Literatures of Numerically Small Nations Often Plays Larger Role than Do Those of Larger Peoples, Hungarian Specialist on Finno-Ugric Nationalities Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Jan 12 – Janos Pusztay, a Hungarian specialist on Finno-Ugric languages, says the literatures of numerically small nations often plays a larger role than do those of larger peoples and bemoans the fact that Hungarian scholars currently devote little attention to the writers of the numerically small Finno-Ugric nations in the Russian Federation.
    In an article for the Estonian culture magazine, Sirp, he writes that the role of literature among such peoples is so great that those related to them abroad must show Russians that “there is interest in the Finno-Ugric peoples abroad” (sirp.ee/s1-artiklid/c7-kirjandus/mis-saab-soome-ugri-rahvaste-kirjandusest/ in Estonian; mariuver.com/2025/01/15/chto-stanet-s-literaturoj-finno-ugorskih-narodov/#more-80290 in Russian).
    One of the great resources of the numerically small Finno-Ugric nations within the current borders of the Russian Federation is the existence of three Finno-Ugric independent countries, Estonia, Finland and Hungary. Estonia has been the most active in promoting ties with Finno-Ugrics in Russia; Finland somewhat less so; and Hungary active earlier much less so now.
    Pusztay’s article in an Estonian journal bemoaning the decline in Hungarian attention to Finno-Ugric writers in the Russian Federation is thus important as an indication that despite the current orientation of Budapest toward Moscow, there is still much interest in the Finno-Ugric world in Estonia, Finland and the Russian Federation.