A történetiség új rendje a budapesti magyar nyelvű neológ és cionista sajtóban 1882-1938

15. ABSTRACT At the turn of the 19th-20th century the different Jewish groups in Hungary had to face many challenges. They had to reconcile the demands made by modernity and the majority society with their own group interests. The changing environment endangered the survival of the group and questioned its basic values. There were big differences in the modernisation strategies of the Jewish groups examined (Neology,Zionists). Religion, as the primary determinant of value, shifted from the community sphere to the private sphere and lost some of its importance. History became the new model for interpretation of the world, that could be manifested at community level. Cultural memory based on shared history became the most important adhesive force of the group. The press, the most important attitude-shaping communication media of the period, played a major role in preserving and strengthening memory. In my research I analyse the attitude of the different Jewish trends to history, how they built up their cultural memory and collective consciousness through historical events, and what place this occupied in Hungary at the turn of the 19th-20th century. Without clinging to the past it is not possible to build up memory, and without a shared memory there can be no group cohesion. Cultural memory is directed at fixed points in the past, it becomes symbolical and remembering clings to these points. In the words of Asssmann “cultural memory transforms the factual past into memorable past and thus into myth.” The attitude to the past then becomes the basis of the self-definition of the remembering group. When it remembers, the group represents the most important formations of the past, projects them to the present and becomes certain of its own identity. A national or religious celebration is an ideal occasion for such representation. Cultural memory does not spread by itself, it has to be built up consciously and is in need of careful channelling. A role is played in this by the narrative branch of historiography, where the past is evoked in order to orient the present, and the narration appears as a basic operation of historical consciousness. And the collective memory determines the collective consciousness. In addition to memory and collective consciousness, I also directed my attention to the attitude of the different Jewish groups to modernity. To what extent were they affected by the secularizing and individualising environment, and what strategies did they elaborate in face of these phenomena? To what extent were the traditional group values lost or transformed as a consequence of modernisation, and in what way did the loss or transformation of values endanger the survival of the group? To what extent did religion, as the vehicle of traditional values, lose ground in the Jewish groups I examined? 138 According to Sarah Abrevaya STEIN, among Jewry in the Modern Age the press was at once the manifestation and the mechanism of change. The papers of Neology and the Zionist movement showed a very different picture of the questions raised. This arises from the attitude to modernity and the national ideal. The Neology paper Egyen