Скачать или смотреть Maya Lo Bello: Industrialization, Capitalism and Advertising in Hungary’s High Modern Journal Nyugat

Conference presentation at the 9th ESPRit conference on "Periodical Formats in the Market" (June 2021)

Abstract: Industrialization, Capitalism and Advertising in Hungary’s High Modern Journal Nyugat

Within the history of modern Hungarian literature, the journal Nyugat was the flagship of modernist literary movements from 1908 to 1941. Mainly perceived as a periodical dedicated to preserving its own l’art pour l’art brand of aestheticism during the period before World War I, my analysis examines Nyugat’s ties to the industrial lobby group, the Hungarian National Industrialists’ Association [GyOSz], through the connections of one of its editors, Miksa Fenyő (1877-1972). First the secretary, then the managing director of GyOSz, Fenyő’s connection to Hungary’s economic elite has largely remained unexplored in Hungarian literary history. By examining the advertisements and notices found in Nyugat, the GyOSz-issued periodical also edited by Fenyő, Magyar Gyáripar [Hungarian Factory Industry], and a few other prominent periodicals from the period, I interpret these textual traces as a type of marginalia that appear inconsequential, yet still allow a periodical to shift, alter and change its profile quickly enough to adapt to the tumultuous historical and socio-economic pressures that characterized the last two decades of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. By reimagining this form of marginalia as a »bookend« that subsequently positions a periodical within a socio-economic context, I draw upon Anthony Giddens’ theory of disembeddedness, Raymond Williams’ concept of cultural formations and Jerrold Spiegel’s description of a network of means to demonstrate how Nyugat’s editors maintained a fine balance between capitalism and high culture in order to attain artistic autonomy.

Dr. Maya J. Lo Bello is Adjunct Professor at ELTE TÓK’s Department of Foreign Languages and Literature.

Presented at the 9th International ESPRit Conference on "Periodical Formats in the Market", organised by the DFG FOR 2288 Journal Literature at Ruhr University Bochum, 14-17 June 2021.

Website of the European Society for Periodical Research: https://www.espr-it.eu/

Conference website: https://esprit2021.blogs.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/

Publication of selected conference papers: Ramtke, N., Husić, M. & Bachmann, C. A., (2023) “Periodical Formats in the Market: Economies of Space and Time, Competition and Transfer”, Journal of European Periodical Studies 7(2), 1–7. doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/jeps.85752

Nora Ramtke & Christian A. Bachmann (eds.) (2024): A Mixed Picture: Media Transfer and Media Competition in Illustrated Periodicals, 1840s-1960s DOI: https://doi.org/10.46586/rub.292