AZ ORSZÁGOS SZÉCHÉNYI KÖNYVTÁR ÉVKÖNYVE 1971-1972. Budapest (1973)

IV. Könyvtörténeti és művelődéstörténeti tanulmányok - Jeszenszky Géza: Magyarország az I. világháború előtti negyedszázad angol nyelvű kiadványaiban - The Image of Hungary in the English-Language Publications of the Pre-War Years, 1890-1914

történészek, jogászok és publicisták műveit behatóbban megvizsgálni és a tanulságokat levonni."

116 Kétségtelen, hogy voltak ennek az időszaknak a Magyarországról idegen nyelveken megjelent írásai között kizárólag ellenséges indíttatású, a sovinizmusra sovinizmussal felelő, sok tekintetben megtévesztő szándékú művek is: megvásárolt francia publicisták, pángermán szerzők röpiratai és a szomszédos nemzeti államok félhivatalos propagandakiadványai, de az angol nyelvterületen még a kritikus szellemű írások sem tartoztak (1914-ig, a háború kitöréséig) ebbe a kategóriába. Ezért lett volna szükség már akkor is a különböző külföldi vélemények megismerésére, szelektálására és a tanulságok levonására, más szóval a hungarica-irodalom tartalmi oldalának feltárására. The Image of Hungary in the English-Language Publications of the Pre- War Years, 1890-1914 G. JESZENSZKY The essay aims at presenting a case-study of the importance of registering, acquiring and content-analysing of the foreign-language publications dealing with or referring to Hungary. Reviewing the works published in English in the quarter of a century previous to World War I the author starts by presenting the conventional 19th century image of liberal Hungary, which drew its inspiration from the memories of 1848/49, when "they fought nobly" for liberty against absolutist reaction. Another aspect of this favourable view was the supposed similarity of the constitutional development of England and Hungary, going back to Magna Carta and the Golden Bull of 1222 respectively. In tracing the attitudes of several authors including S. WHITMAN, L. LOWELL, F. H. E. PALMER, the COLQUHOUNS, C. M. KNATCHBTILL-HTTGESSEN, W. FORSTER BOVILL, R. MAHAFFY and P. ALDEN to Hungary the author — in agreement with C. A. MACARTNEY and L. PÉTER — concludes that the turning point in the British evaluation occured around 1907, or more broadly in the years marked by the existence of the coalition of the former opposition parties in Hungary (1904— 1909). This change was brought about partly by the Hungarians themselves, by their unwillingness to accept the multinational character of Hungary and their insistence on the fiction of a politically unitary Hungarian Nation forming the Hungarian State, though the British observers discovered the illiberal policy of the Hungarian ruling classes only when the changes of the international scene (the formation of two clear-cut power groups, Atistria—Hungary being allied to Britain's great adversary) demanded new approaches to the Dual Monarchy .The main credit (or responsibility) for exposing the policies of Hungary goes to Wickham STEED, the Vienna correspondent of The Times and the historian R. W. SETON-WATSON, shared to a lesser extent by several other authors, especially by those writing during World War I. At the same time the socio-political changes in pre-war Britain also greatly contributed to the gradual change in British attitudes to Hungary. In addition to the short description and analysis of the British and some American works appearing in the years covered the author deals with those Hungarian works as well which were published at that time in English (either in Hungary or abroad) as he believes they, too, had their share in influencing the British reactions, sometimes winning a few friends but more often deterring the readers by their vociferous chauvinism. Most of the critical remarks of the British authors — unlike the works appearing at that time on Hungary in other languages, where the existence of conscious or unconscious bias cannot be denied —were not too far from the views of contemporary Hungarian radicalism, but the Hungarian public, led by a chauvinistic press, accepted only the favourable views and discarded the critics as negligible factors or bought agitators. 116. GÁL István: Magyarország, Anglia és Amerika. Bp, 1945, Officina. 132—133. 1. 431