Seite 20 [20]
OCR
Introduction The figure of Mate Latvija is thus placed next to other female representations of nations, but her characteristic Latvian features are also emphasized. The third chapter, entitled Reinterpreting Eastern Pasts for Show, studies a particular aspect of modernity which involved the show of cultural differences in largescale exhibitions, their cultural-political contexts and their varying impact on their audiences. Miklös Székely’s “From Figure to Pattern: The Changing Role of Folk Tradition in Hungarian Representations at Universal Exhibitions (1867—1911)” surveys the practices of putting Hungarian national and rural tradition on show. The author analyzes the role of universal exhibitions as a new phenomenon in the secularized and industrialized society in the late nineteenth century, together with their new form of architecture like “light structured pavilions.” Referring to Bjarne Stoklund, Székely suggests that the organizers of the national sections of such exhibitions again and again had to answer the challenge of acquiring “commercial and cultural advantages for their country by creating an original and distinctive image of the country.” Such efforts of country-branding often appeared, as Székely stresses, in the form of the show of historical traditions, especially peasant culture considered to be a “primary national symbol” of the exhibiting countries. The author tells us how the interest in (a rather Romanticized) peasant culture appeared at the first universal exhibitions (1851—1860s), and how a historicizing national self-representation reached its peak at the so-called Millennium Exhibition of 1896 in Budapest, aiming to celebrate the conquest of the lands and the foundation of the Christian kingdom of Hungary in the early Middle Ages. This festivity, having a very Hungarian national aspect, offended many of the different ethnic groups living in the territory of the country. The aim of such universal exhibitions was to enhance foreign appreciation for Hungary as a legally equal partner of Austria within the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Székely’s study estimates the results as well as the limits of those efforts. Miloslav Szabé’s “Invasion of ‘Judeo-Magyars’? The Hungarian Millennium of 1896 in the Anti-Semitic Caricature” examines the Hungarian millennium celebrations of 1896 from a different angle. His analysis focuses on the celebrations by which the Hungarian establishment hoped to impress other European countries, but which also turned out to be an opportunity for the Hungarian and Austrian Catholic and Christian socialist propagandists who distorted as “Jewish” the recent liberal legislation on civil marriage and the equality of Judaism with other denominations. Founding its analysis largely on the concepts of W. J. Thomas Mitchell and the so-called pictorial turn, Szabé shows us how the opposition press in Hungary and Vienna launched an anti-Jewish campaign against the millennium celebrations that was largely based on images. Anti-Semitic political caricature is taken for analysis from anti-liberal Hungarian, Slovak, and Austrian satirical magazines like Herké Pater, Cernoknaznik, and Kikeriki!, published around the time of the millennium celebrations. Szabé investigates why political caricature is particularly suited to projecting collective identities and their alleged “Others,” and pinpoints how closely images interact with language, processes of visualization,
