Indiana University Folklore Institute Hungarian-American Project records, 1915-1987

Administrative History

The Hungarian-American project was an international undertaking of the Indiana University Folklore Institute between 1981 and 1984 . Headed by IU folklorists Linda Dégh and Inta Carpenter , scholars from the United States and Hungary conducted ethnographic fieldwork to identify the uses of ethnicity among Hungarians in Hungary, Hungarian-Americans in the Calumet region of Indiana, and Hungarian-Americans in Chicago. The project led to the conference "Culture, Tradition, Ethnicity," hosted at Indiana University from March 26-28, 1984 and inspired a 1987 conference in Budapest. A special double issue of the Journal of Folklore Research printed many materials from the conference and was published later the same year.

Linda Dégh was a prominent folklorist who spent most of her professional life at the Folklore Institute. Born in Hungary, she came to Bloomington with the aid of Richard Dorson , founder of the Institute. According to her obituary on the American Folklore Society's website, her research specialty was "personal and communal identity projections of traditional rural and modern urban communities in Europe and North America. Through personal observation of creative processes in communicating folklore, traditional prose narratives in particular, taking into account historical and situational contexts of performance, she focused not on the text prototype, but on the unique, personal formulations of individuals generated by unpredictable given conditions."

Her work on the Hungarian-American project was mainly administrative. Bringing together professional contacts from both the United States and Europe, she laid the groundwork for this ambitious, multi-year project. With the help of Inta Carpenter, who at the time was the Folklore Institute's research associate, this project produced a number of notable presentations and publications. Of particular importance is the article "The Seven Strands of Tradition" by folklorist Dan Ben-Amos , a seminal monograph appearing in the 1984 issue of the Journal of Folklore Research that grew from this project.

At issue in the project were senses of communal character among Hungarians and Hungarian-Americans. Applying the notion of ethnicity as differential identity, researchers worked with informants to uncover the everyday folkloric forms that were imported from Hungary and framed in the U.S. as specialized articulations of cultural inheritance. This activity produced rich fieldwork materials, many of which are included in this collection, as well as a series of broader discussions in the field of folklore studies, such as the publication by Ben-Amos, mentioned above, and others.

The research interest in these materials lies in the recounting of Hungarian-American ethnic identity in the latter decades of the twentieth century, especially as this is articulated by members of that group. A number of ethnographic ephemera, including church yearbooks and pamphlets, are very useful in this regard. These materials recount the successes and trials of Hungarian-Americans--often pertaining to their social life, as it was framed by shared religious practice--in their own words. Some of these materials, such as the death of a beloved minister, communal concerns about the dwindling importance of ethnic heritage among generations descended from immigrants, or the efforts of a church group to beautify its worship space--are less likely to be found in broader historical surveys. Yet they add to (or perhaps center) such broader works by providing clear articulations of the memories, activities, and aspirations of the small group.