ABSTRACT
One of the main purposes of this book is to present a variety of evidence that African American culture has left indelible marks on the cultural productions of European countries. Considering, for instance, former and recent, well-known and popular pieces of various genres of the performing arts such as music, dance, and even film produced in countries of Western Europe, this task seems to be an easy one; “blackness” saturates rhythms, rhymes, melodies, images, styles, and gestures created by Western European artists. It seems, however, a much larger task to locate the sociohistorical, cultural, and even psychological roots of this intriguing phenomenon for Europe at large. Even with recent efforts to create a united Europe, the countries in Europe have always been sharply divided by the diverse ways of their historical and cultural developments. One of the consequences of this division is that American “blackness” is not imitated, drawn upon, or incorporated into cultural creations in a uniform way in Europe. This seems to be of particular interest when considering the African American cultural influence on countries of the former Eastern Bloc, as will be shown in the discussion below, with Hungary as its main focus.
