Hungarian Studies Review Spring-Fall, 1992 [antikvár]

A Note from the Editors Profound changes have taken place in the lives of Hungarians in East Central Europe during the past few years. The collapse of the Soviet Empire, the change of regime in Rumania, and the disintegration of Yugoslavia, all had significant impact on Magyars living in Hungary and in the neighbouring countries. The reestablishment of a pluralistic society and a democratic political system in Hungary, the demise of old-style communism elsewhere in East Central Europe, are promising developments. The economic stagnation, social tensions, and rising nationalism throughout that region, however, are threats that cannot be ignored. In particular, the civil conflict in the former Yugoslavia, and the ethnic strife in Rumania and Czechoslovakia, make the lives of Hungarians in those states as uncertain as ever. These developments offer opportunities and pose new challenges to the Hungarian Diaspora's cultural ventures such as our journal. The main purpose of the HSR has always been, and will always be, apolitical: the presentation of the results of recent research on Hungarian subjects. But in the past, during the last decade-and-a-half of communist rule in Hungary, we also served as a forum for the publication of studies that could not appear in the scholarly press of Hungary, or that of neighbouring communist countries. With the gradual liberalization of academic life in Hungary during the 1980s, this function of our journal became less and less important, and came to an end in 1989 with the demise of communist rule in Budapest. During this period we were faced with another challenge: how to find ways of cooperating with scholars in Hungary, in particular with those that were not committed to the traditions and ideology of the discredited communist regime. Means were found for involving Hungarian scholars in our work, even before 1989. It might be recalled, for example, that one of our contributors in 1987 was Géza Jeszenszky, at the time a university teacher and opposition intellectual in Budapest, who is now Hungary's Minister of External Affairs. During these years other Hungarian scholars have also submitted their work to our journal, and were published in it.