Anna
Fábri
Manners
Maketh Magyars
Polite Society
in the 1880s
Budapesti társaság (Budapest Society) in 1886 was published
and met with considerable interest. The relatively long work by an anonymous
author was brought out by a distinguished publishing house that usually specialised
in scholarly works, but that also thought it its duty to publish manuals on
etiquette. These were not only profitable, but also fulfilled a mission, one
that the key players in nineteenth-century Hungarian culture (and in Hungarian
political life) also considered as their own. At the time manners often appeared
as issues of primary political importance in Hungary, given a climate of societal
change and the breakdown of the feudal system: these processes, however, were
strongly linked to upholding the aim of national sovereignty within the Habsburg
Empire. All this obviously demanded a modernisation of manners. Politicians
and writers in the first half of the century treated manners as of equal importance
with land reform and overcoming long established prejudices. In the depressed
atmosphere that followed the crushing of the 1848 - 49 Revolution and struggle
for national independence, the suspension - or complete cessation - of feudal
differences in the conventions of social contact was seen as the pledge of
social unity.
The author of Budapest Society was one of the many writers who reacted sensitively
to Hungary's image abroad and for whom "our reputation in the world" was of
special importance. The book, according to its preface, was intended as an
amendment and critique of two books published abroad on social and political
conditions in Hungary. In both of these, the writer Madame Adam (Juliette
Lamber, who also maintained a famous political salon in Paris) and Angelo
de Gubernatis, the Italian scholar, tried to draw a comprehensive picture
of the political and societal conditions of "the country of the Hungarians".
The author of Budapest Society read both as summing up experiences during
their travels in Hungary with an openly acknowledged sympathy. However, as
they relied on the opinions of others, including books published on the subject,
there is no doubt that their image of Hungary was influenced by the likes
and dislikes of their Hungarian informers. Given this, it is surprising that
the author of Budapest Society not only agreed with the comments of these
two foreign visitors on the "caste-like", "isolationist" character of Hungarian
(especially Budapest) society, but made this the principal thesis of the book.
The author reiterated that social integration (and the development of a bourgeois
civilization) so enthusiastically espoused by Hungarian politicians and writers
at the beginning of the century had not materialised. Nor had this happened
as regards manners following the Compromise and within the framework of the
Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. He bitterly acknowledged that, from the 1870s,
a major part of social life (and especially that of High Society) was characterised
by behaviour and thinking that was inconsistent with both Hungarian social
traditions and the liberalism of the 1848 Revolution taking no account of
the moral achievements (and material sacrifices) of those who attempted to
implement these ideals in practice.
Stefánia Wohl, who maintained one of the few genuinely noteworthy Budapest
salons of the time, looked at the failings of Hungarian social life from another
angle.
The keen exchange of views and the real interest in the
arts that occupies educated society in other European cities where at homes,
parties, concerts and recitals lively discussions integrate them again and
again, are missing from our society where it is only feet dancing that seem
to understand one another.
The complaint, which obviously refers to a minimum interest
in matters of the mind, is emphasised by the reference to Europe. According
to Stefánia Wohl, who is so proud of her Europe-mindedness, Budapest has a
"Europe deficiency".
De Gubernatis said very much the same when he established how much the Hungarian
social scene differed from "modern societies", but he described certain charming
little circles ("charmants petits cercles") as providing the stage for the
mixing of the classes and (or intellectual enjoyment so well in the social
life of Budapest. He mentioned the soireés given by Ferenc Pulszky, the director
of the National Museum, and his daughter Polyxéna, as well as the circle around
the "Abbé Liszt". He also described salons maintained by aristocratic ladies
where members of parliament, government officials, members of the Academy
of Sciences, university professors, famous writers, painters, sculptors, well-known
actors and a few foreign diplomats engaged in relaxed conversation. (His book
contains a chapter, La femme, about the Wohl sisters where competent women
writers and their roles in society are described.)
[...]
The Wohl sisters were working women: writers, translators,
journalists and (for more than a quarter of a century) editors.9 They were
devoted to their writing, and industrious in their social life. They invited
company to their inner city home and themselves frequented several other Budapest
salons. While their health permitted, they travelled to numerous European
cities where letters of introduction gave them entrance to the homes of many
famous figures. They belonged to a middle-class Jewish family that had converted
to Lutheranism. Following the early death of their father (who was an army
surgeon) they had supported themselves from a very young age. Though they
considered themselves to be self-made women, they were proud (and rightly
so) of what they had achieved: a secure livelihood, undoubted success, social
respect. The Emperor Francis Joseph awarded Janka a high decoration in 1897.
Presumably family connections helped them considerably. Their mother, of whom
an encyclopaedia considered it important to say that she was an educated woman,
was well, indeed closely, acquainted with a number of aristocratic ladies.
She passed on these connections to her daughters and this made the salon possible.
Through their cousin, Lajos Hevesi (who became a well known art critic in
Vienna under the name of Ludwig von Hevesi), they created a good relationship
with the German-language press in the Habsburg dominions, which provided them
with information and work. Their salon, like several others in Budapest, was
multilingual. Foreign diplomats were regular guests as was Franz Liszt.10
Music was very much part of everyday life in the home of the Wohl sisters.
The elder, Janka (Johanna), had published a significant collection of poetry
when she was barely fifteen years old. She had originally studied the piano,
but she suffered from such terrible stage fright that it stopped her from
ever becoming a concert pianist. Their home regularly hosted rehearsals for
musical pieces, and the company was often entertained by the wonderful musical
and literary improvisations of the talented one-armed pianist Count Géza Zichy,
a close friend of Franz Liszt. Alongside several well-known society women
(mainly aristocrats) the regular guests included prelates, among them the
cultured Cardinal Haynald, an-other close friend of Liszt's; scholars, including
Ármin Vámbéry, a renowned and adventurous Orientalist; the young literary
dandy, Zsigmond Justh; the dedicated believer in the equality of women, Antonina
de Gerando and her mother Countess Emma Teleki, as well as young and eager
writers, journalists and politicians. The gathering at the Wohls was truly
mixed in terms of gender, religion, political persuasion and social position.
They tried to avoid confrontations in conversation11, and it is quite clear
that the salon worked as an information exchange, though the sisters always
kept the more intimate information for those they corresponded with.12
Janka Wohl is a highly competent observer of the involved
tapestry of society and she very clearly interprets the different views
of the world in various types of salons [...] The Wohls' home has long been
acknowledged as a popular centre for people with western European tastes
interested in literature where prelates, magnates, comtesses from Transylvania,
gentlemen from the Up Country as well as from the Great Plain as scholars,
writers and artists make their appearance.
Their salon, as well as their works, was characterised by
superior taste, and in the eyes of many, snobbery. There is no doubt that
their essays, novels, poems and especially the older sister, Janka's, guides
to manners - which she published under the name Egy nagyvilági hölgy (A Lady
of the World) - not only urged high standards as regards home decoration, dress
and etiquette, but also helped to introduce the latest fashions. These books
were especially written for women, although they naturally also affected the
lives of men. For example, in 1898 Janka Wohl devoted a whole booklet to bicycle
riding that was "an approved leisure activity for ladies in all countries
of high culture." The favourable outcome of the arguments surrounding "the
right to ride a bicycle" was considered to be a victory for women's rights.
It was another step on the long road that allowed women to rise from being
"adored idols, pretty trinkets and toys or useful domestic furniture to becoming
equal, self-assured, respected and valued independent citizens." She popularised
"afternoon teas" in her articles and books and, with her sister, frequently
had guests for tea.
Janka Wohl's most successful guides: Az illem. Útmutató a muývelt társaséletben
(Etiquette. A Guide to Cultured Social Life, first published in 1880), and
Az otthon. Útmutató a ház célszeruý és ízléses berendezéséhez (The Home. A
Guide to the Practical and Tasteful Furnishing of the House, first published
in 1885) were turning points in the history of the genre in Hungary. In the
nature of things she could not help being didactic but her style was, as a
whole, closer to that light and conversational manner that Hungarian writers
and journalists of ther fin de sičcle turned to a high virtuosity. Readers
were not made to feel inferior either emotionally or intellectually, they
were looked on as partners and their receptive cooperation was reckoned with.
These books suggested that good manners did not suppress identity but helped
readers to discover their individuality.
[...]
However, her attempts to "Europeanise" Hungarian manners
with the help of foreign examples were nothing new. Such attempts (more or
less deliberate) have been present in Hungary for hundreds of years in books
on etiquette. In Hungary, as all over Europe (and more or less on the other
side of the Atlantic as well), most guides to manners were in fact translations
or simple compilations. The original works on etiquette, both foreign and
Hungarian, were produced under the influence of the classics and the most
popular works of the genre. Even when the sources were not stated, they strongly
relied on foreign books on etiquette as well as on works of philosophy, theology
and education that had inspired them. Writing on etiquette that claimed to
be original (though still based on foreign material) was often less original
than books which declared themselves to be mere translations or adaptations.
Az illem könyve14 (The Etiquette Book) 1884 by Róza Kalocsa, the respected
headmistress of a girls' school was a good example of this false originality.
She translated Der gute Ton in allen Lebenslagen by Franz Ebhardt virtually
word for word and had this behavioural guide published as her very own. The
public ought to have been aware of this plagiarism as the first translation
of the German original had been published four years previously with the name
of the author clearly shown.15 Kalocsa's Etiquette Book was nevertheless accepted
as her own work. (Even decades later, the book was still referred to as an
original on good manners, providing information for the middle classes in
both private and public situations by excerpts from works of fiction that
offered a picture of the times. It was recommended as a text for girls' finishing
schools and was claimed to be as important as other text books.) Frequent
references to the Greats of Hungarian literature and passages describing the
manifestations in social life of the Hungarian national character, including
appeals to readers to preserve and revive this character16 backed the claim
to originality. The unsuspecting reader had no idea that all this came straight
from Ebhard: she had only changed the word "German" to "Hungarian" in the
text. This guide to good manners, emphasising the fact that national characteristics
are of great value, is the strangest and best example of servile adaptation
in Hungarian etiquette books.
Before considering the nature of this powerful German influence, one must
state that even Der gute Ton was not really authentic German. Kalocsa's work
was based on the fourth edition of Ebhardt (Berlin, 1880); naturally it did
not contain those lines in the original that stated that Der gute Ton had
been produced with the authorised use of Madame D'Alq's work. It didn't contain
the original preface either in which, in 1879 (a few years after the Franco-Prussian
war), his acquaintance and cooperation on questions of etiquette with Madame
D'Alq (a pseudonym), a French lady, was mentioned.
...Hungarians who are Europeans on the inside,
have different standards of comparison than English men. They do not judge
others by their own standards but they judge themselves by the standards of
others. Porzó would have liked to see the ease of the French and the sober
practicality of the English in Hungarian manners. What he did not take into
account was that manners are precisely the reflection of a certain attitude
towards rules, and, in the last resort, of feeling secure in one's identity.
The introduction to the London edition of Don't, at the same time as emphasising
that the author was not always the best authority on questions of etiquette,
and that he was prone to individual interpretation and often even pig-headed,
actually entreats readers to form their own opinion of the book.
Censor (the pen name of an American, Oliver Bell Bunce [1828 - 1890]) listed
clear prohibitions without any reservations. He thought it important to point
out that rules of behaviour could be changed, though he emphasised that obeying
norms raised the tone of a company. In comparison with this, Porzó, in his
own introduction, plunges into the need to change the rules. This was also
true of Janka Wohl and Róza Kalocsa in their earlier published guides to manners
and etiquette, of de Gubernatis's work on Hungarian society and of the anonymous
author in his work on Budapest society. Sometimes firm, sometimes light, occasionally
humorous criticism of customs and manners or suggestions on their change (with
reference to being up-to-date or more European) were aimed at the relaxation
or cessation of rules that emphasised the closed nature or isolation of Hungarian
society. Instead of the complicated and artificial system of forms of address
referring to real or imaginary differences in status, it was recommended to
use the Hungarian equivalent of Madame or Monsieur to indicate equality. They
stressed the importance of the informal "thou" in Hungarian. They only considered
this acceptable as an expression of intimacy and not a demonstrative expression
of belonging to some narrow social group.
There is a side to this habit that does not really match
the rules of cultivation. Let us say that the company is comprised of persons
of equal status and they are all addres-sing each other with the informal
"thou" and an acceptable individual enters. However, this individual is,
for reasons of birth or profession, not of equal status. This unfortunate
individual will play the role of a pariah. No matter how friendly the other
members of the group are to her, she is the only one who addresses the others
"you" and is herself so addressed. One should never make such an obvious
exception... An educated salon is like a republic where we owe everyone,
at least on the surface, equal respect. The higher the rung on the civilisational
ladder, the less obvious subtle differences of rank will become.
Anna Fábri
teaches Hungarian literature at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. She is
responsible for recent editions of works by Gyula Krúdy and is one of the
editors of Kálmán Mikszáth's collected works.
