Lee Congdon

Endre Ady’s Summons to National Regeneration in Hungary, 1900-1919

In 1896 Hungarians celebrated the one thousandth anniversary of their conquest of the Central European Plains. Intoxicated with the heady wine of nationalism, they seemed almost to believe that their millennium prefigured the thousand-year reign of Christ prophesied in the book of Revelation. Public officials loudly proclaimed Hungary to be the best of all possible worlds and extolled the virtues of patriotism in the most extravagant terms. Publicists eulogized the Hungarian national genius and lamented that all of Eastern Europe was not ruled by Magyars. The most enthusiastic patriots confidently predicted yet another thousand years of national glory. Such self-congratulation contrasted strikingly with reality; for fin de siecle Hungary, far from being the kingdom of God on earth, was a political and cultural wasteland. The reform program advocated with such energy by Count Istvan Szechenyi (1791-1860)1 had been only partially implemented and had therefore failed to effect the moral regeneration of Hungary2 for which the great aristocrat yearned. Any lingering hope that a new Hungary might be created died in the 1870s with Ferenc Deak and Jozsef E6tv6s, the liberal architects of the Autsgleich. While cynically praising the wisdom of Deak and E6tv6s, Hungarys ruling classes, the magnates and the gentry (or lesser nobility), led the country into an era of reaction. Rather than ennobling themselves morally by promoting the reform of social injustices, as Szechenyi had urged, the Magyar magnates became even more indifferent to the commonweal, leaving the administration of the nations political affairs to the gentry. Under the latters leadership, the government (supported by the powerful Roman Catholic Church) removed political and social reform from its agenda and attempted systematically to Magyarize Hungarys non-Magyar nationalities, in flagrant violation of the liberal Nationalities Law of 1868.3