Kitelepítéstől a migrációig: Az Irodalomtudományi Intézet kézikönyvei és az irodalomtörténeti kánon = From Displacement to Migration – The Handbooks of the Institute of Literary Studies and the Canon of Literary History

Bene, Sándor (2025) Kitelepítéstől a migrációig: Az Irodalomtudományi Intézet kézikönyvei és az irodalomtörténeti kánon = From Displacement to Migration – The Handbooks of the Institute of Literary Studies and the Canon of Literary History. LITERATURA, 51 (3). pp. 237-256. ISSN 0133-2368 (nyomtatott); 2786-1074 (online)

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Abstract

The study reviews the series of handbooks on Hungarian literary history written and edited in the Institute of Literary Studies (former Institute of Literary History). It concludes that the prerequisite for the success of collective works of this nature is the creation of a solid institutional background. In this case, the six-volume series entitled A magyar irodalom története (The History of Hungarian Literature), published between 1964 and 1966, was produced by full-time researchers at the Institute, which was founded in 1955 within the organizational framework of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences for this very purpose. The consolidation phase of Marxist ideology after 1956 enabled a number of methodological innovations. No author was excluded or “displaced” any more from national literary history because of ideological reasons. The creation of the comprehensive handbook was supported by well-organized and well-funded primary research-in-the-field for sources and comparative history of literary criticism as well. In recent decades, circumstances have not allowed for the successful repetition of this project, despite the absence of ideological control. Since the end of the 2010s, the Institute of Literary Studies has been separated from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and its institutional framework has changed twice since then; instead of migration of texts, authors and ideas, literary historians are invited to deal with their own migration between various institutions. The constant uncertainty about funding and the frequent changes in the institutional background are a real obstacle to a long-term collective literary history work.

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