –Vargha, Katalin– Hrisztova-Gotthardt, Hrisztalina (2022). Wise and Humorous Words: Hungarian Proverbs, Riddles, and Jokes. In Beissinger, Margaret H. (ed.): The Oxford Handbook of Slavic and East European Folklore. (online edition, Oxford Academic, 21 June 2022), https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190080778.013.37

Proverbs, riddles, and jokes constitute an ample and varied part of Hungarian verbal folklore. These short and concise texts contain bits of folk wisdom and may be meant to be humorous and entertaining (jokes, riddles, and anti-proverbs) or not (proverbs). This chapter is organized into three sections. While the first section addresses Hungarian proverbs and anti-proverbs, the second one treats riddles, and the third discusses jokes. Each section provides a short overview of the collection and study of the respective genre. The nature and origin of each genre, its specific features and subgenres, its pragmatic functions and usage, as well as its contemporary forms are also briefly explored.

  • Gulyás, Judit: Marginalized Texts of a Glorified Genre: The Valorization of the (Folk)tale in Hungary. Ethnographica et Folkloristica Carpathica, 23. (2021) 23–42. https://ojs.lib.unideb.hu/ethnographica/article/view/9583
  • Harmath, András – Szilágyi, Zsolt –Tolnai, Katalin (szerk.): Mönkh khökh tengeriin dor. Mongol dakh' khyatanii landshaft arkheologiin sudalgaa. Budapest: Research Centre for the Humanities. (2021) 46 p. http://real.mtak.hu/139090/
  • Sz. Kristóf, Ildikó: Before Fieldwork: Textual and Visual Stereotypes of Indigenous Peoples and the Emergence of World Ethnography in Hungary in the Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries. In: McCallum, David (szerk.): The Palgrave Handbook of the History of Human Sciences. Singapore: Springer Singapore. (2021) 2–30. https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-981-15-4106-3_107-1
  • T. Litovkina, Anna – Hrisztova-Gotthardt, Hrisztalina – Barta, Péter – Vargha, Katalin – Mieder, Wolfgang: Anti-Proverbs in Five Languages. Structural Features and Verbal Humor Devices. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. (2021) 252 p. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-89062-9
  • Molnár, Zsolt – Babai, Dániel: Inviting ecologists to delve deeper into traditional ecological knowledge. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 36: 8. (2021) 679–690.
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2021.04.006
  • Sárközi, Ildikó Gyöngyvér: The story of an unborn book: A case study on the heritagization of the Chinese Sibe genealogy writing tradition. Asian Ethnicity 22: 1. (2021) 77–89. https://doi.org/10.1080/14631369.2020.1793101
  • Stefler, Denes – Brett, Daniel – Sarkadi-Nagy, Eszter – Kopczynska, Ewa – Detchev, Stefan – Bati, Aniko – Scrob, Mircea – Koenker, Diane – Aleksov, Bojan – Douarin, Elodie et al.: Traditional Eastern European diet and mortality: prospective evidence from the HAPIEE study. European Journal of Nutrition 60. (2021) 1091–1100. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00394-020-02319-9
  • Vargyas, Gábor: The Astrolabe Bay Area, 1870–1914. Collectors, Collections, Masks. In: Michael, Hamson (szerk.): Oceanic Art. Provenance and History. Waregem: Cassochrome. (2021) 98–117. http://real.mtak.hu/139026/

RCH Institute of Archaeology

RCH Institute of History

2023/II.

Fóti, Miklós: The Mufassal Tahrir Defteri of the Sanjak of Segedin (1578). Research Center for Humanities, Budapest, 2023.

The detailed survey register of the sanjak of Segedin (Szeged) from 1578 provides us the most comprehensive picture of the area as part of the Ottoman Empire. At the same time, it is a crucial source for the reconstruction both of the medieval and Ottoman settlement network which was only sporadically known after the repulsion of the Turks. Inhabitants recorded in the towns and villages reflect the profound and rapid demographic changes that followed the fall of the medieval Hungarian Kingdom. The book is an unusual defter-edition insofar as it gives - in the footnotes - the geographical data of the settlements from the other registers of Szeged.

Hunyadi, Zsolt-Ribi, András: The Knights Hospitaller in Medieval Hungary. Research Center for Humanities, Budapest, 2023. (Arpadiana 13.)

The aim of this book is to present the history and activity of the Hospi-tallers in the medieval Kingdom of Hungary (c.1150-1543) based on thorough research of primary sources both kept in Hungary and abroad. The first main part leads the reader from the settlement of the order until the reign of King Sigismund. These chapters survey the activity of the order, the international feature of its leadership and a "catalogue" of the preceptories is provided. The second part covers the late medieval period with a special focus on the Székesfehérvár preceptory, the only functioning unit of this period. The overview includes the estates of the order, the personnel, biographs, as well as the place-of-authentication and hospitaller activity.

2023/I.

Szentpéteri, József (ed.) Psalmus Hungaricus I-III. – A Hungarian Cultural History. Research Centre for the Humanities, Budapest, 2023.

The three-volume synthesis is the most comprehensive overview of the Hungarian past ever published in English. Authors and editors include the most prominent experts of their fields. The work embraces the entire history of the Hungarian nation and state from the earliest beginnings to the end of the twentieth century targeting both scholars and the general public. Cultural history is interpreted in the broadest possible meaning of the concept encompassing the artistic, economic, literary, political, social political milieu of Hungarian civilization. Accordingly, the nine chronological chapters cover political, social, and economic history, history of the language, arts and literature, folk beliefs, religions and churches, physical and political geography, science, technology, manners, everyday life of their respective time periods.

Erdélyi, Gabriella- Szabó, András Péter (eds.): Remarriage and Stepfamilies in East Central Europe, 1600-1900. Routledge, New York, 2023.

Due to high adult mortality and the custom of remarriage, stepfamilies were a common phenomenon in pre-industrial Europe. Focusing on East Central Europe, a neglected area of Western historiography, this book draws essential comparisons in terms of remarriage patterns and stepfamily life between East Central Europe and Northwestern Europe. How did the specific economic, military-political, legal, religious, and cultural profile of the region affect remarriage patterns and stepfamily types? How did the greater propensity of widowed parents to remarry in some of the East Central European communities compared to Western ones shape the children’s lives? And how did the routine divorce before Orthodox courts by ordinary men and women shape relationships among children and adults belonging to blended families? By drawing on quantitative as well as qualitative approaches, the book offers an historical demographical narrative of the frequency of stepfamilies in a comparative framework, and also assesses the impact of stepparents on the mortality and career prospects of their stepchildren. The ethnic and religious diversity of East Central Europe also allows for distinctions and comparisons to be made within the region.

2022.

Pálffy, Géza: Hungary between Two Empires 1526–1711. Translated by David Robert Evans. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2022.

The Hungarian defeat to the Ottoman army at the pivotal Battle of Mohács in 1526 led to the division of the Kingdom of Hungary into three parts, altering both the shape and the ethnic composition of Central Europe for centuries to come. Hungary thus became a battleground between the Ottoman and Habsburg empires. In this sweeping historical survey, Géza Pálffy takes readers through a crucial period of upheaval and revolution in Hungary, which had been the site of a flowering of economic, cultural, and intellectual progress―but battles with the Ottomans lead to over a century of war and devastation. Pálffy explores Hungary's role as both a borderland and a theater of war through the turn of the 18th century. In this way, Hungary became a crucially important field on which key debates over religion, government, law, and monarchy played out. Reflecting 25 years of archival research and presented here in English for the first time, Hungary between Two Empires 1526–1711 offers a fresh and thorough exploration of this key moment in Hungarian history and, in turn, the creation of a modern Europe.

Zsoldos, Attila: The Golden Bull of Hungary. Institute of History Research Centre for the Humanities, Budapest, 2022.

Promulgated by Andrew II of Hungary 800 years ago, the Golden Bull (1222) is the best known but also most misunderstood medieval Hungarian document. The book analyses the reform policies that served as the background to the Golden Bull, the circumstances of the bull's conception, the events leading to its renewal in 1231, and the consequences of that revision. Finally, the afterlife of the Golden Bull in the medieval period is explored.

  • Ablonczy Balázs: Vers l’Est, Magyar! Histoire du touranisme hongrois. Paris: Editions de l’EHESS. (2021) 380 p.
  • Balogh, Margit: „Victim of History” Cardinal Mindszenty. A Biography. Washington DC: The Catholic University of America Press. (2021) 724 p.
  • Cevins, Marie-Madeleine de − Csukovits, Enikő − Marin, Olivier − Nejedlý, Martin − Wiszewski, Przemysław (szerk.): Démystifier l’Europe centrale: Bohême, Hongrie et Pologne du VIIe au XVIe siècle. Paris: Passés Composés. (2021) 800 p.
  • Demeter, Gábor – Bottlik, Zsolt: Maps in the Service of the Nation. The Role of Ethnic Mapping in Nation-Building and Its Influence on Political Decision-Making Across the Balkan Peninsula (1840–1914). Regensburg: Frank-Thimme. (2021) 309 p.
  • Fejérdy, András – Wirthné Diera, Bernadett (szerk.): The Trial of Cardinal József Mindszenty from the Perspective of Seventy Years. The Fate of Church Leaders in Central and Eastern Europe. Città del Vaticano: Libreria Editrice Vaticana. (2021) 511 p.
  • Gyáni Gábor (szerk.): The Creation of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy: A Hungarian Perspective. New York: Routledge. (2021) 366 p.
  • Nagy, Kornél: The Church-Union of the Armenians in Transylvania (1685–1715). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht. (2021) 251 p.
  • Pálffy Géza: Hungary between Two Empires, 1526–1711. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. (2021) 318 p.

 RCH Institute for Musicology

2023/II

Ádám Ignácz (editor): Translation, Adaptation, and Intertextuality in Hungarian Popular Music. Berlin: Peter Lang, 2023

This volume undertakes a comprehensive examination of issues of translation, adaptation, and intertextuality in Hungarian popular music. Focusing on the period of state socialism, the authors provide various examples of how musicians – professionals and amateurs alike – borrowed songs from distant times and places, reinventing them in a new political, technological, and esthetic environment. The case studies deal with a wide range of genres and styles that played an important role in Hungary, such as operetta, protest song, folk, jazz, pop, and rock. Placing the Hungarian experience in a regional context, the collection also gives insight into the music scenes of the neighboring countries through a major comparative study on the Beatles adaptations in the Eastern Bloc.

2023/I

János Fügedi: Signs of Dance. Budapest: Institute for Musicology, HUN-REN Research Centre for the Humanities – L’Harmattan Publisher Hungary, 2023

This volume introduces the system of dance notation Kinetography Laban through the dances of the Carpathian Basin, primarily Hungarian folk dances. The author’s aim is to formulate a method for analyzing the specific movement characteristics of a traditional dance culture still practiced today. The source of the examples is the Film Collection of the Folk Dance Archive of the Institute for Musicology of the HUN-REN Research Centre for the Humanities; almost all the motifs published are excerpts from dance notations made from these films.

An internationally unique part of the book is its annotated appendix. The chapter “Notes” presents the origins of all the theories, signs, and rules of the system mentioned in the book, thus providing a second layer of system representation. It historically reveals the almost century-long background work of the development of Kinetography and critically compares the different approaches to the analysis of dance movements. Beyond representation, the volume also aims to convey Kinetography as a living, dynamic system that must continually adapt to changing dance styles and techniques, as well as to the developments in dance and education sciences. The book follows the approach of dance folkloristics which considers the use of kinetographic notation essential to the creation of an independent discipline of dance studies.

2022

Adrienne Kaczmarczyk – Ágnes Sas (editors): Ferenc Liszt: Grand Duo for two pianos (draft); Franz Schuberts Grosse Fantasie (Op. 15) symphonisch bearbeitet für Piano und Orchester, Arrangement für 2 Pianoforte. Ferenc Liszt: New Edition of the Complete Works, Series III (Works and arrangements for piano duet and two pianos), Volume 1. Budapest: Editio Musica Budapest Zeneműkiadó Kft., 2022.

In 1970, Editio Musica Budapest launched the New Liszt Complete Edition, of which nearly 60 volumes have already been published. Series I and II of the New Complete Edition (published between 1970 and 2005) contain the final version of all the composer's solo piano works and also, in appendices, earlier versions that differ considerably from the final forms of the works. The supplementary volumes (launched in 2005 and edited by Adrienne Kaczmarczyk and Imre Mező) complement the first two series; the contents include early versions of the solo piano works, hitherto unpublished compositions that have recently come to light, album leaves, and unfinished works.

Series III with original compositions for piano duet and two pianos has been launched by the present volume, which contains Grand duo, composed in 1834, and based on three pieces from Mendelssohn's Songs without Words that Liszt partly literally transcribed, partly freely arranged in the style of concert paraphrases for piano duet. The large-scale concert piece was premiered by Liszt and Chopin on Christmas Day 1834 in a salon in Paris. The Grand Duo was not published in Liszt’s lifetime, and has survived as a draft. Schubert’s Fantasy in C major (also known as the “Wanderer” Fantasy) was a defining musical experience for the young Liszt that he arranged for piano and orchestra in 1851, and transcribed for two pianos by 1855. This volume comes complete with a detailed preface in English, German, and Hungarian containing new research findings, several manuscript facsimiles, and a critical report in English.

László Somfai – Zsombor Németh (editors): Béla Bartók: String quartets Nos. 1-6. Béla Bartók Complete Critical Edition 29. München: Henle Verlag – Budapest: Editio Musica Budapest, 2022.

Béla Bartók's six string quartets, written between 1908 and 1940, are among the milestones of this genre in the 20th century. With the edition of these works in the Bartók Complete Edition, the great Bartók scholar László Somfai presents, together with Zsombor Németh, the results of a lifelong preoccupation with the quartets. In addition to the composer's autographs, manuscripts, first editions and hand copies, his correspondence with friends, publishers and professional musicians is meticulously examined in regard to important information on the edition and understanding of the works. The numerous footnotes to the musical text, edited here for the first time in a scholarly manner, provide interesting information on performance or transmission variants of the works. In addition to the introduction, which deals with the genesis, tradition, early performances and reception of the works, the extensive chapter “Notation and Performance” provides well-founded information on all practical questions of performance, ranging from tempo variations to the special Bartók pizzicato.

  • Kaczmarczyk, Adrienne: „Vexilla regis prodeunt”: The Closer Union of Music with Poetry in the Inferno Movement of Liszt’s Dante Symphony. In: Vígh, Éva – Draskóczy, Eszter (szerk.): Quella terra che l’Danubio riga: Dante in Ungheria. Roma: Aracne. (2021) 331–350. http://real.mtak.hu/139201/
  • Kusz, Veronika: „He Never Said that it Had to be Played a Certain Way.” Ernst von Dohnányi on Teaching Music and Musical Interpretation. In: Mojžišová, Michaela (szerk.): Cultural and Artistic Transfers in Theatre and Music: Past, Present and Perspectives. Bratislava: VEDA, Slovak Academy of Sciences. (2011) 100–113. http://real.mtak.hu/id/eprint/138245
  • Apjok, Vivien – Povedák, Kinga – Szőnyi, Vivien – Varga, Sándor (szerk.): Dance, Age and Politics. Proceedings of the 30th Symposium of the ICTM Study Group on Ethnochoreology. Budapest: SZTE BTK Néprajzi és Kulturális Antropológiai Tanszék – BTK Zenetudományi Intézet – Magyar Etnokoreológiai Társaság. (2021) 478 p. http://real.mtak.hu/139024/
  • Vikárius, László – Pintér, Csilla Mária – Bozó, Péter (szerk.): Thematic Issue: Bartók and The Violin. Studia Musicologica, 62: 1-2. (March 2021) 192 p. http://real-j.mtak.hu/id/eprint/21590