Ric Swihart: Lethbridge Librarian Wins Hungarian Award
A deep-rooted nationalism and concern for all Hungarians that resulted
in publication of a book of essays has won an award for a Lethbridge
librarian. John Miska, head librarian at the Lethbridge Research Station
and the man in charge of Agriculture Canada research libraries in
Alberta, has won the silver medal from the Árpád Academy, a Cleveland,
OH-based Hungarian association, honoring Hungarian scientists, authors
and artists throughout the world. The gold medal for this year was won
by Cardinal Joseph Mindszenty, for his comprehensive Memoirs.
Miska’s book: A magunk portáján [Mending Our Fences] is a
collection of essays he wrote between 1963 and 1973. It is an attempt to
find the trace elements in Hungarian literature while living in Canada.
He is interested in showing the influence of Canada as a country on
Hungarian authors and their intellect. To aid all Hungarian authors in
this country, he initiated the founding, and became its first president,
of the Hungarian-Canadian Authors’ Association. The Association was
founded in 1968. Mr. Miska has been editor of the association anthology
series, including three volumes published in Hungarian between 1969 and
1973 and one volume printed in English titled The Sound of Time.
Through this book he provided an outlet for 28 members to express their
impressions, again basing the selected pieces on the impact Canada has
on their writings.
Mr. Miska said there have been several reviews of the book in Canada,
Hungary and elsewhere. One reviewer wrote, „It is like a tasty slice of
Hungarian bread,” a fact that draws a wide smile on the face of a man
who escaped from his native country in 1956 after the revolution. He
walked 20 kilometers through swamps to the Austrian border just before
he received his degree from the University in Budapest. He arrived in
Montreal in the winter of 1956-1957, without a word of English. He
learned the language in one year working as a nursing orderly at St.
Joseph’s Hospital in Hamilton, ON.
John entered McMaster University in 1958, graduating in 1961 with a B.A.
degree in history and philosophy. He received a bachelor’s degree in
library science , which is equivalent to the American M.L.S., from the
University of Toronto in 1962. After graduation he became head of the
engineering library at the University of Manitoba, a position he held
until 1966 when he joined the Canada Department of Agriculture in Ottawa
as assistant chief of the collections development section. When he came
to Lethbridge in 1972 he had reached the section head status.
His other literary works include a collection of short stories entitled
Egy bögre tej [A Mugful of Milk], a book of short stories
translated from English into Hungarian: Legjobb elbeszélések angolból
[Best Short Stories from English], and a collection of scientific
writings taken from research papers published by scientists at the
Lethbridge Research Station from 1906 to 1972. Because of the historic
value of the compilation, it has received international acclaim from
professionals in research. A new book, Solonetz Soils of the World, is
scheduled for publication by the Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux in
England this winter.
Mending Our Fences not only won a silver medal for John Miska, it
earned him honorary Árpád Academy status. The award is similar to the
Governor’s General Award minus the monetary value. (In: Lethbridge Herald (Dec. 24, 1975)
Ildiko de Papp Carrington: From “Hunky” to Don Juan…
[…] Turning from fiction by Canadian authors writing about Hungarians to
fiction by Hungarian-Canadians writing for and about themselves in their
native language, we find that the Don Juan doesn’t appear. But because
the audience is clearly defined, the insistence upon retaining a
Hungarian identity becomes even more emphatic than Vizinczey’s and
Marika Robert’s novels. This insistence, the major theme in several
short stories in the Anthology of Hungarian Canadian Authors’
Association, is obviously addressed to readers who, in the writers’
opinion, are assimilating too rapidly.
In László Szilvássy’s story, ’I Write Letters,’ [Levelezgetek]
the narrator, an editor of a Hungarian literary magazine, satirizes a
letter from a second-generation Hungarian girl. In an atrocious mixture
of stilted business English and misspelled, unidiomatic Hungarian, she
inquires about the meaning of her father’s furious curses. Where does he
keep telling her go? The editor doesn’t enlighten her, but wonders why
her father hasn’t cursed the wretched girl even more. What makes her a
wretch to the editor is her inability to write decent Hungarian. She
also sounds ignorant of English grammar and Canadian geography, but he
doesn’t care about that.
A similar satiric story, ’In the Bookstore,’ set in a Hungarian
bookstore in a Canadian resort. János Miska’s narrator, a university
librarian, discusses the bookstore customers with the proprietor, who
admits to not being very well read, but is all the more disgusted with
the pretentions of the local Hungarians. Somewhat like the poseur Hradas
(Robert Fulford’s hero in his story ’The Good Wife’), they assume
aristocratic and professional titles and sprinkle their conversation
with highbrow allusions, but sincerely they read only trash. Even worse,
they are rapidly turning into Canadians: they have good jobs, so they
spend money on homes, furniture, cars, and motorboats, but they no
longer buy Hungarian books. His raison d’étre, to supply them with
Hungarian culture in Canada, becomes ironic.
The protagonist of ’Cleaner’ [Takarító], another story by Miska,
also acquires a good job, but with different results. Outwardly his life
improves, inwardly it remains unchanged. The personality of Béla Telegdi
has been ‘ineradicably marked’ by four years in an AVO prison. Telegdi
is presented in two brief scenes: In 1959 he is a cleaner, scraping soil
marks off the wall of an Ontario hospital; in 1969 he is lunching in the
dining room of ‘the Soil Institute.’ His economic success seems assured:
he has just submitted his doctoral dissertation on permafrost to the
University of Toronto. His superior addresses him as ‘Bill,’ but in
spite of his new status and new first name, his psychological identity
has not been altered. Ironically his life is still shaped by soil and
seems ‘permanently frozen’; thus he is incapable of assimilation. […] (In: Canadian Literature 89, (1981): 33-44)
George Bisztray: John Miska: The Storyteller
The only short story writer who has successfully represented several
themes and problems pertinent to the life of Hungarian Canadians is John
Miska. Furthermore, he is unique among Hungarian-Canadian writers and
poets in that he studied and worked in several distinct and widely
separated regions of Canada: Winnipeg, the Toronto-Hamilton area,
Lethbridge, Ottawa and now Victoria. His familiarity with the entire
spectrum of this country, but also with the difference among its
Hungarian-born citizens, certainly contributes to the richness of his
short stories, which have been collected in his volumes: Egy bögre
tej
(A mugful of Milk), Lábunk nyomában (In Our Footsteps) and
Földiek között (Amongst Compatriots).
Like almost all Hungarian-Canadian writers and poets, Miska draws
comparisons between his childhood experiences in Hungary and the
realities of life in Canada. Nostalgia is definitely one element in
these comparisons, however, Miska refers repeatedly not only to the
vices of the communist regime but also to those of the conservative
prewar system. Also, the comparisons are never painted in black and
white. Miska notes much that is positive in Canadian life and identifies
with his new homeland - perhaps more than any other Hungarian-Canadian
writer or poet. After all, he came to this country at the age of
twenty-four, it was here that he developed into a popular and successful
immigrant story-teller.
Miska builds the majority of his short stories on a conflict between
either different ideas or different human attitudes. Paradoxes in
immigrant attitudes appear contrasted in A templomjáró krónikája
(The chronicles of a churchgoer) and A könyvesboltban (In the
bookstore). In the former, a sentimental attachment to the memories of
the old country characterizes a misfit dreamer while success and a
materialistic attitude are attributes of the reckless careerist. In the
latter story, a culturally uneducated political right-wing hack lectures
two book-loving Hungarian-Canadians on how all present-day Hungarian
writers are communists, in a particularly satirical dialogue which
Miska, the bibliophile librarian, truly savours. Anglo-Canadians’
traditional suspicion of Eastern-European newcomers during the late
1950s is depicted in Takarító (The cleaner). In Faulkner órája
(Faulkner’s clock) there is a bizarre allusion to Canadian-American
relations in the example of a travelling peddler who sells cheap items
as antiques to good, naive Canadians and who turns out to be from south
of the border.
Miska’s most successful short story is Hazajáró, in which the
author describes an old-time Hungarian-Canadian communist’s
disappointment with conditions in socialist Hungary when he visits it
after many decades. Comrade Máriás, who is way behind his time with his
socialist ideals of the 1920s and 1930s is the paradoxical epitome of
Canadian freedom. He realizes on his return to Hungary that there is
just one way of being a communist over here, while in Canada he may
choose his own way: he can sing the Internationale with his old party
chums on socialist holidays and own two apartment buildings at the same
time. Typically, his concern for the betterment of the working class is
not paralleled by any concern about individuals. His daughter's
Hungarian is eroding, and his tenants curse him as he neglects the
buildings in sheer contempt for private property. The fine irony and the
thorough knowledge of the paradoxes of Hungarian-Canadian life make
Hazajáró perhaps the best short story written in this country in
Hungarian. While taking an unusual perspective in choosing a specimen of
the Hungarian-Canadian community otherwise never represented – a
communist – Miska nevertheless reflects on the general phenomenon of
immigrant nostalgia.
A diplomás (The graduate) is also an exceptionally fine
psychological story about the frustrating evening after the graduation
ceremony of a young Hungarian Canadian who, after heroic struggle for
acculturation and acceptance, has just received his Canadian university
diploma. Like other stories by Miska, it is partly retrospective and
also characterized by a touch of irony and much understanding. (In his: Hungarian-Canadian Literature. [Toronto, 1987], pp. 60-62.
Photo)
Andrew Princz: "Sowing Dandelions. The Story of John and Károly
Miska."
In the early 1950s, party officials issued János Miska’s parents a
directive to grow dandelions. They were agriculturalists but had never
even heard of a dandelion, nor did they have any idea why it was
important to grow the plant, which was not a native plant and was of no
apparent use. But it was a directive: each farmer was to grow
dandelions, and the cooperative would buy the crop - never mind what
happened to it. The Miskas were not alone in their frustration; farmers
in the region had to go about the same process, and reluctantly sowed
the dandelion seeds.
“My parents were forced to grow one and a half acres of these
dandelions,” remembers János. “All we knew was that it was some kind of
exotic plant that was grown in the United States, but not in Hungary.
“The whole project was a failure. We had a wet spring and a poor summer.
The dandelions were just washed out, and eventually my father was
summoned to a court hearing about it.”
A young journalist, János thought it best that he make the appearance on
behalf of the family, hoping he would be able to sway the matter for the
better. Perhaps the court would be lenient. At the courthouse, stern
officials dogmatically recited the case and summarily dismissed him, but
not before levying a hefty fine of 1,700 forints. The family was
devastated. Not only were they reduced to poverty, they were also
suddenly guilty of neglecting a rather useless dandelion crop.
“They never even gave me a chance to speak out,” János remembers, “and I
am sorry that I didn’t have the courage to speak up. I would have wanted
to tell them how miserable an idea it was to grow dandelions in
Hungary.”
Months later, when János decided to escape from Hungary, it was the
bitter memories of this experience that gave him the courage to hop
across ditches and navigate through watery ravines in total darkness
towards a saner life.
Life in Nyírbéltek
János and his younger brother Károly were born in Nyírbéltek, a medieval
town in south eastern Hungary’s Szabolcs County, to a family of farmers.
They quite literally enjoyed a close kinship, as a good part of the year
the whole family inhabited a single room, all that they could afford to
heat during the cold winter months.
Janos’ father leased 50 hectares of barely-cultivatable land from the
church, a large estate that contributed to their being labelled ‘Kulaks’
when the communist regime took over Hungary. After the mass
repossessions of private land, they were forced to join a collective
farm.
“The land in the area did not have much value,” recalls Károly, “being
on rocky and hilly soil and almost three hundred kilometres from the
capital.
“The people in the area lived in difficult circumstances; we were really
very poor.”
Even when the collective farms began to disband in the early 1950s, life
did not get any easier. In exchange for previously expropriated land,
the family was given an inferior piece of land ten kilometres from town,
leaving them unable to better their lot.
János was sent to a good school in Hajduböszörmény, not far from
Debrecen, and was housed in a dormitory. They lived a regimented life,
waking at six in the morning to begin their physical exercise and
perhaps a march or push-ups in the snow. They would then have an hour of
silent study before breakfast, which consisted of two slices of bread
with honey and coffee. They sang folk songs and communist hymns about
the ‘no-good kulaks, who hoarded goods from the people and the country.’
“In theory the system was so beautiful,” remembers János. “The slogans
of equality, fraternity, and everybody was entitled to their basic needs
and requirements; it was so lovely.
“But when you went home it was entirely different. It was the most
devastating thing for us: returning from Canada for a holiday and
realizing what poverty my family and our neighbours lived in.”
Ambitions for another life
János’ father hoped that his son would one day take over the farm, but
his mother was sensitive to the unlikely nature of this possibility. He
wrote poetry and short stories, and his imagination lay somewhere beyond
the rocky soil of Nyírbéltek. He wanted to be a writer, telling
compelling stories about the people in the villages.
“When I returned home after graduation I told my mother that I wanted to
become a journalist,” János remembers. “My mother warned me that my
father would be furious if he found out. But when he returned, he told
me that after all, it wouldn’t be a bad profession to take up.”
János left the farmland to attend university in Budapest, where he
studied journalism. While working on an assignment one day, he read
newspapers from the 1930s, and something inside his head clicked.
“I came across my father’s writings in a newspaper,” he remembers. “That
is when I realized that he must have had similar aspirations at that
point in his life.”
His father never talked about himself, and was not even a particularly
good storyteller. But in finding those articles, János understood that
somehow he was walking a path that his father had once tiptoed on.
In October 1956 János was completing a practicum in the north-eastern
Hungarian city of Nyíregyháza at the Néplap, a local newspaper. In the
months before the revolution broke out he remembers that among the
intelligentsia, exploration in bold philosophical territories had
already been taking place. “It started with the intellectuals,”
remembers János. “They unearthed our national dramas like Imre Madách’s
The Tragedy of Man, or József Katona’s Bánk Bán. Then came dramas about
Rákóczi, Kossuth, Görgey.”
“There was a rediscovery of those things Hungarian. Writers like Sándor
Csoóri, and populist writers who wrote books about the countryside. Then
journalists, poets and writers followed, and came back with devastating
stories of how people actually lived.”
János attended meetings of the Petőfi Circle in Budapest, a group of
intellectuals who began critical discussions about the government, and
issues of reform. When he moved to Nyiregyháza, he brought the
courageous spirit of the day with him.
János remembers feeling bold and daring when he submitted an article on
how many students ended up finding jobs after graduating from college
and discovering that forty percent were left jobless. Filing his story,
he was unsure of the reception his editors would afford him.
“We were the first generation of the regime,” he remembers. “And here
were all of these kids without jobs.”
The sub-editor took the chance and published the article, after which
the editor-in-chief suddenly burst out of his office fuming. “How could
you write something like this, even if it is true?” he asked. János
feared he would be reported as a reckless journalist. A few days later
the editor returned to János, and told him, “You know, your article
wasn’t that bad”.
He was taken aback, but also delighted with himself that he had spoken
out - and was appreciated. He later found out that his article was read
over the national radio, creating a small sensation.
Károly, in his brother’s shadow
In the small town of their birth, Károly lived in the graces of his
brother’s good name. He admired János as a role model: not only was his
brother a very good student, he also excelled in sports and the arts.
János was the first in the village to go on to higher education, making
him a hard act to follow. Károly didn’t enjoy studying, but by using his
brother’s reputation he always got by.
Károly remembers living a contented life as, unlike his older brother,
his ambitions were limited to the scope of the context in which they
lived. Only later would he develop a clearer understanding of what they
were living through.
“It was only much later that we realized just how terribly poor we
were,” says Károly. “At the time we didn’t realize it because we did not
know anything better. Everybody was in the same shoes; there was hardly
a family that had it even just a little bit easier.
“In the 1950s the peasants couldn’t get a hold of any money,” remembers
Károly. “We got milk from our cows and earned some money for the milk
that we sold.”
However, the land they used to feed their cattle and pigs was sandy and
tough to cultivate. In addition, they ate those animals that they
raised, and could not really sell them. They were also were forced to
give a share of any sales to the cooperatives.
After finishing the eighth grade, Károly began studying at an
architectural engineering trade school in Nyíregyháza. All went well for
the first year, as he studied theory. In the following year the students
began production training, which meant that they were on the job. It
didn’t take long before Károly realized that he had a problem: he
suffered from acrophobia. He had only to climb a meter high before he
began to tremble and his arms began to shake.
Then he read an article in a local paper that listed where his peers had
found jobs after graduating. They would become carpenters, bricklayers
or tillers. ‘Why was he studying,’ he thought, ‘to become a bricklayer?’
He quit school, went back to his parents and began to work the land with
his father. “It was only then that I began to enjoy peasant life,” he
remembers. “To work a piece of land and spend my whole time out there in
the fields.”
Return to a different Budapest
When János returned to Budapest after his practicum, it was a different
city. Discussions on political and philosophical subjects were now open
and widespread. The Central Committee of the Communist party was being
criticized for its mismanagement of the economy and heavy-handed
tyrannical practices.
After the 20th Congress of the USSR people even took to the streets,
marching in support of striking miners in East-Germany, and in support
of similar movements in Poland. Former communists were symbolically
reburied, including László Rajk, who was sentenced to death following a
staged show trial under the auspices of Mátyás Rákosi’s tyrannical
regime. A new movement of Hungarian university and college students
spread throughout the country. The time was ripe for an open rebellion.
“We were angry and let down,” remembers János. “Rajk was a communist,
and yet Rákosi had him executed. We marched and shouted slogans. Not as
strong as on October 23, but getting close to it.”
János attended meetings at the technical university where the infamous
list of 16 student demands were developed, and agreed to in a vote.
“On the morning of the 23rd we formed small groups each went to a
different factory,” he remembers. János went to the April 4 Machine
Factory to try to convince the workers to stop working and join the
movement. “We understood that the workers believed that the no-good
university students and intelligentsia wanted to grab the power from
their hands,” he remembers.
They had not even passed the gates of the factory when a party official
came out to send them off.
“Listen, comrades,” the official said, “go back to school. We advise you
to forget about your demonstration this afternoon because the workers in
this factory and all of the others are going to crush it.”
The idea was not of revolution or to overthrow the government, but of
reform. The students returned to join the swelling demonstrations. By
the time the crowds reached the parliament buildings, tens of thousands
of people had amassed. People were leaning out of their windows,
clapping in support as the procession made its way and encouraging the
demonstrators, some of whom were from the military academy. “That is how
the mood got more and more courageous,” he remembers.
Within one day what started as a demonstration had become a revolution.
At the Hungarian Radio offices, fighting had broken out. When Russian
tanks moved into Budapest it suddenly became a war of independent
nations: the Soviet Union and Hungary.
The disillusionment
Back in Nyírbéltek, Károly heard news of the revolution after an
afternoon harvesting corn in the fields. There were very few radios in
the village, but word spread quickly from person to person about what
was happening in the capital.
“People were really very happy about it,” remembers Károly. “Among the
peasants there was a feeling that the English would come and free us
from the Soviets, and that really gave us hope.”
As the revolution played out in the capital, János volunteered to travel
to Nyíregyháza to spread the word. Small groups disbursed throughout the
country to regional cities in order to organize, inform and initiate
reform. He visited the local revolutionary council and even attended a
meeting of the communist party.
“I spoke out,” remembers János, “and said that if this party hopes to
have any weight or respect it would have to look at itself very
carefully.” The statement evoked a prolonged silence.
On November 4th, János looked out the window of the City Hall where he
was staying, only to see two Russian tanks with their turrets pointing
straight at the building. He woke up his colleagues, and they fled. Imre
Nagy was calling out to the world by radio that his government was in
place and that the Russian forces had initiated an invasion. He asked
the Western governments for help. It would never arrive.
“We knew by then that it was finished,” says János. “I was very bitter.
I went home totally disillusioned.
“About three weeks later the council president sent a message that I
should disappear, because officials were coming to investigate my
activities. That is when I realized that I would be forced to escape.”
The family discussed the situation, and agreed that János would have to
leave. Károly wanted nothing more than to go with his brother, his idol.
“As I was a thin and weak child, he was afraid that I wouldn’t be able
to handle it, and didn’t take the risk of bringing me along,” Károly
recalls.
János’ mother packed up some sausage and bread, and he quickly fled his
hometown. For reasons unclear at the time, János’ father was happy to
see him go. János did not recognize his father’s selflessness, and was
bitter for several years in Canada thinking that they just wanted to get
rid of him.
“I later realized that they wanted a better life for me. They didn’t
want me to go through the terrible things that they had gone through.
War, revolutions,” he remembers, trailing off.
János returned to Budapest to find a city in ruins. He was devastated to
see the streets smashed, the lights darkened and buildings in tatters.
A patriotic Hungarian who could not imagine a life outside of his
country of birth, János was torn about leaving Hungary. He was going to
be a Hungarian writer, following in the footsteps of his heroes.
On a grey day in mid-December, János and a small group of friends spent
the night at Déli train station, waiting to make their attempt at
escape. State thugs demanded their identification. János told them that
he had come back from the countryside to rebuild Budapest, and they let
him go. ‘Rebuild’ is exactly what he would never do.
Then, in front of his eyes just meters away, a young Bulgarian man was
beaten up and left with blood all over his face. He was yelling that
this “goddamned government is no good”. One of the thugs told him that
he was a no-good immigrant, that Hungary had given him a good life. “You
came here from Bulgaria and you became prosperous; you should be more
grateful,” he went on. The man yelled back, “No, I am leaving this
rotten country,” before the group took him away. Perhaps he was killed,
or simply imprisoned, thought János.
When the time was right, János and two friends boarded a train heading
towards the border at Hegyeshalom. They got off at a stop close to the
border, bought wine and began drinking, bidding farewell to Hungary. It
was to be their last drink on Hungarian soil for a very long time.
Seeking help to get across the border, they were initially fooled by a
pseudo-guide, which resulted in them walking around for hours aimlessly,
János in his summer shoes.
Starting over
During his journey towards the West János reminisced about his family,
and the good times that he spent at university. In leaving, he was of
two minds. The escape was not planned, not intended. But there was also
the fear in which they constantly lived, his uncertain future and
spectre of a prison sentence or worse for his activities during the
revolution. He remembered the absurdity of growing dandelions, and the
poverty in which they lived. He moved forward knowing that despite his
misgivings, he was doing the right thing.
On arrival in Austria, however, János secretly hoped that he would be
sent back. He was homesick and felt a sense of guilt at leaving his
country in ruins.
Safely across the border, the chasm of his departure dawned on him, and
he felt devastated, not knowing how to start life over. What of his life
as a journalist?
It took several years for János to get over his terrible homesickness.
After arriving in Montreal, János moved to Hamilton where he attended
McMaster University, graduating in 1961 in history and philosophy. This
was followed by a year at the University of Toronto, graduating in 1962
in library science. He then took a job at the University of Manitoba as
the head of the engineering library and later worked for Canada’s
agriculture ministry as a librarian in various Canadian cities.
In 1972, attracted by the prairies and the vast landscape that shares
similarities to the land he toiled on when he was young, János moved to
Lethbridge, Alberta, where he would stay for the next twelve years.
Today, he lives in the warm oasis of Victoria, on Canada’s western
coast.
Although János worked as a librarian, he never lost his passion or
interest in writing, editing and publishing. To this day he contributes
to Hungarian newspapers throughout Canada, inspired by his childhood
years in rural Hungary. He is the founder of the Association of
Hungarian-Canadian Authors, and helped populate numerous anthologies. He
also a published collection of short stories, Egy bögre tej (A Mug of
Milk), which related the experiences of his youth and aspects of life in
Canada as experienced by Hungarian-Canadians.
The lost brother
Károly mourned the loss of his brother. Before the revolution, János’
return from university was uplifting, and the whole family rejoiced. But
this time he would not come home for a very long time, something acutely
painful for the whole family.
“It was difficult to bear,” says Károly. “As a very poor family, we
stuck together more than most.
“But it was all very difficult. To me, when he left it was as if he
died; as if he had died for us.
“It took a very long time before we could learn to accept it,” says
Károly. “It remains a scar to this day. He missed us, and we also missed
him.”
The family was so proud of János, and loved him so much, that perhaps
mourning him was the only way they could go on. János was gone, and
would not return until much later, many years after amnesty was granted
for Hungarians involved in the 1956 revolution. János invited his
brother to Canada several times over the years, but Károly could not
overcome his fear of heights.
János first returned to Hungary in 1978, more than twenty years after
crossing the border during those days of change.
“I didn’t want to go back,” remembers János. “I read books published in
the West which described Hungary in such a way that you would be
frightened thinking of such a regime, and that contributed to my not
wanting to go back for so many years.
“And yet, the nostalgia for the old patria is still there to this day.”
In: Andrew Princz: Bridgin the Divide: Canadian and Hungarian Stories
of the 1956 Revolution / Ötven év távlatából: kanadai és Magyar
történetek ay 1956-os forradalomról. Budapest: OntheGlobe.com, 2006. pp.
93-101.
* * *
Selected Reviews of Bibliographies
Agricultural Compilations
John Schmidt: Agricultural Alberta
John Miska may be the author of a bestseller but it will be mostly
scientists who will read his 135-page book. It is a bibliography on the
solonetz soils of the world. It has been published by the Commonwealth
Bureau of Soils at Rothamsted at Harpenden, England. Mr. Miska is head
librarian at the Lethbridge research station and area coordinator for
all Canada department of agriculture branch libraries in Alberta.
He gathered the material from publications in 26 countries in 17
languages to compile the 1,129 references. The publications he
researched included 54 other bibliographies, 41 books, monographs and
dictionaries, scientific and technical papers. This makes it the most
comprehensive bibliography available on the subject. The purpose of the
compilations is to provide information to librarians and research
workers in the field of soil science. It should also be of interest to
extension workers and soil geographers.
The entries are arranged under 12 general subject areas that include
headings related to solonization, morphology, classification, physical,
chemical, mineralogical and biological properties, fertility, management
and reclamation. They are further subdivided by more than 100
sub-subject heading. Papers covering more than one subject are cross
referenced and the bibliography is provided with geographical,
chronological and author indexes. R.R. Cairns, author of the
introduction to the bibliography, gives an outline of the variability in
the solonetzic soils and the terminology applied to them. Dr. Cairns
also emphasizes the importance of research on the solonetzic soils.
Mr. Miska is author of several books and compilations of a number of
comprehensive bibliographies such as Agriculture 1906-1972: A
Bibliography of Research, five volumes; Potato Seed Piece Decay,
1930-1975; Bibliography of the Pea Aphid, in collaboration with other
research scientists. He has also compiled an annotated series on world
irrigation to be published soon by the Commonwealth Bureau of Soils. (In: Calgary Herald [Apr. 27, 1976]: 35. Photo)
John Schmidt: Librarian Honored
John Miska, the librarian at the Lethbridge research station, received
an Alberta achievement award for excellence in literature through
Premier Peter Lougheed late last year. The citation tells about some of
the work he has accomplished during his tenure at the station:
“An accomplished bibliographer and author, John Miska has written books
and scientific bibliographies which have enriched Canadian and world
literature. Since 1973 he has published a number of comprehensive
bibliographies put out by such publishers as the Commonwealth
Agricultural Bureau (in the United Kingdom), the Illinois State
University Press, and Canada Department of Agriculture. Although these
are of international setting, he carefully selects his subjects, closely
relating them to agricultural problems in Alberta. He is a pioneer in
library automation, initiating computer-based indexing and bibliographic
service in the province. Founding president of the Hungarian Canadian
Authors Association, he is editor of its anthology series in Hungarian –
four volumes to date, and one in English.”
Miska’s latest bibliography, which he turned out in collaboration with
Dr. Alan Roberts, an agricultural scientist, is called a Bibliography
of Cold Hardiness and Winter Survival of Plants. It will be
published by the Commonwealth Agricultural Bureau also. The information
in the bibliography will be fed into an international computer system
for efficient updating and for fast information retrieval. Miska and
Roberts collected over 4,000 scientific references on cold tolerance
from 20 languages. It will become an increasingly important area of
research as crop-growing areas are pushed north to meet food needs of
growing world population.
The international computer system into which the bibliographies have
been fed has an input terminal at Lethbridge. It is the Famulus system
designed in California for scientists. The terminal in Lethbridge can
request information based on eight different criteria. The scientists
can also plug into a computer at Central Experimental Farm at Ottawa,
which has access to the world-wide computer system. “What would take
half a day or more manually takes minutes to find with the computer,” he
said. “And we don’t need a typist to copy the material included in the
information about the publication. It is all included in the printout.
If the scientist knows, for example, that the information was published
about the pea aphid in several journals in a certain five-year period,
the computer will print out all the papers pertaining to the pea aphid
in that period.”
Miska is planning to expand the Famulus to other federal research
station libraries in Alberta. Computer terminals will be placed at the
stations and printouts will be available directly. The computers were
started in 1972 so information published since that time can be located
in minutes. (In: Calgary Herald (Apr. 24, 1979) Photo.)
* * *
Humanities: Canadian Studies on Hungarians
Lois Buttlar: Hungarians…
The 1,271 entries in this bibliography of the literature of Hungary and
Hungarians in Hungary and Canada are organized in two main sections.
Titles included represent books and monographic publications,
bibliographies, articles, theses and book reviews of literature either
written by or about Hungary and Hungarians in Hungary in part 1, and
literature by and about Hungarian Canadians in part 2. Selected review
articles of Hungarian authors of poetry, prose and plays are based on a
previous publication compiled by Miska, Ethnic and Native Canadian
Literature 1850-1979: A Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Materials
(Lethbridge, Microform Biblios, 1980.) Part 2 also lists major archival
collections of Hungarian materials in Canadian libraries and public
archives. (Locations of the latter are listed at the conclusion of the
work.)
Entries are arranged in subject categories with reference works and
historical works at the beginning of each section. Subject categories in
part 1 include commercial relations with Canada; economy, government,
and politics; literature; theater; music; and sports. In addition, one
section is devoted to material on the 1956 revolution. Part 2 covers
demography, emigration and immigration, integration versus assimilation,
education, refugees, religion, literature, biography, Hungarian-Canadian
organizations and periodicals, and miscellaneous topics. Entries are
numbered consecutively throughout the bibliography.
In his introduction Miska is very thorough in outlining the purpose of
the bibliography, describing how the entries are organized, and the
bibliographies and other sources consulted. Criteria on which decisions
for inclusion were based are as follows: “(1) a publication had to be
written by a Canadian; or (2) if related to Hungarians, it had to be
published in Canada; (3) if an article, published in a trade journal or
a newspaper, it had to contain some important information or vital
statistics not covered by scholarly publications” (introduction). Miska
also directs the reader to numerous additional works on particular
aspects of Hungarian history and scholarship.
Annotations are provided for the majority of the entries and though in
many instances they are quite brief, they make this compilation more
useful, as well as a more comprehensive and current source of
information on Hungarians in Canada than the bibliography published in
1977 by the University of Minnesota’s Immigration History Research
Center, Hungarians in the United States and Canada, by Joseph Szeplaki.
The reference work can be accessed through author, title and subject
indexes. (In: American Reference Book Annual [88], p. 168.)
Victor G. Wiebe: Book Review
In the Canadian literary context ethnic writing tends to be an orphan.
It is ignored by most of the traditional critics of Canadian literature
whose concern is only for English and French materials. Until quite
recently, Hungarian writers in Canada have been temporarily displaced
from their homeland, and as John Miska’s bibliography demonstrates, this
displacement has also caused critics in Hungary to ignore their work.
John Miska was born in Hungary and emigrated to Canada in 1957 in that
turbulent time of the Hungarian revolution. He is a graduate of McMaster
(B.A.) and the University of Toronto (B.L.S.), and has served
Agriculture Canada for many years as a librarian in several different
cities; he is currently the regional coordinator of the Ontario Research
Libraries. He has been a tireless and careful bibliographer as well as a
critic and writer of Hungarian literature. Of the 1,271 entries in his
bibliography, 62 have been written by Miska. In addition, Miska is a
founding member, first president, and honorary life president of the
Hungarian Canadian Authors’ Association.
The purpose of this enumerative bibliography is ‘to unearth the vast
amount of literature on Hungarians’ written in Canada. Canadian
Studies on Hungarians, 1886-1986 is divided into two parts. The
first part contains writings by Canadians on Hungary and Magyars and the
second, and much larger, part ‘ writing by and about Hungarian
Canadians.’ Miska’s criteria for inclusion are the following: ‘(1) a
publication had to be written by a Canadian; or (2) if related to
Hungarians, it had to be published in Canada; (3) if an article,
published in a trade journal or a newspaper, it had to contain some
important information or vital statistics not covered by scholarly
publications.’
One characteristic of ethnic writing is the passionate need many
immigrants have to create literature and to distribute it to members of
their community. Miska’s bibliography is full of examples of Canadian
authors who have produced work in Hungarian and then must rely on their
own resources for publishing. Small societies have been formed as a
means of making interested people aware of the appearance of new
literature. Much of this literature is never available through
commercial channels. There have been recently a few good critics of this
work, but these critics are almost always from within the group itself.
Hungarian works written by Canadians may not be in the mainstream of
Canadian literature, but if Canadians ignore it they will end up with a
very lopsided understanding of the Canadian experience; collectively
ethnic literature is large, beloved and irrepressible.
Hungarians number about 120,000 in Canada, and yet, as Miska has shown,
they have produced a sizeable body of fiction, poetry, plays and
writings on history, mostly of their own history. The vast majority of
this literature output has appeared since the mid-1950s after the
arrival of the émigrés of the 1956 revolution.
The introduction to Miska’s bibliography nicely explains the arrangement
of materials and how to use the work. The contents are placed in a
variety of easy to use subject sections such as ‘Reference Works,’
‘Economy,’ ‘Demography,’ and ‘Individual Authors.’ The layout of the
bibliographical entries is clear and orderly. Most entries have concise
annotations, usually two to six lines in length. The bibliography has
also three indexes: author, title and subject. The work concludes with
two appendices, one giving a list of periodicals with abbreviations and
the other addresses of relevant archives in Canada. Overall this is a
very usable and attractive bibliography.
The first part, which consists of Canadian works on Hungary and Magyars,
is very complete and includes all items in all previous bibliographies
on Hungary in addition to a few new items. The second part, which lists
works by Hungarian Canadians, contains entries extracted from Miska’s
much larger bibliography: Ethnic and Native Canadian Literature
1850-1979:A Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Materials
(Lethbridge, Alberta, 1980). This latter bibliography was unfortunately
only published in microfiche format. Recent publications since 1980 are
also recorded by Miska in part two. Here are listed many privately
published works and those of limited circulation. Only a patient,
diligent, bibliographical expert in Hungarian materials could have
ferreted out such esoteric publications.
Although Miska has listed more items than any previous bibliography, he
has missed some items in this part. Kenneth Peacock’s name is mentioned
in item 310 in an annotation of an article by Renee Landry entitled
‘Archival Sources.’ However, Peacock’s book Twenty Ethnic Songs from
Western Canada (Ottawa: National Museums of Canada, Bulletin No.
211, 1966) which contains a chapter on Hungarian songs is omitted. By
reading 50 pages of Who’s Who in Canada is an attempt to find
Hungarian-born writers and by examining several standard Canadian
bibliographies such as Thibault’s Bibliographia Canadiana, 1973,
I came across two more items that should have been included: Merle
Store, ‘Hungarians in Canada,’ Canadian Geographic Journal 55,
no. 2 (1957): 46-53; Tibor Horvath, Encyclopedia of Human Ideas on
Ultimate Reality and Meaning. He should also have mentioned that
scientific and technical writings by Hungarian-Canadians are excluded
from this part of the bibliography.
In part two there is also a section, ‘Archival Collections of
Hungarian Materials,’ which lists 120 items in eight different
archives. This is the most detailed listing in any published inventory
on Hungarian archival materials, and is a good start in indicating where
primary sources can be located. Unfortunately, it is quite incomplete.
Using the Archives of Saskatchewan as an example, it should be noted
that this archive is housed in two repositories, part in Regina and part
in Saskatoon. Miska lists record groups from both places (identified as
‘R’ and ‘S’), yet he gives no indication of the Saskatoon office. To be
fair to Miska, a detailed inventory of all Hungarian archival materials
in Canadian archives would be a formidable undertaking and probably
would have doubled the size of his bibliography. He is to be commended
for indicating the rich resources in archives available to researchers.
(Editor’s note: The omissions mentioned above, and many other archival
items, have been listed in Miska’s supplements, published in 1995 and
1998.)
In conclusion, this is a bibliography that deserves to be on library
shelves and in scholars’ libraries. It is comprehensive in most areas,
well organized, easy to use, and will be the standard bibliography for
Hungarian-Canadian studies for years. It attests to the contributions to
Canadian society that a small number of highly literate people can make. (In: Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada, XXVIII (1988):
97-99.)
George Bisztray: Review. Excerpt
[…] It is perhaps the same desire to belong without being absorbed,
clearly illustrated in Hungarian literature, that one recognizes in John
Miska’s bibliography of Canada’s Hungarian community. […] From Miska’s
annotated bibliography, it appears that a number of papers on Hungarian
Canadians were published by Anglophone scholars as early as 1929 and
throughout the 1930s: by R. England and J.M. Gibbon on history and
sociology, and by W. Kirkconnell on literature. At the same time,
measurable scholarship, of an academic standard and written in English,
did not rise from the ranks of Hungarian Canadians until the 1970s –
with the exception of John Kosa’s pioneering socio-historical studies
published in the 1950s and 1960s. During the past two decades, research
on Hungarian Canadians (by N.F. Dreisziger, I. Halász de Béky, M. Kovács
and others) has made as spectacular progress as their literature.
Considering Miska’s entries statistically, we find that Hungarian
Canadians have published altogether 121 volumes of literature between
1886-1986: the first appearing in 1919, but all others only after World
War II. These volumes were written by sixty-three individual authors
with ten others contributing to anthologies. As Miska does not provide
additional statistical data (since it is not his concern as a
bibliographer), we may wish to consult the 1981 census. Of the 116,395
Canadians of Hungarian extraction, 34,235 still use Hungarian as their
primary language. Even without control data, having one active and
successfully publishing writer out of 482 in any language community
seems an impressive ratio. The literary tradition of the land of origin
appears in interesting traces. As in Hungarian literary history, poetry
also dominates the literature of Hungarian Canadians.
It is hard to conceive future scholars of Comparative Literature and
comparative Canadian Literature doing without historical surveys like
Czigány’s and bibliographies like Miska’s, respectively. Inaccessibility
because of language can no longer be an excuse in the case of Hungarian. (In: Canadian Review of Comparative Literature, XVII, Nos. 1-2
(1990): 173-176.)
Christopher D. Murray: Book Review
The purpose of this bibliography is “to unearth the vast amount of
literature on Hungarians” written in Canada. John Miska divides it into
two parts: the first contains “writings on Hungary and Magyars,” the
second “writings by and about Hungarian Canadians” (p. ix). Later in his
Introduction he calls the work “a basic survey on [Hungarian-Canadian]
scholarly, literary and social activities” (p. xii). The primary aim of
identifying all the scholarship and scholarly resources, e.g., archives,
concerning Hungary and Hungarian settlement in Canada is a worthy one.
This bibliography should prove invaluable to those following Professors
Dreisziger, Kovacs and company, especially those studying Hungarians in
Canada. This reviewer has tried, and failed, to find omissions of note.
Whatever omissions there are, presumably, are due to the fact that most
Canadian newspapers have no published indexes, and there must be
valuable articles and editorials therein only to be found in newspaper
archives. Clearly Mr. Miska has been very thorough in identifying the
most useful and valuable Canadian writing on Hungary and the Hungarians,
and thus, for most readers of Prairie Forum, his work must be
accounted a success.
On the second part of his project, listing work “scholarly, literary or
social,” by Hungarian Canadians, he is not so successful. Perhaps the
format he uses is an unfortunate one, because when he comes to noting
the works of writers one thinks of first, such as Stephen Vizinczey or
George Jonas, he lists them under genre: poetry, prose or plays. For
Vizinczey this is fine since all(?) of his publications are in prose,
though his collection of essays, The Rules of Chaos (1969), is
not listed, nor, for that matter, their original publication in Canadian
journals. But George Jonas has to be looked up as a poet, as a
prosewriter (here Barbara Amiel’s collaboration on By Persons Unknown is
unacknowledged) and as a playwright, where his CBC radio plays are
listed chronologically (though the collection, Scales of Justice,
1983, is not listed), but his stage play Pushkin (1978) and his libretti
for operas are not mentioned. Most unfortunate is the failure to note
George Faludy’s autobiography, My Happy Days in Hell (1962).
(Faludy did not reside in Canada when the work was written. The
Editor.)… Mr. Miska’s book attests to the fact that the Hungarians’
contribution to Canadian life and culture, especially in the last thirty
years, has been quite disproportionate to their numbers. What the second
part of this bibliography fails to show is just how various and
impressive that contribution truly is. (In: Prairie Forum, 13, No. 1 (1998): 141-142.)
N.F. Dreisziger: Canadian Studies on Hungarian Canadians
Hungarians, especially members of the middle and upper classes, tend to
be prolific writers. On a per capita basis, their output probably
approaches that of the Icelanders, reputably the most literate and
literature-oriented people on earth. Hungarians are especially attracted
to poetry and history, particularly their own history. Added to this
literature produced by Hungarians about things Hungarian is a small
number of works authored by members of other nations who have developed
an interest in this unique people and their culture (and who have had
the talent and patience to learn a difficult language).
Naturally enough, most of what is published by Hungarians, and in the
field of Hungarian studies, appears in Hungary. A little originates in
neighbouring states that have large bodies of Hungarian minorities. The
remainder is produced elsewhere in the world, especially in countries
where Hungarian immigrants and their descendants live.
Canada is one of these countries. Although Hungarian settlement in
Canada began over a century ago (in 1886), Canadian publishing about
Hungary and Hungarians is a relatively recent phenomenon and is usually
dated from the time of the arrival of two waves of Hungarian refugees
during the early post-war era: the DPs and the 1956ers. These newcomers,
and in some cases their children, have produced a large number of
publications. When we add to this output the few pieces of writing that
had appeared in this field in Canada before World War II, we have a body
of literature that does deserve notice in a journal of Canadian studies,
all the more so since some of these work deal with the Hungarian
experience in Canada. And the best excuse for this overview is the
appearance of two books under review here.
John Miska’s book finds predecessors in the work of such bibliographers
as Iván Halász de Béky, Joseph Telek, John Kosa, as well as Miska
himself. What is new in the volume at hand is its comprehensiveness and
“user-friendliness”: it is a massive and well organized list of works
produced by Hungarian-Canadians (in Canada and elsewhere), as well as of
studies published in Canada (by anyone) on Hungary and Hungarians. This
list is supplemented by an enumeration of Hungarian-Canadian periodicals
as well as of archives in the widest sense of those terms. The result is
a volume the bulk of which may obscure the reality that little solid
scholarly research has been done in Canada on Hungary, Hungarians or, as
a matter of fact, Hungarian Canadians. However, Miska’s purpose was not
to review scholarly writings on the subject; rather he lists all
publications, leaving to the reader the business of evaluating the
merits of the works listed […] (In: Journal of Canadian Studies XXIV, no. 2 (1989): 153-154.)
Krisztinkovich Mária: Book review
This annotated bibliography compiled by J.P. Miska, founding president
of the Hungarian-Canadian Authors’ Association, is “about books,” the
kind of useful reference work librarians crave. The general reader may
never discover the pleasures offered by a good bibliography, but
librarians, historians, dealers, and other dogged diggers of delectable
detail may rejoice, for here is a book for them.
The titles cover one hundred years of Hungarian life in Canada since the
arrival of the first rural settlers in 1886. This vast material is
organized into two parts: first, works about Hungary and, second,
writings about Hungarians in Canada. Both parts include reference works,
books, university thesises and book reviews. Part II includes a subject
heading on literature, and contains material selected from sources
throughout the world. There is also a list of 110 archival and
photographic collections about Hungarians located in Canada, as well as
a list of the addresses of archives (both federal and provincial) that
house material relating to Hungarians.
The entries are annotated and are arranged under appropriate subject
headings designed to expose shortcuts to the needed information. Miska
has built a scaffolding of well-chosen subject headings allowing the
researcher to get acquainted with the subject from diverse vantage
points. The headings together with the indices (author, title and
subject), work perfectly to satisfy both the scholarly researcher and
the curious lay reader.
Quick statistics culled from the Author Index (pp. 188-194) seem to
indicate that out of five hundred writers listed in this bibliography,
only about one hundred were apparently not of Hungarian origin (this
compilation may not be accurate as some Hungarians may have had their
names anglicized). This suggests that the Hungarian presence in Canada
interested only one hundred Canadians during the first hundred years.
This fact might be a covert compliment to Magyars for it implies that
they had fitted into Canadian society in a smoother way than, for
example, the Doukhobors, about whom innumerable comments were published
by bewildered Canadians. Miska’s book was printed in a clear and
pleasing form by D.W. Friesen & Sons Ltd. Of Altona, Man. Its jacket
design is the excellent work of John Brittain. (In: Hungarian Studies Review, XV, no. 2 (1988): 32-33.)
* * *
Ethnic and Native Canadian Literature: A Bibliography
Allen Kent: Canadian Foreign-Language Bibliography
John Miska has compiled a bibliography of Ethnic and Native Canadian
Literature 1850-1979, subtitled A Bibliography of Primary and Secondary
Materials (Microform Biblios, Lethbridge, Alta., 1980, 7 microfiches).
According to page I, “Authors of ethnic Canadian literature are
considered to be persons who have published collections of poetry,
fiction, or drama, in any language, and whose mother tongues are other
than English or French, and who have spent their formative years in
Canada or settled in this country as adults.” It has the following
ethnic divisions: Austrian, Bulgarian, Byelorussian, Ceylonese, Chilean,
Croatian, Czech, Danish, East Indian, Estonian, Finnish, Gaelic, German,
Haitian, Hungarian, Icelandic, Iraqi, Italian, North American Indian,
Inuit, Jewish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Pakistani, Polish,
Serbian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, and Ukrainian. It contains 2,968
entries. There are author and chronological indexes as well as a list of
periodicals and their abbreviations. Each ethnic groups section begins
bibliographies concerning this group’s imprints, literature and
periodicals. Many of the Canadian references in this encyclopedia have
been taken from extraordinarily useful bibliography… (In: Encyclopedia Library and Information Science Vol. 36, Suppl. 1.)
Joanne Henning: Excerpt from a review
[…] Miska’s bibliography is a necessary addition to reference works in
Canadian literature, and brings to light writers who may not be widely
known but whose contribution to national literature should be recognized
and studied. Despite some of the inconsistencies and omissions with
regard to coverage, as well as a limited scope, his bibliography is an
ambitious effort, and can be recommended to scholars with an interest in
this area of literature. The price, however, may restrict the volume to
library reference collections. (In: Papers of the Bibliographical Society of Canada 30, no. 1.)
Carol Roberts: Ethnic Literature, University of Toronto Press
Literature by ethnic and native writers has generally been regarded as
outside the mainstream of Canadian literature and is often overlooked by
scholars. Miska’s comprehensive bibliography is an admirable attempt to
make works by and about these Canadian writers more accessible to
students, critics, and the general reader. This work contains 5,500
entries to both primary and secondary material, representing 65
nationality groups in 70 languages. Part I includes general reference
tools for the study of ethnic and native Canadian literature including
bibliographies, directories, research studies, and anthologies. Part II,
the major section of the bibliography, is arranged alphabetically by
nationality / language group and includes reference and critical
material about the group, published works by individual writers
belonging to the group and critical works on those writers. Part III
features writings relating to ethnic and native people in mainstream
Canadian literature. A concise list of periodical abbreviations is
provided as well as an author index.
Defining ethnic literature is even more complex than defining Canadian
literature but a bibliographer must face that task. Who will be
included? Who will be excluded? I believe Miska’s criteria for inclusion
are too narrow. One of his requirements is that the writer be born
outside Canada and have settled here as an adolescent or adult. This
criteria excludes many writers who perceive themselves as belonging to
an ethnic minority, who write from that perspective and who have
traditionally been seen as representing an ethnic community. Rudy Wiebe,
George Ryga, Mordecai Richler, Joy Kogawa and A.M. Klein are just a few
examples. The issue is further confused because many of Miska’s
annotations of works about ethnic writing mention writers he has not
included in the bibliography.
Nor is Miska always consistent in applying his criteria. Some writers he
has included immigrated to Canada much before adolescence (Andreas
Schroeder came from Germany at the age of 5; and some writers who are
included are hardly ethnic writers (Jean Little was indeed born in
Taiwan, but of Canadian missionary parents). Miska says nothing in his
Preface about limiting primary source material to monographs, yet only
the books that a writer has published are included. Although I can see
that including periodical publications would make the bibliography’s
length almost unmanageable, the listing as it is presents a limited and
inaccurate record of the writer’s literary output. A great deal of the
secondary source material is from periodical publications.
Miska, a Hungarian-Canadian writer, translator, and editor, has provided
useful annotations for the entries and brief biographical information
for the majority of ethnic and native writers. Apart from minor problems
of style, the bibliography is clearly written, well-organized, and set
in a large format and easy-to-read type. Although costly ($130 per
copy), it will be a valuable addition to the reference collections of
all types of libraries and will encourage librarians and the patrons to
explore this often neglected area of Canadian literature. (In: Canadian Library Journal (April 1991): 190-191.)
* * *
Literature of Hungarian Canadians
Carl Spadoni: Book Review
The author of works such as Canadian Studies on Hungarians 1886-1986
(1987) and Ethnic and Native Canadian Literature: A Bibliography (1990),
is well known for his prolific accomplishment as a librarian,
bibliographer, translator, and editor. He has also championed the cause
and study of Hungarian literature. In Literature of Hungarian Canadians
he has brought together and revised four bibliographical essays
previously published in a variety of journals over the last fifteen
years. The topics covered in his essays pertain to Hungarian poetry,
Canadian fiction written in Hungarian, the Hungarian novel in English,
and Hungarica resources in Canada. To these essays he has appended a
checklist of more than 600 citations to primary and secondary sources,
which was first published in Ethnic and Native Canadian Literature: A
Bibliography. Also included are a list of abbreviations and
author/subject index. The checklist contains of several short sections
(sixty-nine entries) devoted to other bibliographies and directories,
books and research papers, and anthologies. The remainder of the
checklist focuses on the works of individual authors. In John Miska’s
opinion Hungarian literature in Canada, particularly with respect to
poetry, is experiencing a renaissance. A constant and underlying theme
of this literature is the feeling of displacement and loneliness in the
human condition. (In: Papers of the Bibliographic Society of Canada, 31, no. 1, 1993:
12-13.)
* * *
Blessed Harbours: An Anthology of Hungarian-Canadian Writers
George Gömöri: Blessed Harbours…
This anthology is of special interest for two reasons. It comprises the
work of thirty-six Hungarian-Canadian authors, many of whom are unknown
outside Canada, so (as it is said customarily) it certainly fills a gap.
Secondly, it raises intriguing questions of definition and identity. How
do you define a Canadian Hungarian, or for that matter
“Hungarian-Canadian”? To what extent are Canadians writing in English
“Hungarian” at all? Does a certain thematic preference for “old country
themes” make them “Hungarian”? Perhaps we should invent a new term for
these authors either born in Canada or reaching the North American
continent as children- could these be labelled as Canadian
“Hungarophiles” or “Hungarophones”? Because of the ethnic diversity of
Canada these questions are more relevant to be asked than in any other
wholly or partly English-speaking country.
For Blessed Harbours, the prose and verse anthology edited by the
Victoria-based John (János) Miska, contains more than one kind of
Canadian-Hungarian. A clearly distinguishable group are those who live
or had lived in Canada but kept Hungarian as their main creative
language. These are, with one or two exceptions, immigrants who left
Hungary after the suppression of the 1956 revolution: the poets Tamás
Tűz (not „Tuz” as the anthology has it), George Faludy, Béky-Halász,
Vitéz and Kemenes-Géfin. Three out of the five have an established place
in modern Hungarian literature, although George Bisztray calling them in
his Introduction “the most outstanding Hungarian poets of recent
decades”(p.15) is overstating his case. Apart from these Canadian
Hungarians we find in the anthology bilingual writers and poets who
prefer to write in English but who have published original work in
Hungarian or translated fellow-Hungarians into English. Robert Zend
(1929-1985) belongs to this group which also comprises George Jonas,
Paul Gottlieb, Maria Green and Tamás Hajós. To the third category belong
Canadian writers of Hungarian origin or descent such as the novelist
Anna Porter, Tamas Dobozy and Judith Kalman, to name only a few, whose
prose is saturated with colourful, often moving family reminiscences. Of
the poets who write in English Endre Farkas, Eva Tihanyi and Nancy Toth
all seem to have found their own, authentic voices. There is even a
humorous writer amongst the anthologised story-tellers: George Varhey
sounds very Canadian but also quite Central European in his amusing
story “At Burns Lake”.
There are writers in this collection who do not quite fit into any of
the three groups described above. For example, John Marlyn (who
according to the biographical notes is a “distinguished novelist and
playwright”) was born in historical Hungary in 1912 and came to Canada
as a child , tells the story of an old immigrant woman from Hungary (“Good
for You, Mrs Feldesh”) whom life in Canada helped to emancipate
herself from the domestic tyranny of a “traditionally” brutal husband.
The story sounds authentic but the “Mrs Feldesh” is not specifically
Hungarian, she could have been from any of the ethnic minorities of old
Hungary where uneducated husbands behaved in similar fashion; in a word,
the story is more about Canada than the “old country”. At the other end
of the spectrum stands Rose Dancs, a fairly recent Hungarian immigrant
from Transylvania, whose story remembering 1956, is well-written and
moving, but one wonders whether it has the same emotional appeal to a
Canadian reader as to the bilingual Hungarian. In other words, a
Hungarian experience told in English belongs to Canadian-Hungarian
literature as much as a Canadian experience with Hungarian immigrant
characters, yet in a sense it is marginal to the interests of the wider
reading public.
The editor thanks in the “Preface” a dozen of translators without whom
this collection could not have been published. Most of them are
competent, some very good indeed; it certainly helped Faludy, for
example, that he had translators of the calibre of John Robert Colombo,
Dennis Lee, George Jonas and the late Robin Skelton. I missed in the
biographical notes at least a few titles of Faludy’s collections
available in English ; his autobiography, My Happy Days in Hell
(1962) , remains to this day one of the most entertaining memoirs
written in Hungarian by a poet who twice emigrated to the West, only to
return to Hungary after the regime change of 1989/90.
(In: World Literature Today 77, Nos. 3-4 [2003]: 102.)
