The Man of Many Devices, Who Wandered Full Many Ways: Festschrift in Honor of János M. Bak 9789633865002

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... The Man of Many Devices, WhoWandered Full ManyWays ...

Tell me, 0 Muse, of the man of many devices, who wandered full many ways after he had sacked the sacred citadel of Troy. Many were the men whose cities he saw and whose mind he learned, aye, and many the woes he suffered in his heart upon the sea, seeking to win his own life and the return of his comrades. Horner, Odyssey 1.1 translated by A. T. Murray

... The Man of Many Devices, Who Wandered Full Many Ways ... Festschrift in Honor of János M. Bak

Edited by Balázs Nagy and Marcell Sebők

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CEUPRESS

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Central European University Press Budapest

Published by Central European University Press

Október 6. utca 12 H-1051 Budapest Hungary 400 West 59th Street New York, NY 10019 USA

© 1999 by Central European University Press Distributed in the UK and Western Europe by Plymbridge Distributors Ltd. Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PZ, United Kingdom Ali rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any farm or by any means, without the permission of the Publisher. ISBN 963-9116-67-X Cloth ISBN 978-963-386-500-2 ebook Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A CIP catalog record far this book is available upon request

Printed in Hungary by Akadémiai Nyomda

JOHANNI BAK SEPTUAGINTA ANNOS NATO DEDICATA

TABULA GRATULATORIA

Gustav Bayerle, Bloomington Urszula Borkowska, Lublin Sima Cirkovic, Belgrade Ralph Cleminson, Portsmouth Kaspar Elm, Berlin Paul Freedman, New Haven Johannes Fried, Frankfurt am Main Patrick Geary, Notre Dame György Karsai, Budapest John Klassen, Langley B.C. Paul W. Knoll, Los Angeles Jacques Le Goff, Paris Roman Michalowski, Warsaw Karl Morrison, New Brunswick Karl Nehring, Munich Miloslav Polívka, Prague Frantisek Smahel, Prague Júlia Szalai, Budapest Bernhard Töpfer, Berlin Dusan Trestik, Prague Lívia Varga, Toronto Vladimir Vavrinek, Prague

TABLE OF CONTENTS

vii xiii

Tabula Gratulatoria Acknowledgments Gábor Klaniczay Preface

XV

I. PERSONALIA András Bir6 Baksi György litván Finding (and losing?) the right path together (1945-48) András B. Hegedűs "Dorange": A story of solidarity Péter Kende The Imre Nagy Institute in Brussels. A letter of sorts to János Bak Mihály Vajda Bak-as I see him

3 6 12 18 25

II. ARTES Ernő Marosi Kunsthistorische Bemerkungen zur Vision des heiligen Gerhard/Gellért Nancy van Deusen Byzantium and the West: Music as a cultural betrayer Béla Zsolt Szakács The Holy Father and the evils, or could the Hungarian Angevin legendary have been ordered for a pope? Gerhard Jaritz "Young, Rich and Beautiful." The visualization of male beauty in the late Middle Ages

31 38 52 61

III. REBELLIONES John C. Parsons Violence and the queen's body: Medieval consorts, statecraft, and disor81 der in twelfth-century France Piotr G6recki Violence and the social order in a medieval society: The evidence from the 91 Henryków region, ca. 1150-ca. 1300 105 Hanna Zaremska Le Juif au tribunal: Cracovie, XVeme siecle Gábor Klaniczay Images and designations for rebellious peasants in late medieval Hungary 115 128 Ferdinand Seibt Utopia and Reformation in Central Europe IV. MAJESTAS Bernhard Schimmelpfennig Die Geburt Jesu, der Kaiser Augustus und die Sibylle von Tivoli 139 148 Marianne Sághy The adventus of Constantius II to Rome 357 A. D. Hanna Kassis A glimpse of openness in medieval society: AI-I:Iakam II of Córdoba and his 160 non-Muslim collaborators

X

167 Maria, Dobozy Exeat Aula? Rulership in Gottfried von Strassburg's Tristan Richard A. Jackson The livres bleu and rouge. Two coronation manuscripts in the cathe-176 dral of Reims Anna Brzezinska Female control of dynastic politics in sixteenth-century Poland 187 V. HAGIOGRAPHICA István Perczel Mankind's common intellectual substance: A study in the letters of Saint Antony and his Life by Saint Athanasius Ihor Sevcenko Constantine-Cyril, apostle of the Slavs, as "Bibliothecary," or how Byzantine was the author of Constantine' s Vita? Anna Kuznetsova St. Stephen of Perm: Missionary and popular saint Ryszard Grzesik Die Ungarnmission des hl. Adalberts Neven Budak Was the cult of Saint Bartholomew a royal option in early medieval Croatia? Mary Beth L. Davis "Spekyn for Goddys Cawse": Margery Kempe and the seven spiritual works of mercy

197 214 222 230 241 250

VI. QUOTIDIANA Janet L. Nelson Feast, games, and inversions: Reflections on The Ups and Downs of St. Gall Giedre Mickünaite A medieval parade? Anu Mii.nd Signs of power and signs of hospitality: The festive entries of the Ordensmeister into late medieval Reval Richard W. Unger Beer in Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages Ludolf Kuchenbuch Kerbhölzer in Alteuropa - Zwischen Dorfschmiede und Schatzamt Vera Bácskai Housing in eighteenth-century Hungarian cities

269 277 281 294 303 326

VII. VARIA MEDIEVALIA Aaron Ya. Gurevich A gift awaits an answer. A page from the cultural history of society Susan Reynolds Carolingian elopements as a sidelight on counts and vassals Balázs Nagy Transcontinental trade from East-Central Europe to western Europe (fourteenth and fifteenth centuries) Felicitas Schmieder Enemy, obstacle, ally? The Greek in western crusade proposals (12741311) György Gereöy Eternal allegiances. Duns Scotus' place in the debate about the possibility of an eternally created world Henrik Birnbaum The vernacular languages of East Central Europe in the medieval period Paul E. Szarmach A preface, mainly textual, to Alcuin's De Ratione Animae

333 340 347 357 372 384 397

VIII. HUNGARICA Pál Engel Erbteilung und Familienbildung Martyn Rady The filia! quarter and female inheritance in medieval Hungarian law József Laszlovszky Field systems in medieval Hungary Katalin Szende Was there a bourgeoisie in medieval Hungary?

411 422 432 445

xi Herwig Wolfram Die ungarische Politik Konrads II. Lás,dó Veszprémy Dux et praeceptor Hierosoliminatorum. König Ladislaus (László) als imaginarer Kreuzritter László Koszta Die Domkapitel und ihre Domherren bis Anfang des 12. Jahrhunderts in Ungarn James Rass Sweeney Summa Potestas Post Deum-Papal Dilectio and Hungarian Devotio in the reign of Innocent III Marianna D. Birnbaum The mantle of Béla IV Sergey A. Jvanov Hungarians in an anonymous Byzantine geographical treatise Zsolt Hunyadi The Knights of St. John and the Hungarian private legal literacy up to the mid-fourteenth century Damir Karbié Defining the position of Croatia during the restoration of royal power (1345-1361} István Petrovics The fading glory of a former royal seat: The case of medieval Temesvár Gábor Virágos A history of the Cyko family of Pomáz Szabolcs de Vajay Un ambassadeur bien choisi: Bernardinus de Frangipanus et sa mission a Naples, en 1476 András Kubinyi István Werbőczy als Politiker vor Mohács (1526) Marcell Sebők Sebastian Thököly and his sensibility towards religious questions Éva H. Balázs La bibliotheque de Gergely Berzeviczy Béla Király The "battle" of Nagykovácsi. A persona! memoir reconfirmed by the enemy

460 470 478 492 499 503 507 520 527 539 550 558 583 596 602

IX. HISTORIOGRAPHICA Elizabeth A. R. Brown Myths chasing myths: The legend of the Trojan origin of the French and its dismantling Neithard Bulst Geschichtsschreibung im Dienste von Herrschaftsinteressen am Beispiel Frankreichs im Spatmittelalter Kido Takeshi The reign of Henry IV of England, 1399-1413. A century of historical research and writing Jan M. Piskorski The historiography of the so-called "east colonisation" and the current state of research Leslie S. Domonkos The survival of medieval traditions at early American colleges to ca. 1800 Gottfried Schramm Das Beispiel Ungarn im standischen Osteuropa László Péter C. A. Macartney's studies on early Hungarian history George Schöpflin Englishness between class and ethnicity Bibliography of the works of János M. Bak List of contributors

613 634 641 654 668 680 685 690 697 707

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It was about two years ago when we realized that János Bak would turn seventy in the spring of 1999. It seemed timely, therefore, to start preparing this Festschrift cher­ ishing the old tradition in the humanities of paying tribute to a highly acknowledged and charismatic scholar. After long discussions we found it impossible to define a single topic around which we could assemble the articles. Rather, we requested our contributors to send us either persona! stories in connection with János, or scholarly articles that related to János' wide scholarly interests. Then came the second dilemma in our enterprise: how to compile a list of János' innumerable friends, colleagues and students. What followed was a piece of research in its own right. Once again we had long conversations with our friends at CEU­ since we have been colleagues of János for "only" eight years or so-and also received helpful advice from Vera Bácskai and András B. Hegedűs at this stage of the work. ln September 1997 we were able to send out invitations to contribute worldwide­ hopefully without omitting any of János' important acquaintances, From the very beginning we received important mora! and technical support from various people. We are grateful to Professor Josef Jarab, rector and president of CEU, whose generous support made this book possible. Our colleagues and friends, Gábor Klaniczay and József Laszlovszky always provided us with thoughtful comments. We worked in close daily cooperation with our copyeditor, Frank Schaer, whose continu­ ous assistance and linguistic talent greatly improved the English texts. Rachel Hideg also amended the quality of the English articles, Anikó Harmath was an accurate copyeditor of German texts, and Janet Frazer and Dániel Tóth did their best in trans­ lating the Hungarian essays into English. Other friends, such as Marianne Sághy, György Geréby and Tamás Sajó were at our disposal any time we needed them. The director of the CEU Press, Klára Takácsi-Nagy, who offered to publish this volume at the CEU Press, and Zsófia Nagy, editor of CEU Press, were both helpful in producing the Festschrift. All in all, it was a collective enterprise, and all remaining errors are ours. Balázs Nagy and Marcell Sebők

PREFACE Gábor Klanic%ay

János has turned seventy, and I have the honorable duty to write introductory words to this volume which bears the colorful and rich imprint of the multitude of inspira­ tions, interests, and initiatives that originated from him and flowed into the work of hís fríends, colleagues and students. I certaínly cannot do justice to thís ríchness. I have only known hím duríng the past two decades and have only worked really closely together wíth hím ín the !ast eíght years, when we were building up and dí­ rectíng together the Medieval Studies Department at the Central European Univer­ sity. Duríng thís tíme, I gradually gained a kind of insight into the previous episodes of the adventurous itinerary of his individual, political and academic life. Nourished by the rich menu of the present volume, I could even make an attempt to present what I have learnt about his past as an explanatory model. But by no means would I attempt to write a biography. To those who are interested I would recommend the film made about hím by his daughter Gamma (who, herself had a hard task providing an overall picture). So this brings us to the first poínt to be stressed. The life of János Bak has been touched by the dramatic turníng poínts of the past seventy years: World War II and the Holocaust, the Communist takeover in 1948, the revolution of 1956, followed by hís long life in exile-first in Germany, then in England and Canada. One should add that he was an actíve partícipant throughout: he first believed in Communism, then, disillusioned, fought for the revolution and was one of the emigrés who continued to be politically active along the lines of 1956 (we can learn precious details about all this from the accounts by his friends published in this volume). Another thing to be added is that besides his committed political activity, he has always been a dedicated scholar, an ambitious historian of the Middle Ages. After a first guidance received at the University of Budapest from Professor Éva H. Balázs, he became, in exile, the student of Percy Ernst Schramm following an important German tradition. Taking all this together, he must have experienced 1968 in its full varíety: as a "veteran" of 1956 he turned to the Prague Spring with re-awakened hopes, while as a university professor representing a traditionalist discipline, he may have been mar­ veling at the eruption of student movements in the West. He was then able to con­ template the evolution of the colorful youth counter-culture in America on the far­ western campus of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, while doing his best to strengthen the bastíon of classical and medieval European civilization in that remote land that once belonged to the Kwakiutl Indians. During the 1970s and 1980s he was again becoming more and more involved with Central and Eastern Europe, his broader homeland. He regularly visited colleagues in all these countries, carried books, reviews, xeroxes and precious invitations not only

xvi to Budapest, but also to Prague (where the situation was especially acute), East-Berlin, Warsaw, and Moscow. And, as far as an already stigmatized 1956-er could do, he got involved with the various efforts of the democratic opposition towards making the "iron curtain" more and more porous and transparent. Then came 1989, his partici­ pation in the foundation and work of the historical Institute for the 1956 Revolution, and our common enterprise-the building up of a Medieval Studies Department at CEU. These two new commitments brought him home to Budapest. I hope the title of this collection of writings being offered to him-The Man of Many Devices, Who Wan­ dered Full Many Ways-does justice to this Odyssey. Let me dedicate a few words to our more recent work together, because this is ac­ tually the only part of his life I have closely observed. I am actually convinced that this provided him with an opportunity to make a synthesis of his previous activities. The task was ambitious. We had to design a graduate, Ph.D. curriculum using all his university experiences from Germany, England and America which I tried to com­ bine with my French and Italian affiliations. But, above all, we could rely upon all his emotional-though sometimes angry and dissatisfied-attraction to the unexploited treasures of East European scholarship. This also meant the organization of a meet­ ing place for professors and students from the East and the West, making Budapest the center of the world. Working in a close multinational community of scholars and students makes university planning a demanding, fascinating and passionate enter­ prise-this is what János has stood for during the past seven years of common work, and without his energy, skill and experience, this department would not have be­ come what it is. So János is a great organizer and a dedicated professor, whose creative and con­ structive energies seem inexhaustible. This could already be seen in Canada where he organized innumerable workshops and conferences; edited volumes; created a jour­ nal (The Journal of Peasant Studies); initiated large research projects; founded interna­ tional associations such as the MAJESTAS (1988) for the study of rulership; and made efforts to organize a huge Encyclopaedia of Medieval Central Europe for the Garland Press. At the CEU he continued in this direction, convening two research projects­ Women and Power in Medieval East-Central Europe and Nobility in Medieval and Early Modern Central Europe. He invented and re-invented various schemes for our educa­ tional structure; he wrote hundreds of pages of guidelines, regulations, brochures and grant applications; he would not allow a departmental meeting to last less than three hours, nor did he feel it right if we did not dedicate special attention to the specific merits (or shortcomings) of every single student. (Every student paper that reaches him is decorated with an amazing quantity of useful, and frequently an­ gry, comments.) And he keeps on rolling at this speed right up to the present ma­ ment. After describing him as an organizer and professor, let me finally also say a few words about his scholarly profile. Some of his themes have already been mentioned, but others should be added: state symbols, royalty, nobility, laws, peasants, multilin­ gualism. His German dissertation, Königtum und Stiinde in Ungarn im 14-16. Jahrhun­ dert (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1973) is a highly esteemed synthesis of Hungarian and German scholarship in this field, one that is unfortunately very little known or ap• preciated in Hungary. His thought-provoking studies on the medievalist themes listed above always contain a design for a whole team of students or researchers. ln

xvii fact he is quite encyclopaedic in his interests, and the variety of contributions in this volume provide a good illustration of this richness. But if we look at his list of publications we observe another, more significant fea­ ture. I have seen very few scholars of his stature who have dedicated so much of their energy to the service of their friends and colleagues. He has written an imposing number of reviews (and very good critical reviews!), in which he has tried to make the linguistically isolated, yet important Hungarian historiographic findings of the 1960s onwards a part of international scholarship. He personally translated a book by his close friend Erik Fügedi (Castle and Society in Medieval Hungary, 1985), edited and partially translated another Fügedi volume published by Variorum Reprints (Kings, Bishops, Nobles and Burghers in Medieval Hungary, 1986), and helped editing a third one, The Elefánthy (1998). He performed the same "service" on behalf of his be­ loved friend, Aaron Ya. Gurevich (Medieval Popular Culture, 1988). He was instrumen­ tal in bringing to the Western public modern translations of medieval Hungarian sources (The Ladislas legend, the important volumes of the Decreta Regni Hungariae). To crown this endeavor, due to his initiative the CEU Press will publish an ambitious bilingual series of medieval Central European texts. (The first in this series, The Deeds of Hungarians by Simon of Kéza, a volume that he himself edited to set the standard, will be coming out in spring 1999). Another area of his scholarly "services" is his ex­ cellent reference handbook on Medieval Narrative Sources, published both in English and German versions, and it is here that one should mention the large number of lexicon entries he dutifully wrote for important manuals, such as the Lexikon des Mit­ telalters, Lexikon .fü,r Theologie und Kirche, the Oxford Dictionary of By�antium, etc. Though he was not successful in persuading hundreds of contributors from our re­ gion to be as efficient and generous in this field, he also dedicated years of his energy to the ambitious project far the Encyclopaedia of Medieval Central Europe-and who knows, this may also bear fruit. Finally, let me also mention here the energy he de­ voted to improve the scholarly publications of the 1956 Institute. Besides his own, well-respected historical studies, it has above all been this dedi­ cated academic service that has earned him the greatest respect from his students and colleagues. Thank you János, and let us continue all these things together. Or, if you prefer, let us invent something new again!

PERSONALIA

BAKSI András Bíró

It was while watching his daughter Gamma's film about him that I was suddenly amazed to see how frighteningly similar our cadences and gestures were . 1 After all , w e had never stood beside each other looking in the mirror, watching the move­ ments of our hands or the images you draw in the air when trying to convince some­ one of something or when you are trying to emphasize an idea. Recently a journalist friend of mine called to tel1 me that she had heard Bak's exposé ín Dubrovnik and thought it was my voice. It was probably in 1 946 when we first met, in the MADISZ2 house in Felvinczy Street, ín the second district. Being as I was a few years older, and, in addition, a leader of the local organization, he ended up ín my territory, having come from somewhere ín the fifth district. Without farming a spectacular friendship , there was an immediate spontaneous , intimate bonding between us, which, as it later proved, stood the test of time and space. Let me jump forward ín time. I think Baksi is my only friend ín Pest these days . While this statement should be taken with a pinch of salt, it can be explained by the fact that in the last forty years we got "socialized" differently to our peers and friends who stayed at home. I don't know if Baksi feels the same way or not. However, it is not only the pitch of our voices that we have in common, but also the thirty years of freedom that we lived through in similar fashion. While he was idling his time in Germany or drifting between continents on slow-moving ships, I was doing the same in Paris and Rome, and thus we had more time and impetus to face the past com­ mitment. It is a luxury for anyone if he is not always being chased by the rush of weekdays, if the compromises he makes do not always raise the dichotomy of faith­ fulness and treason. It is indeed a luxury if the atmosphere around us teaches us that it takes two to tanga and that we should not always put the blame for everything on the other person, on history, or on the Turks . Maybe we can then get accustomed to such unusual combinations as autonomy (but not only mine !) and tolerance , where there are no impassable barriers between us and them. There may be something even more important lurking behind this line of thought. If we are talking about surface mimesis and resemblances, 3 it is worth asking whether there are any structural ele­ ments providing more profound reasons for this friendship? I think that the trust between us remained complete, also because our original engagement, the similarity of our motivations has not changed, has not come to serve the times, and has not become ideological again. We both understood v�ry.well that the problem had been not with the what, but with the how. An episode connected with the 1 947 elections comes to mind. He was given the task of beavering away with the blue slips, 4 while I, working in the background, was

4

ANDRÁS BÍRÓ

entrusted to handle any possible bunglings. Understandably, "blueslipping" was only to be attempted in constituencies where the members of the election commission would not know the delinquent. Our silly old Bak was rousting about for the second time in the polling station in what is now Rómer Flóris Street and, as he lived in nearby Bimbó Road and was known by many, a social democrat commission member uncloaked him. Great commotion and uproar ensued. The district policestation in­ formed us, we rushed there in the company of a communist policeman, and roaring and cursing we dragged him out of the polling station. Later in the street, after giving him a thorough telling off, we had a great laugh at the "joke. " What if we had then weighed up what we were actually getting mixed up in? ln the years prior to the revolution we kept on losing touch with each other. He worked in scholarly surroundings whereas I worked in a more political set-up. Before the "year of the turn, " together with my new French wife (whom Baksi simply re­ ferred to as "the French one") we gathered in the cellar of our Rókushegy cottage to polemize every now and then. On Friday nights many of us used to gather to sing militant songs5 and drink plonk. Later, especially after the Rajk trial, 6 these careless wine-drinking sessions grew less and less frequent. Our more active friendship revived abroad, in the environment of the Imre Nagy Institute in Brussels. Later the ocean lay between us. He kept coming back to the old continent from Canada, and in a little village by the Adriatic he gathered his off­ spring from different countries and continents for a holiday together. Whenever I could, I nipped across from Rome to give them a hug, and then János and I could give each other an account of the events which had taken place since we had !ast met: new wives, works, timely spiritual or philosophical concerns... When talking about János, one thing definitely has to be mentioned : he is faithful and caring. If it had not been him who gave a sign of life at regular intervals (letters, calls, visits), knowing my limitless laziness when it comes to letter writing I do not think our relationship could have retained its original natural characteristics. He did not follow the usual North American trend of sending Christmas cards and xeroxed annual updates. Rather, when someone came to mind, he scribbled a long epistle which, naturally, could not remain unanswered. He not only remembered the Chris­ tian name of my current wife, but also recalled my diseases and annoyances that I had previously mentioned and was sure to ask about them. Finally, when in the late '70s life happened to place both of us on the same conti­ nent, he in Canada, me in Mexico, our mismanagement resulted in hím not visiting my Aztec dwelling, and me not getting to know his much-praised home in Vancou­ ver. However, we still heard from each other, and when I repatriated in the second half of the '80s and he nipped across to Pest every summer, we could eventually meet more regularly. Since he has been back home we no longer drink rough plonk, we now both prefer Scotch, it agrees better with our stomachs. He continues to calm me clown when I tel1 him the latest episode of my calamities. I am convinced that over the !ast fifty years he has regarded me as his wayward younger brother who has to be taken care of so that he would not get himself into another mess. Weil, whether we are over seventy or not, this cheeky brat is still three years younger than me ...

Translated 'by Janet Fr�er and Dániel Tóth

BAKSI

5

NOTES 1 East and West, the Home is the Best, see note 3 in András B. Hegedűs' essay. 2 MADISZ = Magyar Demokratikus Ifjúsági Szövetség = Hungarian Democratic Youth Alli­ ance. 3 The number of our marriages is a good example for this. We both belong to the category of those who have backslid at least four times. 4 The same story is told by György Litván, see note 7. there. 5 János could be the champion among the many tone-deaf people I have known. 6 László Rajk, minister of the interior, member of the Hungarian Communist Party, was ar­ rested in 1948, and under false pretences and invented stories Rajk was found guilty of high treason, of organization against the "democratic rule," and of acting as a spy for "imperial­ ists." He was executed on 15 October 1949.

FINDING (AND LOSING?) THE RIGHT PATH TOGETHER ( 1 945 -48) György Litván

I have known János Bak only since 1 945. This is surprising, for our fathers were not only acquaintances, but, I assume, met frequently on two different accounts. Firstly, they both held senior positions in the linen industry, a street's distance from each other. Lóránt Bak worked for Linum Lenfonó Vállalat, while József Litván worked for the Budakalászi Textilművek. Secondly, because they both belonged to the same cir­ cle of left-wing intellectuals, the so-called bourgeois radicals, and subscribed to its high quality, contemporary sociological periodical Századunk. They supported the paper, from time to time publishing minor articles and criticisms, and took part in the meetings and debates of the supporters. The society of our fathers was definitely oppositional, though not revolutionary. Their position and animus was not only against the gradually spreading far-right and nazi politics but also against Horthy's regime, 1 which provided a base and background for these politics. They had Western European democratic, liberal, and decidedly socialistic principles, and, naturally, this left a mark on our upbringing. The other very influential factor was that our families were of Jewish origin and had come through the previous years, especially the expe­ riences of 1 944. Therefore it is impossible to understand our experience of the years following 1 945 without considering this period, irrespective of the size of the loss of family members. The point was, regardless of the financial and social position of our families, our official elimination from the nation, which became official policy just at the time when we were beginning to think for ourselves, at about the age of ten ( 1 9 3 8/3 9). The uniqueness of our age was an important factor explaining our similar depar­ tures. Our age group was the youngest among those who lived through the war with understanding eyes, so that in 1 945, at the age of 1 5-1 6 , prematurely but because of the things we had lived through we were regarded as responsible adults. Thus we belonged to, and still belong to, the very end of the young generation which started life right after the war, and this fact connects us to those a few years older and sepa­ rates us from those a few years younger than us, who had lived through the war and the liberation with a child's mind. János and I happened to be placed in the same class in Berzsenyi Dániel Gim­ názium. 2 That was the school Márton Tardos attended too. We were classmates back in Werbőczy (now Petőfi) Gimnázium from 1 93 9 on. Beside school, there was an­ other link tying me tÖ János: our joint friendship with Palkó Forgács, who was a year older than us. I met him in early spring when I was living in Szeged, and made a life­ long friendship with him. Palkó was not only older but more gifted, accomplished, and mature than all of us. ln contrast to us, he knew who he was and what he was going to do. He wanted to become a writer, a poet, and he had very clear values. H e

FINDING (AND LOSING'?) THE RIGHT PATH TOGETHER ( 1 945-48)

7

was the one who set the direction of our discussions; his way of thinking and ex­ pressing himself became an example for all of us. I will attempt to recall our discus­ sions and to reconstruct our way of thinking at the time. It was one of the cornerstones of our perception of life that now, after the war, a whole new era, a new age was about to start not only far us, but far the whole human race. Although we still lived with our parents , we considered that our childhood had been finished, that we were adults. This was despite the fact that we still had to go to school. Palkó was in a more comfortable situation as he had finished secondary school in 1 946. He succeeded in enrolling for the university, reading English and Hungarian. János and myself could not bear the fact that we were a year behind him and tried our best to catch up with him. I was the lucky one. With persistent effort and the help of two literary friends of my father, Professor Albert Gyergyai and the then school-district chairman Nándor Szávai, I was allowed to take my eighth class secondary school exams ahead of time. I had to sacrifice the lovely summer of 1 946 for this; but this way I could do my matriculation and then go to university immedi­ ately. Unfartunately, János could not fallow me (it was difficult enough to persuade Mr Szávai even once). So he got enrolled as a special student, which was possible without matriculation, and later in 1 947 he arranged to get his two semesters recog­ nized as part of his studies. So we jumped a year-far we were in a hurry with every­ thing (even with getting married and starting a family). This year had to be repaid doubly as both of us were conscripted in 1 950 (we were the only two with a degree). János made a better career than me, as he was discharged as a lance-corporal in 1 952. So what was this big hurry all about? Where was it leading to? I can only repeat myself: we were anticipating a life whose quality we had no clear picture of. The only thing we knew was that it could not be the same as our pre-war middle-class world, our lives safe and secure in our home place. We also knew that the new life would need to represent a kind of new unity, amalgamating professional activity with a clear attitude to ideology and public life. We did not see acceptable patterns ahead or around us. However, our inner motivations-or, rather, orders , forces and challenges coming from the outside, both attractions and repulsions-urged us not to sit by idly waiting far the change, but to act and attempt to shape the world ourselves. The inner drive obliged us to search, to find out what the possibilities could and should be like. The strongest challenge from the outside was, of course, represented by the appearance of the new post-war power, the Hungarian Communist Party. We were attracted by its firm anti-fascist and anti-Horthist approach and its revolution­ ary drive, which, in this revolutionary period, was combined with an emphasis on democratism. However, at the same time we were repulsed by the unparalleled ag­ gression, the dogmatic superiority, and omniscience of the communists , and above all, by nearly everything we had so far perceived about their great patron, the Soviet Union and the Soviet culture and lifestyle. But the most repulsive thing was its taste­ lessness. Despite the great urgency we all hesitated, each in his own way. Although János had already found his way to the Communist Party, he always dealt with politics from a far greater distance than I later did. He was only active in the second district of Budapest, not in the university. At the university we both concentrated mainly on medieval studies. We had classes on reading medieval charters with Professor Szent-

8

GYÖRGY LITVÁN

pétery, attended Péter Váczy's lectures about nomadic Eurasian horse-keeping tribes and József Deér's about charismatic kingdoms, and took part in the medieval Latin seminars of Éva H. Balázs. I wonder what would have happened if we had stuck with those studies and kept to that path? The question is not so silly, as we both had the tendency to do so. I clearly remember that in the autumn of 1948 we made a last attempt to people a new Váczy Department as unpaid demonstrators beside Éva Balázs as assistant lecturer. We even put two little desks in a small room on the ground floor of the Múzeum körút building of the university. However, the rush of political life overtook us and swept us up; well, we had a tendency toward politics anyway. Many others, including people like Péter Váczy, were swept aside and thrown out of the university in an un­ forgettable manner. I have already attempted to outline the intellectual and emotional factors which drew a substantial part of the young intellectuals to the Communist Party. At a con­ ference held in December 1997 on the occasion of the 70th birthday of our friend Péter Kende I listed some of the reasons. 3 I mentioned the coherent theory of Marx­ ism that seems to have the answer for everything, the human desire to belong to an organized community, the rebellion against the old regime, our "guilty conscience" about "class," the exceptional possibility for real action, and behind it all, the intoxi­ cating feeling of power. These factors are well enough known, so it is not necessary to describe their characteristics and their forms of appearance. However, it is neces­ sary to talk about the reason why we yielded to this attraction which was so deroga­ tory towards intellectuals yet managed to appeal to so many of them. It stopped us thinking and temporarily eliminated our autonomy. We were aware of one of the reasons even then, as it was central to our thinking. The other reason for this is only being verbalized now in retrospect. As I mentioned earlier, one of the cornerstones of our wrestlings and discussions with Palkó Forgács was that we were at the threshold of a new era in the history of the world. Both the winners of the war and the defeated fascist countries and their satellites were in the middle of fundamental changes. Numerous signals suggested this: the apparent strength of the French and Italian communist parties, the nation­ alizations in England, the popularity of Sartre and other trenchant critics of the Western bourgeois lifestyle, and so on. Palkó, in his usual aphoristic style, labelled and summarized this phenomenon (following Oswald Spengler) as the Untergang des Abendlandes. Basing our position on the undoubted signs of crisis, we believed that traditional Western values were in decline and had already lost their validity. Even György Lukács taught this. From time to time we attended his lectures at the univer­ sity, and although we reacted to his theories either with criticism or irony, we came under his influence and ended up sharing his delusion. We had believed that the bourgeois world and so-called bourgeois democracy with its rights of liberty, art, philosophy and so on could not be saved or defended. From this we drew the pain­ ful-and wrong-conclusion that the barbarism coming from the East to destroy these values and beauties, intellectually inferior as it might be, might still bring a healthy freshness and rejuvenation. With these beliefs in our heads we innocently walked into the trap laid by the Communist Party and unwittingly prepared ourselves for the reception of Marxism-Leninism, that is to say, Stalinism. The other problem mentioned above that we did not really think about in those

FINDING (AND LOSING?) THE RIGHT PATH TOGETHER ( 1 945 -48)

9

days but that cannot be dismissed today was our relation to Hungarian reality, or simply, the Hungarian nation. One might ask why we did not feel guilty, or at least have scruples, about helping a conspicuously violent regime to bully the Hungarian people in a most anti-democratic way. Although of bourgeois origin, we had a strong "class guilt-complex" in relation to the poor, who had been so far downtrodden, yet we had no "national guilt-complex," despite the fact that we considered ourselves to be fully Hungarians. ln my opinion this could be explained by the age we were living in, by our experiences of 1944, and by the immediate post-war atmosphere. I can honestly say that in the company to which János, Palkó, and myself belonged, no one felt vengeful towards the country and the nation for what we had suffered. At the same time, we did not feel indebted to the nation nor obliged to take it into consid­ eration. This came later, after 1953, following our awakening when we started to examine ourselves. Around 1945-47, although we did not think it over at that time, we felt that Hungarian public opinion, which had not scored particularly well in pre­ vious years, was not morally entitled to protest against the way the world was tend­ ing and the sentence imposed by the mora! and military winners of the war. It was especially so because to us the 1945 elections proved that "old Hungary" had not learnt her lesson, had not changed, and still wanted to re-establish the pre-war status quo. So this "national inhibition" did not work with us. It might be a mitigating cir­ cumstance in our defence that it did not work either on our contemporaries who were of "national" origin. By 1947, the year of the so-called turn, the situation had become obviously acute and polarized. ln February the unconstitutional arrest of Béla Kovács took place, the prime minister Ferenc Nagy was forced to emigrate, the Smallholders' Party was segmented and they forced the election to be brought for­ ward in time. 4 At the same time, the powers of "reaction" started to gather around the parties of Zoltán Pfeiffer and István Barankovics (these were mostly the most courageous and most committed democrats). 5 This was the time when together with Palkó Forgács we felt we had to make up our minds and join the Communist Party. At the same time, in the spring and early summer of 1 947, Palkó and I were making plans to go to Paris to take part in a summer course at the Sorbonne. We will never know what the Paris atmosphere would have lured us into, as the French refused to put a visa stamp on our valid Hungarian passports. So that summer we went to Lupa Island6 instead of Paris. That summer became famous for the greatest poliomyelitis epidemic in Hungary. Palkó must have got infected in the water of the Danube. The infection was so serious that the disease- as there were no respirators-killed him within a few days. János brought the news to the island that Palkó's state had dete­ riorated. The next day we travelled clown to Lake Balaton to inform Palkó's sweet­ heart, and she and the two of us hurried back to Budapest to László Hospital, only to find our promising and gifted friend lying dead. It was at this time that the friendship between János and myself grew really inti­ mate, in an attempt to replace the unreplaceable. As I recall, we were always together in the second half of 1947. Before the "blue slip" elections in August, 7 János recom­ mended me to the second district Communist Party organization as a "precinct worker." I was to help to compile the final list of electors. Although I was a novice and not even a party member, nobody tried to conceal the main task, which was the decimation of the social democratic voters. This was because, having chopped up the

10

GYÖRGY Ll1VÁN

Smallholders, only the Social Democratic Party could have prevented the Commu­ nists from becoming the strongest party in the new Parliament. This manipulation involved stripping many honest people, mostly leftists, of their right to vote on vari­ ous trumped-up charges. This was no less dishonest than using the additional com­ munist votes given with the so-called blue slips. Thus my fall happened even before my joining the Party. Not much time passed before I did join, and that was also connected to János. He walked me to the Party Organization of Scientific Institutions (POSI) in a private flat in Szentkirályi Street. The autonomy of the universities, still more or less alive at that time, did not permit the presence of parties and their organizations on campus, so POSI provided the necessary framework for the organization, whereas the groups or the so-called cells of the communist students operated in the departments of the university. However, I did not know about all this, and, as a logical conclusion of my discourse with Palkó Forgács, I let János Bak "guide" me in. Well, János is a born guide. At least he was for me on my first American and Ca­ nadian trips, and later in London and Berlin. During his long and eventful emigra­ tion, with his extraordinary sense of locality and memory he got to know four or five metropolises and many smaller towns in the world as well as his own home city. I also profited from his fantastic acquaintance with science and literature during our long friendship. Luckily, this friendship was not burnt out by our missing the path together after 1945.

Translated by Janet Frazer and Dániel Tóth

NOTES 1 Miklós Horthy, Governor of Hungary between 1920 and 1944. His rightist and national­ istic politics characterized the so-called "Horthy regime" during the interwar period. 2 "Gimnázium" is the secondary stage in the Hungarian school system, corresponding to the American term "High School," or to "Secondary School" in British English. 3 The exposés were published in the 1998/2 issue of Világosság. 4 ln the struggle to seize political power, the Hungarian Communist Party made every ef­ fort to win over its rival, the Smallholders' Party {Független Polgári- és Kisgazdapárt = Inde­ pendent Citizens' and Smallholders' Party). The Smallholders, a centrist party, won the first free elections after WWII in 1945. By 1947-the "year of the turn" in the Hungarian historiog­ raphy-the Communist Party felt it necessary to take power, and they were not over­ scrupulous when it came to finding the ways and means. Béla Kovács was the first secretary of the Smallholders' Party. He was arrested on 25 February 1947, and was accused of conspiracy against the republic. Ferenc Nagy, another representative of the Smallholders, left for Switzer­ Iand in 1947, and declared his resignation as prime minister at the Embassy of Hungary in Bern on 30 March. 5 Zoltán Pfeiffer was also an influential politician in the Smallholders' Party till 1947, when he decided to Ieave his party. On 28 July 1947, he established the Hungarian Party of Inde­ pendence (Magyar Függetlenségi Párt), but after the elections both the Communist Party and the so-called Farmers' Party submitted a petition against the mandates of Pfeiffer's party. He decided, or rather was forced, to go abroad, and his party was dissolved by the Ministry of the Interior in November 1947. István Barankovics was the president of the Democratic People's Party (Demokrata Néppárt) and Ieft Hungary at the beginning of 1949. As the Hungarian News Service reported on 4 February 1949, Barankovics "escaped abroad," and under active

FINOING (AND LOSING?) THE RIGHT PATH TOGETH ER ( 1 945-48)

11

communist pressure his own party's political committee condemned his action and dissolved the party. 6 A weekend and recreation resort north of Budapest. 7 With the help of the so-called "blue slip" elections, the Communist Party were able to cheat the election system, and so took a major step towards the expulsion of other Hungarian political parties.

"DORANGE: " A STORY OF SOLIDARITY TO MY AGELESS FRIEND, WHO WILL SOON BE CATCHING UP WITH THE PATRIARCHS (MEMORIES - NO SCHOLARSHIP, ESPECIALLY NOT MEDIEVAL STUDIES)

András B. Hegedűs I am quite convinced I first met János Mihály Bak when I was faur. At that time children in kindergartens were not divided into age groups. It must have been a private institution where I first met the lad, who was about a year and a half older than myself. I have to admit, I have no memories either of him or the kindergarten itself. The sons (and daughters) of the middle class lived a harmonic life in the early thirties, and the noteworthy experiences still had to be waited far. However, the fallowing anecdote belongs to this time. It was immortalized by János' father, Dr Lóránt Bak. I was still only faur when my talented grandfather, a well-known architect and amateur painter, artist, and "rhymester" decided to make me familiar with the alphabet long befare starting school. Together with his six children (my aunts and uncles) he created a one-copy book. The rhyme written far the letter D, just like that far most of the other letters, was patriotic: "Drummers marching through the town / Eager each to win his crown. " 1 To make it easier far my infant mind to recall, he drew a honey-dew melon and a red-fleshed watermelon, both cut into two (they start with the letter D in Hungarian.) As Lóránt Bak recalls, I did not recog­ nize the honey-dew melon, and assumed it was an orange. However, as I really wanted to associate it with the letter D, I told him at the birthday party that the picture was a "dorange. " Since then I have been dubbed Dorange ín the Bak family. 2 The 2 8-year-old János Bak escaped Hungary at the end of 1 95 6 . When he started corresponding with his parents and heard about our various fates, adversities, ar­ rests, and prison terms, it was all told him by Lóránt as the fate of Dorange and his family. Of course, the lives of the "defectors, " emigrants, refugees-all those leaving the country-turned out better than that of those staying behind. Still, we were well aware that finding a new country, a new job, a new profession, and a new way of making a living was not easy. Most of them, including our friends and relatives, were busy with the problems of daily life. The politicians joined the different emigrant organizations and served the lost cause of the fallen revolution. Others were strug­ gling to establish a living far their families. Of course János Bak, too, dealt with poli­ tics, as well as supporting his friends. János knew that Dorange was having a hard time, either at large or still (once more) ín prison. This must have motivated hím to farm a one-man international charity, far he obviously bore in mind what life was like far children with their father ín prison. He sent faod, clothing, and all kinds of useful things by post. ln those days he served as a radioman on a ship that sailed between Europe and America-he had learned the trade as a regular in the Hungarian People's Army. Using the internationalist help of the German sailors' trade union, he kept sending conspicuous signs of solidarity. Back home we were very poor and took

" ooRANG E : " A STORY OF SOLJDARITY

13

great comfort from this moral gesture. I remember a brown sailor's shirt: it had snaps instead of buttons, and I wore it far years. The activities, movements, and constant errantry of János Bak were determined by a multitude of bonds and a complicated system of relationships through his whole adult life. He was attached to the children he left behind, to his abandoned wives and friends, and to their once common pursuits. This could not have been an easy thing far a young man long disillusioned by the communist party to come to terms with. And he was also attached to new plans, friends, loves, and God knows what and who else. Just like his daughter Gamma, who very lovingly made a film portrait about him, 3 I cannot quite succeed in discovering Bak's secret. Maybe he does not even have one, he is simply the way he is. Having emigrated, he, of course, remained a leftist. The progress of the farmer Petőfi Circle members who had been disillusioned and sobered up in time can be plotted straight from that point. Although in 1 95 6 and the years leading up to it he had hardly taken part in political life in a close sense, still, it seemed natural far us and him that, just like many of his contemporaries and old friends, he took the floor in the Petőfi Kör at the debate of the pedagogists. It took place on 2 8 September 1 956, when he spoke as a "young pedagogist." 4 He discussed professional issues and did not touch political problems. He criticized in the sharpest terms the bureaucratic regulation of procedures and drew attention to his school, the " People's Education School," 5 where working-class and peasant children drawn from all over the country studied , but whose future was absolutely insecure (the fact that his third wife, whom he married later in emigration, once attended that school is typical). From here, after being involved in a few episodes connected to the revolution, his path led directly to the Imre Nagy Institute in Brussels. He was there at its formation and continuously contributed to its work. For the periodical of the Institute, the mul­ tilingual Szemle (Review), he wrote book reviews and a considerable study. Interest­ ingly, his subject was not Hungary or the Hungarian question. Rather, using the opportunity and context created by the comet-like grandeur of the workers' councils of the 1 956 revolution, he summarized the "historical conclusions drawn from the progress of the workers' councils. " This study, which had first been published in 1 960, was jointly published again in 1 992 by Századvég and the 1 95 6 Institute, un­ der the title Szemle. 6 This was a selection from the writings originally published in the periodical of the Brussels-based Imre Nagy Institute. Thus, after nearly forty years, the interested reader may read again the analytic opinion of János Bak. I would like to draw attention to two aspects only: the young historian dealt with the earlier and later bibliography of the issue with scientific profoundness. Of course, he paid special attention to Marxists and Marxist "deviationists" like Rosa Luxemburg (who was at the height of her fame in those days among Western leftists). However, it is also ob­ servable that the author had almost completely cast off his previous Leninist illu­ sions. This is well proved by a particular description of the brutal butchering of the participants of the Kronstadt workers' rising. ln retrospect we may just smile: it is a long-gone period, and these are long-gone problems in our lives. As an "excuse" far the author, I can tel1 that even at the time of writing his essay he was very well aware that the analysis of the councils provided a sound platform far illustrating the wide gap between ideology and reality. History proved him right: the attempt to revive the workers' councils was a failure.

14

ANDRÁS B . HEGEDŰS

It was hard far our friend to find a balance between being involved in emigration politics and establishing a modest academic career. (This was a common dilemma far all of us, even if the freedom of choice was really limited at home.) He verbalized his doubts in his letters; sometimes he risked corresponding with his friends, but mostly he sent messages through his father. These doubts are displayed by a unique mirror of our days, in an informer's report to the contemporary national security service. The still unsolved dilemma of emigrating or staying at home is authentically illus­ trated by a university graduate ferret. The story-unwillingly though-is about both of us. On 9 May 1961, at lunchtime I "contacted" the kindergarten teacher at her work­ place (at my son's kindergarten). This teacher belonged to the wider circle of our friends, and after the revolution she herself had been under arrest far a couple of months. I had no idea that she was one of the informers set upon us, and thus freely and without constraint I babbled away to her. I had enough time as I had no job and made my living from casual work. The ferret felt obliged to write a report about me and the things I had said right away. Under the covername "Gabriella" she reported my politically unimportant kindergarten visit. From the top secret file created by the II/5 subdivision of the Min­ istry of the Interior (even if we bear in mind the fact that a friend functioning as a ferret surely distorts reality to some extent) János Bak's situation, my views of him, and the irresolvable and insoluble moral and pragmatic dilemma of staying behind or emigrating can be clearly reconstructed. 7 According to the report, "Hegedűs recently received János Bak's letter. Bak re­ ceived scholarships as a historian far his essays first in Göttingé (sic!), and now in Oxford. He has a financially comfortable life, but cannot "become acclimatised" (inverted commas in the report) abroad. This point of view, the fear of alienation, was what kept Hegedűs from defection. The role of the political emigrant was not far him." Furthermore in his conversation with the kindergarten teacher Hegedűs raised the question of whether it would have been better to go abroad when it was still pos­ sible. There were three points against going at that time: Can we abandon the cause we believed in? Obviously, this was a naive, romantic point. Could he establish his life with his diploma from Karl Marx University? This was not a real question either (she wrote): one of his peers back in the university held a good position at the mu­ nicipality of Toronto, involved in community projects. (Only two of the three reasons have survived; I have not tried to find the third unrecorded one, as it is with the na­ tional security.) So I told my ferret and assumed friend that Bak had a confusion of identity. This was not a great discovery, the only surprise was that he wrote sincerely about it, not caring about the censorship. He could not make a clean break with Hungary, and, although he was very gifted in languages, he could not and did not want to get rid of the "Hungarian problem." János did not become a German in Göttingen and Marburg, he did not turn into an Englishman in Oxford, and he did not change into a Canadian in Vancouver. ln contrast to many political emigrants far whom not coming home was a matter of principle until the change of the regime regardless as to whether they would have been granted a visa or not, János frequently appeared in Budapest from the early seventies. His appearance in academic institutions, and later, in the eighties, at my place (friends called it "Hotel Gerlóczy") came as no

" ooRANGE : " A STORY OF SOLIDAR!TY

15

surprise.8 ln mentioning this I do not want to denigrate those who were consistently faithful to their oaths of not coming home, nor János, who could not cope without Pest, his elderly parents, his friends, and the members of his family. This is how János Bak became again part of the well-known (yet hard-to-describe) Pest life and society (I should rather say Budapest, as the Institute of History had been moved to the Castle District). When the opposition slowly began to revive in the seventies and eighties, János did what he could: he carried writings and messages back and forth. When, after several years of work, Gyuri Krassó had finished his translation and annotation of Bill Lomax's legendary book about 1956, 9 it was János who smuggled the Hungarian manuscript out of the country in the Buda­ pest- Prague-East Berlin train. He crossed the Wall with his Canadian passport and mailed it to Péter Kende, the publisher of Magyar Füzetek in Paris. 1 0 When he appeared in Pest again he gave an ironic account of his successful action. He finished up by saying that only old asses like him cannot give up such romantic revolution­ ism. At the time of the change of regime he closed the overseas part of his life (maybe, if there had been no change he would still have been blown home by a stir of some wind). When all is said and done, he is at home. He was the witness and supporter of our most important initiatives: he rocked the cradle of TIB1 1 when helping to estab­ lish foreign relationships, as he knows everyone ín the world from Béla Király through Pál Jónás to the sponsors in Washington. He recognized the relevance of the Oral History Archives, helped with his advice, and was one of the first to be inter­ viewed. He was present at the founding of the 1956 Institute, he is a member of its board and of the editorial board of the series of books published by the Institute. He organized the first international conference of the Instítute in 1992, where he not only gave a lecture but did some translation as well. He also made sure that the new Hungarian Army provided the local transport for foreign attendants. He took part ín the joint action of TIB and the Institute when they squatted in some premises in Zoltán Street, and during the thorny political struggle for those premises he called the freshly rehabilitated general an ÁVO-man. 1 2 (Of course, they made their peace later. ) As a man full of ideas, it is due to his thinking that the Instítute regularly pub­ lishes its Yearbooks. 1 3 Without his connections and perseverance the Ungarische Revolution would not have been published ín Vienna, and the Hungarian Revolution ín London and New York. 1 4 This work is the only foreign language composite mono­ graph on the Hungarian revolution. ln addition to all the above, János knows (and perhaps he is the only person in the whole world who knows) where and ín which town to do the cheapest shopping (shirts ín the East End ín New York, a white cap in the former, Soviet-time GUM ín Moscow). Even ín the darkest years of repression he maintained active friend­ ships with Moscow medievalists and unemployed Czech colleagues. He could take an exam in the subject which I could best call International Comparative Itinerary Studies, involving knowledge of cheap, cheaper and cheapest flight, train and ship tickets. At the beginning of the eighties, when he frequently came home from Canada to­ gether with his American wife, I was beginning to think that he had finally calmed clown. Although I have never believed that economical and social phenomena can be predicted by using mathematical methods from dubious sciences (for a few years I

16

ANDRÁS B. HEGEDÜS

myself had been involved in producing prognoses of this kind), I managed to work out a simple algorithm concerning the private life of János Bak: first wife-first child; second wife-second child; third wife-third child; fourth wife-no child. My prognosis showed the obvious: the logical chain is broken, and János lives a peaceful life in his fourth marriage. However, mathematical logic has been shattered by life and János' lack of tranquillity. The things that have happened since cannot be described by a model. János keeps sweeping along the Budapest- Berlin-Vancouver-Moscow axis, looks after his wives, children, grandchildren, mothers-in-Iaw, during which-en pas­ sant-he is a professor at CEU, and only the declining number of his friends know that he takes all this very seriously. Besides all this he keeps crackling with ideas, and grousing because he has a sore knee when the weather changes. Translated by Janet Fr�er and Ddniel Tóth

NOTES 1 The original Hungarian stanza was the following: "Dobpergésre megy a csapat előre / kicsi dobos, meglátjátok / nagy vitéz lesz belőle. " 2 Dorange = Darancs, originally. 3 Eas t and West, the Home is the Best [Mindenhol jó, de legjobb otthon], directed by Gamma Bak; photography: Michael Krause; R&F Filmproduktion: Berlin, 1 992. 4 See A Pető.fi Kör vitái hiteles jegyzőkönyvek alapján, VI. Pedag6gusvita [The debates of the Petőfi Circle according to authentic minutes) A. B. Hegedűs and J. Rainer M., eds. , (Budapest: 1 956-os Intézet- Múzsák, 1 992), 79-80. 5 "Népművelési gimnázium" in Hungarian. 6 Szemle. Válogatás a brüsszeli Nagy Imre Intézet foly6iratáb6l [Review: Selections from the Journal of the Imre Nagy Institute of Brussels] Gyula Kozák, ed., foreword by Péter Kende, (Budapest: Századvég- 1 956-os Intézet, 1 992). 7 See file V-1 45288/ 1 5 (1 8 May 1 96 1 ) in the Central Archive of the Ministry of the Interior, now the so-called " Historical Bureau." 8 " Hotel Gerlóczy" refers to 1 1 Gerlóczy Street in the fifth district of Budapest, where the author lived. 9 Bill Lomax, Hungary 1 956. Originally published in 1 976, Hungarian translation and addi­ tional information by György Krassó (Paris: Magyar Füzetek, 1 982) (Adalékok az újabbkori magyar történelemhez, 1 ). 10 Magyar Füzetek [Hungarian Booklets] was one of the most important journals pub­ lished in Western Europe following the '56 revolution. See also its publisher, Péter Kende's essay. 1 1 TIB = Történelmi Igazságtétel Bizottsága = Comittee for Hungarian Justice (CHI), an or­ ganization established in 1 988 by those who actively participated in the revolution and were then sentenced, and by the widows of the executed men in the Nagy Imre trial. ln its first proclamation the CHI called for the rehabilitation of the '56 revolution, the burial of those executed, and the free research of the revolution's history. The CHI's existence was legalized only in 1 989, and it organized the re-burial of Imre Nagy and the martyrs of the revolution on 1 6 June 1 989. 1 2 ÁVO = Államvédelmi Osztály = State Defence Department, the most insulting armed section, besides the regular police departments, during the reign of the Hungarian Communist Party until 1 956.

" ooRANGE : " A STORY OF SOLI DARITY

17

13 See the bibliography of the works of János M. Bak at the end of the book. 14 Die Ungarische Revolution: Reform, Aufstand, Vergeltung Mitglieder des Autorenkollektivs des Instituts für Geschichte der Ungarischen Revolution 1956, hrsg. György Litván, János M. Bak, aus dem Ungarischen Anne Nass. Einleitung Jörg K. Hoensch, (Wien: Passagen, 1994 ); The Hungarian Revolution: Reform, Revolt, and Repression, 1 953- 1 963 ed. György Litván, ed. and trans. János M. Bak and Lyman H. Legters, (London and New York: Longman, 1996).

THE IMRE NAGY INSTITUTE IN BRUSSELS . A LETTER OF SORTS TO JÁNOS BAK Péter Kende

Dear János, you are much younger than me. By sixteen months. This age difference is especially significant, for when we were on the brink of starting our adult lives, it marked the gap between two generations. ln the spring of 1 945, when I was nearly eighteen, I had just graduated from grammar school, whereas you had two more years to do. This means that in those decisive years following 1 945, the paths of our lives hardly crossed. Although it is obvious that our lives in the Movement had to have similar milestones, my first clear memory of you only dated from 1 960. If I am not mistaken, in the spring of that year there was a conference for young Hungarian sociologists organised by the Society of Hungarian Emigrant Students in one of the institutes of the Geneva University. I am only expressing myself so hesitantly because I no longer have any papers from the conference in question, and I am not even con­ vinced that the year was 1 960. But I am positive that the meeting was in Geneva. You were invited and I was there as well. You were a real teacher by then, a real German lecturer-not only outside but inside too-as well as being witty, humorous, and strik­ ingly sharp-minded and accomplished in a Central European way. You were the kind of person who commanded attention. We have kept in touch since then and are still tightly bound by the cords of friend­ ship, society, politics, and even ideology. Although since our (second) meeting in Geneva nearly forty years have passed, and time has left its mark on our faces, you, my dear János, remain, at least in my eyes, the same young hero of Geneva. This is not an exaggeration, as your intellectual freshness, especially your humour and Schlagfertigkeit, have never changed. At the worst you have just become a touch neu­ rotic, which I choose to ignore. And what is most curious about you is-you are still sixteen months younger than me. I can't imagine how you manage it. It would be out of the question for me to contribute a serious and professional piece of writing to this book dedicated to you. There are several reasons for this, one of them (the least important) being that I am not a medievalist. However, the past forty years of our lives share a unique chapter, about which there are more rumours than written vestiges. It might therefore be worthwhile discussing it again. The chap­ ter in question is the same as the subject of those legends: the Imre Nagy Institute in Brussels. We both were involved in the life of this institute right from its establish­ ment in 1 959 (although I do not remember seeing your face at the first conference in September 1 959), till it ceased to exist in 1 964. We were present at most of the meet­ ings of its inner circle, attended one or two of its public meetings, and we both be­ came close friends of the director, György Heltai, his wife Ági, and the whole large Heltai family. We helped in editing the periodicals of the Institute as well as contrib­ uting articles (you wrote five articles altogether judging by the signatures; I counted

THE IMRE NAGY INSTITUTE IN BRUSSELS

19

them). 1 Finally, in the summer of 1 964, when the Institute lost its outside support and had to close down, we were planning to continue the series from our own re­ sources, at least to the extent of producing a yearbook. This plan never materialised, because, financial difficulties aside, our lives at that time did not permit it. I have to admit I have far stronger visual than verbal memories of this chapter of our lives which is distant and fading away. Unfortunately, the relevant correspon­ dence remaining in my possession has many gaps. I do not have the archives to gather all the factual information. Thus I am not even convinced that anything I am going to say would be of public interest. I know, for instance, that the first seat of the Institute was in Avenue Louise, the Andrássy út2 of the Belgian capital, in its outer­ most section. However, I cannot recall the house number, nor on which floor the Institute was housed. ln contrast to that I can even describe the architectural details of its second location, in Avenue Brugmann, number 467. This is where the Institute operated for the longest time. It was a typical Brussels townhouse, four or five sto­ reys high. The kitchen and the storeroom were situated in the basement, the library and the council-chamber on the ground floor, the offices of the director on the first floor, further offices on the second floor, and guest rooms in the attic where the maids would have slept in days gone by. From time to time, you and I both slept there, when spending a few days in Brussels. The house was an attractive, turn-of-the-century building, reflecting the wealth of its rich owner. The windows looked out onto a very wide avenue, and although its location was not central, it was easily accessible by car or tram. The area was consid­ ered one of the most prestigious suburbs. The Institute could afford this building as in those years Brussels was one of the cheapest European cities and rents were in­ credibly low (at least by London or Paris standards). A large house like that could be rented in Brussels for the same amount of money as a two or three bedroomed flat in Paris. What was even more important was that at that time one could find vacant houses or flats in Brussels anywhere, whereas in other European cities it was virtu­ ally impossible. Why was the Institute set up in Brussels? Either because of the cheap rents or be­ cause the director and his family lived in Brussels, I will never know. It is a fact that the concept of an institute dealing with the history and political heritage of 1 95 6 had always been on the agenda of Hungarian emigrants since the end of 1 95 6 . From Zoltán Sztáray's memoirs we learn3 that he and Balázs Nagy had left Hungary with such plans. We also know that in Strasbourg in the winter of 1 95 6 the attendants of the conference that created the Hungarian Revolutionary Council all voted for the setting up of such an institute. 4 However, the available European financial support was not enough to provide the financial resources that the project required. Thus this plan, like many other ventures of the Hungarian emigrants, depended on whether the Americans would support it or not. After long negotiations and lobbying I know nothing of, at the end of 1 95 8 or the beginning of 1 959 the plan was at the phase of searching for future assistants. As director the American sponsors designated György Heltai, the deputy foreign minister of the last and short-lived cabinet of Imre Nagy, and as deputy director Balázs Nagy, the former secretary of Petőfi Kör. 5 ln 1 958 Balázs Nagy was already living in Brussels, or at least in Belgium, for he had received a scholarship from the Europe College in Bruges. Heltai and Nagy thought that the frame of the Institute would be formed by a circle of twenty or thirty people, assis-

20

PÉTER KENDE

tants, advisors and friends. They began recruiting in the summer of 1 95 9 , or at least that was the time when they approached me, and I suppose the others as well . lf 1 remember correctly, we first assembled in Brussels in the autumn of 1 95 9 . This little institute had seven assistants in its heyday: besides the two directors there was Zoltán Sztáray the editor and research assistant, two secretaries ( one Bel­ gian, the other Hungarian), a librarian (Ágnes Birki, the first wife of the sculptor András Beck), and a caretaker titled housemaster, who did the cleaning as well. Of course the Belgian secretary's name was Van der . . . ; 1 don't remember the rest, only that she came from a very sophisticated background. She lived in a castle near Cent in such an aristocratic environment that even the dogs were addressed formally. Apart from this inner circle there were a few other people involved: at the beginning old Mr. Viktor Lányi, a well-known musicologist and literary man, the father of Ági Heltai, who helped in editing the Hungarian journal Szemle; Béla Szász, who lived in London but often came over to Brussels and who took over the editing of Szemle after Sztáray left. Béla Szász had another connection with the lnstitute in that his book about the Rajk trial had been first published by Heltai and created much interest. 6 ln order to help younger readers, 1 should mention here that both Heltai and Béla Szász were among the key defendants of the Rajk case. 7 However, they were not called to the main hearing of the trial as they both endured the torture with unparalleled and unbelievable bravery and did not make any valuable confessions that would have suited the stage-managing of the trial. 1 should also mention here that the third assis­ tant of the lnstitute, Zoltán Sztáray, had been an inmate of the Recsk prison camp 8 himself and had memories of the most terrible suffering. A substantial part of the supporters and assistants of the Imre Nagy lnstitute were farmer communists, but the inner circle had people from a few other fields too: the social democrats Anna Kéthly and Ferenc Fejtő , members of the bourgeois left like Rezső Peéry and Tamás Schreiber, or Zoltán Szabó, József Varga and Zoltán Nyeste who were close to the post-war peasant movements and smallholders. Given his sympathies, 1 put Zoltán Sztáray, the third pillar of the Imre Nagy lnstitute, in this latter group in an interview ten years ago, 9 but he rejected this categorisation. This labelling does not have much significance anyway. The main thing that brought to­ gether the members of this circle was their similar attachment to the heritage of the revolution, and the fact that they all defined this heritage in relation to the European Enlightenment, in line with radical views appealing to the direct involvement of the people, and involving parliamentary democracy. This was clearly reflected by the topics of the lnstitute and its periodicals, their tone and system of reference. The publications clearly reflect that the "revolutionary heritage" cherished by the Imre Nagy Institute was closest to the spirit of the workers' councils of 1 95 6 , and light­ years away from that jingoistic anti-communism so typical of the different versions of the ' 5 6 heritage that have come to the surface since 1 98 9 . György Heltai and Balázs Nagy defended Imre Nagy himself with great energy against those who, either inside or outside the lnstitute, dared to criticise Nagy's role before or during the revo­ lution. The main motivation of the American financial and political sponsors who made the creation and the five-year-long existence of the lnstitute possible was to provide a forum for the "left-wing" inheritors of the revolution to make themselves heard. It was so, because they finally understood (although belatedly) that any sort of initiative

THE IMRE NAGY I NSTITUTE IN BRUSSELS

21

that could start a change in the existing Soviet world could only come from this cir­ cle. They also realised that the brutal crackdown of the Hungarian Revolution had caused a profound crisis among the Western European left. They thought that among the Hungarian ' 56-ers the farmer communists, active socialists and other radical democrats (the representatives of the popular tendency, for example) were the most qualified to initiate a dialogue with the European leftists. This calculation proved accurate in the case of the Imre Nagy Institute. Right from the very beginning, the lnstitute had a wide circle of supporters among French, Italian, Belgian, and British leftists. Many of them attended the conferences organised by the Institute and took part in publishing the Institute's periodicals. I believe certain European left-wing parties (for instance the Italian Socialist Party led by Nenni) and trade unions even gave financial support. However, I have reservations when talking about such mat­ ters as I had no knowledge of the financial matters of the lnstitute. There is no doubt, however, that the bulk of the support came from America, and that there must have been a high-level government decision behind it. I do not seek to tel1 the whole story of the Institute in this memoir, and I have even less intention of describing the conflict between the two founders. As a result of their disagreement, Balázs Nagy left the Institute around the end of 1 960. 1 0 It is im­ possible to give an exact account of the conflict, as those involved were not com­ pletely open, not even with themselves. This intellectually high-level and politically deeply dedicated circle that Heltai and Balázs Nagy had managed to recruit always had problems with the fact that they did not know the exact financial and institu­ tional background of the Institute, and that support came from evidently secret sources which could not be openly discussed in a straightforward manner. Everybody handled the issue in their own way. Among them the most unfortunate was Balázs Nagy, who (by then) was a convinced Trotskyist and who believed in the world­ revolution. He had nightmares of being considered an American agent by his friends. (This actually happened in one of the factions of the Trotskyists in a pamphlet at­ tempting to discredit him, in which Balázs Nagy was also labelled as a Soviet agent.) Therefore there was a fair element of falsehood in the way these internal arguments tried to deal with the background of the Institute. The only solution available was for everyone to put the issue aside. This was actually made possible by the generous be­ haviour of György Heltai. He kept all negotiations and secrets related to the financial resources of the lnstitute to himself, knowing that in this way he created a situation that was much easier for the others to bear. Probably Heltai was the only real politi­ cian in this group. His view was that if we knew what we wanted to do and had a justifiable goal, then the origin of the means necessary for its realisation did not really matter. Time eventually proved him right, as the background of the Imre Nagy lnstitute has become completely irrelevant by now, whereas the works it produced survived, as did the effect that this Institute had on its contemporary intellectual environment in Europe. But I do not want to talk about this issue at length because I do not want to give the impression that I am trying to emphasise my own merits. Let's return to the publications: as I wrote earlier in my memoir that I gave to Gyula Kozák, the Hungarian version of Szemle, the periodical of the Institute, was not completely identical with its English or French versions. 1 1 However, most of the con­ tents largely overlapped, and they all aspired to convey the same message. This mes­ sage is what raises the most questions in retrospect. The unspoken ambition of the

22

PÉTER KENDE

team that had created the Institute was to discover the authentic history of the revo­ lution. The long-term plans of the Institute included the compilation of a comprehen­ sive historical work. However, there was no real chance to realise this plan, as the most important historical sources-that is to say, the diplomatic documents, the So­ viet archives and the HungariaI}. documents of the trials-were all closed to us. (These sources only became accessible after 1989, as did most of the Western diplomatic documents.) Verbal memoirs and the study of the contemporary media did not pro­ vide us with a wide enough base to enable us to produce historical works for the pub­ lications of the Institute. ln fact, most of the assistants were politicians, ideologists, or sociologists rather than historians. They focused on the sociological message, the meaning of the revolution, rather than on the order of events. The nucleus of the Imre Nagy Institute regarded themselves as socialist in one sense or in another. However, this conviction never grew into an ideological platform, because not all of those involved were orientated in the same direction and they did not have enough theoretical ammunition to form a platform. A third reason could be that the socialist revision-which was the common denominator of the aspirations-was outdated al­ ready. Although Leszek Kolakowski only voiced this hard bit of truth as late as in the '70s when even the Prague Spring had faded away, in the Hungarian political envi­ ronment it was already true in the early '60s. Socialist revision was especially hard to implement in exile, as, without seeking attention, some were already experimenting with it back in Hungary at relatively high levels. A "consistent" socialist reformer (from about 1963 on) should have focused on the Hungarian and Soviet reformers. However, none of this Brussels team was willing to do that-they were revolutionar­ ies, not reformers. Their careers eventually led them in different directions from socialist revision. Of course, at that time we did not see things clearly, not to mention the fact that communication channels with Hungary opened up at the time when the Institute closed down. Dear János, I'm telling these things mainly to you and myself. We were the two who had the most theoretical ambition, the absurdity of which I was musing over above (surely a bit too compendiously). When we !ast met in Brussels in 1964 (it could as well have been Paris or Marburg), we agreed to work upon the yearbook­ like after-life of the Hungarian periodical of "pluralist socialism." Well, we never did. I did not because I suddenly found bread-winning work that kept me away from theoretical research for years. You did not because after your brilliant Habilita:don in Germany you sailed to America, and from there the importance of this manufac­ turing of ideologies diminished. Only friendship prevailed, and we carefully nurtured it in the following decades. You especially cared about it whenever you hopped over to Europe. Despite going in different directions we both kept in touch with the Heltai family, whose head had become a noteworthy professor in a tiny university in South Carolina. The Institute in Brussels was liquidated in the summer of 1964: its library (I mean those few volumes that Balázs Nagy had left behind) was taken to Leuven and its furniture must have been sold. However, the house is still there. When I recently took a tram ride along Avenue Brugmann, I saw that its windows still look onto the park across the road with the same dignity as they did thirty-five years ago. All right, this was a little fib, to be strictly honest the tram ride was not !ast year but six or seven years ago, and it was not even a tram ride but a bit of a drive in the car...

THE IMRE NAGY I NSTITUTE IN BRUSSELS

23

The Imre Nagy Institute was swept away in the 70s by the events of the new oppo­ sition movement which started in Poland, arrived in Hungary, and spread even to Western Europe. There was a break between the two periods. As for me, I did not regard Magyar F�etek1 2 as the successor of Szemle, nor was it intended to be. Al­ though there was some persona! continuity, Magyar Füzetek was a completely differ­ ent project to the Imre Nagy Institute. That is why I was really surprised in 1 989-and I suppose you were too-when our friends in Hungary, including Litván and Kenedi, 1 3 decided to re-establish the Imre Nagy Institute in Budapest. Of course they contacted us as the ones most competent to tel1 what this Institute had been and how it should be started again. If I am not mistaken, we both said that that institute could not be re-established; moreover, it could not even be considered as a prelude, as the time was now ripe for historical research rather than interpretation. The issue finally settled clown; the new, Buda­ pest-based institute was formed as a research institute, not a political society. The use of Imre Nagy's name would have been neither proper nor practical, because there is a foundation run by Erzsébet Nagy, 1 4 and because a scientific institute needs not pa­ tron-saints but strict methodology and full impartiality towards its subject of re­ search. As founders of the '56 Institute, and members of its board, that is what we aim for and what we defend, isn't it, János? I take this opportunity to wish you all the very best (although as your neighbour, I could also do so by shouting across the corridor), and wish you another happy sev­ enty years with many new wives! Péter Kende

PS

I wrote this memoir a few days before the Orbán-led majority of the Parliament made a dramatic cut in the funding for the '56 Institute. Thus the word "defend" used in a poetic sense, has turned into bitter reality. You have been the head of the supervisory committee since 1 994, I have been head of the Board. Let's find out what the two of us are able to do in this new situation! Of course, if we are to keep the spirit of János Arany, 1 5 the second one of the "two" is neither you nor me, but the Lord God Almighty, whose Christian name I cannot just recall. Translated by Janet Frazer and Dániel Tóth

NOTES 1 The Institute published its journal as Szemle, Études and Reuiew. ln the beginning the con­ tents of the three periodicals were the same, later the Hungarian issue, edited by Béla Szász, differed from the English and French ones. 2 Andrássy út = Andrássy Avenue is one of the most characteristic routes of Budapest, often compared to the Champs Elysées of Paris. 3 Zoltán Sztáray, "A brüsszeli Nagy Imre Intézetről" [On the Imre Nagy Institute in Brus­ sels], Mozgó Világ 16 (1990,2): 121-3. 4 The founding assembly was organised on 5-7 January 1957 in Strasbourg, chaired by Béla Király. The president of the Council was Anna Kéthly, a social democrat politician who settled down in Belgium after her immigration from Hungary in 1956.

24

PÉTER KENDE

5 The Petőfi Kör (Petőfi Circle) was the organisation of those "reformer-Communists" who supported the politics of Imre Nagy, prime minister of Hungary between 1953 and 1955 and during the days of the 1 956 Revolution. The Petőfi Kör had a significant role in initiating the discussions on the reform of the regime, and also in the beginning of the Revolution. 6 Béla Szász, Minden kényszer ne1kül. Egy m11per története [Volunteers for the gallows; anat­ omy of a show-trial] (originally Brussels: Imre Nagy Institute, 1963); translated by Kathleen Szász, (New York: Norton, 1971). 7 Por the Rajk trial see the essay of András Bíró, note no. 6. 8 The Recsk Camp existed between 1950 and 1953 where hundreds of different opponents of the communist regime were imprisoned. 9 An interview with Péter Kende by Gyula Kozák, "Sajtó alatt" [Under the press], Mozgó Világ 15 (1989,9): 61-84. 10 This is when I, as an occasional assistant, took over the regular editing of the French and English language publication, as I told Gyula Kozák in the interview mentioned above, see note no.9. 11 See note no.1., and Kende- Kozák, "Sajtó alatt," 71. 12 Magyar Füzetek [Hungarian Booklets] an important periodical published in Paris by Pé­ ter Kende from 1978. 13 György Litván, historian and contributor of this book; János Kenedi historian of jour­ nalism. 1 4 Erzsébet Nagy, daughter of Imre Nagy. 15 János Arany, nineteenth-century Hungarian poet.

BAK-AS I SEE HIM Mihály Vajda

As friends we have shared a lat about ourselves-just like friends everywhere. But we have never shared our impressions of each other. And that is just what I want to try now, dear János: to tel1 you what you are like in my eyes. What is most typical of János? That he just appears from nowhere, and then it is natural that he is there. He would anywhere, I should think. He seems to be just as natural in Canada as in Germany. Of course, all this is connected to the fact that he speaks the respective languages not only naturally, as it sounds to my ill-tuned ears, but also perfectly, although I am not sure about it, and it does not even matter. He speaks the languages in a natural way: he knows how something is said here and now. I think it is an inverse relationship: he is not natural everywhere because he speaks the languages well and naturally, but he so evidently speaks the languages well because he is in the right place everywhere. How he does it I have no idea. I wish he was at least at ease in himself! But no, he is not. He is the anxious type. And yet, he is natural everywhere. That is why I cannot remember where I met him first. His fame must have pre­ ceded him, and even this fame was somehow unquestionable. Unquestionable? How come? Well, suppose I am in Berlin. If someone tells me that X is coming to Berlin tomorrow, then, unless I know him or I have heard a lat about him, I would ask, "Who's X?" However, it is impossible to ask, "Who's Bak?" That must be known. And one has to know that it must be known. I got to know one of his wives, the one in Berlin, Anna Bak-Gara, the only one who took his name. Not long after that, Bak gave me a call in Bremen. He simply wanted to know how I was doing, what I was doing, what my plans were far the future. And he asked all these questions as if we had been close friends far years. The only reason far this could be, I thought, that Anna had told him about me or us. Still, it was strange. Strange because Anna had told him about me? We teli so many people about so many people, but still, they won't go and call those they have only heard about. Only after I met Bak personally did it become evident that he is like this. "There is Misu Vajda in Bremen," thinks Bak. "Why not give him a call to let him know he has many friends in Germany?" From among these friends, Bak had only been in Ger­ many far five minutes, later he was in Canada, then more and more in Pest, and eve­ rywhere it felt natural far him to be. From the fact that he is like this, it could fallow that maybe, far him, it is not that natural that he is where he is. Maybe he enters into the spirit of being somewhere but he does not feel at home. As we became friends, I had the impression more and more that there was a profaund existential homeless­ ness lurking behind his naturally-being-everywhere. Far a long time I had thought­ and, surely, he did too (far his repatriation was not an accident)-that he was at home

26

MIHÁLY VAJDA

in Pest, or that it was in Pest that he was at home, and that is why he was not at home elsewhere. Since he is in Pest, he is of course there naturally, I have discovered that there is a homelessness in him and thus he cannot feel at home in Pest either. So he is anxious everywhere, at the same time he behaves naturally, for if one is at home nowhere, he is at home everywhere. By the way, where did I first meet him? ln Pest, I think. I mean after I came home from Bremen. We have been friends since. Sometimes we meet frequently, and then we do not see each other for months. Not because we are not at the same place (although this happens too), but just because. Our friendship has no routine. What is this friendship based on? I do not know, I really do not. Some people are connected by history. People we keep in touch with so as to have people with whom we can share our memories, our history, ourselves. Bak and I have no common history. Those few years between us no longer matter (he is the older one), but as beings whose existences are rooted in macrocosms and not in small, well-furnished micro­ cosms, we should be definitely separated by those years. ln the years following the war, being Jewish boys who had survived the atrocities of the war, we both turned communists ("The world must be fundamentally changed! It cannot go on like this!"). We became communists in different ways, for we saw the world from differ­ ent angles: he as a young man, myself still a child. Of course, we were both disillu­ sioned by '56 (was it possible for those who wanted to believe in it all not to be disil­ lusioned?). It might have been the age difference between us that made it evident for him that he should leave, whereas I wanted to stay. I think he had to leave, as he might have been locked up. I am not sure about this, it is just a vague memory. We have never talked about our experiences in '56. If I remember something from his '56, it must be due to the portrait film his younger daughter made about him. I do not remember much of the film. My impression was that his daughter Gamma did not, for she could not, understand her father. And this is what her film was about. It sounded like Gamma was asking her father 1 accusingly: was it on purpose that you sealed us off from your world, or did it just happen so? Then Bak left; the Imre Nagy lnstitute in Brussels, Germany, university, America, and Canada, nothing we can share in our stories. Why does everything still appear to have a common denominator? It must be history that brought us together, for the other possibility, that of profession, is completely out of the question. He says he has no affinity for philosophy, it might even be true. And I know nothing about medieval history. Every now and then I learn a little from him, like from the essay which was a "birthday present" from him to me. 2 So it must be history, our history and our story. Yes, it is not that impossible. The fact that we lived through the short period of de­ mocracy and the Rákosi era3 differently and lived in different worlds in the following decades, is not that important. The important things are the things I mentioned above: we are both the kind of individuals whose existence is rooted in macrocosms, not in our own wellfurnished microcosms (we do not even have microcosms, or if we do, they are not that well-furnished). The common root of this similar existence is-as it is also the root of the fact that despite all this we still want to feel at home in Hun­ gary (in Pest, of course)-again what we experienced in 1944. Not the persecution itself, but the fact that our existences were suddenly torn out of the ground. We were assimilated Jews, who, although they knew they were Jews, thought that they were Hungarians. Hungarians of the Moses-faith, as they used to put it in the last century.

BAK-AS I SEE HIM

27

Then w e discovered that this was not true: we were not Hungarians, w e were filthy kikes. Yes, this is it. This never-discussed, not-even-verbalized similar experience is the base of our friendship. Thus it does not seem to be accidental that one of the few seder eves in my life was organized and celebrated by Bak in my flat. It happened with horrible speed-once in America I attended a " real" seder eve which lasted at least five times longer. With this speed he meant to indicate that he would not like to be a Jew in the traditional sense. What a load of rubbish this hocus pocus is, what horrible chauvinistic lines! It was rather to clarify to himself that he knew exactly what could end his existential homelessness. János-Janó or Baksi for some of his older friends-belongs to that special group of people who, despite being a good father who looks after his family scattered around the world, not only his children but also his ex-wives, worries about them and for them, it is still history where he is at home. I do not mean to say that the events of the wide world are the most important in his life, but it is sure that these events mark the different periods in his life. Of course, I assume that it is this way. We have never talked about this either. And, as we have never talked about things connecting us, it might even be possible that while I was trying to understand not Bak himself but rather the nature of our curious friendship, I began to understand something of my­ self; more of myself than of hím. If it is so, and if this little gift-in-writing gives more pleasure to me than to you, dear János, I think you would forgive me. I think it is like this with most gifts. We are happy to give pleasure, and the pleasure of the giver is usually greater than that of the receiver. Hope you'll grow to be a big guy!-und bis hundert und �anzig. Lots of love, Misu. Translated by Janet Frazer and Dániel Tóth

NOTES 1 East and West, the Home is the Best. See the complete reference under note 3. in A. B. Hegedűs' essay. 2 János Bak, "Néhány kérdés a többnyelvűségről a középkori magyar társadalomban" [Some questions about multilingualism in medieval Hungarian society], in Majdnem nem lehet másként: Tanulmányok Vajda Mihály 60. születésnapjára (Budapest: Cserépfalvi, 1995), 132- 35. 3 The short three-year period between 1945 and 1948 is usually called the years of democ• racy in Hungary. The "Rákosi-era" is named after Mátyás Rákosi, first secretary of the Hungar­ ian Communist Party from 1945 to 1953, who embodied Soviet-type, authoritarian commu­ nist dictatorship in Hungary.

ARTES

KUNSTHISTORISCHE BEMERKUNGEN ZUR VISION DES HEILIGEN GERHARD/GELLÉRT Ernő Marosi

ln der modernen Bilderklarung bzw. Bildbeschreibung werden Bilder oft als Hand­ lungen, Dargestellte als handelnde Personen aufgefa:Bt. Die Wurzeln dieser Auffas­ sung liegen in der spezifischen Bilderklarung der Antike, der Ekphrasis, der meist Au:Berungen der Personen über das Geschehen, an dem sie teilnahmen, zugrunde­ liegen. Bekanntlich weist diese Art der Deutung eine kontinuierliche Gattungs­ tradition in Byzanz auf, und hat im spateren Mittelalter bzw. im Humanismus auch für den Westen eine vorbildliche Rolle gespielt. Die personifizierend-belebende Phantasie führt jedoch auch in der westlichen Literatur ein-eher verstecktes-Leben in Form von Beschreibungen von Bildwundern. Die Kunstwerke als materielle Stü­ tzen der Meditation wurden hier theoretisch mehrfach-am bekanntesten vom heili­ gen Bernhard von Clairvaux-in Frage gestellt. So mag, mit Ausnahme von Fallen, als konkrete Bilder durch Wunder oder Visionen plötzlich in einem mystischen Licht ihren Sinn offenbaren, immer gefragt werden, ob Visionen von existierenden Bildern angeregt wurden, oder ob diese Fiktionen als Ergebnisse einer literarischen Topik gelesen werden sollen, die letzten Endes sogar auch zur Ausführung dieser Bilder geführt haben mögen. 1 Anders gesagt, sie liegen für eine kunsthistorische Analyse jedenfalls vor, ungeachtet dessen, ob sie Produkte „reiner" Fiktion sind, oder ob diese Fiktion von materiellen Werken ausgegangen ist. Bei der bekannten Bilderarmut des Denkmalbestands der mittelalterlichen Kunst ín Ungarn bieten diese Überlegungen eine praktische Stütze, um aufgrund der Text­ überlieferung etwas auch über Bildvorstellungen und ihre Deutung zu erfahren, deren materielle Existenz wohl nicht nachgewiesen werden kann. Es handelt sich hier um die Erzahlung von der Messe des heiligen Gerhard ín Diósd vor seinem Mar­ tyrium, ín der Fassung seiner grö:Beren Legende, die wörtlich auch in die Ungarn­ chronik aufgenommen wurde. ln der Darstellung der Umstande unterscheiden sich die beiden auf uns gekommenen Legendenfassungen, die sog. kleinere und die grös­ sere, deren chronologische Reihenfolge viel diskutiert wird. Die kleinere Legende berichtet namlich über das Abendmahl des heiligen Bischofs zusammen mit seinen Gefahrten in Diósd, bei dem er für den nachsten Tag ihren Tod prophezeit, indem er zwischen dem gemeinsamen Abendessen und dem Mahl des apokalyptischen Lam­ mes eine Parallele zieht: Fratres et amici, cras ad cenam agni Dei vocamur, absque excusatione properemus, pro Christo moriamur. 2 Es ist seit langem bekannt, da:B die Schlüsselworte der Apokalypse (Beati qui ad coenam nuptiarum Agni vocati sunt, Apok. 19,9) entlehnt wurden. Die dem Anla:B des letzten Abendmahls entsprechende auf die Eucharistie bezogene Parallele weist auf das Letzte Abendmahl Christi hin, und ist eschatologisch ausgerichtet. 3 Dem entspricht der Bericht, da:B bei der Messe am nachsten Tag unter Anteilnahme der zahlreichen Gemeinde tatsiichlich die Eucha-

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ristie gefeiert wurde: Altera vero inlucescente die pater sanctus missam celebravit men­ seque Christi multitudinem coadherentium participem fecit ac letus ad martyrium perge-­ bat. Diese schmucklose Erzahlung mit ebenso vielschichtigen wie klar durchschau­ baren symbolischen Hinweisen scheint uns die primare, rein literarische Fassung der Episode zu sein. Ungeachtet anderer Argumente zur Frage der Reihenfolge der Entstehung der Gerhardslegenden und auch der Fragen ihrer Datierung müssen wir von vorherein annehmen, daB die umfangreichere, anschaulichere und die prophe­ tische Begabung des Heiligen betonende Erziihlung in der gröBeren Legende durch Erweiterung und Ausschmückung dieses zwei Siitze langen Berichtes entstand. Denn die gröBere Legende faBt das Geschehen in einer sehr beeindruckenden Szene am Tag des Martyriums zusammen. Wiihrend die kleinere ziemlich genau die Rast der Bischöfe in Diósd, ihre Übernachtung bei der Kirche der Heiligen Sabina sowie die Messe am niichsten Tag festhiilt, sind in der gröBeren die Raum- und Zeitverhiiltnisse weniger klar. Man erfiihrt allein über die Unterbrechung der eiligen Reise der Bischöfe an diesem Ort und über die Messe, bei der Gerhard-wohl im Rahmen der Homilie-seinen Traum der vorigen Nacht erziihlt. An die Stelle der ursprünglichen Prophezeiung ist hier also eine wunderbare Vision getreten, in der nicht nur der Tod der Bischöfe vorausgesagt, sondern auch die genaue Liste der angehenden Miirtyrer aufgezahlt wurde, mit der Ausnahme des überlebenden Bischofs Beneta. Die Voraussage der sich bald pünktlich erfolgenden Ereignisse er­ folgt aus der Auslegung der von Bischof Gerhard gesehenen Szene.4 Er sah niimlich die thronende Gottesmutter mit _g.em Jesuskind auf ihrem SchoB, das den Bischöfen die Kommunion mit seiner eigenen Hand erteilte, Beneta aber die Eucharistie ver­ weigerte, wodurch angedeutet wird, daB er das Martyrium seiner Gefiihrten nicht teilen wird (ipse hodie consortio martirii nostri privabitur). 5 Kunsthistorisch gesagt erschien Gerhard im Traum ein handelndes Madonnenbild. Auch über sein Aussehen erhalten wir anhand der Beschreibung eine ziemlich zuver­ lassige Vorstellung: Vidi enim Dominum nostrum Ihesum Christum in gremio Sanctis­ sime Matris sue Virginis Marie sedentem nobisque ad se vocatis de manu sua corporis et sagwinis (sic in SRH) sui ewkaristiam porrexit. ln der U ngarnchronik wurde diese ganze Erziihlung bis auf wenige Veriinderungen übernommen, wobei der einzige Unterschied zur Legende, die Einfügung des Ausdrucks in pluteo (statt in gremio) klar als Folge einer Textverderbung erscheint. 6 Folglich hatte es der Heilige Gerhard in seiner Vision wohl mit dem überall, sowohl in Byzanz als auch im Westen am wei­ testen, sowohl in der Malerei als auch in der Plastik, verbreiteten Gestalt des Marien­ bildes zu tun, wo der verkörperte Lagos (die eigentlich dargestellte Person, wie auch in der Visionsbeschreibung) auf dem SchoB der Gottesmutter thront. 7 Den Sinn und die Farm gibt der haufig inschriftlich an solchen Darstellungen angebrachte Vers ln gremio matris sedet (bzw. residet) Sapientia Patris, 8 dessen Wortlaut in der Beschrei­ bung der Gerhardsvision auch nachzuklingen scheint, zuverliissig an. Diese lnschrift und ihre Geschichte bezogen, dieses alteste christliche Kultbild auf die göttliche Weisheit, 9 wie es auch in der Tat sogar zweimal (im Bilderstreit zerstört und dann erneuert) im Apsismosaik der Kirche Hagia Sophia von Konstantinopel seinen Platz fand. Seine Verbreitung im mittelalterlichen Ungarn ist ebenfalls belegt: var allem im Zentrum des ungewöhnlich anspruchsvollen Darstellungsprogramms des ehemaligen Westportals der St. Adalberts-Kathedrale von Esztergom, kurz var 1 1 96 . 1 0 Hier wird durch die Kopie von der Mitte des 1 8 . Jahrhunderts die klassische, der byzantini-

KUNSTHISTORISCHE BEMERKUNGEN ZUR V!SION DES HEILIGEN GERHARD/GELLÉRT

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schen Nikopoia entsprechende Form der Sedes Sapientiae belegt, die durch die beiden Thronwachter-Engeln beiderseits sogar an frühe Marienikonen erinnert. lm Portal­ tympanon von Esztergom trat die thronende Muttergottes ebenso, wie in der Vision des Heiligen Gerhard in einer Handlung, mit einem Schiedsspruch auf ihrer Schrift­ rolle auf. Sonst findet man die Sedes Sapientiae meist in Epiphanieszenen einbezogen, wobei oft andere Madonnentypen, meist die byzantinische Hodegetria oder ihre Vari­ anten Verwendung fanden. Fragmentarische Bildwerke zeugen auch über die Verbrei­ tung dieses Typs in Ungarn: Reste einer Reliefikone des frühen 1 2 . Jahrhunderts aus der Benediktinerabtei von Pécsvárad 1 1 sowie ein Madonnentorso des frühen 1 3 . Jahr­ hunderts aus der Benediktinerabtei Somogyvár. 1 2 Eine inschriftlich 1 3 1 7 datierte Wandmalerei oberhalb des Nordeingangs der Probsteikirche des Zipser Kapitels (Sze­ peshely, Spisská Kapitula), die als eine bildlich ausgedrückte Anerkennung der Herr­ schaft Königs Karl I . von Anjou zu deuten ist, kann als eine Darstellung der in einem Rechtshandel verfahrenden Sedes Sapientiae gelten, durch die wir bereits in die Nahe der Entstehungszeit der endgültigen Fassung der gröBeren Gerhardslegende gelan­ gen. 1 3 Am Ende dieser Redaktion fand namlich die Stiftung eines silbernen Gerhards­ schreins für das Grab des Martyrers im Jahre 1 3 6 1 ebenso Erwahnung, wie das Todesjahr 1 38 1 der Wohltaterin, der Königin Elisabeth, der Witwe König Karls I . Der künstlerische Prototyp der Gerhardsvision mag daher sowohl für den Verfasser als für den Leser in Ungarn sowohl zu Lebzeiten des Heiligen als auch bis in das Spat­ mittelalter standig vertraut und zuganglich gewesen sein. 1 4 Was in der Visionsbeschreibung zuerst auffüllt, ist die eucharistische Deutung der Sedes Sapientiae. 1 5 Was die eucharistische Auslegung des fleischgewordenen Logos betrifft, findet sie ihre Hauptstütze im Prolog des Johannesevangeliums; und diese Deutung wird durch die in der Legende zitierte Textstelle cena Agni der Apokalypse angegeben. Auch die Sedes Sapientiae als eine Darstellungsform der Göttlichen Weis­ heit hat diese eucharistische Note. lm Westen wird die Darstellung der Weisheit der Philosophie - vor allem aus den Personifikationen abgeleitet, deren Hauptquelle Martianus Capella's De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii war. Vor kurzem, bei der aus­ führlichen Analyse der Anweisungen Ekkeharts IV. von St. Gallen für die Gravierun­ gen eines Schlüssels, hat sich herausgestellt, daB Philologia-Sapientia wohl als eine thronende Frauenfigur vorgesehen war, ahnlich wie in der Darstellung im Hortus deliciarum der Herrad von Landsberg. Um diese mittlere Darstellung herum waren sieben Arkaden (des Hauses der Weisheit nach Spr. 9) vorgesehen, mit sieben bib­ lischen Frauenfiguren, die durch Inschriften zugleich als Personifikationen der artes liberales ausgewiesen werden sollten. 1 6 Die Gottesmutter Maria wird in dieser Reihe als Regina caelorum mit Krone und Zepter, als Personifikation der astrologia darge­ stellt, mit einem Stern, der laut Anweisung Ekkeharts inschriftlich Stella maris be­ zeichnet werden sollte. 1 7 Auf diesem Punkt berühren sich prachtig die Feststellungen der ikonographischen Forschung mit den philologischen Argumenten, die in der ungarischen Mittelalter­ forschung in der Diskussion über das Verhaltnis der beiden Fassungen der Gerhards­ legende vorgetragen wurden. Es handelt sich um die Prioritat der kleineren Legende, deren auf die Marienverehrung des heiligen Gerhard bezogene Textstelle nachweis­ lich in verdorbener Form, durch MiBverstandnis des mythologischen Hinweises scillea vorago übernommen wurde. István Jelenits, dem der Nachweis der Quelle dieser Stelle in der Sermo de Nativitate Beatae Mariae Virginis des Fulbert von Chartres

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gelang, wies mit Recht auf die ursprüngliche Bedeutung des Ausdrucks maris stella in der legenda minor hin. 1 8 Als die auf Fulberts Text zurückgehende Stelle unter Verlust der Hinweise auf klassisches Bildungsgut in die gröBere Legende übernommen wur­ de, entstand auch die Erweiterung des Berichts über die Vorahnung des Martyriums zu einer Visionsbeschreibung. Der eucharistische Bedeutungskreis der Sedes Sapien­ tiae soll daher zu dieser sekundaren Schicht der Überlieferung gehören. Daraus folgt aber zwangslaufig, daB die Rolle der durch einen Brief Fulberts von Chartres belegten Beziehungen zu Ungarn im frühen 1 1 . Jahrhundert - etwa bei den Ideen Gerhards oder seiner Zeit - von der Hand zu weisen ist. ln der eucharistischen Auslegung der Sedes Sapientiae-Darstellung kommt natür­ lich der Hauptquelle der Weisheitsdarstellungen, dem Buch Proverbia eine Schlüssel­ rolle zu. Einige Verse von der Beschreibung des Hauses der Weisheit entfernt, findet man namlich den Vers über das Gastmahl der Weisheit Venite, comedite panem meum, et bibite vinum quod miscui vobis (Spr. 9,5), was in unserem Fall umso mehr in Frage kommt, als es von der Weisheit des Heiligen die Rede ist. Die verehrte Gottesmutter als Leitstern der Reisenden wechselte ihre Funktion: das Schiff und den Sturm haben in der Legende Wagen und Heidenaufstand ersetzt. Dieser Vers kommt auch im Kon­ text byzantinischer Darstellungen der Göttlichen Weisheit vor, auf die man allein an­ hand von Denkmalern der serbischen und mazedonischen Monumentalmalerei und der russischen Ikonen seit dem spaten 1 3. Jahrhundert schlieBen kann. Die Weisheit wurde in Gracanica zwischen 1 299 und 1 32 3 in der Form einer von Engeln beglei­ teten Frauenfigur bei einem Tisch mit aufgeschlagenem Buch dargestellt, und in Sv. Kliment in Ochrid steht um 1 300 gerade der Vers Spr. 9 , 9 . 1 9 Der eucharistische Sinn der thronenden Muttergottes ist eigentlich weniger über­ raschend als die liturgische Handlung der Kommunion, die vom Jesuskind aus­ geführt wurde. Man wird hier an ein byzantinisches Apsisprogramm erinnert, in dem die Muttergottes in der Halbkuppel der Apsis und die Apostelkommunion (im Hin­ blick auf die künftigen Martyrerbischöfe eventuell auch der groBe Einzug von Bischofsheiligen) ihren Platz fanden. Die Denkmaler dieser auf den Altar bezogenen Ikonographie byzantinischer Kirchenchöre sind zahlreich und erfuhren besonders in der Spatperiode, in der von serbischen und mazedonischen Zyklen bezeugten Palao­ logenzeit eine Phase der sorgfaltig ausgearbeiteten Symbolik. Der Vorstellung der in der Vision erwahnten Handlung, daB Christus selbst Brot und Wein den Bischöfen reicht, lag offensichtlich die Ikonographie der Apostelkommunion zu Grunde. 20 Die Belege dieses Darstellungstyps in Handschriftenillustrationen und auf liturgischen Gegenstanden reichen ebenso weit in die Vergangenheit zurück, wie diejenigen der Sedes Sapientiae. 2 1 Für unser Thema,