Péter Hajdu’s Modern Hungarian Culture and the Classics, published in the Classical Diaspora series of Bloomsbury Academic, is a wide-ranging study of the ever-changing cultural presence and significance of ancient Greek and Latin literature and art in Hungary. The book focuses on roughly the past three centuries, but Hajdu often highlights important aspects of premodern Hungarian modes and media of classical reception. A single monograph would of course not be enough to offer a representative treatment of all the ways in which the classics became a part of Hungarian culture, and Hajdu does not claim to offer an exhaustive treatment of the subject. Still, through the succinct introduction of some of the specific questions and problems of Hungarian classical receptions as well as the selection of emblematic examples his discussion has the potential to become representative, especially to readers not familiar with Hungarian literature, art, and culture. Hungarian material is presented in an accessible way to non-Hungarian readers: black and white illustrations are provided for the artworks and buildings discussed and whenever Hajdu refers to Hungarian writers and poets, brief contextualizing remarks and, when, necessary, faithful English translations are provided.
After a brief introduction outlining the structure and historical scope of the argument, Chapter 1 (“Identity and Classical Antiquity”) addresses some of the most important general questions underlying Hajdu’s project. Positioned between Western and Eastern Europe and forming a Finno-Ugric linguistic island surrounded by Indo-European languages, Hungary has been anything but typical in its cultural development, which is strongly reflected in the variety of ways Hungarians have (and have been) related to the classical world. Through the ages there have been several attempts to anchor Hungarian identity in the classical heritage as well as, conversely, as a designated “antagonistic, barbaric Other” (7) widely represented by an ancestry myth linking Hungarians to the Huns and/or Scythians. Hajdu shows how these different discourses of identity-formation have interacted in tandem with Hungary’s political context and strategy. For example, during the Ottoman occupation Western (Christian and classical) aspects of Hungarian culture were made more prominent, while expansive military campaigns as well as the resistance to Habsburg rule prompted the amplification of Asiatic origins (11). Reflections on the Hungarian language itself were characterized by similar divisions ranging from controversies about the question of Finno-Ugric or Turkic origin (and the national prestige these respective pedigrees accrued) to supposed links of the Hungarian language and Hungarian culture to ancient languages and cultures. As Hajdu points out, bizarre theories such as the supposed Parthian or Pelasgian origin of the Hungarians have remained curiously resilient to this day as forms of “alternative scholarship” (34), but by far the most important cultural residue of the sustained inquiry into Hungarian origins was in nineteenth century literature. In one subchapter (“Inventing National Tradition and the Need for a National Epic”) Hajdu provides a fascinating account of the sustained critical and creative attempts to create, or supply, a national epic. The various epic modes range from the hexameters of Mihály Vörösmarty (The Flight of Zalán, 1825) to the more “folkish” attempts of Sándor Petőfi (John the Valiant, 1844) to the oeuvre of János Arany, arguably the richest and most wide-ranging storehouse of nineteenth century narrative poetry comprising classically inspired, folkish, satiric, and mock-epic works.
Chapter 2 (“The Everyday Presence of the Classics”) focuses on references to classical literature, painting, and architecture in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Hungarian novels and the visual arts. In his discussion of narrative fiction Hajdu goes well beyond merely identifying allusions or quotations to uncover Hungarian cultural attitudes to the legacy of the ancient world (often mediated through classical education). For example, the context for Horace references is enriched by reflections on the 1935 celebrations of the anniversary of Horace’s birth to argue for the “existential importance” of the Roman poet in Hungarian national identity (42). Besides instances of “Hungarian Horatianism” (39), Hajdu also considers emblematic scenes of classical education in short stories and novels and the prevalent “cultural memes” (57) of classical quotations. The emerging tableau is characteristically involved: in many of these narratives classics seem to provide a cultural common denominator between the characters as well as between the implied author and the readers, but this shared heritage is seldom based on in-depth or historically accurate knowledge — as Hajdu shows, quotations often tend to be misquotations — and might often reflect dissatisfaction or frustration with the methods of education (51, 57–60). The second part of this chapter deals with late nineteenth-century monumental painting and architecture. The role of classical education is also crucial in these artforms, albeit from different perspectives than in the literature of the period. Although seen by students only on rare occasions, paintings by Károly Lotz and Mór Than on various scenes of classical myth and history were placed in the ceremonial hall of one Hungarian Royal Catholic High School in Pest to connect “the present to the ancient past shared by all Europeans” (70), and in a similar vein, the Memorial Hall of Ferenc Kazinczy, one of the Enlightenment writers and intellectuals was designed by Miklós Ybl to suggest the “European embeddedness of all his activities and achievements” (72). In other projects reflection on the classical heritage was (expectably) less straightforward: the pediment of the classically-inspired façade of the Műcsarnok (Kunsthalle) on Heroes’ Square, for example, features St. Stephen (the first king of Hungary, who converted the country to Christianity) as its central figure (75) and many of the early cinemas bore the name “Apollo” without apparent connection or further reference to the Greek deity — not to mention the hundreds of eclectic-historicist buildings which featured regular references to elements of classical architecture as part of their decorative repertoire. The point is, however, that traces of classical culture were “visible in various areas of Hungarian life” (80), including the most mundane household objects in domestic settings (such as Vénusz vegetable oil, or Vulcan matches, etc.).
Chapter 3 (“Modernist Approaches to the Classics”) treats writers who were active around the turn of the century. After sketching the literary scene among whose unique features were the complicated divide between the népi (rural or folk) vs. urbánus (urban or cosmopolitan) and the cultural prominence of literary magazines such as Nyugat (West), Napkelet (Orient), or Válasz (Response), Hajdu presents a selection of classically-inspired works by the Nyugat writers some of whom have since become well-known and canonical representatives of Hungarian modernism not only in Hungary, but also internationally (e.g. Mihály Babits, Dezső Kosztolányi, or Antal Szerb). Contrary to some of the more peculiar, locally determined aspects of classical reception in Hungary, this chapter provides a wide interface for parallels with Western modernists: one cannot be but reminded of Ezra Pound in reading about Babits’s ventriloquizing of ancient female voices, or of Robert Graves in relation to Kosztolányi’s historical novel about Nero. Another point of contact between Hungarian and Western modes of classicism offers itself in the work of Károly (Karl) Kerényi whose influence is clearly detectable in Antal Szerb’s cult classic Journey by Moonlight. Importantly, it was not only the writers of the Nyugat who engaged creatively with the classical heritage. Reflecting on the works of Cécile Tormay, one of the far-right figures of the interwar period, Hajdu convincingly argues that “the Classics seem to have been almost equally important on both sides of the modernist/conservative divide in interwar Hungary” (119).
Chapter 4 (“Classical Studies during the Communist Period”) takes us to an era that presented equally serious cultural challenges to the study and cultivation of the classics as the authoritarian far-right rule of the interwar and war years. Moreover, as Hajdu argues, some of the conflicts that characterized the roughly four decades of communist rule were inherited from earlier times. Of particular importance is the prewar tension emerging between the scholarship of Gyula Moravcsik and his disciples focusing more on how the classics can contribute to Hungarian studies, and the more internationally-minded leanings of Károly (Karl) Kerényi and his circle. Although after the war the Kerényi school gained some momentum, Moravcsik remained active until the late sixties. Informed by such tensions and beset by ideological demands, the institutional and scholarly background of Hungarian classical studies developed in a rather peculiar way. Accordingly, Hajdu tells a variety of stories ranging from the personal career choices of scholars to the vicissitudes of scholarly journals, each of which illustrates the complexity of the period which “was far from supportive” of classicists, but in which “those who really wanted to work could find or create opportunities for themselves” (144).
The foregoing chapters provide essential background for Hajdu’s discussion of one of the most prominent modes of classical reception, translation (Chapter 5: “On Translation”). Just like in other European cultures, translation from the classics in Hungary has been historically bound up with the development of national literature. Hajdu takes his readers through this rather extensive field along two avenues: he starts the chapter by presenting the widespread practice of translation in education (together with its widespread criticism), then continues to elucidate twentieth-century modes and traditions of literary translation, especially those of the modernists and the postwar generations. The “integrating” tendencies of Mihály Babits (in which the poem is adjusted to “the needs of the target culture” (158) are illustrated by close readings of his renderings of Catullus 7, 87, and 75, whereas Gábor Devecseri’s Homer serves to exemplify results of the “reconstructive” practice of translation (in which the translator strives to recreate “the source text’s poetic, logic, and even linguistic patterns” (158). One of the most intriguing cases is provided by István Borzsák’s translation of Tacitus which not only employs an “artificial language,” but due to its “overwhelming detail” becomes positively “intimidating” to readers who, consequently, might think “it must be only the translator who understands the extremely difficult text” (163).
In the final chapter (Chapter 6: “Contemporary Literature and the Classics”) Hajdu turns to the present in the discussion of a handful of late twentieth- and early twenty-first century prose writers and poets. This short and necessarily selective treatment of contemporary classical influences and inspirations includes reflection on five contemporary (or near-contemporary) lyric poets and an internationally well-known prose writer (Péter Nádas). In lieu of a formal conclusion this chapter serves as an epilogue demonstrating “how deeply rooted the presence of Classical culture is [today…] even if it does not have much to do with canonicity” (165).
Classically-minded Hungarian readers might easily sketch alternative canons and scenarios to those presented in Hajdu’s book. Modern Hungarian Culture and the Classics, however, caters not for the home audience, but rather an international readership interested in the parallels and the contrasts of classical reception with other European literatures and cultures. In that respect, Hajdu does an admirable job of collecting and contextualizing the most salient classically-derived or -inspired aspects of Hungarian culture. His volume provides a sufficiently comprehensive treatment of its subject and can also serve as the introduction to further study.