Ideologies of (and in) interpretations and Interpretive Communities

This project had a dual aim: first to survey the (scanty) literature on interpretive communities, and second to apply the concept in a specific context, i.e. in current Hungarian literature. Interpretive communities are closely linked to one of the most disputed issues of literary and theoretical discourse to date, namely canonicity. Not only is the body of the canon selected, presented and interpreted by a specific interpretive community (that of the professionals), but the production of theories themselves, including the theory of interpretive communities and of the canon, is part and parcel of professional interpreters' activity. Thus, while belonging to an interpretive community is a function of other interpretive communities, the entire conceptual system of interpretive communities is a function of a specific (professional) community. Literature in the period of political transition is characterised not only (and not necessarily) by the transitional nature of literary works or literary discourse, but rather by continuous debates about canon and interpretive communities, and here Kalman carried out a number of case studies of current discussions of this nature in Hungary.

Liberal Nationalism: A Historical and Critical Analysis of Conceptions

At the end of the 20th century we live in a pluralist world in which national and ethnic identities play an appreciable role, sometimes provoking serious conflicts. Nationalist values seem to pose a serious challenge to liberal ones, particularly in the post-communist countries. Malinova asked whether liberalism must necessarily be contrasted with nationalism. Although nationalist issues has never been a major concern for liberal thinkers, in many countries they have had to take such issues into consideration and a form of 'liberalism nationalism' has its place in the history of political ideas. Some of the thinkers who tried to develop such an idea were liberals in the strict sense of the word and others were not, but all of them tried to elaborate a concept of nationalism that respected the rights of individuals and precluded discrimination on ethnic grounds. Malinova studied the history of the conceptualisation of nations and nationalism in the writings, of J.S. Mill, J.E.E. Acton, G. Mazzini, V. Soloviev, B. Chicherin, P. Struve, P. Miljoukov and T.G. Masaryk. Although it cannot be said that these theories form a coherent tradition, certain common elements of the different approaches can be identified. Malinova analysed the way that liberal nationalists interpreted the phenomenon of the nation and its rights in different historical contexts, reviewed the structure of their arguments and tried to evaluate this theoretical experience from the perspective of the contemporary debate on the problems of liberal nationalism and multiculturalism and recent debates on 'the national idea' in Russia.