1772-1825.
The enlightened foreigner from France, England or Germany, reading about
the allegedly great literary works written by Hungarians, Poles, Czechs
or other nationalities who have so far not succeeded in playing first
fiddle in the European concert, will probably indulge in a polite doubt
as to the exceeding excellence of those works, not one of which has ever
been spoken of in the columns of the leading papers or periodicals of
London, Paris, Berlin, Rome or Vienna. In the preceding pages we have
ventured to mention Pope and Shelley, and a few great German poets in
the same breath with great Magyar writers. This may appear preposterous
to Englishmen or Germans. Far from reviling them for that, we would
rather hasten to add, that in a certain sense they are quite right.
Pope’s genius is in one most essential point decidedly superior to that
of Csokonai (see page 88). Pope’s best poems are not exclusively English
in taste, subject-matter or form. They belong to that class of European
literature, the best products of which may be relished with equal
delight by Spaniards and Danes alike. They are European in character;
and so much is this the case with the foremost of those writers, that
Shakespeare, for instance, is far better known, by the youth at least
of Germany, Austria and Hungary, than by that of England. In the great
German writers there is little of that specifically German tone, which
people other than Germans cannot very well enjoy. In Lessing there is no
trace of the sentimentality and liquoriciousness of his native province;
in Schiller there is not a trace of Suabian cunning or lumbersomeness;
and Goethe might just as well have been born at Syracuse under Gelon,
or at Athens under Pericles. Is there any trace of Puritanism, this the
most specifically English feature of his time, in Shakespeare? The major
part of the better writers of Hungary or Poland, on the other hand, have
suffered their intense patriotism to make such inroads on the literary
character of their works, that the latter frequently lose all their point
to readers outside Hungary and Poland.
These reflections are suggested by a consideration of the works of
Francis Kölcsey (1790-1838), a really great orator and a good poet. Born
in the county of Bihar, where he spent the best part of his short life,
he employed his magnificent powers of oratory chiefly in inculcating
in the Hungarians of his time the lesson of patriotism. There can be
no doubt that his speeches, his lofty “_Paraenesis_,” and some of his
critical work are written in that gorgeously laborious style which has
made the fame of Bossuet in France and Gibbon in England. His poems
breathe a mild melancholy that gives them a sombre tint of peculiar
beauty. Yet, on the whole, he never oversteps the narrow limits of Magyar
life as then existent; and what appeals to men of all countries and all
nations found but a feeble rhetorical echo in his writings. No young
Hungarian can read his works without deep emotion. In maturer years,
however, he finds that Kölcsey’s works belong to those that one gladly
remembers to have read once, without desiring to read them again.
The growth of Hungarian Literature from 1772 to 1825 was, compared to
that of England from 1570 to 1620; of Germany from 1760 to 1805; or of
France from 1630 to 1675, a slow one. Many of the Hungarian writers of
that period were endowed with gifts of no common calibre; and some of
them, such as Kazinczy, Kisfaludy, Csokonai, Berzsenyi, Kölcsey, can
certainly not be denied the distinction of genius. Yet with all their
efforts, individual or collective, they did not quicken the step of
literary progress very considerably. This was owing to the fact, that
Hungary had as yet no literary centres, such as England possessed in
London; France in Paris; and Germany in Berlin, Leipsic or Weimar. Nearly
all the poets and other writers so far mentioned lived in small towns
scattered over the country, and, from the lack of good communications,
were practically isolated from one another. Kazinczy lived in the county
of Zemplén; Kölcsey in the county of Bihar; Kisfaludy, Berzsenyi, Ádám
Horváth in the cis-Danubian counties. There were, it is true, some
literary centres in Pesth; such as the house of the able folk-poet
Vitkovics. But they were few, and Pesth was, as yet, not a great capital.
Literature needs local concentration of high-strung people. Country life
gives the aptitude for poetic work; intense urban life alone ripens that
aptitude into creative talent. Virgil at Mantua, or Cicero at Arpinum
would have remained sterile provincials. The great mental agitation set
in motion by the writers in Magyar above mentioned was given additional
fuel by a very large number of Hungarians writing in Latin and French.
The ideas of the French and German Rationalism (“_Aufklaerung_”) of that
time were eagerly seized upon, elaborated and discussed in over five
hundred works and pamphlets treating of Religion, Politics, Law and
Philosophy. Hungary was thus during that period (1772-1825), instinct
with great intellectual powers; and all that was wanting was to focus
them. As long as the political or _the_ life of Hungary was crippled by
the autocracy of Metternich, that is, down to 1825-1830, that national
focus could not be forthcoming. With the revival of the political
life in and through the national Diet assembled at Pesth in 1825, the
only remaining condition of a quicker and more energetic pulsation of
Hungary’s literary life was fulfilled. Henceforth Hungary employed the
right strategy for the able men of her literary army, and the result
was a short but brilliant period of literary productions, many of
which attain to the higher and some to the highest degrees of artistic
perfection. And inasmuch as the creation of the national focus was the
most potent cause of the unprecedented revival of Hungary’s literature,
we must first treat of that glorious man who was chiefly instrumental in
its realization: Count Stephen Széchenyi.