Public life and literary life

The more than four decades of communist dictatorship are now behind us in the historical sense, but still very much alive in the mind and reflexes of Hungarians. The last decade of the regime was marked, among other things, by the struggles to liberate literature and the intellect. In the absence of public outlets for a democratic opposition, writers had to articulate the mood and endeavours of the country, providing regular warnings to the powers-that-be of the discrepancies between the interests of the overwhelming majority and of the small group that held the political reins.
Historically, the long-fought struggle of the tiny opposition to the regime was successful and, combined with the economic pressures and the developments in global politics, brought forth momentous political changes, which were then sanctioned by the United States and the Soviet Union or, more precisely, by Presidents Bush and Gorbachev in the Malta agreement. Literature and culture have regained their autonomy, and matters of creative work and literary life could henceforth be decided on without constraints.
This recapturing of autonomy at the same time has again brought up traditional questions or dilemmas in a powerful way. Does literature, under the new circumstances, still belong in part to the political sphere or is it solely art? Is there a passage, as it were, between the two spheres? Or, to put it in a different way, should writers undertake tasks in politics and political journalism, or should they restrict themselves to writing? The very posing of these questions creates a situation of uncertainty for many, as earlier, in the decades of dictatorship, literary life had quite naturally undertaken to represent and assert national and social interests —political tasks par excellence.
This issue has been almost like a leitmotif, so it is by no means a new one. Literature in Hungary, just as elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe, has almost always been compelled to take sides and provide answers to the fundamental issues facing the nation. This it did in a way that extended beyond the competence of art, which creates moral and aesthetic values, to the political arena, where literature often acted as a spokesman of the common will of society or of the nation, and also as a guide and a representative of the historical interests of Hungarians. Alongside public role-playing, however, the claim has also been articulated that instead of being tribunes of the people, seers or fighters on the barricades, writers should engage themselves in creating valid moral and aesthetic values, because, more than through any political stance or roles, such values can protect the morale of the nation and its spiritual identity with greater efficiency.
I have no intention to intensify the polemics and conflicts between "political" literature and "value-creating" literature, for I believe that no such conflicts exist in reality. I merely wish to point out that there are polemics and conflicts going on currently—at least this is what can be gathered from the clashes between various literary groupings. There are many who have happily withdrawn into creative work, and there are political forces, both on the socialist-liberal or just liberal and on the conservative-national side, who want to steer representatives of literature away from the political decision-making mechanisms and from the means by which public opinion is influenced. Controversy around the public role-taking of literature is in any case strongly affected by the fact that from the late 1980s onwards, political culture in Hungary, suppressed for long decades, started to develop at an unprecedented pace, thereby relieving literature of the burden of a direct political role.
Under the current circumstances, the political role-taking of the writer has become virtually redundant. After all, if Parliament operates according to the principles of the rule of law and political pluralism, even if at times imperfectly, there is no need any more for the general meetings or the board meetings of the Writers' Association to act as a quasi-Parliament and undertake to represent and articulate the interests of society. Actors on the literary scene are themselves generally convinced that literature should withdraw into the well deserved silence of creative life and allow professional politicians to deal with public matters. A few writers did, however, undertake roles in Parliament, in Government or in the leadership of a party, and insisting on maintaining their earlier markedly political roles. They have turned politician, and in carrying their public functions they seem to have abandoned the tolerance and openness, as well as the considerate and complex style, that is expected from men of letters.

Liberty and poverty

The position of literature has changed: on the one hand, the sense of importance rooted in its responsibility for public and national issues, which Hungarian literature traditionally undertook, especially in crucial historical situations, e.g., before and during the 1956 Revolution or in the opposition movements in the 1980s, has been shattered. On the other hand, the social status of Hungarian literature has changed, and this has also entailed the impoverishment of literary institutions and a perceivable loss of the prestige accorded to writers and their creative work.
During the communist regime, literature was undoubtedly under the control of politics. Taboos had to be respected—not only ideological but also stylistic taboos. The appreciation and at times even the publication of a literary work depended on the judgment of "those up there", people sitting in the ante-chambers and secret nooks of cultural policy-making, in the central bodies of the party or, for many decades, on the maker of "cultural policy" György Aczél and his entourage.
At the same time, literature too had a degree of control over politics. According to the ruling ideology, the arts, above all writing, had a primary role in the transformation of social awareness and, more indirectly, of society. Thus literature and literary life had at least as much strategic importance as was accorded to an industry of medium importance, such as technological innovation or tourism. A politician had to think twice before quarreling with an esteemed man of letters, like Gyula Illyés or László Németh, or with the Writers' Association. (One has to add that, while it had considerable social and political weight, the Hungarian Writers' Association played a role different from that of its counterpart organization in the Soviet Union. In Hungary, membership did not entail any privileges, nor was publication a necessary condition, and several Hungarian writers did not think it important to register.) This was true of the political consolidation that took place from the mid-60s on. In the repercussions following the 1956 Revolution, the Communist authorities locked up those writers who had voiced their commitment to the nation's fight for freedom—mostly communist "renegades"—without batting an eyelid, and simply banned the Writers' Association. In the last twenty years of the Kádár regime, however, no stand against literature could be taken unless for a momentous political reason or under a resolution brought by leading party organs. Literature was handled by agents in the political arena with a "double conscience" as it were: they distrusted its representatives on the one hand, and on the other, sometimes wooed them, recalling the events of 1956.
Thus a strange situation evolved, paradoxical and ludicrous, namely that the politically mighty did not cease to watch, control and denigrate the workings of literature as an intellectual and political institution; at the same time, they respected it, at times looking at it in awe, and political potentates like György Aczél himself, tried to win the goodwill of leading literary lights with smaller or greater favours and services, such as a council flat lease, preferential car purchases, passports, scholarships, awards, publication of collected works, cancellations of police or court sanctions, etc. The "oral history" of the past decades has a wealth of amusing as well as thought-provoking examples of this.
Literature today is free from the constraints and pressures of censorship, and it has lost its special status. As is evident in any post-socialist country in Central and Eastern Europe, the advent of freedom of creation and publicity goes hand in hand with the financial instability of literature's institutional structures. The livelihood of writers, the publication of books, reviews and periodicals, all heavily supported by the state previously, and the maintenance of the social and professional institutions of literary life, were all threatened by a serious financial crisis. With the exception of established and best-selling authors, writers are often virtually or actually not paid at all by their publishers—they are given copies instead. Despite the launch by the dozens of new reviews and publishing firms, their continuity is inordinately difficult to maintain and at times seems a hopeless struggle. The end to censorship and the restitution of literary freedom on the one hand, and the crisis of the institutional system of literature on the other, contribute towards the inner uncertainties and disfunctioning of writers and literary life.
Today the state plays the role of a patron only sporadically, and civil society, the middle classes and the nouveaux riches are neither ready nor willing yet to support writers. Most new capitalists and the banks or companies they control do not as yet undertake any considerable financial responsibility in supporting institutions that create cultural values, such as literary reviews or scientific and scholarly papers, publishers, theatres or orchestras; their preference lies in financing car races and sports clubs, though instances of cultural sponsorship seem to have increased lately. Behind a spectacular expansion of the institutional system of literature lie tensions and problems that will not be easy to resolve. Never before have as many literary reviews been published in Hungary as today (though in the late 1930s there were dozens of periodicals competing to win readers' favours), but with a few exceptions they are all tottering on the brink of demise and are in serious need of support.
The same applies to publishers. The number of books that appear is high, with a good many valuable works among them. The flood of trash and pornography following the demise of censorship has abated. Publication is usually focussed around three major events, the annual spring book festival, National Book Week in June, and the Christmas book fair. This means that books published to coincide with these occasions face strong competition. Publishers—of whom there are now several hundred—and the authors themselves are subject to the whims of committees and boards and that is something new to them. Few financial institutions or economic entities are willing to support book publishing. The state-financed National Cultural Fund, together with the Hungarian Book Foundation and a few private foundations, provide most of the support publishers can obtain, and this comes through a book-by-book application process on a preferential basis. The Soros Foundation, an ample source of aid, has been reducing its activities in this particular field to devote attention to other needs. The greatest problem facing literature, however, lies in the drained purchasing power of the staunchest consumers in the cultural market, the intelligentsia and the middle-class in general. Valuable literature has more or less lost the market security it had enjoyed. Earlier, an average book of poetry appeared—as was so often mentioned throughout Europe with pride or envy—in an edition of three to four thousand copies, a novel in one of eight to ten thousand copies in this small country of ten million. Erzsébet Galgóczi's novel Vidravas, for instance, in which the terror of Stalinist dictatorship is exposed, sold 180,000 copies in two editions at the time. Today, a volume of poetry attracts four to five hundred buyers, a novel ten to fifteen hundred, and book prices are exorbitant—and still too low, publishers complain.
It was clear, or was beginning to be clear in the last few years, that views proclaiming the radical refusal of the public role of literature, of culture in general, are a bit too premature. We may not as yet have reached the state when writers can confidently withdraw to their studies and concentrate solely on creative work. Hungarian public life in the last eight years has produced several events and features which writers could not overlook, urged as they are by centuries-old traditions of Hungarian literature. Animosity has infected politics; ideological and political extremism has showed its face; and there are political forces intent on manipulating public opinion—all these invite treatment, judgement, and, if necessary, challenge by the men of intellect. But public role-taking by the writer, naturally, is—as it has always been—a matter of individual choice.

Changes in the status of literature

It follows from the above that the social status and prestige of literature, its position in public life, has been impaired—the informal mandate literature has traditionally fulfilled in society has weakened. The reasons are many. The new economic and political elites that have surfaced after 1989 do not accord literature, the arts, and in general cultural values, as much importance as their predecessors had earlier, which included incidentally not only party functionaries in the single-party state but also leading intellectuals. Some of the new political elite are irritated by literature, as it cannot be made to directly serve power purposes. The mind set and cultural interests of the (upper) middle classes that are emerging with great difficulty, seem to be taking shape not quite according to the model Max Weber outlined.
Meanwhile, a powerful shift of generation has taken place, accompanied by a change in attitudes. From the late 1920s onwards, the same system of paradigms enjoyed acceptance and was followed by three groups—the circle around the leading literary review Nyugat (1908–41), who were committed to liberalism and the ideals of literary modernity, the popular movement, which articulated agrarian democratic interests, both on the left and the right, and leftist radicalism. The rules in this system of paradigms were based on the conviction that literature should represent and assert values that were in actual fact independent of it. These values could originate in the representation and service of the nation, but also the commitment to a broader, European culture and cultural community or to the cause of social progress.
This literary paradigm prevailed and involved creative personalities who were as different as Lajos Kassák, Milán Füst, Gyula Illyés, László Németh, Loýrinc Szabó, Tibor Déry, Áron Tamási, István Vas, Sándor Weöres, János Pilinszky, Ágnes Nemes Nagy, István Örkény, Iván Mándy and László Nagy. With their departure, and the arrival of new generations, the full results being evident by 1980, the "personal make-up" of literature has changed to a considerable extent. The main body of the literary army is now constituted by Ottó Orbán, Dezsoý Tandori, Ádám Bodor, István Ágh, György Petri, György Spiró, Péter Esterházy, Péter Nádas, Sándor Tar, Mihály Kornis, and Zsuzsa Rakovszky. The mode of existence, the attitudes, one may say mentality, of literature has undergone a transformation—an important grouping of contemporary writers are thinking, in Esterházy's oft-quoted sacrastic metaphor, no longer in terms of "the nation and the people" but of "subject and predicate". In other words, the postmodern trend in Hungarian literature has started with the creative personality heeding no values outside literature and often replacing the traditional narrative with reflection, focussing mainly on language and modes of discourse.
Naturally, earlier forms of mentality survive, as do moral or even political motivations. This is evident not only among those who represent traditional realism or neo-classicism or commitment to social and national issues, such as István Csukás, Imre Oravecz, Pál Závada, Károly Szakonyi and András Fodor (who died recently), but also among individual writers who followed a Western and modern orientation, like György Somlyó, György Rába, Miklós Mészöly, György Konrád, and others. Today several lines of fracture are visible on the literary map of the country, running not only along the traditions undertaken or the creative modes selected. Politics, primarily party politics, has left its imprint on contemporary literary frays. Literary and public polemics at times flare up with an intensity that jeopardize the inner solidarity and the assertion of interest of the writers' community.
A more beneficial development is the slow restitution of an intellectual cohesion that was all too frequently disrupted and constantly threatened by the enormous disasters of twentieth century Hungarian history—the peace treaties of 1920 and 1947, which tore one third of the nation and old Hungarian cultural centres out of the country, and the ethnocentric and ethnocratic political courses that have for long prevailed in neighbouring countries. Following the changes in Central Europe in 1989, literary contacts between writers within and outside the borders have grown stronger, just as the émigré Hungarian literature in the West has taken its due and natural place in the cultural life of the Hungarian community. Today the Hungarian literary institutions in Transylvania in Romania, the former Upper Hungary in southern Slovakia, Sub-Carpathia in Ukraine, the Vojvodina in Serbia and those in the West cooperate with the cultural institutions of the motherland. Writers such as András Sütoý, Sándor Kányádi and Aladár Lászlóffy in Transylvania, Árpád Toýzsér and Lajos Grendel in Upper Hungary, Ottó Tolnai in the Vojvodina, Gyoýzýo (Victor) Határ in Britain, Tibor Papp in France, József Bakucz in the US and András Domahidy in Australia are considered everywhere as important figures in Hungarian literature.

Reality and literature

As a treasured means for the self-awareness of the nation, Hungarian literature has traditionally been a mirror of its life and history. Apart from school textbooks, Hungarians learn about the varied and turbulent events of their history, e.g., life in medieval Hungary, the struggles against Turkish occupation in the 16th–17th centuries, Ferenc Rákóczi II's War of Independence, the 1848–49 Revolution and War of Independence, or the painful stories of the two world wars, mostly from literature. Fiction in Hungary in this respect has always been a most efficient means of enriching the nation's knowledge and self-knowledge, much more so than historiography or journalism. Similarly, narrative literature has presented an authentic portrait of the make-up of society, its way of life, inner struggles and endeavours. József Eötvös, Mór Jókai, Zsigmond Kemény, Kálmán Mikszáth, Zsigmond Móricz, Gyula Krúdy, Dezsoý Kosztolányi, Józsi Jenoý Tersánszky, Lajos Nagy, János Kodolányi, László Németh et al., have presented an immensely rich depiction of the life and relationships of Hungarian society. So too in recent decades have the works of Tibor Déry, István Örkény, Tibor Cseres, Iván Mándy, András Sütoý, Erzsébet Galgóczi and Ferenc Sánta.
Compared to the above, Hungarian literature after 1989 has shown less intent to carry on this tradition of depicting social reality. Of the life of contemporary Hungarian society, of its inner conflicts and mental state one can only gain a fragmented picture through current writing. It is regrettable that as yet no large-format narrative of the 1956 Revolution has been written, as has been of the 1848–49 Revolution; the same is true of the Second World War. Prior to 1989, a full portrayal of the period was prevented by taboos and censorship; after 1989, however, it is more through the works of historians, primarily works written earlier by émigrés in the West, than literature that we can form a picture of 1956. Similarly, still missing are literary works on the events, its social, moral and psychological consequences, of the momentous political transformation that began in 1989.
Recent narrative literature in Hungarian reflects the post-modern endeavour to give an insight into the creative personality or creative process itself and neglects to some extent the exciting social changes that are taking place before our eyes and on which the public rightly expects the writers' judgment. All these, however, cannot justify the animosity which can be felt on a daily basis so strongly between advocates of postmodern trends and representatives of the more traditional realist style.
The former tend to see a sort of obsolete didacticism in the kind of fiction that follows, among other things, the straight narrative traditions of the novel depicting social conditions. The latter easily label postmodernism as a cosmopolitan artifice with a limited audience. Both are wrong. The resources of traditional realism in fiction have not been drained yet (the 20th century has seen several renewals), and innovative postmodernism has wide-ranging possibilities to reflect the life of society. Examples to be cited in this respect are Péter Esterházy's Termelési regény (Production Novel), Péter Nádas's Emlékiratok könyve (Book of Memories), Péter Lengyel's Cseréptörés (Breaking Tiles) and Ferenc Temesi's Por (Dust), or 1997's book sensation, Pál Závada's Jadviga párnája (Jadviga's Pillow), all regarded as postmodernist works.

Continuity and seeking roles

The position and sense of identity of Hungarian literature may have changed necessarily after the historic political changes in 1989–90, yet the traditional role literature plays in the shaping of intellectual and national strategies hopefully continues, if only in an altered form. The discussions and self-defensive struggles in intellectual life in recent years have led us to believe that literature continues to be a main force in shaping stands in public life and intellectual strategies of the intelligentsia.
One therefore needs to take greater caution before stating that literature, now that it has regained its autonomy, can contentedly settle down within the inner circles of creative work. The autonomy men of literature and culture have just regained calls for taking a public stand against all schemes that may jeopardize peace and development in the region, a further expansion of liberty, and a wide access to the values of Hungarian culture. This applies not only within the borders but also to threatening phenomena in the neighbouring countries, where violence and hate often surround the Hungarian ethnic communities.
All this does not mean that literary life has to become again a noisy public forum, or that writers should necessarily become fighters in the public arena. Literature has a role and weight in public life even if the writers themselves keep away from political strife and do not join political parties and movements or even the self-defending fights of the intellect. Literature has its own indirect public role and it makes it a defender of national or universal values, the advocate and upholder of a virtual moral code. The public moral role-taking of literature is indispensable in at last putting moral and intellectual values to an efficient historical use in wide circles in the conflict-ridden political life of today—values that had been injured or broken under the pressure of dictatorial regimes. Even if confined strictly within profes-sional and artistic limits, literature serves the birth of a new political culture. However, at times it seems desirable that it cross these limits and, with determination and courage, undertake the struggle in the interest of culture and in defence of both itself and the general values of the nation.