In Defense of Christian Hungary: Religion, Nationalism and Antisemitism, 1890-1944 by Paul A. Hanebrink (review)

Abstract

reviews 139 saw themselves and their relations with others, including theChurch hierar chy,Muslims, Ottoman officials and diplomats; while this is of course an incomplete picture, it does contribute to our understanding of the broader question of Jesuit self-representation. Finally, two additional factors have clearly influenced the composition of thisbook. The firstis the destruction of theJesuit mission and persecution ofJesuits by theCommunist government. This sad chapter produced martyrs for the Society and cast the history of the Jesuits in a light that anticipates these sacrifices. The second factor is the return of the Society in 1991 following the fall of Communism. The return of theJesuits allows Murzaku to tell her story as one inwhich setbacks and martyrdom are at least potentially redeemed by the end of overt oppression and the resumption of theJesuits' mission. Yet asMurzaku documents amply, the story of theJesuits inAlbania is one of repeated expulsions followed by dogged effortsto return and rebuild. The history of theJesuits inAlbania is a narrative whose ultimate significance has yet to be determined. Murzaku's work helps us understand elements of thisnarrative, while leaving the reader with many unanswered questions forwhich only the passage of time will provide an answer. Departmentsof Educational Studies andHistory Paul Shore SaintLouis University MO Hanebrink, Paul A. In Defense Of ChristianHungary: Religion,Nationalism and Antisemitism, 1890-1944. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY and London, 2006. x + 255 pp. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $39.95: ?22.95 The role of the Christian churches inmodern Hungarian history, particu larly in paving the road to the Final Solution of its loyalJewish citizens, is a topic that is still debated in today's Hungary. The debates focus not only on theHolocaust itself,and the churches' role in creating a nationalist and antisemitic discourse, but also on their overall role in opposing the emergence of a liberal and more tolerant society.The prestigious cultural weekly, Elet es Irodalom, in its issue of 12January 2007 carried a page-long essay by Peter Buda on the 'Christian-national jihad', attacking former Prime Minister Viktor Orban's Christian 'fundamentalist' views, and tracing his and his party's, the FIDESZ's, ideology to that destructive, nationalist spirit that characterized the churches between the twoWorld Wars. The essay singled out theCatholic church as having 'enacted theJewish Laws', and in 'general the churches' anti-judaism which had a definite role in the liquidation of Hungary's Jewry with such great efficiency'. Paul A. Hanebrink's volume could well serve as a road-map for under standing the issues stilldebated in today's Hungary, although the author has not engaged with present-day polemics on thepast of the churches inbuilding up a Christian Hungary freed from a destructive Jewish presence. Indeed, ifwe borrow the polemical term of 'jihad' from Elet es Irodalom, the two 140 SEER, 87, I, JANUARY 2OO9 Hungarian Christian churches, the Catholic and Protestant, led a tragically successful jihad, inwhich antisemitism was the fuel of the nationalist engine. Following the collapse ofCommunism there has been a growing interest in researching the record of churches under the totalitarian regimes of the twen tieth century. Evidence of the patterns of collaboration with the Communist system, and even a level of competition between Catholics and Protestants as towhich of themwas more or less penetrated by theCommunist authorities, and which had more informers of a higher rank in the church hierarchy (it seems that the Communist secret police made no discrimination between the two; itpursued a policy of equal opportunity for all informers), continue to haunt Hungarian society. In contrast to the role of the churches under Communism, since the late nineteenth century theywere the primary agents of building up modern Hungary, through what Hanebrink calls 'competing visions of Christian Hungary' (p. 7), which steered the country towards a nationalist path. He seems to agree 'in general' with 'many historians [...] that talk of Christian nationalism in Hungary amounted to littlemore than an anti-Semitic code' (p. 3). The centrality of the Jewish question' in Hungarian nationalism as built up, especially by theCatholic church, may be disputed, but the problem as a 'case study' is certainly very important, and thisHanebrink presents very well. He does not focus solely on the...