Tibor Frank

"To Comply with English Taste"

The Making of The Hungarian Quarterly 1934 - 1944

 

Probably the most talented and influential Hungarian statesman of interwar Hungary, Count István Bethlen made a number of important steps to influence foreign public opinion through articles, lectures abroad and other initiatives even after resigning his long tenure as prime minister in 1931. Bethlen was tireless in his arguments for the restoration of the integrity of "historical" Hungary and would not want to limit the country to the ethnic borders alone. Bethlen already had a functioning French review, La Nouvelle Revue de Hongrie, when he visited Britain in 1933. He gave a series of lectures that were to be published in London the following year as The Treaty of Trianon and European Peace. Bethlen's visit contributed to the speedy publication of A History of the Roumanians: From Roman Times to the Completion of the Unity by R. W. Seton-Watson, an influential scholarly supporter of Romanian claims to Transylvania.
Bethlen was quick to realise the potential dangers of a publication such as Seton-Watson's History, and his response was prompt. Soon after returning from London he made arrangements for a meeting with the leading figures in Hungarian economics, politics and scholarship, mostly personal friends and political allies with close ties to Britain. In an apparent effort to influence Britain in particular, he proposed two ventures on 3 July 1934: The Hungarian Quarterly, a periodical in English, as well as A History of Hungary, in both English and French.
The Quarterly was to serve the same purpose as Bethlen's Nouvelle Revue in the Francophone world, "to introduce Hungary and Hungarian topics of interest to an Anglo-Saxon readership. Moreover, it would be an important tool to win over leading personalities in the English-speaking world, both by seeking articles from them, which we would, of course, compensate in an adequate fashion, and by provoking argument in the British press on different topics, with reference to the H. Qu." Trying to make his new review convincing in Britain, Bethlen thought of both content and form: "As regards the type and contents of the periodical, the great English-language ideals, the American Foreign Affairs and the British Round Table may be used as models." Bethlen's emphasis was not only on impeccable English, he also expected the treatment of Hungarian subjects in a genuinely British nature and spirit. "It goes without saying that the lay-out of the periodical has carefully to comply with English taste: its make-up has to be equal to that of the best British periodicals." The former prime minister set the standard very high: "The entire periodical, constructed in this fashion, would be in the service not of vulgarising and of cheap sensation hunting or propaganda, but would speak exclusively to the most educated in the Anglo-Saxon countries: to Parliaments, to universities, to the leading figures in economic and social life."
Closely connected with The Hungarian Quarterly, Bethlen's other idea was a direct reaction to Seton-Watson's A History of the Roumanians. As chairman of the Magyar Szemle Társaság, an influential think tank of the interwar era, Bethlen initiated A History of Hungary, first in one volume, as that alone "can stand a chance when it comes to promotion". By November 1934 a new idea had come up: to publish an abridged, two-volume edition of Magyar Történet by Bálint Hóman and Gyula Szekfuý, which had just been concluded in Hungarian in eight volumes (1929 - 1933). Oxford University Press or Macmillan were designated as publishers, and it was planned to print some two thousand copies. Most of volume 1 was supposed to contain Hóman's original text, abridged and revised by József Deér, and the rest of the volume and the whole of volume 2 were to be (re)written by Professor Szekfuý. The intention to match Seton-Watson's History of the Roumanians was so strong that even advance royalties were estimated on the basis of Seton-Watson's Cambridge University Press publication.
The cost of starting the twin ventures of the Quarterly and the History was estimated at the very considerable sum of 100,000 pengős. Towards the end of 1934, Bethlen persuaded Hungary's ministers to Britain and the U.S., Count László Széchenyi and János Pelényi, to put forward to the Hungarian ministry of foreign affairs as their own idea the plan to launch the Quarterly. Thus Bethlen was able to secure some 60 per cent of the money from government funds. By February 1935, the former prime minister convened a meeting to discuss the rest of the finances of the Quarterly and the History of Hungary. Those present at the meeting included some of Hungary's richest and most influential people: industrialists such as Ferenc Chorin, Baron Móric Kornfeld, Pál Bíró and Pál Fellner, as well as financiers and bankers such as Béla Imrédy, Baron Frigyes Korányi, Baron Marcell Madarassy-Beck, Lajos Reményi-Schneller, Tibor Scitovszky, Fülöp Weiss and others. Leaders of the Hungarian National Bank (MNB), the Association of Savings Depositories and Banks (TÉBE) and the Organisation of Industrialists (GyOSz) instantly proposed to secure the lacking 40,000 pengős by 1938. Even so, as prospective co-editor, József Balogh noted that the double venture meant such a heavy reliance on Hungary's governmental resources "that it required an entire year of hard work as well as Count István Bethlen's considerable personal support" to provide all the necessary finances.
Nor was it money alone that was needed for the undertaking. The Quarterly was in fact an English-language offspring of Magyar Szemle, a quality review, nationalist in spirit, published for the educated middle class in post-war Hungary, accompanied by different series of informative books. Under the chairmanship of Count Bethlen and within Magyar Szemle Társaság a "Society for The Hungarian Quarterly" was founded, consisting of prominent people with strong ties to Britain or the United States. Apart from most of the people whose money helped launch the Quarterly, the list included Habsburg Archduke Albrecht, aristocrats such as Count György Apponyi, Prince György Festetics, Count Béla Hadik, Count József Mailáth, Jr., Counts János and Pál Teleki, Countesses Albert Apponyi and Rafael Zichy, Budapest university professors Gyula Szekfuý and Arthur B. Yolland, the minister of cult and education Bálint Hóman, the ex-foreign minister Gusztáv Gratz, the renowned scholar and parliamentarian Gyula Kornis, the Calvinist Bishop László Ravasz, the internationally known orientalist Sir Aurel Stein, and the popular authors Zsolt Harsányi, Cecile Tormay and Lajos Zilahy. A highly conservative list indeed. Advisory boards were set up in London and Washington, D.C., again in a rather conservative spirit. As the new review was considered pre-eminently a "periodical addressed to Britain", the "Anglo-Hungarian Society" was revitalised, with Lord Londonderry as chair. The "Anglo-Hungarian Society" was especially active in trying to solicit subscribers for the Quarterly, first and foremost among the British aristocracy.
Right from the beginning, The Hungarian Quarterly was considered a joint, semi-official publication of the circle around Count Bethlen and the foreign ministry. As the editor put it in 1941, "the HQ is not a mouthpiece of official Hungarian foreign policy, but a social endowment, and as such, a synthesis of national foreign policy." Balogh regarded only the prime minister, the foreign minister, Count Bethlen and co-editor György Ottlik as those who were to instruct him in delicate political matters. Yet the opinion expressed by Bethlen's reviews was regarded as that of the Hungarian government. Bethlen's leadership was no formality: all through the short life of the review the former prime minister provided instructions "in matters political, administrative and budgetary". Just like other supporters of the Quarterly, such as Baron Móric Kornfeld, he wrote for the review, entertained and provided information to its potential British and American authors, and wrote articles himself.

József Balogh (1893 - 1944) became first co-editor, later editor of the Quarterly.
He was the offspring of a Jewish-Hungarian family with a learned father and a highly educated background. He converted to Catholicism and studied classical philology, becoming a translator of Saint Augustine and a scholar of Hungary's Christian heritage. Balogh was a student of Greek and Latin, but he also spoke German, French, English and Italian fluently. His father was a tutor in the Weiss and Kornfeld families, and young József soon became friends with Baron Móric Kornfeld, a patron of Count Bethlen's reviews. This explains his privileged position as editor, and his influence, all the way up to early 1944, in the select circle of Count Bethlen.
Balogh deeply believed that the Quarterly could make a much bigger impact if using a voice familiar to the British public. He requested his Hungarian authors to keep "simple, Anglo-Saxon and Diltheyan thinking" in mind and repeatedly said that he preferred those "who stood close to Anglo-Saxon thinking". He made every effort to request articles from reputable British authors, whom he carefully monitored and kept in touch with. The editor went out of his way to recruit, both personally every year and through his gigantic correspondence, influential British public figures, members of both houses of Parliament, writers, journalists and scholars, to contribute to The Hungarian Quarterly.
Balogh in fact wrote several of the "British" articles himself: he was tireless in preparing "briefs" for prospective British authors, supplying material for their much-wanted articles. In a letter of early 1937, Balogh was so successful in persuading the Labour politician Lord Allen of Hurtwood (Reginald Clifford Allen) to write an article for the Quarterly on "Hungarian minorities in the detached territories" that he accepted Balogh's text making few revisions only. As the editor put it:

The relation between the League of Nations and the national minorities are of paramount importance for us, as we have three and a half millions of Hungarian minority subjects in the Succession States.
Hungary has always nourished the hope that the minority procedure might be improved, and since the reform of the Covenant has become a tangible possibility, the question has gained actuality. But so far we have not seen it discussed in the English Press.
The paper contains no proposals for a possible reform, as we believe that to be a different question needing separate treatment.

Lord Allen noticed some of the problematic sentences only in proof stage.

I have not had time to check up carefully your very emphatic statement about the Czech promises to the Ruthenians, but I should like the sentence to be deleted not because I believe it to be inaccurate, but because I am so anxious that the general line of argument in the article should be sympathetically received in all quarters. We do not want to arouse hostility if we can help it, and I do not think we weaken the argument by removing this illustration.

"The League of Nations' Reform and the Minorities" by Lord Allen of Hurtwood was published as the leading article of the Quarterly in the summer of 1937. Balogh acknowledged the fact that the article was actually signed only by its titular author.

Balogh tried to get an article or two from leading British personalities for possibly every one of his numbers. He was a snob and thought in terms of the titled rather than the professional. In fact his tables of contents look a bit like a Central European combination of Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage and Dodd's Parliamentary Companion. Thus he convinced, among others, the Marquess of Londonderry, Lord Newton, Earl Winterton, the Duchess of Atholl, Sir John Fisher Williams, Sir John Marriott, Lord Queenborough, G. P. Gooch, Lord Stamp, Sir Charles Petrie, the Countess of Listowel, Sir Arthur Willert, Lord Elton, Lord Davies, Vice Admiral C. V. Usborne, Sir Arnold Wilson, Col. Sir Thomas Cunninghame, Sir Thomas Hohler, Adm. Mark Kerr, Lord Gorell, and Viscountess Snowden to contribute to the Quarterly. Sometimes, of course, he received flat refusals. Lord Addison, for example, was unwilling to write for the Hungarian review as "I am at present engaged in political work with a view to entering political life and it would probably be unwise for me to express in any publication views which in public life require to be toned down." Bethlen approached William Somerset Maugham and asked him to write a book on Hungary, modelled on his book on Spain, Don Fernando. He was instantly refused: "...Don Fernando was the result not only of an acquaintance with Spain lasting over thirty years intensive work.
I am too old now, and have besides too much work on my hands, to enter upon so large a subject as Hungary. I am sure you will understand my feeling. It is no good doing a thing unless you think you can do it really well."

Not only was L. S. Amery unwilling to write an article on the "Danubian situation", but he cautioned the editor not to agitate for treaty revision.

Nor am I sure, if I did, that the article would give great satisfaction in Hungary, for though I have great sympathy for that delightful people, I doubt whether it is any good their agitating for the restoration of even a portion of their old territories, and would advise them to make the best of the status quo by working for the creation of a general Danubian, and eventually European, confederation. Also, I am all for this country leaving Europe to settle its own affairs.

When the first number was finally out, Balogh's closer friends voiced their concern emphatically. Though he became a frequent contributor for several years himself, Vernon Duckworth Barker was openly disapproving of the partisan nature of the review.

Thank you for the copy of "Quarterly" which reached me here some time ago. I read it carefully and with interest, but I have the feeling that it has still far to go before it will be up to the level of the N[ouvelle] R[evue de] H[ongrie]. Too much of the new review looks to me like veiled propaganda and there seems to my way of thinking a far too frequent repetition of the clichés about Hungary's historical mission and divine call, which cut very little ice with the kind of people you need to reach in England. I am not sure that the policy of having so many articles by peeresses and other titled commentators or non-professional writers is a wise one. Perhaps this was forced on you by private considerations. I have a very strong feeling that in its present form the "Quarterly" will tend most to please its contributors in England and its readers in Hungary.

Barker gave a negative assessment of the potential impact of the Quarterly upon the British reading public.
...I...feel that the review at present seems rather remote from the really vital interests of the more progressive public in England. You have in some ways an uphill fight to attract the serious attention of liberal-minded intellectuals - who unquestionably represent the best of English thought at this moment - through a review which strikes me as being obviously anxious not to risk offending Fascist powers. I think one has to keep in mind that an English reader starts from a view-point which is quite peculiar to him. The kind of arguments which may impress a Hungarian or an Italian will often fail to make the same appeal to him. We still think democracy incomparably better than Fascism of any brand, and if a review like the "Quarterly" seems to lean rather obviously to the Right, I think your problem of attracting the kind of sympathy Hungary needs becomes much harder.

Barker was perhaps the very first who tried to bring home to Balogh that it was impossible to court the British while remaining dedicated to the Fascist powers, a double loyalty maintained in the hope of regaining lost territories. Circles around Counts István Bethlen and Pál Teleki tried cautiously to uphold this hopelessly contradictory policy quite until the Second World War actually reached Hungary.

Such an article as the one stressing the similarity between Hungarian institutions and the "Corporation" system might, I think, do a certain amount of harm to the reputation which should be won for Hungarian culture - not with the Society guests of the Legation (who know Hungary already in most cases), but with the writers, publicists, scholars and men of affairs who are either indifferent now or influenced by liberal publicists (who do not aim at Society) to look upon Hungary with some suspicion. Mayfair and Belgravia are as Conservative now as ever and from them I have no doubt that all the "Quarterly" articles would win golden opinions, but what do they really amount to at the present time? It is an incontrovertible fact that the best minds of the country tend at this period away from the extreme Right, and dislike of Fascism will turn them against any publication which seems anxious to propitiate forces that are felt to be alien to the English mind even by most Conservatives. I believe that the "Quarterly" would do better in the long run to become a purely scientific and non-political publication than to attempt to favour both British and Fascist traditions, for fear of alienating either.

The intricacies of this political "double-bind" were also felt on the other side. Sometimes it was the Hungarian government that refrained from giving permission to publish a British article. A case in point was the article by the military expert Basil (subsequently Sir Basil) Liddell Hart, which was not recommended for publication by Rudolf Andorka, then head of Section 2 of the Chief of Staff's Office. "The author wants to exert a decisive influence on the course of Hungarian foreign policy", Andorka wrote to Balogh, and the Foreign Ministry supported his opinion. The case of Liddell Hart's article showed how close the Quarterly was to the Hungarian government and how far the review could go with its British schemes.

It was in January 1939 when the editor first asked Count Bethlen to discuss the eventual transfer of the Quarterly to London and the Revue to Paris. "It is no longer possible to get articles from prominent politicians and journalists abroad that could completely avoid polite and fair criticism of Germany, when discussing Central or East European questions", Balogh complained. He compiled a long list of burning issues that were jeopardised by the volatile political situation in the continent of Europe, including Hungarian revision, the Polish - Hungarian border, Hungarian economic sovereignty vis-ŕ-vis Germany and Hungarian independence in general, the minority problems of Hungary including German-Hungarians, and the co-operation of South-East European small states. He also asked Bethlen to discuss his own personal problems in the light of Hungary's Jew Bill.
Nevertheless, the situation during the Teleki government (1939 - 1941) remained largely unchanged. Hungary effectively balanced between the Axis Powers and the West in a desperate effort to survive, to preserve her neutrality and to secure treaty revision all at the same time. The editors and publishers of the Quarterly knew full well, of course, how precarious their position had become. "It strikes me", Balogh wrote to Bethlen in December 1940, "that the HQ may at any time be seriously endangered by Central European political necessities, and we have been perfectly aware for years that, at the behest of the government, we might possibly be compelled to cease publication. Your Excellency's opinion, however, was invariably that we ourselves must not, under any circumstances, precipitate the process; the most we can do is to defer to the fiat." This was precisely the moment when Prime Minister Pál Teleki commissioned young historian Domokos Kosáry to publish his one-volume A History of Hungary in the U.S. in order to spread reliable historical information before it was too late.
But it was too late. By April 1941 Prime Minister Count Teleki and his cautious policy of neutrality were dead, by June Hungary was at war with the Soviet Union. By November 1941 it became obvious that the war would no longer tolerate The Hungarian Quarterly. A letter by Count Bethlen to Prime Minister László Bárdossy might serve as an epitaph to this tragically hopeless venture.

I understand from the report of the secretary-general of our Society that Antal Ullein-Reviczky summoned him on the 5th inst. and disclosed to him the Government's desire that The Hungarian Quarterly, which has been produced by our Society for six years, should discontinue its publication with the December issue of this year. [...]
On behalf of the Society, which was founded by myself and a few others in 1934, and which has since accomplished salutary work, acknowledged by many, in respect of the enlightening of the two Anglo-Saxon empires, I must solicit you to reconsider this decision of your Cabinet. In my view nothing can warrant such dispositions at present when no proclamation of war has ensued between the United States and the Axis Powers, and diplomatic relations also continue to be maintained. It is not to be questioned that the discontinuing of The Hungarian Quarterly will, in the Anglo-Saxon quarters in which we are interested, elicit unfavourable comment. The interpretation given to this government measure will be that, of its own accord and ostentatiously, it wishes to adopt a completely biased tendency vis-ŕ-vis the United States or, being no longer in possession of its own free will, it was compelled to sacrifice this organ. In both cases, they will draw far-reaching inferences from this fact.
The reprieve and further maintenance of The Hungarian Quarterly, so long as our diplomatic relations with the United States continue to exist, are, in my judgment, so much the easier because, as far as I know, no outside criticism of its publications has been pronounced as yet. Of late we have kept the paper at a distance from politics and are treating mainly historical and cultural themes of a scholarly nature. We may look with a certain self-pride upon this paper, the match of which has not been maintained by any single small European nation, which is the sole remaining English publication on the continent, and which has been pronounced by critics to be the equal of British and American reviews of the highest standing.
All these merits of The Hungarian Quarterly we wished to turn to account at a later date; our assumption was well grounded that, maintaining the paper until the end of the war, its existence and unblemished past will, at the time of the conclusion of peace, be put to the credit of the Magyars. The disappearance of The Hungarian Quarterly would frustrate this hope of ours, depriving us at the same time of the forum from which we could have taken up the fight with the increasingly active publicist activities of Czech and Hungarian emigrants.

In December 1941 Hungary was to declare a state of war with both Britain and the United States. The Quarterly was to be discontinued. Nevertheless, Balogh and his associates did not stop working altogether. They compiled, as the 1942 volume of the Quarterly, A Companion to Hungarian Studies, a thick handbook with ample information on Hungary in good English, actually still published by "The Society of The Hungarian Quarterly" in 1943 and prefaced by Count Bethlen. A Companion II was also in the making but could not be published. A single number of the Quarterly would appear in early 1944. Then the war reached Hungary. Balogh was killed by the Nazis in 1944, and Bethlen was captured by the Soviets and taken possibly to Moscow, where he most probably died in 1946. None of the members of the "Society for The Hungarian Quarterly" were given any credit for what they were trying to do and were usually judged unfairly and treated badly after the war. Their futile efforts deserve to be remembered kindly.

Tibor Frank
is Professor of History at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest and recipient of the Humboldt Research Award for 2002.