A Hungarian-Canadian Renaissance

Hungarian studies in Canada have flourished throughout the decades. They received a substantial boost as a result of the influx of the post-World War II “Displaced Persons” and the 1956 refugees. Both of these immigration streams included a great many Hungarians with high educational achievements. In the meantime important political developments were taking place in Canada. The final report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1963-71) contained a volume on The Cultural Contribution of Other Ethnic Groups (1969). It recommended federal support for the maintenance of immigrant minority cultures in Canada. The suggestion was accepted by Ottawa. In 1972 a minister responsible for multiculturalism was appointed and the following year the Multicultural Directorate was established within the Department of the Secretary of State. In time, such multicultural policies were also adopted by several of Canada’s provinces.

 Encouraged by these developments, Hungarian-Canadian organizations redoubled efforts at cultural maintenance. Their perseverance led to the establishment of such cultural institutions as the Chair of Hungarian Studies at the University of Toronto, which was followed in time by the founding of the Hungarian Research Institute as an ancillary of the same university. The Hungarian-Canadian Authors’ Association (headquarted at the time in Ottawa) and the Hungarian Studies Association of Canada (Toronto) were other products of this period, as were a number of literary societies, choirs, folk-dance groups and stage organizations in cities such as Winnipeg, Vancouver, Hamilton, London, Montreal and elsewhere. Several literary and cultural magazines also started publication, including the Canadian-American Review of Hungarian Studies (now Hungarian Studies Review) (Kingston and Toronto), the Tárogató (Vancouver), the Szigeti Magyarság (Victoria), the Krónika and Tanú (Toronto), and the Magyar Népművészet Kanadában (Edmonton). The majority of these are still publishing today. According to our records, close to 200 newspapers, periodicals, cultural and denominational papers have been published in Canada from the beginning of the XXth century.

Hungarology has enjoyed wide interest among Anglophone and Francophone Canadian scholars and students. During several decades of research, I have come across dozens of university graduate thesis devoted to Hungary and Hungarians. The four volumes of my bibliography Canadian Studies on Hungarians (1987-1998) contain more than 2,500 references, and this figure does not include a large number of revelant essays and review articles published in newspapers and inhouse forums.

 Canada has been generous to its immigrant people. It has provided fertile soil for the cultural activities of immigrant Hungarians as well. The “Biography” section of my bibliography mentioned above contains about 60 biographical summaries, which is only a fraction of the Hungarian-Canadian university teachers, researchers in scientific and technical fields and the private sector who have made remarkable contributions to their professions. Furthermore, my book: Literature of Hungarian Canadians (Toronto, 1992) registers close to one hundred Hungarian-Canadian authors of books of poetry, fiction and drama, published in Hungarian, French or English during the last four decades. This number does not include the ones, and there are quite a few of them, who published their work only in newspapers, periodicals and anthologies. The Hungarian-Canadian Authors’ Association has published eleven anthologies since 1968. It sponsored the publication of several private collections of poetry and fiction, and organized literary events throughout Canada. Since its inception, the Hungarian Studies Association of Canada has participated in the annual conferences organized by the Canadian Learned Societies and published a series of monographs by its members.

 Although in recent years the Hungarian-Canadian community’s publishing output has not matched that of the 1970s and 1980s – owing to Canada’s economic adversities and the resultant decline in government support for and diminishing interest in matters ethnicity – it is hoped that the field of Hungarology will continue to survive and Hungarian Canadians, along with the other cultural minorities of Canada, will continue to find ways of preserving their identity.

John Miska

"Azt hiszem nem kell bemutatkoznom, hisz én vagyok az, aki állandóan nyúzom a népet, hogy szálljon be amivel illik. De őszintén megmondom: nagyon belefáradtam az örökös kunyerálásba. ...megint csak arra kérem magyar társaimat, fizessék be a...tagsági díjat." (Albucz Gusztáv: Pénztárosi felhívás; Mi Újság Nálunk, 1976. szeptember, 2. o.)