Századok – 2015
2015 / 5. szám - KÖZLEMÉNYEK - Tamás Ágnes: "És most mutasd, hogy vidám vagy!" A magyar milleniumi ünnepségek karikatúrákon
A MAGYAR MILLENNIUMI ÜNNEPSÉGEK KARIKATÚRÁKON 1259 gyobb veszélyt jelentenének az ország területi integritására, a Figaro egyáltalán nem tárgyalta a kérdést, a Humoristické listy viszont a magyar sajtó által propagált békés viszonyt vonta kétségbe. A legerőteljesebben — a leginkább érintettként — a Cernoknažnik támadta a magyar nemzetiségi politikát és a nem magyar nemzetiségi csoportok helyzetét Magyarországon. E lap ábrázolta mindközül a legszélsőségesebben a magyarokat, akiknek egyrészt keleti eredetét és barbárságát hangsúlyozta, másrészt kigúnyolta, hogy a magyarság létszámarányának növekedése szoros összefüggésben állt a zsidóság önkéntes asszimilációjával, mely ebben az időszakban volt az addigi legnagyobb mértékű. Láthatjuk, hogy a magyar millenniumot mindegyik újság a saját nézőpontjából, saját politikai, társadalmi-gazdasági helyzetét rávetítve értékelte, aszerint mutatta be. „AND NOW SHOW THAT YOU ARE HAPPY!” The Hungarian Millennial Festivities on Caricatures By Tamás Agnes (Summary) The topic of the present paper is connected to an event of Hungarian history, which mobilised great masses at the end of the nineteenth century, namely the millennium of the Hungarian landtaking. The series of festivities, of which an organical part was the millennial exhibition demonstrating the historical achievements and greatness of the Hungarian Kingdom, had been preceded by a long period of feverish preparation, and thus received considerable attention in the press. However, the reactions that the commemoration of the Hungarian conquest elicited from the public of Hungary and the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in general were not exclusively positive, a fact that is clearly reflected in the sources chosen for this paper, the caricatures of satirical reviews. Alongside the two pro-government satirical papers published in the two centres of the Monarchy (Borsszem Jankó, Der Floh), two other humorous papers have been chosen for the analysis, the Viennese Figaro, which was immune to party politics, and the moderately oppositional Az Üstökös (The Comet). The results of the analysis have been nuanced by comparison with the relevant caritarures published in a Slovak (Éernoköa ník, Turócszentmárton, Martin) and a Czech paper (Humoristické listy, Prague). The caricatures which appeared in these papers were investigated with a view to reconstruct the context in which the Hungarian Millennium was represented, how the festivities were regarded, and what characteristics were attributed by a foreign public to the Hungarians. Alongside these points of view, it was also worth examining the ways in which the non-Hungarian minority groups and their majority countries (Serbia and Romania) were represented in these papers, and in which the Hungarian public reacted to the refusal by the minorities to participate in the millennial celebrations. Not surprisingly, the analysis has revealed divergent attitudes in the caricatures of the satirical papers examined: each paper represented the Hungarian Millennium from its own point of view, projecting on it its own political and social preconceptions.
