"CENTRAL EUROPE"
István Józsa
Because there is, so to say, a utopia programmed into us in which we can believe again, and which is the same now, too – only the believes are different. The European history is based on poetic function – the continent continusously rewrites, renews itself and redefines its character. Either as a consequence of the nadirs of history, or the result of development – it invents itself over and over again. This is how the notion of Central-Europe was born. Everyone knows and uses the term – but in fact no one understands it. Because ... let’s see ... what does it stand for? What does it mean? What is it that it means? Where is ... Central-Europe? It is not a political continuum, this is a fact. Then ... do we only have theories? Just opinions? Thus by this we have stated that in this topic presumptions and opinions continue and deny each other, which means that everything can be proven as well as the opposite of everything. Where is that often mentioned, well-known Central-Europe? Where, what is it and together with this ... what is it not?
“Tradition” – Self-knowing, even if etnoregional, can be truly fulfilled in the process of work, of man-creation, whereas the process of creation can be followed on a human scale: in works of art. The work of art is the objectivation of human existance. Grasping its structure and characteristics is possible based on two basic notions: following the archetypic movement of descent and ascent.
Dostoyevsky’s novels1 capture the life of the characters – which is almost inevitable – in the descent, and even in sinking, decay, in the case of the Russian writer, in demonizing. “Descesnt”. In The Idiot Miskin is a prince from the beginning till the end, the Karamazovs are aristocrats, the destiny of these characters is not evolutive, and there is no vertical social movement in these works, not even from a sociological point of view. However the violonist, his character and story of the same Dostoyevsky has a metaphorical value, half of our Europe is suffering in him. The man considers himself to be a great violonist, yet he never presents his so-called and so-claimed fantastic performance – he continuously blames his wife for this, as it is her fault that he can’t be a truly successful artist. “That woman, that woman ...” And of course he bespatters his more successful fellow artists. He is a saunterer who is bothered by his own idleness, therefore he seeks and finds reasons for his marginaliazation. Meanwhile it is his wife who supports the family with hard labour. Dostoyevsky is a master writer, the story continues with the miserable death of the wife – which leads the man to a life changing moment. To the moment which he has feared all his wife – as we can presume. There is no excuse anymore, so he takes out the violin from its dusty case. That surprize. In that moment, when he plays the instrument with clowded mind, it becomes clear, obvious and thus impossible to keep it a secret what he had been running away all his life. His past was mistaken, his present tragical and his future – he has no future. Then the story quickly comes to an end, the main character leaves his litte son to his fate, goes into hiding and soon afterwards dies from a strange disease. So here we have the Eastern-European destiny, the Slavic type. On the one hand it is an inevitable, curse-like sinking, demonizing, on the other the writer himself reflects this destiny in descent, he conducts a deep psychological analysis, draws a moral portrait and shows it to the readers. Eastern-Europe.
Continuing the self-analysis in the mirror of literary works, in the West – in the contemporary, but also centuries long old sense of the word – we can observe a movement in opposite direction of the spirit ... which is not only characteristic, but also significant: we could enumerate many examples for the ascent from the point of view of the carreer and from that of the maturization of the spirit starting with Edmond Dantes, the count of Monte Cristo up to Victor Hugo’s Jean Valjean. The border between the Eastern and Western part of Europe is not primarily political, although on the surface of everyday experiences, or as a result of touristic experiences it may seem to be, but it is a spiritual borderline – and ... this nothing, this void, this abyss is the toughest border that can separate people, families, nations, countries and cultures. The idea of the “Übermensch” was born West from this wall, the “man above man”, the man who wants to overcome his own self: its metaphysics and dialectics was created by the so often faultily explained Nietsche, the idea however is much older. “The notion of the Übermensch – and this is not very well-known – first appeared in Goethe’s Faust in a very positive sense – says Széll Zsuzsa in her preface to Nietzsche. – Yet today the sense of the word reflects what the Fascist propaganda of racial theory filled it with: the embodiment of atrocity that is destined to rule above others based on race. In the fact that this notion was given this negative sense, Nietzsche is also to be partially blamed. There are certain guidelines in his works that may have led to this extreme sense. However this sense falsifies the Nietzschean interpretation of the word. In his early writings he blamed those false moral and religious theories that could all be traced back to God. (...) he argues in the Zarathustra: if there is no God, the man can not ascend to Him, therefore the only goal of the man can be his own ascention. Due to his weak condition, he must reach a much higher level on his own, he must overcome his self.”2 Nietzsche, as well as the interpretations of his work fundamentally defined the way of thinking of the end of the 19th century, of the turn of the century and the first half of the 20th century.
Here are the two poles. And between the two: the Hungarian in Central-Eastern-Europe? We must start from the fact that at the end of the 800’s A. D. the Hungarians cracked the Slavic ring, and ever since have lived amongst the very deep, primarily irrational Slavic spirit. What kind of archetypal inner change is it characterized by? Is the Hungarian spirit similar to ... the Hungarian spirit, or has it become like the Eastern-European spirit? The descent? The statement is based on the works of classics, the belief, that quite the contrary: the intention to ascend. Batsányi already ... It became clear in the literature of the enlightement: the thought „Vigyázó szemetek Párizsra vessétek” (Cast your guarding eyes onto Paris) is real proof. Petőfi urged to serve the nation, whereas the romantic Vörösmarty said „Küzdeni erőnk szerint a legnemesbekért” (To fight with all our power for the most noble things). In the novel És mégis mozog a föld Jókai emphasizes the importance of boosting cultural life, while in Az aranyember he dreams an ascending golden carreer for Tímár Mihály and emphasizes that in order to ascend, the economic foundations must be laid first. The novel Rab Ráby reflects the opinion of an already disappointed Jókai – Ráby Mátyás tries in vain to unveil the swindles of provincial clerks, he is thrown from prison to prison, and in the end emigrates to France –, the strongly sociographic Sárga rózsa is a farewell to an idillicaly presented peasant world, and in his last novel, Ahol a pénz nem isten the desert island signals the secession from the given period and the world. As happy and romantic the dream was, that cold the awakening is, the changes of the spirit are consequent: it is only the period of realism that can follow. Mikszáth Kálmán, if at the beginning of his carreer presents the characteristic person of the end of the century, the djentry with nostalgy, wants to change things on an unchanging piece of land, but not by showing the Jókai-like dreams and imperatives, and not even by drawing a parallell between the values of East and West as Tolnai Lajos does in the basic story of the Kéri family in A szentistváni, but by his inside critics that remain within the Hungarian culture and by his killer irony. Ady and Babits already state it clearly, the title of their magazine – Nyugat (The West) – speaks for itself, and does not only show an artistic, ideological attachment. – The Hungarians are a nomad nation, they migrated from East to West, then settled down: in his national characterology, Az öt géniusz, Hamvas Béla defines in the following way what it means to be Hungarian: the power of the five geniuses comes from the cheerful life ideal (South), from the cultivatedness and social balance (West), from being close to nature and sensitivity (North), from the longing for freedom (East) and from the complicated richness (Transsylvania). To be Hungarian means to create balance in the world of the five geniuses. „The Hungarians live and must live from the unity of these five archetypes, and they have no other choice, but to live from these five.”3 – Let’s finish Hamvas Béla’s idea. The conclusion is one of the most cruel sentences that can be written down in Hungarian. Is there no Hungarian genius? Because the Norther genius belongs to the North, in its typology we must focus primarily on the Scandinavian spirit, the Southern genius belongs to the South, the people from South-Italy speak cheerfully, with large gestures.4 The West belongs to the West and East to the East – the fact that when getting further from the center, weakening in their effects, when interfering one with the other, they merge, is on one hand natural. On the other hand this all also means that ... the periphery of Europe is in its center, the people of the region gather together whatever is left on the peripheries. Meanwhile they look in the distance, they focus on a point far away and his attention is captured by the purity of the four formulas. The first step is self-definition, they must accept whoever or whatever the recognize as themselves and at the same time ... they would deny that as they intend to settle down, to change identity – and for that naturally they follow already existant models, as inhabitants of this region, where the political and ethnic borders might never have been the same, they need some cleat examples. They pay attention there, in the distance, and they have the opportunity for this, as the Pannon ladscape is extensive. The consequence of the change Saint Stephen brought forward was that there is a Hungarian genius. But ... at the same time there isn’t. But in the end there is. But there isn’t. But ... there is. But there isn’t. But there is. But there isn’t. But there is – and so on, till the end of time. Or at least until the end of the 20th century A. D., and until the turning of the century and of the millennium, when it is still unknown who is Hungarian and what could that be, and this is analyzed as an unsolvable paradox: articles dealing with this topic appear in the daily and weekly press, essays and studies are published in the context of ethnoregional self-interpretation in magazines, for example the third year of Korunk, as a jubileum issue published the Szőcs Géza’s work with the title Az elcserélt nép etc. – This is how 1100 years passed. On the 1100st jubileum of the attachment of Hungarians to Europe ... or rather to the West I can affirm that in their spirit and approach they are still nomads. They still look towards the West, they aspire in that direction and upwards; if we slowly turn the globe, it is the aspiration of Lao Ce, which, following the regressio ad originem, is the progressus ad futurum symbolized by Jesus. In its aspiration upwards it is European. But no, this does not make it Western-European – because in some way Dostoyevsky’s violonist also aspired for something ... –, starting with Jókai, Mikszáth and Ady up to Németh László and Esterházy Péter, we et the same formula: the diagnosis of the Hungarian Fallow, as well as the presentation of an existential alternative. And the consciousness of the vanity of such aspiration, the encountering with failure and the disappointment. There is a big difference to the West and there are already two Europes that are separated by a strong, durable border. “We must admit – says Fejér Ádám about the place and role of the Hungarian culture in connection with Németh László – that the obstacle is of spiritual nature: it is the fact that the specific experience of the Hungarian culture was left out from the present-day cultural-historical, hermeneutical horizon, as well as that the breaking of the above-mentioned wall was necessarily postponed.”5 Dostoyevsky’s violonist fails, the highlight of his destiny, of his spiritual evolution is the revelation, just one revelation, that it is not enough to think of something great to have results in life, moreover, his life did not even start yet. For him fulfilment is represented by the fact that he realizes his failure to ascend, and this means at the same time his death, or rather the end of his unlived life. So there is one of or the most important secret of Eastern-Europe. What is this paradox? Why? What is “programmed” into the inhabitant of this part of the continent? Program, as it is the destiny that has been unchanged for centuries and even if under different forms – person, language, country, culture, century and century – it is repeated over and over again in the same spiritual space and distance, on the same traverses.
The border between Western and Eastern-Europe is clear – it was symbolized by an uncrossable wall for decades – but where is Central-Europe located? The question does not refer to political borders, but rather to spiritual ones.6 If it is not political reality, then is it more a cultural notion?
Central-Europe defines itself in its desire to differentiate itself from a (more) Eastern Europe. Where is the border between Central- and Eastern-? In the case of Hungarians the analysis of the position of Transsylvania could provide an answer. Transsylvania is on the borderline, it is Eastern-Europe in the sense that from East to West it is already Central- and a more narrow, more precise border is the Partium.
Drawing a parallell between the Hungarian spirit from Hungary and that from Transsylvania, it becomes instantly obvious that the apart from the similarity, that is that they are Hungarian, the difference or even incompatibility is very strong. Incompatibility, and “not only” in the sense of the Godly curse that we can read about in the Genesis: “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life” (Gen. 3:17). But what is specifically Hungarian. “The borders of Transsylvania did never represent a problem, but not even its closedness – says Hamvas Béla. – The other parts, especially the West radites, and its effect can be felt for hundreds of kilometers, but the South also appears in spots in the North, whereas the North also appears in the South. It seems that Transsylvania is separated from the rest of the country by a wall, some similarities can be traced only in cities, but even there only on the exterior. Croatia is separated from the Western part of Hungary only by the Drava, yet here the border is the line of a completely different civilization that is stronger than the river, the almost two thousand year old difference between Europe and the Bizantine Empire, as under the Romans Pannonia was different from Dacia, and later the country of King Stephen was different from that of voivode Gyula. Whoever believes in geography, may find it curious that Transsylvania ends where its mountains lay out and where its mountains are the highest, it opens up.”7 We face up to the fact as inner difference-differences between the Partium and the historical Transsylvania, there is no important difference between Central- and Inner-Transsylvania, only in some nuances, however its existance is can be followed from the train window. However as we travel towards the West, from the mountains to the plains, the soil becomes more fertile, and after scattered houses due to the whims of nature, we can observe the village houses becoming bigger, more regular, more organized, that according to the possibilities of the lowlands are built in rigurous order. The faces and looks are more open. The Partium is the region, which is not Transsylvania, because it is a piece cut off from Hungary, but at the same time it is Transsylvania as the political borders are important. This is what defines its spiritual standpoint: “The most importan characteristic of the Homo transsylvanicus is that he does not believe in his homeland.” “If we have to make a difference between the North-Western counties and the Banat from another point of view, it is certain that there is no difference in the sense that the Partium has always and does even today believe in the West. With the change in ’89, the borders that had been regarded in a tantalunian way became reachable, and although as opposed to other regions of the country they had a certain advantage as far as the contact with Europe was concerned first it was their definition of the “Status” that changed. Because if this – maybe personal life-journey – comes across obstacles – obviously of different nature –, the Homo transsylvanicus who lives at the borders does not fight against the boundaries, but partly depending on them redefines his freedom. Following his path, just as he did, let’s start from the fact that the notion of civilian freedom is basically of economic nature, on the other hand the change had – theoretically – freed the people of Central-Eastern-Europe and thus the people of Transsylvania from the constraints of an already way too narrow world. Let’s not forget that due to its georaphical openness, the Partium has always been the richest part of the country in information, thus for our man the difference between the – borderless or better yet above borders – spiritual values and its local, decayed material bearers, and to some extent its mirror images, became too big. So finally the place of these factors was taken over by such a concept of freedom that knows and recognizes only one value: the particular interests of the individual. This feeling wins over the sense of community and because the latter was forced for a long time by both the majority and the “minority” until our hero became fed up with certain thoughts, turning his back is almost reflex-like – and we can’t even be surprized by it. (...) He does not want to be a victim, he only lives once, and he feels that he has the right to some personal happiness. As we are talking about the Partium, let’s not forget that for many the living, or even the awakening German roots firstly support the already mentioned idea of disbelief, secondly the feeling of longing for a different place and thirdly, they – finally – go home to Germany: after a several-generation break, but home. And if not home, then away from here, what a difference – however looking to it from the result, the facts are the same.” “This almost complete freedom, that became a basic value, is not only based on economical or political theories, but on the laws of nature that have been analyzed for thousands of years. The Homo oeconomicus is the ancient image of the man, his actions follow the laws of nature. Throughout history, and even during evolution itself this word, the word of nature was the driving force of development.”8 So there we have a “geopsychologic” angle to address the problem, on this side and the other side of the mountain, the sky spreads out in different ways.
If the people from Partium tend to look West, then people from Central- and Inner-Transsyalvania look at their own past. Let’s not search for what kind of – which is more beautiful? better? – inheritance we are talking about, it is the inheritance of centuries: just take a look at the press, poetry, prose, the basics that can be derived from the texts. The basic category of the Transsylvan ideologies is the “assumption”, the “assumption of the common destiny”, the “commitment”, however strangely enough neither of them turned out to be durable in the people of Partium – open space, extensive space- and time-experience –, they did not become the foundation-stones of the public opinion, did not get mythisized, moreover, did never truly come to life. Being closed in a dangerous situation, the “situation” is favourable for subliming, for creating culture, the result of which is only and just culture. People from Central- and Inner-Transsylvania consider people from Partium middle class – but who is a regular citizen in Central and Eastern-Europe? – the materialist people from Partium also despise the talks of the others, considering them worthless and empty. That what the latter says and does is the word and law of narure? Let’s make no mistake, it lives in the more withdrawn people as well – yet he does not obey it. But to fight nature? There is no such ideology. But till then ... let’s see the works. No one can move into them, only the rightful owners live there. – The people from Partium do not “suffer”, their answer given to a “situation” is that they emigrate, depending on the political regime, either escapes or moves to another country. The people from Central- and Inner-Transsylvania suffer and they consider it a virtue, just see transsylvanism or the metaphors “pearl shell”, “palm tree under weight” and their renewal starting from Dsida Jenő and Szilágyi Domokos up to the present. Ujvárossy László from Nagyvárad (Oradea) is Transsylvanian in such a way that he has nothing to do with the Transsylvanian traditions in a traditional sense, and that he is a representative of the weaternmost neopromitive and conceptualist, integrative aspirations of the end of the century. Central- and Inner-Transsylvania: jars, székely needlework, abandoned cottage, the illustrious characters of the Transsylvanian culture, the symbols of the “tragical destiny” shaped in thousands and thousands of ways. The people of the historical Transsylvania live within the inner space of – a few – already mythicized symbols, their time is the present of memory and remembrance. Its space experience is intensive, this is a creative vision which looks deep inside, in the past – does this descent belong to the East? At this point it becomes clear that this is a more complex motion that has to be grasped as the direction and directionality of a vector. The basic motion is naturally signalled by the christian ideology, that is it is an aspiration towards heaven, no matter in what way it happens. But not continuously there, looking and aspiring for something far, far beyond the horizon, but facing the traditions, the past, the depths of memories – well, we were great once, Hungarians defeating the Turkish army – and thus for the descendants of a once independent empire the time regarded in this way is put into images differently. Pygmalion’s monologue written by Zudor János from Nagyvárad (Oradea) is metaphysical, and even personal because of its local, meaning Transsylvanian localization or better said in spite of it. Farkas Árpád from Sepsiszentgyörgy (Sfântu Gheorghe) writes the following: “ ... There is no escape for those who have once tasted the destiny of Hungarian writers in Transsylvania ...”9 It’s not a coincidence either that the 1989 events did not break out in Csíkszereda (Miercurea Ciuc) or Konstanca (Constanța), but in Temesvár (Timișoara).
All pof these are not meant to be an evaluation, but a fact, not an attitude based on facts, but tipology. The problem is not formulated correctly: it is not important how something is evaluated or how we evaluate something, but we are talking about talents, the inheritance of centuries, and within these, within this framework, on their surface there are only unique events, only personal decisions can be made. It is up to the person to decide, does he leave or stay, does he escape or suffer and stay proud, and his choice refers only to him. This is only one. But there are more consequences. That’s two. On the surface of everyday life what can be seen is a difference in the way of thinking, often incompatibility, impatience towards the past, and the secret of the complicated Transsylvania seems to be unapproachable looking to it from the point of view of traditions. It is a classical unhappiness, that of the writers of East- and Central-.
The face of the Transsylvanian genius – as Transsylvanian genius and Homo Transsylvanicus do exist even without further thinking Hamvas Béla’s thoughts – unites several features that sometimes seem to deny each other: in the cooling place of other geniuses, and in the ever recurring tension of a continental change to merge those features into a face, and bring it to life, knowing that life will be fulfilled in a broader space – that is Transsylvania.
“Identity” – In the tradition, let’s call it after Michel Foucault episteme, epistemic system – the base of our identity is in fact behind or around the spiritual creation. This is the most important problem that we have ever lived in. Because not only the inherited goods mean – tradition, but also the way in which we apply them – or not – in our everyday life. Just a short reflection now in the space of this question to a system the poles of which are: the writer, the everyday life of the artist – the creation – the everyday life of the receptor: to an idea: the relationship between the artistic discourse and the receptive strategies is in fact a breathing technique based on certain epistemes, or from our perspective we are rather beneath it, within its shadow borders.
The everyday life of the artist – is a neutral category in the beginning, the artistic work – is an independent, closed world, that lives in a pluralist and constructive dialogue with the receptor. Within the framework of this dialogue we must try to describe “the relativity of writer’s and the receptor’s category, because they can be grasped in their mixing, overlapping and equivalency. In this interdiscursive dialogue sketched here the past – for us the description of about 1093 years before 1989, its interpretation and evaluation: its systematization and definition is one, or rather the nmost recent self-definition that is influenced by the past itself and its shadow. In the end these epistemic shadows govern our interpretative strategies, that is, our breathing techniques. Naturally we all have our own solutions, and naturally there are only personal solutions. Tradition ... How to find the facts?
Well yes, the “identity”. For most of us the “identity” is a matter of language. But according to its nature not only that. That “the nation lives in its language” ... This is sociological shallowness, an unfinished maxime, just as the science of sociology. The beginning: the first moments of the great Time of word creation, as well as the first seconds of the act of talking. Here, so far: the thought is completely independent from its linguistic form, it can be expressed in English, German, Hungarian, Japanese, in any language. People are clever or not so much, happy or not so much etc. everywhere. On the other hand we, who approach the abstract thought from the previously owned linguistic forms – “words” – need that very tight relation, that became linguistic having been approached with the desire to talk, to esxpress in words, well the spirit, the thought is pushed in this interaction while it does not matter at all that ... someone is clever in English or happy in German, because in the end what matter is that he is clever, happy etc. We are talking about such prological determinations that make their effect long before thinking and acting in linguistic forms. We can only refer to certain untranslatable linguistic characteristics after these. This is already the obvious retroactionof the form onto the thought: language philosophies conduct their research in this stage, in this topic. So I ask in the end, to what extent and how is language the medium of literature? That not in 100% is obvious based on these. “Identity”. In which we want to inprison ourselves. It is of extraordinary importance. But how differently does a painter think about all this, as he can create in the complete absence of words ... In arts all of these are useless, moreover meaningless words. So is the ... breathing technique wrong? Part of the Hungarians from Transsylvania still live without any changes in the inner spaces of self-supporting ideologies, their close or distant symbolism ( - tradition) has been grasped in categories that have been politically-sociologically, that is in the spiritual structure polluted. Today the younger generation cleans up the spiritual space of some sacralized words. Opening these spaces after Gadamer’s Truth and Method and Derrida’s deconstruction, we must talk about reconstruction, change, a turning away from the stones of metaphysics. Moreover. Sciencia sacra. Above all. The self-knowledge of the Universe with all its local, even some occasional anchor. Some years ago there use might have been a compromise in the eternal, better to say timeless categories, but that was only a stage in their history, 40 years, 70 years are over, and if its not alive anymore, it shouldn’t affect anything. Now: we would like to be the meaning of those. “Transition”. As our interpretation becomes ontical. The retelling of ourselves.
Márai Sándor writes the following in his Diary: “The phases of literature: first the religious phase, when literature wants to say something about the afterlife to people. Then, when it says something about the writer to the world. The great moment is when literature is conscious enough and forces people to discover themselves.” Well, it’s a fact that this part of the Hungarian literature is starting to live a different, newer phase.
And Europe, which starts to be born here, reaches further up in its aspiration towards the sky by a quality change in the forms of human approaches.
Józsa István
Endnotes:
“Tradition” – Self-knowing, even if etnoregional, can be truly fulfilled in the process of work, of man-creation, whereas the process of creation can be followed on a human scale: in works of art. The work of art is the objectivation of human existance. Grasping its structure and characteristics is possible based on two basic notions: following the archetypic movement of descent and ascent.
Dostoyevsky’s novels1 capture the life of the characters – which is almost inevitable – in the descent, and even in sinking, decay, in the case of the Russian writer, in demonizing. “Descesnt”. In The Idiot Miskin is a prince from the beginning till the end, the Karamazovs are aristocrats, the destiny of these characters is not evolutive, and there is no vertical social movement in these works, not even from a sociological point of view. However the violonist, his character and story of the same Dostoyevsky has a metaphorical value, half of our Europe is suffering in him. The man considers himself to be a great violonist, yet he never presents his so-called and so-claimed fantastic performance – he continuously blames his wife for this, as it is her fault that he can’t be a truly successful artist. “That woman, that woman ...” And of course he bespatters his more successful fellow artists. He is a saunterer who is bothered by his own idleness, therefore he seeks and finds reasons for his marginaliazation. Meanwhile it is his wife who supports the family with hard labour. Dostoyevsky is a master writer, the story continues with the miserable death of the wife – which leads the man to a life changing moment. To the moment which he has feared all his wife – as we can presume. There is no excuse anymore, so he takes out the violin from its dusty case. That surprize. In that moment, when he plays the instrument with clowded mind, it becomes clear, obvious and thus impossible to keep it a secret what he had been running away all his life. His past was mistaken, his present tragical and his future – he has no future. Then the story quickly comes to an end, the main character leaves his litte son to his fate, goes into hiding and soon afterwards dies from a strange disease. So here we have the Eastern-European destiny, the Slavic type. On the one hand it is an inevitable, curse-like sinking, demonizing, on the other the writer himself reflects this destiny in descent, he conducts a deep psychological analysis, draws a moral portrait and shows it to the readers. Eastern-Europe.
Continuing the self-analysis in the mirror of literary works, in the West – in the contemporary, but also centuries long old sense of the word – we can observe a movement in opposite direction of the spirit ... which is not only characteristic, but also significant: we could enumerate many examples for the ascent from the point of view of the carreer and from that of the maturization of the spirit starting with Edmond Dantes, the count of Monte Cristo up to Victor Hugo’s Jean Valjean. The border between the Eastern and Western part of Europe is not primarily political, although on the surface of everyday experiences, or as a result of touristic experiences it may seem to be, but it is a spiritual borderline – and ... this nothing, this void, this abyss is the toughest border that can separate people, families, nations, countries and cultures. The idea of the “Übermensch” was born West from this wall, the “man above man”, the man who wants to overcome his own self: its metaphysics and dialectics was created by the so often faultily explained Nietsche, the idea however is much older. “The notion of the Übermensch – and this is not very well-known – first appeared in Goethe’s Faust in a very positive sense – says Széll Zsuzsa in her preface to Nietzsche. – Yet today the sense of the word reflects what the Fascist propaganda of racial theory filled it with: the embodiment of atrocity that is destined to rule above others based on race. In the fact that this notion was given this negative sense, Nietzsche is also to be partially blamed. There are certain guidelines in his works that may have led to this extreme sense. However this sense falsifies the Nietzschean interpretation of the word. In his early writings he blamed those false moral and religious theories that could all be traced back to God. (...) he argues in the Zarathustra: if there is no God, the man can not ascend to Him, therefore the only goal of the man can be his own ascention. Due to his weak condition, he must reach a much higher level on his own, he must overcome his self.”2 Nietzsche, as well as the interpretations of his work fundamentally defined the way of thinking of the end of the 19th century, of the turn of the century and the first half of the 20th century.
Here are the two poles. And between the two: the Hungarian in Central-Eastern-Europe? We must start from the fact that at the end of the 800’s A. D. the Hungarians cracked the Slavic ring, and ever since have lived amongst the very deep, primarily irrational Slavic spirit. What kind of archetypal inner change is it characterized by? Is the Hungarian spirit similar to ... the Hungarian spirit, or has it become like the Eastern-European spirit? The descent? The statement is based on the works of classics, the belief, that quite the contrary: the intention to ascend. Batsányi already ... It became clear in the literature of the enlightement: the thought „Vigyázó szemetek Párizsra vessétek” (Cast your guarding eyes onto Paris) is real proof. Petőfi urged to serve the nation, whereas the romantic Vörösmarty said „Küzdeni erőnk szerint a legnemesbekért” (To fight with all our power for the most noble things). In the novel És mégis mozog a föld Jókai emphasizes the importance of boosting cultural life, while in Az aranyember he dreams an ascending golden carreer for Tímár Mihály and emphasizes that in order to ascend, the economic foundations must be laid first. The novel Rab Ráby reflects the opinion of an already disappointed Jókai – Ráby Mátyás tries in vain to unveil the swindles of provincial clerks, he is thrown from prison to prison, and in the end emigrates to France –, the strongly sociographic Sárga rózsa is a farewell to an idillicaly presented peasant world, and in his last novel, Ahol a pénz nem isten the desert island signals the secession from the given period and the world. As happy and romantic the dream was, that cold the awakening is, the changes of the spirit are consequent: it is only the period of realism that can follow. Mikszáth Kálmán, if at the beginning of his carreer presents the characteristic person of the end of the century, the djentry with nostalgy, wants to change things on an unchanging piece of land, but not by showing the Jókai-like dreams and imperatives, and not even by drawing a parallell between the values of East and West as Tolnai Lajos does in the basic story of the Kéri family in A szentistváni, but by his inside critics that remain within the Hungarian culture and by his killer irony. Ady and Babits already state it clearly, the title of their magazine – Nyugat (The West) – speaks for itself, and does not only show an artistic, ideological attachment. – The Hungarians are a nomad nation, they migrated from East to West, then settled down: in his national characterology, Az öt géniusz, Hamvas Béla defines in the following way what it means to be Hungarian: the power of the five geniuses comes from the cheerful life ideal (South), from the cultivatedness and social balance (West), from being close to nature and sensitivity (North), from the longing for freedom (East) and from the complicated richness (Transsylvania). To be Hungarian means to create balance in the world of the five geniuses. „The Hungarians live and must live from the unity of these five archetypes, and they have no other choice, but to live from these five.”3 – Let’s finish Hamvas Béla’s idea. The conclusion is one of the most cruel sentences that can be written down in Hungarian. Is there no Hungarian genius? Because the Norther genius belongs to the North, in its typology we must focus primarily on the Scandinavian spirit, the Southern genius belongs to the South, the people from South-Italy speak cheerfully, with large gestures.4 The West belongs to the West and East to the East – the fact that when getting further from the center, weakening in their effects, when interfering one with the other, they merge, is on one hand natural. On the other hand this all also means that ... the periphery of Europe is in its center, the people of the region gather together whatever is left on the peripheries. Meanwhile they look in the distance, they focus on a point far away and his attention is captured by the purity of the four formulas. The first step is self-definition, they must accept whoever or whatever the recognize as themselves and at the same time ... they would deny that as they intend to settle down, to change identity – and for that naturally they follow already existant models, as inhabitants of this region, where the political and ethnic borders might never have been the same, they need some cleat examples. They pay attention there, in the distance, and they have the opportunity for this, as the Pannon ladscape is extensive. The consequence of the change Saint Stephen brought forward was that there is a Hungarian genius. But ... at the same time there isn’t. But in the end there is. But there isn’t. But ... there is. But there isn’t. But there is. But there isn’t. But there is – and so on, till the end of time. Or at least until the end of the 20th century A. D., and until the turning of the century and of the millennium, when it is still unknown who is Hungarian and what could that be, and this is analyzed as an unsolvable paradox: articles dealing with this topic appear in the daily and weekly press, essays and studies are published in the context of ethnoregional self-interpretation in magazines, for example the third year of Korunk, as a jubileum issue published the Szőcs Géza’s work with the title Az elcserélt nép etc. – This is how 1100 years passed. On the 1100st jubileum of the attachment of Hungarians to Europe ... or rather to the West I can affirm that in their spirit and approach they are still nomads. They still look towards the West, they aspire in that direction and upwards; if we slowly turn the globe, it is the aspiration of Lao Ce, which, following the regressio ad originem, is the progressus ad futurum symbolized by Jesus. In its aspiration upwards it is European. But no, this does not make it Western-European – because in some way Dostoyevsky’s violonist also aspired for something ... –, starting with Jókai, Mikszáth and Ady up to Németh László and Esterházy Péter, we et the same formula: the diagnosis of the Hungarian Fallow, as well as the presentation of an existential alternative. And the consciousness of the vanity of such aspiration, the encountering with failure and the disappointment. There is a big difference to the West and there are already two Europes that are separated by a strong, durable border. “We must admit – says Fejér Ádám about the place and role of the Hungarian culture in connection with Németh László – that the obstacle is of spiritual nature: it is the fact that the specific experience of the Hungarian culture was left out from the present-day cultural-historical, hermeneutical horizon, as well as that the breaking of the above-mentioned wall was necessarily postponed.”5 Dostoyevsky’s violonist fails, the highlight of his destiny, of his spiritual evolution is the revelation, just one revelation, that it is not enough to think of something great to have results in life, moreover, his life did not even start yet. For him fulfilment is represented by the fact that he realizes his failure to ascend, and this means at the same time his death, or rather the end of his unlived life. So there is one of or the most important secret of Eastern-Europe. What is this paradox? Why? What is “programmed” into the inhabitant of this part of the continent? Program, as it is the destiny that has been unchanged for centuries and even if under different forms – person, language, country, culture, century and century – it is repeated over and over again in the same spiritual space and distance, on the same traverses.
The border between Western and Eastern-Europe is clear – it was symbolized by an uncrossable wall for decades – but where is Central-Europe located? The question does not refer to political borders, but rather to spiritual ones.6 If it is not political reality, then is it more a cultural notion?
Central-Europe defines itself in its desire to differentiate itself from a (more) Eastern Europe. Where is the border between Central- and Eastern-? In the case of Hungarians the analysis of the position of Transsylvania could provide an answer. Transsylvania is on the borderline, it is Eastern-Europe in the sense that from East to West it is already Central- and a more narrow, more precise border is the Partium.
Drawing a parallell between the Hungarian spirit from Hungary and that from Transsylvania, it becomes instantly obvious that the apart from the similarity, that is that they are Hungarian, the difference or even incompatibility is very strong. Incompatibility, and “not only” in the sense of the Godly curse that we can read about in the Genesis: “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life” (Gen. 3:17). But what is specifically Hungarian. “The borders of Transsylvania did never represent a problem, but not even its closedness – says Hamvas Béla. – The other parts, especially the West radites, and its effect can be felt for hundreds of kilometers, but the South also appears in spots in the North, whereas the North also appears in the South. It seems that Transsylvania is separated from the rest of the country by a wall, some similarities can be traced only in cities, but even there only on the exterior. Croatia is separated from the Western part of Hungary only by the Drava, yet here the border is the line of a completely different civilization that is stronger than the river, the almost two thousand year old difference between Europe and the Bizantine Empire, as under the Romans Pannonia was different from Dacia, and later the country of King Stephen was different from that of voivode Gyula. Whoever believes in geography, may find it curious that Transsylvania ends where its mountains lay out and where its mountains are the highest, it opens up.”7 We face up to the fact as inner difference-differences between the Partium and the historical Transsylvania, there is no important difference between Central- and Inner-Transsylvania, only in some nuances, however its existance is can be followed from the train window. However as we travel towards the West, from the mountains to the plains, the soil becomes more fertile, and after scattered houses due to the whims of nature, we can observe the village houses becoming bigger, more regular, more organized, that according to the possibilities of the lowlands are built in rigurous order. The faces and looks are more open. The Partium is the region, which is not Transsylvania, because it is a piece cut off from Hungary, but at the same time it is Transsylvania as the political borders are important. This is what defines its spiritual standpoint: “The most importan characteristic of the Homo transsylvanicus is that he does not believe in his homeland.” “If we have to make a difference between the North-Western counties and the Banat from another point of view, it is certain that there is no difference in the sense that the Partium has always and does even today believe in the West. With the change in ’89, the borders that had been regarded in a tantalunian way became reachable, and although as opposed to other regions of the country they had a certain advantage as far as the contact with Europe was concerned first it was their definition of the “Status” that changed. Because if this – maybe personal life-journey – comes across obstacles – obviously of different nature –, the Homo transsylvanicus who lives at the borders does not fight against the boundaries, but partly depending on them redefines his freedom. Following his path, just as he did, let’s start from the fact that the notion of civilian freedom is basically of economic nature, on the other hand the change had – theoretically – freed the people of Central-Eastern-Europe and thus the people of Transsylvania from the constraints of an already way too narrow world. Let’s not forget that due to its georaphical openness, the Partium has always been the richest part of the country in information, thus for our man the difference between the – borderless or better yet above borders – spiritual values and its local, decayed material bearers, and to some extent its mirror images, became too big. So finally the place of these factors was taken over by such a concept of freedom that knows and recognizes only one value: the particular interests of the individual. This feeling wins over the sense of community and because the latter was forced for a long time by both the majority and the “minority” until our hero became fed up with certain thoughts, turning his back is almost reflex-like – and we can’t even be surprized by it. (...) He does not want to be a victim, he only lives once, and he feels that he has the right to some personal happiness. As we are talking about the Partium, let’s not forget that for many the living, or even the awakening German roots firstly support the already mentioned idea of disbelief, secondly the feeling of longing for a different place and thirdly, they – finally – go home to Germany: after a several-generation break, but home. And if not home, then away from here, what a difference – however looking to it from the result, the facts are the same.” “This almost complete freedom, that became a basic value, is not only based on economical or political theories, but on the laws of nature that have been analyzed for thousands of years. The Homo oeconomicus is the ancient image of the man, his actions follow the laws of nature. Throughout history, and even during evolution itself this word, the word of nature was the driving force of development.”8 So there we have a “geopsychologic” angle to address the problem, on this side and the other side of the mountain, the sky spreads out in different ways.
If the people from Partium tend to look West, then people from Central- and Inner-Transsyalvania look at their own past. Let’s not search for what kind of – which is more beautiful? better? – inheritance we are talking about, it is the inheritance of centuries: just take a look at the press, poetry, prose, the basics that can be derived from the texts. The basic category of the Transsylvan ideologies is the “assumption”, the “assumption of the common destiny”, the “commitment”, however strangely enough neither of them turned out to be durable in the people of Partium – open space, extensive space- and time-experience –, they did not become the foundation-stones of the public opinion, did not get mythisized, moreover, did never truly come to life. Being closed in a dangerous situation, the “situation” is favourable for subliming, for creating culture, the result of which is only and just culture. People from Central- and Inner-Transsylvania consider people from Partium middle class – but who is a regular citizen in Central and Eastern-Europe? – the materialist people from Partium also despise the talks of the others, considering them worthless and empty. That what the latter says and does is the word and law of narure? Let’s make no mistake, it lives in the more withdrawn people as well – yet he does not obey it. But to fight nature? There is no such ideology. But till then ... let’s see the works. No one can move into them, only the rightful owners live there. – The people from Partium do not “suffer”, their answer given to a “situation” is that they emigrate, depending on the political regime, either escapes or moves to another country. The people from Central- and Inner-Transsylvania suffer and they consider it a virtue, just see transsylvanism or the metaphors “pearl shell”, “palm tree under weight” and their renewal starting from Dsida Jenő and Szilágyi Domokos up to the present. Ujvárossy László from Nagyvárad (Oradea) is Transsylvanian in such a way that he has nothing to do with the Transsylvanian traditions in a traditional sense, and that he is a representative of the weaternmost neopromitive and conceptualist, integrative aspirations of the end of the century. Central- and Inner-Transsylvania: jars, székely needlework, abandoned cottage, the illustrious characters of the Transsylvanian culture, the symbols of the “tragical destiny” shaped in thousands and thousands of ways. The people of the historical Transsylvania live within the inner space of – a few – already mythicized symbols, their time is the present of memory and remembrance. Its space experience is intensive, this is a creative vision which looks deep inside, in the past – does this descent belong to the East? At this point it becomes clear that this is a more complex motion that has to be grasped as the direction and directionality of a vector. The basic motion is naturally signalled by the christian ideology, that is it is an aspiration towards heaven, no matter in what way it happens. But not continuously there, looking and aspiring for something far, far beyond the horizon, but facing the traditions, the past, the depths of memories – well, we were great once, Hungarians defeating the Turkish army – and thus for the descendants of a once independent empire the time regarded in this way is put into images differently. Pygmalion’s monologue written by Zudor János from Nagyvárad (Oradea) is metaphysical, and even personal because of its local, meaning Transsylvanian localization or better said in spite of it. Farkas Árpád from Sepsiszentgyörgy (Sfântu Gheorghe) writes the following: “ ... There is no escape for those who have once tasted the destiny of Hungarian writers in Transsylvania ...”9 It’s not a coincidence either that the 1989 events did not break out in Csíkszereda (Miercurea Ciuc) or Konstanca (Constanța), but in Temesvár (Timișoara).
All pof these are not meant to be an evaluation, but a fact, not an attitude based on facts, but tipology. The problem is not formulated correctly: it is not important how something is evaluated or how we evaluate something, but we are talking about talents, the inheritance of centuries, and within these, within this framework, on their surface there are only unique events, only personal decisions can be made. It is up to the person to decide, does he leave or stay, does he escape or suffer and stay proud, and his choice refers only to him. This is only one. But there are more consequences. That’s two. On the surface of everyday life what can be seen is a difference in the way of thinking, often incompatibility, impatience towards the past, and the secret of the complicated Transsylvania seems to be unapproachable looking to it from the point of view of traditions. It is a classical unhappiness, that of the writers of East- and Central-.
The face of the Transsylvanian genius – as Transsylvanian genius and Homo Transsylvanicus do exist even without further thinking Hamvas Béla’s thoughts – unites several features that sometimes seem to deny each other: in the cooling place of other geniuses, and in the ever recurring tension of a continental change to merge those features into a face, and bring it to life, knowing that life will be fulfilled in a broader space – that is Transsylvania.
“Identity” – In the tradition, let’s call it after Michel Foucault episteme, epistemic system – the base of our identity is in fact behind or around the spiritual creation. This is the most important problem that we have ever lived in. Because not only the inherited goods mean – tradition, but also the way in which we apply them – or not – in our everyday life. Just a short reflection now in the space of this question to a system the poles of which are: the writer, the everyday life of the artist – the creation – the everyday life of the receptor: to an idea: the relationship between the artistic discourse and the receptive strategies is in fact a breathing technique based on certain epistemes, or from our perspective we are rather beneath it, within its shadow borders.
The everyday life of the artist – is a neutral category in the beginning, the artistic work – is an independent, closed world, that lives in a pluralist and constructive dialogue with the receptor. Within the framework of this dialogue we must try to describe “the relativity of writer’s and the receptor’s category, because they can be grasped in their mixing, overlapping and equivalency. In this interdiscursive dialogue sketched here the past – for us the description of about 1093 years before 1989, its interpretation and evaluation: its systematization and definition is one, or rather the nmost recent self-definition that is influenced by the past itself and its shadow. In the end these epistemic shadows govern our interpretative strategies, that is, our breathing techniques. Naturally we all have our own solutions, and naturally there are only personal solutions. Tradition ... How to find the facts?
Well yes, the “identity”. For most of us the “identity” is a matter of language. But according to its nature not only that. That “the nation lives in its language” ... This is sociological shallowness, an unfinished maxime, just as the science of sociology. The beginning: the first moments of the great Time of word creation, as well as the first seconds of the act of talking. Here, so far: the thought is completely independent from its linguistic form, it can be expressed in English, German, Hungarian, Japanese, in any language. People are clever or not so much, happy or not so much etc. everywhere. On the other hand we, who approach the abstract thought from the previously owned linguistic forms – “words” – need that very tight relation, that became linguistic having been approached with the desire to talk, to esxpress in words, well the spirit, the thought is pushed in this interaction while it does not matter at all that ... someone is clever in English or happy in German, because in the end what matter is that he is clever, happy etc. We are talking about such prological determinations that make their effect long before thinking and acting in linguistic forms. We can only refer to certain untranslatable linguistic characteristics after these. This is already the obvious retroactionof the form onto the thought: language philosophies conduct their research in this stage, in this topic. So I ask in the end, to what extent and how is language the medium of literature? That not in 100% is obvious based on these. “Identity”. In which we want to inprison ourselves. It is of extraordinary importance. But how differently does a painter think about all this, as he can create in the complete absence of words ... In arts all of these are useless, moreover meaningless words. So is the ... breathing technique wrong? Part of the Hungarians from Transsylvania still live without any changes in the inner spaces of self-supporting ideologies, their close or distant symbolism ( - tradition) has been grasped in categories that have been politically-sociologically, that is in the spiritual structure polluted. Today the younger generation cleans up the spiritual space of some sacralized words. Opening these spaces after Gadamer’s Truth and Method and Derrida’s deconstruction, we must talk about reconstruction, change, a turning away from the stones of metaphysics. Moreover. Sciencia sacra. Above all. The self-knowledge of the Universe with all its local, even some occasional anchor. Some years ago there use might have been a compromise in the eternal, better to say timeless categories, but that was only a stage in their history, 40 years, 70 years are over, and if its not alive anymore, it shouldn’t affect anything. Now: we would like to be the meaning of those. “Transition”. As our interpretation becomes ontical. The retelling of ourselves.
Márai Sándor writes the following in his Diary: “The phases of literature: first the religious phase, when literature wants to say something about the afterlife to people. Then, when it says something about the writer to the world. The great moment is when literature is conscious enough and forces people to discover themselves.” Well, it’s a fact that this part of the Hungarian literature is starting to live a different, newer phase.
And Europe, which starts to be born here, reaches further up in its aspiration towards the sky by a quality change in the forms of human approaches.
Józsa István
Endnotes:
- F.M. Dosztojevszkij: Crime and Punishment, The Borthers Karamazov etc.
- The Selected Writings of Friedrich Nietzsche. Gondolat, Budapest, 1984, 15. 1.
- Hamvas Béla: Az öt géniusz (The Five Geniuses). Életünk edition, Szombathely, 1988., 66. 1.
- Márai Sándor writes in his diary: the Italian and the French aways say more than what they express...
- Fejér Ádám: Régiónk népeinek kulturális önmeghatározása és a regény (The cultural self-definition of the nations in our region and the novel). Szeged, 1993.,76. 1.
- Fried István writes the dispute of Central-Europe in Tiszatáj 1992-1993
- In his opening essay: „Közép-Európa: ma nem politikai realitás.” Lesz egyszer egy Közép-Európa? (“Central-Europe: it’s not a political reality.” Will there ever be a Central-Europe?) In: Közép-Európai változatok. Álmok és realitások. Disputa a Tiszatájban. Szeged, 1993., 77. 1.
- Hamvas Béla. cit., 34-35. 1.
- Józsa István: A Homo transylvanicus hármas szellemisége (The threefold spirituality of Homo Transsylvanicus). Korunk, 1994. 1.
- Farkas Árpád: A szivárgásban (In the leakage). Püski, Budapest, 1991.
