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The Race for Revision and Recognition: Interwar Hungarian Cultural Diplomacy in Context

Part of: European Cultural Diplomacy and the Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919–1939

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 March 2021

Zsolt Nagy Open the ORCID record for Zsolt Nagy [Opens in a new window]
Zsolt Nagy*
Affiliation:
University of Saint Thomas, 2115 Summit Ave, St Paul, MN55105, USA
*
nagy4291@stthomas.edu
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Abstract

In the wake of the First World War there was an explosion of cultural diplomatic activity and Hungary was no exception. However, as this study shows, Hungary was very much unlike its regional and Western European counterparts. Unlike the Germans, Italians, British and French, Hungarians were not trying to spread Hungarian culture per se. Hungarians employed cultural diplomacy to alter the post-war order. Considering the weakness of its economy, the frailty of its nearly non-existent military and the lack of weight that the country carried on the international political stage, the Hungarian government saw cultural diplomacy as a promising and viable alternative for changing the post-war status quo. Demonstrating the country's contribution to European and indeed to universal culture and civilisation was the fundamental message of Hungarian cultural diplomacy. However, other regional powers also aimed to portray their contributions in the very same way. In the resulting competitive climate, the Hungarian political leadership not only believed that the international community needed to be enlightened about the historical and cultural deeds of the Hungarian nation but also aimed to prove Hungary's supposed cultural supremacy over its regional counterparts. This article traces these efforts and their main themes through domestic and international festivals and gatherings, amongst them the 1930 St. Emeric's Year, the Fourth World Scout Jamboree in 1933 and the 1937 Paris World's Fair. In the end, the essay examines the real and perceived utility and limitations of small power cultural diplomacy in the age of great power politics.

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Article
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Contemporary European History , Volume 30 , Special Issue 2: European Cultural Diplomacy and the Twenty Years' Crisis, 1919–1939 , May 2021 , pp. 231 - 247
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 Képviselőházi napló, 1927, vol.12 (2 May 1928 – 16 May 1928), 116.

2 Ibid.

3 Taylor, Philip M., The Projection of Britain: British Overseas Publicity and Propaganda, 1919–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 I am employing the term ‘cultural diplomacy’ throughout, for the Hungarians themselves employed the term during the interwar years. János Hankiss, contemporary Hungarian thinker and practitioner of cultural diplomacy since the early 1920s, defined cultural diplomacy (kultúrdiplomácia) as an action that ‘brings about foreign policy goals with the use of cultural instruments’. See János Hankiss, A kultúrdiplomácia alapvetése (Budapest: Magyar Külügyi Társaság, 1937), 1. However, the action whereby governmental and non-governmental entities aim to create a positive image of the nation abroad in order to gain support for the country's policies – domestic and foreign – also variously referred as ‘publicity’, ‘cultural diplomacy’, ‘self-advertisement’, ‘image cultivation’, ‘image projection’, ‘public relations’, ‘soft power’, ‘nation-branding’, ‘perception management’, ‘national reputation management’ and, the latest on the list, that is ‘public diplomacy’. For an examination of the various concepts, see Snow, Nancy and Taylor, Philip M., eds., Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy (New York and London: Routledge, 2009)Google Scholar.

5 For more on this see McMurry, Ruth Emily and Lee, Muna, The Cultural Approach: Another Way in International Relations (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1947)Google Scholar; Arndt, Richard T., The First Resort of Kings: American Cultural Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century, (Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2005)Google Scholar; Barghoorn, Frederick C., The Soviet Cultural Offensive: the Role of Cultural Diplomacy in Soviet Foreign Policy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1960)Google Scholar; Taylor, Philip M., ‘Cultural Diplomacy and the British Council: 1934–1939’, British Journal of International Studies, 4, 3 (Oct. 1978), 244–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Sang Mi Park, ‘Japan as a Cultural State (bunka kokka Nippon): Theater, Culture, and Politics’, PhD Thesis, Princeton University, 2007. On Spain and Sweden, see relevant studies in this volume. As one of the reviewers justly pointed out, the Hungarian case is perhaps most similar that of interwar Bulgaria, also a revisionist state that lacked the economic, military and political power to change it circumstances through methods of traditional diplomacy.

6 For example, see Ninkovich, Frank A., The Diplomacy of Ideas: U.S. Foreign Policy and Cultural Relations, 1938–1950 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981)Google Scholar; Richmond, Yale, Cultural Exchange and the Cold War: Raising the Iron Curtain (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania University Press, 2003)Google Scholar; Prevots, Naima, Dance for Export: Cultural Diplomacy and the Cold War (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1998)Google Scholar.

7 For example, see David-Fox, Michael, Showcasing the Great Experiment: Cultural Diplomacy and Western Visitors to the Soviet Union, 1921–1941 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Arndt, Richard T., The First Resort of Kings: American Cultural Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2005)Google Scholar.

8 Philip M. Taylor, The Projection of Britain: British Overseas Publicity and Propaganda, 1919–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Jessica C. E. Gienow-Hecht ed., Decentering America (New York: Berghahn Books, 2007); and Andrea Orzoff, Battle for the Castle: The Myth of Czechoslovakia in Europe, 1914–1948 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

9 See, Zsolt Nagy, Great Expectations and Interwar Realities: Hungarian Cultural Diplomacy, 1918–1941 (Budapest and New York: Central European University Press, 2017). See also ‘In Search of a Usable Past: The Legacy of Ottoman Occupation in Interwar Hungarian Cultural Diplomacy’, Hungarian Studies Review, 47, 1–2 (Spring–Fall, 2015), 27–52; and ‘National Identities for Export: East European Cultural Diplomacy in Inter-War Pittsburgh’, Contemporary European History, 20, 4 (2011), 435–53.

10 For the history of cultural internationalism, see Akira Iriye, Cultural Internationalism and World Order (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997).

11 Sluga, Glenda, Internationalism in the Age of Nationalism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Alice Freifeld, Nationalism and the Crowd in Liberal Hungary, 1848–1914 (Washington, D.C.: The Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2000), 5.

13 Nagy, Great Expectations, 80.

14 Ibid. See also, Balázs Trencsényi, A nép lelke (Budapest: Argentum, 2011), 340–3.

15 See, Nagy, Great Expectations, 77–80 and 178–9. I utilise works of Jenő Szűcs, Tamás Hofer, András Gerő and Dorothy Barenscott to explain the complexities of national image projection.

16 ‘Elvégeztetett’, Budapesti Hirlap, 5 Jun. 1920, 1.

17 Ibid. For more on this symbolism in domestic irredentist and revisionist propaganda, see Miklós Zeidler, A revíziós gondolat (Bratislava/Pozsony: Kalligram, 2009), 192–230.

18 Ibid.

19 ‘A bosszúállás’, Népszava, 4 Jun. 1920, 1.

20 For more on revisionism and the ‘Trianon syndrome’, see works of Ignác Romsics, Miklós Zeidler and Balázs Ablonczy, to name but a few.

21 The document reproduced in Pritz Pál, Iratok a magyar külügyi szolgálat történethéhez, 1918–1945 (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1944), 79–81. See also, Nagy, Great Expectations, 53–4.

22 MOL (Hungarian National Archive) K67, 3. csomó, 1.tétel (11 Jan. 1923).

23 Kuno Klebelsberg, Neonacionalizmus (Budapest: Athenaeum, 1928), 22. First published in Pesti Napló on 6 Mar. 1927.

24 Ibid., 96.

25 For more on Christian nationalism, see Paul Hanebrink, In Defense of Christian Hungary (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006). For more on the Bethlen consolidation, see Thomas Lorman, Counter-Revolutionary Hungary, 1920–1925 (Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 2006).

26 Nagy, Great Expectations, 46 and fn.79.

27 The topic of numerus clausus has been examined and studied. For more on the domestic and international reaction, see works by Michael L. Miller, Victor Karády, Mária M. Kovács and Gergely Egressy.

28 On the subject of financial reconstruction, see Zoltan Peterecz, Jeremiah Smith, Jr. and Hungary, 1924–1926 (London: Versita, 2012); György Péteri, Global Monetary Regime and National Central Banking: The Case of Hungary, 1921–1929 (Boulder, CO: Social Science Monographs, 2002) and, for the British policies in particular, Miklós Lojkó, Meddling in Middle Europe: Britain and the ‘Lands Between’, 1919–1925 (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2006).

29 Thomas Lorman, ‘In Praise of Stability: British Foreign Office Opinions of the Bethlen Consolidation, 1920–1925’, in László Péter and Martyn Rady, eds., British–Hungarian Relations since 1848 (London: University of London. School of Slavonic and East European Studies, 2004), 151. Quoted in Nagy, Great Expectations, 59.

30 Nagy, Great Expectations, 94.

31 Ibid.,114.

32 Ibid., 114, fn.16.

33 Ibid., 117. See also, the works of Gábor Ujváry on the subject.

34 For more on this see, Ignác Romsics, ‘Hungary's Place in the Sun: A British Newspaper Article and its Hungarian Repercussions’, in László Péter, ed., British–Hungarian Relations since 1848 (London: University of London. School of Slavonic and East European Studies, 2004), 193–204 and Nagy, Great Expectations, 59–61.

35 Ibid., 62

36 1927/XIII, A külföldi magyar intézetekről és a magas műveltség célját szolgáló öszöndijakról, available at https://net.jogtar.hu/ezer-ev-torveny?docid=92700013.TV&searchUrl=/ezer-ev-torvenyei%3Fkeyword%3D1927%2520/XIII (last visited 1 May 2019).

37 On these institutions, see Gábor Ujváry, Kulturális hídfőállások. A külföldi intézetek, tanszékek és lektorátusok szerepe a magyar kulturális külpolitika történetében (Budapest: Ráció Kiadó, 2017) and Nagy, Great Expectations and Interwar Realities, 109–32. On the unique story of the Hungarian, Czechoslovak and Romanian rooms in the University of Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning, see Nagy, Zsolt, ‘National Identities for Export: East European Cultural Diplomacy in Inter-War Pittsburgh’, Contemporary European History, 20, 4 (2011), 435–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 G.C. Paikert (Géza Paikert), ‘Hungarian Foreign Policy in Intercultural Relations, 1919–1944’, American Slavic and East European Review 11, 1 (1952), 65.

39 While this was indeed a Catholic celebration, I use ‘Christianity’ as the overarching concept. As historian Paul Hanebrink explains, ‘church leaders had to acknowledge that the state's interest in national unity took precedence. Religious activists could pursue their confessional interests only as long as they furthered the government's policy of consolidation.’ Hanebrink, In Defense of Christian Hungary, 110–4 and 117.

40 Ignác Romsics, ‘Christian Shield to EU Member’, The Hungarian Quarterly 118 (2007), 6–8. See also, Zsolt Nagy, ‘In Search of a Usable Past: The Legacy of Ottoman Occupation in Interwar Hungarian Cultural Diplomacy’, Hungarian Studies Review, 47, 1–2 (Spring–Fall, 2015), 29, 32–4.

41 MOL. K 67, 9. csomó, 3. tétel, 68. dosszié, undated document.

42 MOL K 67, 1. csomó, 1. tétel, undated document.

43 For one of the best explanations of the concept, see László Ottlik, ‘Pax Hungarica’, Magyar Szemle, 22, 87 (1934), 289–97.

44 Standing today in its original place in Budapest's Zsigmond Móricz körtér.

45 ‘Szent Imre-év’, Magyar Katolikus Lexikon, available at http://lexikon.katolikus.hu/S/Szent%20Imre-%C3%A9v.html (last visited 12 Feb. 2019).

46 MOL K106, 75. csomó, 36/1 tétel (6 May 1930).

47 ‘A cseheknek fáj ünnepünk nemzetközi sikere’, Budapesti Hirlap, 22 Aug. 1930, 2.

48 Ferenc Gergely, ‘Cserkész világtábor Magyarországon (Gödöllő, 1933)’, Századok, 115, 6 (1981), 1218–9.

49 Ibid.

50 Gergely, ‘Cserkész világtábor Magyarországon’, 1220.

51 See László Endre's Gödöllő township report, available at http://www.archivnet.hu/hetkoznapok/a_godolloi_cserkesz_vilagtabor_ujabb_forrasai.html (last visited 15 Feb. 2019).

52 Ibid.

53 Gergely, ‘Cserkész világtábor Magyarországon’, 1221.

54 Ibid., 1223–5.

55 Ibid., 1233–6.

56 Quoted in Ferenc Gergely, A magyar cserkészet története, 1910–1948 (Budapest: Göncöl Kiadó, 1989), 158–9.

57 Special report on the opening day of the jamboree in Magyarság, 3 Aug. 1933, 5–7.

58 For detailed reports on the jamboree, see Magyar Cserkészet, 1–14 (1933).

59 Quoted in Gergely, A magyar cserkészet története, 159.

60 See, for example reports in The New York Times and The Times.

61 For example, in the United States WABC and WJZ broadcasted Horthy's and Baden-Powell's opening speeches. American Eagle Scouts provided location reports to American audiences. See ‘30,000 Boy Scouts Launch Jamboree’, The New York Times, 3 Aug. 1933, 19. Brigadier-General E. G. Godfrey-Fausset, in charge of the nearly 2,000 British Scout contingent, accepted the Hungarian Radio's invitation to broadcast news from the jamboree, see ‘International Jamboree in Hungary’, The Times, 20 Jun. 1933, 11.

62 ‘A cserkészek gödöllői világnagytábora’, A Pesti Hirlap Nagy Naptára, 44 (1934), 63.

63 Fodor, Ferenc, ‘A cserkész világ-jamboree Gödöllőn’, Magyar Szemle, 18 (1933), 156Google Scholar.

64 Hankiss, A kultúrdiplomácia, 9. Quoted in Nagy, Great Expectations, 110.

65 Udovički-Selb, Danilo, ‘Facing Hitler's Pavilion: The Uses of Modernity in the Soviet Pavilion at the 1937 Paris International Exhibition’, Journal of Contemporary History, 47, 1 (2012), 14–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

66 Ibid. Worth noting that Udovički-Selb's study goes beyond the obvious competition of ‘archeological rhetoric’ and investigates the Soviet aesthetic and political discourse and the state of architectural production under Stalin.

67 Champlin, Caroll D., ‘The Cultural Contribution of International Expositions’, The Phi Delta Kappan, 20, 4 (1937), 116Google Scholar.

68 ‘The 1937 International Exhibition, Paris’, Architectural Record, 82 (Oct. 1937), 81.

69 Maurice Roche, Mega-Events Modernity: Olympics and Expos in the Growth of Global Culture (New York: Routledge, 2000), 24.

70 For one of the most recent examination of the world's fairs and expos, see Katherine Smits and Alix Jensen, ‘Staging the Nation at Expos and World's Fairs’, National Identities, 14, 2 (2012), 173–88.

71 László Moholy-Nagy, ‘Exposition for Exposition’, Architectural Record, 82 (Oct. 1937), 92.

72 Dénes Györgyi, ‘Mit mond a Párisi Világkiállítás és miről szól a Magyar Pavillon?’, Magyar Iparművészet, 40 (1937), 174.

73 MOL K728, 1. csomó, 1. tétel, Undated Document. See also, Katalin Rákos, ‘Az 1937-es párizsi világkiállításmagyar pavilonjának építési folyamata’, Első Század, 13, 2 (2014), 199–214.

74 MOL K728, 1. csomó, 2. tétel (14 Feb. 1937).

75 The piece presently exhibited in the Csók István Képtár, Székesfehérvár, Hungary.

76 MOL K728, 1. csomó, 2. tétel (14 Feb. 1937).

77 Tormay, Géza, ‘A magyar kiállítás Párisban’, Magyar Iparművészet, 40 (1937), 152Google Scholar.

78 I could not locate data regarding the number of visitors specific to the Hungarian Pavilion.

79 For the whole list, see MOL K728, 2. csomó, 4. tétel (10 Dec. 1937). According to the Budapest Hirlap, Hungary brought home forty-five grand prize, sixty-one gold, fifty-seven silver and twenty-six bronze medals.

80 MOL K728, 3. csomó, 8. tétel (28 Dec. 1937).

81 Quoted in Nagy, Great Expectations, 294.

82 For example see, Hungaria Magazin Special World's Fair Edition (1939).