Tibor Frank
Friend or Foe?
The Changing Image of Hungary in the United
States
[...]
Before 1848 they took scant notice of Hungary in the then youthful United
States. "The name of our country is rarely mentioned in journals abroad",
Sándor Bölöni Farkas complained in 1834 on the closing
pages of his Útazás Észak Amerikában (Journey
in North America),
[...]
Things really got underway with the close but cautious attention paid
to the 1848-49 Revolution and War of Inde pendence. It was at that time
that Hungary emerged as a reality--no longer simply an exotic curiosity--in
the United States. The U.S. Minister in Vienna would have liked to have
acted as an intermediary in producing an armistice between Austria and
Hungary in the winter of 1848-49, but Secretary of State James Buchanan--the
future Pres ident--warned against any step that could lead to a confrontation
with the European Powers. Yet, as the fighting continued, meetings expressing
sympathy with the Hungarian cause grew in number, and press reports became
more extensive. A campaign within the small but--by the sum mer of 1849--enthusiastic
Hungarian co lony led by Professor Leopold Breisach, himself of Hungarian
origin, also had its effects.
[...]
On June 18th 1849, A. Dudley Mann was appointed U.S. Minister to Hungary,
evidence of a recognition that came too late, and the appointment of a
Hungarian Minister in Washington was definitely mooted. In 1850, in the
aftermath of the surrender at Világos (Siria), American legislators
attacked the administration for providing insufficient assistance to the
Hungarians and for not recognizing Hun garian independence in due time.
Senator Lewis Cass and his friends argued outright that the delaying tactics
of the American administration had played a part in the Hungarian collapse,
and that the absence of determined support for the Hungarian cause was
contrary to the essence and
political philosophy of the United States.
[...]
Kossuth received recognition pars pro toto in place of Hungary. Neither
before nor afterwards was any public figure so completely identified with
his country as Kossuth was in the United States in the six months he spent
there. I think it is no exaggeration to say that Kossuth placed Hungary
on the political map of the modern world, in particular, of its American
version. When the President of the United States, empowered by Congress,
despatched the U.S.S. Mississippi to the Dardanelles with the commission
of transporting the "nation's guest" from his Otto man detention
to the New World, showing him every sign of courtesy, what indeed happened
was that a nation that had fought for its freedom found itself lit up by
American floodlights. I would venture to state that no Hungarian has ever
been accorded such publicity, such celebration, or comparable respect,
and that goes not only for the U.S. This non-pareil reception anointed
Kossuth as the symbol of the Hungarian nation fighting for its liberties
and independence, indeed as the symbol of liberty and independence itself.
"... that we recognize in Governor Kossuth of Hungary the most worthy
and distinguished representative of the cause of civil and religious liberty
on the continent", declared a meeting held in Springfield, Ill., in
a resolution that may well have been drafted by Abraham Lincoln in person.
"A cause for which he and his nation struggled until they were overwhelmed
by the armed intervention of a foreign despot, in violation of the more
sacred principles of the laws of nature and of nations--principles held
dear by friends of freedom everywhere, and more especially by the people
of these United States."
[...]
An odd feature of the image of Hungary in America--not the only one--is
the basically unfriendly reception given in Ame rica--even in Kossuth's
lifetime--to Hun garian immigrants or, rather, migrant workers. America
did not trust and in the last resort rejected the new immigrants from Czarist
Russia, Central, East Central and Southern Europe, including those from
Hungary.
[...]
The fight against the "lesser breeds" came in many shapes
and sizes. A bill to apply literacy tests to would be migrants should be
mentioned. This was only enacted weeks before the U.S. entered the War
in 1917, in the midst of xenophobic hysteria, Congress finally overruling
a third presidential veto, but the Act proved an overture to the 1921 and
1924 quota legislation which, in the name of the protection of the race,
in practice put a stop to "new" (including Hungarian) migration.
[...]
A Congressional Immigration Commit tee operated between 1907 and 1911
under the chairmanship of Senator William P. Dillingham. The 42 volume
Dillingham Report, which it produced, was probably the largest social science
research project in the history of the United States. One of its most interesting
volumes was the work of Franz Boas, the German-American anthropologist.
He examined around 18,000 "new" immigrants, including several
hundred Hungarians and Slovaks, and concluded on the basis of their anthropometric
data, that these, within a single generation, shifted in the direction
of a new "race" that bore an American character. This astonishing
result, controversial for many decades albeit repeatedly confirmed by independent
data, pointed out to Con gress and the Administration that there was no
reason to fear the "new" migrants, including the Hungarians.
After landing, the new hygienic, dietary and housing conditions, the changed
natural and social climate, and democratic politics, transformed even the
skeletons of migrants.
[...]
What was responsible for the extreme deterioration of Hungary's image
entertained in America were not the numerous and basically sceptic research
projects of the American administration but the Great War. At first, President
Wilson felt more lenient towards the Austro-Hun garian Monarchy, holding
Germany solely responsible for the war. Austro-Hungarians in America, unlike
Germans, were given the chance to express their loyalty and to continue
with naturalization procedures. Al though diplomatic relations were broken
off on April 18, 1917, Austria-Hungary only declared war on December 11.
The delay was fully exploited by Slavs of various kinds who had migrated
from Austro-Hungary and who tried to persuade the American administration
of the desirability of carving up the Monarchy.
[...]
If we accept Wittke's view that "Czecho slovakia was 'made in America'",
we could also go on and maintain that Admiral Horthy's Kingdom of Hungary
was conceived and kept alive to just about its demise with American help.
The new strongman of Hungary was placed in the saddle with the help of
peculiarly American means, and America supported him practically to the
end.
The reason for the support given to Horthy in 1919-1920 was given by
his opposition to a Habsburg restoration. That is what General Harry Hill
Bandholtz stress ed in his six months in Hungary. Band holtz, the American
representative on the Inter-Allied Military Mission took an increasingly
favourable view of Horthy and his forces and informed his H.Q. in Paris
accordingly.
[...]
The longest serving (1933-1941) American Minister to Hungary prior to
the Second World War, John F. Montgomery, was second to none of his predecessors
in his glorification of Horthy. He did more than his share to ensure Horthy's
high standing in America and his popularization by the American press,
not to mention the establishment of a personal relationship between Horthy
and President Roosevelt. A collection of his posthumous papers and his
1947 Hungary--the Unwilling Satellite, however, shows that he did his best
to present Hungary in a more favourable light in his book, despite his
having been less than impressed when en poste in Budapest.
{ ...]
The image of Hungarians in Hungary and Hungarian Americans began to
differ greatly. Around this time Americans began to think of Hungarians
as extraordinarily talented, with unique minds, who always fell on their
feet. It was often said that Hungarians entered a revolving door behind
you and left it ahead. This was when the Hungarians in Holly wood legend
started, the age of Michael Curtis, Alexander Korda, Béla Lugosi,
Lyadi Putti, Miklós Rózsa, Szõke Szakáll, to
mention but a few. The mathematicians, physicists and chemists, whose genius
so impressed the world, and who were described as Martians by their colleagues,
such as John von Neumann, Leo Szilárd, Edward Teller, Theodore Kármán,
Eugene Wigner and others, appeared later, at the time of the Second World
War.
[...]
In 1956 Hungarians once again appeared as brave and freedom loving.
James A. Michener's The Bridge at Andau, a novel about 1956, with the support
of the American press, created a long lasting image of a Hungary as the
victim of Communism, raising the country and the people on a moral pedestal.
In 1958, Kossuth's portrait appeared on an Ame rican stamp, in the Champions
of Liberty series, thus creating a link between the ideals,
heroes and victims of 1848-49 and 1956.
Tibor Frank
is Professor of History and Director of the School of English
and American Studies, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest
