Keyword – oral culture

Sükösd, Miklós:

The technologising of the word and the realms of memory: From local oral traditions to printed national history

The influential Hungarian non-fiction writer Károly Eötvös (also a liberal politician and lawyer; 1842–1916) chose an interesting position as an author: he deliberately addressed future generations. In his major, widely read work A Journey around Lake Balaton (1900, 1909) he collected the oral traditions, true stories and family histories around the lake and sent them to the future as messages in a bottle. His work may be considered an early form of literary journalism and ethnography, and his book may also be seen as an encyclopedia of patriotism that features positive patriotic examples. As a liberal patriot, Eötvös wanted to contribute to the development of a modern, democratic Hungarian national identity that wished to integrate national minorities within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His Balaton book invites three interpretive frameworks: Ong’s medium theory contrasting oral and written cultures, Benedict Anderson’s analysis of the co-emergence of nationalism and mass printing, and French historian Pierre Nora’s notion of the sites of memory

Keywords: Balaton, cultural memory, genius loci, liberalism, lieu de mémoire (site of memory), oral culture, print-capitalism, national identity, patriotism, written culture