Magyar külpolitika, 1930 (11. évfolyam, 1-7. szám)

1930 / 7. szám - Hungarian reconstruction. Lecture delivered by Iván Hordóssy before the League of Nation's Union at Chelsea on December 10th

December 1930 HUNGÁRIA LLOYD 25 is surely incredible that any stato would thus open the gates of Western Europe to the forces of anar chy and destruction. What is your opinion concerning Soviel Russia's dumping exports which are allowed to enter England? How long will England be able to hold out agamat the attendanj fali in i)rices, and what is likely to be the effecl thereof upon the economic relations bctween England and the Dominions? The consequences of Russian dumping of crude and manufactured articles upon the British markei at prices far below the cosl of production are disastrous for British produces. These exports of the output of slave labour are deliberately intended to disorganise and depress the economic situation in every country to which they arc directed. 1 cannot believe that it will be possible even for a country so tyranically administered as Soviet HU Ísia to keep up this artificial invasion of world markets for long. It has naturally í'endered more difficult for tbc moment tbc realisation of the closer trade relations between Great Britain and her dominions which the British nation so ardently desires. The mos! effective remedy for this new form of Bolshevist hostility would be the adoption in England of the protectionist system which Lord Rothermere has strongly advocated. y Hungárián Reconstruction Lecture delivered by Iván Hordóssy before the League of Nation's Union at Chelsea on December 10th. Somé of your members have visited Hungary this summer and — I am told — they have been deeply impressed by the colours they have seen and by the tunes — they have heard there — so I have been requested to teli you somé more about it. I must admit: it is rather a difficult task because I f eel I should not disappoint you by removing with unkind hands the veij of románcé which has covered your imagination while looking at the old, slow and sometimes even blue Danube which has flown through the veins of Hungary for many sunny and stormy days with equal dignity-while gazing at the bridges, tbc Buildings of the Parliament and-over there upon the liiils: the Royal Palace wearing the mosl valuable jewel of Hungary: the holy crown of St. Stephen. But if I reálisé my duty in this respect — I have to go back a long — long way, to old forgottén days of happy pre-war times to the years of my early youth when Hungary indead was the country you may have heard of in strange and uneanny melodies and may have read of in your books of fairy tales. Who of my generation does aoi remember the proud engines puliing in many — many trainfuls of smiling and laughing passengers to the staations of the mild Balaton laké — of the wüd and white beauty of the High Tatra Mountains — of the darkgreen valleys of Transsylvania with her sleepeng old castles dreáming of the time when the greal Hungárián poet, Petőfi fulfilled his mission which he has foretold himself and died and never has been found ever since on the battlefield of Segesvári • And all this was not such a very long time ago — J remember so very well the warm fireplace in my grandmother's house in cold winters and the unforgottable sweet odour of the white acacia blossoms in the summer of which the chivalrious Cavalery officer, Lóránt Fráter has been building up rhyme;s and tuning up a littlc sentimental but yet so veryvery beautiful melodies. Since then even Lóránt Fráter has died — it was two .years ago and on a foggy, unfriendly day like this — a thousand gypsies accompanied him on his last journey — playing the immortal — for us immortal — song of the white acacia blossoms. The people wha were there had pale faces — somé of them even eried as if the Hungary before 1014 would have been placed to grave with the dead body of Lóránt Fráter. If you bought and brought back with yourself somé of the beautiful embroideries which are sold by the picturesque „matyó" women in the streets of Budapest —• you must remember that the bright and happy colours of the tulips, roses and carnations are a reflex of pre-war Hungárián eyes and hearts of an age when „Lady Sorrow" has not yet been an everyday guest in the small peasant houses — it was an age when the young Hungárián peasant lads and girls were not tired to sing when they came back from the fields, it was a time when a new, modern Magyar literature has thrown its gigantic shadows into the foreground, it was a time when the Hungárián racecoming to a space of rest in its prosperity — was about to fulfil her mission with an almost unbelievable richness on every field of aur humán cultural life. What Europe and humanity would have won from this entirely new and entirely Hungárián colour — who can say — because the thousand year old history of the nation has repeated itself again and just when we were just about to reach the height we feli again. I like to use as comparisons our songs because they are perhaps the most intimate expression of the Hungárián soul although in the later course of my lecture I will have to come to much less romantic and much more severe parts. The Hungárián songs are either very, very sad, or very gay. There is no compromise in these songs, just as there is no compromise in the Hungárián soul. We are, fortunately or unfortunately, a people of very high temperament, and very often of extremes. If we are sad, we are sad, and if we are gay, we are gay. Perhaps we have had more reasons to be sad, and that is why most of our melodies are of that character. Another very important characteristic of the Hungárián soul is our lőve for freedom. Just because we had t<> fight agaínst Turks, Tartars, Austrians and Germans for so many centuries, these wars made us love liberty, and that is why it is almosl impossible for us to accept the present humiliatiohs which have befallen us since the War. In 1848—49, we had made desperate attempts to free ourselves from Austria, and from the Habsburg Dynasty. There were beautiful and victorious days during these wars and though the small Hungárián army has been only armed with seythes and primitive weapons, it would have defeated its much mare powerful Austrian enemy had not it been assisted by the invading, huge troops of the Czar.