Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 36. (1983)
BARANY, George: Széchényi, America, and Assimilation: An Ambiguous Legacy
Széchenyi, America, and Assimilation 201 the substantial anti-German components of Széchenyi’s ideas on assimilation, Szekfű over-emphasized the anti-Semitic racist prejudices of his idol55a). Yet unlike most contemporary Hungarian politicians 56), Széchenyi was less afraid of the Slavic ‘menace’ than of the threat of German absorption of the Magyars. Szekfű was highly critical of Hungarian capitalism, which he tended to identify with the Jews, though, ironically, Széchenyi was one of the main promoters of a capitalistic free enterprise system in Hungary. It was only in the late 1930’s, with the spread of Nazi ‘völkisch’ ideology, that Szekfű decided to take note, in an expanded edition of his book entitled Három nemzedék és ami utána következik [Three Generations and What Follows After (1938)] of German assimilative trends posing a new Teutonic threat to the peoples of Eastern Europe as sensed by Széchenyi a century earlier 57). Many aspects of the ‘cult of Széchenyi’, initiated among historians by Szekfű, permeated interwar Hungary’s cultural life. Széchenyi was quoted, often out of context, in many a heated literary-political debate on which much has been written in Hungarian and more recently in English. A survey of this literature is not the task of this paper, but two points should be mentioned briefly. One is that directly or indirectly, the problem of assimilation, primarily Jewish assimiliation, frequently recurred whenever the Magyar nation’s fate or future were discussed. The Second point touches on the intricate triangular relationship of Germans, Jews, and Magyars in Hungary, which I discussed in some detail elsewhere58). Among the many efforts of the Nazi-sponsored radical Right to expropriate Széchenyi for the pursuit of anti-Jewish policies, one stands out with particular notoriety. In reply to a protest by Cardinal Archbishop Justinian Serédi, Primate of Hungary, the country’s prime minister, installed by Germany in the spring of 1944, cited Széchenyi’s speech on Jewish emancipation, given one hundred years earlier, to justify the delivery of Hungarian Jews to the Germans 59). 55a) For details, cf. George B a r a n y Three Generations: Szekfű’s Széchenyi Portrait in East European Quarterly 18/2 (June 1984). A Hungarian version of this article is going to be published in Történelmi Szemle 1984 or 1985. 5B) Károly — Tolnai Széchenyi döblingi hagyatéka 1 474: Joseph Eötvös to Széchenyi, April 7, 1859 (referring to the undesirability of the formation of a ’’new large Slavic state“ in lieu of the Austrian Empire, that could bring Hungarians in contact „with such elements replacing the Germans who possess a much greater assimilative capacity“). 57) B a r a n y Széchenyi 466—467; Asher Cohen The Attitude of the Intelligentsia in Hungary Toward Jewish Assimilation Between the Two World Wars in Béla Vágó, ed., Jewish Assimilation in Modern Times (Boulder, Colorado 1968) 68. 58) B a r a n y Magyar Jew or: Jewish Magyar? 12—16. 59) Ilona Benoschofsky — Elek Karsai, eds, Vádirat a nácizmus ellen [Indictment Against Nazism], 3 vols (Budapest 1958—1967); here 2 (1960) 57. Cf.
