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BOX-FOLDER-REPORT: 31-2-180
TITLE:             Hungarian Letters Still in Turmoil
BY:                Urban
DATE:              1961-2-28
COUNTRY:           Hungary
ORIGINAL SUBJECT:  Hungarian Unit
THEMATIC SUBJECTS: Hungary--1956-1965, Cultural Policy, Hungary--Literature

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F98

X-CURT-HUNGARIAN LETTERS


RFE EVALUATION AND
ANALYSIS DEPARTMENT
Hungarian Unit
1961

News Background

HUNGARIAN LETTERS STILL IN TURMOIL

MUNICH, February 28 (Urban) -- What has long been known to
students of Hungarian literature has now provoked the official ire
of Hungary's literary thought-controllers: liberalism, revisionism,
modernism, decadence and a host of similar insidious trends are still
rife in Hungary with all the manifold dangers these represent for
the whole of Hungary's painfully re-erected Communist edifice.
Criticisms of this kind are not new, but not since the expulsion
of Dery and his associates in 1955, when literature became the
target of Rakosi's special wrath, have the Hungarian Communist (or
as is now alleged pseudo-Communist) writers come in for such a
thrashing. True, the official rod is now wielded by the Theoretical
Study Group of Culture attached to the Party Central Committee, and
not, as in 1955, by the Central Committee itself. But the
condemnation is just as significant, culminating as it does for the first
time since the Revolution in attention being drawn to the similarities
which exist between the liberal and revisionist trands of 1955-56
and those of 1960-61. Of the whipping boys such old friends as
urbanism, populism and petit-bourgeois views get their share of
ritual chastisement, but the sting is in the Study Groups' wholesale
denunciation of such famous journals as Kortars, Elet es Irodalom
and, woe betide, the official Party paper Nepszabadsag.

"The Group says: "The watering-down of principles and unduly
lenient criticism of petit-bourgeois, revisionist and
bourgeois-decadent tendencies are frequently found even in the works of leading
Marxist critics and literary leaders of responsible standing.
Particularly harmful is the persistent liberalism prevalent in the
columns of Elet es Irodalom, Kortars, Nagyvilag, and the periodicals
published by the Literary Historical Institute. Owing to a false
respect of authority these papers publish ideologically and
artistically inferior and even false works without adding ideologically
sound criticisms. to such writings. From time to time evidence of
this liberal practice can also be found in the cultural column of
Nepszabadsag.

In sum the Study Group is unhappy on two principal scores:

1. Revisionism and its related evils are now more difficult to
detect because "anti-Marxist and revisionist views are wrapped in
a Marxist cloak and presented as'creative'and 'progressive' ideas",
but these, say the schoolmen, are not to be taken lightly because
they "are the most dangerous obstacles to our literary progress."

2. The journals criticized have given increasing publicity to
men and ideas which are, to say the least, turned away from and,
by implication, against the Party's interests and philosophy. Not
only that but the Hungarian publishing houses, cinemas and theaters
have reprinted, shown and staged a wide variety of Western and
Hungarian classics both of older and modern vintage; here, too,
the Study Group feels that a halt must be called.

[page 2]

F99

X-CURT -HUNGARIAN LETTERS (1)

Hungarian News Background

28 Feb.1961

What could be more dangerous to the sanity and progress of
Hungarian socialism than Joyce, Kafka, Camus or Eliot? Judging
by the article the Hungarian intelligentsia is simply spellbound
by the self-tormenting ways of these men, for here the individual
is lifted onto a new pedestal, his nexus with society is ignored,
counter-revolution parades in the guise of revolutionary endeavor
and bourgeois decadence is furtively back with us camouflaged as
a splendid and modern type of"realism". Snobs add to the chorus
of veneration, only"socialist" realism is left out in the cold.

To boost his prestige Kadar has so far wisely considered
that men of national reputation and respect would help him make
his government's public image more attractive. Whether the present
diatribe represents a change from this policy is open to doubt.
In the Hungarian Party's present consternation it is within the
limits of the possible that men tarred with the Stalinist brush
and singularly ungifted as writers may, from time to time,
take their courage in both hands indulging in therapeutic outbursts
of hatemanship. Previous, although admittedly less authentic,
attacks of this kind bore precious little fruit and while Elet es
Irodalom dutifully prints these condemnations of itself and of its
contributors, it has, together with Kortars and the other guilty
journals, so far shown no intention of changing its policy. It
would be surprising if the present strictures were to be more
effective.

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