William G. Lockwood, Editor
Department of Anthropology
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Ml 48109
The election returns are in. Twentynine members voted and it was a very close race between the four candidates. The winners are Katherine Verdery (Johns Hopkins University), Linda Bennett (George Washington University Medical Center) and David Kideckel (Central Connecticut State University). Katherine, having received the greatest number of votes, will serve a three year term. Linda and David tied for the two-year appointment; we can work out that wrinkle at our next meeting in December. Meanwhile, if readers have suggestions,-complaints or comments regarding EEAG business, they should contact any of our three new board members. Anything directly related to the Newsletter should still be sent to the editor.
As for EEAG finances, there's good news and there's bad news. The good news is that we are still solvent, even though the last issue cost more to produce than predicted. Many people responded to the call for dues in the last issue. Several included their 1986-87 dues in their check and one benefactor sent us $25.00. The mailing list has been revised accordingly and this is the first issue to be sent only to paid subscribers.
The bad news is that subscription fees for the 1986-87 year are now due. Only the following have already paid: Banks, B. Bennett, L. Bennett, Carlton, Forry, Gribble, Hamp, Kubick, Knez, Lupastian, McClain, Ohio State University, Rylko-Bauer, Skomal. If your name is not on the list, please send us your dues. They are still only $5.00. This is a critical period in the life of EEAG. We have lost a number of members in this paring down of the mailing list. These include some people who have been active contributors of written material for the pages of the Newsletter but who have not written a check to support the printing and distribution of those pages. Please, don't YOU become an ex-member. EEAG needs your support if we are to continue to exist.
And, of course, we still need your support in another way as well. Please contribute material for publication in the Newsletter: new and forthcoming publications; notices of grants received or proffered; reviews of books or films; requests for assistance; course syllabi and bibliographies; offers to organize symposia; short articles concerning relevant institutions; public announcements of births, deaths, marriages, promotions, or job changes; criticism; suggestions; or what have you. Send them to the Editor at the address given above. The deadline for Volume 6, Number 1, is October 31, but immediately is not too soon.
The Assistant Editors for this issue are Eva Huseby-Darvas and Yvonne Lockwood.
Our ongoing discussion on the role of the Western anthropologist in Eastern Europe is continued with this open Letter -from Michael Sozan to Chris Sann on the subject of the Datter's article in Zast issue of the Newsletter. We hope that Hann -- and any others who feel the urge -- will respond in the next issue. Like all signed articles in the Newsletter, Sozan's comments do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors.
Dear Chris Hann,
I wish to address only one of the topics raised in your letter (Newsletter, Volume 5, Number 1, Page 4). You write, "I would like Western readers to be able to form some idea from my work of the 'legitimacy' of the authorities, at various levels, in the eyes of the people I write about....[O]n the basis of some slight first-hand acquaintance with all of them, that legitimacy varies greatly ....I would argue against the kind of cultural relativism that, in the case of Eastern Europe, would require us to take this political context as a uniform constant."
First of all, the term ''legitimacy' troubles me the most. It is not used by American anthropologists, therefore it would have been helpful if you qualified it. Quotation marks furthermore seem to be confusing here. Whom are you quoting? The authorities, the people or yourself? Do you use them in jest, sarcastically, implying that the people in question have illegitimate rulers (whatever "illegitimate" mas mean)? Or do you mean the opposite: political authority in Eastern Europe (would this include Yugoslavia? Watch out Halpern, Hammel and Lockwood) is always legitimate, and only some "western imperialist" (Alan Lomax's words) anthropologists would even deal with the idea of "legitimacy", and therefore you are quoting westerners.
I wish you had given us even a cursory definition of "legitimacy." A Hobbsean, Robespearean, Napoleonic, feudal, Nazi, Leninist or any definition would have been good for a departure. Do Baganda kings and Yanamamo headmen have legitimate power? If you mean Leninist legitimacy, then you should not put it in quotes. It is understood by all of us on this side of the Atlantic that the principle of Leninist legitimacy cannot vary in the GDR, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Albania and Bulgaria. Although it is the "purest" in the Soviet Union, it is omniescent in these countries. Empirically Leninist legitimacy has been well analyzed in your work, especially in Tázlátr and in A Village Without Solidarity. In these societies power is in the hands of the Communist Party and the Party is the people. Local autonomy, conflict resolution, individual power, voting, formal vs informal leadership are decadent, bourgeois topics, inappropriate where the people rule.
In socialist countries there is no need for local autonomy (another term shunned by anthropologists) or a government representing the population, because the Party does all those things which the people would want anyway. Since the ownership of the natural resources and the means of production have been removed from the hands of the class enemy, there is no need for some local "leaders" to go around "fighting" and struggling for power. The situation is different in capitalist societies, where powerful interest groups must be subdued by any means possible (and that includes parliamentarian) Village India or South American peasant village political organizations are unique. They are probably "survivals" of ancient times.
No wonder American anthropologists have purposefully avoided Soviet-East European village politics. It isn't that we are unaware of the Western bourgeois challenge to the legitimacy of the Leninist notion of governing. We are indeed well aware of it. But this does not mean we are going to raise any little issue they (our opponents) consider important. We know very well that village governments and higher levels of government are legitimate in Eastern Europe. Variation, of course, is empirically observable, but that is always a function of individual personality.
I would welcome a debate on the question of political legitimacy in Eastern Europe -- on any level from local to national -- on the pages of our newsletter.
Another topic you mentioned was ethics, which, for East Europeanists is of vital importance -- perhaps more important than to specialists of other regions with peasant populations -- because of the suspicious governments we deal with. I am sure the Romanianists have a lot to say on this subject (i.e., how do we train graduate students for East European fieldwork?).
Hoping for a fruitful scholarly debate,
Sincerely yours,
Michael Sozan
Slippery Rock State University
A growing interest in the anthropology of Europe and a felt need for a forum to strengthen networks among Europeanist anthropologists and to encourage comparative research have prompted efforts to form a Society for the Anthropology of Europe (SAE) as a unit of the American Anthropological Association. The new organization would complement the activities of the East European Anthropology Group by providing a means to bring together anthropologists specializing in Eastern Europe and those concerned with Western Europe. Interested Europeanist anthropologists are urged to join the new Society as founding members.
An ad hoc organizing committee composed of Carole Counihan (Stockton State), Patricia Gibson (UC-Santa Barbara), David Gilmore (SUNY-Stony Brook), Susan Carol Rogers (NYU), Lawrence J. Taylor (Lafayette), and James Taggart (Franklin and Marshall) has been agitating to bring the new group to life.
The Society will be initiated at the 1986 AAA meetings in Philadelphia with a breakfast Roundtable. The themes chosen are: Historiography and Anthropology (Jane Schneider), Sex and Gender (Ernestine Friedl), Class, Culture and Political Economy (John Cole), Religion, Ideology and Folklore (Stanley Brandes). Subscription information will appear in the AAA newsletter. Organization of this Roundtable was made possible thanks to the generous financial contributions of Lafayette College, SUNY-Stony Brook, and the Institute of French Studies and Department of Anthropology at NYU.
An organizing meeting will also be scheduled at the 1986 AAA meetings. Bylaws, officers, and a program for the year will be voted at that time, enabling the organization to move to official status within the AAA.
Plans are being made to compile an updated directory of Europeanist anthropologists and to launch a newsletter. The Society will also be active in organizing invited sessions and sponsoring svmposia at future AAA meetings and at interdisciplinary meetings of Europeanists. Any number of other activities are possible. The Society has the potential to become a driving force enhancing the visibility and legitimacy of Europeanist anthropology, facilitating the dissemination of information relevant to Europeanists, and promoting the professional integration of students with an interest in Europe.
The AAA requires that a list of dues paying members be submitted before the Society can be officially recognized. You may contribute to this effort by joining the Society as a founding member. Send name, address and annual dues of $10 ($7 for students) to: SAE, c/o Institute of French Studies, New York University, 15 Washington Mews, New York, NY 10003. Checks should be made payable to Institute of French Studies/SAE. Please contact the above address or any of the organizing committee members for further information or to make suggestions about the agenda or organization of the new Society.
Susan Carol Rogers
New York University
I draw your attention to a letter published by a number of anonymous Romanian intellectuals in the February 14, 1986 issue of the Radio Free Europe Research Report on the continuing destruction of Romania's cities. This campaign has become so extreme that it needs to be brought to the attention of a wider number of interested people, professional and lay. As the letter indicates, the wholesale transformations in Romanian urban and now rural communities represents an unprecedented assault on culture and history, let alone daily life. The degree of destruction has also prompted a significant outcry from the Romanian intellectual and academic community. An earlier letter protesting the destruction of Bucharest churches and monasteries was submitted to the Romanian Communist Party's Central Committee by a number of highly regarded Romanian historians, archaeologists, and architects. It should also be noted that the plans for "remodeling" Romania's historic Transylvanian cities represents yet another incursion on the unique history and life-ways of Transylvania's German and Magyar-speaking populations.
As anthropologists who have worked and lived in Eastern Europe I feel we have a special responsibility to speak out against this cultural onslaught. With this in mind, I have composed the enclosed letter of concern to the Romanian government and its president, Nicolae Ceausescu, and request that those in the EEAG interested in co-signing it (or those with other opinions to express) get in touch with me within two weeks of receipt of this newsletter. My address is: David A. Kideckel, Department of Anthropology, Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT, 06050, tel: (203) 827-7661.
His Excellency,
Nicolae Ceausescu
President, The Socialist Republic of Romania
General Secretary of The Romanian Communist Party
Dear President Ceausescu,
In recent months news of the wholesale transformation of Bucharest and of other Romanian cities and towns has reached the West and we are writing to express our great concern about these developments. In the information from Romania we have heard not only of the very ambitious plans for the development of national urban areas but also of the simultaneous destruction of important national historical monuments in Bucharest and elsewhere and the massive dislocation of people accompanying this development. The scope of these changes and their disastrous implications for Romanian and European culture force us to vigorously protest them and request that you, in the capacities of your offices, reconsider them.
We, the undersigned, are all social scientists who have lived and worked in Romania and throughout Eastern Europe. From our close contact with East European life, we have come to respect Romania's and her sister Socialist nations' rights to national independence and self-determination and to accept the legitimacy of planned social change. This letter is not meant to question these realities. As social scientists, we are particularly committed to the fulfillment of human potential and the improvement of the human condition, both which are ill-served by the massive destruction of the past and the hardships this has inflicted on the present. We are especially saddened and concerned about the actual and potential loss of the unique character of Romania's cities such as the medieval Transylvanian centers of Brasov, Sibiu, Fagaras, and Sighisoara.
As you, yourself, have emphasized repeatedly in the past, the history of the Romanian people and of its coinhabiting nationalities, is a most precious possession to be guarded and enhanced under the leadership of the Romanian Communist Party and the state government. However, we feel these current policies of Party and state fail in this respect. The weakening of historical consciousness can only accompany the massive urban transformation and dislocation. The loss of hearth, home, and neighborhood deprives people of their sense of belonging to and their willingness to participate in society. The removal of ages-old monuments strips people of their respect for their forbearers' achievements, their knowledge of themselves, and their identification with those responsible for this destruction.
Because of all these results we reiterate our opposition to these policies and urge you strongly to curtail them. The world notes with sadness this destruction. We will continue to raise our voices in hopes that it will soon cease.
Sincerely,
Paleaeconomy of the Central Balkans: A Zooarchaeological Perspective on the Late Neolithic and Bronze age, by Haskel J. Greenfield. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, City University of New York. 1985.
Recently gathered zooarchaeological data from research in Yugoslavia on late Neolithic and Bronze Age sites is presented, with particular attention to the interrelationship between subsistence and settlement. It is argued that the economic and settlement strategies practiced during the Late Neolithic were fundamentally different from those during the Bronze Age. In the former, the emphasis in animal exploitation was placed upon "primary" products, such as meat and hide. Herds of domestic animals were grazed within a limited range of altitudinally differentiated environments. Lowland herders were not moving their herds far into the highlands during warmer times of the year. In contrast, during the Bronze Age, herding strategies shifted toward the exploitation of "secondary" products, such as milk, wool, and traction. Herds of domestic animals were moved from lowland to highland pastures as part of an annual transhumant trek. At the same time, exploitation of wild resources decreases, but not uniformly across the region. Lowland sites, except in particularly rich micro-environments, contain very few wild animal remains. In contrast, highland localities continue to exploit wild animals as important supplements to the subsistence system. These findings were particularly important because they signal the advent of a pattern of animal management that persisted from the advent of the Bronze Age into modern times.
A határ két oldalán (Across the border), by Michael Sozan. Paris: Irodalmi Ujsag (Literary Journal), 1985. 148 pp., 18 photographs, 23 tables, 2 children's drawings. Gazette Litteraire Hongroise, 32 rue du Faubourg-Montmartre-F-75009, Paris, France. $12.00, 90 French Franks, or 30 German Marks (paper).
This comparative monograph about two villages, one in Austria, the orher in Hungary, is a significant contribution to the study of East European rural society and to that of peasantry and social change. Based on 12 months of field research during the 1970s in each of the two rural communities, it is the first scholarly study that explores and contrasts the society and culture on the two sides of the "Iron Curtain." The two communities -- Alsóör (Unterwart), in Austria's Burgenland, and Tap, in Hungary's Györ County -- are merely ninety kilometers apart from one another, and have many historic, linguistic, denominational, demographic, and economic similarities. However, the historical bifurcation of the region, that began with the 1918 Peace Treaty of Paris when Hungary lost the area now called Burgenland, accelerated dramatically after World War Two, when Hungary fell under Soviet influence. As a result, major socioeconomic, political, and cultural differences developed in the two villages during the decades after the Second World War. Sozan asks: What happens when two diametrically opposed socioeconomic systems, two very different political ideologies undermine traditional East Central European peasant communities?
The monograph consists of an introduction and five chapters. In the introduction Sozan elaborates on the problems of research in Hungary by "Western" anthropologists, while he recounts his field experiences (with specific focus on his relations with the authorities) and discusses the future of anthropological research in Hungary. In the chapters that follow, Sozan examines, compares and contrasts the two villages' history, politics, economics, social organization, and ideology respectively.
Not hiding his impatience with cultural relativism, Sozan concludes that post-peasant formation was a much smoother process in Austria than in Hungary. He contends that the 46 years of Soviet-style socialism caused far more sociocultural displacements and deleterious personality development than did changing capitalism during the same period. He maintains that the most blatant divergencies occurred between the two villages in the area of self determination: While the villagers in Austria gained political autonomy and a good measure of independence, the villagers in Hungary have lost any semblance of these. The Hungarian villagers received collective and state farms and a new breed of bureaucrats, accompanied by a new system of corruption that, according to Sozan, was unheard of in Hungary prior to World War Two. He attempts to show that in rural Hungary social mobility is ironically limited by "acceptable alternatives": the beneficiaries are the children of the middlepeasants and those of wealth villagers, the ones with intellectual material resources, but not the poorer segments of rural society for whom the "revolution" was invented. Socialist planners, while proud of their achievements in the sphere of economic development, are at a total loss at the unexpected effects of social reorganization. Sozan is now working on a more elaborate English language version of this monograph.
Éva Huseby-Darvas
University of Michigan
Our People: Carpatho-Rusyus and Their Descendants in North America, by Paul Robert Magocsi. Toronto: Multicultural History Society of Ontario, 1984. 160 pp., 86 photographs, 4 maps, 9 text inserts and charts, bibliography, appendix, index. n.o. (cloth).
This is an elegantly produced study of Carpatho-Rusyns (Ruthenians) in the United States and Canada. The chapter headings give an accurate picture of the ground covered: Origins; Migration; Settlement Patterns and Economic Life; Religious Life; Organizational Life; Culture (not intended in the anthropological sense of the word); Politics; and, Group Maintenance; with a lengthy appendix, Root Seeker's Guide to the Homeland. The text is comprehensive and informational rather than analytic. The bibliography is excellent. A must for every Carpatho-Rusynian coffee table, and for those of us interested in East European ethnicity.
Russian Gypsy Folktales, collected by Yefim Druts and Alexei Gessler, translated by James Riordan. Edinburgh: Cannongate Publishing Limited, 1986. xv + 141 pp., 3 photographs, illustrations, glossary. 7.95 British pounds (cloth).
This book consists of four and a half pages of introduction by Riordan followed by thirty-six Gypsy folktales from Russia. The introduction is naive, over-generalized and in some cases erroneous. The tales appear to have undergone considerable rewriting and lack both source information and annotation. Those responsible do not even capitalize "Gypsy" as the proper noun it is. Not recommended, except for three good photographs of Russian Gypsies which illustrate the introduction.
Jászárokszállás cigány népmesek (Gypsy Folktales from Jaszarokszallas), collected by J. Farragó, annotated by József Vekerdi and Ágnes Kovács, edited by Ildikó Kriza. Ciganisztikai tanulmányok (Hungarian Gypsy Studies), Number 2. Budapest: MTA Néprajzi Kutatö Csoport, 1985. 135 pp., 16 photographs, 2 maps, glossary, English languaRe summary. n.P. (PaPer).
Berki János mesél, cigány és magyor nyeZven (Tales of János Berki, told in Gypsv and Hungarian) in collaboration with Grabocz Gábor, Kovács Ágnes, and Vekerdv József, edited by Görög Veronika. Ciganisztikai tanulmanyok (Hungarian Gypsy Studies), Number 3. Budapest: MTA Néprajzi Kutató Csoport, 1985. 300 pp., & photographs, bibliography. n.p. (paper).
Mesemondó és Közössége Kaposszentjokabon (A Tale Teller and his Community in Kaposszentjakab) by Magda Szapu. Ciganisztikai tanulmányok (Hungarian Gypsy Studies), Number 4. Budapest: MTA Néprajzi Kutató Csoport, 1985. 162 pp., 18 photographs, diagrams, 1 table, bibliography, English language summary. n.p. (paper).
In the last issue of the Newsletter we took pleasure in announcing the first in a new Hungarian series on Gypsy ethnology and folklore. Now, in quick succession, have come three more volumes in the same series. Volume 2 deals with a body of folktales recorded from two informants of the Romungro group (Hungarian Gypsies who have, for the most part, lost Romani). Volume 3 treats the bilingual repertoire of a single storyteller, one of a relatively small number of Romungro who retains some Romani. Volume 4 deals with the tales told by a Boyash (Romanian-speaking) Gypsy. All three works are analytic rather than mere collections. (In Volume 4, for example, a structural analysis in the style of V. Propp is utilized.) All tales are categorized according to the Aarne-Thompson Tale Type Index. Best of all, there is great attention to context, with detailed descriptions of the communities in which these tale tellers
and their listeners live, and sufficient biographical information on the informants. Volumes 2 and 4 include English summaries and Volume 3 has English translation of the Introduction and Notes of all Romani language tales (but not of those presented in Hungarian) and an English Summary of the informant’s autobiography. We can only say, as we said in our last issue, that this is a series that deserves emulation by the other East European countries.
Le costume traditionnel du Dodeconese les Iles de Kassos et de Tilos, by Zachoroula Tourali. Etudes et Documents Balkaniques et Mediterraneens, Number 9. Paris, 1985. 185 pp., 1 map, 1 table, 1 figure, 17 photographs, glossary, bibliography.
This is another in the valuable series of publications on Balkan ethnology edited and produced by Paul H. Stahl. It contains three sections: 2 summary of economic and social life on Kassos and Tilos; a detailed description of men's and women's costume on each of the two islands; and a semiotic interpretation of these materials. In other words, what can be interpreted from traditional dress about socio-economic life, family structure, and belief system? The accompanying bibliography is extensive (13 pages). The only obvious deficiency of this volume is its use of graphics. The analysis of costume demands visual presentation, yet all the photographs, the map and the figure are jammed together on three pages and the quality of reproduction is none too good. Unfortunately, no more than this was possible given the limited funds available. Like others in this series, the work will be distributed without charge to appropriate research institutions. Write Paul Henri Stahl, Laboratoire d'Anthropologie Sociale, 11 Place Marcelin Berthelot, 75005 Paris, France.
The Poetics of Manhood: Contest and Identity in a Cretan Mountain Village, by Michael Herzfeld. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985. xviii + 313 pp., 24 photographs, 11 figures and maps, appendix, bibliography, index. $37.50 (cloth).
In this fine study of a highland Cretan community, Herzfeld focuses on male interaction, especially as expressed in sheep rustling, fending, bride theft, song dueling and coffeehouse banter. This is a highly analytic work, yet chock full of solid ethnographic detail. It's special strength lies in the combination of the local focus of traditional ethnography and the attention given to larger social and political entities, emphasizing the way in which villagers assimilate national and international structures into their own ideology. Herzfeld argues that these village men achieve identity in inventive but consistent "poetics of social interaction" that often pits them against the law. This rebelliousness paradoxically allows them to think of themselves as quintessential exemplars of national virtues. According to Herzfeld, it is this paradox and the resulting tension which defines for them the very meaning of their lives.
Transcaucesia: NationeDism and SociaZ Change, edited by Ronald Grigor Suny. Michigan Slavic Publications, East European Series, Number 2. Ann Arbor: Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan, 1983. xiv + 442 pp., 12 photographs, 16 tables, 4 maps, index. $24.00 (paper).
This consists of seventeen chapters on the history, ancient to modern, of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Though the contributors are historians, with a sprinkling of political scientists and economists, and the scholarship reflects the usual over-concern with the doings of the elite, this will nevertheless be a useful book to any anthropologist with an interest in Caucasia specifically or in Soviet nationalities in general. The central theme is the political development of the Caucasian nations vis-a-vis the Russians, Turks, et al, whom they have defined themselves in contrast to and defended themselves against down through the ages. Chapters are arranged into four sections: Caucasian Civilization and the Russian Impact; Nationalism and Social Change under Tsarist Rule, Revolution and Soviet Transformation; and Transcaucasia Today, An Assessment.
Images of Strawberry Hill. Works by Marijana, edited by Jennie A. Chinn. Topeka, Kansas: Kansas State Historical Society, 1985. xiii + 97 pp., illustrations, bibliography, index.
Marijana Grisnik, a third-generation Croatian-American, was born and raised in the Croatian settlement of Kansas City, Kansas, known as Strawberry Hill. Influenced by "naive" peasant painters of Yugoslavia, especially the Hlebine School, Marijana began to paint in the 1970's scenes of her community based on her memory and interpretation of her childhood years. The result is a visual account of this urban Croatian-American community. Among her forty-seven paintings are scenes depicting neighborhood houses and gardens; vegetable vendors; women visiting in the street and men visiting in the wine cellar; making sausage, wine, nut roll pastry, and wedding food; a funeral, a wedding, and a visit to the newborn. This book was published to commemoriate an exhibit of Marijana's paintings. It contains illustrations of all her work, most in color. Essays by folklorists, anthropologists and art historians provide context and interpretation: "Marijana: A Biography," "Strawberry Hill: Tradition in a Modern World," "From Memory to Canvas" The Work of a Visionary," "The Art of Marijana," and "Old World, New World: Croatian-Americans on Strawberry
Hill."
Serbian Folk Poetry: Ancient Legends, Romantic Songs, by Zora Devrnj a Zimmerman. Columbus: Kosovo Publishing Co., 1986. xii + 343 pp., bibliography. $11.95 (cloth)
This volume contains translations of selected Serbian epic and ballad texts from the 19th Century collection of Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic: "Omer and Merima," "Death of Mother Jugovic," "The Fall of the Serbian Empire," "The Finding of Prince Lazar's Head," "Tzar Lazar and Tzarica Milica," "Maiden of Kosovo," "Hasanaginica," "Foundling Simeon," "The Building of Skadar," and "The Serpent Bridegroom." The author converted the Serbo-Croatian decasyllabic, trochaic line to an eight syllable iambic tetrameter to produce translations that resemble English ballads and adhere to the rhythm of the English language. Some texts appear here in variant forms. A commentary, including audience response and interpretation, accompanies each translation. A lengthy Introduction discusses the history of Serbian oral literature collecting and the themes, forms, functions, and structures of this cultural tradition; as such, it serves as a brief summary of the scholarship on Serbian oral literature.
Hungarian Folk Beliefs, by Tekla Dömötör. Budapest: Athenaeum Printing House, 1982, distributed by Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 324 pp., 2 maps, 16 color plates, 61 photographs, bibliography, index. $20.00 (cloth).
This is a splendid example of an earlier generation of European-style ethnography from one of the masters of the genre. All you need to know about Hungarian magic, demonology, divination, weatherlore, burial custom, healing, the evil eye, bogeymen, folk cosmology, werewolves and witches, folk prayer, and fairies, from pre-Christian times to the present. This is preceded by a critical examination of Hungarian scholarship on the topic of folk belief and is accompanied by an extensive bibliography. It is at once meticulously detailed and fascinating reading. The translator was Chris Hann, whom readers of the Newsletter will know from elsewhere in these pages.
Eastern European National Minorities 1919-1980: A Elandbook, by Stephan M. Horak et al. Littleton: Libraries Unlimited, 1985. xv + 353 pp., tables (unnumbered), index. $47.50 (cloth) in U.S., $57.00 elsewhere.
This is a very disappointing guide to minority populations in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Albania and Bulgaria and to Slovenes and Croats in Italy and Austria. Each of the chapters devoted to a specific state consists of a historical essay followed by an annotated bibliography divided by ethnic group. Unfortunately, the quality of these chapters varies widely. Several of the authors -- none of whom are anthropologists -- are not specialists in ethnicity and some do not seem to be particularly knowledgeable about their subject. Not only are a great many important references omitted but entire ethnic groups. Thus Gypsies in Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia are discussed but not those of Hungary (where there is an even greater literature on the subject) or Romania (which has the largest Gypsy minority of all). Authors tend to emphasize those minorities they know best and all others are neglected. Hence the chapter on Slovenes and Croats in Austria and Italy (by Toussaint Hocevar, a Slovene from Austria) is devoted almost entirely to Slovenes in Austria. Bibliographies are particularly deficient with respect to the large literature by anthropologists on East European minorities, and especially those works by American anthropologists. A reference work of this type is useful only if we can trust it to come up with the most significant sources. Unfortunately this work does not meet that criterion.
Women, State, and Party in Eastern Europe, edited by Sharon L. Wolchik and Alfred G. Meyer. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1985. xiv + 428 pp., Tables, Figures, Index, Notes. $42.50 (Cloth), $16.95 (Paper).
The twenty essays ln this volume should be of particular interest to anthropologists concerned with Eastern Europe, as well as to all those interested in the rather neglected East European aspects of the cross cultural study of women. Three of the contributors are East European scholars while seventeen are Americans (or are affiliated with American academic institutions) and all represent various disciplines (history, sociology, political science, economics, etc.) Only one of the contributions ("The Rites of Women: Oral Poetry, Ideology, and the Socialization of Peasant Women in Contem-porary Romania") is by an anthropologist, Gail Kligman. Most of the essays explore important aspects of women's status -political, economic, and sociocultural -from a diachronic perspective. Several are specifically focused on women's movements, and the relationship of women to political power on the national and local levels.
Ethnography, Alcohol, and South-Central European Societies, edited by Linda Bennett. Special Issue, East European Quarterly, Volume XVIII, Number 4, January, 1985. $3.00 (paper).
The contributors, all of whom are anthropologists, focus on the timely and relevant issue of alcohol consumption in seven sociocultural contexts. Linda Bennett, (George Washington University Medical Center), the editor of this collection, gives us a comprehensive introduction to the issue, then in her essay examines alcoholism treatment "in a Yugoslav fashion" with a focus on Croatia and Slovenia. Peter Allen (Rhode Island College) focuses on alcohol consumption in modern Greece. Sam Beck (New School of Social Research) discusses Balkan societies in general, paying special attention to changing styles of drinking over time. Charlotte Chase (Washington University, St. Louis) deals with Poland and looks at alcohol consumption as an indicator of system malfunction in t'.lat society. Barbara Kerewsky-Halpern (University of Massachusetts at Amherst) explores "Rakija as Ritual in Rural Serbia." Dave Kideckel (Central Connecticut State) looks at alcohol, class, and social change in a Romanian region of South Central Transylvania. And Robert Rothenberg (DePaul University) deals with Austria in his essav. "Viennese Wine Gardens and Their Magic.
Two issues of Soviet Anthropology and Archeology have appeared since our last-report:
Fall 1985 (Volume XXIV, Number 2)
B. Kh. Ortabev, "Socioeconomic Relations among Mountain Peoples of the Northern Caucasus in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries in Soviet Historiography."
A. Mardonova, "Customs and Rituals of the Childhood Cycle among the Tadjiks of the Upper Zeravshan Valley in the Past and Today."
L.N. Chizhikova, "Distinctive Features of the Ethnocultural Development of the Population in Yoronezh Oblast."
V. Ia. Vilenchik, "New Evidence of the Existence of an Ancient Russian Abacus."
Winter 1985-86 (Volume XXIV, Number 3)
Viktor Il'in, "My VillaRe of Rechnoe."
Miron Petrovskii, "'A Journey to the Island of Love' or What is the Russian Romance ? "
A Passer-by: Oh, don't ask me such things.
--not even just a few words?
I'd rather not, all right?
--why not?
The truth is, I have no time to study such things.
--But surely you must have heard something about him in school?
I was absent a lot.
Another Voice: He was a Soviet philosopher. Engels was his friend. Well, what else can I say? He died at an old age.
A Female Voice: Of course, a politician. And he was9 you know, he was what's his name's -- Lenin's. Lenin, Lenin's works -- well, he translated them into HunRarian.
An Older Female Voice: It was mandatory to studv him. so that we would know.
--Then how about a few words?
Come on, now, don't make me take an exam on my eighth-grade studies. That's where we had to know it. He was German, he was a politician, and ... I believe he was executed
--Whom was Marx Square named after?
A Very Old Female Voice: Well, wasn't he that great German philosopher? No? Marx, Engels, Lenin? No?
The radio reporters then went to Engels Square:
--Do you know whom Engels Square was named after?
A Passer-by: After Engels.
--And who was Engels?
He was an Englishman, and he screwed around with Communism. [Laughter]
--Do you know whom Engels Square was named after?
An Older Female Voice: I don't know. I am not from Budapest. I don't know.
A Male Voice: Well, let's see, Engels? A revolutionary.
--And do you remember his other [first] name?
Engels. Engels...Marx Engels. Marx, wasn’t it?
Another Voice: One of his names was Marx, the other Engels?
Another Voice: That's it.
--Where did Engels live?
A Female Voice: Well, where did he live, you ask. Well, he lived in Leningrad, that is. in Moscow.
--Could you tell me whom Marx Square was named after?
Karl Marx.
--Where did he live?
Well, he died.
--But where did he live?
Well, partly, so far as I know, in the Soviet Union. That's where he studied for a while, and then I think he also spent some time in Hungary. I wouldn't know exactly.
--Do you know whom Marx Square was named after?
Several Voices: No, we come from Szeged. We are from Szeged so we don't know.
--Do you know whom Engels Square was named after?
A Male Voice: No.
--And Marx Square?
I don't know that either.
--And Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Street? [Endre Bajcsv-Zsilinszky was a Hungarian antifascist politician, executed by the Nazis in 1944.]
Well, after Bajcsy-Zsilinszky.
--Who was Bajcsy-Zsilinszky?
An Old Female Voice: Well, actually, he was a Hungarian, and he didn't like the Horthy era.
--What was his other [first] name? What Bajcsy-Zsilinszky?
I don't know. Was it Bela? [To another person] Do you know whom Bajesy-Zsilinszky Street was named after?
An Older Male Voice: Bajcsy-Zsilinszky. He was a revolutionary.
--Do you remember his first name?
Gyorgy Bajcsy-Zsilinszky.
--Who was Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Street named after?
Another Female Voice: Endre.
--Who was he? I don't remember that school stuff anymore
A Male Voice: Well, so far as I know, Engels was originally a German.
--And his first name?
The Same Voice: Karl, wasn't it? Wasn't it Karoly [Hungarian for Karl]? Or was Marx called Karoly? I don't know. I don't know. It's not important either. At the seminary they just keep referring to him as Engels, because once he was mandatory.
6te
Éva Huseby-Darvas is organizing a session, "Women in Socialist Societies: Cases from Eastern Europe," for the 1987 meeting of the American Anthropological Association. She is looking for high quality studies with solid ethnography treating the theme of changing gender ideologies. If all goes well, the papers would be published in a collected volume. Those interested (including men!) should contact Éva Huseby-Darvas, 5 Southwick Court, Ann Arbor, MI 48105. We will meet informally to plan the session at the 1986 meetings of the American Anthropological Association.
As those of us who have sent scholarly publications to colleagues in Eastern Europe know, the mailing cost of books and journals is very high. A service provided by the Smithsonian helps: All you have to pay for is the postage to Washington, D.C. and the International Exchange Service pays for the overseas postage. If you want to use this service, write for specific instructions to: Daryl Williams, International Exchange Service, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 20560, or call (202) 357-2073.
Tibor Bodrogi, Director of the Ethnographic Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and Professor of Ethnography at Eötvös Lóránt Tudományegyetem (ELTE), Budapest, and at Kossuth Lajos Tudományegyetem (KLTE) Debrecen, died in Budapest on March 6, 1986, at the age of 62. A man of prodiglous activity and accomplishment, Bodrogi earned his doctorate in ethnography and archaeology at ELTE in Budapest. He later became museologist, then Director of the Hungarian Ethnographic Museum (1961-1968). Bodrogi translated to Hungarian numerous Western classics in anthropology (among others, Morgan, Frazer, and Birket-Smith) and conducted extensive ethnographic field research in Indonesia, New Guinea, and Oceania. During the early 1970s, he directed the first social anthropological team research project in Hungary, then edited and introduced the resulting study. (See Bodrogi, editor, Varsány: Studies For the Social Ethnography of a Northern Hungarian Village, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1978. Unfortunately published only in Hungarian, many of his major studies, particularly those exploring the relationship between society and folk art (Art of Northeast New Guinea, 1961; The Art of Oceania, 1959; The Art of Africa, 1967, 1968, 1969; The Art of Indonesia, 1971; The Birth of Societies, 1962; The Development of Crafts, 1961) were published in Hungarian, Romanian and, by Western publishing houses, in English, French, German, Italian, and Dutch. Bodrogi was Vice-President of the Hungarian Ethnographic Association, and member of a number of other Hungarian and international professional associations including the Council of Folkart in Hungary, the Societ'e des Oceanistes, the Pacific Arts Association, and the Societe Internationale d'Ethnologie et de Folklore. Readers of the Newsletter are likely to remember him most fondly in his role as generous host. He consistently provided official support and personal kindness for the many of us who have visited Hungary. We thank him and we remember him.
Éva V. Huseby-Darvas
University of Michigan
Linda Bennett has accepted a new position. Beginning next Fall, she will be an Associate Professor at Memphis State University with the special charge of developing their Master of Arts Program in Medical Anthropology. Cestitamo!