arts & humanities

摘要

Eighteen scholarly essays, organized by editors Sasvari (Kassak Museum, Budapest), Sandor Hornyik (Hungarian Academy of Sciences), and Hedvig Turai (International Business Sch., Budapest), consider artists in Hungary during the decades following the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. This period was characterized by state policy threading a course between Western liberalism and submission to Soviet dominance, which resulted in conflicts for creators who struggled to work outside of government-controlled arts institutions. Investigating the internal tensions among the artists, the pro-Soviet Kadar government (1956-88), and the gen- eral public, these pieces examine the influence of Western European postwar avant-garde trends on Hungarian artists and the political pressures imposed by the Kadar regime, raising the question of whether avant-garde art can exist autonomously and independent of government influence. Artist biographies and quality color illustrations amplify the texts. VERDICT Recommended for scholars seeking to understand Hungarian dynamics of the era, beyond the focus on the greater East/West conflict.