Mark Imre Major : American Hungarian Relations 1918-1944

Several Hungarian-born conductors have become household words in the Untited States. The success story of Eugene Ormandy should be compulsory reading for gifted children to show that child prodigies may make good. Ormandy entered the Royal Academy of Music in Budapest at the age of five. He received an artist's diploma for violin when he was fifteen. At the age of seventeen he was appointed professor of the State Conservatory of Budapest, which was no mean achievement in such a highly musical city. He sailed to America in 1921 and obtained the position of concert master of the Capitol Theatre Orchestra, New York. In 1929, he conducted the New York Philharmonic at Lewisohn Stadium. Ormandy was invited to head the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra which became one of the best in the country. From that post he became in 1936 the associate conductor of the Rhiladelphia Symphony Orchestra and traveled with it on transcontinental tours.⁽¹⁷⁾

Budapest-born George Szell began his musical career at the age of eleven. and at eighteen he was already assistant conduc tor of the Royal Opera of Berlin. From that post he was called to the Prague Opera as director and became professor of the Prague Academy of Music. In 1930 he conducted for the first time in America. with the St. Louis Symphony. He then became conductor of the Scottish Orchestra in Glasgow. The outbreak of World War II caused its suspension, and Szell accepted a position as teacher at the opera workshop of the New School for Social Research in New York. He also taught theory at the Mannes School of Music. ⁽¹⁸⁾

Aladar Szendrei (in the United States he changed his name to Alfred Sendrey) conducted opera in Chicago and New York, settling in 1940 in Los Angeles as a music teacher.

Joseph Szigeti. famous violinist, in 1926 made his home in the United States. His tours covered every part of the world. Each year New York heard him in Carnegie Hall and gave him the name of "The Musicians'

Musician". Among those who became famous with their violins only a few can be mentioned here. Edward Kilinyi, Sr., was born in Hungary and studied in Budapest at the Conservatory. In 1908 he settled in the United States, took courses at Columbia University with Rybner and Daniel Gregory Mason. In 1930 he went to Hollywood, where he remained as a film composer and music teacher. He was for five years the teacher of George Gershwin. His son, Edward Kilinyi, Jr., was born in Philadelphia and went to Budapest to study with Dohnanyi at the Conservatory of Budapest. After graduating in 1930, he made a concert tour of Europe, then returned to America where he continued his career as concert pianist.

Hungarian artists who made their names as cellists in the United States were Gabor Rejto, Janos Scholz, and Otto Deri. The best known quartets from Hungary were the Roth Quartet and the Budapest String Quartet. Indeed, with the best opera house, the best symphony orchestras, and the best artists, the United States became the musical center of the world, and Hungary was the birthplace of many great musicians who appeared in America. While these Hungarian artists fitted into the American scheme and followed American taste, the special flavor of the Hungarian cultural background lingered on in America's musical life. After the First World War, painters from Hungary also began to come to the United States. Many of them had a distinguished career in America. Andrew Karoly and Lajos Szanto did their most notable works on large murals. Their best known work is the "Freedom of Speech" mural at Poughkeepsie, New York, depicting the history of the American press. Both of them did etchings and painted portraits. Lajos Jambor was also a muralist, with works in auditoriums and churches of several cities of the United States, particularly Philadelphia and Atlantic City. Frank Imrey painted the mural in Convention Hall, Atlantic City; the cyclorama "Little America" in Syracuse, New York; and murals for the United States War Department. Sandor Vago's "Old Tom", the picture of a Negro, became the best-known painting of the Cleveland Museum

of Art, and Lily Furedi's painting, "The New York Subway", hangs in the White House in Washington. Among the sculptors, Alexander Finta had a name before he came to the United States, having created monuments in Europe and in Brazil. Among his numerous other works are a bronze portrait relief of Michael Kovats, whose name was mentioned above, exhibited in the museum of the New York Historical Society; a marble portrait of St. Stephen, King of Hungary, for the Catholic Church of St. Stephen, New York; and a portrait of Cardinal Patrick Joseph Hayes, exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Paintings and sculptures by contemporary American artists were shown at Budapest during the inter-war period in several American art exhibitions. The Royal Hungarian Ministry of Public Worship and Education and the Hungarian Council of Arts worked always in close collaboration with the American Legation at Budapest in connection with these exhibitions which daily at tracted a large number of visitors. The paintings of a number of prominent American contemporary artists were much admired in Budapest during these years. Hungary had no less success in New York with her art exhibitions, and Hungarian art earned the unstinted prise of the American artistic public.⁽¹⁹⁾

The theater has long been one of Hungary's most favored arts. After World War I, the New York stage was practically swamped by Hungarian plays. Almost any play by a Hungarian writer had a more than fair chance of being performed. The best known among these playwrights was Ferenc Molnar, the most successful author of the sophisticated comedy. He wrote indulgent, polite plays on manners and human frailties. This was not the social criticism of an Ibsen or the social satire of Shaw. But it was first-class theater, and America loved it. Particularly, this country knew his Liliom, a tender tale of crime and punishment, the story of a Budapest thief who wanted to do a good deed for his child and stole a star.

The play was performed in countless variations on stage, screen, and music hall. America was far ahead of the author's own Budapest in its appreciation of Liliom. Molnar seemed to have a magic touch as success followed success, with the presentation of The Guardsman, The Swan, The Wolf, and The Play's the Thing. In New York, Molnar was treated with respect as a benefactor of mankind, a man who made millions laugh.

Hungary has not given many stars to the American stage, no doubt due to language difficulties. Paul Lukas and Lili Darvas, wife of Ferenc Molnar, were among the few Hungarians who had success on the Brodway stage. The dancing Dolly Sisters gained an international trade-mark. Among American theatrical producers of Hungarian origin the names of Martin Beck and All Wood stand out. As a final remark concerning the artistic relations between the two countries, it may be said that the artistic life of Hollywood would have been less colorful without the two Hungarian-born pioneers of the film industry: Adolph Zukor and William Fox.

In Hungary, serious American literature continued to be translated and published up to the very day of German occupation on March 19, 1944. In consequence, the bookshelves of the typical middle and upper class Hungarian family were quite well stocked with American authors. In the 1930's, two Hungarian poets, Michael Babits and Dezso Kosztolanyi, did much towards the propagation of American poetry in Hungary. By their translations, two American poets, Edgar Allan Poe and Walt Whitman, gained great fame in Hungary. Joseph Remenyi, a Hungarian professor at Cleveland University, set himself the task of acquainting Hungarians with the American novel. In his American Decameron, Professor Remenyi endeavored to acquaint the Hungarian public with such American authors as Sherwood Andersen, Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner. Furthermore, Sinclair Lewis, Theodor Dreiser, Pearl S. Buck, Thornton Wilder, Margaret Mitchell, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Washington Irving, Jack London, and, to a lesser degree, Upton Sinclair attained the greatest popularity in Hungarian

literary circles. Their works, like Anderson's Dark Laughter, Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms, and many others, were translated into Hungarian soon after their English publication and were read by sophisticated Hungarians. Perhaps every Hungarian junior high and high-school student read Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Life on the Mississippi. With his The Innocents Abroad, Twain probably influenced such great Hungarian novelists as Geza Gardonyi and Kalman Mikszath.

Professor Remenyi also made an attempt to introduce America's scholars to some of Hungary's most influential writers, es pecially Endre Ady who is considered Hungary's greatest poet in the twentieth ccntury. He also tried to create a Hungarian-American literature. He published a collection of stories dealing with the life of the Hungarian immigrant in the United States. His best known work Emberek ne Sirjatok (Thou Shalt Not Cry) had four editions, his Elni Kell (You Must Live) two.

Ferenc Molnar, the playwright mentioned before, was many-talented. He also wrote novels and several of them were translated into English, such as The Prisoners, Eva and the Derelict Boat, and above all The Boys of Paul Street, a story that made many eyes grow misty all over, the world.

Another Hungarian author with an international reputation was Rene Fulop-Miller. After a journalistic career in Berlin, Paris, and Vienna, he settled down to write a large number of noted books in English, such as The Mind and Face of Bolshevism, Lenin and Ghandi, Rasputin the Holy Devil, and Leaders, Dreamers and Rebels. The last is an account of the great mass movements of history and the dreams that inspired them.

Pal Kelemen, a Hungarian historian, became a leading authority on the pre-Columbian art and civilization of America. His two volume Medieval American Art was a pioneering venture. In this study Kelemen covered the Maya, Aztec, and Inca arts, approaching his subject from the point of view of art history, combining it with the study of archeology, anthropology, and ethnology.

He also wrote Battlefield of the Gods, devoted to Yucatan and Aztec history, art, and exploration.

International law also found a prominent Hungarian in Francis Deak, author of numerous important works in the field, inciuding one about Turkey and the Straits question. His other publication Hungary at the Paris Peace Conference is one of the best works in this field.

The most influential Hungarian historian in the United States between the two World Wars was Dr. Oscar Jaszi, Minister of Nationalities in the Karolyi government. Jaszi, as was mentioned be fore, went into exile after the downfall of the Karolyi regime and was preceded by his high reputation in scholarly circles in the United States. He became professor of political science at Oberlin College in 1925 and taught there for seventeen years. His two standard books, The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy and Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Hungary, reached several publications and influenced American scholarly circles - an influence by no means favorable to the Habsburgs or to postwar Hungary.⁽²⁰⁾

The name of Charles Feleky deserves a special notice in any discussion of American-Hungarian cultural relations. As a Hungarian immigrant in New York, he devoted much of his time to building up a unique library of Hungariana, English-language books about Hungary. He collected books written by Hungarians or by foreigners on Hungary, as well as rare documents by great Hungarians. Between the two World Wars the Hungarian government used the Feleky library as the nucleus of its information service in the United States. Mainly from these collections, the Hungarian Reference Library was established at 19 West 44th Street, New York, on April 20, 1938. The library was under the supervision of the Royal Hungarian Ministry of Public Worship and Education. ⁽²¹⁾ After World War II, the Hungarian Reference Library was

placed under the supervision of Columbia University and is still one of the best libraries for research on Hungary.

Contemporary Hungary has produced some of the great scientists of the age, and the United States has absorbed many of them. In the life stories of several great Hungarian scientists there is a pattern. They were born in Hungary and had their technical education there - Hungarian technical education was good. In many cases they could not find the right occupation in postwar Hungary and were forced to leave their native country, going to the West. Many went to Weimar Germany, which was extremely hospitable to scientific talent. Many of these stayed in Germany until Hitler took power. Then a great number came to the United States.

Among American scientists of Hungarian origin, one of the greatest names was Theodor von Karman. He matriculated at the Royal Hungarian Technical University at Budapest at the turn of the century. He was a very young man when his own alma mater gave him an appointment as an instructor and one of Hungary's largest industrial establishments, the Ganz Machine Manufacturing Company, employed him as a research engineer. During World War I, Karman became head of the research department of the Austro-Hungarian Aviation Corps. He held this position until the end of the war. In l930, he came over to America, settled in Pasadena, California, and became director of the Daniel Guggenheim Graduate School of Aeronautics at the California Institute of Technology. Theodor von Karman wrote a two-volume book in general aerodynamic theory and a standard work on methematical method in engineering. He had more than sixty important publications. They included papers on applied mathematics, physics, strength of materials, stress analysis, theory of elasticity and vibrations, the mechanics of compressible and viscous fluids, turbulence, aerodynamic of aircraft, hydro-dynamics of planing surfaces, and heat transfer.⁽²²⁾ Karman became a major general of

the United States Air Force, a distinction no other contemporary Hungarian-born citizen of America shared.

In another field of science, psychiatrist and phychologist Ferenc Alexander gained a large measure of public recognition. During World War I he was in charge of an Austro-Hungarian bacteriological field laboratory and malaria prophylaxis station on the Italian front. He was one of the young Hungarians fascinated by the teachings of Sigmund Freud. Alexander was especially in terested in the connection of mental and brain processes, and in 1921 he received the Freud Award of the International Psychoanalytic Association for the best research work in the field. In l930 he was invited to the University of Chicago as a visiting professor. The following year the Judge Baker Foundation at Boston invited him to undertake a research project in criminal psychology His book Roots of Crime was the result of his work.⁽²³⁾

Among the small group of atomic scientists in the United States one can find three Hungarians: Eugene P. Wigner, professor of physics at Princeton University; Edward Teller, professor at the University of Chicago; and Leo Szilard, professor at Columbia University. The application of atomic energy to explosives was introduced to the United States by Hungarian-born scientists, as the official record of atomic energy for military purposes clearly shows. Dr. Leo Szilard was the first to think of the application of the atom to bombs.⁽²⁴⁾

Hungarian scientists, attracted to the United States, played a part out of all proportion to the size of their native country. Here we have mentioned only a few of the great. Among the smaller nations, Hungary ranks with Austria, Sweden, and Switzerland as having made the largest contributions to American science. Sixty Hungarian professors taught in American colleges just prior

to the Second World War.⁽²⁵⁾ Furthermore, the fellowships of the Rockefeller Institute enabled a great number of Hungarian students to gain expert knowledge in their own special branches of study in American laboratories. No less valuable for Hungary was the Jeremiah Smith Foundation, formed out of the honorarium offered to Jeremiah Smith by the Hungarian Government for the financial supervision imposed by the League of nations. For two years, Jeremiah Smith, a distinguished Boston lawyer, served as Commissioner General of Hungary and he performed the job to the satisfaction of all concerned. His character was well illustrated by his refusal to accept the 100,000 dollars which represented his two years' salary. The Hungarian Government then devoted the sum to the establishment of a scholarship fund to enable two Hungarian technical students each year to study in America. "The only compensation I desire for my work", Jeremiah Smith said, "is the appreciation and friendship of the Hungarian people".⁽²⁶⁾ And this he had in large measure.

I he average man both in Hungary and in the United States heard about each other's life from the press. The permanent political topics covered by the American press on Hungary were: the stability of the Hungarian government; the Treaty of Trianon; the possibility of a Habsburg restoration; the relations between Hungary and the Little Entente; political matters concerning Hungary, Austria, Italy, and Germany. Concerning the stability of the government, the American press was impressed in general by the fact that in spite of several years of severe depression, during which Hungary was struggling for her economic existence, there was a stable government and an absence of unrest.⁽²⁷⁾ A journalist needed to be in Hungary but a few hours to realize that the whole nation was in mourning for its lost territories.

This being so, it was easy to understand that Hungary instinctively drew close to those who symphathized with her in her plight and held aloof from those who did not. For those neighboring countries which were given Hungarian territories after World War I (Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Rumania), there was openly manifested bitterness.

After the revision of the Treaty of Trianon came the question of the restoration of a monarch. This question was not active in the 1930's. At that time, the main problem was Germany, for what happened in Germany was a matter of great importance to Hungary and the other Danubian States.⁽²⁸⁾

Besides political events, the American press reported every important cultural, social, and economic fact concerning Hungary. The cultural and scientffic successes of the Hungarians in America also had colorful coverage in the press.

Accusations of feudalism in Hungary, however, often arose in the American newspapers. Stories about feudal Hungary were planted incessantly in the American press after World War I, probably by the Little Entente States, in order to calm America's conscience, which was a little troubled by the fact that in the name of national self-determination more than three million Hungarians had been put under foreign rule. The authors of these articles, in all probability, had never set foot on Hungarians soil. The Hungarian government protested against these news reports each time they appeared. In answer, the American ministers at Budapest pointed out that the press was not the business of the government in the United States. They tried to assure the Hungarians that the freedom of the press did not at all mean that American public opinion agreed with tendentious reports on Hungary.⁽²⁹⁾

Those American reporters who visited Hungary usually wrote in a different tone about Hungarian social conditions. They observed that industrial labor was organized in Hungary preceding

World War I and had obtained there in the 1930's a similar status to that of American labor gained through the New Deal.⁽³⁰³⁰) While industrial labor enjoyed in Hungary all the social security which a poor country could afford to provide, the situation was different with agricultural labor. Real poverty could be observed among agricultural labor mainly because there were not enough jobs for them. In general Hungary impressed the reporters with the fine character of its people. The man in public lite were impressive in their personalities, strength, and democratic outlook. Usually they resented the appellation of "democracy" as they associated it with "strikes, bomb outrages, and demagogues", but they were distinctly liberal and democratic in their outlook and aspirations.⁽³¹⁾

Hungarians were always interested in news from America. The volume of American news published in the Hungarian press increased during the 1930's. The beginning of the increase of the American news material in the Hungarian press coincided with the beginning of the economic crisis. Aware of the intra-dependence of national economics and greatly interested in welfare and employment problems, the Hungarian press avidly watched American production in general as well as developments in social welfare and employment.

The Hungarian press was greatly interested in the New Deal. It carefully registered, generally without comment, all measures and events of importance of the Roosevelt administration, especially those which might have an effect on financial and other world markets. The Hungarian press likewise registered, without com ment, opposition to the Roosevelt administration. It did not take sides with or against the American government. It did not express views of its own. It reported whether the government had succeeded or failed and described the activities of the various elements which were in opposition to the government.⁽³²⁾

President Franklin D. Roosevelt was of special interest to the Hungarian press, not only because of his position but also from the human point of view. His infirmity, combined with his courage and cheerfuiness, were impressed on the Hungarian public in non-political articles. Human interest articles also made Mrs. Roosevelt better known in Hungary than were most of her predecessors. The Hungarian press kept fairly well informed regarding all things which the President and Mrs. Roosevelt did or said.⁽³³⁾

The concrete political events given considerable publicity by the Hungarian press were the 1932 Presidential election, the "Brain Trust", Dollar depreciation, Budgets, New Deal laws and decrees, Court decisions against the New Deal, Huey Long's and Father Coughlin's political activities. As regards the "Share-Our-Wealth Society" of Huey P. Long, United States Senator from Louisiana, and the "Social Justice Movement" of Father Charles E. Coughlin, Royal Oak, Michigan, the Hungarian press took over some American press comments criticizing or making fun of the persons involved. With regard to the rest of the subjects, the Hungarian press showed its customary interest combined with impartiality. ⁽³⁴⁾

The permanent non-political topics covered by the Hungarian press included sports, aviation, inventions, science, literature, art and philosophy. Charles A. Lindbergh, the youthful aviator, was the American about whom the Hungarian press wrote more than about any of his compatriots. Apart from the news material connected with his child's murder, the Hungarian press watched with attention his flights, his activity as an expert, his marriage and private life, and his scientific experiments. As far as philosophy is concerned, the less serious-minded Hungarian papers occasionally had a laugh at the expense of the new American religions and their followers.

Film news was the type most often met in the Hungarian press. Apart from natural interest in the accomplishment of the American film production, the Hungarian theatres which showed American films included interesting news items which served as advertisements, such as Hollywood scandal stories and news verging on the grotesque.

The Hungarian press showed the natural human interest toward occurrences in which loss of life was involved. Nevertheless. floods of the Mississippi claimed more interest than those of China or India, and the coverage was proportionately larger. Weather in general, however, was of great interest inasmuch as Hungary was an agricultural country. The Hungarian press watched the wheat crop figures of the United States on account of their effect on the international wheat market and also reported on the maize and cotton crops.

The Hungarian press very readily reported success of Hungarians in America, such as appointments and tours of musicians, lecturers. and artists. It kept track of anything interesting happening to, or among, Hungarians living in America. Statements and articles on Hungary or Hungarian affairs formed an essential part of the American news material in the Hungarian press. If they favored Hungary's case for revision, the Hungarian press gave them the widest possible publicity. Realizing the seriousness of the case, the Hungarian press generally refrained from expressing any view regarding the Negro problem. Nevertheless, one might read between the lines that the Hungarian press was sympathetic to the Negroes. The Hungarian press was also interested in strike movements or social disturbances in the United States, not because of the subject itself but be cause of the dimensions they usually assumed. Thus the veterans' marches, the farmers' strikes, and the San Francisco strike of 1934 were given considerable publicity. Gangster warfare during the period of Prohibition was a favorite topic of the lower-grade press. Serious papers limited themselves to the recording of events with a positive news value, such as cases where many or well

known persons were killed, large consignments were confiscated. and large robberies took place.

During World War II, Hungary was the only country in south eastern Europe which permitted its newspapers to publish news from neutral and Allied sources. Until the Nazis occupied Hungary on March 19, 1944, some Hungarian newspapers published at least as many items coming from neutral, British, or American sources as from German sources, and often Allied news received better play than German items. The writer saw Budapest newspapers during World War II with full texts of speeches of President Roosevelt, Vice-President Henry A. Wallace, and Wendell Willkie, Republican nominee for President in 1940. Hungaran publishers, as we have seen before, were permitted to publish translations of current American books, which were sold openly in Budapest book stores during the years of the war. This fact was a political paradox. But it reveals that in spite of political hostilities, cultural relations did not come to an end between the two nations.

17 Hope Stoddar, Simphony Conductors of the United States of America (New York: n p., 1957), pp.147 - 59

18 Ibid., pp. 236-43

19 U. S., Department ot State, 864.00 P.R./26.

20 For full details on Hungarian literature in the United States. see Leslie Konnyu, A History ot American Hungarian Literature.

21 U. S., Department of State, 864.01 B 11/14

22 See Theodor von Karman's Anniversary Volume (New York - Clark B Millikan for friends of Theodor von Karman, 1941).

23 Lengyel, Americans from Hungary, p. 243.

24 For details see Henry De Wolf Smyth, Atomic Energy for Military Purposes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1945).

25 For details see Maurice R. Davie. American Men of Science (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1947).

26 T. J. C. Martyn in the New York Times Magazine, July 11, 1926.

27 U. S., Department of State, 864.00/806.

28 Ibid.

29 Ibid.

30 Montgomery, Hungary, the Unwilling Satellite, p. 26.

31 U.S., Department of State, 664.00/873.

32 Ibid., 864.911/16.

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid.

Mark Imre Major : American Hungarian Relations 1918-1944