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Hungarian LiteratureMagyar was not the first modern literary language ofHungarian Jews; few were conversant in that languagebefore the midnineteenth century. Jews in Hungary hadundergone an earlier stage of linguistic assimilation towardthe end of the eighteenth and the beginning of thenineteenth centuries, shifting from Yiddish to German, themedium of instruction of the schools initiated by Joseph II(1780–1790), as well as the language of the kingdom’smore important trading centers populated largely byGerman burghers.

The first generation of Jewish writers writing in Germanappeared in Hungary in the 1820s. The sphere of theiractivity was mainly in the publication of Germanlanguageperiodicals such as Der Spiegel and, later in the 1840s, thePressburger Zeitung (and its literary supplement Pannonia),Der Ungar, and a dozen more shortlived newspapers of1848–1849. The Rosenthal and Saphir families werestrongly represented as writers, editors, and publishers.Journalism and literature were not sharply separated, asnearly every journalist wrote poems, aphorisms, reports,travelogues, short stories, and humorous skits in addition toediting and translating. Through the medium of the Germanlanguage, the public had access to a European culture thatwas far broader in scope, higher in standards, and morevaried in content than its provincial counterpart. Being athome simultaneously in two or more cultures also promoteda critical attitude in Hungarian Jews; hence, the major forceand originality of this generation lay in the genres of humor

and criticism. Being at home in German also provided a means whereby two outstanding writers—thehumorist, critic, and editor Moritz Gottlieb Saphir (1795–1858) and the poet Karl Beck (1817–1879)—could find a wide reception and at times even a home in Germany and Vienna.

A generation coming of age in the pre1848 era, educated and writing in German, took steps towardMagyarization, attempting to speak and write in the native language of the country. Jews were notalone. As late as the beginning of the nineteenth century, broad segments of Hungarian society suchas the high aristocracy and the urban burghers could not speak the language. A nationalistmovement of renewal of the Magyar language and literature, organized by the poet and translatorFerenc Kazinczy (1759–1831), began only in the early 1800s. It was followed by a series of culturaland social projects initiated by Count Stephen Széchenyi that inaugurated the socalled Era of Reform(1825–1848). It was this reform generation that proposed the emancipation of Jews in return fortheir national allegiance, achieved through cultural and linguistic Magyarization.

Accordingly, the first Jewish literary experiments in Hungarian were linked to political issues and whatwas considered their corollary, adapting the Jewish religion to Hungarian conditions. Moritz Bloch, laterMór Ballagi (1815–1891), who acquired Magyar only as a young man, began as a journalist for theGermanlanguage press. In enthusiastic response to the liberal deliberations of the Hungarian Dietthat had taken up the cause of Jewish emancipation, he wrote the first significant book by a Jew inHungarian, A zsidókról (On Jews; 1840). In it, he presented a summary of the history and religion ofthe Jews for the educated Hungarian reader. In a flurry of literary activity, Bloch also translated andprovided commentaries to the Five Books of Moses (1840–1841) and translated the prayer bookJiszrael könyörgései egész évben, I. rész (Israel’s Prayers for the Whole Year, Part 1, 1841). In one ofhis articles, he outlined a plan, supported by several wellknown Hungarian aristocrats, for a Jewishinstitution of higher learning that would ensure the training of Jewish religious leaders andintellectuals in the spirit of Hungarian modernity. In the fall of 1840, he became the first Jewishcorresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His conversion to Christianity threeyears later came as a surprising blow to the reforming elements in Jewish society.

By then, several organizations were being set up with the goal of integrating into Hungarian society.In 1842, the Pest community established the Magyar Izraelita Kézmű és Földművelési Egyesület(Hungarian Israelite Handicraft and Agricultural Association; MIKÉFE), which turned out to be thelongestfunctioning nonreligious Jewish institution, operating until the Holocaust. Besides promotingproductivization, the association’s goals included cultivation of the Hungarian language. Two yearslater, the Magyarító Egylet (Magyarization Society) was established by Jewish medical students of PestUniversity. This society sponsored Hungarianlanguage courses and maintained a Hungarianlanguagekindergarten and a library in the interest of spreading Hungarian culture. It also published the ElsőMagyar Zsidó Naptár (First Hungarian Jewish Almanac) on the eve of the 1848 Revolution torepresent the first generation that had embraced Magyarization. The almanac was on par with otherHungarian literary endeavors of the time, if not in the mastery of the language, at least in its spirit.

The writing and editing of Első Magyar Zsidó Naptár brought to the fore three young men: MártonDiósy (1818–1892), journalist and dramatist; Mór Szegfy (1825–1896), novelist, journalist, editor,and teacher; and the rabbi and journalist Ignác Einhorn, later Eduard or Ede Horn (1825–1875), oneof the most brilliant figures of Hungarian Jewish history. Einhorn began his career publishing reportsin the Jewish press in Germany (Der Orient and Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums) and in the nativePressburger Zeitung edited in the 1840s by the influential Adolf Neustadt (1812–1875). Einhorn alsotook part in reformera debates in German and Hungarian periodicals.

Another staunch advocate of Magyarization within the synagogue was the Reform rabbi Leopold Löw(1811–1875), originally from Moravia, who had become a master of Hungarian in a short time andhad pioneered preaching in that language. The style of his homilies, which also appeared as separatepublications, is still appreciated today. Löw published the first Hungarian Jewish periodical, the single

Borsszem Jankó (Tom Thumb). Budapest, 17March 1907. A humor publication founded and inits early years edited by Adolf Ágai. (GeneralResearch Division, The New York Public Library,Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations)

See Also

Kertész, Imre

Contents

Flowering: The First Generation

A Defining Cultural Role: TheSecond and Third Generations

APPENDIX: HUNGARIAN WRITERS

Gelléri, Andor Endre

Heltai, Jenő

Kaczér, Illés

Komor, András

Lesznai, Anna

Marovits, Rodion

Molnár, Ákos

Nagy, Endre

Rejtő, Jenő

Révész, Béla

Somlyó, Zoltán

Vészi, József

Zsoldos, Jenő

Suggested Reading

Author

Translation

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issue Magyar zsinagóga (Hungarian Synagogue) in Pápa in 1847. The first poems by Jews inHungarian were also written on the eve of the 1848 Revolution. These included the works of MihályHeilprin (1823–1888), who had only recently immigrated from Poland; Salamon Rosenzweig; andIgnác Reich (1821–1887), writer, translator, and teacher.

This same generation began to play an important mediating function by translating Hungarianliterature into foreign languages. The most important person in this field was the novelist, journalist,and editor Adolf Dux (1822–1881), who translated into German the poems of Sándor Petőfi andJózsef Eötvös, and the Hungarian national drama Bánk bán (Viceroy Bán) by József Katona. It mustbe noted that not a few who belonged to this cohort of Jewish journalistwriters converted toChristianity, among them the writer, journalist, critic, and editor (and sometime informer and spy)Gusztáv Zerffi who translated into German the works of Lajos Kossuth and the Nemzeti dal (Song ofthe Nation) by Petőfi; the journalist Mór GansLudasi (1829–1858), who translated the poems ofPetőfi and Mihály Vörösmarty; and the future politician Ignác Helffy (1830–1897), who rendered intoItalian prose works by Mór Jókai and József Eötvös. Many of this intellectual generation took part inthe 1848–1849 War of Independence, and when compelled to emigrate, were propagators of thecause of Hungarian independence.

Flowering: The First Generation

The 1860s saw the brief appearance of several Hungarianlanguage Jewish weeklies published byopposing sides of the Jewish cultural wars. The manifestation of Jewish Hungarian literary talent alsobegan in that decade with the appearance of the poet and editor József Kiss (1843–1921), and thehumorist and journalist Adolf Ágai (1836–1916), the editor of the satirical weekly Borsszem Jankó.

By 1875, the literary quality had fully matured in Kiss’s literary anthology, Zsidó évkönyv az1875/76os évre (Jewish Yearbook for the Year 1875/76). In that edition, Kiss published his famousballad “Judith Simon,” which in its tones and form hearkened back to the great classical Hungarianpoet János Arany, while the classical and Hungarian framework was filled with Jewish content. In thesame issue, one could read Kiss’s short story about a Jewish peddler, “Jokli,” to this day a seminalmasterpiece of prose that dealt with nostalgia for traditional Jewish life and expressed heartfeltsolidarity for the poor persecuted Jew. Ágai’s short story, “Zsidó mennyegző falun” (Jewish CountryWedding), is also tender and nostalgic in its tone, with a certain ironic reservation. The study onBaron Eötvös and the Jews by the historian, novelist, and publicist Ignác Acsády (1845–1906), andLöw’s essay on the Jewish oath pointed toward the tradition that the first generation of writers ofliterary merit had hoped to establish—namely, to accommodate themselves to the society of liberalHungary and at the same time remain faithful to the reformed Jewish identity, whose voice was nowheard in Hungarian. This intention was underscored by a proMagyarization article on Jews and theother nationalities from the pen of Sámuel Kohn (1841–1920), a rabbi and distinguished historian ofHungarian Jewry, and by a study on the history of emancipation by Löw’s jurist son, Tóbiás. IgnácGoldziher (1850–1921), later a worldfamous orientalist, contributed an interesting essay on thedevelopment of the religious idea among the ancient Hebrews, while the aesthetician and publicist,Adolf Silberstein, later SilbersteinÖtvös (1845–1899), probed the possibility of reconciling modernitywith faithfulness to tradition in his essay on the concept of the Jewish mission.

Zsidó évkönyv could not continue for lack of a sizable receptive audience with a high standard ofexpectations. In the years following the constitutional compromise of 1867 between Austria andHungary (the beginning of the Dual Monarchy), the Jewish presence in journalism and newspaperediting made itself felt, especially in feuilletons and humorous pieces. It took an approach thatflowered into a whole new genre in the publication Borsszem Jankó (Tom Thumb; 1868–1936),established and edited by Ágai. Although by 1890 Jews constituted about onethird of all journalists inthe country and had made their appearance on the literary scene, in the relatively peaceful periodfrom the compromise of 1867 to the end of the century there were no outstanding Jewishaccomplishments in literature. Nevertheless, mostly Jews, using their own printing presses, or oftengrowing out of a printing business, established the great Hungarian publishing houses of this period.Károly Légrády (1834–1903) established the Légrády Press and the periodical Pesti Hírlap (Pest Daily;1868– ); Fülöp Wodianer (1822–1899) was the founder of numerous publications. Also noteworthywere the Révai (1880) and the Singer & Wolfner Publishers (1885).

These were also the decades when Jews began to enter the academic world and made remarkablecontributions to the fields of Hungarian linguistics, history, oriental studies, jurisprudence, philosophy,and pedagogy. Judaic studies flourished in Budapest, especially in the rabbinical seminary that wasestablished in 1877. The seminary began to publish the Magyar Zsidó Szemle (Hungarian JewishReview) in 1884; it ceased publication only in 1948. In the enthusiastic response to the challenges ofHungary’s millennial celebration in 1896, and with the approaching new century, Hungarian Jewryestablished its own cultural institutions. Izraelita Magyar Irodalmi Társulat (Hungarian IsraeliteLiterary Association; IMIT) was formed in 1895; it published an annual yearbook and a series of bookson Jewish subjects along the lines of the Jewish Publication Society of America and such endeavors inother countries. IMIT also had its spiritual base in the rabbinical seminary, whose books included acomplete Hungarian translation of the Bible, educational textbooks, history books dealing withHungarian Jewry, and translations of medieval Hebrew poetry.

Other literary journals and almanacs made their appearance in the years before World War I, themost important of which were the Jewish cultural periodical Múlt és Jövő (Past and Future, 1911–1944), edited by József Patai and published for the Országos Magyar Izraelita KözművelődésiEgyesület (National Hungarian Israelite Educational Union; 1909–1944). Another Jewish periodical,Libanon (1936–1943), was a product of the Hungarian Jewish Museum, whose establishment hadbeen decided on in 1908, but realized only in 1916.

The spirit of the time was most expressively seized in the poem “A 137. Zsoltárhoz” (To the 137thPsalm) published in the IMIT Yearbook of 1896, by the poet Ignotus (Hugó Veigelsberg; 1869–1949):

I no longer understand the word,

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The song of my forebears,

No longer moved by the feeling

For which they defied death—

My mind is alive with ideals of the West

Its rallying cry sets my heart afire.

Still, unconsciously,

Secretly, in my dreams

My soul weeps for the lost homeland.

Let my right hand forget her cunning,

Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem.

A Defining Cultural Role: The Second and Third Generations

The Jewish intelligentsia’s exit from the Jewish cultural sphere coincided with the beginnings ofmodern Hungarian literature—and by no means only symbolically. This exit occurred withestablishment of A Hét (The Week) in 1890, a periodical founded by József Kiss, who edited it with thehelp of two Jewish intellectuals, his brotherinlaw Tamás Kóbor (1867–1942) and Emil Makai (1870–1901). A Hét was also the launching pad for two editors—the aesthete Ernő Osvát (1876–1929), andthe poet, novelist, editor, publicist, and translator Ignotus—who later established Nyugat (West), themost important and influential modernist periodical in twentiethcentury Hungary, with the declaredaim of attempting to jolt Hungarian literature out of its conservative and backward position. ModernHungarian literature began to attract new masses of readers. The task of building and popularizing aninfrastructure for this literature, the enlargement of the circle of its creators and consumers, itsfinancing and sponsorship as well as its marketing, were all tasks undertaken by Jews.

Relying on liberal ideals, those Jews who undertook the task of introducing modernity into Hungarybelieved that literary activity would make them Hungarian, or that literature written in the Hungarianlanguage would be considered incontestably Hungarian. But few others held the view that theoverriding presence of Jews in Hungarian literature was a positive phenomenon. NonJewishHungarian literary society was nearly unanimous: Jews—whether accepted or rejected—were viewedonly as Jews, and if there were to be a dialogue with them, it would have to be conducted as adialogue only with Jews.

Nevertheless, the majority of the Jewishintelligentsia, including its most talentedmembers, was moving toward a completelysecular, universal position that meant a totalbreak with Jewishness. This was reflected in thecultural supplements of A Hét, Huszadik Század(Twentieth Century), Nyugat, later the Szép Szó(Fine Word), Toll (Pen), and many otherpublications. Most of these were established,written, edited, and read by modern andsecularized or converted Jews, giving rise to thequestion, at times futilely repressed, of whethermodern Hungarian literature was Jewish orHungarian.

Could modernity, urban lifestyle, andacquaintance with foreign literature—includingthe use and adaptation of its influences—inthemselves be considered a Jewish phenomenonor concept? No serious creative artist, Jewish ornot, could avoid the question. And the answerwas given in many different ways and in manyforms, including in the abundant literature towhich the extensive inquiry into the “Jewish

Question” in Hungary (initiated by Oszkár Jászi and his Huszadik Század, published as A zsidókérdésMagyarországon [1917]) gave rise.

From the end of the nineteenth century until the end of World War I—including the postwar civil andCommunist revolutions—Jewish literature and literature created by Jews in either their own or in theuniversal cultural sphere had a hopeful atmosphere. This literature, with an increasing tendency forexpansion, included everwider areas among its subjects, such as social and existential problems,sexuality, psychology, the achievements of the various isms, philosophical thinking, and fashion—andabove all the phenomenon of the metropolis. The most significant writers of prose were Sándor Bródy,Tamás Kóbor, Béla Balázs, Ferenc Molnár, Lajos Bíró, Ernő Szép, Sándor Hunyady, Jenő Heltai, andLajos Hatvany; in poetry: Ernő Szép, Zoltán Somlyó, and Géza Szilágyi; while in drama they included,above all, Ferenc Molnár, Menyhért Lengyel, and Jenő Heltai. Almost all of these figures were at oncejournalists, novelists, and dramatists.

Two other personalities must be mentioned who, each in his own way, established a literary genrethat can be linked only to their own names. Frigyes Karinthy (1887–1938), journalist, novelist,translator, dramatist, poet, critic, and humorist, was the premier and most influential practitioner ofthe famous Hungarian humor. Although he had hardly ever written on Jewish subjects (the Jewishorigins of his family were long suspected, but only recently confirmed), his doublelayered perception,his critical attitude imbued with parody, and the profound philosophy of his humor produced thesupreme realization of the “Jewish spirit” in Hungarian literature. (One of his famous aphorisms was:“I’ll have no joking with humor.”) Not only was he influential among his followers who made use ofhis literary inventions (dozens of such humorists may be mentioned, some of whom, like Ephraim

Múlt és Jövő, September 1916. (YIVO)

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Kishon and Georges Mikes, became world famous), but Karinthy’s works also left a permanent markon Hungarian thinking as well as on the Hungarian language.

The second such figure was the novelist, journalist, dramatist, and cabaret emcee Endre Nagy (1877–1935), who was singlehandedly responsible for bringing to life the genre of the cabaret. It was notwithout justification that these activities were called urban, or “big city,” or just Budapest culture. Thesecond most important city with respect to modern and Jewish literature was Nagyvárad (Oradea), or,as it was dubbed for its extraordinary intellectual influence, Paris on the Pece. (Endre Nagydocumented this intellectual ferment in his Egy város regénye [Novel of a City, 1936].)

In political terms, the second and third generation of writers saw as their main task the radicalrevision of Hungarian society and the achievement of democratic and social reforms. They took thelead in the political and cultural movements organized for this purpose, and formed the intellectualhome front of the 1918 civil revolution. Their most progressive deed may have been the role theyplayed in elevating the great revolutionary poet Endre Ady (1877–1919), who appeared on theliterary scene after half a century of dreary silence following the Reform Era, and rose to the pinnacleof Hungarian literature. (They played a similar role in supporting the career of Béla Bartók.) After thedictatorships of the left and the right in 1919, most of these intellectuals continued their lives in exile,and died away from their homeland.

The socalled Horthy era—named after Miklós Horthy (1868–1957), the regent of Hungary from 1920to 1944—inaugurated a very different period, characterized by frustration, chauvinist nationalism,xenophobia and, above all, antisemitism. For this reason, every aspect of Jewish intellectual life wascharacterized by a loss of selfconfidence and became defensive. A peculiar feature of this era was theappearance of a new stratum in Hungarian literature: the peasantry, the socalled “populist writers,”the camp of populist intellectuals that brought a new color and viewpoint to literature. This campproposed a “third way” between capitalism and communism whose leading force would be thepeasantry and the populist intellectuals growing out of its ranks. They were the ones who haddebated most vigorously, pro and con, the Jewish “problem” (or “question”). They saw a partner inJewish populism, but considered assimilating or capitalist Jews to be the enemy. Their most notablerepresentatives of this movement were Gyula Illyés, László Németh, Géza Féja, and József Erdély. Inno circumstance would they accept the leading role of Jews in literature.

In retrospect, the most characteristic fact about the life of the third generation was that its careerwas cut off by the Holocaust. Most of its members died young, their works remaining only a promise.A decided move to the left occurred in their political orientation (as evidenced by Andor Gábor, TiborDéry, Zoltán Zelk, Andor Németh, Ferenc Fejtő), and some converted to Christianity. Others evenembraced a neoCatholicism (Sándor Sík, István Vas, Antal Szerb, Miklós Radnóti). Their orientation,alongside the traditional German one, was primarily French—seen as most effectively countering theGerman threat—and English, a relative new influence in Hungarian literature. Creatively, they joinedthe avantgardisms of the twentieth century. They were the ones who, as they did with Ady,canonized the other great genius of Hungarian literature, Attila József, though—having lost some oftheir influence—less effectively. With the financial help of Bertalan Hatvany, younger brother ofNyugat founder Lajos Hatvany, and with Pál Ignotus, son of Ignotus, as editor in chief, theyestablished a new periodical, Szép Szó (Fine Word; 1936–1939), because Nyugat, now no longer intheir control, refused to publish József’s work.

In this second period, the basic tone of nonJews depicting Jews was set by Dezső Szabó’s novelElsodort falu (Sweptaway Village; 1919). Published in many editions and exerting great influence,the book was antisemitic, claiming that German and Jewish intellectual expansion smotheredHungarian identity and opportunities. Mihály Babits, poet, novelist, editor, translator, and essayist,one of the major authorities of the Hungarian intelligentsia, in his novel Timár Virgil fia (Virgil Timár’sSon; 1922), rejected—albeit in very civilized tones—the role of Jews in Hungarian culture. He modeledhis novel’s hero, the seductive father figure, on Ignotus, the most controversial participant in theHungarian–Jewish or urban–populist debates of the time. (Ignotus was Babits’s predecessor as editorin chief of Nyugat.)

There was very little consolation to be found in the novel Kivilágos virradatig (Until the Breaking ofDawn; 1926), by the Hungarian novelist Zsigmond Móricz, though it had achieved great force andaesthetic heights by stating the manyfaceted truth in no uncertain terms, namely that for historicaland psychological reasons Jewish and Hungarian coexistence was nigh impossible. Móricz, partly ofpeasant extraction, was a most sincere friend of Hungarian Jewish writers and of Hungarian Jewishliterature; in many of his articles he encouraged Jewish writers to base their works on the Jewishexperience and on their own psychological traits. His article, “Zsidó lélek az irodalomban” (The JewishSoul in Literature; published in Nyugat in 1930), in which he hailed András Komor’s novel FischmannS. utódai (Successors of S. Fischmann; 1929), was not only a theoretical summary of his ideas butalso marked the beginning of a debate around the concept and role of Hungarian Jewish literature.

Other representative works were historical essays. Gyula Szekfü’s book, Három nemzedék (ThreeGenerations), the 1934 edition of which, Három nemzedék és ami utána következik (ThreeGenerations and What Came After), was expanded by a chapter titled “Trianon után” (After Trianon).This text devoted four chapters to the Jewish presence in Hungarian life—and sharply rejected it. Abook by Szekfü’s student, Gyula Farkas, Az asszimilácio kora a magyar irodalomban, 1867–1914 (TheAge of Assimilation in Hungarian Literature, 1867–1914; 1938) paints a distorted and uniformlynegative picture of the Jewish presence in Hungarian literature. It was under the influence of theseworks that Laszló Németh wrote his booklength essay Kisebbségben (In the Minority; 1939) on thesame subject, and in the same spirit—from the viewpoint of populist writers. The reaction generatedby these works, and the discourse following Gyula Illyés’s travelogue of Baranya, Pusztulás(Ruination; 1934), are referred to as the “népiurbánus” (populisturban) conflict in Hungarianliterary as well as social history. (To this day, the codename for “Jew” in Hungarian literature isurbanus.)

The change that occurred as the result of these debates was defined by Jenő Zsoldos as the“awakening of Jewish selfawareness.” The outstanding representatives of this new attitude were

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three Jewish writers who were accepted in both Hungarian and Jewish literary spheres. Károly Papdevoted his entire career—prose, essays, and dramas—to determine which strategy might best beadapted by Jews and by Jewish intellectual activities to survive and retain Jewish identity in theshadow of approaching doom. His ideas are found in his novel, Azarel (1937), addressing the problemwith great artistic skill and analyzing it from inside the Jewish experience. His essay, Zsidó sebek ésbűnök (Jewish Wounds and Sins; 1935), an inquiry into alternatives in Hungarian–Jewishrelationships, created a great stir. The liberalsocialist Jewish intelligentsia rejected it; the reactions ofother Jewish intellectuals were divided, but Aladár Komlós, Jenő Zsoldos, and József Patai appreciatedhis views, while populist intellectuals, led by László Németh and Gyula Illyés, engaged him in arespectful debate. András Komor (1898–1944), novelist, poet, and translator, wrote his novelFischmann S. utódai as a family saga against the background of Jewish capitalism in which hedepicted Jewish life in the country and in the big city, describing through brilliant observations the twodifferent lifestyles, foreshadowing the moral and material fiasco of artificial and spineless assimilation.In a threepart lecture series on Jewish problems in Hungarian literature, which he presented at theFree University of the Budapest Jewish community (only recently published as an appendix to thenew edition of his novel), he surveys positively and approvingly the antecedents of Jewish literature,holding the view that Jews ought to rely on their Jewish identity if they hope to create works that canbe universally appreciated.

Both these writers had given serious thought to the possibilities offered by Zionism. They acceptedZionism as an alternative (as for example, in Károly Pap’s essay on József Patai’s biography of Herzl,Nyugat; 1933), but ultimately they rejected the movement, as they did not wish to become, noteven on a Jewish basis, a nation like all the other nations. On the other hand, the young generationof Jewish essayists gathered around the publication Libanon (1936–1943) was increasingly drawn toZionism and the New Hebrew culture. The nucleus of this group included such young rabbis andteachers as István Hahn, Pál Vidor, and Imre Beneschovsky, the writer and critic Imre Keszi, thephilosopher József Grossinger, but among those publishing frequently in Libanon were also JenőZsoldos, Aladár Komlós, and the musicologist Bence Szabolcsi. The Hebrewlanguage cultural journalsof Palestine were regularly reviewed; studies were written about Franz Rosenzweig and Martin Buberas well as about Ḥayim Naḥman Bialik, Sha’ul Tchernichowsky, and Yosef Klausner. Modeled on theseries of Schocken publications in Germany, Javne Könyvsorozat (Javne Books) made basic Zionistworks available in Hungarian translation, among them those of Ahad HaAm, Shemu’el Yosef Agnon,and Buber.

The threatening atmosphere of this period also gave birth to publications that collected theachievements of Hungarian Jewish intellectual activity, including the Magyar Zsidó Lexikon(Hungarian Jewish Encyclopedia) in 1929, edited by the writer Péter Újvári (1869–1931). For all itsflaws and omissions—many authors made great efforts not to be included—this is still the greatencyclopedia of the Hungarian Jewish cultural spirit. In his study and collection of documents titledMagyar irodalom és zsidóság (Hungarian Literature and the Jews; 1943), the literary historian andteacher Jenő Zsoldos (1896–1975) provides an extensive scholarly summary of the portrayal of Jewsand their role in literature. He begins his survey with the relationship between Hungarian literatureand the Bible. The everincreasing shadow of the Holocaust also brought Aladár Komlós, who hadtaken part in most of the debates concerning the Jewish question, to write his synthesis, “A Magyarzsidósag irodalmi tevékenysége a XIX. században” (The Literary Activity of Hungarian Jewry in theNineteenth Century). (One can only speculate why he left the manuscript, whose exact date isuncertain, unpublished; found in a cellar, it appeared in print only in 1997.) Komlós also edited Ararát,a series of almanac anthologies (1939–1944), after the antiJewish laws, beginning with 1938, hadbarred Jews from nonJewish intellectual activities. The most characteristic document of this period,the diaries of the poet Miklós Radnóti, has also only recently been published (Napló; 1993). They shedlight on the debate between Radnóti (1909–1944) and Komlós. The poet, who would write, arguably,the most representatives poems of the Holocaust experience, informed the editor of Ararát in 1942that despite the undeniable expulsion of Jews from Hungarian literature he refused to be identified asa “Jewish poet” and to be included in an anthology written only by Jews for the succor and mentalencouragement of Jews. Indeed, he converted to Catholicism the following year, just before hisdeportation and tragic death.

It was also with the intention of a summary, with messages for posterity, that the anthology Száz évzsidó magyar költői (A Hundred Years of Jewish Hungarian Poets, edited by Hugó Csergő; n.d.) waspublished; it collected the fruits of Hungarian Jewish poetry from the Reform era to the 1940s. In thesame period there appeared a large number of publications, printed by the religious communities or byorganizations affiliated with these communities; some were published privately—all were documentsof a desperate agony. These books shared the almanac–calendar format that had characterizedHungarianlanguage Jewish literature introduced in 1848. With this symbolic format, the 100yearhistory and literature of Hungarian Jews, again relegated to the Jewish cultural sphere and to theseparate Jewish history, had come to an end. At the memorial service for Hungarian Jewish writersheld in 1946, Aladár Komlós in his “In memoriam . . .” (1947) recalled by name the memory of morethan 60 Jewish writers among the victims, noting that the list was by no means complete.

The literature born of the Hungarian Holocaust is not treated here because its psychosociologicalcriteria are very different from those that were valid for the previous 100 years surveyed above. Mostspecifically, in this recent period the history of Hungarians and the history of Jews parted ways andthe dialogue between them ceased.

For the same reason, this article does not include a discussion of the Jewish aspects of postwarHungarian literature, which is to say the literature of the Communist era, or the literature of the socalled “Jewish Renaissance” period that began with the collapse of communism in 1989. This is partlybecause the Holocaust caused such profound damage to Hungarian intellectual and spiritual life: thebloodletting was so extensive in human lives and in intellectual potential that it would be not onlyunscholarly to presuppose an organic continuation, but also, when measured against the richaccomplishments of the 100 years reviewed above, inequitable and disrespectful.

APPENDIX: HUNGARIAN WRITERS

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Gelléri, Andor Endre (1907–1945), interwarera novelist who can be compared only to Károly Pap.Gelléri’s Gőzmosoda (Steam Laundry; 1931), published when he was 23, is close to a masterpiece,replete with brilliant, expressively distorted and clever grotesque figures, most of them Jews. In hispersonal life and in his writing he avoided the sphere of Jewish culture. However, the unfinishedautobiography that he began to write in 1942 while serving in a forced labor battalion, Egy önérzettörtenete (One Man’s SelfEsteem; 1957), depicts extensively the injurious treatment he received forbeing a Jew. Gelléri lived to be liberated in Mauthausen, but died in an American military hospital. Anedition of his works, Összegyüjtött novellái (Collected Novellas) was published in 1962.

Heltai, Jenő (1871–1957), writer, journalist, poet, and playwright. Jenő Heltai (cousin of TheodorHerzl) was among the first poets to abandon weighty material concerned with national fate andidentity; instead, he composed light, often frivolous songs on mundane situations, dissecting moralproblems and existential phenomena against the background of the metropolis. A novel, Kiskirályok(Little Kings; 1913), deals with the nature of imperialist wars, while a play, Néma levente (The MuteWarrior; 1936), set in the fifteenthcentury reign of King Mathias, has gained the status of a nationaldrama. Heltai also wrote the lyrics for the popular musical János vitéz (The Hero János; 1904). Hesurvived the Holocaust unscathed due to the intervention of Miklós Horthy and received the highestaward for literature, the Kossuth prize, in the year of his death.

Kaczér, Illés (1887–1980), novelist and journalist. A prolific contributor to the Jewish press inBudapest, Illés Kaczér lived in Vienna, Cluj, several cities in Slovakia, Berlin, London, and finally TelAviv. He wrote Hungarian Jewry’s great narrative tetralogy, the saga of Jewish families who in theircovered wagons had come across the Carpathian Mountains: Ne félj szolgám Jákob (Fear Not, MyServant Jacob; 1953); Jericho ostroma (The Battle of Jericho; 1954); Három a csillag (Three Are theStars; 1956); and Kossuth Lajos zsidaja (Lajos Kossuth’s Jew; 1957). The adventurefilled narrativestream is somewhat oldfashioned in the tradition of Mór Jókai.

Komor, András (1898–1944), writer, poet, and critic. András Komor’s most significant work is the1929 novel Fischmann S. utódai (Successors of S. Fischmann), a panorama of Hungarian Jewishcapitalism and assimilation viewed from a Jewish standpoint, written with unsparing selfreflection.The book is associated with a debate in the annals of Hungarian literary history on the state andnature of Jewish literature. Komor also conducted a threepart lecture series in 1935 at the BudapestJewish Community’s Free University, titled Zsidó problémák a modern magyar irodalomban (JewishProblems in Modern Hungarian Literature); the text of the lectures appeared in the appendix of thesecond edition of Komor’s novel, with notes by Petra Török (Múlt és Jövő; 1998).

Lesznai, Anna (1885–1966), writer, poet, and industrial artist. Anna Lesznai’s reply to the HuszadikSzázad’s famous inquiry in 1918 on the Jewish question—initiated by Oszkár Jászi, her husbandbetween 1913 and 1918—provided a profound analysis of the impossibility of assimilation. In herchildhood, Lesznai had converted to Calvinism, but during the period of increasing antisemitism inthe 1920s and 1930s, she declared that she belonged to her people, the Jews. Lesznai’s major work,Kezdetben volt a kert (In the Beginning There Was the Garden; 1966), appeared in the last year ofher life; it is a roman à clef in which she critically depicts the brief flowering and the rapid dissolutionof the Jewish upper middle class. The novel’s broad canvas is similar to that found in her cousin LajosHatvany’s work, Urak és emberek (Gentlemen and People; 1963).

Marovits, Rodion (1888–1948), novelist. Rodion Marovits’s Szibériai garnizon (Siberian Garrison;1927), a “collective reportnovel”—the author’s own subtitle—was immediately translated into majorlanguages and was a huge success. It is the prototype of the lagernovels; set in the confines of aRussian prisonerofwar camp, it depicts the hierarchies of AustroHungarian society. The Jewishexperience of World War I emerges as a failure of assimilation, revealing that Hungarian–Jewishcoexistence is imaginable in the common political and cultural space, but is impossible in criticalsituations. None of Marovits’s subsequent novels reached the level of his earlier success.

Molnár, Ákos (1895–1945), novelist. Ákos Molnár’s major work, A hitehagyott (The Apostate; 1937)is a historical novel about Imre Fortunatus, King Mathias’s banker, whose dramatic lapse of faith isdrawn as a series of conflicts and decisions (the novel suggests sexual desires and craving forpossession as reasons). Molnár shows with great psychological power the breaking away from boththe Jewish family and the Jewish community—motivated by longing for a career—and the wrenchingprocess of return. He conducted serious historical research, consulting primary sources to which herefers in his preface and endnotes.

Nagy, Endre (1877–1937), writer, journalist, and a creator of Hungarian cabaret. Endre Nagy was aunique member of the very influential bohemian circle of Nagyvárad that gathered around the poetEndre Ady. Nagy was a journalist first in Nagyvárad and then in Budapest; he also wrote novellas(many with Jewish themes), sketches, light plays, and novels. His most noteworthy accomplishmentwas his establishment of the cabaret genre; this form relied on literary values and on theindispensable presence of a master of ceremonies, who conducted improvisational dialogues with theaudience. Nagy founded and until 1913 directed the first of these forums, the Modern Színpad(Modern Stage), to which many Jewish writers contributed material. Later he was artistic director andmanager of several similar cabarets.

Rejtő, Jenő (1905–1943), pulpfiction novelist; also wrote under the pseudonyms P. Howard and G.Lavery. No other Hungarian writer has affected current Hungarian usage as Jenő Rejtő has with hischaracters, jokes, witticisms, and wordplay; and no writer from that country has had such a widereading public, from the near illiterate to the most sophisticated of literary connoisseurs. His genrewas the privateeye and pulpfiction novel imbued with the cabaret culture of Budapest and thehumor and linguistic playfulness characteristic of the early period of Hungarian Jewish literature. Inhis last published work, Csontbrigád (Bone Brigade), published from found manuscripts in the 1970s,some of his experiences in forced labor service spill into the world of the French Foreign Legion.

Révész, Béla (1876–1944 [year of deportation]), writer and editor. Béla Révész was the firstHungarian Jewish writer to show interest in socialism. He may have been poet Endre Ady’s closest

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friend; and Révész’s current recognition is due mainly to his reminiscences of Ady, published as AdyEndre életéről és verseiről (Of Endre Ady’s Life and Poems; 1922); Ady és Léda, (Ady and Leda;1934); and Ady trilógiája (Ady’s Trilogy; 1938). Several of his novellas deal with Jewish themes. In hislast work, Max Nordau élete (The Life of Max Nordau; 1943), which he wrote on the basis of indepthresearch conducted while he was denied work and publication, Révész reveals many new aspects ofNordau’s family background and the beginnings of this renowned thinker’s career in Budapest.

Somlyó, Zoltán (1882–1937), writer, poet, journalist, and translator. Success came to ZoltánSomlyó with his second volume of poetry, Dél van (It Is Midday; 1910), which also earned him thefriendship of Dezső Kosztolányi and Frigyes Karinthy. Somlyó led the life of a bohemian poet. Hissimple and modern poems are sensual and have the ease of folk songs. Perhaps he reached his peakin the poem “Hajnali ima” (Dawn Prayer; 1911), often recited even today. His selected poems firstappeared in 1962 and have been published several times. Neither these, nor the volumes hepublished on his own, contain the myriad poems that he published in the Jewish cultural press. Healso engaged Aladár Komlós in debate on the state of Hungarian Jewish poetry (in Múlt és Jövő;1929).

Vészi, József (1858–1940), writer, journalist, poet, translator, and editor. József Vészi was editor inchief of several important newspapers. The most enduring feat of his career, however, was hisdiscovery of new talent. He brought the poet Endre Ady to Budapest and secured both a livelihood andthe possibility of publication for him; it was to Vészi’s daughter, Margit—later the wife of FerencMolnár—that Ady wrote the poem cycle Margitta élni aka (Margitta Wants to Live; 1912); Vészi’sother daughter was married to the writer Lajos Bíró. Details of the autobiography of hisgranddaughter, Márta Molnár (poet György Sárközi’s wife), paint a lively picture of the colorfulbourgeois Jewish salons in Budapest; these are found in Ágnes Széchenyi’s work, Márta Molnár(2004).

Zsoldos, Jenő (1886–1972), literary historian. Along with Aladár Komlós, Jenő Zsoldos was the mostprominent researcher and critic of Hungarian Jewish literature (he and Komlós wrote the literaryentries in the Hungarian Jewish Encyclopedia). Zsoldos dedicated his life to the world of Jewishculture. From 1919 he was a teacher and from 1939 the principal of the Budapest JewishGymnasium. He edited the periodicals Zsidó Szemle (Jewish Review; 1925–1926), and Libanon(1936–1943). His main area of exploration was the relationship between Hungarian literature andHungarian Jewry. He wrote countless studies of sixteenth and seventeenthcentury Hungarianauthors’ perception of the Bible and of Jews; and also examined the nineteenth century withparticular interest in the Hungarian reform era. A summary of this work, hastily arranged andpublished in the shadow of the Holocaust, is the study Magyar irodalom és a zsidóság (HungarianLiterature and the Jews; 1943). This collection is not widely known, but its bibliography isindispensable to anyone working in this field. In his introductory essay to his document collection,1848–49 a magyar zsidóság életében (1848–49 in the Life of Hungarian Jewry; 1948), Zsoldos pointsout that Jewish assimilation had remained illusory because the emotional criteria for acceptance hadnever been present in Hungary. With József TurócziTrostler he also edited Az első magyar zsidóirónemzedék (The First Generation of Hungarian Jewish Writers; 1940). Zsoldos’s bibliography waspublished by Sándor Scheiber in volume 14 of Magyar Zsidó Oklevéltár (Hungarian Jewish Archives;1971).

Suggested Reading

Miksa Grünwald, Zsidó biedermeier (Budapest, 1937); János Kőbányai, ed., Zsidó reformkor(Budapest, 2000); Aladár Komlós, Magyarzsidó szellemtörténet a reformkortól a holocaustig, comp.János Kőbányai, 2 vols. (Budapest, 1997); Miklós Lackó, “Zsidók a budapesti irodalomban, 1890–1930,” Budapesti Negyed 2 (1995): 107–126; Imre Monostori, “A zsidó kérdés változatai a magyarfolyóiratokban a huszas évektől a zsidótorvényekig,” in Helykeresések, pp. 11–146 (Budapest, 2004);Rózsa Osztern, Zsido újságírók és szépírók a magyarországi németnyelvű időszaki sajtóban, a “PesterLloyd” megalapitásáig, 1854ig (Budapest, 1930); Petra Török, ed., A határ és a határolt:Töprengések a magyarzsidó irodalom létformáiról (Budapest, 1997), also in German as Angezogenund abgestossen: Juden in der ungarischen Literatur (Frankfurt a.M., 1999); János Waldapfel, “Amagyar zsidó kultúra,” Zsidó évkönyv (1927/28); Jenő Zsoldos, ed., Magyar irodalom és zsidóság(Budapest, 1943).

Author

János Kőbányai

Translation

Translated from Hungarian by Imre Goldstein