Tibor Frank

Patronage and Networking

The Society of The Hungarian Quarterly
1935–1944

 

Now that The Hungarian Quarterly celebrates fifty years of publication, it is indeed fitting and proper to remember the prewar predecessor of the journal and look at its roots that go back to the troubled times of Hungarian politics in the mid-1930s.
Former Hungarian Prime Minister Count István Bethlen (1874–1946) gave a series of lectures in Britain in 1933 to be published in London the following year as The Treaty of Trianon and European Peace.¹ Bethlen's lectures and book probably prompted the 1934 publication of R.W. Seton-Watson's History of the Roumanians, the single most important history of Romania ever published in English. Seton-Watson went as far as to describe Bethlen's ten years' tenure in office (1921–1931) as governance "in intelligent anticipation of Nazi methods."²
This was a far cry from reality for anybody who knew Bethlen's political career and the circumstances that prompted the Hungarian aristocrat, by then out of office, to launch suitable measures to counteract anti-Hungarian, pro- Romanian propaganda. Of Transylvanian origin himself, the former Prime Minister was particularly involved in endeavours to reclaim the lost territories of Hungary and became a staunch advocate of Hungarian revisionism. In Hungary, "Trianon" was the watchword of the entire interwar period and though Bethlen was anything but a Nazi, he did everything he could to reverse the provisions of the Peace Treaty and recreate Greater Hungary.³
Stepping down from office, Count Bethlen realized that Hungary's revisionist arguments and claims had not reached the right people in the right form. He realized that Hungary would never succeed through cheap daily propaganda. Bethlen became convinced that the Hungarian arguments, historical, political and cultural, should reach the actual makers and shapers of French and British policy, and reach them in the proper form. After restarting in 1932 Hungary's pre-World War I La Revue de Hongrie as La Nouvelle Revue de Hongrie, a quality journal in French,⁴ he set out to complete his propaganda campaign in 1934 by planning to launch The Hungarian Quarterly, a new Hungarian journal in English and publishing an abridged English version of Magyar történet (Hungarian History) by Bálint Hóman and Gyula Szekfű, the leading historians of the era. The ideas Bethlen came up with in the early 1930s intended to convince influential public opinion in the former Entente powers such as France and Great Britain that Hungary was a nation with an ancient European culture, with historical ties to both France and the English-speaking world, and with a Christian, constitutional and freedom-loving heritage.

An Anglo-Hungarian Society was first founded in 1930, to be followed in 1935 by The Society of The Hungarian Quarterly.⁵ In its early years the SHQ considered many different and ambitious plans. Under their sponsorship, they expected a variety of visitors: British and American politicians, journalists, scholars and artists to come to, and lecture in, Budapest, such as Sir Arnold Wilson MP (for Hitchin since 1933), Frederick Charles Gordon-Lennox (9th Duke of Richmond and 9th Duke of Lennox since 1935), and motor racing promoter, and Sir Josiah Stamp, industrialist, economist, statistician, banker and civil servant. The Society also planned to set up a Hungarian Chair in London with possibly the British historian C. A. Macartney as the professor. A handwritten note also mentioned some of the most illustrious Hungarians living in London in the mid-1930s such as the celebrated portrait painter Philip A. de László, the sculptor Zsigmond Kisfaludi Strobl, and the internationally acclaimed film director [Sir] Alexander Korda, with the probable intention to lure these celebrities into their orbit.⁶ Even a journal in Italian was among the many plans of The Society of The Hungarian Quarterly.⁷ The Society repeatedly attacked the Danubian News (1933) and the Danubian Review (1934) of the Hungarian Revisionist League which they found counterproductive to the Hungarian cause as it used cheap and simplistic propaganda methods. Plans were made to merge that paper with The Hungarian Quarterly then already in the making.⁸
Bethlen took great care to put it about that his arguments originated with the Hungarian ministers in London and Washington, D.C. He asked the two diplomats to support his views regarding The Hungarian Quarterly and he got emphatically positive answers. Count László Széchényi, Hungarian Minister to the U.K., expressed Bethlen's views as his own conviction when reporting to Foreign Minister Kálmán Kánya that

the undeniable interest in the Hungarian cause in the English-speaking world can only be sustained and furthered, the walls of our linguistic isolation can only be broken through, if we call on England and America in their own language [...] we have to find the ways and the financial means to enable us to present our problems to the English-speaking peoples. And I do not think here of the methods of the socalled popular propaganda [...] but rather of a high-quality journal capable of informing the small group of thinkers and the shapers of the fate of the Englishspeaking nations.⁹

János Pelényi, Minister in Washington, D.C. remembered even in 1940 that "the launching of The Quarterly fulfilled my old dream (I alluded to the necessity of such a journal on the occasion of my every Budapest visit) and I was among those who stood at the cradle when it was born..."¹⁰
Right from the beginning, both the French and the English journal was patronised by their corresponding societies which were umbrella organizations to provide the necessary social, political, and cultural guidance and background on behalf of the Hungarian élite. The societies made it possible for the editors to do some useful networking, channelling the wide variety of national and international ties and connections into the journals. The Society of The Hungarian Quarterly was indeed a cross section of Anglophile Hungary. In a country where only a tiny minority of the intellectual and political élite spoke English and relatively few people had any personal experience of life in Britain or America, the Society's role was to serve as a governing and advisory body to keep Anglophile Hungarians together and turn them into a more active and more self-conscious group.
As soon as the idea of the English journal first emerged in 1934, József Balogh, the Classical scholar and editor of the Hungarian quality journal Magyar Szemle, suggested on 3 July 1934 that "a society exercising patronage should be brought about as a framework of the H[ungarian] Qu[arterly], with a Hungarian, an English and an American section. These societies are in themselves suitable instruments of high quality Hungarian propaganda."¹¹ It was a year later, on 10 June 1935 that Count István Bethlen suggested "the establishment of a society under the name of a ‘Society of The Hungarian Quarterly' to act as the proprietor and patron" of the planned The Hungarian Quarterly.¹² The idea of the Society was modelled on a similar body sponsoring Magyar Szemle and the Society acting as its mentor organization. Another year later, when the Society was formally established on 7 July 1936, the politically relevant Committee members of the two societies proved to be almost identical, including cabinet minister Bálint Hóman, Béla Imrédy, President of the Hungarian National Bank, Ferenc Chorin and Baron Móric Kornfeld, industrialists and members of the Upper House, Tibor Eckhardt, President of the Independent Smallholders' Party and Gyula Kornis, Deputy-Speaker of Hungarian Parliament and Rector of Pázmány Péter [today Eötvös Loránd] University of Budapest. Both societies were chaired by Count István Bethlen. "Intellectually and organisationally, The Hungarian Quarterly is served by the same machinery which has helped both Magyar Szemle and the Nouvelle Revue de Hongrie to come about and has sustained them", said József Balogh, founding Secretary General of the Society.¹³ As a further token of networking, the Society intended to revitalise the Anglo-Hungarian Society in Britain and tried to bring about a close relationship between that association and the Advisory Board of The Hungarian Quarterly. This way they hoped to get some influential British patronage for the Advisory Board of the new Budapest journal.¹⁴ An American Advisory Board was also envisaged with important U.S. men of letters such as e.g. Philip Marshall Brown of Princeton, Eldon R. James of Harvard, Philip C. Jessup of Columbia Universities, George Creel, head of Woodrow Wilson's famous Committee on Public Information, and Nicholas Roosevelt, former U.S. minister to Hungary and a distant cousin of the President.¹⁵
In a few years it became evident that the Society could be made a lot more effective if it served as a two-way street between Hungary and Britain, channelling not only Hungarian propaganda into Britain (and to some extent, the United States), but also British propaganda to Hungary. By 1938 leaders of the Society had increasingly seen it as a body "that aimed not only at making Hungary known in England but—albeit (for the time being) within a more modest framework—served the purposes of Anglophile publicity in Hungary as well. In the last season, it organized ten lectures in English in Budapest to this end alone and the success of its work has been shown by the ever growing public attending its lectures this year."¹⁶ A lecture by the British mountaineer Hugh Ruttledge (1884–1961) was attended by some 500 people, that by Sir Ronald Storrs (1881–1955), a writer and official in the British Foreign and Colonial Office, by nearly 400.¹⁷ What's more, some of the British lecturers even went out of Budapest and spoke to an English-speaking audience in the South Hungarian university town of Szeged. Sir Richard Winn Livingstone (1880–1960), President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford visited Szeged in 1938 and spoke of the role of British schools in public life. Quite obviously, in line with the conservative views of its publishers it was Britain that was targeted by The Society of The Hungarian Quarterly in the English-speaking world in the first place. The Society aimed at being the chief vehicle of Hungarian propaganda to Britain. When His Highness the Royal Prince (popularly Archduke) József Ferenc considered the possibility of establishing a new and rival English-Hungarian association in 1938, Count Bethlen raised his voice in an effort to gently oppose the plan. Nevertheless, the Archduke went on with his project.¹⁸

Founded and presided over by Count István Bethlen, the Society was guided by, and served the political purposes of, the former Prime Minister. Throughout its existence to the beginning of 1944 when Nazi Germany invaded the country, Bethlen ensured the functioning of the elaborate structure of the Society and its journal—politically, financially, and even intellectually. The Hungarian Quarterly was his journal, The Society of The Hungarian Quarterly was his Society. Upon publication, the new journal was launched by Count Bethlen in person, whom the editors specifically asked to preside over the ceremony in his capacity as President of The Society of The Hungarian Quarterly. "In no other way could we secure the attention of the press but through your own person, Your Excellency", the Society's Executive Vice President György Ottlik wrote to the former Prime Minister.¹⁹ Prince György Festetics served as Joint-President of the Society, with a family name whose bearers were Anglophile members of the top echelons of Hungarian society ever since the 18th century. József Balogh was called upon to act as Secretary General, as it was "in actual fact he himself who took care of the business of the Society from the very inception of the idea."²⁰ Balogh turned out to be the motor of the Society and its journal.²¹
At lower levels, too, the Society was well-endowed with bodies and leadership positions. The Committee was chaired by another former—and, indeed, also future—Prime Minister, Count Pál Teleki.²² Professor Gyula Kornis, Deputy-Speaker of Hungarian Parliament became President of the Advisory Board of The Hungarian Quarterly with members such as László Ottlik, Zsombor Szász, Count István Zichy, Arthur B. Yolland, as well as the two coeditors, György Ottlik and József Balogh.

Membership of the Society was like a Who Was Who in interwar Hungary, recruited from the Anglophile section of Hungarian high society, possibly with an anti-Nazi flair. Carefully selected, almost handpicked, the list was the brainchild of József Balogh, György Ottlik and, most probably, Count Bethlen. Letters of invitation were signed by Bethlen himself—and he received enthusiastic answers. Budapest University Professor of English Arthur B. Yolland "saw in the connections, particularly established by Your Excellency, linking Hungary to England the strongest safeguard of the future happiness of Hungary."²³ British-Hungarian explorer and orientalist Sir Aurel Stein drew a parallel between the significance of Bethlen's 1933 lectures in Britain and the new journal in serving the Hungarian cause.²⁴
The list of members included Hungarian aristocrats such as Count György Apponyi, Count Béla Hadik, Count József Mailáth, Baron Antal Radvánszky and Count Károly Széchényi, with Habsburg Archduke Albrecht at the top, members of the government such as Bálint Hóman and Andor Lázár, former cabinet ministers such as Gusztáv Gratz, Béla Imrédy, Béla Kenéz, Tibor Scitovszky and Lajos Walkó, members of Hungarian Parliament such as Pál Biró, Tibor Eckhardt, Pál Fellner and Sándor Mándy, members of the Upper House of Parliament like Ferenc Chorin, Károly Erney and Baron Móric Kornfeld, members of the Hungarian diplomatic corps such as Elek Nagy, Jenő Nelky and Domokos Szentiványi, members of the financial aristocracy such as Baron Marcell Madarassy-Beck, Baron György Ullmann and Fülöp Weiss, professors at Hungarian universities including Zoltán Magyary, Gyula Szekfű, Béla Vasady and Arthur B. Yolland, with the addition of a few distinguished Hungarians living in Britain like the Baroness Charles Rothschild and Sir Aurel Stein—just to mention some typical SHQ members.²⁵ A map showing the homes of these people would show the best addresses of Budapest—the palaces on Buda Castle Hill, the villas on Rózsadomb, the townhouses along Eszterházy utca and Andrássy út, and their, at the time, elegant neighbourhoods.
The idea to extend membership beyond Budapest was soon mooted. The Society tried to establish local groups in the university towns of Szeged and Debrecen. Szeged was a real success. Based on the recommendations of Szeged university professor Tivadar Surányi-Unger, an economist of standing and head of the Department of Statistics, Bethlen contacted some thirty people in Szeged. The list of the local members of the Society was compiled "partly on the basis of the social position of the prospective members of a potential English-Hungarian group, partly according to the members' interest in English as a language and culture."²⁶ Half of them were professors at the University of Szeged and thus colleagues of Surányi-Unger, including the philosophers György Bartók and Hildebrand Várkonyi, the legal scholars László Buza, István Ereky, Barna Horváth and Sándor Kornél Túry, the pathologist József Baló, the paediatrician Jenő Kramár, the physicians Rudolf Engel and Béla Purjesz, the mathematicians Béla Kerékjártó and Frigyes Riesz, the physicist Pál Fröhlich, as well as the biochemist and Nobel Laureate Albert Szent-Györgyi. Several of them were admirers not so much of Britain but of America. In the 1930s Tivadar Surányi-Unger was in Los Angeles on three occasions as visiting professor, others studied in England (such as Barna Horváth, a student of Harold J. Laski in London in the late 1920s) or the U.S. (such as Jenő Kramár, a Rockefeller Fellow in 1924–25). Both Horváth and Kramár ended up, after 1945, as professors in the United States. Surányi-Unger knew exactly whom to recommend for membership in The Society of The Hungarian Quarterly to Count Bethlen. The Szeged list moreover reflected a cross-section of local society with merchants like Mátyás Csányi, Miklós Reitzer and Albert Székely, members of the Piarist teaching order such as János Szűcs and László Zányi, Calvinist minister László Bakó as well as local administrators. Even a general, Antal Silley, was included. As late as 1937–38, some people on the list, such as Professors Purjesz and Riesz as well as the crop-merchant Miklós Reitzer were Jewish. All of the Szeged dignitaries were honoured and willing to be included into Count Bethlen's select circle.²⁷ The first meeting of the Szeged group included a lecture by Sir Richard Winn Livingstone and even Professor Szent- Györgyi expressed his hope of seeing Count Bethlen on the occasion, thus personally meeting the former Prime Minister.²⁸ László Zányi Sch.P. thought it was a good opportunity to ask the Count to help him obtain a scholarship to travel to Britain.²⁹ Some, like attorney Lajos Szekerke, just felt proud "to be included in the work destined to serve the vitally important interests of our fatherland."³⁰
Bethlen's efforts to recruit members in Debrecen met with much less success. Bethlen first contacted University Rector Sándor Csikesz who, however, proved reluctant to provide the necessary information for the President of The Society of The Hungarian Quarterly.³¹ Bethlen then turned to the Calvinist theologian Professor Béla Vasady of the University of Debrecen. Vasady was the right person to choose as he spent some two years at Dayton and Princeton in the U.S. in the mid-1920s. (He left for the United States after World War II.) Vasady did his best to contact the Anglophiles of Debrecen but the success of Szeged was not repeated there.

The Society was sponsored by both the Hungarian government and especially the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as the leading industrial and financial institutions of interwar Hungary.³² Prevalent among them were the Association of Savings Banks and Banks (TÉBE) and the National Association of Industrialists (GyOSz) who gave large subsidies over three years. The Baroness Rothschild, a native of Hungary in London, undertook to cover the costs of paper for The Hungarian Quarterly for two years and contacted the firm Rowlandson and Co. to guarantee the supply.³³ (Even the "Pastouchi" matrices were imported for the journal from Britain.³⁴) In 1935 it was also expected that the Society would succeed in securing "major financial contributions from England."³⁵
György Ottlik and József Balogh offered their services to the journal free of charge. In turn, The Hungarian Quarterly helped them in some ways, e.g. by popularising Ottlik's Budapest radio lectures such as the one on Hungary and European solidarity on 20 March 1936, by sending out advertisements in English to all quarters.³⁶ The new Society hoped to use the facilities of the Magyar Szemle Society but the two societies were separated at an early date, at the very end of 1935.³⁷
The Society provided social and logistical support to visiting British dignitaries. A good example was the 1937 visit of the historian Arnold Toynbee and Mrs. Toynbee to Hungary³⁸ which showed how the Society tried to cement friendship between Hungary and Britain or, as the similar visit by George Creel showed in 1936, the United States.³⁹ The Toynbees were expected to reach Budapest on Thursday, 13 May and a major reception was given by Count and Countess Bethlen in their honour that same evening, in the reception hall of the Interior Ministry. Bethlen also gave a private lunch for the British visitors. Next day, on Friday 14 May, Toynbee lectured, and this was followed by a dinner at the home of Professor Gyula Kornis, Deputy-Speaker of the House and University Rector of Budapest University. The British guests stayed in Budapest on Saturday, 15 May, to go to the Opera.—Sunday, 16 May there was an excursion planned for the Toynbees, who went through Székesfehérvár, Balatonfüred and the Lake Balaton area to Ireg, Baron Móric Kornfeld's⁴⁰ château, where they stayed until Tuesday, 18 May to return to Budapest some time in the morning. One evening was spent with the British Minister to Hungary Sir Geoffrey Knox, and the Foreign Ministry also organized a meal for the visitors. The entire program was put together with great care and sophistication by SHQ Secretary General József Balogh. He knew perfectly well that Toynbee would appreciate an emphatically friendly welcome in Hungary: his Budapest lecture included references favourable to the revision of the Treaty of Trianon,⁴¹ words by the Director of Studies of the Royal Institute of International Affairs dear to Hungarian ears.
With increasing threats of war, The Society of The Hungarian Quarterly and the Société de la Nouvelle Revue de Hongrie anticipated and prepared for their own disappearance from Hungary. According to an undated document,

in case of war The Hungarian Quarterly / the Nouvelle Revue de Hongrie would be compelled to cease its appearance in Budapest and their respective editors in London and Paris would take over the journals, declaring that "As the events of the war discontinued the connections to their proprietors, The Société de la Nouvelle Revue de Hongrie / The Society of The Hungarian Quarterly, I take over the editing of the journal previously published in Hungary and I take sole responsibility for it; it was a Group of Friends of The Hungarian Quarterly / a Comité de Patronage de La Nouvelle Revue de Hongrie that undertook to publish the journal instead of The Society of The Hungarian Quarterly / the Société de la Nouvelle Revue de Hongrie. We look forward to receiving the continued support of the never-failing friends of the Hungarian cause."⁴²

In different ways, most members of The Society of The Hungarian Quarterly became victims of World War II or its aftermath. As twin symbols, József Balogh was murdered by the Nazis or their Hungarian servants in 1944, Count István Bethlen died in a Soviet prison in 1946. The list of the casualties of Society members is huge. The project they cherished proved to be wishful thinking and died with the war. They represented a small and weak minority in prewar Hungary's social and political landscape—their plans came late and proved to be ineffective. However, they deserve more than a nod of approval by a later generation which appreciates their courage and sacrifice.

 

¹ Count Stephen Bethlen, The Treaty of Trianon and European Peace. London–New York– Toronto: Longmans, Green and Co., 1934.

² Tibor Frank, "Editing as Politics: József Balogh and The Hungarian Quarterly," in Tibor Frank, Ethnicity, Propaganda, Myth-Making. Studies on Hungarian Connections to Britain and America, 1848–1945. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1999, p. 265; Count Stephen Bethlen, The Treaty of Trianon and European Peace, op. cit.; R. W. Seton-Watson, A History of the Roumanians. From Roman Times to the Completion of Unity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1934, quote: R. W. Seton-Watson, Treaty Revision and the Hungarian Frontiers. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1934, p. 59; Ignác Romsics, István Bethlen: A Great Conservative Statesman of Hungary, 1874–1946. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995, pp. 312–317.

³ Bryan Cartledge, Mihály Károlyi and István Bethlen: Hungary. London: Haus Publishing, 2009.

⁴ Mária [Czellérné] Farkas, A Nouvelle Revue de Hongrie mint kultúraközvetítő folyóirat. Budapest: Gondolat, 2004; Henri de Montety, "La Nouvelle revue de Hongrie et ses amis français (1932–1944)". Ph.D. Diss. Université Lyon 3 Jean Moulin / Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem, 2009.

⁵ Tibor Frank, "Anglophiles. The ‘Anglo-Saxon' Orientation of Hungarian Foreign Policy, 1930s through 1944". The Hungarian Quarterly, Vol. 47, Spring 2006, p. 68.

⁶ Meeting of the Society of The Hungarian Quarterly, 3 March 1936, Országos Széchényi Könyvtár Kézirattára [OSzK Kt]: Fond 1/1525/13894.

⁷ György Ottlik at the SHQ committee meeting, 13 November 1936, OSzK Kt: Fond 1/1525/13896.

⁸ Minutes of the 2nd committee meeting of the SHQ, 3 January 1936, OSzK Kt: Fond 1/1525/13892.

⁹ Count László Széchényi to Kálmán Kánya, London, 5 January 1935, OSzK Kt: Fond 1/1525/14041.

¹⁰ János Pelényi to Tibor Eckhardt, Washington, D.C. 16 September 1940, OSzK Kt: Fond 1/1525/14056.

¹¹ József Balogh, Előadvány [Report], OSzK Kt: Fond 1/1525/14033.

¹² Count István Bethlen at the founding assembly of the SHQ, 10 June 1935, Minutes. OSzK Kt: Fond 1/1525/13883.

¹³ Note by József Balogh on The Hungarian Quarterly, Budapest, 8 January 1934. OSzK Kt: Fond 1/1525/14027.

¹⁴ Emlékeztető feljegyzés Szászné őméltósága londoni útjára [Aide mémoire for the London trip of Her Excellency Mrs. Zsombor Szász]. Budapest, n.d. OSzK Kt: Fond 1/1525/14054.

¹⁵ Suggested Draft of Advertisement in Young Magyar-American, OSzK Kt: Fond 1/3351/29891.

¹⁶ Count István Bethlen to Archduke József Ferenc, 22 February 1938. OSzK Kt: Fond 1/1660/14920.

¹⁷ Idem.

¹⁸ Count István Bethlen to Archduke József Ferenc, 22 February 1938, OSzK Kt: Fond 1/1660/14920; Archduke József Ferenc to Count István Bethlen,18 March 1938, OSzK Kt: Fond 1/1660/14921.

¹⁹ József Balogh, Note, 12 March 1936, OSzK Kt: Fond 1/322/3187; György Ottlik to Count István Bethlen, 13 March 1936, OSzK Kt: Fond 1/2440/21678.

²⁰ Minutes of the 2nd SHQ committee meeting, OSzK Kt: Fond 1/1525/13892.

²¹ Tibor Frank, Ethnicity, Propaganda, Myth-Making, op. cit., pp. 265–308.

²² President: Count Pál Teleki, OSzK Kt: 1/1525/13883.

²³ Arthur B. Yolland to Count István Bethlen, Budapest, 8 August 1935, OSzK Kt: Fond 1/1525/13933.

²⁴ Sir Aurel Stein to Count István Bethlen, Oxford, 31 August 1935. OSzK Kt: Fond 1/1525/13936.

²⁵ SHQ membership list, OSzK Kt: Fond 1/1525/13901.

²⁶ Tivadar Surányi-Unger to Count István Bethlen, Szeged, 3 December 1937, OSzK Kt: Fond 1/1525/13957.

²⁷ For the letters of acknowledgement see Count Bethlen's circular and the answers, OSzK Kt: Fond 1/1525/13957-14007.

²⁸ Albert Szent-Györgyi to Count István Bethlen, Szeged, 16 March 1938, OSzK Kt: Fond 1/1525/13992.

²⁹ László Zányi to Count István Bethlen, Szeged, 12 May 1938, OSzK Kt: Fond 1/1525/14007.

³⁰ Lajos Szekerke to Count István Bethlen, Szeged, 15 March 1938, OSzK Kt: Fond 1/1525/13987.

³¹ Count István Bethlen to Béla Vasady, Budapest, 15 July 1938, OSzK Kt: Fond 1/1525/14008.

³² Minutes of the SHQ founding assembly, 10 June 1935, OSzK Kt: Fond 1/1525/13883.

³³ Minutes of the 1st SHQ committee meeting, OSzK Kt: Fond 1/1525/13885.

³⁴ Ibid., OSzK Kt: Fond 1/1525/13885.

³⁵ Minutes of the founding session of The Hungarian Quarterly, 3 July 1935, OSzK Kt: Fond 1/1525/13884.

³⁶ Information on György Ottlik's radio lecture, 20 March 1936, OSzK Kt: Fond 1/1525/14071.

³⁷ Note of 21 December 1935, OSzK Kt: Fond 1/1525/14009.

³⁸ József Balogh to Baron Móric Kornfeld, Budapest, 28 April 1937, OSzK Kt: Fond 1/1826/15909.

³⁹ Tibor Frank, Ethnicity, Propaganda, Myth-Making, op. cit. pp. 245–246.

⁴⁰ On the Kornfelds and Ireg see the editor's introduction to Ágnes Széchenyi, ed., Reflections on Twentieth Century Hungary: Hungarian Magnate's View. Wayne, N.J.: Centre for Hungarian Studies and Publications, Inc.; Boulder, CO: Social Science Monographs; New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. pp. 47–54.

⁴¹ Arnold Toynbee quoted by Thomas L. Sakmyster, Hungary, the Great Powers and the Danubian Crisis 1936–1939. Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press, 1980, p. 201.

⁴² Note, n.d., n.p., OSzK Kt: Fond 1/1525 (unnumbered, concluding document in the folder).

 

Tibor Frank
is professor of history at the Department of American Studies and Director of the School
of English and American Studies at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. His most recent
books include Double Exile: Migrations of Jewish–Hungarian Professionals through
Germany to the United States, 1919–1945 (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2009), Zwischen
Roosevelt und Hitler. Die Geheimgespräche eines amerikanischen Diplomaten in
Budapest 1934–1941 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2009) and Hangarii Seiou-Gensou no
Wana—Senkanki no Kaneibeiha to Ryoudomondai (Tokyo: Sairyu Sha, 2008).