By JOAN WEEKS
A week of celebrations in Washington commemorating the settlement of the Carpathian Basin in 896 by an alliance of seven Magyar tribes and the subsequent years of shared Hungarian history and culture ended with the Library symposium "Hungary on the Threshold of the 21st Century: 1,101 Years of Hungarian Culture."
Sponsored by the European Division of the Library, the American Hungarian Educators' Association and the Embassy of the Republic of Hungary, the Nov. 15 program featured a panel of scholars who explored the historical, political and economic factors that brought about this 1,100-year Hungarian legacy. The symposium was organized and moderated by Eniko Molnar Basa, executive director of the American Hungarian Educators' Association and a senior cataloger in the Serial Record Division.
Winston Tabb, associate librarian for library services, opened the symposium by noting the appropriateness of its venue. "One of the things people don't often realize about the Library of Congress is that our foreign collections far outnumber those from English- speaking countries." He highlighted the work since 1989 of the Congressional Research Service in a cooperative program with the Hungarian Parliament library; Hungary's contributions to the Global Legal Information Network, a database of foreign laws based at the Library; and the exchange of bibliographic records.
Gyorgy Banlaki, ambassador of Hungary, focused on the significance of his nation's 1,100-year existence despite a tragic history. "This is a solemn occasion, and it is only a question of style whether we look back to all those tragic moments in our history or whether we look forward to the next 1,100 years," he said. "It has been my intention to focus attention on 1,100 years of everything that symbolizes what we Hungarians have achieved over the centuries."
The panelists zeroed in on the unique historical and cultural heritage that has shaped the Hungarian national identity. In his presentation, "Hungary: The Perennial Search for an Affiliation," Denis Sinor, professor emeritus of Uralic and Altaic studies at Indiana University at Bloomington, illustrated the paradox of Hungarians having a common heritage traceable to 896, while at the same time seeking throughout history to identify where they belong. "The key problem of the earliest Hungarian history can easily be stated: How come when the Hungarians speak of Hungary it is of an early world of generations of Turkic or Mongol peoples, yet they speak a Finno- Uralic language?" asked Mr. Sinor. He attributed this dichotomy to a romantic attachment to the life of the steppes.
According to Mr. Sinor, confusion also occurred when the Hungarians were faced with conversion to Christianity about 955. "Should they opt for its Byzantine or Roman form?" he said. "The choice fell to a Roman affiliation, partly by necessity and partly by religious conviction." This orientation was further enhanced with the marriage of the newly converted King St. Stephen to a Bavarian princess, he explained, thus beginning a Catholic-German alliance, a relationship that has wavered ever since.
By the 11th century, the country was led by the Hungarian ruling class of Finno-Ugric origin, who used Latin in documents, developed a culture under strong German influence and used Byzantine-style coinage, said Mr. Sinor. Yet undergirding these affiliations was the historical link to the seven chieftains who united in 896 and moved into an area formerly ruled by Attila the Hun.
"This led to the belief that the Hungarians are but latter-day Huns," said Mr. Sinor. "Yet there is not the slightest proof that the Hungarians are in any way linked with the Huns." But because the people lacked a purely Hungarian tradition, 13th century chroniclers adopted this theory, he added. It has given rise to the term "Hunnia" for Hungary.
In more modern times, there is a deep seated-desire to find an affiliation, as long as it is not Slav or Germanic, yet many Hungarians speak German. Some, despite the wars and conquests, even romanticize of a relationship to Turkic peoples, he added.
Hungarians will continue to bemoan their past and "cherish their contradictory and mutually exclusive historical illusions [as they] muddle through for another 1,100 years."
Examining the economic factors that have determined Hungary's national identity and will shape its future was the task of Janos Horvath, professor of economics at Butler University and adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute. He had planned to speak optimistically about the economic future, but after returning from a recent trip to Hungary he renamed his presentation to "Hungary at the Stage of Potential, with Restraints" because the road to a market economy has been so rocky. "Mother, this is not the kind of horse I wanted," Mr. Horvath said, paraphrasing an old Hungarian saying.
He observed that Western lenders had urged measures to hold inflation in check, but the Hungarian experience with the highest inflation in the world after World War II led it to "harness inflation" for investment purposes. "The economic policy was to give money to businesses to pay wages," said Mr. Horvath. "This led to great stabilization, although the burden was carried by the people."
According to Mr. Horvath, this precedent of using inflation to increase employment and productivity has important lessons for Hungary and its Western lenders. "Restraining inflation may work in a country where there is growth, but in Hungary there is stagnation and low productivity." He pointed to some positive signs in the economy: Labor productivity has increased during the past two to three years and there has been an influx of foreign investment.
Mr. Horvath called Hungary an "intellectual superpower," and said in conclusion, "If human knowledge and efforts are not restrained, then Hungary has a prospect of finding its rightful place in Europe."
Ivan Sanders, professor of English at Suffolk Community College, took the podium next and quipped that there seemed to be a competition to see whose presentation could be the most pessimistic. He thought he might win with his talk, "Post-Euphoria Depression: Hungarian Culture in the '90s."
Mr. Sanders said he based his assessment on recent press reports. "Cultural life, literature, the arts, theater, the cinema are in the doldrums, neglected, marginalized, the concern of a small shrinking subculture." He added that some would argue that culture must be sustained in the postcommunist era without state subsidies, while other intellectuals warn about the deleterious effects of government's neglect of the arts. "It is generally agreed that the post-1989 period hasn't yet produced a body of truly significant works of art, and very little of lasting value has been written about the transition," he said.
According to Mr. Sanders, Hungarian writers of the mid- to late- 1980s seemed to have more relevance. "There are a host of personal, social and political factors responsible for what I call 'post-euphoric depression.'" He also attributed some of the decline to the average person's inability to pay the high price of books.
As Dr. Sanders sees it, people are not interested in films about social problems in postcommunist society or the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. "People would rather see 'Independence Day' or the latest Schwarzen-egger film," he said.
Balint Vazsonyi, concert pianist, senior fellow of the Potomac Foundation and director of the Center for the American Founding, focused on the factors that could undermine Hungarian national identity. "What acts as a magnet for some can be a wedge separating people," he said. "But if we do away with the wedge, what are we going to use for a magnet?" According to Mr. Vazsonyi, organizations such as the European Union are helping to erode national identity.
"National identity is really 'in' when it comes to people who haven't had it before. If you have national identity, you have a framework upon which to build a democratic society under the rule of law, and people will do great things for it," he said. "For Hungarians, music has been and remains an important symbol of national identity."
Joan Weeks is a Public Affairs Specialist in the National Reference Service.