OSA / Guide / RIP / 1956 / RFE/RL Background Reports : Subjects | Browse | Search

The text below might contain errors as it was reproduced by OCR software from the digitized originals,
also available as Scanned original in PDF.

BOX-FOLDER-REPORT: 34-2-38
TITLE:             General Survey of Hungarian Literature
BY:                A.B.
DATE:              1968-7-11
COUNTRY:           Hungary
ORIGINAL SUBJECT:  Hungary/13
THEMATIC SUBJECTS: Hungary--1966-1975, Hungary--Literature, Analytical Report

--- Begin ---

RADIO FREE EUROPE Research

EAST EUROPE

HUNGARY/13
11 July 1968

GENERAL SURVEY OF HUNGARIAN LITERATURE

Summary: Hungarian literature is still a significant factor
in Hungarian intellectual life. Party influence is noticeably
declining and writers are experimenting with new forms. It
may be presumed that literature will develop in a healthy way
as the result of economic reform, though the permanent danger
of commercialization gives rise to apprehension. The limits
on literary freedom will be interesting to watch. Nowadays,
a lot of things can be said in writing. Hungarian films are
a center of interest, and are the instruments of conflicting
opinions on questions of patriotism and nationalism. Since
the introduction of the economic reforms, writers have been
agitating for political and social reforms.

+ + +

Literary Life is Characterized by De-dining Party Control and
Increasing Literary Activity

It seems that the fever of economic reform has diverted
attention from the Hungarian Parnassus. In the first place, economic
politicians and economists, as well as managers and technical
experts, are the center of interest, but scientists, as well as
sociologists and historians, also make their voices heard. The
writers, on the other hand, have apparently been pushed to the
periphery.

The favorable atmosphere prevalent in literary life has
been instrumental in this. No unexpected or surprising events have
taken place. The treuga dei (truce of God) between the writers
and the regime has led to the consolidation of a state of peace.
On the basis of do ut des, both parties get something out of the
deal. The writers refrain from unauthorized organization, conspiracy,

[page 2]

and incitement, and in return for this they are allowed more freedom
and the regime refrains from any aggressive intervention in literary
life. Compared to Czechoslovak, Polish, or Soviet literary scenes,
which are full of dramatic events, Hungarian literature gives the
impression that it is going through a "period of quiet" and that
the writers have been eliminated from Hungarian development.

But this is an illusion. In reality, the development of
Hungarian literature and the attitude of the Hungarian writers are
worthy of attention. The writers play a significant, public role in
Hungarian intellectual life, and in the forming of the future. The
present essay is intended to explain this situation.

One of the characteristic features of the present situation
is the obvious decline of Party control over cultural literary life,
over cultural life in general. This decline is due partly to a
deliberate attitude taken by the regime and partly to the pressure
of circumstance. The regime -- at present just as in past years --
wants to avoid any statement or gesture which could cause tension
in literary life, and therefore it assumes a certain liberal attitude.
On the other hand, the influence of the pressure of circumstances
arises from the "mechanism" of literary life itself. A highly
decentralized and uncensored literary life -- without a unified and
strong control -- moving in a broad channel in accordance with its
own laws necessarily results in a decline of Party control.

But let us consider the outward signs of this decline.

First of all, there is the more lenient and flexible
position taken by those in charge of literary policy. In the series of
literary political documents (theses, directives, congressional
resolutions, statements) issued since 1955, we can see trace a
step-by-step relaxation and withdrawal. The latest in this series of
literary documents is the lecture by Party CC secretary Gyorgy Aczel,
delivered before the Political Academy of the Party. [1] Here are
a few of the theses of this lecture -- already thoroughly evaluated
[2] -- illustrating the "industrious" spirit of these assumptions:
- Marxism, in giving up its monopolistic position, strives

--------------------------------

(1) "A Few Current Questions in Ideological and Cultural Life."
Gyorgy Aczel's lecture at the Political Academy of the HSWP.
Nepszabadsag, 27 April 1968.

(2) "Continuity and Flexibility in Hungarian Cultural "Policy,"
Radio Free Europe Research, Hungarian Unit, 8 May 1958.

[page 3]

only after hegemony in the field of culture;
- The unity and indivisibility of freedom and responsibility
must be assured;
- Literary and artistic work cannot be judged only by
political standards;
- We want to avoid the dangers of over-ideolization and
over-discussion of politics;
- Not all differences of taste should be considered
ideological questions.
Knowing that there is a considerable difference between
the Party theses and assumptions and the actual situation -- to the
advantage of the latter -- any questioning of the value, significance,
and effect of literary-political Party documents can be considered
justified. In any case, over-valuation of the requirements laid down
in these documents would result in wrong conclusions in a general
survey on literature.

A further sign of the decline of Party control is the
"change of position" among writers. Apparently the mostly Communist,
opportunistic writers and poets who have taken up a position on the
"outside left" are drifting more and more to the center, and are
using a more liberal and conciliatory tone. Attacks -- sometimes serious,
sometimes satirical -- on these writers are increasing. [3] There
is growing criticism, too, of some other personalities loyal to the
regime who have enjoyed immunity up to now. [4] Nonconformist,
existentialist, oppositionist, abstract writers, like Gyula, Hernadi,
Ivan Mandy, Miklos Meszoly, who are committed only to a general
humanism and who have taken up a position on the "outside right" of
the literary spectrum, have apparently been spared the rude and
importunate administrative intervention and pillorying of Party
literary politicians. They are treated leniently and benevolently
by critics. "He... who walks beside the track has chosen his
position himself. It is up to him to get back on the track. There is
enough room on the track for everybody." [5]

------------------------

(3) For example, Pal Bardos: "The Death and Resurrection of Dr. Fux,"
Tiszataj, December 1967 (1174-1178).

(4) For example, Jozsef Darvas.

(5) Vilmos Farago: "Writers 'Beside the Track."
Elet es Irodalom, 27 January 1968

[page 4]

The talented young writers -- who have always been prevented
from organizing -- present a special problem to the regime. These
young writers are "not interested in politics," are not attracted
by "publicity," and claim the right to express an attitude of
"alienation" from life. [6] "Not even we can measure the tension
in their minds," one of the secretaries of the Writers'
Association, Gabor Garai , has stated. [7] They work in an unorganized fashion.
In Garai 's opinion, more attention should be paid to them, and an
effort made to direct them. Apparently the regime is not very happy
about the younger writers.

Nor is the regime very happy about the great personalities
in Hungarian literature, the "demi-gods" of Parnassus, who have a
spiritual influence not only on the public but on the critics as
well. The critics are very unlikely to undermine the secure
position occupied by these "literary popes." [8]

There is also trouble with the Marxist critics, the
auxiliary forces of the regime's literary policy. Spoon-fed,
schematic critical dogmatism has discredited the militant critic,
who has disappeared and been replaced by the "good boy." The debates
on criticism in Nepszabadsag or Elet es Irodalom have been fruitless.
The era of Marxist criticism is over. The most important literary
and artistic media Kortars and Uj Iras, for example, have practically
given up the struggle. [9] Criticism is becoming impersonal,
Western-oriented, and gives place to various trends.

There is a wide-spread feeling among the literary public
that "socialist realism and Party-mindedness are more or less
compromised, and the real values of literature can be sought and found
everywhere except in the works of authors with a socialist-Communist
philosophy...." [10]

The loud voices of the coterie demanding even more literary
freedom also indicate the decline of Party control. This coterie has

--------------------------

(6) Geza Molnar: "The Writer and the Mechanism," Elet es Irodalom,
9 December 1967.

(7) Cs.O.: "Conceptions and Writers,11 Partelet, January 1967
(56-59).

(8) Zoltan Hera: "Meditation on Criticism," Nepszabadsag,
17 February 1968.

(9) Ibid.

(10) Geza Molnar: "Literary Ideals," Elet es Irodalom, 1 July 1967.

Page 5]

gained, during the past months, a prominent Party member, Gyorgy
Lukacs, whose prestige both at home and abroad adds considerable
weight to their demands. According to Lukacs:

- a new literature is beginning to take shape; this new
literature cannot be established without criticism of the dogmatic
era ;
- all literary manifestations will be put in the wrong light
if bureaucratic measures are used against them;
- our literature is full of problems which have to be solved;
- sharp debate is needed;
- this is not a performance whose success or failure could
overthrow or even shake the People's Republic; it is ridiculous
to attribute our troubles, not to the mistakes which have been made,
but to the reaction to these mistakes -- that is, to the poetic and
artistic reaction. [11]

Among those who are demanding more freedom, we should like
to mention the well-known Gabor Goda, who attacks the powerful
position of Party-minded literary criticism. "The art of belles lettres
must defend its boundaries without coming into antagonism with
literary criticism -- the science of literature. The support of
the science and history of literature is absolutely necessary, but
we should beware of a domineering attitude toward belles lettres...
It will do nobody any good if the science of literature quits the
domain of science and descends to factional struggle on the pretext
of protecting ideology. Literary criticism has never defeated the
art of writing, and its attempts to do so have failed for thousands
of years.... The question of primacy between art and the judgment
of art is not identical with the problem of the hen and the egg: I
would be surprised if it turned out that in the beginning there was
a theory of art, and that only after it was formulated did people
start to draw things on the walls of caves." (Gabor Goda:"Reading
Diary." Uj Iras, February 1968.)

The economic reform -- increasing decentralization -- will
result in the further relaxation of Party control as well.

While on the one hand the voluntary or involuntary
withdrawal of the Party can be noted, on the other hand the volume of
literary activity is increasing.

-------------------------

(11) Text summed up by the author. See original text: A Few
Problems of Peaceful Coexistence," Gyorgy Lukacs's
statement to Kortars, May 1968.

[page 6]

The activity of the Hungarian Writers' Association has
increased remarkably. Besides various debates and departmental
meetings, the Writers' Association participated in October 1967 [12] in
the organization of a nation-wide conference on modern patriotism,
and called a "plenary meeting" in March 1968. [13] The key question
of this meeting was the character of the future work of the Writers'
Association. The situation has changed considerably since 1959 --
when the Writers' Association was reorganized -- and the reform of
the economy, too, has created a new situation." The consensus at
the plenary meeting was that the Writers' Association should
transform itself into an association for the protection of economic and
intellectual interests. In connection with economic interests, the
topics discussed were: the new decree on pensions and assistance,
the revision of the outdated decree on honoraria, the elimination of
the one-sidedness of publishers' contracts, and worries about
contracted artistic funds. The establishment of an economic committee
within the Writers' Association was considered. As far as the
protection of intellectual interests is concerned, Jozsef Darvas -- a most
obedient servant of the regime -- talked, inter alia, about the
struggle against bourgeois decadence, snobbish criticism, and
commercialization. He announced the launching of the movement 's
Reading People and The Discovery of Hungary, and dealt with the problems
of Hungarian-language literature beyond the frontiers.

It looks from the membership meeting as if the writers
represent a common interest, and by the repeated and emphatic
assertion of their economic interests contribute to the establishment of
a pluralistic society composed of various interest groups. Though
the present political and public role of the Writers' Association
cannot be considered significant, compared to the part it played in
1955-1955, the signs of its reactivization are encouraging.
According to the statement of Geza Molnar, the Party member who is
secretary of the Writers' Association, the role and responsibility
of the association will in all probability increase as a result
of the economic reform. [14]

A slowly growing literary activity can also be detected
in the debating arena. The readiness for debate is one of the
characteristics of Hungarian literary life. According to an expert

------------------------

(12) 24-25 October 1957, in Eger.

(13) 14 March 1968 in Budapest.

(14) Greza Molnar: "The Writer and the Mechanism," Elet es Irodalom,
9 December 1957.

[page 7]

survey there we're 148 debates of various kinds in literary
periodicals and papers between 1957 and 1964. [15] Although
no such comprehensive data have been published on the debates
since 1964, it is known that in the recent past the writers have
discussed not only the problems of cultural life but fundamental
ideological questions as well -- social determinism, the 
relations between objective and subjective factors, alienation, the
essential features of socialist democracy, bureaucracy, etc. The
participation of the writers in the debate by Party politicians,
ideologists and historians on socialist patriotism and nationalism
is a characteristic example of the courageous position they have
taken up on questions of the fate of the nation and of opinions
different from the Party line. [16]

The best indicator of literary activity is the number
of literary works produced. In 1966, the publishers brought out
118 volumes of poetry, 397 novels and short stories, 80 plays and
theater program as well as 73 other literary works. Out of
this total, 53 volumes of poetry, 132 novels and short stories,
30 plays and theater programs as well as 73 other literary works.
Out of this total, 53 volumes of poetry, 132 novels and short
stories, 30 plays and theater programs, and 32 other
literary-works were the works of living Hungarian writers. [17] No detailed
statistical data are available on the 1967 output but it is already
known that the number of new works of belles lettres dropped in
1967. [18] Quality is, of course, even more important than quantity.
Great works, novels, plays or poetry are very few but every "era has
its gems. [19]

But the essence of this growing literary activity should be
sought not in the data about literary works but rather in the fact
that the writers are slowly gaining a position in Hungarian social
and intellectual life from which they will be able to exert an
influence on development. The relaxation of Party control paves
the way for this process.

------------------------

(15) Erno Gondos: "Debates in Literary Press between 1957 and
1964," Valosag, March 1966 "(38-46).

(16) See the next-to-the-last chapter of this essay.

(17) Central Statistical Offices: Statistical Yearbook 1966, page 368.

(18) MTI Statistics of Publications: The average number of copies
of Hungarian novels over 20,000. Esti Hirlap, 9 April 1968.

(19) Reference to some of the interesting works can be found in
the chapter:
"Where are the actual limits to the freedom of literature?"

[page 8]

The Economic Reform is Instrumental in the Healthier Development
of Cultural Life

No exact advance estimate of the effect of the economic
reform (which became effective at the beginning of the year) on
cultural life is possible. Knowing the standpoint of the Party [20]
as well as the decrees of the government and the minister of
education and culture, and taking the actual situation into
consideration, it may be supposed that this effect will be favorable and will
be instrumental in the free development of cultural life.

The economic reform will contribute two elements, both
worthy of attention, to this development.

One is increased decentralization. The independence and
responsibility, as well as the profit conciousness, of cultural
institutes, enterprises, councils and creative collectives, will
increase. These units, like the producing enterprises, will rid
themselves of the system of the detailed plan and directives. They
will decide their plans independently, and at their own discretion,
establish their relations on the enterprise level as well as with
customers. The secondary organs, which, up to now, had authority
over some of the cultural units and limited their power of independent
decision, will be eliminated.

The other element is public opinion, the strong increase
in the weight and effectiveness of public demand. "The fact that
public opinion can be suppressed," Laszlo Nemeth once wrote, "is
no proof that it is powerless." On the strength of the experience
of past years, public opinion has already considerably influenced
the development of cultural life: public opinion "cannot be ordered
about or dealt with in a bureaucratic way." In the view of Gyorgy
Lukacs, public opinion develops on the lines of Aunt Mary and
Aunt Barbara and is almost completely independent of what the press
says.[21]

Public opinion and public demand are all the more important
because the cultural and artistic services are actually loss-making
enterprises. Though the annual production, circulation and services
of the cultural enterprises bring in about three to four thousand
million forint, the state has to spend about nine thousand million
forint annually from the budget for the maintenance and operation
of cultural institutions.[22]

-------------------------

(20) Concerning the position in principle of the Agitation and
Propaganda Committee of the FSWT CC as well as what of the
Economic-Political Committee see: Laszlo Ballai: Our reform
and the Financial Condition of Education." Tarsadalmi Szemle,
August-September 1967 (32-45).

(21) "A Few Problems of Peaceful Coexistence," Gyorgy Lukacs' statement
to Kortars, May 1968 (747)

(22) Laszlo Ballai: "Our Reform and the Financial Conditions of
Elucation." Tarsadalmi Szemle, August-September 1967.

[page 9]

As the result of the economic reform, the hitherto
profitable business of publishing books is showing a deficit. The
publishing and distributing enterprises expect an
800-million-forint turnover in 1968 [23], but even these returns will not be
able to cover expenditure because printing expenses have considerably
increased while book prices have remained static, and the state will
subsidize the publishing of books by about 100 million forint in
1968.[24]

Movie production and circulation are also having financial
difficulties and need subsidies. The number of moviegoers has
dropped by about 40 million during the past seven years, which
means a 100-million-forint loss in returns. At the same time,
expenditures on movie production and circulation have increased.
Production showed a 47,900,000-forint deficit in 1966 and the
situation was no better in 1967. [25]

The theaters are in the same situation: most of them can
operate only by means of state subsidies.

In the last analysis, public opinion will decide the issue
of forint versus ideology. Up to now, masses of books which nobody
wanted to read have collected dust in the publishing houses,
bookstores and libraries. The majority of these books were ideological
treatises, Soviet works, and volumes of belle lettres imported from
the people's democracies. [26]

Every year most of these books were discarded. But to print
books for the paper-mill, to produce movies and write plays for
audiences in the Congo, is contrary not only to common sense but also
to the interests of the state treasury. The insistence on
cultural-political viewpoints has its limits as well. Because the economic
reform has considerably raised the cost of some cultural products,
public opinion and public demand will play even a stronger role in
the future.

--------------------------

(23) Zalai Hirlap, 14 January "1968.

(24) Kisalfold, 21 April 1968.

(25) Figyelo, 13 March 1968

(26) Endre Emczi: "Prosecutors and Defendants." The author writes
in this article that tens of thousands of Soviet books,
translated into Hungarian, are gathering dust in the cellars
of the State Book-distributing Enterprise. (Irodalmi Ujsag,
15 December 1966 and 1 January 19670

[page 10]

But the expected effect of the economic reform in the
field of culture has caused other anxieties as well. Cultural
life will become commercialized, and the book market will be
flooded by dime novels, detective stories and trash. A low-level
mass demand will dictate publication policy movie production the
program policy of theaters radio and TV, etc. These worries appear
not only within the Party but also in the cultural apparatus up to
the level of the Ministry of Education and Culture, and among
the representatives of the Writers Assiciation and well-known writers.
[27]

The reform wants to eliminate these in some respects
Well-founded worries by so constructing the mechanism of cultural
life that, in contrast to other fields of production and
distribution, it can be influenced by economic means. By maintaining the
system of subsidy, the state would still be present in cultural
life as a patron of art. The government has established a Cultural
Fund', under the direction of the Minister of Education and Culture,
for the promotion of cultural-political work. The fund comes
partly from the budget (Parliament voted 10 million forint additional
subsidies when it was established), and partly from contributions
paid by the producers, servicing enterprises and distributors of
cultural products and services. Contributions must be paid for lower
level products and services (e.g., detective stories, adventure
stories, some third category plays and movies), and culturally
and politically important products and services will get support
from the fund. A further development would be the adequate
reorganization of the system of authors' royalties and a flexible system in
which royalties would be higher for important, valuable and socially
preferable works than for works of "less cultural value." Furthermore,
various prizes and awards would play a role in influencing cultural
life.

But these developments, built into the mechanism of
cultural life, would not automatically achieve the cultural and
political goals of the regime, so the worries about the reform
cannot be considered completely unfounded. 

The development of cultural life during recent years has
shown that commercialization already exists. The publishers of
books have found out that a best-seller--o matter if it is
a good or a bad book --means lucrative business. The Number One

-------------------------

(27) cf.: Ervin Szombathelyi: "The 'Two Cultures' and the New
Economic Mechanism." Nepszava,I7 August 1967; Geza Molnar:
"The Writer and the Mechanism, Elet es Irodalom, 9 December 1967;
Jozsef Darvas's speech in Parliament, Nepszabadsag
22 December 1967; Jozsef Bakonyi: Radio commentary on the
sphere of authority of the councils, Hungarian Monitoring,
3 January 1968.

[page 11]

author on the 1967 list of belles lettres is the late master of
trashy literature, P. Howard (alias Jeno Rejto), whose sales were
quite astronomical in Hungarian terms. The Cruiser that Turned Up
Again ran to 211,250 copies; The Skeleton Brigade, 156,500;
To Move or Die, 158,500; and Old Budapest Jokes, 100,000. The
corresponding figures for the works of the living master of
socialist trashy -literature, Andras Berkesi, were: A Game with
Honesty, 123,000; Trout and Big Fish, 152,-500; the spy thriller
FB-86, 100,000; and the novel Loneliness, 106,025. These books
brought a return of several thousand million forint for the publisher.
Besides trashy novels and detective stories, reprinted Hungarian
classics sell large numbers of copies. The average number of copies
of a book- by a living author can be estimated as of 12,500, although
some outstanding and valuable works can achieve as much as 50,000
copies. The signs of commercialization can be found in cinematic art
and in theatrical life as well.

While realizing the trend of development, the Party
leadership, the cultural politicians and cultural bureaucrats cannot
but admit the justice of the mass demand and accept the presence
of entertaining cultural products and services. Under such
circumstances, the elbow room of "party-minded" literature, ideological
works and Soviet books is getting tighter and the efficiency of the
cultural-political instrument of the regime is going to weaken.
An encouraging sign of the freer and healthier development of
literary life.

Where are the actual limits of literary freedom?

One can write about anything in Hungary; there are no
"taboos" and "sacred cows" [28], this was the slogan dreamed in
1965 for the enchantment of the West. Today, the slogan -- now
for internal use -- sounds as follows: "Today, it may be said;
today, it may be written."

An earlier survey has shown that the actual limits of
literary freedom cannot be set either legally or in terms of 
literature-cum-politics. [29] Neither does logic provide a reliable compass
for the exploration of the regions of freedom. The limit of
freedom varies individually for every writer. For example, the

------------------------

(28) EERA Hungarian Unit:"General Literary Survey, August
1966-January 1967,"published February 1967, p. 5.

(29) Ibid, pages 5-6.

[page 12]

demigods of Parnassus, writers who have considerable success abroad,
can take more liberties than young writers. How can. we approach
the matter? It seems that the only practicable way would be a
microscopic examination of individual literary works and a random search
for the boundaries of freedom.

But let us look at some examples:

The offocial literary public has erected majestic and
cheerful monuments to the memory of the Great October. There was
reverence everywhere in the press and literary periodicals, while
publishers turned out such books as Lenin, October by the excellent
Laszlo Gyurko, which was allegedly sold out within days. On the
other hand, the undervaluation of this work was started by Belletristic
Publishers when, with the slogan that perhaps it may sell, only
5,000 copies were printed. Reviews of the book were inadequate as
well.[30] But besides Gyurko. there were other publications too,
such as: Hungarians in the Great October Socialist Revolution and in
the Civil War, 1917-1922; an illustrated history: The Great October
by Peter Foldes; another documentary: The Chronicle of the Great
devolution; and a few volumes of essays. A festive symposium: The
Soviet Union in the Eyes of Hungarians, in which writers, academicians,
poets leading politicians, radio commentators, sculptors, nuclear
physicists, composers abd economists bowed their heads in admiration
before the Soviet Union, is also among the publications.

Quite unnoticed, Istvan Orkeny, too, has appeared at the
end of this really festive collection, with a bizarre little wreath
of commemoration, a one-minute short story called: "There Is No
News."

In the Public Cemetery in Budapest, Mrs. Mihaly Hajduska,
nee Stefania Nobel. (1827-1848). comes out of her grave.. The young
woman who rose again from the dead strikes up a conversation with
people strolling past. Here are a few snatches of the conversation:

"An old woman wearing a black veil asked her how she feels.
Thank you, just fine,' Mrs. Hajduska replied.
A taxi-driver asked her whether she wants something to drink. But
the ex-deceased said that she does not want to drink right now,
The taxi-driver remarked that the Budapest water is so bad
that he, too, would not care for a drink.

'But what's wrong with the Budapest water?' Mrs. Hajduska
wanted to know.

It is sterilized with chlorine....
‘Well, what other news is there?' the young woman wanted to know.
‘Nothing special, they told her.

---------------------------

(30) Peter Somlai: "Lenin, Our Contemporary," Kritika. April 1968

[page 13]

They were wrapped again in silence. And then it began to rain...
There was a long pause in the conversation.
'Well, tell me something...'
'What can we tell you?' the old woman replied. 'We have nothing
'Nothing at all has happened since the war of independence?
'Well, something-s always happening craftsman waved his hand.
'But, as the Germans used to say: Selten kommt etwas besseres
nach.
'That's it,' the taxi-driver added and, because he had hoped for
a fare, he went back disappointed, to his car.
They all were wrapped in silence. The woman who rose from the
dead looked down in to the grave which was still open. She
waited for a while but when she saw that nobody had anything to
say, she took her leave of them.
'Well, good-ye for now she said. She climbed back into her
grave." [31]
What's happened since 1848? Nothing special. Selten kommt
etwas besseres nach. Where is the Great October which was supposed to
"transform" the world?

It is quite interesting to note that Orkeny had no trouble
at all because of the short story. The critics left him unnoticed,
though Szirmai rudely attacked and publicly ridiculed him a few
years ago. [32]

The novel, Trout and Big Fish by Andras Berkesi, the master
of socialist trashy literature, was a bestseller.[+] It was
published in a larger imprint than the entire Hungarian literature
published for the 1967 Book Day. [33] The leading character of the
novel is Geza Varjas, an ex-convict, well-known Communist writer,
member of parliament, public personality and a favorite of the
regime who can travel abroad as he likes. He has a car and a villa
and his children, Andrew and Sophy, are considered as "cadre children."
The subordinate characters of the novel are officers, warrant officers,
soldiers, writers, functionaries, teachers, parents and children.

--------------------------

(31) Istvan Orkeny: "There Is No News," Uj Iras, December 1967.

(32) Istvan Szirmai: "The Ideological Offensive of Marxism-Leninism,"
Lecture at the Political Academy of the HSWP. Nepszabadsag,
30.3.63

(33) Viktor Egri: "Bestseller with Negative Signs,"Irodalmi Szemle,
January 1968.

( + ) Published in an edition of 152,500 copies by the Budapest
Magveto Publishers.

[page 14]

The novel contrasts the corrupt Communists, the rapacious wels
(Geza Varjas), fattened in the waters of the public, to the young
people, striving after an honest and clean life, the trout of the
clear mountain creeks (Andrew and Sophy). Barkesi plots the story
in an animated and colorful way and, in the course of it, tries to
expose the problems of a socialist society, cautiously and
constructively. But here are a few selections from the
politically-charged negatives which the novel contains:

The cadre problem: Captain Sardi, a political officer is speaking.

"The cadre child does not like discipline. His trouble is that he
has to live with the children of simple people. Many people have
already complained about him. He has a contempt for his comrades, and
he refuses to have anything to do with them. Damn it, I can't stand
the demagogues but I still think that Djilas is right."

Kovacs jerked up his head. In what is he right?, he asked.
"The aristocracy too will develop in socialism. And these aristocrat
calling themselves socialists, enjoy more rights than we do. But
our task here in the army is to bring these spoiled brats under
discipline..." (pp.7-8).

"My conviction is," Varjas said, "that the cadre problem
is still current and that we have to talk about it… "

"And if you really have the country s welfare at heart,"
Uncle Kalman said, "then why don't you go to the cadres who, in
your opinion, abuse their power and act like petty monarchs, and
say: Comrades, you mustn t do these things! If you have enough
evidence, why don't you go to the competent organs of the Party and
present it to them?"

"Are you nuts, Kalman?". Varjas replied.. "What do you
thin I am -- an informer? Is this a job for a writer?..." (page 124).

Endre shrugged his shoulders and did not say a word.

"Certainly, in Budapest you do not feel the problems
Varjas was writing about. But if you lived here in the provinces
you would not shrug your shoulders. There are still too many petty
monarchs about..." (page 125).

"... Prom the very first, you approach teaching with this
attitude. Prom the very first, you assume that all functionaries
are scoundrels and that all their children expect favoritism."
(pars 125 "... only where the people do not care about it is there
a cadre problem" (page 127).

x x x

[page 15]

The problem of the army:

"Between ourselves, Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, the majority
of our officers are uncultured, uneducated people because the
science and techniques of killing people are contrary to the cultural
and humanist spirit of mankind. The only things that interest them
are wine, women, and card-playing--typical of a primitive people.
This will result in the refusal of society to identify itself with
the Hungarian Army, in young people hating military service and in
parents failing to encourage them -- on the contrary, they are the
ones who worry about their children's military service. And you
should not forget that the young people who join the army are
more educated than their officers. These is no doubt about it:
our officers prestige is zero." Miklos did not interrupt him, and
this has enraged Varjas even more. "A few years ago I was considering
the idea of writing a novel about the army. I became absorbed in
the subject and then I gave up the idea. I did 30 because I was
unable to find any positive side to it. Should I reveal to the
reader that officers wives are just second-class citizens even in the
1960s and that they are at the mercy of their primitive husbands, just
like the young people who join the army? Certainly, to would be
wonderful if the standard of the officer corps could qualitatively
be improved; but there is no hope of this, because only the young
people who were not admitted to the university -- in other words,
the mediocre the substandard -- will go to the military academy''
(pp.298-299).

x x x

Marxist morals:

"Do you know what my experience of Marxist morals is?
When two Communists meet they always denigrate an absent third one.
A number of Party members used to see my father -- writers, artists,
aesthetes. Since my childhood I have heard nothing but the chiding
and derision of absent Communists. Why can't my father and Uncle
Kalman -- you know my uncle -- stand each other? We have been building
socialism for twenty years. Does it show in the attitude of the
people? I have always imagined a socialist society in which there
will be no time sheets, no clocking in and out at the plants, no
locks on the lockers, and no searches in the factories. But they
are manufacturing bigger and better locks than ever before" (pp.447-448).

"The characteristic feature of our era is that nobody speaks
sincerely. Not even the children. They learn very soon that the
reward for sincerity is abuse and a belting, or in more cultured
families perhaps a slap on the face or being put in the corner
(page 188).

x x x


[page 16]

Distress:

"As I looked around I noticed that there were dwellings
even in the hillside behind the houses. I couldn't believe my
eyes. Are there still people in Hungary who live in caves?"
(page 202).

"I will take my father and his blustering friends to this
place. They shall see how some people live even today, and then
they can bluster as they please (page 203).

x x x

The Soviet Union:

"How long did you live in Moscow?"

"For four years. But I couldn’t get used to it. One must
remember, of course, that we lived very much in seclusion and were
busy with our studies." (page 172).

x x x

Here is where the theme: "Today, it may be said; today,
it may be written" gets across in Berkesi' s novel.

The generation problem has been a favorite subject of
literature for years. While earlier writers have portrayed youth
"mostly in a critical spirit and very often on the basis of outward
appearances," the present trend is "the desire for understanding
and empathy." [34] An outstanding representative of "generation
novels" is Magda Szabo's Moses One, Twenty-two.[35] Magda Szabo, the
winner of the Jozsef Attila Prize, is quite popular not only in
Hungary but also abroad. Her novel Moses One, Twenty-two, has
allegedly caused an uproar among teachers and parents [36], while
literary critics called it "contradictory." 

One of the characters in the novel is Aunt Huszar, who
is in constant mourning and whose innocent husband was sentenced
to death after a fabricated trial. He was hanged, exhumed,
rehabilitated and then entombed. Her son Miklos is a law-student in his third
year, and as the son of a martyr is expected to set a good example
from morning till night. There is also the Bartos family, whose
head suffers because he is a cadre, a Communist aristocrat with an

------------------------

(34) Lajos Illes: "The Total Demand on Our Artistic Prose,"
Kisalfold, 24 December 1967.

(35) Magveto Publishers, Budapest, 1967, 34,500 copies.

(36) ITEM No. 693/68.

[page 17]

official car and an "activist" wife. Then there is the Gal family,
"declassed" people, former druggists. The two families, Bartos
and Gal, forbid their children (Hugi and Adam Gal, Martha and Jule
Bartos) to meet each other. But the young people meet covertly,
and also secretly go to religious instruction. The Gal children would
even have taken the Bartos children to confirmation if they could
have produced a certificate of baptism. The young people adore
each other -- "We don't really know what we would do without each
other" -- and they consider their parents, who are separated by
the past and politics from each other, as "fossils." In the novel,
the druggist Hugi Gal marries the martyr's son Miklos Huszar so that
they could get away from the suffocating world of the "old" and
live their own life on a small island, in a separate apartment.
After this short summary, here are two selections from the novel:

"Our desire was an island where there are no old people, no
memories, neither good nor bad, and where there is nothing else but
us. Out desire was a home where nobody feels afraid; where there is
no torture, or suffering, or distress lingering in the memory of
its members; where we do not have to feel sorry for, or copy,
anybody; and where we can be natural: free, cheerful -- even sad.
We wanted to escape from an adult-dominated environment, so that
all the mistakes would be our mistakes and all the faults our
faults -- not the faults and mistakes of the old. And we wanted
to get a, way from memories of war, murder, camps, crazy heads of
state, cowardly citizens and envy. We wanted to work at what
interested us and seemed worth doing, and we did not want our
character or behavior to be mere reflections of what other people
expected.. We did not want to spend our lives atoning for the failures
of the previous generation. We did not want to hate anything which
is not naturally and in itself detestable, merely because the old
people are worried about their jobs and their lives. We wanted to
love what is worthy of love and not just anything which had to be
loved because it is expedient and the correct thing to do. We
wanted to have a spot where we can get a foothold... and our own
plans -- gigantic or just ordinary and trivial: but they should be
our plans, and we don t want merely to fill in the gaps in the
lives of the old people " (pages 225-226).

"Don't be afraid: what can happen to us orphans? We have
no parents, for they died under Horthy s fascism, in World War II,
in the era of personality cult. Our relatives and adult friends are
all war invalids, some of them showing it because a leg is missing,
others who look all right but are war invalids because they have
felt so much fear in their lives that they shout in the night in
their sleep and waken soaked - in perspiration. We got used to this:
so could you. We have brothers and sisters instead of parents"
(page 232).

The yawning gulf between the generations has hardly been
shown so sharply in the past.

[page 18]

Some of the most interesting reading in recent months is
Ferfikor (Manhood), a novel by the Party-line author Lajos
Mesterhazi. [37] The original manuscript of this "historic period and
biographical novel" which covers the years from 1915 to 1960, was
finished two years ago but, after various corrections, was published
in 1967 and later dramatized. The novel -- in the opinion of one of
the critics -- is "a piece of writing, which is directly and indirectly
concerned with politics, and which is the extremely hard and almost
mercilessly honest self-examination of a whole generation." "It is
an alloy of confession, biography, history, philosophy and 
documentary writing."[38] Actually, it is Party history in the form of
belles lettres, a self-justification of the Party. The leading
character is one of the members of the Presidium, who, in his
youth -- sacrificing a promising artistic career -- enters politics
and becomes a Communist. Now, at the zenith of his life, he goes
back to the past and raises the question: was it worth giving his
life to politics?

The dedication of the novel is remarkable as far as
historical fidelity is concerned:

"I dedicate this book with thanks to those veteran Communists
who helped me by word of mouth and their written reminiscences in
my search for materials. In the first place, I would like to thank
Lajos Papp who gave me the subject and the leading idea of the
story. By special thanks to Sandor Nogradi for the use of some of
the motifs of his memoirs."

Here are a few excerpts from the novel:

How did the Russians behave in Hungary?

"Millions of Soviet soldiers marched through Hungary, there
were heroes, crocks, gay and brave men among them as well as
jailbirds (page 416)

"...They become importunate with the women, sometimes
roughly so when they were drunk. Very often a soldier tried to court a
woman but was unable to converse with her and had no time for a
prolonged courtship. In other words, he would bluntly state his
desire, If he was turned down he sadly accepted his rejection, but
very often women would give in to him out of fear -- which comes
close to rape. The soldiers were strictly controlled by military
patrols and if they were caught in the act they were arrested and
court-martialed. But rumor did a good job, which is quite
understandable. Everybody was afraid even if something like this
happened only once in the village or in the street. Men were
worried about their sisters, wives and daughters. Women begrimed
their faces and wore rags. They were afraid," (page 417).

-------------------------

(37) Szepirodalmi Konyvkiado, Budapest,1967, 18,500 copies.

(38) ?kos Benko: "Lajos esterhazi - Ferfikor" Tiszataj, February 1968.

[page 19]

"The soldiers did no looting and exercised their armistice
rights -- for example, the confiscation of transport material,
bicycles and wagons -- only to a limited degree. At the very most,
the soldiers took only things which they considered less useful
to a civilian and which they could use in the field, as, for example,
a guitar or flash-light; if they saw something like this they asked
for it and the scared master of the house couldn't do anything else
but hand it over to a Russian armed to the teeth. If they found some
liquor they took it -- a soldier never has enough liquor. Wristwatches
were scarce in the Soviet Union, so they were very much coveted
by the soldiers. If they saw a wrist-watch they asked for it and
in some cases even gave something in return. There were soldiers
who took them for their own needs but there were others who collected
them as a sort of currency," (page 418).

"There were a few deserters as well. The 40,000 Budapest
prostitutes, who were trying to acquire "steady" soldier friends,
put them in touch with their friends in the underworld who helped
them to desert. A number of Ukrainian SS soldiers -- remnants of
the German forces -- were hiding in the city and, in the confusion
of the first days, changed uniforms with fallen Soviet soldiers.
At the beginning, there were some Budapest hoodlums who even
committed murder for Soviet uniforms and weapons. They organized
gangs (which happens in all wars) and they were liquidated within a
few months by the Soviet and Hungarian police. But for a while they
were much in evidence. Anyone found in the streets after dark ran
the risk of being stripped of his clothes, because the most desirable
items were clothing. This was the common denominator of barter, and
became a sort of money " (pages 418-419).

"Not even the Hungarian Nazi newsmen believed that the
Hungarian population was being deported to Siberia. But nevertheless
a legend was born. And... perhaps there was some truth in it....
It could happen that soldiers passing through needed the assistance
of the civilian population. May be their car got stuck in the mud.
They would collect some passers-by and tell them: "A little human
horsepower, please." In most cases; they gave them sausages, bread or
some thing else in return.- But the "little human horsepower"
sometimes turned out to be not little after all. A Hungarian cowboy
from Kiskunsag told how a number of Soviet soldiers were driving
some captured horses on the Szeged highway. When they found out
that he knew about horses they asked him to help them to drive for
"a little." The horses ended up in Bucovina, and he was on the
road for weeks and had quite a job getting back home" (page 420).

"Those who became prisoners of war avoided this danger,
but many people fell into captivity who had just gone down to the
street to get some water." (page 421).

"When they saw the helplessness of the Hungarian authorities,
the Soviet soldiers collected the workers from the street"
(page 422).

[page 20]

This is Mesterhazi's portrait of the brutal, marauding
Russians who carried off innocent people. In spite of all palliation,
we have a fraction of the truth at last. Sandor Csoori was in serious
trouble in 1965 because he dared write in his short story "Iszapeso"
[39] that the Russians, visiting the pub from the airport, were
quarrelsome drunkards.

what was the situation -- according to Mesterhazi -- in
1951?

"In 1S51 the Second Congress of the Hungarian Workers' Party
was held (This was the only congress, since I became a Communist,
which I have not attended as a delegate and to which I was not even
invited as a guest.) At that time, the extension of the Second
Five-Year Plan and the so-Called price and wage adjustment had
taken place. Rationing had been abolished and wages raised by
21 per cent; but, on the other hand, prices had jumped to
inflationary proportions and the prices of some goods had increased
two or three-fold. That was the time of the large-scale establishment
of agricultural cooperatives, in principle on a voluntary basis -- and
the competent authorities emphasized this voluntary basis. But in
practice things were very different. On almost every trip I sent
long letters to the CC reporting that here or there the police had
driven the peasants to the cooperative, that in this or that
enterprise in the provinces the workers were being beaten or
threatened with the police if they would not 'voluntarily' buy Peace
Loan Bonds, In other places, Stakhanovites were being created on
the basis of false results, while managers and chief engineers who
defrauded the country received awards for spurious "increased
production." (page 490).

The story of a fabricated trial:

"He talked about his arrest and about the prison....At
the beginning he was treated with humanity as "comrade to comrade."
They told him that he had to take a hand, in the matter, that he
had to bear testimony, in the international interest and in the
interest of the Party.... But how can he do that:? .... He doesn't
know a thing. It doesn't matter -- they will train him and tell him
what to say. But it appeared that it was not true that he didn't
Know a thing: in some matters he knew just the opposite of what he
was supposed to say.... So he was left alone for six months to
soften up. Then they started again but this time not as comrade
to comrade.' He was told that either he would comply or within
a week they would produce twenty confessions -- that he was a Japanese
spy, that he went to Spain on the personal order of Hitler, that
he sold hundreds of French guerrillas to the Gestapo, and that he
is a parricide. It was winter and he had to run a hundred times round
the courtyard wearing the heavy fur coat of one of the warders.
He stood there soaking wet and gasping for breath in front of
Gabor Peter. 'All right, I shall have water thrown over you and
you will be taken back to your cell. In three days you will be dead.

------------------------

(39) Kortars, February 1965.

[page 21]

Don't you understand that I have you in my power? What's the use
of acting like a knight? Then they tried to blackmail him through
his wife, threatening that they would destroy his wife and drive
her to commit suicide. Then again they said that his wife is
the mistress of this fellow or that, that she had taken to the streets,
that she drinks and sleeps with anybody for 50 forint.... Sometimes
they beat him in to unconsciousness. At others they read his death
sentence to him. For six months they woke him up with the news that
a messenger would arrive within minutes with the reply to his
clemency plea and that he would be executed that day. For a year
he was in a place where he could not hear any human voice; he was
not allowed to speak and the guards were not allowed to speak to
him.... Then they told him that he should apply for amnesty and
that he might perhaps be released. He refused and demanded an
investigation, so they forged an application in his name and one
day they told him that he was free -- he would be under police
supervision but he could leave the prison. He did not accept the
amnesty.... After this he stayed in prison for more than six
months.... In the end, his trial took place last week and he was
acquitted. His wife had waited for him. His mother and father had
died...." (pages 554-555-556).

How did Rakosi admit that the Rajk trial was a mistake?

"Rakosi wrote to the Party, and told them in. a cleverly
worded letter that 'Laszlo Rajk did not make those mistakes for
which he was sentenced to death.' It was up to the reader whether
he did or did not stress the word 'those,’ and the question remained
whether he had made other mistakes and if so, what mistakes? And
what punishment would he have deserved for any mistakes he did make?
A few weeks later, at a meeting in the provinces, Rakosi used, quite
incidentally, the expression: 'Comrade Laszlo Rajk.' Next day,
everybody all over the country remembered only these three words from
his speech. It was as if somebody had remarked in passing: 'I am
a murder.1 Perhaps, of course, the people would not notice it at'
all " (page 584)

It was a mistake to put Gero at the head of the Party:

"Rakosi did not talk in public about his responsibility
or offer his excuses -- if there were any. But an agitation started
about the sixteen-year prison term, Salgotarjan, and the struggles
of the coalition era, a kind of formal "popularization" all over the
country on the instructions of the regime. And the 'popularization'
meetings were well under way when the news of Rakosi’s
resignation arrived. This ruined the remaining credit of the local Communist
leaders. Gero took over the top position in the Party. I don't
know exactly his responsibility in the crimes of the past: I only
know that this was the worst possible choice at that time.
The people identified him with Rakosi, but without the prestige of
Rakosi.... The first thing Gero did was to travel abroad 'to secure
his position," though this position was not shaky abroad but
some where else." (pages 586-587).
[page 22]

According to Mesterhazi's novel a writer can go much
farther in the exploration of truth and enjoys more freedom than a
professional Party historian.

The limits of literary freedom can be fixed with least
certainty in the field of humor and satire. One of the scenes in
the cabaret show on Budapest Radio Kossuth, "Everything is Quiet,
the Situation is Unchanged," is well known.[40] Somebody dreams
that he is the manager of an enterprise and in his befuddled
condition he starts an argument with the statue of Karl Marx. He is
teasing Marx in a sarcastic tone and calls him to account because
not everything turned out the way he had anticipated and, in the
meantime, he ridicules the working class for becoming middle class.
People laughed about this scene not only in Hungary but beyond the
borders of the country. And what were the criticis doing? There
was only one hero, the critic--alias Cserhat -- of the provincial
paper Veszpremi Naplo, who climbed the barricades in the defense
of Marx, "We don't understand the purpose of the editors of the
program who included . this 'nonsensical cornering of Marx," he
wrote. "The actor tried in vain to "stress the text: You know what
I mean, Comrade Marx; but he did not get a laugh, not even a smile.
Marxism, in the person of Marx, became the partner in the debate
who was reduced to silence. One could just dismiss the whole thing
and say that we should not take it seriously -- after all, it was
just a cabaret show. It is possible that the editors considered
it as a cabaret show, but the joke misfired. And the gun cannot
but misfire if the jokers do not know whose name should they choose
as a target."[41]

We could continue to cite works characterizing the limits
of literary freedom; and, besides the novels and short stories,
various plays and movies could be added to the list as well.[42]
The subject and problems are almost inexhaustible and every subject,
every problem, has its own frontier zone where "it can be done at
present" and "it cannot be done at present" meet.

------------------------

(40) Hungarian Monitoring, 28 November 1967. 

(41) Veszpremi Naplo, 29 November 1967.

(42) For example, Gyula Illyes' drama Kegyenc which, after years
of delay, was put on the stage in a revised form, or the very
successful drama Szerelmem Electra by Laszlo Gyurko.

[page 23]

The Hungarian movies follow new ways. A "miracle" abroad and an
expansive force at home

"The case (of the Hungarian film) is like that of a sick
man, with all the symptoms of an ulcer, for whom the doctor prescribes
aspirin." [43] This statement was made less than four years ago
and it seems almost meaningless today. At the five-day conference
of the Federation Internationale de la Presse Cinematographique
(FIPRESCI) in Budapest early this year [44], the opinion established
itself that the Hungarian film is one of the remarkable factors
of the cinematic art of the world. The standpoint of the presidium
of PIPRESCI was that Hungarian cinematic art is the most interesting
and most attractive target of the international film critics.[45]
And even more,- according to the Italian critic Lino Micciche, the
two most exciting and artistically most original schools of cinematic
art in the world are, at the moment, the Hungarian and Brazilian
ones. The opinion of Micciche was shared by others and delegates
at the conference of FIPRESCI were talking, in a mildly exaggerated
way, about the "Hungarian film miracle."

How did it happen that the Hungarian film has become the
center of international interest in such a short time, in spite
of the fact that the Hungarian motion-picture industry is a
characteristically small industry? The grass production of five
to six years of the Hungarian industry amounts to one year's
output in the Italian, Soviet, or French industry.[46]

Behind the successes abroad lies the regeneration of the
Hungarian film which is, in turn, the result of the more lenient
cultural policy.

The structure of the motion-picture industry has considerably
changed. The still all-powerful central management, which became
slowly liberalized in the course of the years, has been eliminated
since the beginning of 1967, and the independence of the film
producing and distributing enterprises has increased; as a result of this,
creative freedom has increased as well.

--------------------------

(43) Akos Csernus: "The Hungarian Film. New Waves on Old Shores,"
East Europe, June 1964.

(44) The Federation Internationale de la Presse Cinematographique
held its conference in Budapest between 16 and 20 January 1968.

(45) Ervin Gyertyan:"Conference on the Hungarian "film miracle,"
Elet es Irodalom,27 January 1968.

(46) The annual feature film production in Hungary (films over
2,000 m.) was: 15 in 1960; 19 in 1961; 12 in 1962; 23 in 1963;
23 in 1964; 23 in 1965; 19 in 1966; 18 in 1967.

[page 24]

The Hungarian motion-picture industry depends on a specialized
team of experts. The scenarists, directors and cameramen are the
representatives of three generations, and the youngest of these
generations contributes people of excellent quality.

Relations between the writers and the cinema are getting
closer. And this relationship -- according to the Jaszai Prize
winner, stage-director Gyorgy Lengyel -- is "more alive" than the
relation between the writers and the theater.[47] The "author's
film" has achieved an exclusive position in Hungarian cinematic
art. Individual style and individual tone are becoming more and
more dominant in the Hungarian film.

This is the background to successes abroad, successes
which, year after year, add to the reputation of Hungarian movies.
In 1967, for example, Hungary participated in more than 50
international film festivals and collected 21 international prizes.

In addition to this, the subject-matter of the films explain
some of their success. It has caused surprise abroad and sharp debate
at home. The participants in the FIPRESCI conference have outlined
the characteristic features of this subject-matter as follows:
Hungarian movies are characterized by "an intense public emotion,"
"a high decree of responsibility," a specific and unique historicity,
a conscious ideological meaning and a popular trend. "The new
Hungarian cinematic art," the Italian Lino Micciche has stated,
"is the only political cinematic art which comes today from the
socialist countries and is one of the few, all over the world,
which considers its relation to ideology with a positive attitude
to problems and not as the exploded historic phase of the drama of
existence." [48]

Foreign critics -- according to the FIPRESCI conference,
have taken notice of the increased social role of the Hungarian movies.
Chic role means nonconformism and "oppositionary sentiment" at home.,
provoking sharp debates and creating controversies as well. But let
us look at a few examples.

Andras Kovace: "calls" (1968)

According to the critics, Kovacs's film is a political
polemical movie the message of which is that we need a new mechanism
of human relations besides the new economic mechanism. The
characters of the movie are the 40-year-olds in leading positions who
are responsible for the development of the new society. Its plot
is the story of a disciplinary action which the head of a planning
institute takes against one of his engineers who has to be protected --
at the rounder of compromise -- by the works of the 
institute According to the symbolic title of the movie, the real
and the imagined walls -- the position of which is very difficult
to determine -- are the impediments to development and progress.

--------------------------

(47) Nepujsag (County Heves)29 February 1968

(48) Nasyvila?, Day 1958.

[page 25]

The natural and artificial walls are sometimes farther than the
people think. The fear of the walls hinders many people from using
the space at their disposal. The experience of real, wise and
reasonable compromise, which is the basis for progress and the
complete use of the possibilities provided by the walls, is missing
from society. The fundamental idea of the movie is based on the
philosophy of compromise.

Besides this central theme, Kovacs has dealt with a number
of problems in his movie. He discusses "being pro-government"
and "oppositionary sentiment" as well as emigration, defection. the
significance of disputes among intimate friends, the advantages
of a leading position, the cowardliness of public figures, the pushing
into the background of Communists, the legality and illegality of
force, the Rajk case, Stalinism, the Chinese, the 1956 events in
Hungary, etc. There are pro and con standpoints on exposed questions.
The debates are undecided and remain open and there are no final answers.

It is characteristic of the more liberal cultural policy of
the Party that the movie was launched to the accompaniment of loud
Communist propaganda. The movie was advertised even in Tarsadalmi
Szemle and Kortars under the title: "A generation's
self-examination." In the larger cities, Kovacs staged debates before it was
shown, and the critics flooded the columns of periodicals, dailies
and the press media in the provinces with almost unanimously favorable
reviews. Uj Iras has even published details of the scenario. [49]
But it is also true that in the middle of this praise, Peter Renyi,
in Nepszabadsa, remarked with slight disappointment that the movie
was considerably less than one would have expected on the basis of
the director's preliminary statements, according to which the movie
was supposed to give some kind of analysis of "the role, function
and the trend of development of the new democracy." [50] As Renyi
saw it, the movie did not meet this requirement. Because of its
delicate subject-matter and courageous tone, it was placed under
export restriction: in other words it cannot be exported to, or
shown in, the West.

-------------------------

(49) Uj Iras, March 1968.

(50) Nepszabadsag, 18 February 1968.

[page 26]

Gyula Hernadi-Miklos Jancso-Georgii Mdivani :

"Under Red Stars"(1967)

A Hungarian-Soviet coproduction in commemoration of the
50th anniversary of the 1917 "Great October."

This movie has provoked a sharp debate. The chairman of
the Hungarian Writers' Association, Jozsef Darvas, has rudely
attacked Jancso and Hernadi in parliament [51] and later in
Nepszabadsag [52] In his opinion, it cannot be considered either
a socialist or a realistic work: the "reds" kill just as mercilessly
as the "whites," and "The movie is perverted and morbid." It does
not give an answer to the question: what are 100,000 Hungarian
internationalists doing in the Russian revolution and what on earth
are the peoples of Russia doing in this apocalyptic maelstrom?
"The movie is just a continuous killing from beginning to end."
In his Nepszabadsag criticism, Darvas also referred to the fact
that there are leftist opinions in some circles on the movie and
that they consider it "a counterrevolutionary film" and an
insult to the internationalists. Certainly, Darvas took care
not to attack the Russian co-author Georgij Mdivani in his review
The Russians have, however, shown a considerably shortened version
of Jancso 's movie just as in the case of My Way Home and
The Roundup -- in the Soviet Union, so some of the Russian critics
know Jancso -- who, by the way, speaks excellent Russian -- as a
short film author.

Apart from some insignificant support,[53] Darvas's attack
did not stop the critics from adopting a unanimous position in
favor of both the form and content of the movie. Further, it won
the 1968 prize of the Hungarian film critics and was considered
as a possible winner of the "Golden Palm" at the discontinued
Cannes film festival.

Neither Darvas's personality, his parliamentary speech,
nor even his statement in Nepszabadsag, was able to lend any
weight to a "leftist" criticism trying to protect the romantic
after-image of the Great October of 1917. Well, tempora mutantur.

--------------------------

(51) Hungarian Monitoring, 21 December 1967.

(52) Jozsef Darvas:"Dissenting opinion", Nepszabadsag, 24 December
1967.

(53) For example, Laszlo Pap's article in the 7 January 1968 issue
of Fejer Megyei Hirlap.

[page 27]

Andras Kovacs-Tibor Cseres:"Cold Days"(1966)

The film is based on the very successful novel Cold Days
by Tibor Cseres, published in Kortars in 1964 [54] and in three
editions by Magveto Publishers. The theme of the movie is
individual and collective, responsibility in the light of the 1942 Novi
Sad massacre. The scene of the story is laid in two locations and
in two periods of time. In a Budapest prison in 1946 where the four
leading characters are waiting for their second trial; and in Novi
Sad in 1942, the location of the carnage by one Hungarian occupation
forces and gendarmerie. The leading characters of the novel became
part of the machinery which committed the crime, in spite of the
facts that their hands were not stained with blood and that none
of them agreed with the orders which were given.

The movie strongly intensified the debate on this subject.
Cseres also wrote a play for the Budapest Comedy Theatre on the
basis of the novel, and the Comedy Theatre set a date for the
premiere; but the first performance of the play has never in fact
taken place. The play was, however, published in a book. Later,
the Cseres-Kovacs movie was shown on TV, which added fresh fuel
to the fires of debate.

Opinions were divided. Cseres was strongly supported by
Communist propaganda, but there was a considerable; opposition which
strongly condemned the wide publication of the 1942 massacre, and
the debate has not quieted down yet -- naturally enough, since
many people consider the quite unnecessary and unprecedented
washing of the dirty linen of national history in public as a
gratuitous insult to national self-esteem and pride.

The following movies can be put in the same category of
problematic pieces:

Janos Hersko: Dialogue (1963); Zoltan Fabri: Twenty Hours
(1964); Andras Kovacs: Difficult People (1964); Miklos Jancso:
The Roundup (1965); Miklos Jancso: My Way Home (1954); Zoltan
Fabri-Peter Szasz: Late Season (1967) Istvan Szabo-Sandor Sara:
Father (1967): Pal Zolnay: The Sack (1967); Ferenc Kosa-Sandor
Sara: The Ten Thousand Suns (1967); Tamas Renyi-Gyula Hernadi:
The Valley (1968); and Istvan Gaal: The Christening (1968).

The critical debate, which has been going on for years,
indicates the remarkable position of the Hungarian movie in cultural
and literary life. The debate continues not only in the
motion-picture magazines but in literary and Party papers as well. The
film debate in Tarsadalmi Szemle, which lasted for nine months
and which came to some remarkable conclusions, has only just ended.

-----------------------

(54) Kortars, April-May-June 1964.

[page 28]

These conclusions are:

1) The new aspirations of the contemporary Hungarian film
draw the real ideological map of Hungarian intellectual and
social life;
2) The reduction of administrative restrictions to a minimum
was correct and necessary;
3) It is welcome that democracy makes possible the expression
of different opinions and styles, and the philosophies of the
different classes, strata and groups of society, through the
subjective interpretation of some of the artists;
4) All significant films are problematic but not all
problematic films are significant;
5) The raising of a problem deserves protection against
administrative intervention but not against ideological criticism;
6) There should be maximal freedom for the various trends
and maximal efforts to integrate the standpoints manifested in
these trends;
7) Aversion to the world concept of the film should not
be artificially transformed into complaints concerning standards.
[55]
The debate continues in radio and TV as well as in the
press -- not to mention the professional circles and film clubs all
over the country.

The miracle of the Hungarian film -- a miracle worked at
home -- is that it gives impetus to a welcome surge of intellectual
activity and liberates the expansive, forces hidden under the
surface. The new Hungarian film fulfills an avant-gardiste
ideological role and follows a progressive line in the ideological
and political debates.

The "Public opinion" of the writers forces the Party to change its
standpoint on the questions of nationalism and patriotism

Kadar remarked at the Fourth Congress of the Patriotic
People's Front that: "one of the motet significant questions of
our public life is the question of socialist patriotism." The
flood of theses, declarations, conferences, publications and debates
on the question of nationalism and patriotism during the past ten
years, strongly supports this statement. The huge volume of material

-------------------------

(55)Peter Renyi: "From the debate of film critics to the debate
of films. (On the pretext of a postscript),"Tarsadalmi
Szemle, May 1968.

[page 29]

on the matter indicates that the regime -- when dealing with the
question of nationalism and patriotism -- deliberately tries to
maneuver the expansive forces of national consciousness and
national feeling. [56]

The engagement of the writers -- which goes back one and
a half years -- in the debate on nationalism and patriotism gives a
new twist in the matter. The writers debate will lead the
conversation among Party politicians, ideologists and historians into new
channels, and some of the writers are actually questioning and
rejecting the Party theses. The writers debate indicates that not
only a considerable number of intellectuals but also large masses
of the people reject these theses. Quite noticeably, the Party is
forced to take a defensive position and tries to compromise and
to modify its policy.

The complicated character of the question and the great
number of the related documents call for a thorough analysis.
Bur that would be beyond the scope of this short study. Thus,
in the following, we will deal with only a few of the documents
which seem to support the above statement.

The writer, Zoltan Molnar, has pointed out in Elet es
Irodalom that many people are rejecting the identification and
association of the social structure and socialism, with the concept
of the nation and patriotism -- although this is one of the main
principles of the Communists.

"...Many people are still unable to identify fatherland
with socialism. The future of the nation, the future of socialism:
one of them has no place in the minds of the people. Or are the
two really different and I am wrong? Are we, who consider them as
a unity, wrong?

"My experience is that a great number of excellent
intellectuals -- and I don't intend an irony -- already consider the
concept, 'socialist nation,' a bluff. Some of them think it a
'good bluff, while others regard it as bad. Some do so because
they suspect behind the concept the clever (and sometimes less
clever) tactics of those who would wear away the nation in the
interest of obsure (or sometimes less obscure) goals. Others,
because they have not advanced beyond the idea that the nation is
a bourgeois category, a survival, which will eraporate in the
sunshine of Communism." [57]

Well, if the socialist nation is just a "bluff" in the
eyes of a great number of excellent intellectuals, then socialist
patriotism is a "bluff" too.

--------------------------

(56) William F. Robinson: "Nationalism: Hungarian Problem Child."
RFE Research, 5 July 1967.

(57) Zoltan Molnar: "A Meditation in March, Elet es Irodalom,
16 March 1968. 

[page 30]

Up to now, only a "socialist patriotism" of a Marxist type
has existed to mark national consciousness and national feeling.
Everything outside, this category was called nationalism, chauvinism,
cosmopolitanism or nihilism. The engagement of the writers in the
debate on nationalism and patriotism has paved the way for a
welcome, and the former categories changed to some degree and acquired
new meanings. The concept of "socialist patriotism" was linked
to a new idea -- that of the "good patriot" or the "real patriot."
Even those who have not yet attained to a socialist ideology can
be considered as "good patriots" and "real patriots." And as the
new concept has widened, the concept of nationalism or
cosmopolitanism has narrowed. Many manifestations of what was previously
considered criminal nationalism or cosmopolitanism, are not viewed
in this light any more. Such expressions as national pride, national
consciousness, national self-esteem are being accepted again in
Party ideology and in public.

In addition to conceptual changes, the appearance of
writers on the scene and their expression of dissenting opinions
brought other results as well. The Party, in spite of the fact
that it formerly strongly supported the process of the Marxist
revaluation of history, has now taken a more cautious position
after the continuous sharp attacks of the writers. It seems that
the dethroning of heroes, the destruction of illusion and myth,
and the general profanation of national history--which has been
evident in books, plays and movies, and smarted its triumphal
progress accompanied by the plaudits of Party propaganda -- is
about to cease.

Miklos Ovari, the head of the Department of Science,
Education and culture of the HSWP CC, has said -- inter alia -- in
his lecture at the Political Academy of the HSWP:

"... Is it correct to adopt ‘disillusionism’ as the program
for the writing of Marxist history? No; in my opinion, it is wrong.

"A historiography robbed of the romantic does not necessaries
give us the real significance of a historic event -- for example,
the battle of Mohacs -- and scientific objectivity cannot be
sacrificed either for the sake of supposedly valid theories or
because collective sentiment may be hurt. This could be called
subjectivism even if some articles prefer to call it the
destruction of illusions or the building of a socialist national
consciousness." [58]

With these sentences, Ovari condemned the work of Istvan
Nemeskurty, This Happened after Mohacs, a report on the
fifteen-year period of Hungarian history from 1526 to 1541 which was
published in 1966 and up to now praised by the Party propagandists.

------------------------

(58)"Patriotism and internationalism." The lecture of Miklos Ovari
at the Political Academy of the HSWP. Nepszabadsag, 14 March 1968.

[page 31]

But let us see a few more examples of the courageous and
firm attitude of writers of "dissenting opinion."

Gyula Illyes

"There can be no more discouraging confusion of emotions
and ideas than when somebody, while trying to overcome chauvinism,
believes that he can. serve the cause of reconciliation by shouting
any kind of blasphemy which comes to mind about his own people,
without checking the alleged facts or considering the consequences.
He does not serve the people's cause but, at the best, another
nation's chauvinism, and he produces the very reaction he wanted
to overcome: chauvinism among his own people, and thus an even
more intensified fratricidal struggle." [59]

"An empty hauteur is harmful. But it is just as bad if,
overcompensating for this haughtiness, we become so eager to make
people aware of the bad and unfavorable aspects of our people that
only the black side becomes common knowledge.

"I could list hundreds of examples in which facile work
and cheap effects cast a dark shadow over portrayals which could
properly be achieved only by the masters of shading. Some average
talents, not long ago, managed to get their works published or
performed by giving them, as they believed, some social color.
I heartily dislike people who blackmail Hungarians because of their
lust for money or publicity, or because of the arrogance that comes
from lack of culture. Nothing can make a man more ignorant than
the arrogance of a little knowledge, and a man of the world can
sometimes be provincial. People of that kind are in the majority
among those who depreciate our nation. This is the very type
denounced in such a striking way by Lajos Palagyi, who called them
'cosmopolitan yokels.' If someone is narrow-minded in four
languages, he is narrow-minded four times over as the result of
his arrogance." [60]

Sandor Fekete

"The masses, unlike some of our artists, have an immoderate
national self-esteem. In this we are just like other nations.
It is in our own interest to adjust our self-esteem to reality.
We should understand that, we like the others, are not the bouquet
on that certain hat; but equally we are not a black nourning veil
spread across our innocent earth. Everybody loves his fatherland
in his own way: emotionally rationally, in a modern way,
or not at all. But if we want to heal our bouquet-nostalgia with
ridicule, disparagement and the dethroning of the heroes of our
past -- and there is no example of this succeeding anywhere in the

-------------------------

(59) Gyula Illyes:"Rootlets,"Third part. Nepszabadsag, 6 January 1968.

(60) Gyula Illyes:"Rootlets," Fourth part. Nepszabadsag, 7 January 1968.

[page 32]

world, especially in these days -- then we will achieve just the
opposite.

"But one thing is quite sure: if somebody who is proud of
the fact that he is scornful of the immature Hungarian people, and
who even tries to encourage the people to a masochist frenzy
of self-reproach, neglects today the factor of national self-esteem,
he is cutting across the grain of human nature. The very best that
can be said for him is that he is a bad teacher. And he does not
help the distant future, the brotherhood of the nations of the
world or the unity of our own people."[61]

Geza Hegedus

"National self-esteem, with a strong emotional flavor,
is an important antidote to cynicism and to the disparagement
of great values. The modern sport of destroying illusions in
these days -- in spite of some virtues in it -- could become the
breeding ground of cynicism.... The indiscriminate destruction
of illusions -- leading to the discrediting of established moral
principles -- is just as much a lie as the deliberate creation
of illusions.

"Literature does not have to contest the latest findings
of the sciences, but it is wrong to destroy your image of a moral
ideal under the pretext of shattering idols or uprooting illusions."
[62]

The writers with a "dissenting opinion" have a further
achievement to their credit. The regime -- probably for mixed
reasons -- has at last, by implication rather than overtly, given
up the requirement for silence about the Hungarian minorities
(apart from their cultural aspects.) It was a copybook example
of paradox that, up to now, one was allowed to write only-about
Hungarian minorities who lived among Bedouin tribes, on the
river Kur, or in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Gyula Illyes has visited
Regusse, one of the small Alpine villages of Upper Provence, to
talk about the "rootlets" of national consciousness and national
feeling to the French descendants of the Hungarian prisoners who
were sold to Prance on the slave market of Constantinople in the
16th Century.

---------------------
(61) Sandor Fekete:"Are we worthy of Europe?" Kritika, March 1968.

(62) Geza Hegedus: "Patriotic education and youth literature;"
Jelenkor, June 1967.

[page 33]

The first sign of the regime's about-face on this issue
appeared at the Eger conference in October 1967. The chief
secretary of the Hungarian Writers Association, Imre Dobozy, has
stated in his report:

"Our solidarity and responsibility for the fate, education
in the mother tongue, and the crippling of the ethnic unit, of
Hungarians living outside our frontiers, cannot be considered as
nationalism. But our responsibility for them -- and this we have
to make known explicitly -- can only mean the deeper and more
exemplary practice of internationalism, the constant and general
development of cooperation with the fraternal socialist countries,
and unremitting joint efforts for the spiritualization of the
frontiers. The more open and active our good relations with our
neighbors, the more naturally they will accept the fact that we
still consider the minority of our people living in their country
as Hungarians."[63]

Gyula Illyes writes in his series of articles,"Rootlets":

"Lingual discrimination is still an empty phrase to many
people. Can Walloons, Flemings, South Tyrolese, North Italians,
Catalonians, Spanish, Greeks or Turks do better than that?
They should learn each other's language.

"But here is something worth pondering: what will happen
if some countries discriminate against hundreds of thousands of their
citizens on the grounds of their mother tongue, and push them to
the bottom of the social scale so that they are not allowed to
reach even the level of skilled workers? (Because, to get a
professional training they have to attend a technical school which requires
a command of the language of the country even in territories where
this language is not spoken and has never been spoken within a radius
of many days journey.} The point is here that the persons in
question are bread-winners and not just Catalonians, Flemings or
Walloons. Or Hungarians."[64]

"About 15 million people, all over the world, belong to
the widely spread community of those whose mother tongue is
Hungarian. Among these people, only ten million use their mother
tongue as the language of their own community. Every third
Hungarian lives at a greater or lesser distance outside this
community, some of them at a distance of 10,000 kms.[65]

-------------------------

(63) Nepujsag, (Heves) 26 October 1967.

(64) Gyula Illyes: 'Rootlets," Third part. Nepszabadsag
6 January 1968.

(65) Gyula Illyes: "Rootlets," Fourth part, Nepszabadsag,
7 January 1968.

[page 34]

At the plenary meeting of the Writers Association in March,
Dobozy again exposed the problem of the Hungarian minorities. In
his opinion, the key requirement is that "Hungarians, living outside
the frontiers, should be able to keep their language and their
ethnic unit, and that they should not be compelled by any powerful
influence to give up their ethnic and national characteristics." [66]

The fate of the Hungarian minorities was also discussed at
the Fourth Congress of the Patriotic People's Front. According to
Magyar Nemzet, one of the passages of the report of the committee
on "Socialist Structure and Socialist Patriotism" runs as follows:

"The question of Hungarians living beyond the frontiers is
the essence of this theme, and it is not by accident, therefore,
that it has become the subject matter of the discussion. One-third
of all Hungarians are living beyond our frontiers -- a well-known
truth which we have noted in the data on our national characteristics.
There were some people who expressed the opinion that we should not
deal with the question at all if we could not tackle it in detail, 
but the general opinion of the committee was that the problem, which
exists both objectively and in the consciousness of the nation as a
whole, is one of the fundamental questions for a socialist nation
and that it is perhaps more important here than anywhere else to
take reason rather than emotion as one's point of departure, to see
the matter in the light of an internationalism based on our overall
national interest and to emphasize our common interests.... The
national minorities should become the agents and sources of closer
relations, not of isolation, among the socialist nations. [67]

Thus the concern for the Hungarian minorities cannot be
considered as "nationalism" any more. In this connection, Paragraph
127 of the Penal Code (1961/V) on the crime of "subversive activity"
is worthy of attention. People who commit acts "against the allied,
friendly or cooperative international relations of the People's
Republic of Hungary," and those who arouse hatred for other "peoples,"
are within the compass of the term "subversive activity." Dr.Sandor
Puski, the former publisher of the Peasant Party writers, was
considered to have committed such a crime because of a memorandum
on the Transylvanian question, and was sentenced to a four-and-a-half
year prison term in 1962. The question is, to what extent will
the about-face of the regime concerning the fate of the Hungarian
minorities -- which has been manifested only in general
declarations -- influence the enforcement of Paragraph 127 ?

In any case, it was as a result of this change of
viewpoint that interest in the cultural life of the Hungarian minority

------------------------

(66) Elet es Iroflalom, 30 March 1968.

(67) Magyar Nemzet, 28 April 1968.

[page 35]

which already existed, considerably increased. One of the
indications of this was the recent round-table discussion of the Hungarian
Writers Association on the Hungarian literature of neighboring
countries. [68]

So much, briefly, for the writers of "dissenting opinion"
and the problem of nationalism and patriotism, a change and a process
which can be considered one of the positive signs of the
"realization and the "quest for ways and means" by Hungarians.[69]

The Hungarian Writers and the "Permanent Evolution."

It may be presumed that the economic reform will make its
effects felt not only in the economic and cultural spheres, but
in almost all areas of social life -- in other words, in politics
as well. This assumption is supported by Marxist theory in its
rejection of the separation of economy and politics.

The sociologist Andras Hegedus has outlined the possible
effects of the economic reform as follows: "Nothing could be considered
a more natural and, at the same time, more welcome development if
the reform of economic system is followed by further overall social
reforms, based on the internal analysis of socialism, which will
take in wide areas of social life, including the political and
cultural structures as well." The Party politician and economist
Rezso Nyers, too, expects a "broad social and political effect"
from the economic reform. While Hegedus, in his study published in
Kortars [70] has outlined the prospect of a "permanent evolution,"
Nyers, in his lecture to the Political Academy of the HSWP, which
was published in Tarsadalmi Szemle [71] in an abridged form, has
actually framed the theory of "permanent reform."

--------------------------

(68) The round-table debate took place on 10 May 1968. Magyar Nemzet
and Nepszava reported on the debate on May 11, and Nepszabadsag
on May 12. Radio Kossuth commented on the debate on May 16.
(Hung Monitoring).

(69) Imre Kovacs:"What is the nation? What is a Hungarian?"
Irodalmi Ujsag (Paris), 15 March 1968.

(70) Andras Hegedus: "Reality and necessity" Kortars, July 1967.

(71) Rezso Nyers: "The expected social and political effects of
the new economic mechanism," Tarsadalmi Szemle, March 1968.

[page 36]

The formulation of these theories has taken place in the
exciting atmosphere of the economic reform. The writers played
a considerable role in creating this atmosphere in spite of fears and
worries prior to the reform.

Geza Molnar, for example, wrote, that we are facing great
changes in sciences, arts, public education, in culture as a whole,
that the economic reforms will also influence the opinion of society,
and society as a whole, and that the economic reform is a "green
light" in intellectual life and will have a decisive effect on the
life of the whole country. [72]

Bela Abody has expressed his doubts, whether the economic
reform will produce a new internal mechanism as well, a recreation
and modernization of our emotions, logic, human relations, our
personal and ideological general condition, and our internal
plans. Would it bury, in its clever and quiet way, all kinds of
dogmatism as well? [73]

Gyorgy Timar sees the great possibility of national
revival in the economic reform. In his opinion the economic
mechanism should be coupled with a correct political mechanism as
well. It should transform the country into a forum of debate on
"the public level." Everybody should have the chance to express
his opinion and to be given a hearing, because there are many
disappointed people. [74]

Jozsef Horvath has said that the continuation of the
building of socialist democracy is a fundamental political
aspiration and has pointed to the fact that the adjustment of socialist
public life to the modern demands of society and to the new economic
conditions will be necessary. [75]

Gyula Csak has stated that the old mechanism had a harmful
effect on the intellectual status of society. Mistakes and falseness
have settled on our life, hurting our self-esteem. [76]

In the opinion of Dezso Toth the reform will develop new
ideological and moral fields of force. [77]

Otto Major wrote that "the structural changes will necessarily
result in social movement and that the country will face a moral
trial of strength. [78]

-------------------------

(72) Geza Molnar: "The writer and the mechanism," Elet es Irodalom,
9 December 1967.

(73) Elet es Irodalom, 10 December 1967.

(74) Elet es Irodalom, 2 December 1967.

(75) Nepszabadsag, 7 January 1968.

(76) Elet es Irodalom, 25 November 1967.

(77) Elet es Irodalom, 26 August 1967.

(78) Elet es Irodalom, 22 April 1967.

[page 37]

It is an open question how far the expections of the
writers and their hopes in connection with the economic reform will
be realized, but developments show a favorable trend. The writers
have the important task of pressing and speeding up these developments,
a task which can be outlined as the formulation and popularization
of ideas and plans for reform. These ideas and plans may, in future,
receive additional stimulus because of outside impulses which are
primarily Czechoslovak. Public opinion shows great concern about
Czechoslovak events. A report at the end of March revealed that the
editorial office of the Budapest weekly Magyarorszag receives about
50 requests a month for the members of the staff to hold teach-ins
on foreign political questions, the internal affairs of the socialist
camp, and Czechoslovak events. [79] Besides their concern for the
general interest, the writers pay increased attention to events.
We would like to mention only one example: the representatives of
the Hungarian literary papers and periodicals Kortars, Nagyvilag,
Kritika, Elet es Irodalom, Alfold, Tiszataj and Jelenkor, have
visited Prague as the guests of the Czechoslovak Writers' Union.
The Hungarian writers and editors gathered information about the
problems of Czechoslovak economic, social and cultural life, on
location. [80]

The essential condition of a permanent evolution, composed
of a series of reforms, is a knowledge of the situation, the exposure
of facts, and the consideration of possibilities, The writers perform
valuable service by the cultivation of sociological writing. During
the past ten years -- on the basis of the literary traditions of the
sociological study of village life in the 1930s -- a productive
and manifold literary sociographic trend has developed which embraces,
beyond the sociological work of the peasant writers, the whole
"social reality." The movement named "The Discovery of Hungary"
has given a new impetus to this literary trend. In the framework
of this movement -- according to Jozsef Darvas's announcement at
the plenary meeting in March -- about 26 writers will carry out
sociographic surveys. These writers will receive a one-year
scholarship to enable then to explore the Hungarian economic, social and
intellectual situation. In this broad survey, the writers will, in
all probability, become the composers and advocates of "the better
instincts and aspirations of society" and thus the apostles of new
reform in the process of "permanent evolution."

The literary policy of the regime is lenient. Society is
changing more and more into an "open society." In this situation
the writers are not only in the limelight of Hungarian intellectual
life and in the public eye but they also carry out an important
mission in the formation of the future -- in other words, the
development of a democratic and pluralistic society.

----------------------

(79) Kisalfold, 30 March 1968.

(80) Dunantuli Naplo, 22 May 1968.

[page 38]

Because -- according to one of the late great figures
of the Hungarian Parnassus, the Szekely Aron Tamasi -- not only
the politician has the responsibility of leadership, but the
writer too, in His intellectual watch-tower. The politician is
responsible to the people and the writer to the nation.

A.B.
(Hungarian Unit)

  OSA / Guide / RIP / 1956 / RFE/RL Background Reports : Subjects | Browse | Search