The Travelogues of Gyula Illyés and Lajos Nagy on Their Visit to the Soviet Union

Peter Pastor

doi:10.5195/ahea.2018.320

Abstract

The Hungarian populist writers Gyula Illyés and Lajos Nagy visited the Soviet Union together during the summer of 1934 as guests of the Union of Soviet Writers. Upon their return to Hungary, Illyés and Nagy published their impressions in separate travelogues.Although they both stressed that they strived for objectivity in their travel reports, they did not fully succeed in their efforts. Their perspectives were colored by a feeling of cultural superiority carried over from their experiences in the Hungary of the 1930s. Their writing was also tainted with anti-Semitism, as evidenced by their reflections on the life of Jews in Russia and Ukraine. Although their hosts took them to model institutions on a government-designed grand tour, they were not won over to the communist cause and failed to become fellow travelers.

Highlights

The Hungarian populist writers Gyula Illyés and Lajos Nagy visited the Soviet Union together during the summer of 1934 as guests of the Union of Soviet Writers
Towards the end of 1927 Gyula Illyés already noted that, “Even as travel literature fills libraries the Western world still does not know a lot about Soviet Russia, which is celebrating the tenth anniversary of its establishment” [De a könyvtárakra menő útleírások után, még ma sem tud igen többet a nyugati világ a fennállásának immár tízedik évfordulóját ünneplő Szovjet-Oroszországról] (Illyés 1927)
Gyula Illyés, who published his travelogue in book form in November 1934, gave a hint of his approach to future travel writing in his December 1927 review essay in the literary journal Nyugat [‘West’], of Georges Duhamel’s Le Voyage de Moscou [‘The Moscow Trip’]

Summary

Introduction

The Hungarian populist writers Gyula Illyés and Lajos Nagy visited the Soviet Union together during the summer of 1934 as guests of the Union of Soviet Writers. “The Travelogues of Gyula Illyés and Lajos Nagy on Their Visit to the Soviet Union.” Hungarian Cultural Studies.

Results

Conclusion