Századok – 2016
2016 / 1. szám - KÖZLEMÉNYEK - Sipos József: Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Endre képviselővé választása 1922-ben
132 SIPOS JÓZSEF Tehát 1922. májusában ilyen nagy kormánypárti és közigazgatási, illetve csendőri és katonai támogatással, törvénytelenségekkel lett parlamenti képviselő a fajvédő Zsilinszky Endre. Ennek feltárásával nem az ő későbbi életútjának érdemeit akarjuk megkérdőjelezni. Csak az eddigi memoár- és szakirodalom idealizált képe helyett a fiatal Zsilinszky Endre politikai ideológiáját, választási programját és az 1922-es választásokat kívántuk az eddigieknél reáhsabban bemutatni. THE ELECTION OF ENDRE BAJCSY-ZSILINSZKY AS MP IN 1922 by Sipos József (Summary) According to previous scholarly literature, Endre Zsilinszky was petitioned in the spring of 1922 by his former peasant soldiers to make a bid for parliament as their representative in the district of Derecske. Contrary to this view, the study proves on the basis of new research that the leaders of the delegation which approached him with this request in the first days of May 1922 were members of the local social-bureaucratic elite. They, on the other hand, were prompted to do so by Gyula Gömbös, acting president of the United Party (Egységes Párt). It was only afterwards that the leaders of the Unified Parly decided that Zsilinszky should be their official candidate in the district. In the course of his campaign tour in Hajdú and Bihar, he was already en joying the support of István Bethlen and István Nagyatádi Szabó. At the same time, the former Working Party liberal politician, Tódor Guthy was asked to resign his unofficial candidacy. Consequently, his remaining opponents were the agrarian socialist Vilmos Mezöfi and the legitimist István Farkas. This latter, however, was prevented from gathering the necessary number of signatures, and thus Mezöfi stayed as the sole rival of Zsilinszky. Zsilinszky’s campaign received considerable funding from the Unified Party, and was backed by the local political elite by all legal, and sometimes illegal, means. For instance, András L. Achim junior and his mother and sister were banned from the district after they had summoned the local peasantry to vote for Mezöfi. Two of their brochures were ordered to be collected, for they referred in these to Zsilinszky as the murderer of their father. In the day before the elections, moreover, unknown persons rifled at Mezöfi, who had to escape to Debrecen, while twenty eight among his confidentials were arrested. They were thus prevented from attending to the elections, and thus directing the supporters of Mezöfi, hundreds of whom were not even allowed to give their votes. The study analyses in detail Zsilinszky’s campaign. Its most intersting feature was that, despite being then a racist and endorsing antisemitic views, he refrained in his speeches from engaging in the Jewish question. The reason for his abstinence was probably the great number of Jewish voters living in his district. On the other hand, the local officials menaced the Jewish merchants and entrepreneurs with the withdrawal of their licenses on 1 June in case they did not vote for Zsilinszky. These facts are by no means presented here with the intention to diminish the merits of the would-be anti-fascist politician, but merely in refutation of the myth-creating efforts of previous scholarship.
