Új Magyar Út, 1953 (4. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1953-05-01 / 5. szám

CONTENTS

REV. GÉZA SOOS, professor, and editor of the review, commemorates in his necrologue Dr. Charles Irlet, president of the Swiss-Hungarian Society, who passed on March 6, 1953. Dr. Irlet was one of the most benevolent Europeans. When Calvinist minister in Baden he organized “Schweizerische Hilfsaktion für Ungarische Kinder” Swiss Help for Hungarian Children. Up to 1928, 10,600 Hungarian children enjoyed the charity and loving assistance of his organization.

December, 1930, the Swiss Help for Hungarian Children was changed into a Swiss-Hungarian Society, Charles Irlet its president. At the same time, a Hungarian-Swiss Society was formed in Hungary with László Ravasz, Calvinist Bishop of Budapest its president. During the last World War, Dr. Irlet founded the Swiss Hungarian Library which is located in the most modern building of the National Library in Bern with a separate reading room for Hungarian research workers.

Later Charles Irlet turned his assistance to Hungarian refugees and many thousands bless his memory.

Our Review gratefully remembers Charles Irlet who came twice with substantial financial assistance to our cause. Dr. Soos shows us true Christianity in action throughout the life of Charles Irlet.

GEORGE TÖRZSAY-BIBER: “Changes in the Hungarian legal system.” The author, a former Hungarian lawyer in Budapest, who lectured on the University of Budapest and on the University of Oklahoma, is now a legal analyst in the Law Library of the Library of Congress.

The recent changes within the Hungarian legal system brought about by the Communist regime extend to all fields of law. The main concern is the execution of the socialist legitimity which seems to be the principal means for the transformation of the Hungarian legal concept. The elimination of private ownership (dominium) brought the institution of social property into being. By placing labor into the focus of all relationships eliminated the relatonship at private law and made public law all exclusive. Man earning his every-day bread is in relationship at public law with the State who controls all means of production- The interest of the society as a legal concept displaced man from his traditional position and made him but a number of the crowd. The law-making power of the highest court, a very distinctive characteristic of the Hungarian legal system, is abolished and the dirty of the courts is to express the opinion of the people and promote the cause of socialist legitimity. Dialectical materialism is the exclusive intellectual trend in jurisprudence and the goal is the reception of the Russoeommunistic legal system entirely foreign to the traditional Hungarian which belongs to the culture of the West.

PROFESSOR STEPHEN KERTÉSZ, now at the University of Notre Dame, was a high ranking official of the Hungarian Foreign Ministry, charged with the preparation of Hungary’s case at the Peace Conference of Paris. Later he became Hungarian Minister to Italy.

In his present study on postwar diplomacy Mr. Kertész deals with the problem of postwar expatriation of German minorities from Hungary. The author presents documentary proofs that the Hungarian Government did everything possible to prevent the collective punishment of the German minorities and tried to restrict the expatriation only to those who betrayed Hungary and became servants of the Nazis. It was the

Potsdam Agreement and the Soviet pressure with the approval of the Western powers that forced Hungary against her own will to expatriate the Germans without discrimination.

Mr. Kertesz’s present article was published in the April, 1953 issue of the Review of Politics under the title “The expulsion of the Germans from Hungary”. We publish the same with the kind permission of said periodical.

LÁSZLÓ MÉRLAKY, columnist of this Review, surveys world events of the last three months in his “World Forum”. Stalin’s death and transitory hopes for a seeming change in Soviet diplomacy was followed by the importänt realistic speech of President Eisenhower on April 16, 1953 which many have compared to Lincoln’s Gettysburg address.

PROF. BÉLA KOVRIG “Hungarian Revolution: Phantom or Reality?” Second part of his sociological essay. He proves that Hungarian social and intellectual life was developing towards pure democracy between the two wars in 1945-47, however, it suffered a painful distortion.

First, because one of the occupying powers, the USSR interfered violently in the internal development of Hungary, either through the Communist party, or directly; removed leading parties and politicians who had played an active role in the resistance movement and suffered in KZ camps.

Secondly, the Soviet power filled the key positions with their own men. Nevertheless, democratic politicians and anti-Communist Hungarian parties, backed by the November, 1945 elections in which the Communists suffered tremendous defeat, made the attempt to turn the country toward true democracy. They countermanded the Communist plans in several economic and political maneuvers, built up their organizations and informed the Western powers about the Communist danger.

BÉLA TALBOT KARDOS: “The secret of Shakespeare’s life and creations.”

The author explains the all-important turning point in Shakespeare’s life, the year 1601. Up to this year, Shakespeare’s career rose continuously from a very modest beginning to a height where he could hope to succeed Spenser in the Court as Poet Laureate. From Midsummer Night’s Dream to As You Like It, his plays are gay, his heroines virtuous and idealized.

In January and February, 1601 a double tragedy, hit Shakespeare’s life. His private life became implicated in a love triangle with Mary Fitton, Maid-of- Honour to the Queen and “Mr. W. H.” Miss Fitton was found to be with child and young Master William Herbert (Pembroke), the mysterious “Mr. W. H.” of Shakespeare’s Sonnets was suspected. The author proves that Shakespeare’s love (1595-1601) and disappointment (1601) in Mary Fitton and his friend, young Master W. H. Herbert, the collapse of all his fervent hopes changed the gay dramatist into a somber playwright of tragedies with a Hamlet-Othello-Troilus- Timon complex. Between 1601-07, therefore, his chief heroines are frail, faithless, sensuous and evil. After 1607, a reconciliation occured in Shakespeare’s life reflected in his softer-writings after 1607.

February, 1601, also marked the political collapse Shakespeare's young and aristokratic patrons (Essex, Southampton, etc.) and his enemies’ triumphed at Court, (Lord Cecil) Shakespeare’s masterpieces were overshadowed by more favored “rival’ poets” Ben Jonson etc. whom he caricatured in the secondary characters of The Tempest, which work is a recapitulation and epilogue of his life.