INTEGRATION OF NAMES INTO TEXT IN LÁSZLÓ VÉGEL’S NOVEL TRILOGY

Abstract

The study examines literary naming, the use of geographical and personal names , and their characteristic vehemency in László Végel’s three-volume series of novels (Neoplanta, avagy az Ígéret Földje (Neoplanta, or the Promise Land), Bűnhődés (Atonement) and Balkáni szépség, avagy Slemil fattyúja (Balkan Beauty or the Bastard of Slemil)). In his urban novel and its sequences, Végel places the action in a multi-ethnic, multi-confessional city, and tells its story from the perspective of the people living there, through their life stories. With the onomastic corpus of the texts, he creates the socio-national background, points out the connection between politics and naming, and the problem of the relationship between identity and personal name. The set of names of the novels originate from a network of real and fictitious names: the streets and institution names to be found at the novel’s scene that have changed throughout history several times, as well as the place- and era-creating character of the real names of historical figures embedded into the text, denotative and connotative meanings attached to the fictitious names (personal, interlocutor and metaphorical names), associations, intertextual aspects provide the opportunity for a new interpretation of the novel.