COMPARATIVE LITERATURE, CULTURAL INTERCONNECTIONS, AND TRANSNATIONAL RESEARCH

Abstract

In the Hungarian literary criticism and in research in Vojvodina, there has always been a natural interest towards the broader linguistic and cultural contexts. The editors, translators, and writers of the period between the two world wars acted as intermediaries between the Yugoslavian literatures. This tradition was continued in the decades of Tito’s Yugoslavia as well. The interoperability of the relations between Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, and Hungarian literatures has a historical tradition. It is perhaps only in the Hungarian literature of Slovakia where the attention to surrounding cultures was so selfevident. In Transylvania, it was less so. In Bratislava, the importance of mutual awareness amongst the Czech, Slovakian, and Hungarian cultures was emphasised. This mission was later taken on by the Kalligram Publishing House. In our region, following World War II, the achievements of the editors and translators of Híd, Új Symposion, and the Forum Publishing House were notable. Professor Imre Bori organized the knowledge about Hungarian–South Slavic literary relations into a course for the students of the Department of Hungarian Language and Literature. Besides his collections of studies on comparative history – one carrying this title published in 1970, the Irodalmak – kölcsönhatások [Literatures – Mutual Influences] (1971), and another published in 1987 – he published monographs about Miroslav Krleža (1976) and Ivo Andrić (1992). He enriched the research of Vojvodinian and contemporary Hungarian literary history with topics from Slavistics and the comparative aspects of contactology. Littérature comparée changed together with other areas of research within the humanities in the 20^th century and at the beginning of the new millennium. My study deals with the newer approaches in comparative research, their tasks, and their aims.