Recent publications of NSZL

National Széchényi Library recently published, jointly with Móra Publishing House, an interesting book presenting the oeuvre of puppet designer Vera Bródy, a book and DVD on the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, released as a special issue of BBC History jointly with Kossuth Publishing House and edited by János Rainer M., and a volume of studies entitled Propaganda – politika, hétköznapi és magas kultúra, művészet és média a Nagy Háborúban (Propaganda – Politics, Everyday and High Culture, Art and Media in the Great War). The books are also available at the Book Shop of the Library.

[1]1. A bábtervező mesél (The Puppet Designer Tells Tales)
By Vera Bródy
Edited by Olga Somorjai
NSZL–Móra Publishing House, Budapest, 2016
240 pages
ISBN 978 963 200 659 8
Price: HUF 4,999

Recently, a colorful book was published in cooperation of Móra Publishing House and National Széchényi Library, the Theater Collection of which has been keeping the unmatched designs of Vera Bródy. The volume contains almost 400 puppet and scenery designs, and it presents the entire oeuvre of Vera Bródy, Mihály Munkácsy and Mari Jászai Award-winning puppet artist and puppet, scenery and costume designer.
The artist’s oeuvre covers a period in the history of the State Puppet Theater of Hungary (later called as Budapest Puppet Theater) lasting from 1952 until the millennium. This exciting period is shown through the artist’s own, subjective specs, and her memoirs tell us, with phrases of live speech, about the history of the puppet theater, periods of Bródy’s designer oeuvre, her moving to France, where her career as a designer was made more complete by teaching, directing and book making. The memoir of Vera Bródy is a unique age document, evoking the life of the puppet theater, including both success and failure. Her writing reflects the artist’s attachment to Hungarian culture as well as her deep attraction to French culture.
The book gives a chronological account of Vera Bródy’s designs, major puppet historical presentations and the artist’s favorite designs, being in the focus of her memoir as well. Vera Bródy’s designs are not only charming and beautiful, but her figures also suggest humor and irony. We can follow up the puppet designer’s career from her first known independent design, Misi Mókus kalandjai (The Adventures of Mishi the Squirrel), via numerous major designs including A fából faragott királyfi (The Wooden Prince), to the peak of her career hallmarked by Tűzmadár (Firebird). The book presents sketches and versions, which have not been presented before, and readers can get acquainted with Vera Bródy’s television designs and her works published in France.
The book is made complete by Péter Molnár Gál’s introductory lines, the recollection of István Láng and by Dezső Szilágyi’s speech delivered at the oeuvre exhibition of Budapest Puppet Theater in 1996.

[2]2. A magyar október (The Hungarian October)
Special issue of BBC History
Edited by János Rainer M.
Photos selected by Réka Sárközy and Judit Topits
NSZL – Kossuth Publishing House, Budapest, 2016
144 pages + DVD supplement
ISSN 2062-5200
ISBN 978 963 098 641 0
Price: HUF 1,990

“The revolution made history even in its own time” – it is written in the preface of the book. October 23, 1956 will remain in the memory of people and nations forever. It was a day of courage, consciousness and victory. Since the beginning of history, there has not been a day that would show better man’s infinite longing for freedom, let the chance of success be rather small, or the sacrifice demanded all too big – said President Kennedy during the days of the revolution, at the UN debate of the issue of Hungary.
For over thirty years, the image of a falsified revolution has been living in most of the historical adaptations and in the history view of people. Luckily, this view has changed a lot during the past three decades, due to the growing number of facts, the formation of the spirit of age and a more subtle approach to the issue.
As a result of the cooperation of NSZL and Kossuth Publishing House, a book with a DVD supplement edited by János Rainer M., Head of NSZL’s 1956 Institute was published. The publication focuses on the preliminaries, course and aftermath of what happened sixty years ago. It takes us to places where all those things had happened and gives a portrait of well-known and anonymous main characters, taking into account versions of revolutionary action. The frame of onetime world politics is put behind the tableau of revolutionary Hungary. The book evokes images of Budapest and the countryside of 1956, even in the proper sense of the word, via more than 100 period photos made by famous cameramen and anonymous witnesses. With the exception of a British diplomat of the time, authors of the writings are our historian colleagues, the majority of whom did not focus on the evaluation of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Instead, they made an attempt to collect a resource of knowledge, on the basis of which the nation can regard the Hungarian October as its own.

[3]3. Propaganda – politika, hétköznapi és magas kultúra, művészet és média a Nagy Háborúban (Propaganda – Politics, Everyday and High Culture, Art and Media in the Great War)
Edited by Iván Bertényi, Jr., László Boka and Anikó Katona
NSZL, Budapest, 2016
542 pages
ISBN 978 963 200 660 4
Price: HUF 4,500

In January 2016, National Széchényi Library held a two-day interdisciplinary conference in the framework of a project aimed at studying, via various disciplines, hinterland propaganda during World War I, its changes over time as well as its forms and tendencies. Primarily with the help of a great exhibition opened in the Library in autumn 2015, and also with the help of other events and publications, NSZL has aimed at putting this rather complex theme in the focus of attention since the centennial year of the Great War. In order to discuss issues raised by the successful exhibition with representatives of the targeted professional fields, National Széchényi Library organized a scientific conference, the edited and selected studies of which are included in this book. Our publication wishes to connect the results of various disciplines including history, history of the press, history of literature and art history, and to study the form versions of hinterland propaganda in fields such as politics, press, literature or visual culture in approximately thirty essays.

Contents:

GÁSPÁR GRÓH: Once upon a time there was a war

PROPAGANDA AND ITS FORM VERSIONS
IGNÁC ROMSICS: World War I – from the perspective of 100 years
LÁSZLÓ Z. KARVALICS: The Great War and propaganda
ROMAN HOLEC: Austria–Hungary as “killer of small nations”
FERENC POLLMANN: Atrocity propaganda and the Austro-Hungarian-Serb war
TAMÁS SZÉKELY: Cult of allied rulers in Hungary during World War I
EMESE SZOLECZKY: “Happy, peaceful infantry entrenchment?”
NORBERT STENCINGER: “We turn to you with confidence and hope”
ESZTER BALÁZS: Self-mobilization of the Hungarian society at the beginning of World War I
SZILVIA ZÁVODI: War propaganda on everyday objects
RÓBERT TÖRÖK: “Weighing lasts only till the stock lasts”– food and colonial traders in World War
VILMOS KOVÁCS: Hungarian military industry in the Austro-Hungarian Empire

PRESS AND CONTROL OF THE PRESS
GÉZA BUZINKAY: Press and/or propaganda during World War I
DÁNIEL SZABÓ: Hungarian press at the outbreak of the war
VINCE PAÁL: Control of the press in Hungary during the years of the Great War
TIBOR BALLA: Organization and operation of the Austro-Hungarian Press Headquarters in World War I
TIBOR KLESTENITZ: Judgment of the Great War in the Hungarian press BOLDIZSÁR VÖRÖS: Spaces, masses, films

LITERATURE AND WAR
MIKLÓS VERES: Wars of the next century
ANDREA BORBÁS: But poems are being written
LÁSZLÓ BOKA: “Songs from the great times?”
BEATRIX VISY: Poem as anti-propaganda
ZSUZSANNA RÓZSAFALVI: Works and genres on war by Tamás Emőd on the Modern Stage
ANNA CSÉVE: “…if there is war, why isn’t there a war?”
ZSÓFIA SZILÁGYI: “What happened to him had no sign and word”

ART AND VISUAL CULTURE
GYÖRGY SZÜCS: Cafe, studio and entrenchment, or the adventures of Sergeant Herman in World War I
JENŐ MURÁDIN: Transylvanian artists on the front of World War I
IVÁN BERTÉNYI, JR.: Nailing statues
ANIKÓ KATONA: War poster: effective weapon or patriotic kitsch?
BOTOND GERGŐ SAMU: Chained colonies, fighting dogs, Holy War and the steel ring of The Entente

The books are available at the Book Shop of National Széchényi Library, or they can be ordered from our Office of New Publications at the following contact: Tímea Budai-Király, Office of New Publications of NSZL’s Directorate of Research and Academic Affairs, National Széchényi Library; Wing “F” of Buda Royal Palace, H-1827 Budapest; Tel.: +361 224 3878, Fax: + 361 202 0804, email: kiadvanytar@oszk.hu.