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INTRODUCTION
PHILTHER AS A HISTORIOGRAPHIC MODEL
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This book focuses on theatre productions in times of state socialism in
Hungary according to the protocol of Philther, which is both a method of
writing theatre history and a website. These two, however, are interlinked.
Both were developed at the Department of Theatre Studies of Karoli Gaspar
University, Budapest by Magdolna Jakfalvi, Arpad Kékesi Kun and Gabriella
Kiss between 2010 and 2014 in a project financed by the Hungarian Scientific
Research Fund (OTKA).
The acronym ‘Philther’ comes from two words, ‘philology’ and ‘theatre’,
referring to the subject of the research as well as to its nature, basic and
applied research alike. The project behind it aims at exploring the recent
decades of Hungarian theatre history and presenting them by means of digital
culture. Almost two centuries of Hungarian theatre history (from the end of
the 18" to the middle of the 20" century) have already been well researched
and the results are available in three separate handbooks with more than
3,000 pages altogether. If we look at them from the periodization of Theatre
Histories, edited by Gary Jay Williams, first published in 2006 and based on the
assumption that “theatre and performance [are] complex kinds of communal
reflection and communication”, determined both culturally and historically,
these three companions discuss Hungarian theatre in the era of print culture
and, in part, in modern media culture.* However, Hungarian theatre in the
era of globalization and virtual communication, dating from 1950, has not
been the subject of a similarly comprehensive examination yet. Philther
tries to fill this gap, adapted to the most influential medium and mode of
communication of the period under examination, as far as the representation
of results is concerned. Leaving the two-dimensional pages of handbooks and
taking advantage of the possibilities of the world wide web, the dynamics
of photographs, motion pictures and textual references, Philther captures
! Ferenc Kerényi (ed.): Magyar szinhäztörtenet 1790-1873, Budapest, Akadémiai, 1990;
György Székely — Tamäs Gajdö (eds.): Magyar szinhaztörtenet 1873-1920, Budapest, Magyar
Könyvklub - OSZMI, 2001; Tamäs Becsy — György Székely — Tamás Gajdö (eds.): Magyar
szinhäztôrténet 1920-1949, Budapest, Magyar Kônyvklub, 2005.
2 Gary Jay Williams (ed.): Theatre Histories. An Introduction, London — New York, Routledge,
2006, xxvii.