“SCI-FI” IN WAR

Abstract

The history of Hungarian books and publishing in Vojvodina, the beginnings of the minority literature in the region and its intercultural and textual connections, interoperability within genres, etc. present the systems of relations in terms of which the discovery or emergence of an until then unknown Hungarian book or author is of great importance, regardless of the aesthetic quality or artistic value of the literary product. If we do not imagine literature as a linear order of writers’ opuses, but rather as a complex texture of events and phenomena, then this newly discovered literary event and phenomenon can contribute to the forming of a more complete overall picture of the region’s literature. The novel by János Tarkó: Amíg a nagy vihar tombolt... (While the great storm raged...) published in Nagybecskerek (Zrenjanin) in 1919 is also a missing data in the summaries or syntheses of the history, bibliographies and lexicographies of Hungarian literature in Vojvodina. This analysis of the novel aims at revealing the historical context and the possible intercultural connections of the novel; it inevitably addresses the polemics concerning the beginnings of Hungarian literature in Vojvodina.