Holokausztirodalom Magyarországon. Módszertani megjegyzések egy magyar holokausztirodalom-történethez
Holocaust Literature in Hungary. Methodological Comments for a History of Hungarian Holocaust Literat

Summary/Abstract: The paper discusses the methodological challenges of the historical study of Hungarian Holocaust literature. It mainly examines the specific methodological questions that arise when we want to historically analyze a text corpus the interpretation of which is greatly determined by a major discourse, which only emerged relatively late. As, from the 1970s, certain preconceptions as well as aesthetic and ethical norms were crystallized around the Holocaust, the entirety of which we may call Holocaust discourse. In Hungary, all this happened later, and it mostly got linked to the reception of Imre Kertész in the study of Hungarian literary developments, thus the harsh interpretation and description of the Holocaust that appears in his works influenced the reading of previous works as well. In my paper, through a case study, the examination of the reception of works published immediately after 1945, I argue in favor of the necessity of contextual analysis. At the time, these works belonged to an independent genre category within the field of literature called “experience literature”. By describing the debates about the concept of experience literature as well as the ideological and aesthetic discussions I make an attempt to explore how the discourses surrounding the contemporary descriptions of sufferings in World War II worked.

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