186 HUNGARIAN LITERATDRE Hungary during the u Bach Era," that period of absolu tism folla wing upon the revolution, dUI·ing which Bach the Austrian prime minister endeavoured to germanise Hungary. The hero of the tale is an Austrian gen eral wh o buys an estate in Hungary and begins farming, not very successfully at first, as he has brought with him Austrian methods and babits wh ich are unsuitable to the Hungarian soil and temper. But in course of time he grows fond of the country and ultimately devel ops into a full-blooded Hungarian. ln effecting this great trans forrnation a part is played by the circumstance that one of his t wo daughters lies buried in Hungarian soil and the other becames the wife of a brave Hungarian gentle man. The idea embodied in the novel was suggested to Jókai by the history of the Austrian general Haynau. This man, u the hyena of Brescia," after faliing in to disgrace, went to live in Hungary and bought estates there, and could not hel p feeling more and more respect and sympathy for the people agaiost wh om he had acted i n such a dastardly way during the revolution. Many different periods are equally well ch aracterised by J ókai in other nove ls. In A Hungarirm Na bob he depicts the times immediately before the advent of Széchenyi, showing the aristocratic class in alJ its indolen ce and haughtiness, firmly entrenched behind its privileges. Th e ge neration that followed, living about the year 183 0, awakened and electrified by Széch enyi and yearning for progress, is shown in Zoltán Kárpáti. The gloria u s and feverish times of th e revolution form the background of several of Jókai's works, for instance, The Baron's Sons, Political Fashions, and Battle Pictures. His historical novels do not reach the height of the works just men tioned, for Jókai did not possess in any
