Summaries

Magyar Szemle (Hungarian Review), Vol. XVIII., Nos. 9-10., October 2009, Budapest.

Editor-in Chief: Gyula Kodolányi

Publisher: György Granasztói

Published by Magyar Szemle Foundation.

György Granasztói. There is No Revolution of the Left - But You Can Keep Singing the Internationale. Editor's Note on how the Left's theory of the iron laws of a socialist revolution gave way to their liberal theory of the iron laws of the market and technology during the recent two decades.

Géza M. Szebeni, diplomat and historian, Budapest. János Kádár and the Iron Lady. Part I. Hungary was the first country in East Central Europe that Margaret Thatcher ever visited officially. During her visit in 1984, her negotiation with Hungarian Communist Party chief János Kádár was also destined to mediate between the U.S. And the Soviet Union at the moment of the Cruise Missile crisis. The visit is researched on the basis of unpublished documents in Hungarian archives.

Gergely Egedy, political historian, Corvinus University, Budapest. Henry Adams, the American Tocqueville. In his series of portraits of great American conservatives, the author gives a comprehensive view of the intellectual and spiritual search of Adams, from his History through his novels to Mont Saint-Michel and Chartres, and the great late Autobiography.

József Dörnyei, economist and statistical analyst, Budapest. The Two-Chamber National Assembly and the Development of Local Self-Government. The idea of an upper house for the Hungarian parliament has been kept in the works since the beginning of the Transition, with various alternatives. The author examines the extant European variants, and examines the problem in the context of democracy and the extension of horizontal representation.

Mihály M. Nagy, military historian, Budapest. ALand of Foliage and Water. During the Ottoman Turkish occupation of its middle region (1540-1686), once fertile Hungary became a country of wild forests, marshlands and and arid grazing lands. This undomesticated landscape was a major theatre of war during of Prince Ferenc II Rákóczi's War of Independence against the Hapsburgs (1702-1711), and the Prince's troops used the peculiarities of the land to advantage against the Imperial Army.

Ambrus Miskolczy, literary historian, Budapest. The Immortal Kazinczy - On the 250th Anniversary of His Birth. Ferenc Kazinczy, the major writer and literary arbiter of the Hungarian Enlightenment, has remained a controversial figure - his „renovation of the language" modernized Hungarian and made it nimble and terse, but many have censured him as a corruptor of the spirit of the mother tongue. Ambrus Miskolczy presents him as a brave and affable man of perseverance, moderation and flexibility.

László Babosi, literary historian, Budapest. The Emphases of Time. AConversation about József Ratkó with Theatre Director András László Nagy. Poet and dramatist József Ratkó (1936-1989) often appeared in his public image as a wild and untutored genius - yet he was a minute and consummate craftsman and his love and knowledge of the theatre was reared by family legends. Political censorship prevented the full unfolding of his dramatic talent, and he all but spent himself in his isolation in Northeast Hungary by 1989, the time of the great change of system.

1% Metaphysics. Commemorating the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, György Szabados has selected „The New Thomas" a poem written on All Souls' Day in 1956 by major poet István Vas (1910--1991).