![handle is hein.journals/ajur53 and id is 1 raw text is:
1216-2574/USD 20.00 ACTA JURIDICA HuNGARICA
( 2012Akadmfiai Kiado, Budapest 53, No 1, pp. 1-6 (2012)
DOI: 10.15561AJur53.2012.1.1
ISTVAN H. SZILAGYI*
Law and Literature in Hungary - An Introduction
Abstract. I'his paper aims to give a concise review of contemporary Hungarian researches carried out in the field
of law and literature. It evokes the preliminaries fom previous century's in Hungarian legal philosophy, and it
discusses the recent achievements by taking a closer look on the results of three subsequent symposia organized in
2006, 2008 and the previous year. In conclusion, the paper outlines the possible directions for further development
of certain aspects of legal education and the critical potential of law and literature studies.
Keywords: law and literature, Hungarian jurisprudence, legal education
The recent development of law and literature studies, as occurred in the past decade, is
not without antecedents in Hungarian legal thinking-as it is not either in the American' or
in the other European national jurisprudences.2 Hungarian legal philosophy was flourishing
during the early 20th century due to the ocuvre of such internationally renowned scholars as
Felix Soml6 or Julius Mo6r. In this period, Barna Horvith's work,3 Der Rechtsstreit des
Genius, published in 1942, became a groundbreaking piece in the Hungarian study of law
and literature.'
The theme of law and literature as a research subject reappeared on the horizon of
the Hungarian legal thinking nearly a half century later, in the middle of the 1990's. During
these years Hungarian legal scholars were beginning to look for new impulses following
the enforced hegemony of the socialist legal science. As a first sign of interest a
* Associate professor, Faculty of Law, Pazmany Peter Catholic University, H-1088 Budapest,
Szentkirdilyi u. 28-30.
E-mail: kopi(djak.ppke.hu
I About the origins and the returns of law and literature in the history of American
jurisprudence see Ferguson, R.: Law and Letters in American Culture. Cambridge (Mass)-London,
1984; Duxbury, N.: Patterns ofAmerican Jurisprudence. Oxford, 1995; Weisberg, R.: Coming of Age
Some More: Law and Literature Beyond The Craddle. Nova Law Review, 13 (1988), 107-124;
Smith, J. A.: The Coning Renaissance in Law and Literature. Journal ofLegal Education, 30 (1979),
13-26.
2 For a survey tracing law and literature in the European national jurisprudences see Varga,
Cs.: Literature? A Substitute for Legal Philosophy? [2007]. In: Varga, Cs.: Contemporary Legal
Philosophizing. Budapest, 2011 [forthcoming].
3 For a concise curriculum vitae of Barna Horvath see Varga, Cs.: Barna Horvath. In: Horvath,
B.: The Bases of Law/A jog alapjai, Budapest, 2006. xvii-xviii.
4 Horvath, B.: Der Rechtsstreit des Genius: I. Sokrates; II. Johanna: a) Der Tatbestand, b) Das
Verfahren. Zeitschrift fir offentliches Recht, 22 (1942) 1, 126-162; 2-3, 295-342; 4-5, 395-460.
Cf. H. Szilagyi, .: Bama Horvith's Genius. In: Cserne, P. H. Szilagyi, I.-Kdnczdl, M.-Paksy,
M.-Takacs, P.-Tattay, Sz. (eds): Theatrum Legale Mundi. Svmbola Cs. TVarga oblata. Budapest, 2007.
189-202.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/ajur53&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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