Hungarian Sketches in Peace and War - Constable's Miscellany of Foreign Literature, vol. 1

Mór Jókai

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• Publié par: idwe
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 32
• Langue: English

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Title: Hungarian Sketches in Peace and War
Constable's Miscellany of Foreign Literature, vol. 1
Author: Mór Jókai
Commentator: Emeric Szabad
Release Date: May 2, 2010 [EBook #32204]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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HUNGARIAN SKETCHES
IN
PEACE AND WAR.
FROM THE HUNGARIAN OF
MORITZ JÓKAI.
WITH PREFATORY NOTICE BY
EMERIC SZABAD,
Author of "Hungary Past and Present."
EDINBURGH: THOMAS CONSTABLE AND CO.
HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO., LONDON.
JAMES M'GLASHAN, DUBLIN.
MDCCCLIV.
CONSTABLE'S MISCELLANYOF
FOREIGN LITERATURE.
VOL. I.
EDINBURGH: THOMAS CONSTABLE AND CO.
HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO., LONDON.
JAMES M'GLASHAN, DUBLIN.
MDCCCLIV.
EDINBURGH: T. CONSTABLE, PRINTER TO HER MAJESTY.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Preface. v
Dear Relations. 1
The Bardy Family. 87
Crazy Marcsa. 133
Comorn. 151
Mor Perczel. 167
Gergely Sonkolyi. 173
The Unlucky Weathercock. 205
The Two Brides. 213
The Brewer. 237
The Szekely Mother. 279
A Ball. 295
[Pg v]PREFACE.
Jokai is one of the most popular of the Hungarian prose writers of fiction that
sprang up a few years before the late war. His wit, flowing style, and vivid
descriptions of Hungarian life as it is, joined to a rich fancy and great intensity
of feeling, soon made him a favourite with Hungarian readers.
Among the earlier of his productions, those best known are a novel entitled,
"The Common Days," and a collection of minor tales, published under the title
of "Wild Flowers."
The present volume has been written for the most part since the late
memorable national movement, and embodies descriptions of several of the
direst scenes in the civil war which devastated Hungary from the year 1848 to
1850.
Most of the Hungarian literati were, at the close of the war, either roaming in
foreign countries, or wandering in disguise through their native land; and the
field of literature for a long time threatened to remain neglected and barren—a
monument of national grief and desolation! Those patriotic writers who had for
years wielded the pen with the noblest impulses thought to do their duty best by
[Pg vi]letting their highest faculties lie dormant; and laid aside the lyre rather thanbring unacceptable offerings to a fatherland laid low, and at the mercy of foreign
swords. And who will deny that there is sometimes great virtue in silence, and
that the tongue that speaks not is often more eloquent and heroic than that
which dares to utter sublime truths even at the foot of the gibbet? Many of the
noble-hearted of Hungary resigned themselves to such a martyr-like silence,
and persevere in it to the present day; while the great bulk of the people,
unwilling to enhance the triumph of their victorious enemies by a show of
unavailing lamentation, followed their example. Pesth, which had been the
scene of literary activity, was at once deserted; the bards of Hungary,
abandoning their homes to the wantonness of a foreign soldiery, went back to
the districts whence they had come, there to mingle with those peasants whose
chivalry and patriotism afforded constant themes to their lyres. Their renewed
intercourse with their rustic countrymen served again to revive their hopes,
quenched as in the grave.
In the sketches of Jokai, the reader will find many original delineations of
Hungarian life among the middle-class nobility—a race of men whose manner
of life and thought cannot fail to be interesting, however cursorily described. But
the Hungarian peasant is in his way no less attractive. Nothing can be wilder
than his dress, consisting of a sheepskin cloak (bunda), or a similar habit of the
coarsest cloth, a shirt, scarcely reaching below the waist, and wide linen
drawers, to which boots do not often form the necessary complement; yet his
easy demeanour, delicate feelings, and especially his language, are such as to
[Pg vii]put him on a level with the educated classes. In conversation he will often use a
more dignified style than a noble, who, by his exclusive privileges, has had
ample scope for oratory in the county assemblies—select with astonishing tact
the best lyrical productions of the day, and immortalize the lay by a tune of his
own composition. These qualities of the Hungarian rustic—an insight into
whose character will be given to the reader by a few camp scenes contained in
this volume—must appear the more striking if we remember that the class to
which he belongs was for centuries in a state of serfdom, from which it was only
liberated by the late Revolution.
Independently of the various other calamities which prevented the development
of the physical and mental resources of Hungary during the last three hundred
years, the feudal system alone was an insurmountable barrier in the way of
progress. The privileged classes were for the most part devising how to kill the
time, while the labour of the peasant provided them with the means of gratifying
their propensities, rarely disquieted by the backward state of the country, which
in their eyes seemed all perfection. Properly speaking, it was only since the
year 1825 that matters had begun to exhibit a material change in this respect.
Many of the most conceited and thoughtless among the nobles had gradually
allowed themselves to be convinced that arts and sciences might add to the
charms of an easy life; and that national greatness demanded something more
than hospitable roofs, fertile plains, and vast herds of cattle. The political and
literary activity displayed by Counts Szecheny and Kolcsey found noble
[Pg viii]followers, and produced unexpected and astonishing results during the last
twenty-five years. Still, compared with other countries, the progress of literature
was slow; and the works of the most popular authors, though thrown off in
comparatively small impressions, were long of reaching second editions. The
cause of this result must be sought in the fact that reading is by no means
universal among the Hungarians. Among the nobles, who had the means of
buying books, only a few cared to do so, while the condition of the peasants
prevented them from becoming in any way the patrons of literature. This apathy
was undoubtedly owing in great part to the absence of a central national
government; the effect of Hapsburg rule had always been to crush the political
institutions of the country, and repress its noblest efforts, regarded as the sureforerunners of revolution. The Court of Vienna, besides excluding from public
office and emolument such as were known for their independent principles and
national feelings, now began gradually to arrogate to itself the right of
censorship—an institution which alone would have sufficed to cripple the
intellectual progress of the country.
Such, however, was the mental activity of the present generation, that
Hungarian literature, despite the numerous obstacles it had to encounter, made
rapid progress, and created in the minds of the people a spirit of inquiry and a
desire after intellectual pursuits hitherto unknown. Never before had the
cultivated tongues of the West been so much studied, or so many valuable
translations made from the German, French, and English literatures. That the
influence of the first was originally the strongest, and that several of the leading
[Pg ix]writers in philosophy and history took for their model the German school, will
appear no matter of surprise. The rising writers of a more recent date, however,
insensibly turned their attention to the more lively literature of France, and
afterwards to that of Britain; and while some read with rapture the fictions of
Scott, Bulwer, and Dickens, politicians learned to admire the doctrines of Adam
Smith and Jeremy Bentham. Of poets, none were more extensively read and
more generally admired than Byron and Moore. Thus did the merely literary
progress march on boldly and combine with the new political movement to
further a change which had already made itself felt in every grade of society,
and which was the more remarkable and satisfactory from having followed a
too long period of stagnation.
A few words will suffice, and perhaps not be superfluous, to bring to the English
reader's mind the deplorable causes of this long neglect.
The fifteenth century, which illumined the sky of Italy, and thence reacted on the
rest of Europe, brought for Hungary nothing but an endless series of wars,
distinguished by dazzling military achievements, against the hosts of the
Sultans, and turning out in the end but useless victories, productive of most
ruinous effects and general exhaustion. The next age proved still more
disastrou