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For over a century many Buddhist texts in Pali have been translated into English, the four main Nikāyas at least twice. Significant improvements have been made in regard to English translations of Pali texts. This paper provides five case studies that illustrate the problems and complexities involved in translating Pali texts. Examples are taken from four suttas of the Aṅguttara Nikāya. Various issues are addressed using textual and contextualised analyses. I attempt to offer solutions to some problems related to translating the Pali through different approaches, including style, philology, history, Buddhist thought and inter-religious relation.
In this paper, the author presents and compares the different Hungarian translations of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. The first, 1887 translation of the novel – a scandalously bad, abridged text, completely unworthy of Tolstoy, made on the basis of the German translation – rightly provoked rage among contemporary critics and readers. At the beginning of the 20th century, the translation of the novel was undertaken by Dezső Ambrozovics and then by a group of four translators, but the real breakthrough came with the 1951 translation by László Németh, which was a nice and accurate translation of Anna Karenina, and worthy of its author. In the course of time, several editions of the translation made by László Németh were published, yet the editors “provided some clarifications” throughout the text with the intention of correcting it. The author of the present paper also gives some examples of the misunderstandings and errors of translation which were produced in the text due to the lack of proper knowledge of Russian culture.
This paper summarizes the first results of the analysis of a questionnaire survey on the determinants of social cohesion and interethnic relations in Hungarian local communities. The survey was carried out in villages and small towns in four different regions of the country in 2012. Our results show that the socioeconomic status and geo-cultural background of the local community significantly shape social cohesion and interethnic trust. Migration rate, on the other hand, plays a surprisingly minor role in shaping trust and cohesion. The effect of fractionalization is moderate, and, interestingly, mainly positive if national minorities are present in the local community.
Bau- und Interieurkunst an bischöflichen Stadtpaläs-ten des klassizisierenden Spätbarocks in Ungarn
Die Bischofspaläste von Veszprém und Szombathely
Summary
The study deals with two outstanding and characteristic examples of bishop's palaces of the second half of the 18thcentury, those in Veszprém and Szombathely, respectively. When considering their architectural history and interior decoration, the foreign influences apparent in these buildings, and their artistic value in the context of art in Hungary and Europe at the time, emphasis is laid on preceding historical events, the cultural background of the commissioning persons decisive for their demands, and the knowledge and experience of the participating artists.
National cultures and European identity
The process of Engrenage among European Commission civil servants
The article introduces an empirical research conducted at the European Commission that aimed to investigate the European Commission’s organisational culture and how that reflects national cultural diversity. In the comprehensive analysis of the organisational culture and human resources policies, a clear focus was given to examine how civil servants coming from diverse national cultural backgrounds act in this multicultural environment. The research intended to describe how the Commission’s organisational culture handles national cultural diversity and whether civil servants’ attitudes change in the supranational environment, gradually embodying an emerging European identity.
After the formation of the Chagatay and Jochi Uluses the local Mongol nobility was converted to Islam and assimilated by the local Kirghiz and Kipchak Turkic nomads. When these Uluses were disintegrated into smaller hordes (Özbeg, Nogay, Kazak, Kirghiz, etc.), the Turkic-speaking Muslim nobility ruled the newly-formed new nomadic states. The epic tradition of these nomads underwent fundamental changes, and the heroes of the epic songs became the historical or legendary founders of the tribes. When the Oirat Mongols and Jungars attacked their territories during in 16th–18th centuries the Buddhist Oirats became the major enemies of the Muslim Turks who called them Kalmak . But the meaning of Kalmak is broader in the epic tradition of these Turkic peoples: it can mean Non-Muslim or enemy of all kind. The present article analyses the historical and cultural background of the word Kalmak in written and oral sources.
This paper examines two Tibetan sources to show how Tibetan masters could introduce people of totally different cultural background into Buddhist doctrines. The Explanation of the Knowable (Tib. Shes-bya rab-tu gsal-ba) was written by ’Phags-pa lama, while the Answers to the Questions of Sken-dha from Europe (Tib. Rgya-gar rum-yul-pa Sken-dhas dris-lan) is the compendium of Kun-dga’ Chos-legs. Both analyse the same subject: cosmology as part of the basic doctrines, and both have the same aim: initiating foreigners into Buddhist precepts. Thus we can observe the similarity of the two works and the teaching methods used by the masters who followed different traditions at different times.
Abstract
A new indicator, Science Strategy Index, is proposed, which is based on the scattering of a country's science activity over all science fields and related to the world distribution of the science fields. The indicator allows to compare the structure of the publication output of countries as reflected by the used database, irrespective of the size of the countries.If the science structure of each country is related for comparison to that one of each other country, the indicator converts into a structure measure which enables to cluster countries according to their structural similarity. The cluster map of countries achieved in this way deserves intense discussion upon the different science strategies of countries and their geographic, political, communicative, and socio-cultural background.
In this study, multicultural literature served as a site for Chinese Canadians to explore the interplay between their dual cultural backgrounds. After reading a story written by a Chinese Canadian author, participants were invited to imagine a dialogue between two characters with whom they identified, allowing the exploration of different aspects of their bicultural selves. Systematic examination of their dialogues, using cluster analysis of recurrently expressed dialogical themes, revealed four distinct expressive styles (Rhetorical Conflict, Imperative Conflict, Active Narration, and Embodied Reconciliation), each revealing a different bicultural stance. Both the rhetorically probing and explicitly imperative styles of expression reflected a fusion of Chinese and Canadian expectations regarding confrontation, although in different ways each also facilitated the maintenance of a conflictual cultural hierarchy. Active, but distanced, narrative description reflected the preservation of a collective sense of self that is characteristic of traditional Chinese culture. Finally, dialogic enactment of conflicting “voices” allowed reconciliatory, embodied, and generative fusions of Chinese and Canadian cultural expectations.
The focus of our research is the internationalisation of the small-medium size family firms in Hungary, with particular attention to the effect of generational change on internationalisation. Our examination is based on interviews with the current management of six family firms from different industries. We had two research propositions: First, we analysed if and how successors in the family businesses were more open to the internationalisation of the company. Our results provide insights reflecting that the predecessors are usually quite open, and successors are not always as open when they assume control over the company, unlike the existing internationalisation patterns of family firms would suggest. Potential explanations reveal related characteristics of the Central-Eastern European (CEE) region. Secondly, in terms of how and why the leadership style and approach of the predecessors affect the internationalisation of family firms, our findings from different cases vary. The historical and cultural background of the family firms' founders and early-generation successors exert notable influence on the internationalisation process, while the role of predecessors' personal characteristics may not be as strong a driver of internationalisation as previously suggested. The management implications of our findings suggest that the Hungarian family firms show regional patterns in terms of their internationalisation, and generic approaches to generational change and succession may not explain the process as much as extant literature on international family business suggests.
