Literature letter about
Hungarian history, tragic life feeling of Hungarians, poetry, fate of
Transylvania, some words on specific problems of the American folks, the
American man identity conscience
Well, we Hungarians
who got here from Middle Asia with half million souls – we who have lived here
already 1100 years in Middle Europe (in the territory of the Danube and Tisza
river, in our home the Carpathian basin) – we started thinking,
enthusiastically researching more deeply about who we really are since the
beginning of the 19th century. (This unpractical and still for some
people it is of vital importance “activity” looks something like with Gauguin,
who gave the title of his famous painting: “Where are we coming from? Who are
we? Where we are going to?”)
Our small maimed country used to be a major power of Middle Europe after
our Carpathian basin the Hungarian/Magyar conquest through many centuries for
almost a half millennium. We reached the peak (top) during the rulings of King
Mátyás (Matthias) who conquered both
Vienna and Prague and by what he was trying to drive out the Turks from the
neighboring Balkan area after getting the title of the West-Roman-Empire imperial
using its military force. His father, János Hunyadi has already saved Europe
from the Turks once, when (3 years
after the conquest of the Turkish Bizanc) in 1456 – 500 years before the 1956
Hungarian Revolution – at Nándorfehérvár (now Beograd) he smashed the 150000
troops of the Turkish Sultan who wanted to start war against Europe. (Because
of this world famous victory the Pope ordered the church bells sound every noon
which is still active in Europe.
The fulfillment of this large scale plan got interrupted by the early
death of Mátyás (1490). 50 years after the death of Mátyás (with the conquest
of the Buda castle in 1541) Hungary was torn into 3 pieces, the middle part
fell into Turkish hands and suffered under them for 150 years. (The continuing
fighting at the end parts, these heroic battles were recorded by our lyrical poet who was the first one to
write in Hungarian language – Shakespeare contemporary – Bálint Balassi, who at
a young age heroically died in 1594 at the siege of the castle of Esztergom.
From the
times of the 1600s, our country was between 2 fires while continued its
life-death battles. Besides the Turkish danger, the suppressing intention of
the Germans (the Habsburgs) was increasing. Who were using cruel acts to force
back the country from the protestant religion (road) back to the catholic
religion (road). Besides the religion prosecution, they also abolished our
freedom rights which were fixed in the Hungarian Constitution. Because of these
things, the lords of Transylvania started going into the freedom battle. (Including
Gábor Bethlen.) Meanwhile in Western Hungary Lord and poet Miklós Zrinyi, army
strategist, politician continued the battle for the freedom of the country. But
the henchmen of the Vienna court killed him.
Meanwhile in 1686 (after getting Buda castle back) Hungary is freed from
the Turks. The happiness didn’t last for long, because the Austrian-Habsburgs,
handled the „freed” Hungary as their province and wanted to melt it into their
empire. (The same way as the Russians wanted to do it 250 years later after the
1945 „Liberation”, against which the 1956 Revolution broke out)
At the
time, at the beginning of the 18th century, the kuruc serfs and nobles grabbed
guns with the lead of Ferenc Rákóczi II. against the increasing Austrian
suppression. The battle after 8 years of heroic fight, fell in 1711. The
Austrians (because of the long battle they had with the Turks and Germans)
became depopulated at the countrysides and that is why they moved Germans to
those depopulated regions. Also they
were happy to receive the Serbs and Romanians who wanted to move in who were
escaping from the Turks from the South in big masses. Saying that oh, let this
Rebellion Hungarian blood get mixed and loose. Typical data, that in the era of
Mátyás, the 90 % of the country’s 4 million population was Hungarian, equal
with the 4 million population of England at the time. Contrast to that, this
figure by the end of the 18th century (during 3 centuries while foreigners were
moved in) only got bigger 2 times (which means it got loosed) while the
population of the peacefully developing
England became almost 10 times bigger.
Meanwhile our leading noble class strongly started to forget its
Hungarian characters, for example they almost only talked in German or Latin at
home, in public and offices, while only the peasant folks (the poor serfs) kept
their Hungarian characters: the Hungarian language, songs, dances and so on.
From the beginning of the 19 century, our developing noble intellectuals
(teachers, priests, lawyers, poets) started again to urge the need for studying
our past, the basics of our traditions, roots, and they found the richest
treasure mine of our Hungarian Identity in the culture of the poor folks. A
reformed movement was born against the Austrian state machine which was trying
to suppress our political-economical sovereignty, our cultural-national
identity awareness. This movement which lasted for 25 years at the end turned
into the 1848-49 revolution. ( With the lead of Lajos Kossuth, Sándor
Petőfi).
At the end, the giant Russian-Austrian numerical superiority chocked it
into blood. (The bloody revenge started with the hanging of the 13 hero
Generals in Arad who were fighting heroically during the freedom fight. The
Austrian suppression continued on all levels.
The next
even bigger tragedy happened about 70 years later in the life of the nation.
After the lost World War I. (according to the 1920 TRIANON peace dictate
treaty) - first of all because of the revenge thirsty French – Hungary got
dismembered, maimed: the 2/3rd of its territory and the 1/3rd of the Hungarian
population (our circa 3-4 million Hungarian brothers) was attached to the
Romanians, Czech-Slovakians and Serbs. (This scale is just as big and
exorbitant injustice and absurdity like for example from the 60 million France
– by an imaginary peace treaty dictate – 20 million French would have been torn
away and connected to Germany.
From the torn away territories (specially on the Transylvanian Romanian
territories) a cruel chasing-suppression, forceful melting assimilation
started. Someone who wants to try to understand the Hungarians, The Hungarian
fate, the specialties of the Hungarian soul, he/she should start off from this
moral-motivation, from this tragic life feeling, which is also formulated in our
National Anthem: „bad fate that has been tearing us for a long time”.
And also
from that this Hungarian bitterness driven into final extremeness
sometimes swung into the opposite
extremeness: not counting with the reality, the given constellation – blatant
boldness, resulting in fabulous MORAL ACHIEVEMENT, and despite of its sky
rocketing power will among enthusiastic obsession (hitting „into the wall of
stubborn impossibility”) dropping on the ground once more.
See the disappointment after the fall of the glorious 1848 and 1956
revolutions and the turn over into lethargy without goals and also the era of
the „Folks of Kádár” where the society declassed, it was idealess era the so
called „goulash communism”.
So these are the tragic antinomies (contradictions) which determinate
the past and present life feelings of the Hungarians.
The ode flying rhetoric of our biggest poets have duality: 1. urging,
instigating, leading the people who already show willingness for change, making
them enthusiastic and on the other hand 2.
(in another era) Waking up the lazy folks, who quail cowardly, to make
them understand that if they hold together and getup then they can become a big
power and make a change, if they unite their unselfish noble power will,
against the suppressors who are preventing the fate of the folks from turning
better. Wake up to consciousness! Carve it into your mind that „ Though the
galleon is on top, And the current of the water is down, Still the water is the
lord” reminds the poet.
„Hungarians, Get on your foot, the fatherland is calling! Here is the
time, now or never! Shall we be prisoners or free? That’s the question,
choose…”… Because „…the sword is brighter than the chain…”… And „The Hungarian
name will be nice again, worthy to its old name… We swear, We swear to the God
of Hungarians, that we wont be slaves any longer!” writes Petőfi in 1848.
We can see this critical slashing by our biggest poets for example Kölcsey, Vörösmarty, Ady
or Attila József on the folks who dipped into servile.
The reason I spent so much time now on the waters of the poetry is
because the comfort and hope from these blood showering centuries came from the
words of our lyrical, poet prophets.
And now after the „lyrical” detour, lets make another detour towards
TRANSYLVANIA… (towards the other star light source…)
Currently the better part of Hungarian citizens (the national side
citizens led by Viktor Orbán) are first of all interested in how the fate of
our Transylvania (Erdély) will be. This is such allergic (hurting) point which
day by day goes through the life feeling of the people who have national
conscience here.
During the Hungarian history, it was always Transylvania that was
culturally the brightest, the deepest fiery area of Hungary full of traditions.
(Our big writer Móricz calls the gold era of Transylvania as „Tündérkert (fairy
garden)”.
During 150 years – when the „Turkish pagans” were ruling most of our
Carpathian basin country – Transylvania meant the last hope for the national
survival.
But in the last 200 years more and more oláh shepherds (móc) came down
into Transylvania from the mountains and biologically (so not culturally) got
the Romanians above Hungarians, so they overgrew the nation, the Hungarians
which got weak and tired in its centuries long fights for freedom and
independence.
And to these things came the fact that since Trianon 1920 forceful
assimilation started in Transylvania. They stuffed the Hungarian towns with
Romanians, by that, changing the ethnical composition of whole territories. (A
good example of this very sad process is the capital of Transylvania: Kolozsvár
where the population about a century ago was clean Hungarian and by now the
number of Hungarians hardly reach the 20%. Many people chose the fleeing
(emigration) to escape from the humiliating persecution.
Transylvania was an integrated part of Hungary for 1000 years. The
European historians – mapmakers state it as a fact. (Only exception was for 150
years when Transylvanian Hungarian lords half-way belonged to the Turkish
sultan as vassals. Transylvania was also called as „Erdélyország”
„Transylvaniacountry” because of its cultural and administrative
specialty. (The Austrians often tried
to put it with a separated administration with Vienna but with not much luck.
But it never belonged to Romania.
Many famous, bright persons had Transylvanian origins like MÁTYÁS* the
king, DÓZSA (Székely) György the big revolution leader, KŐRÖSI* Csoma
Sándor the world famous explorer scientist about Hungarians and Tibet, BÓLYAI*
János the big mathematician, ADY* Endre our biggest poet and BARTÓK* Béla the
world-famous composer.
The folk music collection started big time with Bartók – Kodály in the
early 20th century. This music collection was the widest spread in
Transylvania. This melody world meant the discovery of a deeper
(pentatonic-era) Eastern-Hungarian documentation.
According to Bartók and especially Kodály, renewing flowering is needed
so that the Hungarian soul can once again fly by singing our folksongs and the
new Hungarian music which gets to a classical level derived from the folksongs.
Because of this interest specially instigated by Kodály, the sol-fa, music
pedagogical teaching and education has to be made more effective in the
schools.
Specially because the very widespread cultivated „Hungarian ditty” is
actually not Hungarian rooted melody-world, but just a degenerated, over
sentimental Hungarian version of the Vienna operetta-variations.
But it looks like the effects of the „Hungarian ditty” and the
Americanized cosmopolitan disco music are pushing the folksongs to the
periphery. And it looks like that the folk music will be only needed by the
fewer persons who have cleaner, spiritually healthier, finer, differentiated
nerve system. ( It will be somehow like it happened with the classical music).
So that was about the collective, Hungarian national level identity
research and current situation of the identity-conscience.
And now I will make a few comments about the specific problems of the
American folks, THE AMERICAN MAN IDENTITY CONSCIENCE.
First of all, I would comment that the American CULTURAL (so not the
technical-civilization) roots, the roots of the spiritual-mental identity
conscience lead back to the „Motherland” (Europe).
The American youth in its shameless blindness believes that He/She the
TOP PREDATOR (as ideal Goal) became the center of our civilized world, by
globalism, meanwhile don’t notice that he is just a comical-tragical GiantBaby
who just has its head in the sand, building sand castles. Whose foundation of
its future is not built on long lasting, solid bases. Instead - (culture denying, eliminating, only
reachable by civilized tools) – puts the importance only on the faith of
material benefits and by that on the venal GOODWEALTH-PLEASURE religion.
In the USA, an American young person who has a Hungarian origin and
looks for the roots of his/her self-identity, wont find 1000 years old
traditions reaching back with CULTURAL background., only an about 2-300 years
old CIVILISATION past. He will find a bunch of wildwest false romantica.
He (the American young) can be proud of his ancestors how they massacred
with „culture superiority” the uncivilized (according to them uncultured)
Indian aborigines, what cultural tricks they used to catch and drag away the
„well developed” niggers from their motherland and forced them to do inhuman
slave work in the „country of the freedom”. He can be proud also of that hero
era when and how (monopolizing the ancient Indian lands) abusing the saint land
into oil polluted places, cutting through hills-valleys, forests-fields killing
already not just the aboriginals, but also the Earth Spirit of this ancient
land. (And he can also think of it proudly, how civilized solution they found
for the Indian remnants in the reservations and for the millions of poor
niggers in the ghettos.)
The „Chicagoan” gangster world of the first decade of the 20th
century transplants into our current times, when in Vietnam not long ago, or in
Iraq today, they are spreading the culture and democracy with „Chicagoan”
methods and they are totally supporting the half-fascist terror, which is going
on for the Big Israel, in order to put the „lower level” aboriginal Palestinians
into ghettos. (The American flag that is used as the solidarity for freedom –
in the eye of the Hungarian folks – got already a big stain, when the US
outrageously betrayed Hungary, throwing the Hungarian folks who were fighting a
life-death battle for freedom into the paws of the Russian bear, while before
US kept saying, instigating, inciting the Hungarians to rebel against the
Russians, because the US will help.
The American youth is at the point now that it doesn’t dare to face
itself, with its own identity, its cultural roots, doesn’t there to dig down to
the bottom of its European roots. The reason for this is that such deep level
undertaking would necessary need to mean the acceptance and undertaking of its
own future and the future of the human raceat the same time, to form it with
the mission-consciousness. (Since now America – this global superpower, like it
or not – is carrying the fate of the whole Globe on its shoulder, based on the
more power-LAW: more power-RESPONSIBILITY.
The American youngster feels uncomfortable the antic saying ”Get to know
yourself” (and your past). Rather he
enjoys, passes his life with drugs instead. This drug doesn’t necessary mean
the so called drug. Its also enough if he entertains, throws away his time and
nerves with TV, Concert, idolizing the
idles of music (disco) stars, going crazy.
As I mentioned: the youth – amid its search for self-identity – can not
find humus layers of human culture, which could feed the culture, cant find
that, only just a civilized alluvial deposits layer. But he is lazier than that
to take the effort to dig deeper, where he would actually have the chance to
open up in front of him the culture where the root strings would lead actually
into the real culture layers, equal with Europe.
A cultural past didn’t even have a chance to develop in the US during
2-3 centuries, only the techo’civilization. Because the creation of
spiritual-mental-moral culture actually needs many centuries even millennium of
layers on each other.
The roots of European culture is deriving from the roots of Greek-Roman
harmony, moral idealism, IDEA values, reaching back into 2500 years. This was
followed by the culture layers of the medieval church Christian culture (roman
and gothic) with its own art style, worldview features (between the 5th
and 13th century. After that came – which resurrected the antic
culture – the renaissance and humanism culture layer (the 14-16 century). It
was followed by the Reformation with its cultural feats in the 16th
century and the anti- reformation baroque artistic style in the 17th
century. And then comes the big anti- proposition of the so far basically
religious type of cultures: the 18th century rational Enlightment:
the laicization of the ideologies, arts: the frontal collision of the material
and idealist philosophies.
After the industrial revolution of the early 19th century,
the central role of the human culture started to get pushed aside by the
natural science, the dominance of technical thinking. The divinization of the civilized inventions, values started to
become fashion: the civilization was pushing the culture under itself more and
more.
The materialism soaked up by radical rationalism chased out all mystics
from the history and created the New God: the hypothesis of the Evolution,
according to which in the creation and function of nature (LIFE) everything
happens in the material-cause rationality: the simpler quantity is the cause of
the more complicated quality argument: the cause of the Human-quality (the
spirit animal) derives from the spiritless animal-quantity (monkey).
Soon the biological Darwinism swings into the society sphere and goes
into social Darwinism. Its proclaimed as natural that - just like in the animal world, the same way between man and man
– the Stronger, the bigger has the right and responsibility to take, swallow up
the Weaker, the smaller. This is what was advertised by the CAPITALIST just
like later by the racism FASCIST or as the class theory COMMUNIST. Like in the
nature, in the animal world, the natural instinct dictated order is that there
is no moral, so everything is Amoral, so the same way in the human societies
the natural, the rational, that everything is immoral. (The moral, the self
conscience was just made up by the Weak very cleverly to protect themselves, to
make the Strong have a guilty conscience.)
The multinational Globalism (with the USA on top) - despite of loud
advertisement of all godly idealist theories, in practice – follows this social
Darwinist, material rationalist theory. The USA defeated the animal violence
based on racism (Hitlerism) and a generation later it defeated the animal
violence based on the class theory communism (Stalinism).
The question is: Can it defeat itself?: the pop upping animal violence
culture. To defeat The Great power mentality built on its civilized potential,
which more and more influences its MORAL JUDGEMENT ( for example splitting the
population of the world into „GOOD” and „EVIL”)
Budapest. 2004. aug. Imre Makrai
