Voyage To Kazohinia

A page-turning dystopian classic that stands alongside Brave New World and Gulliver's Travels. Voyage to Kazohinia is a tour de force of twentieth-century literature--and it is here published in English for the first time outside of Hungary. Sándor Szathmári's comical novel chronicles the travels of a modern Gulliver on the eve of World War II. A shipwrecked English ship's surgeon finds himself on an unknown island whose inhabitants, the Hins, live a technologically advanced existence without emotions, desires, arts, money, or politics. Soon unhappy amid this bleak perfection, Gulliver asks to be admitted to the closed settlement of the Behins, beings with souls and atavistic human traits. He has seen nothing yet. A massively entertaining mix of satire and science fiction, Voyage to Kazohinia has seen half a dozen editions in Hungary in the seventy years since its original publication and remains the country's most popular cult classic. From the Trade Paperback edition.

This satirical science-fiction story is a sequel to Sándor Szathmári's novel, Voyage to Kazohinia, which is itself a follow-on from Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. After returning to Great Britain following his visit to Kazohinia in 1935, Lemuel Gulliver returns in 1940 on a secret military mission to get help in winning the war against the Huns from the scientifically and technologically advanced Hins. However, unknown to him at the time, Gulliver has also travelled 70-odd years into the future and arrived in Grand Boetonia (GB): what readers will recognize as a satirized depiction of modern Britain where a new language, purged of everything objectionable to anyone is enforced. Falling foul of this, Gulliver is compulsorily hospitalized, but finds that being psychotic oneself is the key qualification to becoming a successful psychiatrist in GB where things happen which could never happen anywhere else and seem to be the exact opposite of everything he knew at home...

The 500th anniversary of Thomas More’s Utopia has directed attention toward the importance of utopianism. This book investigates the possibilities of cooperation between the humanities and the social sciences in the analysis of 20th century and contemporary utopian phenomena. The papers deal with major problems of interpreting utopias, the relationship of utopia and ideology, and the highly problematic issue as to whether utopia necessarily leads to dystopia. Besides reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of contemporary utopian investigations, the eleven essays effectively represent the constructive attitudes of utopian thought, a feature that not only defines late 20th- and 21st-century utopianism, but is one of the primary reasons behind the rising importance of the topic. The volume’s originality and value lies not only in the innovative theoretical approaches proposed, but also in the practical application of the concept of utopia to a variety of phenomena which have been neglected in the utopian studies paradigm, especially to the rarely discussed Central European texts and ideologies.

Intellectual Horizons offers a pioneering, transnational and comparative treatment of key thematic areas in the intellectual and cultural history of Central and Eastern Europe in the twentieth century. For most of the twentieth century, Central and Eastern European ideas and cultures constituted an integral part of wider European trends. However, the intellectual and cultural history of this diverse region has rarely been incorporated sufficiently into nominally comprehensive histories of Europe. This volume redresses this underrepresentation and provides a more balanced perspective on the recent past of the continent through original, critical overviews of themes ranging from the social and conceptual history of intellectuals and histories of political thought and historiography, to literary, visual and religious cultures, to perceptions and representations of the region in the twentieth century. While structured thematically, individual contributions are organized chronologically. They emphasize, where relevant, generational experiences, agendas and accomplishments, while taking into account the sharp ruptures that characterize the period. The third in a four-volume set on Central and Eastern Europe in the twentieth century, it is the go-to resource for understanding the intellectual and cultural history of this dynamic region.

The definitive guide to Swift's controversial satirical masterpiece, Gulliver's Travels, demonstrating its complexity and enduring legacy.

This book focuses on the most important utopian and dystopian literary texts in nineteenth and twentieth-century Hungarian literature, and therefore widens the scope of the traditionally Anglophone canon. Utopian studies is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary, and this research integrates literary hermeneutics with ideas and methods from political science and the history of ideas. In doing so, it argues that Hungarian utopianism was influenced by the region’s (and Hungarian culture’s) position of permanent liminality between Western and Eastern European patterns of power structures, social and political order. After a thorough methodological introduction, some early modern texts written in Hungary are discussed, while the detailed analyses focus on nineteenth-century texts, written by Bessenyei, Madách, and Jókai, whereas the twentieth century is represented by Karinthy, Babits and Szathmári. In the interpretations the results of contemporary scholarship is applied, particularly the works of Lyman Tower Sargent, Gregory Claeys and Fátima Vieira.

The volume Across Borders and Time: Jonathan Swift contains the papers delivered at the conference The World of Swift; Swift and his World, which was dedicated to the 350th anniversary of the birth of Jonathan Swift. The conference was held on 24-25 November 2017, at the House of Arts and Literature, Pécs, and jointly organised by the Institute of English Studies of Pécs University and SPECHEL, the latter of which is also the publisher of this volume in its series, SPECHEL e-ditions. It also benefited from the support provided by the Irish Embassy in Budapest. That year also marked the 650th anniversary of Hungary’s first university, founded in Pécs in 1367, and so the conference honoured that event, too. In this, the fifth SPECHEL e-dition, series editor Rouse joins up once again with SPECHEL member Gabriella Hartvig, an internationally respected scholar of the period and colleague at Pécs University, together with Irish Swiftian scholar David Clare. The volume comprises a selection of essays emanating from papers delivered at the conference celebrating the 350th anniversary of the Anglo-Irish writer Jonathan Swift, held in the anniversary year of 2017, and includes a paper delivered by the Irish Ambassador to Hungary that opened the conference. We are grateful to the Irish Embassy for their financial support, as well as to a number of local businesses and the Mayor’s Office of Pécs. The conference was organised by SPECHEL as part of the British and Irish Autumn 2017 series of events, and included a recital of the music of the Irish harper Turlough O’Carolan (1670-1738).