People in Spite of History
Stories Found in an Attorney Archive in the Banat Region
Published on 20. January 2021
Book
Hardback
342 pages
978-963-386-407-4 (ISBN)
Description
Three generations of a family of lawyers have run a firm founded in 1893 in the small city of Becskerek (today in Serbian Zrenjanin), first part of the Austro-Hungarian Habsburg monarchy, then Hungary, then Yugoslavia, then for a while under German occupation, then again part of Yugoslavia and finally Serbia. In the Banat district of the province of Vojvodina, the multiplicity of languages and religions and changes of place-names was a matter of course.
What is practically unprecedented, all files, folders and documents of the law office have survived. They concern marriages, divorces, births and testaments, as well as expulsions, emigrations, incarcerations and releases of these largely rural and small-town dwellers. Mundane cases reflect times through war, peace, revolution and counter-revolution, through serfdom and freedom, through comfort and poverty. The files also show everyday lives shaped in spite of history. Tibor Varady transforms them into affecting and vivid vignettes, selecting and commenting without sentimentality but with empathy. The law office of the three generations of the Varady family demonstrates that the legal profession permits and in difficult times even requires its members to defend the ordinary men and women against the powers of state and society.
What is practically unprecedented, all files, folders and documents of the law office have survived. They concern marriages, divorces, births and testaments, as well as expulsions, emigrations, incarcerations and releases of these largely rural and small-town dwellers. Mundane cases reflect times through war, peace, revolution and counter-revolution, through serfdom and freedom, through comfort and poverty. The files also show everyday lives shaped in spite of history. Tibor Varady transforms them into affecting and vivid vignettes, selecting and commenting without sentimentality but with empathy. The law office of the three generations of the Varady family demonstrates that the legal profession permits and in difficult times even requires its members to defend the ordinary men and women against the powers of state and society.
Reviews / Votes
"Varady earlier published accounts of some of these case files, first in Hungarian in 2013, then in Serbian in 2015, and then in German in 2016. Anglophones are fortunate now to have access. For a social historian, interest lies in what the cases reveal about the life of a multi-ethnic community living through difficult times. A lawyer reading the book will wonder how s/he would have dealt with the situations that confronted the Varady law firm. An introduction by Professor Richard Buxbaum, former editor of the American Journal of Comparative Law, notes the book's broader importance. It could well serve as a model for writers on law and social history, even those who do not have elders who practiced law through two world wars and one social revolution." -- John Quigley * Law and History Review * "The book reveals new sides of institutions and regimes, a pragmatic side to German officials' legal decision-making that sometimes conflicted with their racial agendas and a complexity to communist revolutionary policies as lived experience. The result is a book in which we, as readers, feel as though we are accompanying the author to his attic, unpacking boxes, and making sense of the people whose lives comprised this tumultuous and devastating moment in the region's history."https://doi.org/10.1017/slr.2023.29 -- Emily Greble * Slavic Review *
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
Hungary
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Academic
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
647 gr
ISBN-13
978-963-386-407-4 (9789633864074)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
03/2022
Central European University Press
€71.50
Available (delivery time upon request)
E-Book
01/2021
Central European University Press
€80.49
Available for download
Persons
Tibor Varady is professor emeritus at Emory University, and professor emeritus at the Central European University. Parallel with his scholarly work, he published prose works and essays in several languages including fourteen literary books.
Content
Foreword
Richard Buxbaum
What is This Book about?
I. On the Relevance of History: Maria Ormos v. Mathias Albrecht
II. Three Becskerek Stories: Featuring Local Jews and Germans in the Leading Roles
An Anacrusis
1. The Eckstein Case
2. Socks on the Chandelier, Lives by a Thread
3. The Freund/Barath Document
III. Hungarian Stories of Banat: People and Formulae
1. An Early Attempt to Topple the Soviet Power in Hungary
2. The Case of Istvan Bakai with Various Armies
3. Is There a Window to Shoot From?
IV. A Story from the Border of Banat: From Goose-down Business and Border Trespassing to Concentration Camp
V. Divorces, Near Divorces, and Sham Divorces
1. A Near Divorce
2. Divorces and Sham Divorces in the Wake of World War Two
3. A Husband Who Very Seldom Visits Pubs and Only in the People's Interest
VI. Legends Checked in Legal Files
1. The Messinger
2. Dueling in Becskerek
VII. The Development of the Economic Situation: Lawsuits in the Years of the First Five-Year Plan
Some Perspective in Introduction
1. Corn or Corn Flour
2. Even if the Money is Made Available, I Cannot Transfer It
3. Cooperative Denial
4. A Calf-Killing Against the People's Interests
5. Mafia-type Activity in the Years of the First Five-Year Plan
VIII. Exploiting Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Disputes between Neighbors and Churches
1. Fascism for Household Use in Becskerek
2. A Cynical Anti-People Smile (From Behind the Window)
Richard Buxbaum
What is This Book about?
I. On the Relevance of History: Maria Ormos v. Mathias Albrecht
II. Three Becskerek Stories: Featuring Local Jews and Germans in the Leading Roles
An Anacrusis
1. The Eckstein Case
2. Socks on the Chandelier, Lives by a Thread
3. The Freund/Barath Document
III. Hungarian Stories of Banat: People and Formulae
1. An Early Attempt to Topple the Soviet Power in Hungary
2. The Case of Istvan Bakai with Various Armies
3. Is There a Window to Shoot From?
IV. A Story from the Border of Banat: From Goose-down Business and Border Trespassing to Concentration Camp
V. Divorces, Near Divorces, and Sham Divorces
1. A Near Divorce
2. Divorces and Sham Divorces in the Wake of World War Two
3. A Husband Who Very Seldom Visits Pubs and Only in the People's Interest
VI. Legends Checked in Legal Files
1. The Messinger
2. Dueling in Becskerek
VII. The Development of the Economic Situation: Lawsuits in the Years of the First Five-Year Plan
Some Perspective in Introduction
1. Corn or Corn Flour
2. Even if the Money is Made Available, I Cannot Transfer It
3. Cooperative Denial
4. A Calf-Killing Against the People's Interests
5. Mafia-type Activity in the Years of the First Five-Year Plan
VIII. Exploiting Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Disputes between Neighbors and Churches
1. Fascism for Household Use in Becskerek
2. A Cynical Anti-People Smile (From Behind the Window)