É. Apor , I. Ormos (ed.): Goldziher Memorial Conference, June 21–22, 2000, Budapest.
ORMOS, István: Goldziher's Mother Tongue: A Contribution to the Study of the Language Situation in Hungary in the Nineteenth Century
ISTVÁN ORMOS days, remained under Hungarian control. x x Sopron was awarded the honorific title Civitas Fidelissima by the Hungarian Parliament. Later on in his memoirs Anton Lehár regularly refers to Hungary as his fatherland, in one passage describing a car journey from Austria to Hungary as taking him to the "holy fatherland". 8 9 The word "fatherland" (Vaterland, Heimat, Mutterland) tends to refer to Hungary, 9" though in a broader sense he uses it to refer to the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy too. " Lehár was a staunch and unswerving "legitimist", that is he unreservedly supported the standpoint that, notwithstanding the claims and demands of the Allied Powers, the legitimate ruler of Hungary was still King Charles IV of the House of Habsburg, the crowned king of Hungary 9 2. Owing to the political problems involved he was soon compelled to leave Hungary for Vienna, where he lived until his death. In the complex efforts to prevent West Hungary's being ceded to Austria, efforts which included a military insurrection, an important role was played by university professor and extreme right-wing politician Vilmos Pröhle (Wilhelm Pröhle; 18711946). 9 3 Incidentally, Goldziher was one of the referees of Pröhle's dissertation on Turko-Tatar linguistics submitted for habilitation to Budapest University in 1905. 94 Pröhle himself was of partly German extraction: his father, who did not learn Hungarian properly until the end of his life, came from Germany to Hungary for professional reasons. His mother was Hungarian, and there can be no doubt that Hungarian was Pröhle's mother tongue, though it is likely that he spoke German with his father and grew up in a bilingual environment: neither of the two parents learned the language of the other properly until the end of their lives. 9 5 Pröhle was an ardent Hungarian nationalist, who did everything in his power to prevent the dismemberment of Hungary and especially to keep western Hungary in Hungarian 8 8 This has been greatly resented ever since by the German-speaking inhabitants of former West Hungary, the modem Burgenland, as a friend from Mosonújfalu (Genn. Neudorf bei Parndorf) told me recently. On the whole problem see Soós, Burgenland az európai politikában... . 5 9 Lehár, Erinnerungen..., 93. 9( 1 See for instance ibid., 48, 58 ("aus meiner engeren Heimat, Ungarn"), 70, 73, 85, 86, 93, (96; "auf die Gefahr hin, die uns und unserem Deutschwestungarn von steirischer Seite her drohte"), 99, 100, 103, 104, 106, 114, 119, 127, 136, 139, 154 ("Meine tiefe Sehnsucht, einmal selbst ein Stück ungarischen Heimatbodens mein Eigen zu nennen..."), 1579 1 Ibid.. 48. 9 2 As Charles I he was the last emperor of Austria. 9 3 On Pröhle see Magyar Életrajzi Lexikon [Hungarian Biographical Encyclopaedia], Ed. Agnes Kenyeres, Budapest 1967-1969, vol. II, 446. 9 4 See the letter of Lajos Lóczy, dean of the Faculty of Arts, to Goldziher, dated 20.04. 19°5Goldziher Correspondence [filed under Pröhle Vilmos], Oriental Collection. Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest. I am indebted to Éva Pröhle for information on the Pröhle family. 222
