Hungarian Heritage Review, 1989 (18. évfolyam, 1-9. szám)
1989-01-01 / 1. szám
.......— ■ ----- jjípectal ^eature-CSU^fje-^antf] ========= HUNGARIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO WORLD CIVILIZATION- by -DR. FRANCIS S. WAGNER HISTORIOGRAPHY [Continued] MARXIST-LENINIST RE-EVALUATION 1945 Also as an aftermath of World War II, Hungary fell into the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence and became one of its neighbors. The new constellation not only determined the fate of the country but its intellectual orientation as well. It is an established fact that up to this point in time there had been no direct, if any, lasting Russian effect on Hungary’s cultural life which had heretofore developed exclusively under Western influence. Since the conclusion of the war, the country’s intellectual development precisely mirrored the main phases and characteristics of the political changes taking place there and in the Kremlin-dominated area as a whole. Directives issued by the Central Committee of the Hungarian Communist Party have triggered all political and cultural changes and historians have been compelled to make research and rewrite history accordingly. Interestingly enough, the Marxist-Leninist rewriting of history, as did so many other enterprises in the country’s scholarship, began with Gyula Szekfu’s activity. His series of lectures delivered at the Budapest headquarters of the Free Trade-Union of Hungarian Educators (Magyar Pegagogusok Szabad Szakszervezete) in the early spring of 1945 initiated the process of reevaluation. Szekfu modified his previous, antimaterialistic views, condemned the exaggerations of Geistesgeschichte and the by-now exclusive Western attitude. Szekfu’s first postwar public appearance thereby heralded the beginning of an entirely new era in conducting social and historical research. He also stressed in these historic lectures that Hungary ought to find its place in the new foreign policy constellation through indicating an Eastern orientation and forging a sincere friendship with all of its neighbors, above all with the USSR. This new state of affairs should be considered. Szekfu reasoned, immutable and therefore final. But his words proved to be a voice in the wilderness. Historian Erzsébet Andies, a Moscow-trained leader of the new orientation as early as 1948 said with resignation that “Thp writers and editors of the Századok (the chief organ of the Hungarian Historical Association) failed to notice the Soviet Union even in 1948; there was not a single article or communication in the Századok which would have made the most remote reference to Soviet historiography. The Soviet Union and its mighty historical science simply did not exist for the Századok in 1948.” In order to eradicate the bourgeois science and to create in its place a Marxist-Leninst approach, the Party’s Central Committee from time to time has issued guiding principles to promote an all-out revolution. As a result social and historical sciences have undergone significant changes in four phases, each in full coordination with the major currents of political development. The first phase, the preparatory one, lasted approximately up to 1948-1949; the second one, known as the Stalinization (Rákosi) period, culminated in the first postwar Congress of Hungarian Historians held in Budapest, June 1953. The third stage represented a relative liberalization process reaching a peak during the Imre Nagy regime and the Petofi-Circle debates preceding the October 1956 events; while the fourth phase has been in continuous effect since the defeat of the 1956 Revolution. Research and interpretation in all four phases of the aboveoutlined historiographic development have suffered in varying degrees from the same simplistic vision of the past which stemmed from the coercive application of historical and dialectical materialism. Prior to scrutinizing postwar literature let us make a brief survey of some more important structural changes the historical profession has undergone since the end of the war. In 1949 and the years immediately afterwards, the whole of scientific life, and within its framework the historical profession, was thoroughly reorganized in line to varying extents with the Soviet pattern. The Division of Social and Historical Sciences, and the Institute of Historical Research, both affiliated with the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, were reshaped to become the country’s top professional institutions. Their members, as well as university professors, leading archivists, and museologists, now constitute the elite of the historical profession. Since the war the reorganization of archives, museums and libraries has been geared to the practical needs of historians. Archivistship especially since 1945 has enjoyed a high level. The first references to the preservation of documents of the royal chancery go back to the period of King Bela IV (1235-1270). In 1273 a law was promulgated which prescribed that all public documents of national interest be kept in the archives of the country, the universale archívum regni, under the jurisdiction of the Palatine. Since the Palatine relinquished these rights in 1756 the National Archives was established which for the most part retained its feudal character until its reorganization in 1875. The new Archives Law providing for uniform organization of the archives was enacted in 1950, its most important provision being the setting up of the National Center of Archives (Levéltárák Országos Központja) to supervise the archival network. The Hungarian National Archives in Budapest has five departments. Its masterfully knowledgeable guides are part of the program to facilitate use of the records in its custody. The Budapest State Archives, nineteen county archives, and numerous church and private archives all belong to the state-controlled system of archives in addition to the National Archives. Nowadays, archives are concentrating on promoting the auxiliary sciences of history, historical statistics, history of public administration and source publication. The Museum Act of 1949 (amended in 1963) made possible a largescale development by creating a state-controlled network of museums. The largest and oldest among them, the Hungarian National Museum (founded in 1802) in Budapest, has five departments, its Department of Archaeology being the most important. It boasts a most rich and variegated collection of objects from the — continued next page JANUARY 1989 HUNGARIAN HERITAGE REVIEW 19
