Hungarian Heritage Review, 1988 (17. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1988-12-01 / 12. szám
Special ^[eature-QDf-ÍEliE-^ontl] the multi volume set of Magyar tortenet (first publ. in 1929-1933 in seven volumes, then in five volumes in many consecutive editions), an indisputably high-level synthesis, was heretofore unparalleled in historiography. It was the first synthesis in the country which fully utilized modem methods of source and textual criticism and to a lesser extent the up-to-date results of historical epistemology. Balint Homan prepared the medieval parts up to 1458, while Szekfu dealt with the modern age. Homan succeeded in infusing the volumes of Magyar tortenet with the achievements of his outstanding research. I refer especially to his pioneer research in Hungarian numismatics (Magyar penztortenet 1000-1325. Budapest, 1916) and economic history (A magyar királyság pénzügyéi es gazdasagpolitikaja Karoly Robert korában. Budapest, 1921) to mention only two of his numerous publications. Homan’s contribution to Magyar tortenet in fact did not reflect the influence of Geistesgeschichte, except in some of the phrases he used to serve the spiritually-oriented, anti-Marxist political course. Homan by his portrayal of medieval Hungária as a great power tried to promote certain political objectives of the regime. Szekfu’s contribution to Magyar tortenet affected the professionals and the reading public alike much more deeply. He believed that the only proper way of development is progressive conservatism and that in his nation’s past class warfare and other Marxist concepts were reflexly excluded as decisive historymaking forces. Both authors concluded that their country and its peoples, Magyars and non-Magyars alike, chose the Western way of civilization and that Hungary for centuries fulfilled its mission of being “the bulwark of Christian civilization” against the pagan invaders from the East. Prodigious amount of data, including the use of heretofore unpublished documents, characterizes this monumental synthesis. It is interesting to note that since its first publication, Magyar tortenet has continuously been used as a reference tool and even Marxist historians are acknowledging some of its outstanding features. One of the most gifted disciples of Balint Homan was József Deer (1905-1972) who more or less followed his master’s ideology. In reevaluating the country’s past in line with the requirements of Geistesgeschichte, Deer introduced the thesis of charismatic leadership which had not been a familiar topic in writings on the Middle Ages. Deer went even further by reasoning that charismatic elements played an important role in the medieval formation of the nation. For this and similiar views Deer was viciously attacked after the war by Erno Gero and Emma Lederer which forced him to emigrate to Switzerland where he was appointed director of the Medieval Institute at the State University of Switzerland at Bern and continued his methodologically well-based research and prolific publishing activity dealing with Hungarian and universal medieval topics. Very few individuals opposed the official trend represented by Balint Homan and Gyula Szekfu. Elemer Malyusz (1898- ) belonged to this small group of dissenting historians. He succeeded Homan in the Chair of the History of Medieval Hungary at the Peter Pázmány University in Budapest in the early thirties. Even Malyusz accepted in general the principles and standpoints expressed in Magyar tortenet. Together with Sándor Domanovszky, another opponent, he criticized the Homan-Szekfu synthesis only from a religious (Protestant) angle. Malyusz pioneered in working out the objectives and methodology of local history at the beginning of the thirties. His concept was that local history and ethnic studies (more correctly Siedlungskunde, history of ethnic settlements in his interpretation) were closely related issues. Regarding the methodology of these related issues, Malyusz learned much from Volkstumskunde and Auslanddeutschtum research organizations. Malyusz formulated and submitted a detailed proposition to organize a central research institute affiliated with the Hungarian National Archives to deal with local history and the development of ethnic settlements. His plan did not materialize. Malyusz succeeded in launching a new era in local history research. Until his pioneering work local history writing was colored by local patriotism and the overwhelming majority of local historians was not well-trained methodologically. Inspired chiefly by his works, Jenő Házi, Ambrus Pleidell, Kalman Eperjessy and several others considered local history research as a lifetime professional undertaking and all published first-class scholarly works. Research in local history and ethnic settlements after the Nazi takeover of 1933 reflected increasingly anti-German attitudes, and in the second half of the thirties as a fast-growing movement such research embraced almost all the significant branches of the humanities climaxing in settlement history, sociography and essay literature. Sándor Domanovszky (1877-1955) remained a positivist and dealt chiefly with economic and social history topics. In addition, Domanovszky wrote several well-footnoted, detailed studies on chronicle and gesta literature. He edited, with moderate success for decades up to 1943, the Századok, the official journal of the Hungarian Historical Association, in addition to a useful monographic series entitled Studies on the History of Hungarian Agriculture (Tanulmányok a magyar mezogazdasag tortenetehez). The political and intellectual climate, as I have pointed out previously, did not favor any deviation from the official line of the philosophy of history embodied in Homan-Szekfu ’s Magyar tortenet. It can be said that István Hajnal (1892-1956), professor of modern world history at the Peter Pázmány University, alone opposed diametrically the official trend of Geistesgeschichte. His theory of historical knowledge in princípium opposed any “philosophizing” in history. Therefore he explicitly rejected all theorizing efforts including Geistesgeschichte and historical materialism. He took the stance that objective historical research can be based on primary sources only and its goal should be the concrete investigation into the forms of culture (civilization) so that in the center of inquiry would stand human labor (work). Thus in Hajnal’s concluding remarks, the history of technical development (progress) and the comparative history of writing should be in the focus of investigation. Labor (work) as the central concept of human evolution seemed to be the mainstay of his epistemology — continued next page 16 HUNGARIAN HERITAGE REVIEW DECEMBER 1988
