The Eighth Hungarian Tribe, 1985 (12. évfolyam, 1-11. szám)
1985-03-01 / 3. szám
i SZÉCHENYI: The trouble is that I was not born to be a leader of the mob. KOSSUTH: The essential thing is that the mob wishes to follow you. SZÉCHENYI: To follow me whither? KOSSUTH: The ultimate goal is the same for us all — it is the welfare of the nation. SZÉCHENYI: But by which path is that goal to be attained? By yours or by mine? KOSSUTH: That is what we have to settle here and now. SZÉCHENYI: I believe implicitly in the future of'the Magyar people; it is a great future; but at the present moment the nation’s life hangs by a thread. For that reason we who think and act in its name must weigh coolly and deliberately every step. The calculating brain must have the ascendant, not the feeling heart. Deliberation, not passion, must inspire our actions. Let us harp less on the claims of justice and think more of what will benefit the people at large. You yourself have said it: the ultimate goal is the welfare of the nation. KOSSUTH: Only a free nation can be happy, SZÉCHENYI: True. But what is freedom? I do not think much of a freedom that has been extorted by politicians from a government at bay, and that has no better guarantee than that which laws supply. Laws are but paper after all. I dream of a healthier, more wide-spread freedom, whose roots stretch deep into the national soil. KOSSUTH: And what kind of freedom is that? SZÉCHENYI: The Magyars are on the threshold of a new life. You might say that they are reborn. Whatever they learn now will be deeply graven in their hearts and their brains, perhaps for centuries to come. If we wish to make their future safe, let us transform them into a nation of workers. KOSSUTH: Do you really think that possible? SZÉCHENYI: I do. All that is needed is for us to learn, and to teach our countrymen, that brilliant improvisations, illusive dreams and ornamental theories will never get us anywhere — that we can only attain what we want by dogged, steadfast effort. (With animation.) Do you know that while we make speeches — and more speeches, and still more speeches — thousands of square kilometers of Hungarian soil are bog and swamp. A whole kingdom, filled with immemorial treasures — ours to conquer, not with speeches but with the labor of our hands and brains. KOSSUTH (after a pause): Pray continue, SZÉCHENYI: For the moment I am interested in two lines of action — on the one hand to foster social intercourse among our people and stimulate a salutary friction of minds — hence the Casino, the theatre, the Academy of Sciences, the horse-races — on the other to initiate public works calculated to restore the circulation in the torpid body of the nation — roads, railroads, bridges, steamboat traffic, regulation of the rivers... (after a pause). You smile? KOSSUTH: Forgive me. I am smiling, somewhat bitterly, not at your words but at our miserable situation. As things stand today, creating prosperity in this country means fattening Austria’s milk-cow. Before all else, we must eradicate from Austria’s mind the sinister notion that the life-blood and the gold of the Magyar people are her own property. That is, we must begin by freeing our nation from its bonds in order that it may find it worth while to work. There will be time enough, after that, to make it prosperous and cultivated. (Széchenyi listens in somber silence.) I hold with you that our people must be educated to new purposes. They must be taught in the schools, through the press, at public meeting — wherever we can reach them; an immense campaign of propaganda must sweep through the length and breadth of the land, teaching the people to love and to demand liberty. For freedom is the portion, not of the cultured but of the strong. SZÉCHENYI: And you really believe, Mr. Kossuth, that you can make a people strong by propaganda, that is, by newspaper articles and public orations? KOSSUTH: Not in the sense in which you imagine. Count Széchenyi. Agitation can make a nation united; and in union lies strength. On the day when the entire Hungarian nation will demand its freedom as avidly, as passionately, as a man dying of thirst demands a drink of water, Austria will not have bayonets enough to keep it away from the wells. I will frankly admit, at the risk of being misunderstood, that I have no wish as yet to see the Hungarian people prosperous. It is better for them to abide in their poverty and bitter discontent until they have achieved their freedom. It is not well-fed men we need, but the lean and hungry kind whom Julius Caesar feared. SZÉCHENYI: But this is nothing less than revolution! I know very well that you are not aiming at a revolution — but you will make it nevertheless. The spark which rides the wind has no thought of wreaking havoc — yet it may lay waste a world. KOSSUTH: I am only a simple bourgeois. Count Széchenyi, who has no other wish than to fight with legal weapons for the justice of his country. I hold that there is nothing more salutary for a nation than to have its sons kindled with enthusiasm for the cause of justice, to have them fight for that cause and, if necessary die, for it. For the destinies of a nation depend not on fine roads or steamships; they depend on the force with which it clings to its ideals. SZÉCHENYI: Mr. Kossuth, if these ideals succeed in transforming the Magyar people to their image, then this nation will be doomed to the existence of a perpetually discontented, contumacious, barbarian people, forever expending its strength in petty quarrels, incapable of self-help yet arrogantly intolerant of others’ assistance. KOSSUTH (rises dejectedly): I am afraid there is no point in continuing this conversation. SZÉCHENYI: One moment. 1 am lirmly convinced that the path you pursue will lead our nation into a desert strewn with ruins and corpses. I shall therefore be obliged to attack, expose and if possible annihilate the influence you exercise on my countrymen. KOSSUTH: You will do what your conscience dictates, Count Széchenyi. You will never prevent me from thinking of you with homage and devotion. For me you will always remain the greatest Magyar that eyer lived (he straightens himself and adds firmly). But there is one greater than you — the nation (he goes off hat in hand). MARCH, 1985 Reprinted from “SPIRIT OF HUNGARY” Page 5
