Interwar Hungary Research Articles

György Konrád as a Post-Dissident Public Intellectual Biography, Interventions, Reception

The paper offers a case study of György Konrád, a leading intellectual from post-Communist eastern Europe, who was arguably the most internationally visible and influential former dissident—or post-dissident—from Hungary after 1989. The paper introduces the biography and intellectual activities of Konrád, which stretched from the periphery of interwar Hungary to post–Cold War international fame, and it focuses on his post-1989 public interventions and the reception of his key ideas. The main question it poses is: “How did Konrád wield his post-dissident moral and political authority, and with what effects?” To answer this overarching question, I explore Konrád’s key contributions as a public intellectual in post-Communist Hungary and analyze his high-profile involvement in international discussions via prominent interviews, debate participations, and appearances in various documentaries. I also provide an overview of the scholarly reception of his most influential ideas. The paper concludes that by recurrently dissenting from more mainstream intellectual opinions, at times even those shared in his own liberal milieu, Konrád simultaneously employed and deflected his political and moral authority. More concretely, I show how Konrád oscillated between universalistic and civilizational discourses and between a generous spirit of openness and profound personal fears when his post-dissident authority made his voice so widely audible.

Gabriella Vöő: From the East Looking West: British and Irish Culture and National Self-Definition in Interwar Hungary. Pécs: University of Pécs, Institute of English Studies, 2011. 116 pages.

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Equality Drowned in Thermal Water – Environmental Racism and Antisemitism in the Context of Tourism-Centred Modernisation in Interwar North-East Hungary

This paper discusses the interrelationship between discourse about the natural environment and nationalist ideologies in interwar Hungary through a case study on the politicisation of bath culture. As a result of the peace treaty that ended World War One, in the 1930s and 1940s, a previously neglected thermal bath town in North-east Hungary became a target for national scale real estate development as well as virulent antisemitism. In order to legitimate antisemitic policy barring Jews from public baths, Hungarian Christian nationalists evoked myths about Jewish bodies being unclean and infectious and used the term ‘Galician Jew’ in reference to Galicia in Eastern Europe, a region historically associated with dirtiness and backwardness. The present study explores the discourse developing around access to thermal resources and argues that the discriminatory bath decrees pushed by the far right were the first step towards the disenfranchisement and eventual extermination of the Hungarian Jewish community.

Rural Livelihoods in Inter-war Hungary

Rural Livelihoods in Inter-war Hungary

Tangible belonging and national indifference: Being German in interwar Hungary1

AbstractBuilding on arguments from my book Tangible Belonging: Negotiating Germanness in Twentieth‐Century Hungary, this article examines the sense of ‘being German’ in Hungarian‐German villages in interwar Hungary. The basic argument is that rural dwellers possessed a kind of tangible belonging (a tangible sense of being German, in this case) defined by the immediate world around them and that this tangible belonging was continually in negotiations with other constituencies trying to define Germanness, such as Reich Germans, Hungarian‐German leaders, and the Hungarian state as well as other Hungarians. This article also engages with the concept of national indifference, which has become a very common catchphrase in explanations concerning belonging in East Central Europe, especially in borderland regions and on the margins of states.

Creating the new Hungarian Tatras: symbolic politics as a means of repositioning tourism in northern Hungary during the interwar period

ABSTRACT This paper examines the role of nationalism and propaganda in the development of tourism in interwar Hungary through a case study of Hotel Palota, a luxury hotel established in 1930 in Northern Hungary. Historical legitimation played an important role in the development of the hotel, as the goal was to construct a resort that represented the glorious national past of Hungary as well as revisionist aspirations in the form of symbolic elements scattered throughout the hotel and its immediate environs. Contemporary discourses interpreted the prestige investment of the new Hungarian state in a variety of ways, from being a replacement of the Tatra Mountains that had been annexed to Czechoslovakia following World War I, to constituting a sacred space and national pilgrimage site, to being a subject of antisemitic and classist contention.

Designing the International Network of Tér és Forma, 1928–1939. A Hungarian Architectural Journal’s Data-Driven Analysis

Architectural periodicals were the major means of transferring textual and visual information about the current production, discourses, and problems of architecture during the interwar era. Illustrated magazines were widely available, and the immaterial sites of architectural publications became equally important as the construction site itself. In interwar Hungary, the architectural journal Tér és Forma (Space and Form) was the major organ of modern architecture under the editorship of the architect Virgil Bierbauer between 1928 and 1942. The periodical included the latest examples of modern architecture in Hungary and the current international scene covering most of Europe with an outlook on the USA, South America, and Japan. Bierbauer relied on his extensive international network of professional connections for transferring information and creating content for his journal. My paper focuses on the digital processing and analysis of Tér és Forma using the Croatian Artists Networks Information System (CAN_IS) as a digital network analysis tool. It allows the representation of the international relations of the journal based on its content, and the changes in editorial directions and its social network. My paper considers the methodology of organising the information extracted from the system and how this knowledge can be visualised. My paper also addresses the problems of legibility and distortion in data visualisations.

Some Candidates for the Vacant Throne of Interwar Hungary: International Approaches to Finding a Resolution

After the resignation of Charles IV, a particular public law situation, the so-called “kingdom without a king,” came about in interwar Hungary, which persisted through the whole period. The “king question” that developed around taking the vacant throne aroused a keen interest not only in internal politics, but also abroad. The study gives a short account about who could emerge as a possible Hungarian king and why they could do so, and how the issue was presented to the international public. The author analyses the rumours, both in the press and in diplomatic documents, which are rather under-exploited as sources in historical research. The article first outlines the general socio-political situation in post-Great War Hungary and then shows how the problem of the “king question” divided Hungarian public life into several camps. It then, without claiming completeness, examines the motivations and realities of combinations for some of the individuals who most frequently appeared as candidates for king in the various rumours. In terms of the timing of the rumours, the study highlights the domestic and international events and circumstances in which interest in the issue of Hungary’s “kingless kingdom” was heightened in public discourse, and how such combinations influenced the image of contemporary Hungary. It also sheds light on the reasons that have prevented the kingdom issue from being settled. Finally, the author attempts to outline what the “ideal” new Hungarian king, acceptable both abroad and at home, should have been like under the given circumstances.

Toward a History of Interwar Sino-Hungarian Cultural Relations: Three Advocates of Kuomintang Soft Power, Hungarian Irredentism and Pan-Danubianism

This paper aims to achieve two goals: the first is to bring a fresh perspective to the Atlanto-centric history of Chinese propaganda while tracing the roots of Sino-Hungarian bilateral approaches and Hungarian Sinology to a time dating some fifteen years earlier than the mutual recognition of the two People’s Republics. This analysis also introduces three actors of different political agendas who applied a similar PR tool of cultural diplomacy to elicit international sympathy for their homeland. After briefly surveying the primary stimuli of cultural diplomacy in interwar Hungary and Republican-Era China, I turn to pre-1949 Sino-Hungarian cultural approaches in the era of no formal diplomatic relations. Such initiatives offer valuable insights into the history of cultural diplomacy while also highlighting significant parallels with the present. Specifically, I introduce the political and cultural agenda of three individuals acting as cultural ambassadors to their homelands. The Shanghai Jewish refugee aid organizer, Paul Komor, and the women’s association president, Theresia Moll, were members of the Hungarian diaspora in China. They introduced the post-Habsburg Central European region to a cosmopolitan community while exhibiting two different foci: Hungarian irredentism and pan-Danubianism. Meanwhile, Zhenya He, a Kuomintang propagandist and the University of Budapest’s first Chinese language instructor during the 1930s, synthesized Hungarian pan-Asian Turanism with Sun Yat-sen’s Tridemism to further Sino-Hungarian exchanges.

A Fragment from the Process of Disintegration of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Interwar Hungary

"Abstract: The joy brought by the unification of Romania through the Treaty of Trianon was not felt the same by all Romanians. Various constraints started to be imposed on those who remained within Hungary’s borders. From the point of view of the Romanian Orthodox Church, the Romanian Orthodox represented practically 80% of the Romanians remaining in Hungary. Which was not something to disregard. Except for Budapest, the Romanian Orthodox parishes were located in eastern Hungary, from north to south, right next to the Romanian border. The Treaty of Trianon, although anticipable, took the Romanian Orthodox Church by surprise (compared to the Serbian Orthodox Church), as the Romanian parishes in Hungary had their governing structures (archpriestship/episcopate) in Romania. Moreover, the parishes were not subordinated to a single eparchy centre but were divided between the eparchies of Arad and Oradea. Between 1920 and 1946, the two eparchies did not give up the canonical territory from Hungary. And at the level of the Romanian Patriarchate, no plan was proposed to merge the parishes in Hungary, to be subordinated to a single eparchy, as we would say today, in a state of emergency. This was not done until 1946."

Relationship of Proportions, Floorplan Patterns, Typology, and Symmetry in Religious Architecture with Particular Focus on the Roman Catholic Church Architecture in Interwar Hungary

Symmetry, asymmetry, and proportions are often discussed terms in architecture since Vitruvius. The most prominent Renaissance masters of architecture and architecture theory drew on his reflections when contemplating architectural proportions and symmetry. The surge of Modern- ism in arts in the 20th century brought the question of proportion once again into the limelight. The one building type with some of the longest historical traditions is the church, whose architecture, due to the functional constraints and the often-rigid liturgical rules of the denominations, has been very slow to adapt to the changing times. Church architecture of the interwar period is remarkable in multiple ways, carrying the marks of bygone centuries but also an openness to innovation. In its architecture, the Roman Catholic Church of Hungary sought to maintain the delicate balance be- tween the preservation of tradition and the expansion of modernist trends. In the pursuit to better understanding the co-existence of traditions and modernism in the interwar church architecture, the attitude towards symmetry arises as a potential new vantage point. In comparison to the usual practice of style-based examination, the analysis of patterns in both the layout of facades and floor plan arrangements with the help of a specific typology is pointing to new research directions.

Vojnový Album: Dr. Jenő Lesskó–Belehrad 1915–1916. Ratni Album: Dr. Jenő Lesskó–Beograd 1915–1916

Vojnový Album: Dr. Jenő Lesskó–Belehrad 1915–1916. Ratni Album: Dr. Jenő Lesskó–Beograd 1915–1916

Beethoven “in drei Charakterbildern:” Three Beethoven Images from the Interwar Hungary

In my study, I show how three different figures of the interwar Hungary saw Beethoven. The first of them, Dénes Bartha (1908–1993), was a musicologist and became an international specialist of Viennese Classicism. In the context of contemporary Hungarian literature, his first Beethoven monograph (1939) represents an emphatically anti-Romantic attitude. In the second part, I examine the popular image of the composer, on the basis of the planned operetta Beethoven (1929–1931) by Zsolt Harsányi, an author of popular biographical novels, and Mihály Nádor (1882–1944), a successful operetta composer. This piece follows the example of Das Dreimäderlhaus, and its music was compiled from Beethoven’s melodies by Nádor. In the third part I examine an essay about Beethoven by an important musician of the period, Ernst von Dohnányi (1877–1960), who was, according to Bartók, a leading Beethoven performer of his age. Although the text of his “Romanticism in Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas” was written during his émigré years (draft: 1948, revision: 1955), it summarizes well what the leading figure of the interwar Budapest musical life might have thought about Beethoven’s music.

Flüchtlingsfrage und Staatsbürgerschaft in Ungarn nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg bis 1924

According to official records, after the First World War, 350,000 people either fled or moved to the territory of Hungary from the successor states. The actual number up to 1924 was probably around 400,000, or even as high as 420,000, taking into account the domestic affairs crisis in 1919, the initial disorder around registration and numerous illegal border crossings. The refugee problem was the major social ill of interwar Hungary and it resulted in massive political and economic consequences as well. The issue of citizenship also related closely to the refugee problem. Individuals who fled or moved to Hungary from the successor states needed to apply to keep their Hungarian citizenship in compliance with the Treaty of Trianon. Non-citizens dwelling in Hungary were likewise required to proactively apply for Hungarian citizenship. This was achievable for the claimants based on their municipal residences, however the acknowledgement and substantiation of inhabitancy was profoundly troublesome. The sparsely extant yet highly informative archival accounts that contain the personal data of optants—who were willing to keep or acquire Hungarian citizenship—are noteworthy sources of information on the Hungarian refugee problem between 1918 and 1924.

Political or Aesthetical Subversion? Strategies of Avant-Garde Speaking Choirs in Interwar Hungary

Speaking choirs were underground artistic groups of labor-class youth in Hungary in the period between the two World Wars. The groups, led mostly by Avant-Garde artists, were artistic and political communities also. Dadaism, Expressionism and Constructivism, Soviet Proletkult and revolutionary mass festivals had considerable influence on the speaking choir movement. Politically, a number of the choirs were influenced by the Social Democratic Party, others by the illegal Communist Party, but some of them, such as the choir of Kassák or the company of Palasovszky, were autonomous leftist groups that strove to remain detached from any kind of party influence. In the paper I will give two examples of works written especially for speaking choirs. One is a poem by probably the best known twentieth century Hungarian poet, Attila József (Tömeg [Crowd], 1930). The other is a mass play of multiple choirs written for street performance. It is called Punalua (1926), it was written by a lesser known Avant-Gardist poet and stage director, Ödön Palasovszky, and due to its grand scale, it was never performed. The poem of Attila József, though a masterpiece of its genre, remains enclosed in its own sociocultural context whereas Punalua is still open to reinterpretations.

Faces of modernism after Trianon : Károly Kós, Lajos Kozma and Neo-Baroque design in interwar Hungary

Faces of modernism after Trianon : Károly Kós, Lajos Kozma and Neo-Baroque design in interwar Hungary

Women and Politics: Nationalism and Femininity in Interwar Hungary. By Balázs Sipos. Trondheim: Trondheim Studies on East European Cultures & Societies, 2019. 163 pp.

Women and Politics: Nationalism and Femininity in Interwar Hungary. By Balázs Sipos. Trondheim: Trondheim Studies on East European Cultures & Societies, 2019. 163 pp.

Történelem a politika hátterében : A rendszerváltás utáni Magyarország politikai rendszere, valamint 19-20. századi előzményei

A cikk a „Történelem a politika hátterében” c., a „Fiatalodó és megújuló egyetem – Innovatív tudásváros” projekt támogatásával megvalósult kutatási program beszámolóját foglalja össze. A kutatási program két periódusra oszlott: 1. Az 1989–90-es rendszerváltás utáni magyar politikai rendszer egyes sajátosságai (közös kutatás Fekete Sándorral). 2. A magyar politikai rendszer 19–20. századi előzményei (saját kutatások). A cikk bemutatja a kutatási program legfontosabb területeit és eredményeit: önkormányzatiság és a politikai pártok rendszere a rendszerváltás utáni Magyarországon, a 19. századi liberalizmus és a két világháború közötti, ún. „keresztény-nemzeti” ideológia öröksége.

Public Statues and Second-Class Citizens: The Spatial Politics of Romani Visibility in Interwar Budapest

In what might be called an extreme form of tokenism, memory sites devoted to the figures of outstanding Romani musicians, including public statues, began to appear in public urban spaces in fin-de-siècle and interwar Hungary amid the growing oppression of Roma by authorities. This article investigates, by focusing on case studies from Budapest in the interwar period, how public representations of Roma in the cultural spaces ofdominant society, though apparently inscribing diversity in the national narrative, were involved in the hegemonic practices of the time. The complexities of the interplay between inclusion in the symbolic realm and oppression in the social one are best illuminated when looking at the social and political uses of these urban landmarks.

Jews, Nazis, and the Cinema of Hungary: The Tragedy of Success, 1929–44

Jews, Nazis, and the Cinema of Hungary: The Tragedy of Success, 1929–44