Századok – 1998

Tanulmányok - Miskolczy Ambrus: „Mi a magyar?” Nemzetkarakterológia és nemzeti mitológia válaszútján VI/1263

1304 MISKOLCZY AMBRUS age. Thomas Mann endeavoured to win it over from Nazism in his Joseph tetralogy. The Hungarian conservatives refused to use the term at all. The book Mi a magyar? was edited by Szekfű Gyula, who had laid down the foundations of anti-liberalism in Hungary in the 1920s. Discussing the national character in Mi a magyar? he was confronted with his won former views. In this volume he urged for preparation for the unavoidable political and social changes and the creation of a new leading social class. The other extreme was represented by the essay of Babits Mihály, who found that "eastern inactivity" was the basic characteristic feature of the Hungarian nation, "inertness" being the standard attitude. The present article deals mostly with Babits's Christian humanist attitude. His article attacking the first Hungarian anti-Jewish law, its manuscript version, and Babits's various version of his article published in the Mi a magyar ? are introduced to illustrate the intention of their author to set up a norm in order to be unambiguous and effective. However, this effort limited his Christian humanism. It was not by chance that this was the time when Babits wrote his greatest poems on human responsibility and the universality of human nature, for poetry remained free from the drawbacks of mass communication. The present article calls attention to two books by two neglected authors. One of them was Eckhardt Sándor, professor of French literature at the Budapest University. He consistently attacked all types of racist demagogy. His book A francia szellem [The French Spirit] was published in 1938 and set an example to the authors of Mi a magyar?. Eckhardt's book is a kind of Utopia, with some exaggeration, the Utopia of a virtual Hungary. The French spirit with its rationalism and emotional richness reflects harmony and is the counterpole of the brown world of Nazism. The professor's valuable article in Mi a magyar? deals with the attitude to the Hungarians abroad. While the author admired the French revolutionary tradition, he denounced the Hungarian one. While calling attention to the distortions of the foreigners' image of the Hungarian nation, Eckhardt similarly simplified the image of Hungarian history The other hitherto neglected author was Zolnai Béla, university professor in Szeged, the greatest figure of stylistics and linguistic aesthetics. In his study entitled ,,A magyar stílus" [The Hungarian Style] he aims to answer the question what the Hungarian nation is. Zolnai did not scorn the myth altogether, and his article is almost a mythical piece of writing. He personified the language, stressing its role in integrating a nation, and its embracing words of a great variety of foreign languages. He stressed the liberal nature of the Hungarian language. The political message of this attitude was clear at a time when there was anti-Jewish legislation in Hungary and Europe tended to be reorganized along racist principles. It is interesting to note that in the French version of this article Zolnai used the term „liberal" several times, while it was omitted altogether from the shortened edition of 1957. Zolnai Béla represented the "war of independence" of the spirit. In 1957 he received the usual Marxist criticism which he returned with the best analysis of this method. His reply could naturally not be published in those years. The present article is a case study introducing the possibilities of conveying humanist messages in philology and historiography in a totalitarian world. In this way the book Mi a magyar? becomes a modest monument and document of Hungarian resistance.