Hungarian Studies Newsletter, 2000 (17. évfolyam, 58-61. szám)

2000 / 58-61. szám

Laws of Hungary and what was enshrined in law and practice, during the same era, in the United States.

In the twenties close to three hundred lynchings took place in the US. Blacks were barred from most universities, and )im Crow laws made sure that blacks did not move in with the white folks. lews and Asians were also subjects of discrimination, both in the professions and university admissions. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Americans of lapanese ancestry were interred in concentration camps, depriving them of all their birthrights as Americans, their property and their living. Jewish refugees were turned back at our borders and sent back to Germany to a certain fate. Miscegenation laws remained on the books in the US until recently. American Indian population declined to 5% of what it was when the Pilgrims arrived. There were no extermination camps in the US notwithstanding the history of the American Indian. Neither were there any in Hungary. Remarkably, the anti- Semitic laws disappeared in Hungary considerably sooner than their racist equivalents in the US. Nobody can lay claim to the moral high ground.

Both America and its former adversaries have changed. As Braham aptly puts it, "post - Communist Hungary has made considerable progress toward coming to grips with the tragedy of its Jewish community. The government decided to make some reparation to the surviving remnant of Hungarian Jewry and passed a law on the rights of ethnic and national minorities. Yet while the Hungarian government has been forceful in condemning anti- Semitism and eloquent in paying tribute to Holocaust victims, it has so far failed to make a national, collective commitment to honestly confront the Holocaust." The remedy of the mistakes of the past and the key to the future, in this writer's opinion, is education. The next generation needs to be educated about tolerance, inclusiveness, the rule of law and the recognition that in diversity lies strength.

Csaba K. Zoltani

BOOKS (Continued)

Dreisziger, Nándor. Ed. HUNGARY IN THE AGE OF TOTAL WAR, 1938-1948. East European Monographs, Columbia University Press, New York, 1998. Pp. 372.

This volume on the Second World War is edited by Professor Nándor Dreisziger of the Royal Military College of Canada. It contains twenty-one chapters, most of which had previously appeared as articles in the Hungarian Studies Review, a journal that Professor Dreisziger has edited from its inception in 1974. Of the twenty-one chapters seventeen have been authored by North American scholars, and four by scholars from Hungary. A number of the co-authors are represented by more than one chapter, among them the editor, who alone is responsible for seven of the enclosed essays, including the introduction to the volume.

The introductory essay is a synthesis of the main issues concerning Hungary in World War 11. It objectively discusses many topics concerning the war and Hungary's involvement. It is difficult to disagree with professor Dreisziger’s commendable synthesis and his masterful analysis of the main issues. I would take issue only with his claim that World War II was a greater catastrophe for Hungary than World War I. He is right that Hungary suffered much greater devastation and more prolonged occupation after the Second World War, but it was World War I that resulted in the destruction of historic Hungary and in the dismemberment of the Magyar nation into half a dozen distinct parts. Moreover, it was this partitioning that led directly to the country's involvement in World War II.

The editor’s introductory essay is followed by eleven chapters on the background, course, and outcome of the war while the next section deals with the activities of a number of noted personalities during the war, and the third section reproduces several relevant documents.

The studies in the first section deal with Hungarian revisionism before and after World War II, the radicalization of Hungary's German minority prior to the war, the circumstances of Hungary's entry into the war, István Horthy's election as Hungary’s Vice- Regent, the role of the Christian churches during the war, the positive and negative role of the Hungarian intelligentsia during the war, the activities of the Christian churches on behalf of the Jews following the country’s German occupation, the Battle of Budapest in early 1945, the political platform of post-World War II political parties, and the establishment of Soviet domination in postwar Hungary.

Section two contains six chapters on the activities of such personalities as Foreign Minister Kálmán Kánya before the First Vienna Award (1938), Regent Miklós Horthy’s role in the war, Horthy's relationship to the German Gauleiter Edmund Veesenmayer during the country's German occupation, the exiled Oscar |Oszkárj Jászi’s activities during the war and plans for a postwar Hungary, Prime Minister László Bárdossy’s political trial after the war, and finally the discussion of the claim that Bárdossy was a war criminal.

These biographical essays are followed by a number of appropriately introduced historical documents, among them Edmund Veesenmayer’s confessions concerning his role in Hungary, Regent Horthy’s postwar letters to President Harry Truman and British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, Oscar Jászi’s analysis of the Hungarian problem during the war, and a list of those "righteous Hungarian gentiles" who are listed at the Yad Vashem Institute in (erusalem. The volume ends with the brief biographical sketches of the thirteen contributors to the volume.

Hungary in the Age of Total War is a most useful contribution to the list of English language scholarly books on Hungary. Too bad the editor's name was misspelled on the spine of the book. This annoying mistake, however, detracts nothing from the book’s scholarly quality. It is an excellent and reliable work on Hungary’s role in World War II.

Steven Béla Várdy

Fried, István. EAST CENTRAL EUROPEAN LITERARY STUDIES.

Szeged: JÄTE BTK Összehasonlító Irodalomtudományi Tanszék, 1997. Pp. 89. ISBN 963-482-1928.

The book under review is a collection of six literary-cultural studies by István Fried (b. 1934), Professor of Comparative Literature at the József Attila University of Szeged in southern Hungary. Fried is known for his longstanding interest in East Central Europe, a region of small to mid-size nations between the German and the Russian worlds. He is likewise known for his knowledge of Slavic languages, which is absolutely essential for the study of the region’s history, culture and literature. For about a decade or so Fried had been associated with the Széchényi National Library in Budapest. But then, he took his present post at the University of Szeged, where in 1985 he took charge of the Department of Comparative Literatures, which he still heads today.

Since his appointment to Szeged, Fried has published over half a dozen volumes concerning East Central Europe. These include two authored volumes: Kelet és Közép Európa között [Between Eastern and Central Europe) (1986), and Utak és tévutak Kelet- Közép-Európában [Paths and Culs-de-sac in East Central Europe)

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NO. 58-61, WINTER/SPRING/SUMMER/AUTUMN 2000, HUNGARIAN STUDIES NEWSLETTER

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