Hungarian Heritage Review, 1987 (16. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1987-10-01 / 10. szám
Special Jenture-(lí)f-íl!lje-ilíímtf] intellectual growth. In 1825 at the initiation of Stephen (István) Széchényi (1791-1860), the Hungarian Academy of Sciences was founded, through which the country gradually entered the mainstream of the American and world civilization. It is most interesting to note that the Academy of Sciences initiated its first foreign contact not with the then already flourishing royal institutions of continental Europe and Great Britain but with the Benjamin Franklin-founded and Philadelphia-based American Philosophical Society. In order to explain this unusual phenomenon in an age when intercontinental travels were dangerous and lasting for many months, let us reveal in the following its historical background. 7 The peoples of the European continent have always had an interest in America. The first accounts of the New World were published almost immediately following its discovery. These post-Columbian Western writings, preoccupied with the bright economic promise of the newly discovered land, contained hardly any spiritual elements. Such early works, as well as the 16th- and 17th-century geography and history books, were based on matter-of-fact descriptions. But the power of imagination so characteristic of needy Europeans early created an economic wonderland on the other shore of the Ocean. These stories, combined with the deep-rooted conviction that America’s wealth was close to the legendary treasures of India and the Spice Islands, had prepared the foreign mind for wonders, for an enthusiastic approach towards the American economy, where anything miraculous could happen. At the same time in Central and Eastern Europe a new notion of America was being born, diametrically opposed to those commercial views. It occurred on the frontier of Christian civilization where small nations had stood guard in the path of the expansion of the Ottoman Empire. In their historic struggle against Turkish “paganism”, literary men of these small nations subjected to Turkish occupation became disillusioned by the inept diplomacy of the Christian great powers and riveted their eyes upon the New World. The Hungarian Miklós Istvanffy (1583-1615) displayed the essential characteristics of these publications when in his História Regni Hungarici he said that America was simply discovered “for the glory of Christianity.” In the decades to come, many Hungarian Protestant sources especially referred to the New World, though very briefly. Gaspar Miskolczi Csulyak made mention of America, New England and New Plymouth in his Angliai Independentismus (English Independentism, Utrecht, 1654). The famed Samuel Koleseri went further in the “Preface” of his collection of sermons by citing Thomas Hooker, an English Puritan author who emigrated into America, among his sources. A few years later, in 1694, the first Hungarian book about America appeared, a translation of Increase Mather’s (1639-1723) De successu evangelii apud Indos Occidentales, in Nova Anglia, etc. Since the last quarter of the 18th century, the earlier developed idea of the “bulwark of Christendom” was consistently being replaced by the content of the American Revolution, focused on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution itself. The American freedom concept with all its well-known requisites (state-church separation, relatively classless society, republicanism, free enterprise, etc.) obviously attracted the political and cultural philosophy of the European cultural elite. The land of opportunity and its promise of a brilliant future captivated, among others, the French-born Michel-Guillaume de Crevecoeur who already in 1782, in the early formative period of the American nation said: “Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great change in the world. Americans are the western pilgrims, who are carrying along with them that great mass of arts, sciences, vigor, and industry, which began long since in the east; they will finish the great circle.” The portrait of America has varied from time to time, keeping pace with general requirements of the cultural progress of mankind. Benjamin Franklin happened to be the first American of great cultural importance whose inventions helped create a very impressive image of scientific America. Through the invention of the lightning rod he became the No. 1 scientist of the world in the eyes of contemporary Europeans. A professor of mathematics at the University of Buda, Pal Mako (1723-1793), author of the first Hungarian book on electricity, showed high regard for Franklin’s scientific accomplishments. The rise in Franklin’s popularity was so spectacular that many contemporary poets sang enthusiastically about his newly invented lightning rod. So it was not surprising that Hungarian men of science wished so eagerly to become acquainted with Franklin’s land of liberty and prosperity, and to establish lasting, mutual relationships. Sándor Boloni Farkas (1795-1842), a prolific scholar, did the pioneer work through his widely publicized travel notes of his brief sojourn in the New World (September 4 to November 24, 1831), during which he traveled 2,450 miles by land and water. America, this “happy country” was chosen by Providence to demonstrate “whether human society is able to establish a good administration through free elections in the service of the happiness of mankind”. When Boloni Farkas returned to Europe, he bade America farewell in these ardent words: “God bless you, glorious country! Be the immortal guardian of the noblest heritage of mankind! Stand as an everlasting model of encouragement for the souls of the enslaved!” Apart from the American system of democracy, the cultural life of Franklin’s Philadelphia made the deepest im—continued next page OCTOBER 1987 HUNGARIAN HERITAGE REVIEW 21
