People of the East

István Széchenyi said nothing new when he emphatically proclaimed the Hungarians as a people of the East. The awareness of their Eastern origin and their profoundly distinct Eastern character from other European nations had been passed down to the Hungarians from previous centuries.

The Hungarian people have always felt and known themselves to be a people of the East, as reflected in their tales and old songs. This was also the understanding of the Hungarian chroniclers of our early Christian centuries, just as it was for our greatest historians: Pray, Katona, László Szalay, and Mihály Horváth.

Even before the Hungarian conquest, and ever since, this has been how all of Europe and the parts of Asia connected with us perceived us. Western chroniclers often referred to the marauding Hungarians as Huns and Avars. In their minds, the identities of Huns, Hungarians, Avars, and Turks were intertwined. For centuries, Attila lived in public consciousness as a Hungarian king. The idea of the kinship between the Huns and Hungarians has been vividly alive in the Hungarian psyche since ancient times.

The conquering Hungarians arrived with a Turkish military and political culture. This Turkish influence in their appearance, warfare, and civilization obscured the racial differences between Huns, Avars, and Hungarians in the eyes of Europe. This Eastern consciousness was alive even in our most Christian kings: in his palace in Buda, King Matthias erected a statue of Attila.

I mention these ancient matters now to point out that truly Hungarian life flourished in this country, and there was a spirit of conquest politically and culturally, as long as this Eastern consciousness, which counterbalanced Western influences and connections, was alive among the middle classes. Saint Stephen knew how to recreate the Hun Empire, and this Eastern consciousness deeply rooted itself in the Westernized Miklós Zrínyi, Péter Pázmány, and the genius of István Széchenyi, steeped in Western culture. It only began to fade during the latter half of the Dualist era.

Much non-Hungarian blood seeped in, assimilation became more prevalent, but the power to assimilate weakened. The German influence grew stronger within the middle class, bringing valuable but not Hungarian elements. Meanwhile, the new capitalism flooded the middle class with inadequately assimilated Jewish masses. Today's middle class does not feel itself to be a people of the East because it lacks Hungarian blood and consciousness. The problem is that assimilation is incomplete and imperfect. What we see today is a blending, not true assimilation. True assimilation would occur if the leading race preserved its superiority over the assimilating elements, which would then adopt the individuality, forms, and consciousness—rather than merely the language—of the dominant people.

We Hungarians, neither now nor in the future, can ever adopt a petty, tribal, or biologically defined racial stance. From ancient times, Hungarians have been a conquering people: they conquered with the sword and with intellectual superiority. Their political and military genius gave them an edge over other peoples. This capability was carried only by the native Hungarian population, and this strength began to wane as Hungarian blood started to diminish within the Hungarian middle class.

We must restore the old Hungarian sense of mission. In the middle Danube Valley, there is no place for foreign great powers or other imperial ideas. A middle class with the instincts of the old Hungarian traditions is needed. In its absence, the Hungarian peasantry is the only class whose blood and historical memory still carry the ancient instincts. This can only become possible for our middle class if the floodgates are opened to allow the best values from the people's layers to rise. The peasantry must also prevent the unassimilated elements from launching a new German revolt. It is they who must be asked: Do you want Hungary to be a "German living space," and do you want to become Aryans? Let them answer! (1937)

Bajcsi-Zsilinszky Endre "Kelet népe", in Kelet népe, Kossuth könyvkiadó, Budapest, 1986