A Debreceni Déri Múzeum Évkönyve 2000-2001 (Debrecen, 2001)

Művelődés- és irodalomtörténet - Cornelius, Deborah S.: The New Generation – Radical Reformers in a Conservative Age

Deborah S. Cornelius THE NEW GENERATION RADICAL REFORMERS IN A CONSERVATIVE AGE The paper discusses a „new generation" of Hungarians who came of age after the Treaty of Trianon. To youth in the Hungarian minority in the successor states and refugee youth who left the former Hungarian territories, the fragmentation of the nation demanded a rethinking of Hungarian national identity. While many of the older generation clung to the concept of the former Hungarian Kingdom as the embodiment of the nation, members of the new generation found this concept irrelevant. They consciously distanced themselves from their elders, whom they held responsible for the break up of Hungary, and sought to reconceptualize and transform the society in which they found themselves. According to the author it was these young intellectuals who first became conscious of the need to redefine the „nation" to include all Hungarians, including the peasantry and workers. They also urged cooperation with other national groups within in the Danubian Basin.. The two youth movements discussed in this paper were among the most influential during the interwar period. Each turned to the Hungarian peasantry as a means to unite the Hungarian speaking population and sought to improve their situation by proposing economic and political reforms. Each urged a more conciliatory policy towards the people of the neighbor countries. The youth in Czechoslovakia, known as Sarló, first turned to the countryside in order to find an original Hungarian culture. As they came to realize the serious problems of the villages, they began to study the social and economic situation in order to prepare themselves for their roles as leaders of the people. Through their experiences in a multi- ethnic state the Sarlós became convinced that the problems of the Hungarian minority could be solved only through cooperation between the different nationalities of the Danubian basin. The Szeged Youth, founded by Transylvanian Protestant refugees and other marginalized youth, thought to find the source of true Hungarian identity among the „pure Hungarian" peasantry on the Alföld. They conducted sociographic research in the villages and tanya, as well as offering legal, medical, and economic advice through education seminars. They based their hope for the future of the Hungarian nation on the enfranchisement of the peasants and workers in a democratic state with a freely elected government. The two youth movements were instrumental in the development of a movement of sociographic writing in the mid 30s which exposed the problems of the peasantry and the need for political and social reform. Although these works had a revolutionary impact on the educated population and stimulated demands for reform, the youth were ultimately unsuccessful. Gyula Szekfű in 1930 expressed his hope that the new generation would take Hungary in the direction of Western evolution. Unfortunately, the politicians - and the populations - of their age were not 262