Page:EB1922 - Volume 31.djvu/454

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
418
HUNGARY


obstructed; whereupon, on June 20 1920, the International Federation of Trades Unions at Amsterdam declared a boycott of Hungary. Hungary replied with a boycott of Austria, where the Labour men of the Socialist Left were vigorously applying to Hungary the boycott ordered by the international conference, and cut off Austria's food and coal supplies. The result was that the original boycott was withdrawn, although no advan- tages had been secured by the Hungarian Socialists. One con- sequence of the Bolshevist rule was the still more intense development of anti-Semitic feeling. Since leaders of the Com- munists were chiefly recruited among the younger Jewish intel- lectual circles, the National Assembly, in order to prevent the creation of a Jewish intellectual proletariat, in Sept. 1920 pro- claimed the " Numerus Clausus " for the universities. Under this clause, Jews could only be admitted to the universities in proportion to their percentage of the population. By the desire of the Small Farmers' party, a bill was passed, on the lines of the English Small Holdings Act, making it possible for every agricultural labourer to acquire a holding up to 10 Jock.

As a consequence of the annexation of parts of the old Hun- gary by the new states, what remained of the country was filled with fugitives, mostly officials, teachers, etc., who had been driven out by Czechs, Rumanians and southern Slavs. All economic and cultural intercourse between the rump of Hungary and the territories now occupied by the new states continued to be interrupted even after the collapse of Bolshevism.

Huzzar's Government was, on Dec. 2 1919, invited to the Peace Conference in Paris by the Entente. The Hungarian delegation, headed by Count Albert Apponyi, was forced to sign the Treaty of Trianon (June 4 1920), without being given any opportunity of discussing the conditions imposed by the Entente, under which more than two-thirds of the old Hungary was divided among the neighbouring states.

Adml. Horthy as "Regent." After experience of the Karolyi and the Soviet republics, the traditional monarchist feeling became evident in Hungary; but as the neighbouring states, members of the " Little Entente," Czechoslovakia, Yugo- slavia and Rumania, and also Italy, saw in the occupation of the throne of Hungary by a member of the House of Habsburg a danger to themselves, and threatened to treat such an event as a casus belli, the. National Assembly postponed all decision as to the form of the State, leaving the question of the sovereign undecided, and on March i 1920 entrusted the commander-in- chief, Adml. Horthy, with supreme power as regent.

The recovery of the State from the effects of Bolshevist rule proceeded slowly. At Easter 1920 the Finance Minister of the Teleki Government, Roland Hegediis (b. June 24 1872), es- tablished the machinery for the paper currency. The national revenue had been made in March 1921 to balance expenditure; and the Foreign Minister, Gustav Gratz (b. 1875), began to negotiate for resumption of economic relations with the new States built out of the ruins of the Habsburg Monarchy.

When at Easter 1921 King Charles, without awaiting the decision of the National Assembly as to the exercise of the royal power, suddenly appeared in Hungary and wished to take over the powers of the regent, the latter refused to hand them over, since to have done so would have been contrary to the law under which he held the regency. The King was forced, therefore, again to leave the country, amid the loud protests of the " Little Entente " against his enterprise. His subsequent attempt, in Oct. 1921, at a coup d'etat was even more disastrous to him; and he was then interned at Madeira under Allied sur- veillance. The Teleki Government was replaced on April 15 1921 by the Christian-National-Agrarian Ministry of Count Stephen Bethlen.

See Memoirs of Count J. Andrassy (Diplomacy and World War, Hung, and Germ., 1920) ; Prince Ludwig Windischgratz, Vom roten zum schwarzen Prinzen (1920); Oskar Jaszi, Magyar Kdlvdria, Mag- yar Feltdmadds (1920) ; The Ordinances of the Soviet Republic (Hung., 5 vols., 1919). On the Soviet period there are several journalistic works, as well as the publications of certain People's Commissaries, issued after the fall of the Soviet regime, as apologies and for pur- poses of further propaganda, of which may be mentioned Eugen

Varga, Die wirtschaftspolitischen Probleme der proletarischen Diktatur (1920); Bela Szanto, A Magyarorszdgi proletariates osztdlyharcza es diktaturdja (1920); and Dokumente der Einheit, die Vorgeschichte des Zusammenschlusses der Social-Demokraten und Kommunisten (1919); Alexander Szana, Die bolschevistische Wirtschaftspolitik in Ungarn.

Reports by workmen on the economic conditions will be found in the Social-Democratic weekly, Vildgossdg (Vienna, 1920). A com- prehensive account based on documentary evidence is given in A bolsevizmus Magyarorszdgon (Bolshevism in Hungary) edited by Gustav Gratz (1921). (J. s.*)

HUNGARIAN LITERATURE

In 1908 a parting of the ways between the younger and the older generations in Hungarian letters was definitely marked when some of the younger poets published the new songs of the new time in two volumes under the title The Coming Day, and founded the periodical West which, enlarging itself by the adoption of a political programme, was made their organ of progress. The most complete expression of the new revolutionary spirit found itself in lyrical poetry, which attained its full maturity in the poems of Andreas Ady (1877-1919).

Ady's lyrics display a Hungarian language rooted in the remote past and awaken the old tones of the peasant-crusader (curuczok) poetry of the i6th century and of the Protestant Bible, but trans- fused with a new idiom personal to himself. His language is sub- merged in the twilight depths of the soul, battles against the narrow- ness of middle-class morality, and revels in sensual love. His out- look on life attracted him towards the Socialist and Pacifist schools of thought, and he thus became the representative of those Social- Democratic phrase-mongers who, in the autumn of 1918, led Hun- gary along the path of destruction. His poems were published in 9 vols. : New Poems, Blood and Gold, By the Chariot of Elijah, Ye Must Love Me, Elusive Life, Self-love, Who Saw Me, From the Poems of Primeval^ Secrets, At the Head of the Dead. Ady's novels display a naturalism subjectively experienced, as in Thus May It Also Happen, Pale People, The Cleopatra with Ten Millions, On a New Path. He also published polemical works in favour of his political views. An appreciation of him was written by John Horvath in Ady and the Newest Hungarian Lyrical Poetry.

Beside Ady the most important of the writers connected with the periodical West was Michael Babits, whose poems express with great perfection of form and moving effect the self-destructive suffering of civilized man in the 2Oth century. He wrote Leaves from the Wreath of Iris, and The Valley of Unrest. Desider Kosztolanyi (b. 1885) interpreted the romance and melancholy of Budapest m The Laments of the Poor Child, and Poppy. Among others may be mentioned Arpad Toth (b. 1886), Gabriel Olah, Erno Szep, Julius Juhasz, Bela Halasz, and Renee Erdos the last-named a lady whose muse, pagan and erotic at first, was converted later into Catholic and penitent. At the beginning of the World War an enthusiastic welcome was given to the patriotic poems of Geiza Gypni (d. 1917), which were written at the front ancj sent home from Siberia. These poems, modern in style, were published under the titles On Polish Fields, and Letters from the Hill of Calvary. To the radical school of thought belonged also Joseph Kiss (b. 1843), who, following the tradition of Arany, wrote pacifist war-songs and several beautiful ballads, his lyrics having an oriental charm. The new poetry had many champions among critics and essayists, notably Aladar Schopflin and Ludwig von Harvany.

In prose fiction and the drama modernism was less strongly marked, though the new philosophy of life differed from that of the earlier generation. The most important novelist of this period was Siegmund Moricz (b. 1879), who wrote Gold in the Muck, Behind the Devil, The Torch. Margaret Kaffka (1880-1918) gives in her novels, e.g. Maria's Apprenticeship and Colours and Years, sketches of contemporary politics. Francis Molnar (b. 1878) describes in his novel Andor the wasted life of a decadent young man. Mention may also be made of Michael Suranyi's novels, The Peacock from Trianon and The Holy Mountain.

On the Hungarian stage modern ideas and traditional convention were in sharp competition. To the latter belong The Nurse and The School-mistress of Alexander Brody (b. 1863), together with his war drama, Lyon Lea, centring round the life of the Galician Jews. Desider Szomory wrote tragedies on themes taken from the history of the House of Habsburg, Maria Theresa and Joseph II., and in Bella, Hermelin and Matuska he dramatized the sexual life of the modern woman. Francis Molnar, the novelist already mentioned, became a popular and successful writer of drawing-room drama, with a great mastery of stage routine and technique. His best- known plays are The Guards Officer, The Devil, The Wolf, The Carnival, The Swan and Liliom, a picture of apache life. Among his successful rivals in the same genre are Melchior Lengyel, with his The Prophet and Typhoon, and Louis Brio, author of The Tsarilsa. Among the vounger of the dramatists is G. Dre'gely, author of The Well-fitting Dress Suit.

As representatives of the older generation of conservative poets may be mentioned Joseph Levay (1825-1918), Alexander Endrody (1850-1920), Andrew Kozma (b. 1861), author of Hungarian Sym-