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BOX-FOLDER-REPORT: 32-3-210
TITLE:             Soviet Concentration Camp Stirs Hungarians
BY:                B.A.
DATE:              1963-5-22
COUNTRY:           Hungary
ORIGINAL SUBJECT:  Hungarian Unit
THEMATIC SUBJECTS: Hungary--Literature, Cultural Policy, Destalinization

--- Begin ---

"E" DISTRIBUTION - 650	22 MAY 1963
RFE TARGET AREA RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS

Background Report
Hungarian Unit
B.A.

SOVIET CONCENTRATION CAMP STIRS HUNGARIANS

Two works on Soviet concentration camps published
recently in Hungary have been becoming the focus of widespread
interest and discussion in that country. The one is
Solzhenitsin' short novel "One Day in the Life of Ivan
Denisovich"; the other, by Jozsef Lengyel, the Hungarian writer
recently honored with the Kossuth Prize, is entitled "From the
Beginning to the End". (See Background Report "The Hungarian
'Solzhenitsin' Speaks Up", of 26 March 1963.)

Solzhenitsin's novel was given relatively broad
publicity. Using a rough translation, provincial papers
immediately began publishing it in installments; "Nagyvilag",
a periodical devoted to world literature, printed it, and a
10,000-copy edition in book form was put out by the Europe
Publishing House. Lengyel's work, on the other hand, appeared
only in the literary periodical "Uj Iras", whose total
circulation is between 6,000 and 8,000.

There are people who are watching uneasily the
extremely lively interest which has been aroused by both works,
as well as the mood which is developing under its impact. This
is evident, for example, in an article by Lajos Galambos, a
courageous and talented young Communist prose writer. The
article, entitled "I Protest", appeared in the March issue of
the literary periodical "Kortars", and it condemns the "hysterical
mood" developed around "camp literature", i.e. Solzhenitsin's
novel, which the Hungarian press itself had encouraged.

The Man on the Street Talks About Solzhenitsin's Novel

Galambos writes:

"One goes to the barber and notices that the customers
are up to their ears in the latest issue of "Nagyvilag".
What is the meaning of this? Is there really so much
thirst for literature in the country?

"Up to now I have never seen them reading anything else
but the fashion magazines or the sports column.
Shouldn't one be glad that we have arrived at this stage?

[page 2]

HUNGARIAN BACKGROUND REPORT, 22 May 1963, 

"But then one goes to the market, and the vegetable
woman relates, with the intimacy a good customer
deserves, hair-raising details of the recently published
novel which I did not see anywhere when I read it.
Is this great interest, then, addressed to literature?

"We have to face things as they are. No, the great
interest is unfortunately not literary. It is interest
for things which smell bad, which smell of scandal.
And I am sorry, but my whole being protests against
this hysterical mood. Because, yes, it is true that
such a mood has developed, and it is swelling, expanding
and growing until it obliterates all other topics in
daily encounters. A shiver goes through people,
accompanied by cynical nods of the heads and by
sidelong glances, as if some racy bedroom story had been
told among good friends who heard it from a
well-informed person. Now the kibizers are whispering, to
whom nothing is dear, who told in advance which card
had to be drawn: and see! they were right.

"But is this really so, and should I not control my
feelings? An occasion presents itself in connection
with a trip to the countryside. I talked with the
county president, the Party secretary, a tractor
driver, an electrician, a teacher, a journalist and
an engineer, and I found all these people in the midst
of reading "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich".
What were the opinions? Thoughtfully in agreement,
cynical, malicious, skeptical, pseudo-objective,
passionately protesting or the opposite, unmistakable
hints about the similarities between fascist camps and
the forced labor camps described in the previously
mentioned book."

Galambos stated that his protest was not aimed against
the literary merits of the book. He has no excuses for the
illegalities committed. This book and others with similar
subjects have to be published, but the attitude of the press is
reprehensible when it conducts exaggerated propaganda as, for example,
in the case of Solzhenitsin's work.

Heated Debate on Lengyel's Short Novel

Already last autumn an interesting discussion was
published in the paper of the Association of Hungarian Writers,
"Elet es Irodalom". The subject under discussion was: is there
or is there not a need for books revealing the errors,
contradictions and distortions of the years of the personality cult?
What is the task of literature in this respect, and how should
these books be "orchestrated"?

After the publication of Jozsef Lengyel's short novel

[page 3]

HUNGARIAN BACKGROUND REPORT, 22 May 1963,

on the Soviet concentration camps, the debate gained new impetus,
and it continues-in a rather sharp tone. This was started by an
article in "Magyar Nemzet", the daily of the Patriotic Front.
On 17 February 1963, the paper's Reporter on foreign politics,
Tamas Zala, wrote an article in which he attacked Jozsef Lengyel.[x]
Only the Soviet Union itself -- he stated -- could give us "a
psychologically and historically authentic analysis" of the
Soviet concentration camps. He writes:

Are personal experiences and a writer's talent for
portraying them enough to enable someone to tell the
truth about the consequences of the personality cult?
Is something more not needed, something which only
those people possess whose life and metality are
rooted in the Soviet soil? Is a life transplanted there
capable of absorbing and reflecting all those historical
traditions, thus wealth of society and the mysteries
of the people's soul, which taken together provide an
explanation for the extremely complicated symptoms of
the cult of personality and for the fact that it could
influence Soviet life for a comparatively long period?
I think that Togliatti was right when he said that
the ultimate truth in the Stalin question had to be
reached in the Soviet Union. This does not mean that
it is forbidden to talk about it everywhere else;
after all, arbitrariness did not "spare the international
workers' movement either. I do think, however, that
we cannot expect a historically and psychologically
authentic analysis from any country other than the
Soviet Union. And this statement is equally validdfor
artistic works and historical science.

According to the writer Lengyel's novel provides an
opportunity for distortion of the truth and optical illusions.
In Lengyel's book "bestial persons, disgusting worms" whirl
about in a "rigid, cold moon area". The hero, who is released
from the concentration camp, "also finds a camp outside it" and
"meets former prisonmates who long to return from the hell
outside to the one behind bars, because there, at least, they have
bread". According to the critic, the book is a distortion, and
no good will come of it. "Justice must be administered in the
Stalin issue in such a way that in the people's minds socialism
is not identified with violations of law".

According to reports, Zala's negative criticism
produced a general shock, and a reply was not long in coming.
Six days after the publication of the Zala article, the first
attack on him and a defense of Lengyel appeared in "Elet es
Irodalom". It was written by Sandor Tatay, a prominent prose
writer and journalist, who formerly belonged to the group of
Populist writers. The second and very sharp reply to Zala's article

------------------------------------
(x) See Hungarian Press Survey, No. 1293 of 21 February 1963.

[page 4]

HUNGARIAN BACKGROUND REPORT, 22 May 1963, 

also appeared in "Elet es Irodalom", in its March 16 issue and
was written by no less a person than the veteran Gyula Hevesi,
a member of the CC, a Kossuth Prize-holder of the Hungarian
Academy of Sciences and its vice-president. The sharp tone of
the rebuke is shown by the following excerpts:

Zala's criticism is a strong reminder of the methods
of literary criticism employed in the heyday of the
personality cult, in which by means of all kinds of
irrelevant talk or wandering thought, totally
unjustified insinuations were attributed to the writer,
by which the writer rather than the writing was
vilified... On what grounds does Zala doubt the
authenticity of Lengyel's description of thë "moon"
area -- which, unfortunately, was not on the moon but
on an area of the earth--? Assuming that I do not
doubt the honesty of the critic, the grounds for his
statement can be found in the fact that it is difficult
to believe what seems to be unbelievable and difficult
to imagine what is beyond the imagination unless one
has lived through it. On the other hand, those people
like Gyorgy Nekeresdi, who were fortunate enough to
stay alive amidst all the innumerable hazards -- which
has been so excellently described by Solzhenitsin --
and came back from the "moon" to the earth's surface,
will find no distorting lenses or optical illusions
in the portrait given by Lengyel, which exaggerates
nothing but perhaps approaches better than does
Solzhenitsin's the "average of many years"...

I was shocked and started to think deeply while reading
Zala's article, because there is no reason why I should
doubt the political good-will and intentions of the
author. Apparently, however, there are people obsessed
by the idea -- and who even put it down in writing --
that the roots of the Stalinist personality cult have
to be sought in the mind of the Soviet people, in the
historical traditions of the Soviet peoples and in
the wealth of Soviet society, and there still exists
a printing press with printer's ink that does not blush
when it turns out such a text in several thousands of
copies. I often had a chance to debate with people
with various political attitudes, who, lacking
personal experience and remote from the events, tried
to find some explanation how the cult of personality
could have gained ground and why it had so long-lasting
an effect. I encountered several wrong interpretations,
but this is the first time that I have heard that the
explanation of the origin of the personality cult lies
in the "mysteries of the Soviet people's mind" and --
at least in part -- in Soviet historical traditions.
At the time of our own personality cult, Zala's
abortive article could easily have resulted in the
author's being given a direct "briefing" -- not only seen
by his eyes but perhaps felt by other parts of his

[page 5]

HUNGARIAN BACKGROUND REPORT, 22 May 1963,

body as well -- and this would show clearly that the
roots of the Rakosi brand of personality cult are to be
sought as little in the mysteries of the Hungarian
heart, as the roots of the Stalinist cult of personality
can be found in the mind of the Russian people and
their historical tradition.

The extensive interest in "camp literature" and the
literary dispute about it are features noteworthy of the Hungarian
literary scene and the public mood in general.

End

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