Editorial

Abstract

The first issue of our ninth volume offers a collection of in-depth analytical papers from a wide range of scientific disciplines. We can read the observations of a well known Africanist, Daniel Bach, about the place and role of Africa in the system of international relations with a focus on the concept of the ‘frontier’. His original study was translated and neatly summarized by a new member of the scientific workshop of the University of Pécs, first-year PhD student Marianna Dömös. This piece is of particular importance for all of us to be able to properly position the African continent and its potential development path(s) in our current (and changing) global system of international linkages. While József Brauer-Benke, ethnoorganologist at the Institute for Musicology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences provides us with the comparative history of African lyras, István Harkai leads an investigation in the last “colony” of Africa. As one of the “most unconcerned regions” of the continent, Western Sahara is looked at through its complicated history of dependencies with its neighbours, Morocco, Mauritania and Algeria, in particular, in light of the violation of humanitarian law and the infringement of human rights. Mihály Benkes again grants us with a sophisticated review of another book of French/Francophone African Studies. The well-researched academic studies are escorted by the summary of a lively field trip in the Republic of Congo by György Konkoly-Thege, who has a fine eye to take the best shots of the characteristics of everyday life in this growingly important African country. We wish you yet another great time reading our journal!

Dr. Búr Gábor
editor-in-chief