“WE ARE THE GRUND”:
THE COLLECTIVE VICTIMHOOD NARRATIVE IN SELF-REPRESENTATIONS OF HUNGARIAN IDENTITY
MA Thesis in European Studies Graduate School for Humanities Universiteit van Amsterdam
Nicole Yedica 12201839 Dr. A.J. Drace-Francis
Prof. dr. J.T. Leerssen
Table of Contents
Chapter 1. Introduction 2
1.1. Research Context 2
Chapter 2. Theoretical Framework of Collective Victimhood 3
2.1. Victimhood in the Hungarian Case 6
2.2. Significance of the Trauma of Trianon 7
2.3. Metaphorical Trianon 11
Chapter 3. Methodology 13
3.1. The Paul Street Boys 14
Chapter 4. The Questionable Role of Modernity 15
4.1. Interwar Cinema as a Reflection of Trauma 18
4.2. Victims in Relation to Grund as Country 21
4.3. Historical Allegory and Hidden Meanings 23
Chapter 5. Hungarian National Character 29
5.1. Identity Contestation: Minorities, Censorship and the Rural 30 5.2. ‘True Hungarian’: Boka and the Theme of Honour 32 5.3. ‘True Hungarian’: Nemecsek and the Theme of Martyrdom 35 Chapter 6. Conclusion: Post-1989 and History’s Place in Film 38 6.1. Modern Interpretation of The Paul Street Boys 40
6.2. Concluding Remarks 41
1. Introduction
The Hungarian children’s novel The Paul Street Boys imparts all the elements of a classic youth story about childhood: friendship, adventure, and freedom, but most importantly, victimhood. At the collective level, feeling that one’s group has been injured and still suffers as a result of it is termed collective victimhood. Within the framework of collective identity narratives, being the victim plays the role of an identity trait. Hungarian collective victimhood has historically been connected to the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, which serves as a ‘chosen trauma’ for the nation. Interwar sentiments toward the Treaty of Trianon are still present in Hungarian culture today including victimhood as a central aspect in narratives of collective national identity. Previous research has identified the use of victimhood in politics and historiography. However, the use of victimhood in these cases cannot be successful without the existence of a collective victimhood narrative in broader Hungarian culture and society. Therefore, the guiding question for this research is how does the concept of collective victimhood characterise Hungarian identity in literature and film?
Ferenc Molnár’s classic children’s story A Pál Utcai Fiúk [The Paul Street Boys] (1906) has been used to display Hungarian victimhood as part of the Hungarian national character. Viewing the story in Hungarian historical, literary and cinematic contexts, discourse analysis illuminates the relationship between victimhood and collective identity. After a brief discussion of collective victimhood, particularly as relates to Hungary, an analysis of the instrumentalization of the Treaty of Trianon in creating a national trauma around which to build a collective identity and the continuation of Trianon metaphors to keep the trauma alive will follow. Then, this will be applied to The Paul Street Boys novel as well as Zoltán Fábri’s 1969 film adaptation by looking at interpretations of modernity as a threat and allegorical readings of the story as the nation victimised by an external agent. Finally, interpretations believing the characters represent the ‘true’ Hungarian national character will be addressed and how the focus has fallen on the themes of honour and martyrdom which augment the feeling of victimhood.
1.1. Research Context
Hungary is not unique in regard to collective victimhood’s critical position within the narrative of the nation. The Hungarian case can be studied as one example of this phenomenon as an addition to research already done studying other groups’ use of collective victimhood in
narrative and identity building. While on the surface, this is an analysis of victimhood in The Paul Street Boys, literature – and culture in general – does not exist in a vacuum which has no contact or dialogue with the more ‘serious’ studies of politics, historiography, etc. From individual and collective understanding and interpretation of literature and film, self-perceptions of identity can be drawn. Therefore, this study is also about Hungarian national self-perceptions of culture and identity in an attempt to understand the Hungarian use of victimhood in other arenas such as politics, but also how it becomes part of group identity and collective expression. More broadly, a study of the use of victimhood in art and culture is important because the legacy of victimhood is used in politics – especially to deepen schisms, support xenophobia, turn minorities into a national “Other” and broadly maintain political crises. The use of victimhood in politics does not exist independently of the victimhood that is represented in culture. Ultimately, victimhood is not only a Hungarian phenomenon as the victim complex is pervasive around the world among many diverse communities. It cannot be ignored as a motivating and legitimising force for a variety of political or social aims. In order to overcome the victim complex, victimhood must be acknowledged and understood.
2. Theoretical Framework of Collective Victimhood
Collective victimisation is a social psychological definition relating to the persecution, oppression or exploitation of one group by another for a variety of economic, political or social objectives. This victimisation can occur through violent means such as confrontations, invasion, subjugation, and repression. Non-violent victimisation arises from methods such as systematic oppression and impoverishment. What characterises collective victimisation is harm towards a group that the group perceived as unjust and unprovoked (Jasini, Devaux and Mesquita 2017; Noor et al. 2017; Vollhardt 2012).
Whereas victimisation refers to the action of being harmed, collective victimhood arises from experiencing the psychological effects (Noor et al. 2017, 121; Jasini, Devaux and Mesquita 2017). However, victimhood is not an objective category. Contextual factors such as political situation, cultural norms, economic condition and social conventions all play a role in defining who is the victim (Saeed 2016, 168). In addition, status as a victim can be manipulated depending on who controls history and reinforces certain forms of collective memory and narratives. Over time, contexts change, and victimhood is transmitted through the generations
which can also shape how it is viewed. Therefore, dominant narratives of victimhood are dependent on narrative perspective.
Collective victimhood is a thread within a memory narrative that shapes and is also shaped by collective memory. Collective memories are the frames constructed of representations of shared past and values formed on the basis of a shared identity. Contextually influenced, memory can be manipulated as it is contested and politicised. Collective memories provide a representation of history that exists to serve one or more different functions. The most salient of these functions of collective memory is to offer a ‘usable past’, which is to say a depiction of the past with a functional use in the present. This function could be either to provide knowledge about the past or to define identity. In defining identity, collective memory can structure collective values, justify group’s actions, or inspire and motivate individuals towards a collective goal (Licata and Mercy 2015, 194-197; Elsaesser 2014, 55-58). In this case, collective memory does not refer to the belief that there are memories that exist in an external collective space outside the consciousness of individual people. In the same vein, collective victimhood does not mean that everyone has a sense of being a victim. Rather, victimhood is the dominant narrative within the group. Not everyone has to feel victimised nor do they have to agree with this narrative. It is simply the frame offered by the group through which to view the world.
The use of collective victimhood stretches beyond just a means to transmit memories of injustice as it can also be utilised to increase the group’s moral standing. Experiencing an atrocity reduces the sense of agency in the victimised group. According to Social Identity Theory, people want to retain a favourable view of their group’s identity. Motivation to preserve the sense of positive group identity necessitates the victimised group to re-establish agency which can be achieved through the external recognition of their victim status (Noor et al. 2017, 122; Sullivan et al. 2012, 778).
Historically, strength and power dictated morality but due to the increasing hegemony of the Judeo-Christian worldview in the west, modesty and suffering came to be seen as qualities of superior moral status (Sullivan et al. 2012, 779-80).Into the mid-1900s in the west, the preferred collective narrative was one celebrating the group as heroic. However, as a consequence of the fundamental cultural changes in attitudes in the west – which included the growth of psychology, the change in thinking that suffering can be mental not just physical, and the ‘ethical turn’ – people became more sympathetic towards victims of trauma (Ganteau
and Onega 2017, 1-3; Brand 2008, 166). The terms ‘victim’ and ‘trauma’ have come to hold a significant place in popular discourse, with more and more groups claiming victimhood. Victimhood has come to designate not only primary victims of harm but also all individuals affected by the events including bystanders and perpetrators (Elsaesser 2014, 276). Regarding catastrophes, Thomas Elsaesser describes it as, “…in the case of violent events, such as a world war and unspeakably inhuman acts, such as the Holocaust – their afterlife in memory is what becomes the actual trauma, making all those exposed to this afterlife, regardless of their individual life story or role in the events, at once its survivors and victims” (Elsaesser 2014, 7).
Omer Bartov writes about this ‘glorification of victimhood’: “This was a grim, probably inevitable glorification of one's helplessness, of pain and death, just as much as of heroism and sacrifice; it was, that is, a glorification of victimhood” (Bartov 1998, 95). Caused by World War I and the exposure to the horrors of war in Germany, the ‘glorification of victimhood’ caused Germans to see themselves as the victims of the Jews despite being the victimizers. In turn, the victimhood narrative arising after the Holocaust has shaped the image of the ‘victim’ and the Holocaust itself is now the set of reference in the west for how one measures other cases of victimisation (Bartov 1998). The Nazi assertion of victimhood is an example of how, in order to increase their own group’s moral identity, perpetrators engage in competitive victimhood by claiming their group has experienced comparatively worse suffering. Being accused of committing harm towards another group is perceived as a threat to a group’s moral and social identity. This threat is met with efforts to legitimise the group’s contentious actions (Vollhardt 2012; Sullivan et al. 2012; Branscombe et al. 1999, 46-50).
Competitive victimhood is driven by the desire to increase ‘moral status’ with the label of victim. It arises as a response to the threat to moral social identity arising from allegations that a group has victimised another without justified cause (Sullivan et al. 2012, 779-780). This leads to competitions for recognition of suffering when the victimised group believes others are not recognising their own victim status. This competition can be either in terms of material or financial compensation or for symbols like monuments or spoken recognition (Vollhardt 2012; De Guissmé and Licata 2017, 148-150). Groups engage in competitive victimhood to not only reinstate or strengthen the group image regarding morality but also to increase unity, legitimise their own actions or claim they were not responsible for them and eschew the negative emotions resulting from perceptions of low moral group identity (Noor et al. 2012, 351-353). In addition, the label exclusive victimhood has been used to describe the belief by a
group that their suffering has been unique (Jasini, Devaux and Mesquita 2017). Further, the research of Laura de Guissmé and Laurent Licata (2017) develop on this by demonstrating how competitive victimhood can occur even when groups were not involved in the victimisation of each other.
Research in social psychology shows that a strong sense of collective victimhood within a group can negatively affect relationships with other groups (De Guissmé and Licata 2017, 148). It correlates with distrust, detachment, and economic exclusion toward the other group (Jasini, Devaux and Mesquita 2017). Masi Noor, Johanna Vollhardt, Silvia Mari, and Arie Nadler (2017) demonstrate how the feelings of victimhood continue to affect relationships beyond the case of victimisation and with groups uninvolved in the victimisation. Being reminded of historical cases of victimisation of one’s group prompts lower guilt for collective harm caused towards others in different unconnected cases as well as decreases trust towards individuals from other groups (Noor et al. 2017, 123). Moreover, accompanying collective victimhood transfer among individuals are strong emotions and debates about commemoration and remembrance of the trauma. Media, therefore, significantly impacts victimhood transmission in its role as a conductor, presenting narratives of victimhood and trauma, as well as moulding meanings and interpretations, and promoting individuals to identify with the collective victimhood narrative (Brand 2008, 165; Vollhardt 2012, 141).
2.1. Victimhood in the Hungarian Case
The theme of victimhood has been asserted to be a central element of collective Hungarian identity. However, the increasing significance of memory in the construction of national identity is not a uniquely Hungarian phenomenon. Collective memory studies which examine the use of memory of the past to construct the present, contend that Central and Eastern European nations have used the memory of victimisation and suffering as a foundation in the construction of collective identity (Brand 2008, 165; Grišinas 2017, 66-67). In the nineteenth century, collective memory in the western world was no longer trusted by intellectuals as academic history rose in significance (Gyáni 2012a) The return to the centrality of collective memory in Central and Eastern Europe is credited to its suppression under communism. The transparency of the state’s manipulation of history and memory during that period was reflected through the unreliability of textbooks and history books. After the 1970s when resistance rose to the communist state, what was celebrated as true or pure memory were autobiographies and
biographies (Elsaesser 2014, 277; Esbenshade 1995, 74-76). Post-1989, collective memory has come to be portrayed as the ‘true past’ and as the alternative or counter-narrative to the communist narrative (Esbenshade 1995, 73).
Following 1989, political leaders needed new national narratives as an alternative to the official communist Hungarian Working People’s Party [MDP] version. This new narrative would need to legitimise the new leaders’ struggle for power and create something behind which to unify the nation. As a solution to the problem of identity, to overcome the recent communist past, and to establish a form of collective identity in place of the former one, leaders looked back to the past, particularly to the years between the two World Wars (Gergely 2017, 80; Gyáni 2012b, 112). The past – as a ‘reinvention of historic identity’ which used idealised conceptions of the nation’s history – was utilised as a locus around which to orient thinking regarding identity and to gain legitimacy for the existence of the nation (Deme 1998, 310; Neumayer 2012, 112; Strausz 2011). History in Hungarian public memory has become a narrative detailing a pattern of decline of former greatness from the former glory of the Kingdom of Hungary as it sought to protect itself from the Ottomans and Austrians to the nation’s decline with the world wars and the Treaty of Trianon (Licata and Mercy 2015, 196). In this post-1989 trend to reinvent ‘historic’ Hungarian identity, victim-mentality has made its way back into the open in the Hungarian public sphere along with the resurgence of interwar attitudes, symbols, and identity. The discourse of fate and the martyr have become popular, especially in relation to Hungary’s position as so-called ‘defender’ of Christian Europe from the ‘Eastern invaders.’ In addition, the Christian-National Idea/Spirit (Keresztény-Nemzeti Eszme/Szellem) advocated by Viktor Orbán – Christianity centred on protection and preservation of country and family, and fear of the Other – has a long history tied to the interwar Miklós Horthy government where it undeniably contained an overt anti-Semitic meaning (Balogh 2015; Fekete 2016, 40-44; Gyáni 2012b, 112). With the hegemony of the Treaty of Trianon in memory, victimhood is placed once again as central in the narrative of collective national identity (Neumayer 2012, 103-107).
2.2. Significance of the Trauma of Trianon
The Treaty of Trianon was the 1920 treaty to end World War I with Hungary. Based on Woodrow Wilson’s “Fourteen Points” and advocacy of “self-determination” – the ambiguous notion that people should be allowed to choose how they are governed and that providing for
this will lead to peace in the world – the losers of World War I such as Hungary and Germany were forced to give up land. Hungary was not consulted in the decision that forced it to concede territories to Romania, Yugoslavia, Austria and Czechoslovakia as the Entente Powers tried to create ethnic nation-states in Central and Eastern Europe. As those sympathetic to Hungary describe in the simplest terms, the new border changes drawn by the Entente Powers in the treaty took away “two-thirds” of Hungarian territory (White 1992, 23-24; see also Cunningham 2004, 22-26; Jeancolas 1989, 12-14; Kovács and Mindler-Steiner 2015, 54; Menyhért 2016, 69-81). The resulting changes caused acute economic and social problems for the new nation-state of Hungary (Menyhért 2016, 69-70; Putz 2016, 227).
Because of this, the Treaty of Trianon was important in defining attitudes and considered a great source of trauma to the nation. Even today it comes up as a major source of bitterness. In the creation of post-1989 narratives, the Treaty of Trianon has become the ‘chosen trauma’ playing a role in shaping collective identity, and with it came this strong sense of collective victimhood of this unpreventable harm to the nation. Of the historical events, Trianon is instrumentalised as the central point of trauma (Holec 2011, 25). Trianon was – and again today is – depicted as this horrible national disaster perpetrated by more powerful international agents against poor, weak Hungary – taking away its agency – in visual depictions of Hungary as maimed and through metaphors in speech. These visual and metaphorical depictions themselves then structure how Hungarians see the world and contribute to the survival of this certain mental image of the nation tied to collective national victimhood. The theme of collective victimhood was an important part of Hungarian identity during the interwar years with Trianon being the central point of trauma. Anna Menyhért refers to it as the ‘chosen trauma’ which brings up strong feelings of humiliation and victimisation. Brooding over this source of discontent internalises it as part of identity (Menyhért 2016, 71-72). Gábor Gyáni contends that by focusing on the Treaty of Trianon, having it be the national narrative of trauma and using it to sustain identity, the concept of the nation becomes one of an “exclusive victimised community” (Gyáni 2012a, 375).
The transmission of the ‘discourse of grievance’ surrounding trauma can occur through channels such as the media and literature alongside oral histories. Critical of trauma theory, E. Ann Kaplan contends that to analyse trauma in literature and film, trauma should be seen as arising from external influences not just from the individual. Similarly, Wulf Kansteiner agrees that collective memory is not analogous to individual memory and therefore cannot be studied in the same manner. Although narratives may have their origins in events of trauma, in order
to be converted into collective memories they do not keep the same elements (Elsaesser 2014, 309-315; Kansteiner 2002).
Politics cycles between the celebration and the forgetting of trauma. After the trauma of the Treaty of Trianon spent years openly discussed in the public sphere during the time between the two world wars, during the communist era, the topic of Trianon was proscribed as a taboo. The effect of this inability to discuss the topic was the intensification of the sense of trauma surrounding Trianon through the inability to process the traumatic event. This deepened the stress of victims – and ‘victims’ – and following the disintegration of the Soviet bloc, Trianon was once again brought to the forefront in political discourse (Dénes 2013, 465-466; Gyáni 2012b; Kovács 2017; Menyhért 2016, 78-82). Stemming from the negative interwar feelings towards the Treaty of Trianon, the memory narrative of Hungarian history is one of national victimisation. In Hungary, the attitude toward victimhood and trauma encouraged by the national narrative is that the nation of Hungary is traumatised by a history characterised by defeats and failures, upon which they reflect with a sense of injustice and unfairness (Holec 2011, 26).
The Treaty of Trianon was instrumentalised in the interwar years to build up a collective national trauma and this was accompanied by the specific forms of nationalism as well as irredentism for the ‘lost’ territories which was – and still is – used to justify Hungary’s involvement in World War II (Menyhért 2016, 71). By engaging a victimhood discourse, Hungary aimed to adjust its narrative in defence of the nation’s moral appearance, to put itself on equal moral standing as other victim groups and to create a positive collective identity. In order to diminish or deny responsibility for harm perpetrated against others – particularly the Jewish and Romani affected by Hungarian anti-Semitism and anti-Romani sentiments – the Hungarian national narrative says that not only were the majority of these atrocities committed by an external force, the German Nazis, but that Hungary was not a perpetrator but a victim, not only to the Nazis but also to the entire ‘international community’ for forcing Trianon upon it, which in turn forced Hungary to act in the way it did (Hirschberger, Kende, and Weinstein 2016).
The national identity-building since the 1990s and now led by Viktor Orbán and his political party, Fidesz, has drawn on interwar historiography which is highly skewed in irredentist and nationalistic ways. The increased use of history has created the ‘cult of the national past’ which is centred around not only an anti-communist attitude but also the
‘re-discovery’ of historic culture and traditions, used to consolidate and revitalise the ‘nation.’ In studies of speeches from the Hungarian Parliament, Gábor Gyáni noted the use of the rhetoric adapted surrounding Trianon, displaying how it is used as a symbol of the ‘tragic past’ (Gyáni 2012b, 91-109). Other studies have shown as well the narrative of a history of victimhood dominating memory politics and debates about the historical commemoration of tragedies. Despite the European Union’s narrative placing the Holocaust as the central – and exclusive – trauma and case of victimisation, Trianon retains its hegemony in collective national memory in Hungary. The Holocaust presents a rival to Trianon in that it presents an “insecure definition” of the ‘victim’, meaning as it is commonly accepted who were the victims of the Holocaust – notably Jewish people – but in Hungary it is contested whether or to what extent the Hungarian nation itself can be considered a victim as well (Gyáni 2012b, 94; Kovács 2017, 110-111; Kovács and Mindler-Steiner 2015, 54).
With the use of history to unite and mobilise Hungarian society, historian Roman Holec diagnoses a nation “made sick by history.” The resulting mix of pride and trauma in addition to the way history is continually referred and returned back to, Holec says there is no clear way to move out of the current cycle of over-use of history. Holec criticises this victimhood narrative surrounding Trianon as it ignores that, although unfair, the Treaty of Trianon was provoked. Hungarian historiography does not address that it was a response to Hungary’s previous actions, notably the expansionism present during World War I and the treatment of ethnic minorities in previous Hungarian territory. By ignoring this, historiography distorts memory and approaches studies of the Treaty of Trianon with what he calls an ‘ahistorical point approach’ in which studies commence at the ‘point’ of Trianon and do not address what happened leading up to it, ignoring that history is a series of causes and effects. By ignoring context, any event can give the impression of being unfair and unprovoked. In this way, Trianon appears to be an unexplainable national tragedy in which Hungary is evidently the victim (Holec 2011).
Holec’s study of periodical journals focuses on journals which portray themselves as dedicated to the scientific study of Trianon but in most cases are in fact ‘quasi-academic’ at best. These journals ignore the causes of Trianon, use emotional argumentation, and list conspiracy theories attempting to explain why Trianon occurred. For example, the historical journal Trianoni Szemle [Trianon Review] promotes itself as dedicated to research related to the Treaty of Trianon, but demonstrates historical revisionism, anti-communism, and Holocaust denial (Holec 2011, 25-35; see also Gyáni 2012b, 91-109). This same approach to
history is used in claiming Hungary was a passive recipient of events instead of involved as an instigator. For example, claims denying or minimising Hungarian involvement in the Holocaust asset that Miklós Horthy was only doing what he had to do to protect the nation, denying the prevalence of anti-Semitism and citing the German Occupation as proof that Hungary was not involved. Holec criticises these approaches to Hungarian historiography for their contradictory double standards, negligence of context and lack of self-reflection (Holec 2011, 25).
2.3. Metaphorical Trianon
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1980) pioneered studies of the use of metaphor in everyday life, arguing that metaphors do not exist only in language but also shape how one perceives the world and connects to others. In their words, metaphors “define our everyday realities” (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 3). As opposed to a metaphor, in which one thing is understood and experienced with regard to a similar thing, a metonym is when one thing represents another based on linked associations between the things. Lakoff and Johnson argue that since metaphors shape how individuals see reality, new metaphors produce new realities (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 145). There have been some changes and additions to this theory over time but essentially what it means is that metaphors dictate more than just a way of speaking but also a way of thinking which shapes individuals’ worldviews (Putz 2016, 279). Zoltán Kövecses’ addition to this theory is that context functions at the heart of the creation and understanding of metaphors. The meanings and interpretations of metaphors are dependent on the person using the metaphor, the person trying to understand it, and the contexts of both. While suggesting the existence of basic universal metaphors related to the shared aspects of being human, there will still be differing contextual factors, such as historical, socio-cultural, cognitive and environmental factors which will change the meaning and interpretations of these metaphors (Kövecses 2015).
The word Trianon itself is both a metaphor and a metonym used to represent a wide variety of meanings. The word is used to denote the Treaty of Trianon itself, the non-Hungarian actors involved in the decision-making process and the resulting changes to the border and population. Additionally, it signifies the collective psychological state of mind of the nation that developed from Trianon: the dejection of being unable to defend oneself from the caprice of others (Menyhért 2016, 71; Putz 2016, 277).
Based on this research of metaphors, Orsolya Putz (2016) examined how the Hungarian public discourse discusses the consequences of the Treaty of Trianon by looking at the use of conceptual metaphors. She argues the enduring use of the same metaphors from 1920 to 2015 means that the interwar framework of Trianon has survived as a vital element of collective Hungarian identity (Putz 2016, 276). By looking at the conceptualisation of Hungarian national self-image with regard to the population and border changes and their effects on culture and resources, she distinguishes the system of metaphors surrounding Trianon. These metaphors create the way the nation is imagined, or constructed, with before and after Trianon imagined as two distinct categories and that Hungarians who live in the area of ‘Greater Hungary’ together make up the group of those ethnically, culturally, and nationally Hungarian. The dominant metaphors since 1920 have been the metaphor of the family, the metaphor of body – where Trianon is causing physical wounds and scars, and the metaphor of the nation as a person capable of owning property. This creates the image of post-Trianon Hungary as a person who used to be powerful but has become weak. Through these metaphor structures, Hungary conceptualises itself as the passive party upon whom the Treaty of Trianon was forced illegitimately and violently, without consent from Hungary (Putz 2016, 278-294). The metaphors create the conception that Hungary existed prior to Trianon as an organic, integral object, which was fractured. This can be conceptualised in many ways – detachment, tearing, cutting and so on. Post-Trianon Hungary, then, is perceived as existing in two components: the Hungary that is currently within the borders of the nation-state and the Hungary that is without. This metaphor system has led to the belief in the continuity of a Greater Hungary that exists, borders notwithstanding, as a fundamental and indivisible whole. Based on Kövecses’ research, Putz concludes that it is not only the metaphors that have endured, but also the mental perception of a hurt, lonely nation with a tragic past (Putz 2016, 277-300).
Verbal metaphors are not the only rhetorical figure at work here. As Putz does with metaphors, Menyhért studies the visual depictions and descriptions of Trianon. Visual representations of Trianon emphasise the pain and violence felt not by people affected by the event and the consequences of it, but by the nation as if the nation itself were an individual. She argues that the lasting effect of the representation of an injured country in association with Trianon on culture has been in shaping an identity based around suffering. In addition, the influences of these images have contributed to inhibiting collective trauma processing (Menyhért 2016, 69-84).
3. Methodology
The use of victimhood in identity-formation and in politics has been studied in regards to Hungary, but what is less studied is the way that victimhood appears in cultural representations of identity. To examine the portrayal of the centrality of victimhood in Hungarian identity, I will focus on interpretations and remediations of the Hungarian children’s novel, The Paul Street Boys. What are the signs of victim mentality found in the different Hungarian versions and interpretations of this story? The method of discourse analysis will be used in close readings of the text as well as placing the story within a broader literary and cinematic – as well as socio-political – context.
While films can reflect the individual values and beliefs of the director, or of the state in cases of censorship, films cannot be separated from the social and political culture as they are involved in constructing reality as well as reflecting and conforming to the culture in which they are created (Miller 2004, 3). In this way, they also can be read as containing the cultural language and values present in the society. This study also aims to show how the use of the theme of the victimisation of the nation is not ruptured during the communist era but continues in an evolving form from 1920 to the present.
Evidence pointing towards a narrative of collective victimhood will be examined through not only cases with direct references to being or feeling like victims, but also the indirect references through victim-mentality-coded language that is evoked in these texts. ‘Victim mentality’ includes several characteristics. First, the group claiming victimhood may engage in competitive victimhood, believing that their suffering has been greater than that of others or fundamentally unique. Second, the group claiming victimhood may blame others for their circumstances while rejecting any self-accountability. Third, the group claiming victimhood may believe others always hold negative intentions towards them. Forth, the group claiming victimhood may react defensively towards perceived accusations. Finally, these will be accompanied with sentiments of self-pity, general dissatisfaction, helplessness and pessimism characterised by the idealisation of martyrdom as well as nostalgia for an ‘ideal’ past (Kets de Vries 2014; Noor et al. 2017, 121-134).
3.1. The Paul Street Boys
The understanding of The Paul Street Boys as a cultural expression has been slowly evolving and changing over the years since it was written. Ferenc Molnár originally wrote The Paul Street Boys as a series of chapters published between 1905 and 1906 in Tanulók Lapja, a boys’ youth magazine. The story’s success prompted its compilation and release as a novel in 1906. The story centres around a group of schoolboys in Budapest who play on an empty plot of land, which they call the grund. The declaration of einstand, their form of war, by their rival gang, the Redshirts, prompts the Paul Street Boys to defend the grund. After they catch a Redshirt on the grund, the leader of the Paul Street Boys, János Boka, recruits Csónakos and Ernő Nemecsek to sneak into the Redshirt’s territory, the Botanical Gardens, where they realize their friend, Geréb, is a traitor working for the Redshirts. Later Nemecsek goes to spy on the Redshirts alone but is caught when he stands up for the Paul Street Boys and consequently, he is dunked into cold water. But it is his display of honour that inspires the Redshirt leader, Feri Áts, to take an honourable approach to the war by creating fair rules for the two gangs to follow as opposed to ‘cheating’ such as bribing the guard or sneaking up on the other gang unprepared. Nemecsek is sick from his dunking in the water but instead of remaining in bed and recovering, he sneaks out to the fight. He arrives just in time to pull down Feri Áts and the Paul Street Boys win the fight. However, his illness worsens, and he dies. After the elation of the knowledge they have managed to protect their grund, they learn the land will be developed into housing and beginning the next day, workers will come to dig the foundation, whereupon the boys will lose what they had protected (Molnár 1998).
The novel has been readapted many times for film and theatre since its release. Silent films were made in 1917 and 1924, but the most famous cinematic adaptation is Zoltán Fábri’s 1969 version. In addition, the story has been adapted in other countries as well. Most famously, this includes Frank Borzage’s 1934 No Greater Glory and Maurizio Zaccaro’s 2003 I Ragazzi Della via Pál. However, these adaptations were not well-received in Hungary as they deviated greatly from the original plot. Theatrical adaptations in Hungary were popular as well but halted from the 1950s until the 1990s. The most recent adaptation, a 2016 musical directed by László Marton with music by László Dés and Péter Geszti, is currently running sold-out performances at the Vígszínház [Comedy Theatre] in Budapest as well as several other theatres across the country.
This Hungarian classic gives insight into Hungarian self-image through the interpretations of collective victimhood and national characters. The interpretation of the story has changed over time. The most obvious example of this is portrayed in the differences between the adaptations, but also in the changing interpretations of the story. Themes such as modernity versus rural, the allegorical reading of the metaphor of grund as country and questions of who is a “true Hungarian” in relation to honour and martyrdom are accentuated in modern interpretations where they were virtually non-existent in interpretations of the original story. First, victim mentality as arising through collective victimhood will be addressed and then the perceptions of the national character in the question of who is Hungarian will be examined.
4. The Questionable Role of Modernity
Victimhood is a large theme in the modern interpretation of the story. In the book, the Paul Street Boys – Nemecsek in particular – are clearly victims of the other gang. This would be evident to those reading the story when it was first published as it is made explicitly clear in the text. When Nemecsek describes to the other boys the incident where the Pásztor brothers steal his marbles, Molnár describes Nemecsek as the “ideal victim” (jó áldozat) (Molnár 1998, 17). However, later interpretations of the story would set aside this case of victimisation to focus on an interpretation that the ‘real case’ of victimisation was derived from the conclusion of the story: the development of the land and the modernisation this implies.
At the start of the twentieth century when Molnár wrote the novel, modernity as a threat to rural traditions was not a theme of the story. In the previous century, the quest of Romantic Nationalists to discover and preserve ‘true’ Hungarian culture and language influenced art and literature, inspiring the genre of the historical epic – of which Mihály Vörösmarty’s 1825 Zalán Futása [The Flight of Zalán] is an example – and the genre of folk-inspired poetry – of which Sándor Petőfi’s poems are examples; namely “Nemzeti dal” [National Song] which inspired the 1848 revolution and “Az Alföld” [The Plains] romanticising the Hungarian plains (Aczel 2015, 358-361). In contrast, at the turn of the century, Molnár’s writing reflected the cosmopolitan style that had developed in opposition to Hungarian Romantic Nationalism among what literary critic and Western Marxist György Lukács termed the ‘Generation of 1900’ (Lukacs 1988, 137-361). Budapest at this time was being renovated and modernised as it developed and grew. The years leading up to the turn of the century had brought technological advances in the form of the streetcar, the metro, and new bridge technology, and the economy
and industry in the city were prosperous. Granted, the time period leading up to World War I, as idealised as it has come to be remembered, still experienced many issues – notably urban poverty, inequality, and the violent crackdowns on the unrest among landless peasants. Despite this, advancement, modernisation and economic growth are remembered as the mood of pre-World War I Hungary (Török 1996, 57; Czigány 1984, 263-266). This mood and nostalgia for ‘happier times’ before Hungary would be confronted with serious issues are represented in interpretations of the first chapter of The Paul Street Boys. There is a scene, a light-hearted moment of boyish camaraderie as they walk home from class, and it is a still from this scene, of Nemecsek sneezing and laughing, that was on the 1969 film cover and 1998 English revised translation cover. András Török concludes that it represents what is remembered as the prevalent tone: “It is summer, and there is all the joy of newly discovered pleasure. The Budapest of 1896 has been commemorated like that for many decades” (Török 1996, 58).
Molnár was best known as a playwright, situated by theatre studies within an assortment of playwrights in the period leading up to World War I whose stage plays demonstrate an affiliation with naturalism and symbolism. The style of Molnár’s plays is characterised by affability, carrying a hint of cynicism and the use of sentimentalism to produce subtle humour. He wrote urban dramas as universal stories which still contained a distinct Hungarian feeling. His depiction of Budapest is romanticised. His characters are usually middle or lower class from Budapest and the plots revolve around relationships and emotions (Czigány 1984, 273-276; Müller 2014). His plays are tinted with what Péter Müller calls an “undercurrent of sadness, some sentimental sorrow about the essence of life” (Müller 2014, 73). His most famous play, Liliom (1909), depicts these qualities. Although Liliom (sometimes spelt as Lilliom) was initially unsuccessful in Hungary, it became popular in the United States. It tells the story of Liliom who loves Julie, but when they fall on bad times, he abuses her. When she becomes pregnant, he plans a robbery to steal money for the child, but when it goes wrong, Liliom commits suicide to evade arrest. Finding himself in purgatory, Liliom is given the chance to go to heaven if he does a good dead for his daughter. He is sent back to Earth as a beggar to complete this task but ends up hitting his daughter and consequently failing. This play is also an example of the way Molnár’s works can be interpreted in multiple ways. In one interpretation, this play is believed to represent the theme that true love overcomes all. Julie still loves Liliom sixteen years after his death even after how he has treated her and abandoned her. In addition, because of Liliom’s love, his daughter does not feel the slap when he hits her, but rather a “kiss.” The other interpretation of the play deals with the unfairness of the ‘celestial
court’ that sentences him to carry out a good dead. It can be read as a satire of victims to bureaucracy (Czigány 1984, 275; Müller 2014, 72). This lack of cohesive message to come out of the play reflects the criticism Molnár’s works received for not containing a concrete moral lesson and is consistent with the way The Paul Street Boys has attracted a multitude of interpretations since it has been written.
The Paul Street Boys novel commences with the schoolboys being distracted from their lesson by the music of a street organ – called in the English translation a ‘hurdy-gurdy’:
…there intruded the sound of a hurdy-gurdy in a neighboring courtyard whereupon all earnestness and attention instantly fled. The windows were wide open, welcoming the warmth of a March day, while the wings of fresh spring breezes wafted music into the room. It was a rollicking Magyar melody which issued in march tempo from the hurdy-gurdy. It was so utterly hilarious an air, so Viennese in spirit, that the entire class felt tempted to smile… (Molnár 1998, 7)
This opening of the novel is with the boys being distracted by what is going on outside; by the street organ as well as by other things such as car horns and singing. The tone of this opening paragraph is very different from the beginning of the 1969 film adaptation which, in contrast, opens with a montage of fast-paced black and white photographs and film clips as if they were taken around the end of the 1880s when the story takes place. In black and white, scenes show horse-drawn carriages and streetcars racing through the urban streets of Budapest, shots of high-wheel bicycles, photos of people which showcase the fashion of the time, the carousel spinning, and the Széchenyi chain bridge. Drawing attention specifically to this photo of this particular bridge, it has significant meaning as a symbol of modernisation, reform and the connection of Buda and Pest and by extension, of the nation, because the famous reformer István Széchenyi who fought for its construction (Brody 1988).
When the film transitions to colour, a street organ is shown out on the street surrounded by children before the scene cuts to Nemecsek sitting inside the classroom daydreaming. None of the boys are paying attention to the teacher and when the bell rings, Nemecsek runs outside and sees the street organ. He is drawn in wonder to the images and designs, until suddenly a close up on the leering, grinning face of the man operating it scares Nemecsek. This opening’s focus on the fast-paced modernity of Budapest diverts the tone away from the playfulness of the schoolboys being distracted during lessons and changes the beginning, with the street organ and the streets of Budapest, from highlighting a tone of distracting and amusing to one, while
still playful, containing a hint of the ominous (which is emphasised by the film’s final shot being of the street organ once again after making no other appearances throughout the film).
Molnár’s depiction of Budapest in the novel is not as impersonal and antiquated as in the film’s black-and-white scenes. He describes Budapest through the boys’ release from class: “Like so many released prisoners, they reeled about at contact with so much fresh air and sunshine. They revelled in the din and buoyancy and vividness of the city…” (Molnár 1998, 10-11). The translation uses the words ‘din’, ‘buoyancy,’ and ‘vividness’ as translations of lármás, friss, and mozgalmas which translate approximately as noisy (boisterous), fresh (fast), and eventful (in terms of movement). Molnár romanticises Budapest, as later he also romanticises the grund. However, he is not necessarily commenting on something deeper.
Molnár, unlike the film, is unconcerned with modernisation as a threat. At the end of the film as the credits roll, the workers begin digging for the new tenement house they are building, a visual metaphor for the modernisation, a return to the theme that was introduced in the beginning. In the book, Boka laments the land itself for not remaining ‘faithful’ to them.
He must escape from this faithless strip of land, which had been protected by them at the cost of so much suffering and heroism and which was about to forsake them shamelessly in order to take upon its back, for all time, a big tenement house (Molnár 1998, 207).
In contrast to this, the film seems to suggest that modernity and the forces of modernisation are, in the end, what takes away the grund from the boys. While Boka in the book does not blame the loss on the owner of the land who has decided to build, in the film the sense they are victims is clearly evident when Boka opens the gate to look in and the scene transitions from a shot of the empty grund to one of the workers digging the foundation for the building. That the boys are victims to an ‘outside force’ taking away their grund would be a later interpretation, based on what would happen years later after the story was written. The idea that the story was an allegory for the Treaty of Trianon could not appear before the event itself.
4.1. Interwar Cinema as a Reflection of Trauma
During the interwar years, Hungary focused intensely on “an imaginary lost golden age” and the desire to regain the lost territory and return the borders to those of the ‘historical’ Kingdom of Hungary. Hungary supported arguments that it was entitled to the entire territory of ‘Greater
Hungary’ with claims that they were historically the first ethnic group to consistently inhabit the region, emphasising their supposed position as Christianity’s and Europe’s defence against the East. By the outbreak of World War II, the victimhood narrative in Hungary was widespread and cinema reflected these themes (Gergely 2017, 15-16; White 2002, 27-31). Films from the 1930s until the end of World War II were escapist in nature, expressing the desire to return to the “lost Golden Age.” Prevalent themes were the threats of modernity and impropriety against the rural and the folk, the return to the lost Golden Age, and the question of who is Hungarian. The Treaty of Trianon’s presence in films was allegorical: through stories with themes of restoration of greatness and impossible difficulties solved through far-fetched solutions(Gergely 2017, 310-313).
Film arrived in Hungary in the late nineteenth century, but in the early years of filmmaking in Hungary, foreign films were favoured. The industry continued to grow over time, even throughout World War I, and in 1919 it was nationalised. In the aftermath of the First World War, the Hungarian film industry was not spared from the economic disaster which affected all industries in Hungary. The National Motion Picture Inspection Committee, Országos Mozgóképvizsgáló Bizottság, known as the Filmcenzúra-bizottság [national censorship committee] was created in 1918 but was inefficient until 1920 when a new decree gave it the power to decide whether films were suitable to be viewed by the Hungarian public. Films were prohibited from containing material that broke the law or encouraged unruly public behaviour or improper morals. Because of problems with finances and Western competition, Hungarian films were not successful until the advent of sound. Because of concerns that the Hungarian film industry was struggling and the fear that the introduction of foreign movies would harm Hungarian culture, in 1925 the state acquired the production company Corvin Filmgyár (now called Hunnia Filmgyár) (Cunningham 2004, 5-19; Gergely 2017, 99-107).
After World War I, Hungary was entranced by the notion of a ‘national resurrection.’ In defiance of the borders set by the Treaty of Trianon, Hungarians continued to imagine their nation encompassing the territory they were forced to cede. This ‘restoration of greatness’ theme was pronounced in Hungarian historiography and politics during the 1930s as the government worked toward the reversal of Trianon(Gergely 2017, 64-125). The interwar historian Gyula Szekfű (Három Nemzedék, 1920) claimed the Carpathian Basin was rightfully Hungary’s because of the Hungarian’s history there and its position as defenders against the East. Therefore, he and many others at the time believed that Hungary had the right to be ‘restored’ to its ‘proper’ state (Cunningham 2004, 26; Vardy 1983). Interwar cinema reflects
this through themes of restoration (and decline) of greatness: restoring family estates, recovering lost wealth, reuniting families, marriages, and so on (Gergely 2017, 125). As the 1930s was coming to an end, a few political films directly portrayed the lack of unity people felt as they centred on communities interrupted by disturbances caused by harmful infatuations, such as the 1940 film Földindulás [Landslide] (Cunningham 2004, 46: Gergely 2017, 221-223). Anna Manchin argues that interwar cinema portrayal of the countryside was an alternative to the nationalist vision that saw the countryside as the stronghold of ‘true’ tradition and culture, as these films showed how modern and rural could exist together. For example, the 1934 film Az Új Rokon [The New Relative] tells the story of a cosmopolitan American woman visiting her family in Hungary and shows how she brings a dash of modernity and happiness to her traditional-oriented family (Manchin 2010).
Hungarian cinema was received favourably during these years because of its use of what Gábor Gergely calls folksploitation: the use of local rural settings and language along with cultural and folk elements. As many pre-1938 melodramas were set in rural settings, Hungary already had this genre of film before it became especially popular during World War II. By ignoring this genre’s history within Hungary, film historians say that films of this genre made during World War II are derived from German Heimat films. Although surely films during the war were also influenced by Heimat, by ignoring their Hungarian predecessors it attaches more blame to Germany and less to Hungary for what happened during World War II. In addition, in Hungary during the war there was a sub-genre of ‘mountain films’ which focused on the theme of modernity as a threat to the rural. These were set in the mountains, even though following the Treaty of Trianon, Hungary had no mountains. By setting these films in these locations, it was an outward display indicative of territorial restoration and irredentism (Gergely 2017, 67-266).
During this time, the theme of modernity versus tradition was prevalent in other genres as well. The conclusion of this theme was that modernity must not be let run wild, but in a controlled form it could co-exist with and even support the ‘historic’ rural traditions. Films tried to present the solution to issues as to become a bit modern without becoming overly modern. In this, however, modernity does not mean development in terms of technology or economy, but rather as a behavioural or moral deviation from or failure to conform to conventional customs and traditions. In this way, modernity became a question of propriety (Gergely 2017, 142-155). Gergely explains: “urban modernity is a moral threat to the vision of a resurrected (fictional) Golden Age, the city is a ‘heterotopia of deviation’ that presents the
threat of a never-ending transformation, a permanent disintegration into modernity” (Gergely 2017, 155). With this interpretation of modernity, The Paul Street Boys can be read – with regard to the modernisation and advancements to the city and the development of the land – as the boys losing their grund, their “fatherland,” and a piece of their childhood: something they can never get back.
4.2.Victims in Relation to Grund as Country
The Paul Street Boys is not set in a rural setting and Molnár’s only mention of the rural is through the metaphor of grund as country or fatherland. Molnár’s description of the grund is: The grund…you handsome, robust country lads of the wide open spaces, who need only step outside your doors to be close to limitless meadows, under a marvellous vast canopy of blue; you whose eyes have grown accustomed to great distances; you who are not trapped in tenements – you cannot possibly know what a vacant lot means to a city-bred child. To the child of Budapest it is his open country, his grassland, his plains. To him it spells freedom and boundlessness… (Molnár 1998, 22).
In this English translation, alföldi diákok [literally: students from the alföld] is translated to ‘country lads’ and az alföldje as ‘open country.’ The alföld is the name for the Great Hungarian Plain which has also been translated as ‘lowland’ throughout the novel. This landscape has become a visual representation of the country through the works of the Romantic Nationalists as it has come to be associated with historic Hungarian culture and traditions: the magyar tribes, nomads and warriors, peasants and cowboys. Depictions of the alföld inspire nostalgia for these lost elements of ‘true’ Hungary. This is visible in the artwork of landscape and peasant scenes painted by the early twentieth-century alföldi school (Krén and Marx n.d.). The poet Sándor Petőfi’s early work also centres on the scenery of the alföld (Czigány 1984, 181-182). Therefore, with the alföld representing the ‘true’ rural countryside in the mind of Romantic Nationalists, the metaphor of the grund as country would have been understood at the time it was written. Many interpretations draw on this as a significant point, including Anssi Halmesvirta who says, “the grund symbolises for the boys their own beloved fatherland (haza) or realm (birodalom), representing metaphorically a free Hungary of the future.” (Halmesvirta 1995, 22-23). In the film, the grund as a metaphor for country is amplified and along with it, the significance of the boys’ continual references to freedom in connection with the grund. For
example, the putty club stamp says, “we solemnly swear to be free forever.” This takes on new meanings when put in the situation where freedom of the nation has been ‘lost.’
That is not to say that nationalism did not exist in the book related to the grund. Molnár blatantly states when talking about the grund:
Their eyes took in the fine, spacious lot and the stacks of lumber bathed in the sunshine of a spring afternoon. In their eyes was reflected the ardent love they felt for this strip of land and the determination to fight for it, if need be. It was a form of patriotism. Their cry “Hurrah for the grund!” sounded as if they meant to cry “Long live our fatherland.” (Molnár 1998, 37)
However, the meaning of the land being taken away did not hold the same connotations at the time the book was written as it did post-Trianon. For one, in the book, the reason the Redshirts’ leader, Feri Áts, gives for wanting to take the grund away from the Paul Street boys is not for patriotic reasons but territorial gain, as they want it for a space to play football. He even compares it to the Russo-Japanese war (Molnár 1998, 57). Second, about the grund Molnár writes: “…in the morning was their American prairie, in the afternoon their Magyar lowlands, in rain their sea, in the winter their North Pole – in other words, a friend which played whatever role they demanded of it.” (Molnár 1998, 88). Here he compares it again to the lowlands, the magyar alföld. However, the alföld is not the only comparison as he also includes other fantasy locations the boys pretended it was.
Finally, a part of the book that is left out of the movie makes the loss of the grund less significant. In the novel, the loss of the grund is less significant because the boys learn that the Redshirts have lost their playground in the Botanical Gardens as well. After Feri Áts left the gang because he was ashamed of losing the fight, the remaining boys argued over the leadership position and once they had elected a new leader, they were kicked out of the garden for causing a commotion (Molnár 1998, 189). The Paul Street Boys laugh about this piece of gossip and then move on, not that interested in it. This lessens the significance of losing the grund for the reader because the Paul Street Boys are not the only ones losing their playground. It reminds the reader that these boys are playing on land that is not technically ‘theirs’ in the first place. They may have a claim to it as their playground, but they do not ‘own’ it, in the way that post-Trianon arguments say Hungarians ‘own’ Greater Hungary.
4.3. Historical Allegory and Hidden Meanings
Following the metaphor of grund as country, the ending of the novel can be interpreted as the story of land being taken away by a more powerful agent and this coincides directly with the Hungarian narrative surrounding Trianon. With this allegorical narrative comes the theme of the inability to succeed over a stronger agent. This theme can be read to be running throughout the film as is pointed out in modern interpretations. For instance, the inciting event of the story is that Nemecsek wins fairly in their game of marbles, but then the Redshirts declare einstand and take the marbles he has won. Then, in addition, they want more than just the marbles and try to take the grund. In the film, while they are discussing this, the Paul Street Boys says, “Yesterday the museum, today here, who knows what they’ll do tomorrow” (Zoltán 1969).
In the end, Nemecsek’s self-sacrifice wins the Paul Street Boys the grund back. It appears that the world is going to go back to how it should be, and everyone gets what they deserve. However, the book ends abruptly, with Boka finding out about the construction work on the penultimate page. In the novel, Boka blames the land for being unfaithful to them, as quoted above, not the workers or owner of the land. On the other hand, the ending of the novel does not only contain the tragedies of Nemecsek’s death and the loss of the grund. There is also the reconciliation of two of the Paul Street Boys who have spent the entire book quarrelling. It ends on a slightly upbeat note about Boka: “for the first time in his life, his simple young soul began to stir with the forebodings of what life held in store – life, of which we must all partake, at times in tears, at times with laughter” (Molnár 1998, 208). While the other boys appear to have not learned anything by Nemecsek’s death as they begin to talk about their Latin schoolwork for the next day, Boka has learned something about life and the last sentence portrays Boka’s reluctant acceptance of the situation, as life is bittersweet.
Molár received a significant amount of criticism from critics in his lifetime for his work not being profound or serious enough. They claimed he did not address issues of destiny and that what happened in the plays could only happen within the confines of the stage so morals could not be drawn for the world outside the pages of the play. Benjamin Glazer in 1921 wrote in the introduction to an English translation of Liliom: “What is the moral of Lilliom? Nothing you can reduce to a creed. Molnár is not a preacher or propagandist for any theory of life. You will look in vain in his plays for moral or dogma” (Molnár 1921, xiii-xiv). If The Paul Street Boys is viewed in light of the rest of Molnár’s oeuvre, at the time it was written no critics would have lauded its deeper meaning as a social allegory. The fact that it was first published in a
boys’ magazine would have meant it was not highbrow literature intended for the intellectual. Instead of being received as pronouncing a profound universal truth, it was seen as a story about some friends in Budapest written partly based on Molár’s own childhood and in the style of ‘Indian war stories’ that were popular among boys at the time (Czigány 1984, 273).
The interpretation of the story’s end today has become significantly different. The story is read as an allegory that one cannot succeed over a stronger, more powerful figure. It is defeatist in saying that it is in the nature of things for a small grund to be taken over by more powerful expansionist forces (Halmesvirta 1995, 27). This interpretation reads the novel through the lenses of the present. Even though the Treaty of Trianon occurred after the novel was written, the story appears to be an allegory of this event. Overall, the metaphor of grund as country becomes increasingly significant in the interwar years and extends to years afterwards as well, as shown in the film adaptation. In the film, the reader is not privy to what exactly Boka is thinking in the end. If interpreted from a socialist perspective, the ending could be read in the same slightly upbeat manner of modernisation and the new built upon the ruins of the old. However, alongside Boka’s tears, this interpretation would be a stretch for an audience who has just watched Nemecsek die. Since the audience does not know what Boka is thinking, the film ends with him crying at the loss of the grund and then the audience sees the grund’s transformation with the workers digging. There is no conclusion for Boka which lets the audience know he has learned something or has a way to recover from the trauma. In addition, watching this version makes it appear as though it is not the fault of the land itself for being unfaithful, as stated in the book, but of the more powerful agent – the landowner – who is never referenced throughout the story until the very end when the audience learns, through the caretaker, that he is planning to develop the land.
During the Socialist era, it was taboo to be irredentist. Because the communist Hungarian Working People’s Party [MDP] did not approve of nationalism, they tried to change the Hungarian love for country based on culture and history to be based on progress and modernisation. The communist party believed that nationalism was an ideology of the bourgeois and would disappear as the working people gained power. Additionally, they disapproved of the interwar Hungarian irredentism to recover what was take away by the Treaty of Trianon because it had led to Hungary’s involvement in the Second World War (Deme 1998, 307). Following the war, the actor’s trade union attempted to remove those responsible for the worst of the interwar anti-Semitism from the film industry but encountered many problems and therefore not many people were penalized. At this time, each of the major political parties
founded their own production company, each creating their own films to advocate their own political viewpoints (Gergely 2017, 299-300). In 1948, when the communist Hungarian Working People’s Party [MDP] consolidated power, they also nationalised the film industry (Cunningham 2004, 64-69; Jeancolas 1989, 33).
An example of a film at this time representing the MDP’s perspective on World War II and their plans for the future was Géza Radványi’s 1948 film Valahol Európában [Somewhere in Europe]. Despite being produced by the opposite side of the political spectrum from those in power during the interwar years – namely Horthy – this film still used tropes of collective national victimhood developed during that time to reinforce Hungarian claims to the area of Greater Hungary. For example, the title suggests the film will tell a story relevant to all of Europe, but then the map zooms in to the area of Greater Hungary, which again is a subtle hint towards Hungary’s unwillingness to accept the borders set by the Treaty of Trianon, and throughout the film, everything is distinctively Hungarian (Gergely 2017, 308-310). This film begins with war, immediately opening with an explosion in the town, destroying buildings, and young children escaping from the ruins. This beginning frames the disaster as the starting point for understanding the story and therefore frames the war and disasters as happening for apparently no reasons at all and therefore being terribly unjust, as the common interwar historiography method used for studying Trianon did. In addition, there is an impersonalisation of perpetrator and victim. To portray the German train cars rolling away, instead of conventional angles, the camera focuses on the wheels and top of the train. This makes the people within not clearly visible, which allows the victim to remain unclearly defined. In addition, this impersonalism is carried over to the depiction of the German enemies as shown through their introduction through shots of marching boots. When German characters play a significant role in a scene, instead of seeing the actor onscreen, the character is represented through his shadow on the wall. While the Germans are not the only antagonists of the film, they are clearly portrayed as an external, non-Hungarian enemy responsible for causing all the events of the film.
The film centres on a group of young children who escape the war to the countryside as well as, metaphorically, escape their depravity. The lesson of the film is that the youth are the victims of the war as well as of a terrible, immoral society (Cunningham 2004, 68). The children, on their own, must do anything to survive, even kill for food. The adults chase them away for their behaviour until they find the ruins of a castle. Inside lives an old composer who teaches them a folk-centric version of communism defined by the belief that the most important
value that everyone has the right to is freedom. This is an example of the communists redefining the concept of freedom as shown through the composer explaining ‘true freedom’ to the children. The composer says the greatest thing is freedom, but the leader of the children disagrees, saying that they had freedom as they rampaged through the countryside before arriving at the castle but had almost starved to death. In response, the composer says, “You were not free. You had to tramp, to steal, to rob, otherwise you would have died of hunger. Freedom means that you aren’t forced to suffer, to do evil things, to hurt other people. The worst captivity is misery.” Clearly an allegory, the composer is saying that Hungary as a nation is not free. As a running theme throughout the movie, the tune of “La Marseillaise” is used, such as when the composer uses it to define freedom as well as when the children are beginning to regain proper behaviour and morals as they begin repairing the roof on the castle and to farm the land.
When the men from the town who have been searching for the children, intending to punish them for their crimes, arrive to investigate at the castle, the leader of the children says they will leave the castle to protect the composer. However, the composer will not allow it, saying, “you have to fight for freedom.” In this fight, the stakes are higher than in The Paul Street Boys as the men have guns. The children succeed in chase them away from the castle, but the little boy Kuksi is shot. He becomes the martyr, as the children take him to town to the doctor, but he dies anyway. The composer has obtained a form saying the castle now belongs to all the boys at the “expensive” cost of Kuksi. When the men accuse the children of the stealing and rampaging they had been doing at the beginning of the film, the composer defends them, saying, “The war was not their fault. It was ours. The adults began the war.” This makes the children the victims of circumstances outside of their control and not responsible for their behaviour because of it. Gábor Gergely says the film’s framing of the children as innocent victims illustrates the film’s origins in “traditions of the Horthy era” (Gergely 2017, 309).
The other connections in this film to interwar cinema are the theme of restoration of greatness and setting the film in the countryside (Gergely 2017, 309). The restoration of greatness occurs both in the form of the castle that the children are helping to restore as well as of the children’s morals, as they overcome their circumstances in order to become good people (i.e. good communists). However, it is still the story of victims who are not to be blamed for their situation but to be given ‘their’ land so they can grow to be good people. The last shot of the film pans over the countryside, emphasising the rural setting.
