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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
Following the debut of Károly Szabados's ballet Vióra on March 14, 1891, the daily newspaper Pesti Hírlap called the date a glorious day not only for Hungarian music, but also for Hungarian genius and spirit in general, and treated the debut at the Hungarian Royal Opera House in Budapest as an allegory for spring: “It was as if the refreshing, revitalizing breaths of that traditional March breeze had blown across the hall of muses on Andrássy Road: such was the enthusiasm dominating the spectators' benches and the stage alike.” 1 According to the newspaper, it was the long-anticipated victory of “the Hungarian genius, which some had begun to consider as almost alien to the Hungarian royal theater,” and it was all thanks to Géza Zichy (1849–1924), one of whose first acts as intendant was bringing this long neglected piece to the stage. 2 In the context of Vióra's premiere, the “Hungarian genius” and the “Hungarian spirit” manifested on several levels, as it was the decision of a Hungarian intendant to present the evening-long ballet of a Hungarian author revolving around Hungarian themes; but this raises the question, why did a Hungarian ballet carry such significance at the time? What place does Károly Szabados, the author of the ballet, occupy in the history of Hungarian music, and how was the ballet and its music received by contemporaries in and out of the limelight? This study attempts to answer these questions by examining contemporary Hungarian and German news articles and music critiques published in Budapest.
Abstract
The performances of Ernő Dohnányi as pianist and conductor were preserved on numerous sound recordings. He was involved in the recording industry first in 1905, and his death was notoriously caused by a cold suffered in a recording studio in 1960. His interpretation is preserved on different audio media: piano rolls, 78rpm and Long Play discs, x-ray foils and reel-to-reel tapes. Although the number of his studio recordings, made for commercial purposes, is relatively small, the amount of live concert and home recordings, including the huge collection of unpublished recordings made in the USA between 1945 and 1960, expands it to a significant corpus of sound recordings. This article contains the complete discography of Ernő Dohnányi as a performer. The discography provides all available data of the studio and live recordings of Dohnányi, including the data of reissues (closing date: June 2022). It is preceded by an article in which Dohnányi's discography is analysed from several aspects. The analysis of the recorded repertoire sets the stage for further research on Dohnányi's interpretation; however, lost recordings are also reviewed. Dohnányi's controversial relationship to the technical media, and vice versa the recording firms changing interest in him as a performer, are also discussed in detail, involving several sources formerly unknown to Dohnányi research.
Abstract
Folk art and applied folk art have been constantly shaped by cultural and political actors, as well as social and economic processes and the local society affected by them. In the context of these changes, the definitions of authentic, original, and genuine were given a new interpretation, which can be examined in different contexts. The question of authenticity in material folk art arose shortly after the birth of the concept of folk art and the “discovery” of folk art, and has accompanied the history of the revival of material folk art. Nevertheless, although discourses on the subject have been ongoing for a long time in the fields of folklore, theoretical works dealing with material folk art have not paid much attention to the issue of authenticity. The study first describes the contexts through which the issue of authenticity was articulated in artifact production inspired by folk art. The changed social conditions during the 20th century have also generated, and are still generating, new legal dilemmas in the field of artifact production at both community and individual levels, such as the extent to which folk art is individual or community-owned (taking into account the narrower and wider community), and the copyright of an authentic folk artist or craftsman or a creator recognized as a folk artisan. The questions lead to the evolution of the definition of authenticity and point out, among other things, the role that the issue of authenticity plays in the process of the heritagization of folk art.
Abstract
In 1967, Ernő Tárkány Szücs published his article summarizing the results and tasks of European legal ethnography in the columns of Ethnologica Europeana in Paris (under the title Results and Task of Legal Ethnology in Europe). With this, he revived an important tradition of Hungarian legal ethnography: Károly Tagányi published his summary of international research history in German in 1922 (Lebende Rechtsgewohnheiten und ihre Sammlung in Ungarn. Ungarische Bibliothek. Für das Ungarische Institut an der Universität Berlin. Erste Reihe. Vereinigung wissenschaftlicher Verleger. Berlin und Leipzig). At the time of the publication of Ernő Tárkány Szücs's article, he was working as a ministerial official, but in Hungarian academic life he took a backseat. At the same time, however, he was in constant contact with several European representatives of legal folklore. As soon as he had the opportunity, Tárkány Szücs opened up to international scholarship, and became not only an active participant but also a prime mover of the international discourse on legal folk custom research. His recognition was indicated by the fact that throughout Europe, not only his studies published in various world languages but also his papers exclusively in Hungarian were often cited. Although the science policy in his country was not able to integrate the specifically interdisciplinary scientific research of Ernő Tárkány Szücs, or only haltingly, his international recognition was unquestionable all along.
Abstract
Ernő Tárkány Szücs (1921–1984) was a researcher who created a synthesis of Hungarian legal ethnography, a mediator of his results for European legal ethnographic research, and his scientific work is still an essential part of Hungarian research history. During the most intensive period (1939–1948) of Hungarian legal folklore research — which was delayed compared to European legal customs research — he became a lawyer and a researcher of Hungarian legal ethnography along with legal history professor György Bónis from Kolozsvár (nowdays Cluj-Napoca). Although in the next phase of his life (1950–1975), during the decades of socialism in Hungary, as a practicing lawyer, he could not professionally engage in legal ethnographic research, when he finally had the opportunity to do so in 1975 in the Ethnographic Research Group of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, he presented a series of results of Hungarian legal ethnography. One of the most important of these was the publication of a monograph (Tárkány Szücs 1981), which is still considered to be the fundamental work of Hungarian legal ethnography, the conceptual and methodological foundation of the research field, the summary of research findings and at the same time its legitimation. Although the institutionalization of legal ethnographic research had not yet taken place at that time, Hungarian ethnography recognized Ernő Tárkány Szücs's research on legal folk customs as a “one-man” research field. During his research career, Tárkány Szücs continued to take an active role in international scientific life. He always considered it his task to make the findings of European legal ethnography known throughout Hungary, as well as to publish the findings of Hungarian legal ethnographic research in international scientific forums. The 2021 jubilee professional programs and publications of the Tárkány Szücs Ernő Legal Cultural Historical and Legal Ethnographical Research Group — an interdisciplinary research workshop established in 2011 with the aim of processing and enriching his research legacy and publications — were an opportunity to publish new research findings and formulate the ongoing tasks of Hungarian legal ethnography, beyond the evaluation of his research career and Hungarian legal ethnography from the dogmatic and methodological perspective.
Abstract
In the Káli Basin in the Balaton Uplands, four of the eight settlements bordering each other (Balatonhenye, Köveskál, Kővágóörs, Monoszló) were inhabited by petty nobles belonging to the gentry, living in curial villages, with a great deal of autonomy, self-governance, and within the framework of their established legal norms and legal customs. They lost most of their privileges in the mid-19th century, but some of their old and new legal customs survived until the mid-20th century. The study reviews part of their extensive living conditions, essentially from the last third of the 18th century. The way of life in this region, known for high-quality grapes and livestock, has changed a lot in the more than 200 years. The study describes each typical component of this life in view of the provisions of established law, customary law, and legal customs. Considering legal distinctions, it addresses secular and ecclesiastical administration, legal relationships regarding vineyards, certain work customs, succession laws, and the vestiges of petty nobility that survived into the 20th century. The role of certain legal customs contrary or complementary to the laws (contra legem, praeter legem) is also mentioned. The study provides a brief overview, or at least a taste, of the special (petty noble) legal folklore of the Káli Basin, which is rich in legal customs.
Chalcocondyles Latinus •
Konrad Clauser's translation of Chalkokondyles
Abstract
Zurich scholar Konrad Clauser's translation of Chalkokondyles was printed in 1556 at Oporinus' publishing house in Basel. The present paper reconstructs the circumstances of the formation of that translation, provides a detailed account of the publication, attempts to establish which manuscript may have served as the basis for the translation, and presents an outline of the immediate reception of the translation.
Abstract
In the scope of this research, we aim to give an overview of the currently existing solutions for machine translation and we assess their performance on the English-Hungarian language pair. Hungarian is considered to be a challenging language for machine translation because it has a highly different grammatical structure and word ordering compared to English. We probed various machine translation systems from both academic and industrial applications. One key highlight of our work is that our models (Marian NMT, BART) performed significantly better than the solutions offered by most of the market-leader multinational companies. Finally, we fine-tuned different pre-finetuned models (mT5, mBART, M2M100) for English-Hungarian translation, which achieved state-of-the-art results in our test corpora.
Abstract
One of the most important NLP tasks for the industry today is to produce an extract from longer text documents. This task is one of the hottest topics for the researchers and they have created some solutions for English. There are two types of the text summarization called extractive and abstractive. The goal of the first task is to find the relevant sentences from the text, while the second one should generate the extraction based on the original text. In this research I have built the first solutions for Hungarian text summarization systems both for extractive and abstractive subtasks. Different kinds of neural transformer-based methods were used and evaluated. I present in this publication the first Hungarian abstractive summarization tool based on mBART and mT5 models, which gained state-of-the-art results.
Abstract
In this paper, we argue that the very convincing performance of recent deep-neural-model-based NLP applications has demonstrated that the distributionalist approach to language description has proven to be more successful than the earlier subtle rule-based models created by the generative school. The now ubiquitous neural models can naturally handle ambiguity and achieve human-like linguistic performance with most of their training consisting only of noisy raw linguistic data without any multimodal grounding or external supervision refuting Chomsky's argument that some generic neural architecture cannot arrive at the linguistic performance exhibited by humans given the limited input available to children. In addition, we demonstrate in experiments with Hungarian as the target language that the shared internal representations in multilingually trained versions of these models make them able to transfer specific linguistic skills, including structured annotation skills, from one language to another remarkably efficiently.
Abstract
Although the name of Ferenc Hunyadi is known in Hungarian literary history mainly for his Hungarian-language historical song about the peril of Troy, there also exist more than five thousand lines of Latin poetry by him which have not been collected or published since the 16th century. Another eleven of his poems are known from a manuscript written by a Unitarian pastor in the early 17th century. A further, one-distich poem was recorded by István Szamosközy. The date of composition of his poems in manuscript can be placed roughly between the end of 1586 and 1599. In addition to these, there is also a manuscript kept in Oxford in which Hunyadi gives prescriptions for febrile diseases. As a starting point for further research, this paper summarises what is currently known about Hunyadi and his works.
Abstract
Hungarian has a prolific system of complex predicate formation combining a separable preverb and a verb. These combinations can enter a wide range of constructions, with the preverb preserving its separability to some extent, depending on the construction in question. The primary concern of this paper is to advance the investigation of these phenomena by presenting PrevDistro (Preverb Distributions), an open-access dataset containing more than 41.5 million corpus occurrences of 49 preverb construction types. The paper gives a detailed introduction to PrevDistro, including design considerations, methodology and the resulting dataset's main characteristics.
Abstract
Nowadays, it is quite common in linguistics to base research on data instead of introspection. There are countless corpora – both raw and linguistically annotated – available to us which provide essential data needed. Corpora are large in most cases, ranging from several million words to some billion words in size, clearly not suitable to investigate word by word by close reading. Basically, there are two ways to retrieve data from them: (1) through a query interface or (2) directly by automatic text processing. Here we present principles on how to soundly and effectively collect linguistic data from corpora by querying i.e. without knowledge of programming to directly manipulate the data. What is worth thinking about, which tools to use, what to do by default and how to solve problematic cases. In sum, how to obtain correct and complete data from corpora to do linguistic research.
Abstract
The Winograd Schema Challenge (WSC, proposed by Levesque, Davis & Morgenstern 2012) is considered to be the novel Turing Test to examine machine intelligence. Winograd schema questions require the resolution of anaphora with the help of world knowledge and commonsense reasoning. Anaphora resolution is itself an important and difficult issue in natural language processing, therefore, many other datasets have been created to address this issue. In this paper we look into the Winograd schemata and other Winograd-like datasets and the translations of the schemata to other languages, such as Chinese, French and Portuguese. We present the Hungarian translation of the original Winograd schemata and a parallel corpus of all the translations of the schemata currently available. We also adapted some other anaphora resolution datasets to Hungarian. We aim to discuss the challenges we faced during the translation/adaption process.
Abstract
Recognition of Hungarian conversational telephone speech is challenging due to the informal style and morphological richness of the language. Neural Network Language Models (NNLMs) can provide remedy for the high perplexity of the task; however, their high complexity makes them very difficult to apply in the first (single) pass of an online system. Recent studies showed that a considerable part of the knowledge of NNLMs can be transferred to traditional n-grams by using neural text generation based data augmentation. Data augmentation with NNLMs works well for isolating languages; however, we show that it causes a vocabulary explosion in a morphologically rich language. Therefore, we propose a new, morphology aware neural text augmentation method, where we retokenize the generated text into statistically derived subwords. We compare the performance of word-based and subword-based data augmentation techniques with recurrent and Transformer language models and show that subword-based methods can significantly improve the Word Error Rate (WER) while greatly reducing vocabulary size and memory requirements. Combining subword-based modeling and neural language model-based data augmentation, we were able to achieve 11% relative WER reduction and preserve real-time operation of our conversational telephone speech recognition system. Finally, we also demonstrate that subword-based neural text augmentation outperforms the word-based approach not only in terms of overall WER but also in recognition of Out-of-Vocabulary (OOV) words.
Abstract
This paper investigates the underlying structure of exceptive constructions with the Arabic exceptive marker ’illā and reveals the existence of two types of constructions: r(estrictive)-exceptives and s(ubtractive)-exceptives. The underlying factor that distinguishes these two constructions relates to the existence of a subtraction domain in s-exceptive constructions and its absence in r-exceptives. This distinction suggests that the exceptive marker ’illā ‘except' has a different syntactic function in these two constructions. Furthermore, this difference in the functional status of ’illā suggests a different internal and external structure of the ’illā-XP in each of these constructions. I argue that while the ’illā-XP in r-exceptive constructions projects a R-ExP, involving a covert antecedent in the form of the NPIs ’aḥad ‘one' or shay’ ‘thing’ and is a nominal adjunct, in s-exceptive constructions the ’illā-XP forms an S-ExP and can be classified into connected and free exceptives.
Abstract
This paper develops a syntax-pragmatics interface analysis of imperative clauses overtly marked by two grammatical categories of qing ‘please’ in Mandarin and refines the division of labor among directive force, clause typing and deontic modality jointly computing the interpretative properties of qing imperatives. We present a cluster of properties to differentiate between the two categories of qing and observe that qing 1 denotes obligation imposed on the addressee by the speaker, while qing 2 denotes permission with which the addressee is allowed to perform an action or make true a state of affairs according to a set of norms. It is argued that qing 1 is an imperative mood head, while qing 2 is an imperative adverb, but both are endowed with a similar internal composition and extent of the phrasal hierarchies of the CP periphery, and their disparate imperative properties can be ascribed to the addressee-oriented and subject-oriented deontic modality (Tsai & Portner 2008). Following Haegeman & Hill's (2013) version of the Speech Act Phrase, we claim that a speech act layer externally merges to the topmost position of ForceP to drive the syntax-pragmatics interface computation of the speaker-addressee relation and to mediate the imperative mood and clause typing represented in the CP layer.
Abstract
This investigation explored the effects of time duration and bilingualism/trilingualism on speakers' language production. A word-naming task was conducted under three conditions—700 ms, 1,000 ms, and unlimited time. The results showed that the participants incurred fewer errors and successfully corrected errors at 1,000 ms and unlimited time; the bilingual/trilingual advantage was identified in error self-repairs at 1,000 ms; and trilinguals were more strategic in correcting errors than monolinguals and bilinguals. This suggests that unlimited time did not ensure higher accuracy in lexical production and efficient error correction, and that 1,000 ms was the optimal timeframe for processing single monosyllabic Chinese characters.
Abstract
The Ovidian story of Baucis and Philemon can be divided into shorter sections based on the structure of the narrative, and several parallelisms and analogies can be perceived between these sections. In one section the number of vegetables and other edibles corresponds with the number of the edibles in the other, as well as with the arrangement of divine names in the text creating a palistrophe, thus showing the individual parts of the whole strory. The aim of this article is to present the Ovidian structure of the narrative of the story and make possible emendations of the widely accepted text utilising the most important medieval codices and this supposed structural framework.
Abstract
The primary aim of the article is to present a different approach in the critic of sources concerning the reconstruction of „late Hunnic” and „early Bulgaric” period of steppe history. In the last half century it became a main narrative in research, that the Bulgars, appearing around the 480's on the Balkan Peninsula, are identical with those Oguric tribes (Saragur, Ogur, Onogur), that – according to Priscus rhetor – arrived to the eastern part of the European steppe circa 463. Also it is assumed by certain authors, that in the years following the battle at Nedao river (455) the Hunnic tribes, overrun by the newcomers, fled behind the Moesian borders of the East-Roman empire and lost all the continuity of their political and ethnic existense. Analyzing however the sources providing information on this period – Jordanes' Getica, the works of Cassiodorus, Ennodius, Malalas, Procopius and others –, we can let ourselves to assume differently. Although in this article I do not deal with the questions related to early Hungarian history, it is clear enough, how important the above mentioned problem is in view of these questions as well.
ABSTRACT
The present article offers some reflections on Werner Eck's translation and interpretation of chapter 11 of the lex Troesmensium regulating the municipal embassies: (1) not the future, but the former magistrates were forbidden to be ambassadors; (2) not the ordo decurionum, but the duumvir sent the ambassadors – according to the decision of the decurions, of course; and (3) the future ambassador had to be informed not five days after the decision, but five days before the departure.
Abstract
In the Egyptian–Greek legal practice the “fictitious loan agreements” are known as specific constructions of deferred purchase contracts of the ancient legal practice. While Roman law is well known from its consensual contracts, such as the sales contract (emptio venditio), furthermore it acknowledged constructions of sales contracts with deferred payment as valid sale, Greek law always adhered to the prompt sale and besides this, only additional solutions were applied. One of these solutions was the so-called “fictitious loan agreements” (συγγραφὴ δανείου), where – as Fritz Pringsheim emphasized – if the seller provided the purchase price and “disguised” the sale as a loan, he had no claim on the basis of the sale, but could only sue on the basis of the loan. There remained several documents of this kind, however, in light of recent papyrological research, new evidence suggests a revision on how we are regarding these documents.
Abstract
The investigation of a 8.1 m long peat sequence from Tăul fără fund (“Bottomless Lake,” Transylvanian Basin, Northern Romania) offers a series representing wetland development since the Middle Holocene. The most striking feature of the sequence is a cca. 900 year-long hiatus caused by peatcutting in the 14th century AD. An artificial reservoir was constructed there in the Late Middle Ages by the excavation of the uppermost peat layer, afflicting a significant environmental impact on this remote location. One of the oldest documented Hungarian settlements from the time of the Hungarian Kingdom (11th century AD, presumably with previous history) in Transylvania was discovered in the vicinity of the former reservoir by an archaeological field survey. By harmonising historical data and the exact chronological sequence of the borehole, the creation of the reservoir was inserted into the local history of the developing mediaeval settlement network at the time when some of the early settlements had been abandoned and a permanent village was established, with a church and upscale landowners, in the area of present-day Băgău in the 13th to 14th century AD. Significant environmental impacts have emerged during this transitional period around the reservoir.
Abstract
Archaeological excavations and inscriptions discovered on site point towards the existence of an Early Imperial Period urban settlement under the area of the present-day village Környe (Komárom-Esztergom County), established in the civitas Azaliorum region, most probably on the territory of the Mogiones tribe. On some of the inscriptions possibly related to the name of the Early Imperial Era settlement, unearthed on site and in the immediate neighbourhood, a striking abbreviation, MOG appears. According to the Inotapuszta (Bakonycsernye) diploma and a Roman urban laterculus, there stood in Pannonia an urban settlement known by the name of Mogionibus as well. The results of the excavations conducted in Környe in the period 1939–2016, local inscriptions and a newly published milestone discovered in Tata (Komárom-Esztergom County) are all witnesses to the existence of a municipium named rather Mogionibus such as Mogionensium on the territory of the present village of Környe. The municipium existed between the reigns of Hadrian and Gallienus. Before 214, it belonged to the urban network of Pannonia Superior, while after 214, to that of Pannonia Inferior.
Abstract
Discussed here is the presence of a warrior aristocracy in south-western Hungary, principally in County Somogy, during the early (and middle) Urnfield period (Br D–Ha A1-A2) based on the archaeological record. The period's offensive and protective weapons wielded by the warrior aristocracy during the Urnfield period (mid-thirteenth to ninth century BC) are exclusively known from hoards in this region; none have been recovered from burials. The Lengyeltóti V hoard contained a greave, a composite cuirass, a cheek-piece indicating the presence of a military aristocracy riding horses and wagons or chariots when going to battle and a realistic wheel model. The swords and spearheads were part of the period's offensive weaponry. The hoard's other articles represented the jewellery of the female aristocracy: a diadem, a torc and an ornamented disc pendant. The hoard contained over seven hundred items. In A. Mozsolics's view, the hoard could be assigned to the period lasting up to the close of the Hallstatt period (Ha A2). The rise of the warrior aristocracy began during the Br D, Br D/Ha A1 period, while its consolidation and heyday fell into the early Urnfield period (Ha A1). The aristocracy lived in hillforts – fortified settlements – which had a flourishing bronze industry. The number of settlements and burials declined drastically in the ensuing Ha B period in south-western Transdanubia.
Abstract
It is well known that, alongside Lutheranism and Calvinism, other, even more radical forms of Protestantism emerged in the 16th century, attacking fundamental Christian beliefs such as the dogma of the Trinity. However, neither Catholic, nor Protestant states welcomed heterodox views, so their proponents were forced to flee to the East, where they were permitted to build their own churches in Poland and Transylvania. In the western parts of the continent they were largely unknown, so when the first representatives of the Counter-Reformation (mainly Jesuits) arrived, they were confronted with a new, obscure foe.
Antonio Possevino, one of the most well-known and influential figures of the Catholic Reformation, wrote a lengthy polemic book against Antitrinitarism based on his own experiences which he acquired in the early 1580s when he performed various missions in Poland and Transylvania, while also studying Antitrinitarism. Possevino's work outlines the history of Antitrinitarism, summarizes its doctrines, and refutes its most important book, De falsa et vera unius Dei … cognitione. Although Possevino's book is intriguing in and of itself, its publishing history is also worth noting. It was not published until 1586, after a heated debate between Possevino, his Jesuit censors, and the pope, and it was printed in three cities (Poznan, Cologne and Vilnius) at the same time with different titles and prefaces. Within a few years, the book was edited two more times. This history outlines some tactics on behalf of the Catholic Reformation, with a focus on the importance of printed books.
Abstract
The present study offers a re-evaluation of literary production in Hungary under the Jagiellonian kings Wladislas II and Louis II. Traditionally, the literary works produced in this period have been contrasted to the blossoming of humanist literature under King Matthias, and disregarded in many respects. The aim of this study is to make a survey of the main authors and other agents of the literary culture of this period and to stress that this age experienced an unseen growth and expansion in late medieval and humanist scholarly and lay culture. While János Horváth called the authors of this period “humanists with party allegiances”, I argue that their stronger “party allegiance” is, in fact, the direct result of the steady growth in the number of intellectuals with a modern, humanistic educational outlook, and of a less centralized state.
Abstract
The paper aims to clarify connections among the terms designated in the title on the basis of a well-known passage of the Aristotelian corpus (Politics I 2. 1253a7–18). The first part of the argumentation unfolds mainly through conceptual explanations and conceptual distinctions, during which some relevant claims of Aristotleʼs other works (primarily the biological and logical writings) are also taken into consideration. The main question of this part is directed to the difference between man and other living beings. The difference, as it will appear, lies in the specific performance of human speech (logos), contrasted with the performance of the animal voice (phōnē). In the second part, the reconstruction of Aristotelian theory based on close textual reading is complemented by references to some later but theoretically insightful contexts, especially with regard to the field of politics in the narrower sense. Conceptions of social constructivism (Berger and Luckmann), philosophical anthropology (Gehlen), political philosophy (Arendt), and philosophical hermeneutics (Heidegger and Gadamer) will primarily come into play.
Abstract
The present paper addresses the fragmented history of Hungarian legal anthropology. Although legal anthropology does not have a centuries-long tradition in Hungarian legal scholarship, the activities and publications of the late Ernő Tárkány Szücs, along with those of Sándor Loss and István H. Szilágyi, can be said to have established the scholarly framework for an anthropological understanding of law in Hungary. While not explicitly, all three authors relied on the folk concept of law and contributed to the introduction of a cultural aspect to the study of legal issues. The first part of the present paper discusses the work of the late Tárkány Szücs, the leading personality in the Hungarian legal ethnology movement after 1945, with a particular focus on how the author conceived the research of socialist legal folkways. Although Tárkány Szücs's frame of reference was legal ethnology, it can be argued that his insights into socialist legal folkways brought him close to an anthropological perspective. The second part of the paper presents in detail the research carried out by legal anthropologists in the 1990s, focusing on the work on Romani law carried out by István H. Szilágyi and Sándor Loss. It should be stressed that in this latter research, the methodology of participant observation was applied, thus expanding the toolkit of Hungarian legal scholarship to some extent. In conclusion, the paper argues that a proper understanding of everyday legal practice — including trouble-free cases — is impossible unless legal scholarship is liberated from the constraints of the analytical concept of law and exploits the freedom offered by the folk concept. The reinterpretation and revitalization of the broadly understood legal anthropological tradition — from the late Tárkány Szücs to H. Szilágyi and Loss — can be of significant help in this respect.
Az Inana és Šukaletuda című mítosz •
Áldás vagy átok a hírnév?
Az alábbi tanulmány a sumer Inana és Šukaletuda mítosz új magyar fordítását tartalmazza, illetve egy elemzést a szöveg egyik problematikus részéről, Šukaletuda „megáldásáról”. Az elemzésben amellett érvelek, hogy a szöveg szóhasználata arra vonatkozó utalásokat rejt, hogy Šukaletuda, a kertész, alacsony származású, uralkodói szerepkörök betöltésére alkalmatlan személy, és az uralkodókat utánzó, jogtalan tette után kap isteni büntetést. A mítoszról szóló eddigi elemzések a szöveg ezen aspektusára még nem tértek ki.
Propertius II. 15. elégiájának fordítása az Erato latin ciklusának közepén (Ovidius Amores I. 5. elégiájával szimmetrikus párban) hangsúlyos szerepet tölt be Babits fordításkötetében. Ennek a Proper-tius-fordításnak ez az első és egyetlen megjelenése Babits életművében, de a klasszikus szerzőhöz való viszonya nem előzmény nélküli. Babits levelezésében és irodalomtörténeti munkáiban is előkerül Propertius neve, de mindezeken túl latintanári pályafutása során is foglalkozhatott verseivel. Ez a dolgozat elsősorban arra a kérdésre keres választ, hogy a fordításhoz Babits milyen szövegforrást használhatott, illetve hogy a Babitsra sajátosan jellemző fordítói paradigma jelei, a költői invenciók mutathatnak-e összefüggéseket a szövegforrások vagy Babits más fordításai között.
Abstract
In Hungarian settlements, tizedek (tenths), streets, divisions, and fertályok (viertels, quarters, or districts) were areas that enjoyed a certain autonomy. They were led by elected “decurions,” “street captains,” or “captains” in Hungarian-populated settlements, and by viertelmeisters, or district wardens, in German-speaking settlements. These officials liaised between the municipal authorities and the local community. From the 16th century until the mid-19th century, the decurions and district wardens had official powers, kept the population informed about national and local regulations, helped carry out local censuses, collected taxes, and organized public works. They played a key role in maintaining law and order in their neighborhoods, and in ensuring protection from fire. In the northeastern region of present-day Hungary, we have information concerning the history of the district wardens in the cities of Eger, Gyöngyös, and Miskolc, while in the case of Eger the tradition is still in existence today. There were decurions in Eger as early as the end of the 17th century, who were replaced by district wardens from the 1710s. The position existed in Gyöngyös from the middle of the 18th century until 1874. In Miskolc, there were district wardens from 1794 to 1800. After a hiatus of half a century, the position was then restored, while in 1884 the parallel position of “section warden” was abolished. In Eger, district wardens were active until 1949, then, after a forced interruption in the Socialist era, the institution was revived in 1996, becoming an important element in local identity through its heritage preservation activities. The present study introduces the different eras in the institution of the district warden, its changing functions, its organizational structure, its symbols, and its various forms of social interaction. Eger is the only city in Hungary in which this centuries-old office is still preserved today, justifying the inclusion of this living custom in the UNESCO National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2014.
A XVI. század elején tizenkét kéz által másolt Codex Monacensis Graecus 307a jelzetű kézirat Laonikos Chalkokondylés történeti munkáját tartalmazza. A kézirat a főszövegen kívül több széljegyzetet is megőrzött. Chalkokondylés Apodeixise után, a kódex 237v oldalán található egy Nikolaos Sophianos által írt bejegyzés, amelyben a szerző különböző módszereket ír le a bolhák és poloskák ellen. Bár Darkó Jenő korábban már kiadta a receptet, az átírása pontatlan és számos helyen hibás. Jelen tanulmány célja, hogy új átírást adjunk a négysoros szövegről fordítással és rövid megjegyzésekkel kiegészítve.
A tanulmány Hypereidés Démosthenés ellen című beszédének három helyét elemzi és értelmezi, illetve szövegkritikai javítást javasol. A XXIX–XXX. columnákban foglalt közlések a Dióndas ellen elmondott beszéd megfelelő helyei alapján érthetőbbé válnak. A XXVIII. columna 21. sorában az αὐτῷ (pronomen personale – Jensen és minden szövegkiadó) helyett αὑτῷ (pronomen reflexivum) a helyes olvasat, amely helyreállítja a szöveghely értelmét. Chairóneia után nem a nép volt hálás Démosthenésnek, épp ellenkezőleg: a nép azt várta, hogy Démosthenés és társai lesznek hálásak neki. A lacunában elveszett név tehát nem Lykurgos, hanem Démosthenés.
Abstract
In recent decades, there has been growing interest in the use of wills as historical sources. This period has seen a tenfold increase in the number of source publication volumes and editions published by Hungarian researchers, and an even greater increase in the number of wills published in their entirety. In the period under review, around 70 researchers have been actively working with this source type: besides the archivists spearheading their publication, dozens of legal historians, historians, and ethnographers have been involved in the work. Following an overview of the most important historical research antecedents and a brief appreciation of the work of Ernő Tárkány Szücs in this field, the present study examines the respective work carried out in Hungary during the last four decades, grouped according to the researched periods. With the publication of the Prothocollum Testamentorum of Bratislava, the number of published wills from the late Middle Ages significantly increased, while important findings have also emerged in terms of research on the wills of the nobility. From the early Middle Ages, a significant selection has been made from among the extant testaments originating from various royal free cities (e.g., Nagyszombat [Trnava, Slovakia], Sopron, and Debrecen) and market towns (e.g., Gyöngyös, Győr, and Kecskemét), while a significant number of wills belonging to the Transylvanian nobility have also been published. While large numbers of extant testaments originating from market towns (Nyíregyháza, Szentes, Vác, Zalaegerszeg, etc.) in the 18th and 19th centuries have been published, important publications have also appeared containing the wills of the nobility, clergy, and village serfs. The vast majority of such volumes have included a longer or shorter introductory study, although we might also mention the dozens of important analytical essays published in volumes of collected studies, which illustrate the value of testaments as sources in the fields of social, economic, cultural, ecclesiastical, and legal history.
Abstract
Based on archival documents and supplementary ethnographic collections, this study reviews the autonomous community customs and legal traditions of the Jászkun people, starting in the 17th century and autonomously evolving among the jász [Jassic] and kun [Cuman] people in Hungary for centuries and preserved in certain peculiar Jászkun terms and vernacular expressions up until the 20th century. In view of legal ethnography and activity-oriented social history, my study has been divided into four parts: Kun, Jász, Jászkun; Legal customs and customary law before the Redemption (1745); The legal culture of the Jászkun District after the Redemption; The enacted customary law of the Jászkun: the Jászkun Statute. I specifically focused on the 18th century, for at the end of it the Jászkun Statute, the written customary law of the district, approved by the palatine, had been promulgated. The statute incorporated the legal customs practiced by the people of the Jászkun District before 1799 and facilitated the long-term survival of the specific unique features of local society and the high degree of differentiation of their legal practice. The customary laws of the Jászkun are history now, but in more than one aspect they still affect the everyday lives of late descendants.
Lénaion, orchéstra és a régi agora •
Megjegyzések az archaikus Athén topográfiájához
Az utóbbi évtizedek kutatásai révén egyre világosabban áll előttünk az archaikus Athén topográfiája. Van azonban néhány olyan kérdés a VII–VI. századi városképben, amelyekre a napjainkban is zajló ásatások sem tudnak kielégítő választ adni. Az egyik ilyen homályos pont a Dionysos-színház felépülte előtt használt színházi tereket érinti: nem világos, hogy a Lénaionnak nevezett szentélykörzet, vagy a lexikográfusoknál olvasható orchéstra és ikria hol helyezkedett el, és az sem egyértelmű, hogy Athénban az Akropolis déli lejtőjén található színház mellett még milyen más helyszíneken voltak színielőadások, karversenyek. A tanulmány a fenti kérdéseket az archaikus Athén topográfiai problémáinak kontextusában vizsgálja a rendelkezésre álló irodalmi, régészeti és epigráfiai források tükrében.
Psellos tankölteménye a nyelvtanról (poem. 6 Westerink) kevesek által olvasott munka. Tudománytörténeti jelentősége is csekély, hiszen többnyire jól ismert közhelyeket verselt meg tizenöt szótagos versekben. Érdekes viszont abból a szempontból, hogy milyen szerkesztési elv alapján kerekedtek egészszé Psellos tankölteményei. A vers szerkezetének vizsgálata mellett érdekes tanulsággal szolgál a koiné mint a bizánci dialektos jelentése Psellosnál, valamint a Theokritos költészetével kapcsolatos tanács (vs 30). A dolgozat függeléke a tanköltemény egy kézirattöredékének átírása, amelynek jegyzeteiből kiderül, hogy a tanköltemény tartalma és nyelvezete még egy bizánci másoló számára is komoly kihívást jelentett.
Egy korábbi tanulmányban ismertetésre kerültek a vulgáris latin nyelvtani nemi rendszer jellemzői, viszont ekkor nem került sor az adatok statisztikai eszközökkel történő megvizsgálására. Jelen tanulmány célja, hogy statisztikai eszközök, elsődlegesen khi-négyzet-próbák segítségével lehessen árnyalni a korábbi eredményeket, továbbá meg lehessen vizsgálni különböző, a szakirodalomban felmerülő kérdéseket, így például, hogy jogos-e egyes hibák hiperkorrekt olvasata.
Abstract
Recalling certain aspects of the research on Hungarian legal ethnography, the study deals with the relationship between law, customary law and legal custom. Customs of law is a significant field of law, inherited from the ancient legal order and created in the feudal-order society, which existed at the border of custom and formal law. The importance of the living conditions it governed gave rise to the institution of community coercion, which gave its rules a legal character. Eventually, it evolved in the “below” space left to it from the “above” and over time it acquired a tenacity that made it capable of maintaining a legal system in competition with the state, in response to a regulatory question not accepted by “official law.” The compliance and adherence to legal customs was based on the conviction of a community recognizing the need to adopt established rules and not on the competence, prestige, authority, legislative power and privilege of a legislative body.
Abstract
The present study, authored by a legal historian, examines the relationship between legal history and legal folklore through an investigation, centered on the market town of Szentes, one of a distinctive group of market towns in Hungary's Southern Great Plain, of the legal folklore that emerged at the end of the 18th century as a result of historical antecedents as well as demographic, economic, and social changes. The system of norms and values, the customary law, and the wealth of legal folklore that developed in these towns in the 18–19th centuries in the process of the emergence of the local middle class subsequently influenced the development of civil law at central level. The present study analyzes regulatory practice concerning orphans in the wills of the serfs and peasants living in the market towns of Hungary's Southern Great Plain, preserved primarily in local sources, based on entries in the “Book of Agreements” of the market town of Szentes. It seeks to identify the specific characteristics of guardianship customs in the world of the “lower class,” including how the position of widowed women and their responsibility for their children evolved, as well as expectations concerning stepfathers in the absence of guardianship. It also investigates how it became common practice in the market towns of the Southern Great Plain for the inheritance of the orphans of serfs not to be preserved in kind but rather sold, and, in an effort to preserve its value, the money was loaned out and the resulting interest was used to provide the bare necessities for the orphans.
Abstract
The Hungarian ethnographic group known as the Szekler people live in the Eastern Carpathians, a mountainous area that formed the eastern border of historical Hungary prior to 1920, and since 1920, with a minor interruption, the center of Romania. The traditionalist Szeklers designated those village districts that enjoyed ethnic autonomy by the name tizes (tenth). The author of the present study endeavors to illustrate, on the basis of written documents, the nature of the tizes as a Szekler village district and neighborhood community and how it functioned in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. In Szekler villages in the modern era, a village district was considered to be a genuine tizes if it had a tradition of self-governance and a variable level of autonomy, and if it was regarded as a self-governing unit of the settlement and society. The population of the tizes formed a local social, neighborhood group, whose sense of the tizes was consistent with the village-level consciousness of other, similar groups. From a settlement perspective, the village comprised several tizes, each one a unit of the settlement. In social terms, the village community was a combination of several tizes communities. In most cases, the Szekler tizes in the modern era had a distinguishing name, an elected leadership, property, basic self-governance, policing and penal jurisdiction, and its own records and administration. In the 17th to 19th centuries, the village districts and neighborhood communities designated by the word tizes may have owned property (e.g., forests, pastures, meadows), animals (bulls, boars), work-related equipment and objects (plow, drill, fire-fighting equipment, chest, stamp, documents), buildings and institutions (church, chapel, cemetery, school, cultural center, cross), and employees (bellringer, forester, herder). In most Szekler inhabited regions in the early 21st century, reminders of the former tizes are to be found only in the form of geographical names and vernacular data. The traditional form, role, and function of these historical autonomous village districts are best preserved in the region once known as the county of Csík in the former Kingdom of Hungary (now Ciuc, Romania). In the merged villages of Csíkszentgyörgy (now Ciucsângeorgiu, Romania) and Csíkbánkfalva (now Bancu, Romania) there are eight functioning tizes still in existence in the third decade of the 21st century. For this reason, the life of the tizes of Csíkszentgyörgy and Csíkbánkfalva has been chosen as the subject of the present study.
A VII. (Bíborbanszületett) Konstantin császár neve alatt hagyományozódott De administrando imperio című munka egyedülálló adatokat szolgáltat (többek között) a magyarság korai történelmére vonatkozóan. A szövegben előforduló görögösített tulajdonnevekből – párhuzamos forrás hiányában – elsősorban a helynevek bevonásával és a jelentéstan eszközeivel próbálták rekonstruálni a magyar személyneveket. A tanulmány az Árpádok családfájának görög szövegét a kézirati hagyomány vizsgálatával, a segédtudományok (paleográfia, kodikológia) eszközeinek bevonásával igyekszik új megvilágításba helyezni.
Abstract
Ernő Tárkány Szücs was a prominent figure in Hungarian social ethnography between 1944 and 1984. His involvement in the movement for collecting legal folk customs began as a university student in 1941. Among his professors and mentors, he was particularly influenced by György Bónis, Károly Viski, and József Venczel. His first large-scale study, published in 1944, was a presentation of legal folklore from the village of Mártély. At the same time, he investigated the folk laws related to sheep farming and the legal customs with respect to inheritance in the Hungarian villages in Transylvania. He published two substantial volumes containing the wills of peasant citizens of Hódmezővásárhely written between 1730 and 1796, and later the testaments of serf farmers from the town of Makó. He published a data collection containing around 10,000 ownership certificates and an analytical study in German on the branding of horses and cattle, accompanied by illustrations. He carried out research on the legal customs associated with Hungarian mining in the 17th to 19th centuries and elaborated Hungary's draft mining law. His principal work — on Hungarian Legal Folk Customs — is a substantial, comprehensive, and incomparably rich corpus of legal ethnography and the history of law. His work also gained recognition abroad: he spoke at many international conferences and was elected as a member of several international organizations.
Federativna Jugoslavija i njezini jezici
The Languages of Federative Yugoslavia
U radu se raspravlja o pravnoj regulaciji statusa jezika federativne Jugoslavije i njihovu nazivanju u razdoblju kojega su granične točke odluke AVNOJ-a iz 1944. godine te prva polovica travnja 1963. godine, kada se donosi drugi po redu Ustav. Za trajanja Drugoga svjetskog rata politička tijela države u nastajanju proklamirala su ravnopravnost četiriju jezika (u pravilu u izvornim se tekstovima navode redoslijedom): srpskoga, hrvatskoga, slovenskoga i makedonskoga. Tada je odlučeno, što se može smatrati temeljnim ostvarenjem proklamirane jezične ravnopravnosti na koju se obvezala federativna zakonodavna vlast, da će službeno glasilo objavljivati zakone nove države na tim četirima jezicima, odnosno da će glasilo istodobno izlaziti u četirima ravnopravnim izdanjima.
S donošenjem prvog Ustava početkom 1946. godine objavljivanje saveznih zakona na više jezika dobilo je i svoju ustavnu sankciju. Osim odredbe o objavljivanju zakona ustavotvorac je posebnim odredbama zajamčio nacionalnim manjinama slobodnu upotrebu svojega jezika te odredio da se postupak pred sudom vodi na jezicima republike, autonomne pokrajine ili oblasti. Ustavotvorac nijednom jeziku nije izričito dodijelio status službenoga (ili državnoga), ali je očito da razlikuje tri skupine jezika nejednaka statusa: jezike narodnih republika (objavljivanje zakona, vođenje sudskog postupka), jezike autonomnih pokrajina ili oblasti (vođenje sudskog postupka), jezike nacionalnih manjina (mogu se rabiti pred sudom). Ustavotvorna skupština u svojim poslovnicima izričito navodi u skladu s avnojskom praksom četiri jezika – srpski, hrvatski, slovenski i makedonski – ali je donijela Ustav 1946. godine u kojemu se ti jezici ne navode. Ustavni zakon, kojim je početkom 1953. znatno revidiran Ustav, u posebnoj odredbi regulira donošenje i objavljivanje save-znih zakona na jezicima svih narodnih republika, ali se ni u njoj ne navode nazivi tih jezika.
Rasprave vođene u ustavotvornim i zakonodavnim odborima, što su dosad u jezičnopolitičkim istraživanjima prema autorovu uvidu posve zanemarene, pokazuju da nenavođenje naziva jezika nije propust zakonodavca, nego rezultat političke odluke koja je provedena u Skupštini Jugoslavije, ali donesena, po svemu sudeći, u partijskom centru moći, u najužem vodstvu KP Jugoslavije, u prvom redu da bi se ustav rasteretio arbitriranja o tome jesu li hrvatski i srpski dva ili jedan jezik. U nepuna dva poslijeratna desetljeća jezici narodnih republika nisu dobili svoju ustavnu sankciju, ali, što pokazuje istražena građa, u nizu tekstova niže pravne snage (odluke, pravilnici, skupštinski poslovnici) federativna zakonodavna vlast izričito navodi srpski, hrvatski, slovenski i makedonski kao svoja četiri jezika.
S donošenjem Ustava SFRJ 1963. godine započinje novo ustavnopravno razdoblje u kojemu Skupština Jugoslavije mijenja svoj režim nazivanja jezika jugoslavenskih naroda, što znači u prvom redu da prestaje s uporabom glotonima hrvatski jezik i srpski jezik.
The paper discusses legal regulation of the status of the languages of federative Yugoslavia (FPRY) and their nomenclature in the period between the resolutions of the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia in 1944 and early April of 1963, when the second Constitution was ratified. During World War II, political bodies of the state to be proclaimed the equality of four languages: Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, and Macedonian (as a rule listed in this order in the documents). It was decided – and this can be considered the fundamental realization of the declared linguistic equality to which federative lawgiver pledged itself – that an official journal will publish statutes of the new state in those four languages, i.e. four editions will be published.
When the first Constitution was ratified in early 1946, the publication of statutes in several languages was sanctioned by the Constitution. In addition to the provision on publishing the statues, the lawmaker further guaranteed national minorities free use of their languages and mandated that judicial procedure is to be conducted in the languages of the respective republic, autonomous province, or region. No language was explicitly declared official (or federal) but it is obvious that three groups of languages of unequal status were distinguished: languages of people’s republics (publication of statutes, judicial procedure), languages of autonomous provinces or regions (judicial procedure), languages of national minorities (can be used in court). In its rules of procedure, the Constitutional Assembly explicitly lists the four languages – Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, and Macedonian – but the 1946 Constitution it ratified does not mention those languages. The Organic Law, which in early 1953 significantly revised the Constitution, includes a provision regulating the publication of federal statutes in the languages of all six people’s republics but the names of those languages are not specified.
Discussions in constitutional and legislative committees – thus far, by all accounts, ignored in studies of language politics – prove that this was not an omission on the part of the lawgiver but the result of a political decision (formally by the Federal Assembly, yet more likely by the powers that be in the inner circle of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia), first and foremost so that the Constitution would not be burdened with arbitrating whether Croatian and Serbian are a single language or not. In the two post-war decades, languages of people’s republics failed to secure constitutional sanction but, as the material under study shows, in a series of documents of lesser legal power (decrees, ordinances, and rules of procedure) federative legislature explicitly lists Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, and Macedonian as its four languages.
The ratification of the 1963 SFRY Constitution marks the beginning of a new constitutional era, in which the Federal Assembly changes its regime of naming languages of the Yugoslav peoples, which above all means that the linguonyms Croatian language and Serbian language are no longer used.
Abstract
The object of folk law research are the customs that prevail in areas covered, or theoretically covered, by state law, which effectively ensure permanent respect for them, largely in a less formalized way. In the respective historical stratum, (folk) legal customs fulfil functions equivalent to the law where, due to the logic of historical development or for other specific reasons, (a) there is a lack of state and legal organization; (b) the state and legal organization fails to reach significant social groups due to its paucity and indifference; or (c) the law fails to be transformed into practice that would lead to the fulfillment of its true functions. In its present-day version, a legal (folk) custom emerges when the state and legal organization has wholly fulfilled the functions in question, and it survives merely within the framework and vestiges of that organization, as a component of the ongoing system of customs, as a complement and embellishment to the state and legal organization, and perhaps with content of only symbolic significance. Against a background of a living peasant society, this was, and to some extent remains, a peculiarity of Central Europe, while in other contexts, starting from different traditions, the related research comes under the domain of legal anthropology, legal ethnology, and legal pluralism. Legal ethnography contributes to the investigation of social ethnographic issues by examining the instruments and institutions of the social order and the way they function. However, in terms of jurisprudence it is simultaneously both strong and weak, since although the idea of living law has revolutionized legal thought, European legal mentality, which rests on the rule-based objectification of modern formal law, nevertheless seeks to reject both the openness that characterizes the primordial quest for peace and the formlessness familiar to peoples living close to nature. In any case, an ethnography with social-theoretical foundations, which would take into account not only legal anthropology but also the socio-ethnographic lessons of legal ethnography, remains a task for the future.
Abstract
In 1583, the Transylvanian Saxon community obtained from the Transylvanian prince István Báthory the ratification of its own law book, Eygen-Landrecht. For quarter of a millennium, the law book essentially defined everyday law in this unique community in Transylvania, a multiethnic region that has undergone many constitutional changes. The law book can be seen as a compilation of genetically different legal regulations, containing and combining indigenous legal traditions and legal customs with the “scholarly” law (ius commune) developed by university jurisprudence of Italian origin. The present study describes the Saxons' determined quest for laws in the 15th and 16th centuries, relegating to the background the reception paradigm typical of research on the history of law and relying on the theoretical model of the transfer of legal rules and legal irritants. It examines the external and internal circumstances that impacted the Saxons' attempts at legal renewal, and the number of phases involved. It also investigates the temporal, locally bound, and legal-cultural factors that may have played a role in the success or failure of transfer of legal approaches from abroad, and the extent to which what can be regarded as the traditional law of the Saxons was able to resist attempts at renewal. In the last section of the present paper, examples are given that illustrate the encounter between Germanic legal traditions and the transferred ius commune solutions in the Saxons' law book of 1583, highlighting the durability of certain traditional and typical solutions.
Abstract
The present paper describes the native craft education and research carried out at the University of Tartu Viljandi Culture Academy in Estonia. ‘Native crafts’ are understood as creative technical and cultural practices, applications, and developments that are based on traditional local crafting techniques, materials, design principles, and skills. The mission of the academy is to represent the values that reinforce and re-establish local and national traditions and identities through active participation in the cultural process. Its courses, which were launched in 1994, have been developed to cover the majority of the traditional crafting techniques, skills, and materials that are used throughout Estonia. By means of these courses, the academy has assumed responsibility for teaching, preserving, and integrating Estonian vernacular culture and skills. It is the only institution in Estonia advancing the practice-based research and popularization of Estonian traditional costumes, jewelry, and construction, for example, at the level of higher education. The present paper provides an overview of the BA and MA program in native crafts and their main developmental trends. It also offers a more detailed overview of costume studies as part of the textile program. It covers the history, techniques, and regional peculiarities of traditional costumes, as well as the innovative ways in which traditional materials, patterns, and ornaments can be used in modern fashion.
Abstract
Géza Alföldy (1935–2011) is considered as one of the most important epigraphists and historians of the Roman civilization of the late 20th century, known also as “Mommsen of our ages”. His contribution is indispensable not only for the discipline of Roman epigraphy and social history, but also for the study of Roman religion. His intellectual roots in Hungary and the influence of the Hungarian scholarly tradition of the 1950’s marked his interest in the study of Roman religion for a long period. In this study, the authors discuss the formation of Géza Alföldy and his contribution to the discipline through a wider academic and socio-historical context.
Az Erdélyi Udvari Kancellária bécsi palotájának magyar történeti tárgyú pannói, August Rumel művei 1756‒1758-ból
The panneaux on hungarian historical themes in the vienna palace of the transylvanian court chancellary
The topic of the paper is a cycle of six large panneaux on Hungarian historical themes panted for the Vienna palace of the Transylvanian Court Chancellery. The series on Hun–Hungarian history from leaving behind the original habitat to the battle of Mohács is the earliest relic of Hungarian history painting, yet earlier researches only tangentially touched on it despite its salient importance.
When the Principality of Transylvania became part of the Central European Habsburg Monarchy as a independent land in 1690, Leopold I founded the Transylvanian Court Chancellery in 1693 as the highest governing organ of Transylvania. Based in Vienna, the office functioned in diverse rented buildings for a long time, before the freshly appointed chancellor of Transylvania Gábor Bethlen (1712–1768) purchased a building in Vienna in 1755 for the office. He chose the Sinzendorf palace in Hintere Schenkenstrasse across from the Löwel bastion (later replaced by the Burgtheater) close to the palace of the Hungarian Chancellery. It functioned until it was demolished in 1880. In 1755–1759 the chancellor had a representative suite of rooms created on the second floor also including a dining room. Its walls were covered by six large (c. 325 x 310 cm) painted wall hangings or spalliers. It is known from a description by Mór Jókai that the cycle contained three scenes from the Hun–Hungarian prehistory and three from the history of the Christian Hungarian Kingdom. 1) Exodus of the Magyars from their original habitat bordering on China; 2) Pagan priest officiating a fire sacrifice and the Hun king Attila (?), 3) Prince of Moravia Svatopluk sells Pannonia to the chieftain of the Magyars Árpád for a white horse, 4) Saint Stephen converts the Magyars to Christianity, 5) King Matthias Hunyadi enters Vienna in 1486, 6) The battle of Mohács in 1526.
In a study published in 1906 Piarist historian–archivist Sándor Takáts (1860–1932) adduced several data on the artists and artisans working on interior decoration of the chancellery palace including painters, presumably on the basis of the artists’ bills. These documents together with all the files of the Directorium in publicis et cameralibus perished in a fire that broke out in Vienna’s Justizpalast in 1927. The Hungarian historical panneaux were presumably painted by August Rumel (1715–1778) who features in the sources as Historienmaler and painter of the Viennese citizenry. On the basis of indirect information, the cycle can be tentatively dated to 1756–1758, as they were already included in the inventory of the chancellery in 1759.
The Transylvanian Court Chancellery hardly used its first headquarters for one and a half decades after 1766. When in 1782 Joseph II merged the Transylvanian and Hungarian chancelleries, the Transylvanian office moved in 1785 next door to its sister institution, which had had a palace since 1747 a street further, in Vordere Schenkenstrasse, i.e. today’s Bankgasse. They moved in the one-time Trautson house. Parallel with that the treasury sold the former centre of the Transylvanian chancellery which was bought by imperial and royal chamberlain Count Mihály Nádasdy (1746–1826).
As far as Jókai knew, the panneaux became court property in the 1780s and they were purchased at an auction in 1809 by Countess Rozália Bethlen (1754–1826) and transported to Transylvania. They can be identified in the chattels inventory for 1839 of the Jósika palace in Kolozsvár. Later the panneaux were inherited within the Jósika family. Elected minister a latere in 1895, Sámuel Jósika (1848–1923) had the cycle transported to Vienna and put them up in the “Hungarian house”, his official place, today the house of the Hungarian embassy. When his incumbency expired, the pictures went back to Transylvania and passed down in the Jósika family. In 1945 four of the pictures got lost. The two surviving pictures were purchased by the Hungarian State and hung up in the gala room of the Hungarian Embassy in Vienna in 2008 where they can still be seen.
