Disciplinary position: textological synergy of research and education

Ever since literary and historical studies came into being, special emphasis has been put on the text, which serves as both the most important tool and object of research. In accordance with this, both disciplines have been focusing on exploring and publishing texts as sources from the very beginning, while also exploring and solving textological problems related to texts and their academic publishing.

Though the theory and practice of editing and publishing texts go back several thousand years in time, having produced a large amount of results, textology by itself is still in its infancy all over the world. In Hungary, no real attempt has been made at integrated research examining the origin, survival, exploration, publication, and academic application of the text. Research studies on different aspects take place isolated from each other or linked only on an occasional basis, whereas theory seems to be a by-product of practice. The teaching of textology is traditionally sporadic and scattered, cannot be related to an institution, and is mostly linked to editing and publishing some texts occasionally. For all these reasons it is hardly possible to gain an insight into or overview of the issues necessary for generalising results and experience in this field. This type of education does not arouse any kind of interest in textology. Even those in charge of preparing critical editions for press begin to lay down the theoretical basis for publishing anew each time, developing methods for each occasion and randomly following a pattern. Under these circumstances, it is obvious that the quality of publications will be rather uneven. No harmony has been achieved between research and theories focusing on texts as sources and semiotics, which has seen a speedy development in the last decades. This outer and inner separation is strengthened by an isolation from informatics, which could provide new theoretical approaches and practical solutions to utilise source texts in historical and literary studies. In the meantime, there are sporadic experiments performed by mainly the younger generation of researchers showing a need for approaching source texts as scientific objects from several aspects, analysing texts with more up-to-date devices, and integrating textology into a wider environment.

This division and isolation can be eliminated by training experts equipped with all the major theoretical and practical tools required for the complex analysis of a text, who are able to take an overview of the physical, social and historical context in which the text came about, is situated now and utilised, who know the methods of approaching and the techniques of analysing a text, and who are aware of how the results of textology can be integrated into universal science. Specialists given this type of education will be able to go in for any traditional field related to texts on a high academic level, joining theory and practice. As a result, the level of practising textology will soar, giving also an opportunity to approach the knowledge gained in BA training from unusual aspects and to explore inner and outer correlations of literary studies that could not be perceived from other standpoints. Thus, textology-based training makes a strong contribution to the development of literary studies and the disciplines related to it (history of civilization, history of science and others) resulting in new and high levels of achievement.

Nowadays this concept is socially approved, as well. Following a hundred-year break, the last two decades have seen a great demand for quality editions of literary and historical texts, which can be traced back to several common reasons. This seems to be a natural reaction to the long-lasting ideology-oriented mentality of the 20th century, which attributed greater significance to the interpretation of texts than to their authentic and precise edition. At the same time, the major results of 19th–20th century editing (impressive series of source publications) have become obsolete. Meanwhile the amount of texts to be published has risen, with texts becoming accessible as a great number of domestic and foreign institutions storing documents opened up their formerly closed doors. Furthermore, new prospects opened up for Hungarian experts to join in international enterprises and publish texts of international interest. All this has led to keen interest in publishing and editing texts, upgrading textology to such a great extent that nowadays it is not just certain institutions that regard it as their major task, but publishing houses as businesses were set up to specialise in the field, revealing a societal need. It was in the early 1990s that critical editing became eligible for a PhD degree for the first time in the history of doctoral training. On the other hand, there has been a trend towards intensively growing dilettantism.

There arose a need to create a central doctoral school in Hungary providing a theoretical basis for domestic and foreign enterprises of textology and representing a training centre for experts who accomplish practical work based on theory.

Defining and teaching the norms of text analysis, textology and philology, the valid forms of reflected text definitions, developing and applying text graphic principles, the stemmatic graphic issues of text generation together with the core text apparatus, notes and commentaries of critical text editing, source publications, genetic and electronic (digital) editions mean the basic issues of Hungarian human sciences and pre-conditions for co-operating with international institutions of textology and workshops of philology. Publishing the lifeworks of classics of Hungarian literature with authentic texts on a high academic level together with the thematic and chronologic chrestomathies and corpora of Hungarian literary texts form an essential part of fostering and conserving Hungarian cultural heritage. Training a new generation of professional experts to implement the task of editing and publishing is of great importance.

The demand for teaching textology coincides with the organizational framework of scholarly training in Hungary, since textology can be taught only in post-graduate programmes. The course in textology can only be completed by students who have a general overview of the cultural assets of the Hungarian past and some command of some languages, who have at least dealt with source texts in their studies, and whose major life goal is to become a researcher.

The Doctoral School of Literary Studies at the University of Miskolc is an especially suitable institution for text analysis–textology-centered post-graduate education. The doctoral programme on textology – dating back 15 years – is available only at the University of Miskolc, with a staff of outstanding experts in the field.

• The doctoral programme Textology (today called Classic Textology) was set up by Prof. Dr. Kulcsár Péter as early as in 1996, and has been headed by Prof. Dr. Kecskeméti Gábor since 2004, who is head of the HAS Committee on Textology. The students taking part in this programme primarily study texts from the early modern period and the 18th–19th centuries.
• The programme on the 20th century was set up and has been headed by Prof. Dr. Kabdebó Lóránt to date, and in the course of the programme, he and the students under his guidance have published an authentic edition of the complete works of the Miskolc-born author Szabó Lőrinc, a great number of his other writings together with his translations, notes and memoranda, letters, the documents related to him, and the reference books necessary to study all these (bibliographies, library catalogue). In order to implement these activities, Szabó Lőrinc Research Centre, a literary workshop, was set up at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Miskolc, under the aegis of the HAS Central Office of Research.
• The third programme, currently headed by Dr. Ambrus Gergely –  previous heads being Prof. Dr. Forrai Gábor, and later Prof. Dr. Schwendtner Tibor – focuses on the semiotic, semantic, hermeneutic, linguistic philosophical (partly psychology of mind) issues of textology, supplementing an orthodox textological approach with up-to-date theories of semantics, phenomenology, and hermeneutics. 

The three programmes together make up a research centre of post-graduate studies focusing on textology which covers texts from the 16th–20th centuries, analysed from a historical point of view, and also based on linguistic and textological theories. The programmes are highly acknowledged and frequently referred to by other scholars.

The teaching staff of the doctoral school primarily consists of the teachers of the Institute of Hungarian Linguistics and Literature (headed by Prof. Dr. Kecskeméti Gábor) at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Miskolc. A number of them have taken part in creating the critical editions of the classics of Hungarian literature including the theoretical and critical writings of Kölcsey Ferenc by Dr. Gyapay László, the odes of Virág Benedek by Dr. Porkoláb Tibor, the poems of Dayka Gábor by Dr. Tasi Réka. Significant texts of Hungarian literature were redacted for the press in a prestigious series of critical editions Literary Relics of Old Hungarian Prose by Prof. Dr. Kecskeméti Gábor and Literary Relics of Old Hungarian Drama by Prof. Dr. Kilián István. Prof. Dr. Heltai János is a leading contributor to the internationally recognized Hungarian national retrospective bibliograpy Early Hungarian Prints. Prof. Dr. Kecskeméti Gábor is a contributor to the joint French–Hungarian project of compiling a text history reference database of the era of Humanism in the Paris Institute of Textology (Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes, Centre Félix Grat) of Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). The chapter on Hungary in the multilingual anthology entitled European Romanticism was redacted by Dr. Gyapay László. Prof. Dr. Kilián István and Dr. Porkoláb Tibor edited significant sources related to the local history of Miskolc together with other sources of regional culture, involving numerous students in the latter case. The linguists contributing to the Doctoral School provide expertise in linguistics, history of orthography and stylistics within the field of philology (Prof. Dr. A. Molnár Ferenc, Prof. Dr. Kemény Gábor). Owing to their professional competence and command of foreign languages, the teachers lecturing on the history of world literature have produced well-received translations of numerous literary works from classical Latin, along with well-received translations of modern German, Polish, and Russian literature into the Hungarian language for the first time (Dr. Darab Ágnes, Dr. Kőrizs Imre, Dr. Kiss Noémi, Dr. Kertész Noémi).

The work in the Doctoral School is also assisted by the teachers of the Institute of History in the Faculty of Arts, headed by Dr. Gyulai Éva. They primarily contribute to teaching subjects related to historiography, paleography, and archives and supervise doctoral candidates in these fields (Dr. Gyulai Éva, Dr. Fazekas Csaba, Dr. Horváth Zita, Dr. Nagy Gábor, Dr. Tóth Péter).

The programme on Semantics and Hermeneutics is taught by the teachers of the Doctoral School focusing on literary theory, greatly assisted by teachers of the Institute of Philosophy of the Faculty of Arts (head of the institute: Dr. Gáspár Csaba László).

The curriculum of all three programmes is provided with a consistent core body of knowledge through common and compulsory subjects in textology (Academic Writing, Publishing, Text Analysis I and II, Literary Hermeneutics I and II).