Toward a New Central Europe

THE PLACE OF EAST CENTRAL EUROPE IN WESTERN CIVILIZATION

EDWARD CHASZAR

THE study of European history, when elevated to a sufficiently high level, demonstrates the unity of European culture, from which the Western or Atlantic Civilization has developed. 1) The history of Europe is one of ideas, and basically, of Christian ideas. In it the nations of East Central Europe have had an uninterrupted, active, and productive participation for ten centuries both in times of their national independence and in times of submergence in one or another of the great empires that have held sway.

The present article will be a brief survey of the interaction of ideas between East Central Europe and the rest of the continent. It will touch on the main currents of European culture, and indicate the major directions along which the people of this particular region have made their lasting contributions to the political, religious, and cultural history of Europe.

Political history: A search for regional unity -

It is mainly on the plane of history that the nations of East Central Europe can be considered as a unit. The same is hardly possible on the social, economic, or geographic level, so diverse were its developments in those fields, so separated and subdivided is the land by geographic features. Yet, when one candidly examines the history of these nations by rising to a level higher than their domestic problems, one can detect a common direction: a continuous effort to achieve some sort of East Central European political unity.

The formula by which this unity was sought has been ever changing, and developing along the requirements of the times. Attempts of expanding dynastic rule by conquest and marriage (Piasts, Premyslides, Matthias Corvinus) alternated with federation-like arrangements, which included the granting of autonomy, equal rights, and privileges to the associated lands, to their Estates and the Church. The state system of Louis the Great of Anjou (1342-1382), bordering on the Adriatic,

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the Black Sea, and the Baltic, and expanding further to the Northeast under his daughter, Hedvig (Jadwiga), commanded general respect and praise in Europe. In a different grouping, the system was revived and continued first by the Luxemburgs, then by the Habsburgs. When, after a long period of adversity, the dynastic arrangements failed to satisfy the peoples concerned, l9th century liberalism produced Kossuth, and later Masaryk in East Central Europe.

Lajos Kossuth, the great liberal statesman and politician, who led Hungary's unsuccessful fight for national independence in 1848~9 against the absolutism of Vienna, foresaw the need of multi-national co-operation and elaborated a plan for a Confederation of the Danubian States, based on self-government. (Forced into exile after the defeat of 1849, which was caused by Russian intervention, Kossuth toured the United States and delivered a brilliant speech to Congress in 1852. With a prophetic vision he outlined the future imperialist expansion of Russia and predicted that 100 years hence the USA would also be threatened by the Russian danger.) Fifty years after Kossuth's proposals, Thomas G. Masaryk, the founder of modern Czechoslovakia, well-known political philosopher and statesman, worked out plans to solve the complicated question of nationalities in the Dual Monarchy. In his work, The Problem of Small Nations in the European Crisis (1915), he advocated a regional solution on the Swiss model. 2)

Parallel with the unceasing, but as yet unsuccessful search for a lasting political unity, the history of East Central Europe reveals a constant struggle against any forceful or oppressive association with the great expansive political systems of both the West and East. Witness the opposition of Bohemia and Hungary to the designs of the Holy Roman Empire; the opposition of Poland, Moldavia, and Hungary to the Mongolian invasions; the struggle of Wallachia, Serbia, Hungary, and Croatia against the Ottoman Turks, and so on through the period of the Habsburg and Tsarist Empires to the totalitarian aggressions of the 20th century.

History of religion: Making a common cause with Europe

The early religious history of East Central Europe reflects the great endeavors of the dissemination and defense of Christian faith. This was the age of universalism in Europe, to which the first contributors were the wise rulers who introduced their peoples to Christianity between the 9th and 11th centuries. Their line opens with St. Vaclav, Duke of Bohemia, continues with St. Stephen of Hungary, his son Emeric, Mieszko I and Boleslaw I of Poland, St. Vladimir, Great Prince of Kiew, and closes with St. Ladislas of Hungary. Conversion made these lands an integral part of European evolution. By the time the Ottoman rule came to the region, its

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cultural development within the European community was already high.

The advanced early constitutional developments, culminating in events like the promulgation of the "Golden Bull" in Hungary (1222), comparable to the Magna Charta, were slowed down more than once by foreign invasions, occupations, and partitions. Yet, the age of the Crusades could still produce Andrew II of the Magyar Arpad House to lead a Crusade to the Holy Land in 1217, and later two Jagiello kings, Wladislas I and Louis II, to die on the battlefield against the Turks. John Hunyadi, Regent of Hungary between 1446 and 1452, earned the name "Defender of Christianity" by inflicting heavy blows upon the same enemy. His brilliant victory at Nandorfehervar (Belgrade), which halted the advance of the Ottoman world for a considerable time, was commemorated by the tolling of bells at noon in the churches of Europe -a custom still observed, although its origin is forgotten. The decline of Islam in Europe was hastened by the decisive military exploits of Poland's last great ruler, Jan Sobieski ( 1674-1696).

The ferment of the age of Reformation and Counter-Reformation was not confined to the field of religion alone. It introduced new political and social doctrines as well, and proved to be extremely fruitful in the development of the native literary languages of the various nations. Previously the Latin language had monopolized literary life.

The first center of activity in this age was Bohemia, where the teachings of Wycliffe found an ardent exponent in the religious reformer Jan Hus, who preceded Luther by a century. An equally well known intellectual figure was Jan Komensky, or Comenius (15991670), the last bishop of the Union of Czech Brethren. A pioneer educational reformer, influenced by the ideas of Francis Bacon, he anticipated the social and educational doctrines of the 19th century. His modern educational methods are explained in his Didactica Magna, translated into many languages. Comenius stated knowledge, piety, and morality to be the threefold aim of education; educational opportunities, he declared, should be open to all according to ability rather than sex, social, or financial status. He also advocated the visual method of instruction and published what was probably the first picture textbook.

In Hungary the famous orations and literary works of the great counter-reformer, Cardinal Peter Pazmany, were disseminated widely both in the Latin and Magyar languages. Meanwhile, in Transylvania Protestant literature blossomed under the rule of the Bocskays, Bethlens, and Rakoczis. Their well-equipped printing presses turned out translations of English and Dutch works as well as treatises written by Hungarian reformers and scholars. Among others James I of England's book of instructions to his son was translated into Hungarian

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and widely read in Transylvania. The introductory poem to the translation was by Albert Szenczi-Molnar, an outstanding figure in Hungarian Calvinist literature.

The period of Enlightenment brought religious tolerance to these lands at the end of the 18th century. Then, in the middle of the l9th century, liberalism worked toward an even greater toleration. By the time of the dissolution of the Dual Monarchy the number of "accepted" or "recognized" religions had risen in the Czech lands to six, in Hungary to eight. This favorable development in the field of religious ideas was the result of a long process that had its origin in the 16th century in Transylvania. There the Diet of 1564 promulgated that for the sake of the country's peace, each town or province was to be given free choice of its own religion. Although this did not signify complete religious liberty or tolerance, it was a more democratic solution than one could find anywhere else in Europe in those days. Following this, the Diet of 1571 recognized four "receptae religiones," accepted religions in Transylvania, these being the Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, and Unitarian. 3)

Arts and Humanities: A cultural give and take

The first great European intellectual movement in which the nations of East Central Europe had full participation was Humanism. The royal courts of Bohemia's Charles IV, Hungary's Louis the Great, Poland's Casimir IV, and many of the major cities became renowned centers of scholarship and art. Cathedrals and castles were built in stately Gothic style. Some of them, like the famous Hradcany castle in Prague, or the Cathedral of Krakow, weathered the troubled ages to follow. Others, like the cathedrals of Pecs and Szekesfehervar in Hungary were destroyed by invaders, who put slender minarets in their place. Naturally, it must not be supposed that Western European styles and fashions reached East Central Europe without any modification. A good example is the so-called "Vistula Gothic" in Poland. This interesting variant of "classic" Gothic introduced the use of walls that could take the functions of the second row of buttresses, thereby eliminating a feature applied by German, French, and English architecture at that time. The Church of the Holy Virgin in Krakow is an outstanding work of art in "Vistula Gothic". In Hungary the churches of Jak and Zsambek, built in the 13th century, likewise reveal certain modifications of the then dominant Romanesque style.

During the humanist period universities were established in Prague (1348), Krakow (1364), and Pecs (1367). These institutions produced and attracted the best scholars, and gradually attained European fame. Kepler, the great German astronomer, studied in Prague (1600) as assistant to the Danish Tycho Brahe, imperial astronomer.

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Their famous predecessor and founder of modern astronomy, Copernicus (1473-1543), was educated at the University of Krakow. The celebrated Polish astronomer, once professor of mathematics at the University of Rome, took 27 years of painstaking work to produce his revolutionary astronomical treatise, De Revolutionibus Orbium Caelestium. Looked upon at first as heretical, the heliocentric theory of Copernicus, expounded the concept of which some faint foreshadowings had been given by Pythagoras, namely that the sun is the center around which the earth and the planets revolve. Upon the foundations laid by Copernicus, other distinguished astronomers, as Kepler and Galileo, built, until the edifice was completed by Newton. The University of Krakow, modeled on the Paris Sorbonne, became an international center for humanism in the 16th century.

Prior to this a similar development had taken place in Hungary during the Renaissance, after King Matthias Corvinus ( 1458-1490) married Beatrice of Arragon. Matthias founded the university in Pozsony (Bratislava), patronized literature and the arts, invited Italian artists and scholars to his country. Bonfini and Galeotti wrote his biography and have left picturesque descriptions of his court life. His royal palace at Buda, built in French flamboyant Gothic style, housed one of the best libraries of his age. Janus Pannonius, a Hungarian humanist, was widely known in this period for his popular classic poetry.

National literatures and men of letters

The 16th century saw a blossoming of literature in Poland. Clemens Janicki was a noted Latin poet and humanist, while in a later generation Matthew Sarbiewski was acclaimed as the "Christian Horace". The greatest poet of Renaissance Poland was Jan Kochanowski (1530-1584). Through a long development of literature in the Polish language (beginning with a Bible translation by the Jesuit Jacob Wujek), the best known men of letters by the l9th century included Adam Mickiewicz, the great romanticist (Pan Tadeusz), and Henryk Sienkiewicz (Quo Vadis?), who became Poland's first Nobel Prize winner. A generation later he was followed by Wladislaw Reymont (The Peasants).

In the beginning of Czech literature in the native language, Jan Blahoslav ( 1523-1571 ), literary critic, musical theoretician, historian, and translator of the New Testament, made great contributions to Czech and European culture. The baroque period, sometimes called the "dark age" of Czech culture, produced the patriotic historian Bohuslav Balbin. The revival of cultural life came at the end of the 18th century. The trend was away from German centralism. Pavel Josef Safarik, philologist-archeologist, and Frantisek Palacky, the historian, were outstanding representatives of this tradition. Palacky

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produced a comprehensive work, the History of Bohemia to 1526. As a scholar and as a leader of the Czech national party he sought the re-establishment of the Czech kingdom which had lost its independence after the Battle of White Mountains (1620). In the period of Romanticism, the poets Karel Erben and Karel Macha, as well as the founder of modern Czech prose, Bozena Nemcova, were the most influential. No Czech writer has ever won such international recognition as the playwright Karel Capek (1890-1938). Strongly influenced by pragmatism, and an admirer of Masaryk's philosophy, Capek was an advocate of reason and a spokesman of the individual against the abuses of collectivism. His contemporary, F. X. Salda, achieved an European reputation as a critic. In Slovakia the linguist Ludovit Stur (1815 -1856) took the first decisive steps toward the establishment of a Slovak literary language. Prose was pioneered by Jan Kalinciak, and by Martin Kukucin, the first important realistic novelist and teacher of later generations of writers. Pavel Orszagh Hviezdoslav (1848-1921), the greatest of Slovak poets, enriched the Slovak cultural horizon also by his excellent translations from European literature. The first significant Iyric poet in the Hungarian language was Balint Balassa (1551-1594). His contemporary, the epic poet Ivan Gundulic of Ragusa, made lasting contributions to the literature of the South Slavs. In the same period the publication of the Nev. Testament in Transylvania marked the beginning of Rumanian literature. Another important work was the translation of the Bible by the Rumanian bishop Michael Tordasi from the Margar version of Gaspar Heltai. The brothers Zrinyi, Croats by origin, attained fame as poets and patriots. The name of Nicholas Zrinyi was well known in Europe. A political leader and military strategist as well, he eulogized, in Hungarian, the heroic death of his ancestor in the fight against the Turks. His brother, Peter, was active in Croatian literature. During the 18th century the Hungarian Matthias Bel (1684-1749), linguist, geographer, and historian, and his contemporary, Dimitri Cantemir in Moldavia, contributed significantly to European historiography. The Protestant Bel was accorded recognition by the emperor, and even by the pope. Cantemir was elected member of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin, founded a few years earlier by Leibnitz.

Well into the 19th century the literary center of the Danubian Basin was Budapest, an international city where people of different nationalities made contacts and influenced each other in their cultural work. Ludovit Gaj, promoter of Croat national renaissance, met here with the great Slovak man of letters, Jan Kollar. Here Safarik's first treatises on Slavic philology were published, and the first Serb literary society was established. Books in Cyrillic script were printed by the University Press for Serbia and Bulgaria. The city was also a center of Rumanian studies, and served as a place of publication for the

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dictionaries and historical works of Samuel Micu, Petru Major, and George Sinkai.

Alexander Petofi (1823-1849), born of Slovak parents and raised in the Hungarian plains, had lifted Hungarian Iyric poetry to heights as yet unattained. His works, and later those of the Montenegrian Petar Petrovic Njegos, the Rumanian playwright Joan Caragiale (Lost Letter), the Hungarian playwright Emeric Madach (The Tragedy of Man), as well as various South Slav epic collections, were widely translated into European languages. At the turn of the century the prolific novelist Maurice Jokai, the poet Endre Ady of the "Westerners," and Dezso Szabo, founder of the modern populist school, stood out in Hungarian literature.

Top honors in natural sciences

A number of travelers and explorers attained fame as a result of their scientific achievements. Laszlo Magyar mapped some of the unexplored regions of Africa. Sir Aurel Stein, of Hungarian descent, was knighted by the King of England for his geographic and archeological explorations of Central Asia. Alexander Csoma de Koros, explorer and philologist, set out to investigate the origin of the Magyars in Asia. While there, he spent four years in a Buddhist monastery studying the language and the Buddhist literature, then compiled the first Tibetan-English dictionary and grammar. His scholarly analyses of Buddhist sacred books are still quoted by orientalists.

The number of East Central European physical scientists who had won international recognition is impressive. The Hungarian mathematicians, Farkas and Janos Bolyai are known for their epochmaking work on non-Euclidean geometry. The physicist Baron Lorand Eotvos invented the torsion pendulum named after him, and used for the detection of coal and oil strata. In 1861, professor Semmelweiss of the University of Budapest made a very important discovery in bacteriology on the danger of septic poisoning of women in childbed. Two generations later Dr. Albert Szentgyorgyi received the Nobel Prize for his research on Vitamin C. Six other Hungarians were accorded the same honor: Philip Lenard ( 1905 ), Robert Barany (1914), Richard Zsigmondy (1925), George Hevesy (1943) then George Bekesy (1961), and Eugene P. Wigner (1963). The scientists Edward Teller, John Neumann, and Prof. Szilard contributed significantly to the advancement of nuclear physics in the United States.

Dr. Carl F. Cori and his wife, recipients of the Nobel Prize in the field of medicine (1947), were born in Czechoslovakia. Jaroslav Heyrovsky of the same country received the 1959 chemistry award. It will also be recalled that Mendel, the founder of the science of genetics. was an abbot of Brno when he carried out his famous experiments

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on the crossing of peas. The renowned physicists Mach, Lecher, and Einstein were all connected with the University of Prague. Poland, as mentioned before, had two literary geniuses worthy of the highest award, but even greater acclaim went to the discoverer of polonium and radium, Marie Sklodowska, known by her married name as Mme. Curie. The Curies were showered with honors by the scientific world for the momentous achievements. The greatest of these honors was the 1903 Nobel prize in physics, which they shared with the French Becquerel. In 1911, Mme Curie was again awarded the Nobel prize, this time in chemistry, for isolating pure metallic radium in one of the most difficult operations known to science.

Musical traditions: Rich and original

In the field of music many of the composers, performers, and conductors who hail from East Central Europe, are known by musicians and audiences the world over. It would be difficult to find an opera house that has not performed the charming comic opera, The Bartered Bride. It was written by Bedrich Smetana, the founder of modern Czech music. The Slavonic Dances of Anton Dvorak took the public by storm. His Fifth Symphony in E minor (The New World) is one of the most popular symphonies in the United States.

Few only know that hidden in the German-sounding names of Franz Liszt and Franz Lehar are two persons who were born in Hungary. Liszt , the great pianist and composer of the 19th century Romanticism, dedicated his popular Hungarian Rhapsodies to his native country. In a much lighter vein, Lehar composed delightful operettas. The melodies of his Merry Widow are still being sung in the remotest corners of the globe. The truly Magyar musical tradition of Hungary is represented by Zoltan Kodaly and Bela Bartok, neither of whom need any introduction. Their unique musical compositions and their wonderful collection of some 30,000 folksongs in the East Central European area remain monuments to their greatness both as composers and folklorists.

The name that represents Poland among the celebrated European composers is that of Chopin, enchanters of generations of music lovers, while Paderewski, the most famous pianist in the world at the turn of the century, leads the scores of performing artists. Today the names of Arthur Rubinstein and Wanda Landowska are no less well known. The Rumanian composer Enesco, the Hungarian pianistcomposer Ernest Dohnanyi and the conductor Eugene Ormandy, as well as John Kubelik and George Szell from Czechoslovakia, Leopold Stokowski from Poland, are only a few more of the outstanding persons who represent today a rich and honored musical tradition in the West.

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Conclusion

Were it possible to enumerate here all the excellent graphic artists whose works had found their way into the best exhibition halls and museums of Europe. Jan Matejko and Mihaly Munkacsi, painters, and Ivan Mestrovic, sculptor, would probably head the list. Developments in the field of fine arts were no exception to those in other areas of human endeavor, and even a brief survey, as the one presented in this article, offers ample proof of East Central Europeís valuable participation in all the great political, religious, intellectual and cultural movements of the West: Humanism, Reformation, Counter-Reformation, Enlightenment, Classicism, Romanticism, as well as the movement of the modern age. The passing of this region behind the "Iron Curtain" has deprived the fertile Western intellectual scene of some of its most productive, colorful and irreplaceable cultural streams. 4) And while the separation of this region from the the rest of Europe in the political and economic realms is likely to persist for some time to come, a dÈtente between West and East, and a possible neutralization of this zone, might restore the cultural give-andtake which had proven beneficial to both in the centuries past.

1) For an exposition of this view see Arnold Toynbee, The Study of History, and John Bowle, The Unity of European History (New York, 1950). Also T.S.Eliot, Notes Toward the Definition of Culture (New York, 1949), especially the Appendix: "The Unity of European Culture."

2) Two scholarly works, dealing with the search for political unity in East Central Europe, are recommended in particular. Oscar Halecki, Borderlands of Western Civilization (New York, 1952), and Francis Dvornik, The Making Central and Eastern Europe (London, 1949). See also Stephen Gal, ed., The Danubian Confederation of Louis Kossuth (Budapest, 1944); Bela T. Kardos "The Federalist Papers of Louis Kossuth", published in this volume.

3) For details see Chapter 7, "Church and State" in Czechoslovakia, edited by V. Busek and N. Spulber (New York, 1957), and chapters 5 and 6 in Dominic G. Kosary, A History of Hungary (Cleveland, 1941).

4) For additional information on the cultural history of East Central Europe, consult the following sources: Bernadette F. Schmitt, ed., Poland (Berkley 1945). Robert J. Kerner, ed., Czechoslovakia (Berkley, 1940) , count Paul Teleki, The Evolution of Hungary and its Place in European History (New York, 1923), Walter Kolarz, Myth and Reality in Eastern Europe (London, 1946), Stojan Pribichevich, World Without End: The Saga of Southeastern Europe (New York, 1939), Julian von Farkas, Sudosteuropa (Gottingen, 1955). The last three works discuss Yugoslavia, Romania and Bulgaria as well. Because of Byzantine influences, the cultural development of the latter three countries has been somewhat different. A survey of their history and an adequate statement of the cultural similarities and differences with the rest of the East Central European region would necessitate a separate article.

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Toward a New Central Europe