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ESZTER TARJÁNYI
By the turn of the 19" and 20" centuries, however, the two terms had
become separated. Béla Tóth, who compiled the most significant collection
of Hungarian anecdotes (virtually factual anecdotes) in six volumes (The
Hungarian Treasury of Anecdotes, 1898-1903), clearly interpreted the
anecdote as a narrative with a historical viewpoint, rooted in a real element
of an event, with well-known historical figures living in the cultural memory
of the nation, who do not need to be introduced. Béla Toth made distinctions
regarding types of anecdote, although he did not use use the word adoma. In
his preface he mentions two varieties of anecdote to distinguish between. One
type “always adheres to a person, so in a way it can be considered authentic.”
The other, which he himself ignored, was later given the name adoma and,
as he explained, “it is bodiless for it is only about types”.!! As a result of this
distinction, the historical character of the anecdote became more substantial
from the middle of the 19 century. By the turn of the 20" century the meaning
of the Hungarian anecdote had been reduced to a narrative with a historical
atmosphere and a concrete person or persons. The plot does not necessarily
have to be real, but rather a form of storytelling that seems authentic, with
specific references, reflecting national history in the cultural memory of the
nation and thus creating a historical atmosphere. This procedure refers to
historical heritage as mythical, a correlation elaborated by Jan Assmann. The
authenticity of the anecdote and its perception of the past draw a parallel
with Assmann’s theory about the two variations of collective memory, namely
communicative and cultural memories, being intertwined. So what we have is
something that is informal and formed, personal and symbolic, contemporary
and national at the same time, arousing a sense of national identity, in which
it is the memorable and not real history that matters.”
11
Béla Tóth (ed.): A magyar anekdotakincs I. (The Hungarian Treasury of Anecdotes),
Budapest, 1898, 6.
Jan Assmann: Communicative and Cultural Memor, in Astrid Erll — Ansgar Niinning
(eds.) in collaboration with Sara B. Young: Cultural Memory Studies: An International and
Interdisciplinary Handbook, (Medien und Kulturelle Erinnerung 8/Media and Cultural
Memory 8), Berlin/New York, de Guytrer, 2008, 113. http:archiv.ub.uniheidelberg.de/
propylaeumdok/1774/1/Assmann Communicative and cultural memory 2008.pdf (Accessed
2 February 2017).
The cultural memory is based on fixed points in the past. Even in the cultural memory, the
past is not preserved as such but is cast in symbols as they are represented in oral myths or
in writings, performed in feasts, and they are continually illuminating a changing present.
In the context of cultural memory, the distinction between myth and history vanishes. Not
the past as such, as it is investigated and recontsructed by archeologists and historians,
counts for the cultural memory, but only the past as it is remembered. Here, in the context
of cultural memory, it is the temporal horizon of cultural memory which is important.
Cultural memory reaches back into the past only so far as the past can be reclaimed as
“ours”. This is why we refer to this form of historical consciousness as “memory” and not
just as knowledge about the past. Knowledge about the past acquires the properties and
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