Overview of Hungarian Photo literature in the Contemporary Post-media Age

Abstract

The paper analyses the “photoliterature” phenomenon, mapping how the two fundamentally different disciplines cross their own boundaries, how they interact or merge into each other. The study is based on the collection of the Hungarian Photoliterature Database (http://fotoirodalom.hu), which was built by filtering the databases of Petőfi Literature Museum’s Library and the Klebelsberg Library of the University of Szeged. The research also points out such photographic uses that have so far been neglected in photoliterature studies (like film scripts, photo-illustrated theatre plays and dramas, poetic volumes, anthologies). The investigation revealed that photo-illustrated books can be found in the genres classified as marginal literature (children’s literature, comics, lyrics, novelization, pulp fiction), and they show many similarities in form and content to the photo-illustration practice used in classical photoliterature genres. The study presents books based on the 4 main categories of the Hungarian Photoliterature Database, mentioning examples of non-illustrated photoliterary books, editions containing writer’s portraits, photo-illustrated books using the documentary value of photography (autobiographical, sociographic, historical, social novels, dramas and plays, travel literature). The study also gives some examples of works that do not care about the referentiality of photography and are using fictional or illustrative images. The panoramic overview of the Hungarian photoliterature field ends with its place in the contemporary post-media age.

Photo: Fortepan/ Budapest City Archives/ Photo Albums of György Klösz