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Arts and Humanities journals’ primary focus is on presenting theoretical and empirical research in these respective fields. The main goal is to encourage educational research and connect academia to the scientific community. Researchers and scholars need to share their research findings with others to help better understand and act on the ongoing social changes in the field. The Arts and Humanities journals aim to provide a platform for everyone who shares a common interest in these fields and to group all the latest field findings in one place.
Arts and Humanities
Abstract
I propose an overview of some of the defining aspects of Ștefan Niculescu's composition, some of which link him to his much better known contemporary on the world stage, György Ligeti. The musical affinities between the two have evolved into a steadfast friendship, reflected in a newly published correspondence that is becoming significant for slices of recent music history. I do not intend a comparison or an analytical parallel between the compositions of the two: the focus will fall on Niculescu's musical springs, with some signs of his and Ligeti's compatibility. Niculescu's heterophony versus Ligeti's micropolyphony, the impulses both received from mathematics, linguistics, the natural sciences, as well as the search (since the 1980s) for a new diatonicism that would configure an alternative system to serialism, all can be examined accordingly. It is also not uninteresting that both composers are convinced that they belong neither to the avant-garde nor to postmodernism, but consistently follow modernism.
Abstract
In Pannonia from 122 sites 9867 Central Gaulish samian are recorded so far. The greatest number of this pottery has been published from the towns adjacent legionary fortress. Central Gaulish pottery is usually rare to find in cemeteries. The quantity of this ware everywhere greater than that of South Gaulish samian.
90.66% of the Central Gaulish terra sigillata are from Lezoux and 7.6% of this ware can be related to the workshops of Les Martres de Veyre. There may also have been a small number of Central Gaulish sigillata imported from Vichy, Terre Franche, Toulon sur Allier or Lubie. These samall production centres could be considered as possibilities.
The Lezoux group is represented in Pannonia by 15 plain and 2 decorated forms. The decorated ware can be chronologically divided into three large groups. The earliest ware of Trajanic period is quite rare in Pannonia; they occur only in the western part of the province.
The second chronological group, the Hadrianic–early Antonine one is in Pannonia a total of five times larger, than the Trajanic group. The total number of the third group, the Antonine samian is seven times larger, than the number of Hadrianic–early Antonine sigillata.
Hadrian founded 8 to 9 municipiums in Pannonia. The new cities, mainly the two provinial seats Carnuntum and Aquincum had a large shipment of ware from Central Gaul. After the Marcomannic wars (166–180 AD) Rheinzabern took over a leading role on the provincial markets.
Abstract
Gyula László’s theory, published in 1970, was virtually ignored and received with tacit dismissal by the Hungarian archaeological scholarship and international archaeological community was largely unaware of it. This paper aims to provide clarity for the latter research. Not a single element of the theory was accepted or was acceptable even at the time of its birth: distribution of the late Avar and the Conquest-era sites do not complement each other; István Kniezsa's map is highly discussed and is not suitable for proving that the eighth century Avars were Hungarians; Byzantine sources record the immigration of a military group and not of a people, who later moved on; the “Ugri Bjelii” mentioned in the Russian Primary Chronicle cannot be applicable to this immigration; the so-called of “griffin-tendril” population is about 30 years later as the supposed immigration; there was not a migration from the Káma region in the seventh century) connecting the “Uuangariorum marcha” with the “Onogurs” is highly uncertain; there is no trace of any immigration in the anthropological material of the Avar period.
Errare humanum est.
Abstract
The present paper describes and discusses a group of iron and copper-alloy rotary keys characterised by a moveable joint connecting the shaft and the key-ring, appearing in the seventh-century material record of the Carpathian Basin whose origins can be sought in the Mediterranean. While the few published examples of the class were in previous studies mainly regarded as Roman-period artefacts secondarily re-used as amulets by the Avar-period population of the Carpathian Basin, the present study argues that these pieces in fact have a sixth-to seventh-century production date, being thereby contemporaneous with their deposition in seventh-century mortuary assemblages. Taking this observation as a springboard for further interpretation, an overview of the possible meanings and symbolic associations attached to keys in Roman, late antique, and early medieval times is offered. The main argument presented here is that besides serving amuletic purposes, some of the Avar-period keys could in all probability have conveyed more explicit messages about their owners, such as that of their feminity and of their economic role and authority in their respective households. The Appendix supplementing the present paper seeks to provide a theoretical reconstruction of a wooden casket buried with the woman interred in Grave 119 of the Kölked-Feketekapu B cemetery, one of the burials yielding a Mediterranean hinged rotary key.
The paradigm shift in the later fourth millennium BC. •
Why did life change in the Middle Copper Age in the heartland of the Carpathian Basin?
Abstract
The fourth millennium BC, particularly its second half, saw the advent of major innovations that still affect our life today, sometimes as artefacts still used in a virtually unchanged form. Among these, the most important are wheels and wheeled vehicles, the innovations introduced as part of the Secondary Products Revolution, and the new technologies of metalworking. Initially surrounded by an aura of mystique and reverence, these innovations gradually became part of everyday life and their benefits, such as a more secure livelihood engendering new subsistence strategies, were enjoyed by a growing number of communities. Better life circumstances stimulated population growth, which in turn sparked an increase in the number of settlements as well as an incipient socio-economic hierarchy between them. Improving life circumstances, receptiveness to new ideas and increasingly dynamic contacts with distant regions brought a change in previous norms and social values. This paradigm shift can be best traced in the mortuary realm: various objects signalling the status and/or prestige of a community's prominent members began to be deposited in burials. Daily life became more predictable and was accompanied by a certain measure of wealth accumulation, which, however, also stimulated frugality. Hard-to-obtain exotic commodities were highly prized and usually only their down-scaled versions fashioned from clay accompanied the dead instead of the real-life animal or prestige item. Described and briefly discussed in the present study are certain aspects of this complex process.
Abstract
This paper deals with Muslim places of worship and their evolution during the 164 years of Ottoman rule in Timișoara (1552–1716). The analysis was carried out on the basis of written historical documentation and archaeological results. It is about religious structures such as mosques (câmii) and other places of worship (mescid), but also about monastic centres of dervishes (tekke, zâviye and türbe). The archaeological research that took place in the last decade in Timișoara offered the chance to bring to light the foundations of three mosques: Ali Bey, Cimcime and Sultan Süleyman. The results of these researches are valuable, especially since no building in Timișoara dating from the Ottoman Period has survived. From an archaeological point of view, it was found that only two of the mosques share similar characteristics. Although at all three of them wooden posts were found at the bottom of the foundation ditch, beaten into the ground, the differences were in the techniques of the foundation construction. At two of the foundation walls, was discovered a reinforcement of wooden beams, fixed with iron nails, over which a mixture of mortar with stone and broken brick was placed. At the third foundation wall, a similar mixture was framed by a row of bricks laid on the edge of the foundation ditch. Moreover, two of the mosques were built according to a rectangular plan, and in the third plan the north side was closed with an apse. Archaeological research also indicated a possible minaret, mihrab, but also parts of the floor of one of the mosques.
Abstract
The chemical composition of 42 samples of raw glass from the Komarov settlement on the Middle Dniester was studied by means of SEM-EDS, EPMA and LA-ICP-MS analyses. We singled out groups of colourless glass of Levantine and Egyptian origin, the chronology of which indicates that the workshop could be dated to the 4th – early 5th century. The data on the chemical composition of the raw glass do not confirm that glassmaking industry existed here in an earlier period, as was previously believed. The manufacturing in Komarov combines the use of high-quality perfectly decolourized raw glass with intensive use of cullet, which might point out either different levels of the glassware manufactured here, or selective recycling. The characteristic features of the workshop's raw glass supply are the absence of the HIMT glass and late spread of antimony-decolourized glass.
Abstract
In this paper, the author draws the attention of experts to a new glyphic discovery from Apulum. It is a schematic portrait of the Gorgon Medusa, depicted on a three-layered sardonyx. Based on parallels and the manufacturing technique, the author concludes that the piece originates from the workshops of Viminacium, Upper Moesia. The cameo is dated in the second half of the second century AD, prior the time when the canabae of the XIII Gemina legion rose to the status of municipium (ante AD 197). It is the only glyptic piece that bears the image of Medusa that's Dacian origin is certain. From an artistic point of view, it is a modest quality of execution, below the average provincial level. Furthermore, the author makes some remarks on the gems found in the collections of the National Museum of the Union in Alba Iulia, with a few additions and clarifications regarding the place of discovery and the possibility of the existence of a workshop of cavatores gemmarum at Apulum.
Abstract
In early 2017, an astonishing number of archaeological finds were unearthed during the excavation of two sites in Molnár Street (Budapest), led by the archaeologists of the Budapest History Museum. As the construction works of a new hotel took place on a registered archaeological site, and historical monuments of the city were expected to be found, the presence of archaeological professionals became essential. Even though the location was inhabited for centuries, the early modern and medieval layers were found unaffected.
Because of the nature of the site, the wet and muddy soil layers along the Danube provided a favourable environment for the preservation of organic materials and metals. As the climatic conditions in the Carpathian Basin are less favourable for the survival of organic material, the findings are very special both on a local and a broader regional level. In the Middle Ages, the Danube flowed over a much wider area than it does today. Today's embankment was often under water due to its proximity to the river, especially in the days before its regulation. The population, accustomed to the threat of spring floods, built their houses much further inland and along the river. Only urban landfills and, in safer times, ports and loading docks were established.
The aim of this paper is to specify past ground levels along the river, and changes in the water levels as well as the path of the Danube, with the help of as many environmental archaeological methods as possible. Similar research was already conducted on Margaret Island, in Vác and in Visegrád, so this new case study is hoped to be a useful contribution to reconstructing past landscapes along the river.
Abstract
Archaeological excavations at the site of Montessoro (660 m. a.sl.), carried out between 2009 and 2013 by the Department of Christian and Medieval Archaeology (University of Turin – Department of the Historical Studies) and currently under publication, have led to the large-scale exploration of a rural Apennine site which was inhabited between the first century BC and the fifth century AD. The late antique phase, which is the best-preserved, consists of five farm buildings made using a masonry base bound with clay, with an elevation in lathwork and a roof made of cover and pan tiles. The systematic study of almost 600 clay fragments, some of them large and mainly from the collapse levels caused by the fire in the granary, with negative impressions of plant material, has enabled considerable information to be obtained about the technique of wattle and daub used to construct the elevations: the morphology and arrangement of the wooden parts (horizontal and vertical), related to the woven lattice of the lathwork and the load-bearing structure, and the mixing and application of clay and plaster. This work, associated with a thorough analysis of the plentiful wood charcoal remains (carried out by Prof. Lanfredo Castelletti and Dr. Sila Motella – Museo Civico P. Giovio di Como), has yielded data about the choice and working of the plants and trees used for the construction of elevations and all the structural parts, enabling a fairly precise reconstruction of the buildings and the socio-economic and cultural context of the site.
Abstract
In his paper the author deals with the date of Attila's death. Several scholarly works dealt already with Attila's death and the written sources. The antique source dates his death to the year 453 shortly before Attila's planned campaign against Marcian. On the other hand, Leo the Great's letters has not been examined regarding this issue. In one of his letters written 11 March 451, the pope mentions the still existing dangers (flagella) where obviously refer to Attila and the Huns. This means nothing was known about Attila's death in the middle of March of 453 in Rome, so the Hun king must have died a little bit later.
Abstract
In this paper we present and analyse the histamena (gold coins) of Romanos III. Argyros found in the territory of the former Hungarian Kingdom. The majority of these coins are known from literary and archival sources. Only the coins from Pétermonostora (County Bács-Kiskun/H) and Székesfehérvár (County Fejér/H) had got to museums and about the others only descriptions are available. Most coins are scattered finds but we have information about some nomisma of Romanos III. Argyros from the Etyek-Bóthpuszta hoard (County Fejér/H). Here we'll analyse their role outside the Byzantine Empire as compared to the coin circulation in the medieval Hungarian Kingdom.
In the titulature, the Crimean Khans have particularly emphasized their Chinggisid origins as a proof of their legitimacy. Yasa [Chinggisid Law] and töre [tradition] also played a crucial role in domestic affairs. The political institutions and customs developed by Chinggis Khan continued to exist in the successor Khanates. The practice of demanding luxury goods as tribute from the subject peoples for the consumption of the ruling elite was one of them. In this article, I will first show that the tiş [tusk] was a developed version of the tribute dedicated for the consumption of ruling elite. Second, I will try to show why tiş should be considered as a tribute contrary to the Russian claim that it was a gift and its significance for the Crimean Tatars. Finally, I will demonstrate how the socio-political developments in the Crimean Tatar society like the growing influence of the karaçis and the service mirzas was reflected in the tiş defters [books].
Abstract
The paper investigates the relations between phonological form and information content within Latin verbal inflection from two interrelated points of view. It looks at conditional entropy relations within the present paradigm to see how these relate to the textual frequency of the individual forms; and it seeks to answer the question to what extent the phonological form of stems and endings has the potential to lead to ambiguity in morphological marking. The latter issue is approached from the angle of the information content that word forms taken in themselves have about their morphological status. The broader question of potential ambiguity is broken down into two separate questions: one concerns stems where intra-paradigmatic ambiguity would be possible; the other concerns stems that include phonological material that could itself be interpreted as a morphological marker. The absence of potential ambiguity in the first sense, and its severe restriction in the second sense is interpreted here as an emergent mechanism to enhance the information content of verb forms.
Abstract
This paper aims to answer why the Uralic languages use, or used until intensive contacts with Indo-European languages, only non-finite subordination. It argues against regarding the evolution of finite subordination language development, showing that languages with non-finite subordination and parataxis have the same expressive power as languages with finite subordination. It claims that non-finite subordination is a concomitant of SOV word order, and the growing proportion of finite subordination in the Uralic languages from east to west, and in the history of Hungarian is a consequence of the loosening of the SOV order and the emergence of SVO. The paper examines two hypotheses about the correlations between SOV and non-finite subordination, and SVO and finite subordination, the Final-Over-Final Condition of Biberauer, Holmberg & Roberts (2014, etc.), a formal principle constraining clausal architecture, and the Minimize Domains Principle of Hawkins (2004, etc.), a functional principle of processing efficiency. The two theories make largely overlapping correct predictions for the Uralic languages, which suggests that the Final-Over-Final Condition may be the syntacticization of the condition that ensures processing efficiency in SOV and SVO languages.
Abstract
Third code research has documented the distinctiveness of translated language and singled out recurrent tendencies framing them as translation universals. This paper aims to identify the interaction between interference, explicitation, implicitation and normalization and their potential relationship(s) with other variables, such as register. The focus of the study is on Spanish discourse markers (DMs) translated from English. This study uses interference, explicitation, implicitation and normalization as methodological tools to unveil these patterns. Evidence comes from a bilingual parallel corpus (P-ACTRES 2.0), a corpus of translated Spanish (CETRI), and a reference corpus of contemporary Spanish (CORPES XXI). We select the input DMs according to two criteria: first, we focus on DMs showing cross-linguistic formal correspondence, indicating the possibility of grammatical interference; second, we consider different procedural meanings for the DMs to anticipate potential regularity distortions. Results indicate that DM underuse in the target texts generally co-occurs with explicitation. Register is an important variable: implicitation is more frequent in non-fiction and, together with normalization, affects the majority of DMs. Evidence also points to the DMs' semantics influencing implicitation and explicitation.
Abstract
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has brought an unprecedented shift to the mode of educational programs, from face-to-face to online, all over the world. Interpreting courses, being no exception, had to face various challenges as well. This study aims to investigate the impacts of emergency remote teaching on interpreting courses from the trainers' perspectives. To this end, semi-structured interviews were conducted online with a study group consisting of 16 interpreter trainers with at least three years of experience in teaching face-to-face at the undergraduate level, who had to move their courses online during the pandemic. Observation, another qualitative method, was used for the second stage of data collection to ensure triangulation. In all, four online interpreting courses held by three different trainers at separate universities in Turkey were observed by the researchers. Data analysis in reflexive thematic form was conducted using the MaxQda software. The findings are discussed with specific emphasis on course design, student motivation, technical challenges, and the additional workload of trainers to inform both in-person and further online teaching practices.
Abstract
Language plays a key role in democracy. In fact, the role of language in democratic societies is so crucial that scholars have addressed it thoroughly through different lenses, ranging from law to language policy. This article, in turn, seeks to add to the scholarship on democracy and language rights by considering the role of translation policy in the development of linguistically inclusive public web pages. To that end, the study considers the State of Texas's translation policy as it relates to its online presence. Specifically, it approaches translation policy by looking at translation management, translation practice, and translation beliefs as observed in the efforts that state government agencies in Texas make when localizing their websites for the inclusion or integration of linguistic minorities. In so doing, it explores the relationship between written rules and the belief in providing language access in government agencies and how this affects the practice of translation in websites.
Abstract
Research on explicitation has been criticized by a lack of diachronic analyses and multi-lingual comparisons. This study, therefore, conducts a 50-year (1970–2019) comparison of referential explicitness between a 11,721,608-token corpus of English translated diplomatic discourse from 56 languages and a 11,113,036-token corpus of English original diplomatic discourse extracted from the United Nations General Debate Corpus (UNGDC) with the Multi-dimensional Analysis (MDA) framework. The findings suggest 1) a general tendency towards less explicitation for the English translated discourse in the UNGDC with time, 2) referential explicitation in Arabic, Chinese, Portuguese, and 31 other languages (more often from Sino-Tibetan, Mongolic-Khitan, and 6 other language families) and implicitation in Japanese and 21 other languages (more often from Japonic and 4 other language families), and 3) changes in referential explicitness in the discourses of China, Russia, Spain, and UAE in comparison with Britain and the United States. The potential influence of language contact and source language interference may be further taken into account. With the findings, this study calls for more dynamic views and multi-lingual comparisons on explicitation in diverse genres to present a fuller picture of the translation universal.
Abstract
Transcreation is a creative adaptation service that has been studied from the perspective of the language services industry and academia. Despite broad interest in the topic, little is known about the perceptions individual professionals have of this practice. To fill this gap, this paper aims to provide information from this point of view and focuses on the economic characteristics of transcreation. For this purpose, a sociological study based on a survey has been carried out. A total of 360 professionals from all over the world participated in this initiative. The results show that transcreation is considered as a hard-to-automate service. The practice is perceived and paid as a value-added one, and it can be defined as a form of qualified craftsmanship. Likewise, it seems to be a better-paid service than others. Finally, transcreation is demanded not only by language service providers but also by companies in industries such as marketing, advertising, public relations, and communication.
Abstract
No agreement has yet been reached as to whether translators are visible or not in translation. To answer this question, we first chose Lin Yutang and James Legge as cases, supplemented their translations with their originals, and then applied Principal Component Analysis along with N-MFW metrics to the texts for their stylistic features. In our cases, we found that (1) for each translator, the styles of their originals and translations vary; (2) for both translators, the styles of their translations converge for the same source text; (3) the two translators preserve only part of their stylistic fingerprints in their translations, suggesting the existence of a powerful compensation mechanism. Our findings bring new insights into the translator's style, help settle the (in)visibility dispute, and illustrate effective metrics for developing translator identification tools.
Abstract
This paper presents an empirical study on the proportion of cognate words (cognate ratios) in translated Dutch texts, compared to cognate words ratio in texts originally written in Dutch. To this end, we compiled a gold standard with manually verified cognate pairs for both studied language pairs, viz. English–Dutch and French–Dutch. In this study, we propose three hypotheses about how translators deal with cognates: (1) translators use the high degree of formal and semantic overlap between cognate translations to their advantage so as to produce the “easiest and fastest” translation (default translation hypothesis), (2) the higher the level of cognateness between a source and target language, the higher the cognate ratio in translated texts will be (cognate facilitation effect), (3) the higher the level of cognateness between the two languages, the more translators will be hesitant to use cognate translations (fear of false friends hypothesis). The results show a mixed picture: whereas not much evidence has been found for the first two hypotheses (depending on the respective language pair), the third hypothesis was confirmed. Further evidence, however, is needed from other language pairs, as cognate-receptiveness appears to be language-specific.
Abstract
While the Hungarian language is spoken in the heart of Europe, both scientific and pseudoscientific explanations trace its origins to the East. Also structurally, Hungarian shows many structural features more reminiscent of more Eastern languages. This paper examines the relationship of Hungarian, genealogically and contact-linguistically, with more Eastern languages, both related (e.g., Mansi, Khanty, Mari) and unrelated (i.e., the Turkic languages).
Historical records strongly imply that a variant of Hungarian, East Hungarian, was spoken in the Volga-Kama Region of European Russia until the 13th century, lexical evidence (i.e., borrowings) also strongly imply that historic migration took the linguistic ancestors of modern Hungarians through this area. Yet, much remains unknown about these processes: there are no written records of East Hungarian or of Hungarian predating the arrival in the Carpathian Basin in the 9th century, hence, all evidence is indirect.
In this paper, we give a brief overview of what is known and what is not known about the relationship of Hungarian with the languages of the Volga-Kama Region: What evidence do we have of historical contacts, from lexicon and language structure? For which structural features of Hungarian have scholars postulated a possible contact-linguistic explanation, possibly showing linguistic heritage Hungarians brought from the Volga-Kama Region to the Carpathian Basin?
Abstract
The study claims that contemporary Udmurt has two main strategies for expressing a ‘constituent negation reading’. Standard Udmurt makes use of inverse-scope constructions involving sentential negation, i.e. a morphosyntactically negated predicate and a pragmatic focus in the scope of negation. The other strategy involves the negator ńe borrowed from Russian, which immediately precedes the negated constituent and combines with a predicate in the affirmative form. Ńe-constructions are analysed as instances of focus negation, with a FocP dominated by a right-branching NegP. The evolution of transparent-scope constructions and of a head-initial NegP are analysed as concomitants of the SOV-to-SVO change of Udmurt.
Abstract
Guild migration in Hungary in the 16th to 18th centuries can be best captured by exploring the migration of young artisans. Peregrination and the migration of young artisans were a process of learning and making contacts in a foreign environment over several years. We will be looking at the life, tasks, objectives and, not least, knowledge acquisition and career strategy of one age group, young men roughly between the ages of 16–20, who in the early modern period were the main depositories of local economic and political power in Europe, including the territories of the former Kingdom of Hungary – especially in the towns – and who were entering local economic and political power after half a decade or so of studying.
This highly mobile way of acquiring knowledge abroad through university and guild migration provided an experience of leaving the familiar home base. What these young men had in common was that their learning process took place in a foreign territory, far away from their home, in the unfamiliar environment of another country, using a different language. In the case of both groups of learners, the existence of a network of family ties, which can be traversed in several directions, proved to be a key organising factor. This link between the – mainly German-speaking – urban and rural citizens in Western Europe and the Hungarian (and Transylvanian) citizens in the early modern period was always evident in the guild organisation, both economically and culturally.
Abstract
Although studies on the pagan past existed in Slovenia prior to the publications of Pavel Medvešček, his writings on pre-Christian religious practices (Staroverstvo) in the Western part of Slovenia caused some disruption within the Slovenian academic sphere. Medvešček allegedly collected the material (oral narratives on spiritual and healing practices and objects) from the 1950s to the 1980s and published it as uninterpreted material. Although some academics were often criticized for their perceived indifference towards Medvešček's works and lack of interest in the topic of this one-of-a-kind discovery of local spiritual practices, others later initiated intriguing debates. The article outlines the life and work of Pavel Medvešček as well as the broader reception of his works among Slovenian academics and the general public. Due to the frequent questioning of the research methods of Pavel Medvešček, the article highlights the longstanding question of what makes a material credible, and tries to show how this is unveiled in Medvešček's “discoveries.” The article focuses on the different approaches to studying Medvešček's materials employed by two ethnologists, Katja Hrobat Virloget and Miha Kozorog.
Abstract
Diachronic changes in phrase or clause structure are vectored rather than oscillating. A century ago, E. Sapir identified a drift towards fixed word order and another one towards the invariant word (including the levelling of the forms for subject and object marking). What is still missing is a theory that predicts such drifts. As will be argued, the theory that explains Sapir's observations and, in passing, makes the concept of Universal Grammar dispensable is the theory that grammars are targets and products of cognitive evolution. Sapir's drifts are shifts from systems based primarily on the consciously accessible declarative network to systems based on the consciously inaccessible procedural network. This also explains why the [S[VO]] clause-structure is a point of no return and why languages do not change in the reverse direction, starting from a grammar like English and eventually moving to a grammar like Sanskrit.
Adalékok Marczibányi István (1752–1810) műgyűjteményének történetéhez
Addenda to the history of István Marczibányi’s art collection
The art collection of István Marczibányi (1752–1810), remembered as the benefactor of the Hungarian nation, who devoted a great part of his fortune to religious, educational, scientific and social goals, is generally known as a collection of ‘national Antiquities’ of Hungary. This opinion was already widespread in Hungarian publicity at the beginning of the 19th century, when Marczibányi pledged that he would enrich the collection of the prospective Hungarian national Museum with his artworks. But the description of his collection in Pál Wallaszky’s book Conspectus reipublicae litterariae in Hungaria published in 1808 testifies to the diversity and international character of the collection. In the Marczibányi “treasury”, divided into fourteen units, in addition to a rich cabinet for coins and medals there were mosaics, sculptures, drinking vessels, filigree-adorned goldsmiths’ works, weapons, Chinese art objects, gemstones and objects carved from them (buttons, cameos, caskets and vases), diverse marble monuments and copper engravings. Picking, for example, the set of sculptures, we find ancient Egyptian, Greek and Ro man pieces as well as mediaeval and modern masterpieces arranged by materials.
After the collector’s death, his younger brother Imre Marczibányi (1755–1826) and his nephews Márton (1784–1834), János (1786–1830), and Antal (1793–1872) jointly inherited the collection housed in a palace in dísz tér (Parade Square) in Buda. In 1811, acting on the promise of the deceased, the family donated a selection of artworks to the national Museum: 276 cut gems, 9 Roman and Byzantine imperial gold coins, 35 silver coins and more than fifty antiquities and rarities including 17th and 18th-century goldsmiths’ works, Chinese soap-stone statuettes, ivory carvings, weapons and a South Italian red-figure vase, too. However, this donation did not remain intact as one entity. With the emergence of various specialized museums in the last third of the 19th century, a lot of artworks had been transferred to the new institutions, where the original provenance fell mostly into oblivion.
In the research more than a third of the artworks now in the Hungarian national Museum, the Museum of Applied Arts and the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest could be identified, relying on the first printed catalogue of the Hungarian national Museum (1825) titled Cimeliotheca Musei Nationalis Hungarici, and the handwritten acquisition registers. The entries have revealed that fictitious provenances were attached to several items, since the alleged or real association with prominent historical figures played an important role in the acquisition strategies of private collectors and museums alike at the time. For example, an ivory carving interpreted in the Cimeliotheca as the reliquary of St Margaret of Hungary could be identified with an object in the Metalwork Collection of the Museum of Applied Arts (inv. no. 18843), whose stylistic analogies and parallels invalidate the legendary origin: the bone plates subsequently assembled as a front of a casket were presumably made in a Venetian workshop at the end of the 14th century.
There are merely sporadic data about the network of István Marczibányi’s connections as a collector, and about the history of his former collection remaining in the possession of his heirs. It is known that collector Miklós Jankovich (1772–1846) purchased painted and carved marble portraits around 1816 from the Marczi bányi collection, together with goldsmiths’ works including a coconut cup newly identified in the Metalwork Collection of the Museum of Applied Arts (inv. no. 19041). The group of exquisite Italian Cinquecento bronze statuettes published by art historian Géza Entz (1913–1993), was last owned as a whole by Antal Marczibányi (nephew of István) who died in 1872. These collection of small bronzes could have also been collected by István Marczibányi, then it got scattered through inheritance, and certain pieces of it landed in north American and European museums as of the second third of the 20th century. Although according to Entz’s hypothesis the small bronzes were purchased by István’s brother Imre through the mediation of sculptor and art collector István Ferenczy (1792–1956) studying in Rome, there is no written data to verify it. By contrast, it is known that the posthumous estate of István Marczibányi included a large but not detailed collection of classical Roman statues in 1811, which the heirs did not donate to the national Museum. It may be presumed that some of the renaissance small bronzes of mythological themes following classical prototypes were believed to be classical antiquities at the beginning of the 19th century. Further research will hopefully reveal more information about the circumstances of their acquisition.
Az esztergomi főszékesegyház és egyházkormányzati központ építészeti koncepciójának kialakulása és változásai •
I. rész: Az esztergomi Várhegy a 18. század második felében
Evolution of and changes in the architectural conception of a cathedral and church administration centre in esztergom. Part I: Esztergom’s castle hill in the second half of the 18th century
With the advance of the Ottoman Empire the Archiepiscopate of Esztergom was forced to leave its seat and move to Nagyszombat. The buildings of mediaeval origin on Castle Hill, first housing royalties and later the archbishop, were appropriated by the military forces and suffered considerable damage from sieges and the Ottoman domination. The rule of the Turks ceased in Esztergom in 1683, but the archbishopric did not return before 1820. Nonetheless, the archbishops of the 18th century were also preoccupied with the fate and future of the buildings on Castle Hill.
Archbishop Ferenc Barkóczy (1761–1765, fig. 4) commissioned the Vienna-based architect of French origin, Isidore Ganneval (1730–1786) to plan a centre of ecclesiastical management on Castle Hill. Unfortunately, it is hard to glean from the fragmentary archival sources what exactly Ganneval was asked to design. His extant survey drawings are only about the renaissance Bakócz chapel which survived the vicissitudes of the centuries relatively intact. Ganneval’s fairly modest fee and his stay of a few months only permit the assumption that he was contracted only to draw up a sketchy proposal. The wooden model (fig. 5) only known from a photograph and possibly perished by now, which can hardly be fitted among the subsequent plan variants, might as well reflect the ideas inspired by his planning work in Esztergom. The conception documented by the wooden mock-up does not take into account the existing, mostly ramshackle buildings and fortifications. The “Navis Ecclesiae” idea represented by the model shows the cathedral flanked by wings of the archiepiscopal palace, the buildings of the theological college are situated lower, and the main road to Visegrád is lined by the canons’ houses. The sanctuary of the cathedral faces west breaking with the tradition of the eastern apse. The groundplan is a fusion of centralized and longitudinal plans, its basic element is the Bakócz Chapel (fig. 6) the mass of which is reiterated and enlarged in it.
This proposal ignored the possibility of preserving the mostly mediaeval buildings and fortifications on Castle Hill. In December 1761, however, Archbishop Barkóczy was compelled to sign the obligation by the War Council to undertake the maintenance of the Castle Hill fortifications and in case of enemy attacks to accommodate imperial troops there. It was only through the intervention of the Queen, Maria Theresa, that Barkóczy could be exempted from this obligation in 1763.
The next plan of a church administration centre was elaborated by Franz Anton Hillebrandt (1719–1797) whose first plan series was made during the validity of the military obligation from December 1761 to March 1763. It is quite possible that the style of the architect of the Hungarian royal chamber was closer to the taste of the baroque art patron Barkóczy than that of Canneval twenty years his junior, representing the progressivity of revolutionary architecture. The latter was also commissioned by Anton Christoph Migazzi to design the cathedral of Vác, whose style did not attract followers in Hungary.
Apart from the principal plan known in the copy by Anton Hartmann (fig. 7) only four pieces of the first plan series survive, including the first floor plan of the seminary building (fig. 8). This baroque conception keeps the fortified walls and bastions around Castle Hill but demolishes the military buildings on the plateau (barracks, hospital, stalls, etc.). It is like an architectural counter-proposal to Ganneval’s wooden model, taking into greater consideration the relief features than the perfunctory mock-up. Hillebrandt delivered these plans to Archbishop Barkóczy on 10 March 1763 and forwarded the queen’s message at the same time: the financial obligation to maintain the military defences of Castle Hill had been abrogated. It immediately invalidated the plans just presented, and obstacles from the path of planning were removed. That was probably the stimulus behind the free-handed amateur linear drawing of a groundplan made perhaps by the archbishop or his representative for the architect in 1763 (fig. 9) in which the functions of the buildings are defined. In a sense it returns to Ganneval’s model which handled Castle Hill without any restrictions.
Only few – a mere six sheets – of Hillebrandt’s plans are known from after the sketch. (A part of the plans were probably taken by architect István Möller to Budapest in the first decades of the 20th century and possibly perished during the siege of the capital in 1945 or during the reconstruction.) Anyway, it must have been on the basis of this second series of plans that the demolition of mediaeval remains, soil levelling and the laying of foundations began in 1763. In 1764, the collapse of an Ottoman minaret built using a mediaeval stair-tower caused the crushing of Porta Speciosa, the main portal of the mediaeval St Adalbert cathedral. Mainly preparatory construction went on until the death of Archbishop Barkóczy in 1765. That interrupted the building of a baroque church administration centre for good.
Building commissioner János Máthes (1785–1848) summed up in his work published in 1827 how far the construction had arrived and what was built later. Maria Theresa requested Hillebrandt to plan a church dedicated to King Saint Stephen for the garrison reinstated on Castle Hill, which was constructed in 1767–1770. It was – on a smaller scale – on the site of the planned baroque cathedral, certainly not using its foundation walls. About the situation a layout drawing (fig. 12), groundplan and design plan (fig. 13) are included in Máthes’s book. In addition, a now latent or extinct, mock-up (fig. 14) made by Máthes also reflects the situation on Castle Hill in the last quarter of the 18th century. In the lower part of the model made in the early 1820s groundplans of the buildings on Castle Hill could be seen (fig. 16). One of the specialties of the church was the copy of the Hungarian royal crown placed on the spire as the crowning ornament. On the façade on top of the stairs adjacent to the broad ramp leading to the basilica of today the statues of Saints Stephen and Ladislaus carved by the Pest sculptor József Hebenstreit were erected. Surviving items include side altar pictures painted by Anton Karl Rosier of Pozsony which are today in the Esztergom church of the Sisters of Mercy of Szatmár. The later rebuilt garrison church was pulled down in 1821 to make room for today’s cathedral. One of the first moves of the new construction was the transfer of the Bakócz Chapel to its present place. The cathedral, the construction of which started on plans by Pál Kühnel (1765–1824) and János Packh (1796–1839) fitted into a conception of a church government centre the model for which might have been provided by Ganneval’s plan of nearly sixty years before.
Barabás Miklós első Széchenyi István-képmása 1836-ból
Miklós Barabás’s first portrait of István Széchenyi from 1836
In the study I explore the relationship between the popular reformist politician of the first half of the 19th century István Széchenyi (1791–1860) and the painter Miklós Barabás (1810–1898). Miklós Barabás of Márkusfalva returned to Pest from a study tour of Italy in late 1835. He had an immense amount of sketches from his travels, and hardly any clients to sell to, so he tried to make acquaintances through the prominent figures of literature. His first commission was to paint the portrait of the poet Mihály Vörösmarty. During this commission he got acquainted with Antal Tasner, Count István Széchenyi’s secretary, who directed the count’s attention to the young painter. In this period several important institutions were associated with Széchenyi: he made a donation for the establishment of the Scholarly Society (the later Academy of Sciences), he took part in founding the National Casino in Pest, and had an active role in the work of the First Danubian Steam Shipping Company. From the end of the 1820s he wrote and published four books: Lovakrul [On Horses], Hitel [Credit], Világ [World/ Light], Stádium [State/stage of development]. His portrait was popular and in high demand. In 1835 eight different drawings and paintings were made of the politician. The aldermen of four counties – Hont, Bihar, Nógrád and Sopron – wished to acquire a portrait of him each. In response to the request by Bihar county, Széchenyi recommended Miklós Barabás to paint the portrait and guaranteed that the painting would be a success.
Széchenyi and Barabás met in person in February 1836 when the portrait in the focus of research was made with the count sitting for it. This half-length portrait of the count in Hungarian gala costume was extended to full length portraits several times and sold to different clients.At the present stage of research the painting ordered by Hont county (in the Mining Museum, Selmecbánya) is the only original portrait in addition to the half-figure prototype, and the work for Sopron county is known in reproduction. The two depictions are iconographically connected by the black Hungarian gala costume and the motifs alluding to Széchenyi’s political activity (books on the table, steamboat in the background). After Széchenyi’s death in 1860 Pest county also commissioned Barabás to paint a full-length portrait of him. In the background of the painting of 1867 the construction of Chain-bridge is shown. The posture of the figure is, however, not so excellently set as in the earlier pictures. Barabás kept the first-painted half-length portrait with him to the end of his life. His heirs later sold it to Dénes Széchenyi, the grandson of István Széchenyi’s brother Lajos and it survived the vicissitudes of the 20th century in family ownership.
A gróf, a festő és a bécsi ágens: Széchényi Antal képmása Michael Christoph Emanuel Hagelganstól (1762)
The count, the painter and the viennese agent: Portrait of Antal Széchényi by Michael Christoph Emanuel Hagelgans (1762)
The half-length portrait of cavalry general Count Antal Széchényi (1714–1767) is kept in the Rómer Flóris Museum of Győr. During its restoration the painter’s signature came to light: Hagelgans pinxit / Wien 1762, and in the Széchényi family archives the correspondence about the picture can be found. Between the painter and the client, the count’s agent in Vienna, Johann Edler von Hermann was the liaison, who claimed that Hagelgans regarded the painting so good that he kept it for himself and made a replica for Antal Széchényi. In the early 20th century the first picture was kept at the Ludovika military academy in Budapest, and the copy ended up in the museum from the family. The Darmstadt painter signed a representative portrait in the Historical Picture Gallery of the Hungarian National Museum in 1758. Later the portrait – including the face – was overpainted and the coat of arms of chief justice Baron Ferenc Koller as well as the middle cross of the Order of St Stephen Koller received in 1765 were added.
Agent Hermann also tried to find a fresco painter for Antal Széchényi and consulted Gregorio Guglielmi, who was working on Schönbrunn at that time. He failed to get advice, but he did send a master to Nagycenk, who may have been Johann Ignaz Cimbal. Although no baroque fresco was painted in the Széchenyi mansion, but on the basis of the style of the altar picture of the chapel (Christ on the Cross) and the praedella showing the Virgin Mary suggests that they might hypothetically be attributed to the fertile altarpiece and fresco painter who had settled from Wagstadt (Bílovec) to Vienna.
Several Vienna-based agents of Hungarian aristocrats pursued artistic activity and art brokering. Stefan Fabsich and Antal Pruszkay worked for the bishop of Eger Károly Eszterházy, the mentioned Knight Hermann and a certain Heinrich Schwarzenberger and later his widow acquired art works for István Esterházy of Zólyom (Zvolen), who also employed the court agent Johann Stifftel. Between 1758 and 1762 Stifftel was the secretary of the princes Esterházy in Kismarton (Eisenstadt): he arranged for the first contract with the composer Joseph Haydn.
Kállai Ernő német nyelven megjelent írásainak könyvészeti jegyzéke (1938-1944) •
Közreadja Bardoly István
List of ernő kállai’s writings in german. compiled by árpád tímár, edited by István Bardoly
A collection of Ernő Kállai’s writings was published forty years ago, in 1981, by Corvina publisher. The pieces were selected, prefaced and the bibliography compiled by Éva Forgács. (Kállai Ernő: Művészet veszélyes csillagzat alatt. Válogatott cikkek, tanulmányok [art under a perilous constellation. Selected articles, studies]. Ed. and pref. Éva Forgács. Budapest 1981). Kállai’s last – published – writing appeared about lászló Mednynászky in the paper Politika on 9 July 1949. He was excommunicated from the profession, silenced, he lived in misery. He made ends meet by translating, selling items of his library, or pawning. “Old chum, i learnt yesterday that the ‘Breton Calvaries’ was only worth 35 forints. That’s the price then i want for them. Segers, Hausenstein – Klee are absolute rarities or amateur values, so i can wholeheartedly recommend them to your Excellency’s attention. Can we strike a bargain?” “By the way, i must return the typewriter to doctor Kővári. That means, until i can redeem mine, i must obtrude myself on you. and type on the small remington. – i’m sorry,” he wrote to his friend Miklós Szentkuthy in 1949. (Szentkuthy Miklós válogatott levelezése [Selected correspondence of M.Sz.] Ed. Hernád imre. Budapest 2008, 150–151.) Sporadically one or another Kállai writing appeared in anthologies before 1981 (Kortársak szemével. Írások a Magyar művészetről [Through the eyes of contemporaries. Writings about Hungarian art]. Ed. and pref. Perneczky Géza. Budapest 1967; Kritikák és képek. Válogatás a Magyar képzőművészet dokumentumaiból 1945–1975 [reviews and pictures. Selection from the documents of Hungarian arts 1945–1975] Compiled: art Historical research Group, HaS. Budapest 1976.). His books – cherished treasures of their owners – passed from hand to hand among the interested.
Already Éva Forgács stressed that “the precondition for restoring him to his deserved place in the history of Hungarian art which he lost thirty years ago is, apart from the collection and publication of his works, a change in attitude: not least, the still viable convention must be superseded which values and ranks a mediocre aesthete or art philosopher higher, takes him more seriously than an outstanding critic, saying that after all, he is only a critic.” (Forgács Éva: Bevezető [introduction]. in Kállai op.cit. 9). This work was accomplished by árpád Tímár, who edited the works of Ernő Kállai in eight volumes.
He knew best the history of art criticism in Hungary whose foundations he laid with several decades of research into the “cemetery of dailies”, publishing writings by imre Henszlmann, lajos Fülep, György lukács, leó Popper, artúr Elek. The Kállai collection fits in this series. He termed the “possibly complete” bibliography in the volume edited by Éva Forgács a “till now unavoidable” starting point (Kállai Ernő: Összegyűjtött írások = Ernst Kállai: Gesammelte Werke i. articles, studies in Hungarian 1912–1925. Ed., after-word: Tímár árpád. Budapest 1999, 236), but during his researches he corrected and extended her list. He worked alone elaborating the Hungarian articles, and with Csilla Markója and Monika Wucher in libraries of Munich, Berlin, Pozsony and Vienna to scan the majority of German-language papers inaccessible then (and today) in Hungary, exploring several so-far unknown writings. The collected material appeared in eight elegant tomes between 1999 and 2010 (Kállai Ernő: Összegyűjtött írások = Ernst Kállai: Gesammelte Werke. i–Vi, Viii, X. Budapest 1999–2012), except volumes 7 and 9, which ought to have contained the articles published in german in 1938–1944 (in Forum, Pester Lloyd). árpád Tímár prepared the bibliography of this material – which differs in volume and the accuracy of the items from the list presented in 1981 – but he had no drive or energy to type the text of hundreds of pages; he wished to work on more important engagements. Was he right to think others could also finish this project? Well, as long as it remains a project for the future, we offer some help for those interested with the bibliography of articles written in German between 1938 and 1944
