Abstract
Before the political shift that occurred in1989, the biographies of early communists who had participated in the Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919 could not be the subjects of critical histories. Later, such historical actors were either vilified or simply neglected. This article contributes to the reversal of this neglect by examining the youth of the novelist Ervin Sinkó (1898-1967), who both participated in the rule of the Soviet Republic and authored Optimisták, Történelmi regény 1918-1919-ből [‘The Optimists, a Historical Novel About 1918-1919’]. This article describes how the experience of anti-Semitism and traumas caused by the First World War led Sinkó through a number of fluid, intermediary stages that culminated in his support of communism; eventually, however, Sinkó’s experiences within the Soviet Republic’s regime prompted him to abandon communism in favor of an idiosyncratic form of Christianity. From another perspective, this work also traces the concurrent development of Sinkó's personality, from that of an aggressive adolescent to a compassionate adult.
Highlights
Before the political shift that occurred in1989, the biographies of early communists who had participated in the Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919 could not be the subjects of critical histories
Sinkó's life, like his major works, reflect the dilemmas faced by many well-intentioned people in the “short twentieth century” who found the experience of communism to be quite different from their expectations of it, yet—even after repeated disappointments—remained with or returned to the movement
This paper explores how a biography of Sinkó may help later generations understand why someone like Sinkó, a Hungarian intellectual of Jewish ancestry, could be both
Summary
Before the political shift that occurred in1989, the biographies of early communists who had participated in the Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919 could not be the subjects of critical histories. While there are many layers to this violence (as there are to all acts of violence), the fact that it happens at the beginning of the novel – just before Báti goes to Budapest to join the revolution that he hopes will destroy the entire decadent bourgeois world – provides a possible motivation for why Sinkó’s character feels so strongly about displacing the social system he holds responsible for both the war and all oppression, including his own need to feel defensive about his Jewish origins.
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