In the Pull of the West: Resistance, Concessions and Showing off from the Stalinist Practice in Hungarian culture after 19561

Róbert Takács

Institute of Political History, Budapest

 

The article explores the representation of Western culture in Hungarian journalism, print media, and public life in the months following the 1956 revolution, when the party lost its strict control over Hungarian society and only gradually was able to reassert its dominance in all spheres of life. Did representations of Western culture really constitute a kind of resistance, or should they perhaps be understood as concessions to prevalent public opinion? Or did they in fact harmonize in some way with the actual intentions of the people who crafted cultural policy? How did the content of newspapers begin to change in November 1956, clashing with the earlier “socialist cultural canon” by presenting formerly censured or anathematized Western cultural products and actors? How was the supply of movies adjusted to public opinion and then slowly readjusted to correspond to former norms? How did theater programs and plans for book publishing reflect the uncertainty of the period, resulting in the publication of works and performance of productions later criticized for bringing values to the stage that were contrary to the spirit of socialism? In this paper, I analyze a provisional period in which earlier norms of journalism, print media, and cultural life were partially suspended and the party made little or no real attempts to reassert Stalinist norms. Moreover, in this period the party did not deny or bring a stop to the de-Stalinization of cultural life, although it did repress open forms of cultural resistance to the Kádár-government.

Keywords: communist media, journalism, cultural transfers, cultural policy, de-Stalinization, resistance, revolution

 

Soon a ‘new voice’ joined the buzz of the different languages. Jazz music rang out, and the dance started. First a black pair in white pullovers and britches started to follow the sound of the music with a miraculous sense of rhythm. In a little while, other dancers joined them... People laughed when a black fellow invited a Soviet girl to dance boogie-woogie. The Soviet girl, however hard she tried, could not follow her partner.2

This is how the daily Népszabadság reported the rest-day of the summer Olympic Games in Melbourne in 1956. This coverage was the first in Hungary to mention the Western fashion frenzy, boogie (and rock and roll), in a positive way since 1948, only a few weeks after the violent suppression of the revolution. But it harmonized well with the policy of peaceful coexistence of the Khrushchev regime. This short report was also the first occasion when Népszabadság came out from behind the closed world of politics (strikes, declarations, condemnations of resistance) and slowly started to act like a newspaper again instead of a political fly-bill.

The report was printed at a moment when the Kádár government gave up its last efforts to try to find a compromise with the representatives of the workers and intellectuals and was about to finalize its resolution of December 4.3 The forums of publicity were narrow: only a few editorships were functioning, and the re-launch of any newspaper had to be allowed by the leading bodies of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party.4 The book publishing industry was paralyzed, and cinemas and theaters were closed for weeks, and later only opened in the afternoon because of the curfew, which lasted until April of the following year.

There were spectacular and well-explored cases of open resistance, from the “not a single word to Kádár” strike led by journalists5 to the production of illegal newspapers and leaflets.6 Even the central organ of the party tried to protest against defining the relationship between party leadership and communist journalists in a pre-1953 way. Others drew back into passive resistance and refused to publish. The Hungarian Writers’ Association and the Association of Hungarian Journalists became important bases of resistance until the suspension of their autonomy, while their representatives also parleyed with the government.7

After November 4, Hungarian intellectuals followed a variety of trajectories and adopted an array of attitudes towards the government. Some left the country and continued to fight from abroad. Some undertook open resistance, risking imprisonment or even the death penalty. Others tried to cooperate with the new regime, hoping to preserve some of the achievements of 1956 and the de-Stalinization process, while many people decided to fall silent as a form of passive resistance. There were also intellectuals who cooperated with Kádár, whether wholeheartedly or striving for position and influence, or convincing themselves they were more useful to the people in these positions than others would be.

In this article I explore a particular way of assuming distance from official ideological framings and expressing criticism: the reception of Western pop-culture in post-1956 Hungarian public life. I examine Western pop-culture (i.e. what was characterized as “bourgeois” culture) in the Hungarian media and the debates to which it gave rise. Did it really constitute a kind of resistance, or could it rather be understood as a series of concessions to public opinion? Or did it actually help the regime achieve the goals of its cultural policy? In fact, all of these interpretations are valid. First, the references to Western culture in the early press of the Kádár era were intended to create distance from the cultural policy of Hungarian Stalinism, which Kádár’s propaganda tried to dismiss as hopelessly and unnecessarily orthodox and dictatorial. However, the re-importation of images from Western popular culture into official socialist debates created new ways of developing criticism and critical attitudes towards Kádár’s cultural policy too. I explore this double reception in thematic order by focusing on commercial culture, film, theater, literature, jazz, and art in two of the most important newspapers of the time: the party daily Népszabadság and the official youth magazine Magyar Ifjúság.

Western Commercial Culture in the Press

Népszabadság sarcastically noted the shift that took place between November 1956 and February 1957: “Nobody was enthusiastic about the gray journals of the Rákosi regime, while—lo!—the new, democratic press is received with such huge interest. Recently, they were burning newspapers on the streets, but now they keep queuing.”8 The author pointed out that the popularity of the youth weekly Magyar Ifjúság was not based on cultural value. (Magyar Ifjúság was allegedly so popular that it was sold on the streets in record time and after that one could get it only from under the counter, when buying an issue of the official party paper Népszabadság or the trade union paper Népakarat).

What was the secret of Magyar Ifjúság? The first issue of the paper was released on January 5 1957, at a time when there were still many youth organizations and the Hungarian Communist Youth League, which later came to own the paper, had not yet been founded. On the front, children sleighing and Miss France were smiling at the reader. A genre that had previously been rebuked as the quintessence of American trash culture returned. The first comic strip in Magyar Ifjúság was a French translation (Misi and Döme Meet the Dragon), but in the second issue Hungarian characters appeared: The Adventures of the Dogs Blöki and Csöpi.9 This constituted a surprising concession, since even in 1954 official cultural policy labelled comics as a tool that had been used to teach violence and condition people for war: “These books contain depictions of murders, sadistic stories, terrifying adventures, cruelty and bloodcurdling horror, and they are illustrated”. They were even associated with fascism: “Many of these adventures are based on one single supernatural hero, who—as fascists suggested—is the only one able to save the crowd from their troubled situation by using power.”10

Among the novelties of Magyar Ifjúság was a Tarzan serial, which was also banned after 1948 as inferior American mass culture. “Tarzan Wins” was published as a promotion of the newly launched Tarzan series of Kossuth Publishing House. The first part, Tarzan of the Apes, had already been published in late 1956 by Budapest Press, and was continued by the party publishing house in 1957.11 Further Tarzan volumes only arrived in the mid-1960s. The plans of Európa Publishing House for 1957 included the crime stories of Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle, and Európa planned to print open-end crime stories following Western patterns: “In other countries, separate clubs are organized to solve such books, so we can hope that this idea will be welcome here, too,” heralded the youth paper.12

The first issue also introduced Gina Lollobrigida and Luis Procuna, a Mexican actor-toreador. With this, an avalanche of Western stars began.13 Over the course of the upcoming weeks, people were able to read about the cultic James Dean, the rock and roll icon Elvis Presley, actresses Elisabeth Taylor and Marylin Monroe (who in November 1964 could only be seen on the silver screen in The Misfits). Népszabadság tried to catch up with this tempo: in early 1957, it portrayed Kim Novak besides Monroe and Taylor.

The January 5 issue of Magyar Ifjúság also launched a column on world fashion, and it included an interview with András Bágya, head of department of light music at Magyar Rádió, about jazz.14 Even stranger things happened: sexuality was seen as one of the opiates of the decadent West, but not reporting on it. “Wow, how pretty,” proclaimed the Christmas edition of Népszabadság in a caption above a picture of Miss France in a bikini. The typist from Nice greeted the Hungarian readers from the back of a donkey.15 Magyar Ifjúság also captured the attention of its readership with a beauty queen in issue one, and it continued with a portrait of actress Francoise Arnoul in a bikini and a handsome French in tabloid style.16 Allegedly “decadent” and “commercial” Western habits also penetrated the Hungarian environment: the weekly showed the winner of the beauty contest of the National Association of Hungarian Students.17 However, a month later the same newspaper condemned “bourgeois hypocrisy” for surrounding beauty contests with fame and glitter while the winner could be rejected as a teacher in FRG.18 A national beauty contest was not held again until 1985.

Kádár himself spoke highly critically of the work of Népszabadság on the session of the Budapest party activists on January 16 1957:

 

But it is inequitable for the central organ of the party to report murder cases with mighty letters on the front page and [spice up] the article, which is of theoretical importance, with a picture of a half-naked dancer, while they move the important declarations of the party and the government and the important manifestations of the international workers’ movement to different pages so that you can’t find the sequel.19

 

We can surely add the report from Paris to the “bourgeois tendencies.” The report invited Hungarian readers to popular striptease bars like Foliés Bergére and Venus to offer accounts of “colourful” shows and dancers covered by fig-leaves. However, for the sake of order, the report added that a French worker cannot afford such fun (“my friend, Beuval, earns this money [the price of 3 bottles of champagne] for a week’s worth of work at Renault”), and it made specific mention of homeless people lying under newspapers by the Seine River.20

At the end of January, the Provisional Executive Committee of Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party (HSWP) discussed the work of Népszabadság and Magyar Ifjúság and concluded that, though their work was not flawless, they could be regarded as supportive of the government, unlike the Hungarian News Agency and Népakarat.21 It was not easy to achieve a balance: people who wanted to make a newspaper different from Stalinist times had to follow the expectations of the party and the audience at the same time, the majority of which would not bother listening to talk of any of the outstanding Soviet achievements, but rather thirsted for news and information about the West. It seemed that interesting journals could only be edited with Western star-portraits, technical novelties, and a pinch of eroticism in the first months of 1957. However, even after this, exprobatory path-seeking efforts were paved with some piquant circuits. What else could have explained the fact that two months later the notion of the lascivious nightlife of the West was again “debunked” in a lengthy article. The journalist (a protocol guest of the newly launched Budapest–Brussels flight) balanced his report on Boeuf sur le Toit club by visiting an anti-fascist place of memory, the fortress of Brendonk.22

Concessions and Renewed Cultural Policy: Ideology Disappears

Kádár also accused the editors of Népszabadság of smuggling a characterization of the West as the “greater world” into the newspaper.23 Nevertheless, the government assumed that there were anti-Soviet emotions among the population, which is best illustrated by the films that were offered after November 1956. Soviet films disappeared for months: they were cautiously reintroduced beginning in February 1957 by local movie companies. Népszabadság printed the first cinema program on November 29, when cinemas were open between 11am and 4pm, according to the curfew. The selection of films was based on the 169 films confirmed by the General Directorate for Films: 29 Hungarian, 33 from socialist countries, and the rest (107 films, i.e. 63% percent, well over half) were from Western countries. Felszabadulás played Fan-Fan the Tulip, Csillag played The Red and the Black, Tinódi played the comedy Papa, Mama, My Woman and Me (presented for the French Film Days in 1956), and Toldi opted for The Thief of Bagdad. The list of licensed Soviet films was compiled only in January “with the political caution justified by the political atmosphere.” Salaries for employees in the movie theaters depended in part on the number of people who actually came to see the movies. However, this factor was no longer taken into consideration in the case of Soviet films.24

The audiences for Western films, in contrast, were huge in 1957. The share of the viewers of Soviet films fell back significantly, even compared to 1956, when this tendency had begun. In 1957, every second cinema-goer opted for a Western film, while the number of Soviet films did not reach 10 percent of the total.

	Hungarian	Soviet	Socialist	Other	Mixed
1956	18	19	18	42	3
1957	22	9	13	52	4

 

Chart 1. Distribution of Hungarian audience by the place of origin of films in 1957
(Source: Hungarian National Archives (MNL OL) – The report of the Executive Committee of the Metropolitan Council on the operation of cinemas)25

 

As the General Directorate for Films put it: “we strove to restore the tranquility of mind of the audience with films.” In the name of tranquility, 40 films were presented from capitalist countries, along with 12 Hungarian and 63 socialist films. The composition of the 98 films of the previous year was the following: 9 Hungarian, 59 socialist, and 31 Western. In 1958, 33.3 percent and in 1959 28.4 percent of the film premiers were imported from the non-socialist countries, so opening to Western cultural products had begun earlier, actually as early as 1954. In 1956/57, the proportion of the films from socialist countries dropped temporarily. 26 Magyar Ifjúság reported that the negotiations would begin with the Motion Picture Export Company in Paris at the end of January 1957.27 Moreover, the negotiations were successful, and three films were accepted in 1957.28 The first one was the most commercial: Trapeze, starring Gina Lollobrigida, Tony Curtis, and Burt Lancaster. So Hollywood returned to Hungary a year after the fall of the revolution with a spectacular feature film.

Nagyvilág, the Hungarian journal for international literature, which had been founded on the model of the Soviet Inostrannaya Literatura, underwent a similar shift. Its first issue was published in October 1956, and its programmatic editorial was written by György Lukács, who had been marginalized under the policy of Andrey Aleksandrovich Zhdanov known as Zhdanovism, according to which the government should exert strict control over cultural policy and foster extreme anti-Western bias. The philosopher-aesthete emphasized that the seclusion after 1948 was the continuation of earlier Hungarian provincialism and was a consequence of weakness and uncertainty, both under Horthy and Rákosi: “Only one kind of struggle can be effective against provincialism: real, first-hand knowledge about the real state of the world, and the evaluation and of the present phenomena and streams of literature based on the autonomous procession and sophisticated arrangement of the seriously collected store of learning.”29 The journal was not abolished, but it was relaunched in the spring of 1957. Of course, the editorial in the April issue was not written by Lukács, who was being held in Snagov as a member of the Imre Nagy group, but by László Kardos, the leader of the Department of World Literature at University of Budapest. However, the program remained unaltered: “The literature that secludes itself from the inspirations, lessons, and experience of the brotherly beauty of contemporary world literature is threatened by the danger of withering, dehumanization, graying, and monotony. Wide-open windows all around are a precondition of the real development of our national culture.”30

At the same time, the programs of the theaters were similar to those of the cinemas. The spring program had already been decided before the revolution. The new performances continued the de-Stalinization line. Soviet plays were not performed. Theaters were just as eager as cinemas to avoid sparking public protests. In the spring of 1957, Népszabadság summarized the mentality of the months after the suppression of the revolution as the negative culmination of the process started in 1953: “slowly they ‘adjusted’ the ‘old, good, certain-success’ operettas, appealing classics, and in the best case new Hungarian slapstick comedies, which are evasive in content and low-grade in performance.” After November, “the shudder from the messages (even progressive bourgeois messages!) and the service of philistine illusions and lies” were palpable.31

The tendencies were similar in theaters and cinemas: Soviet plays disappeared, earlier Hungarian “blockbusters,” classical plays, and several Western light comedies appeared. József Révai, the ideologist in charge of cultural affairs during the Rákosi era in his notorious March article attacked “ideological clarity” in theater life through a revival of the plays of Ferenc Molnár and Ferenc Herczeg.32

What was playing in the theaters on that day? In addition to three classical plays (Victor Hugo: Ruy Blas; G. B. Shaw: Mrs Warren’s Profession and You Can Never Tell), there were also two post-World War I Italian comedies: one by Dario Niccodemi and Pirandello’s unconventional Six Characters in Search of an Author. The latter was premiered in 1957. According to a critic writing for Nők Lapja, an illustrated weekly, the director highlighted Pirandello’s playfulness and subdued his philosophical turbidity.33 Four of the remaining five productions were operettas: three Hungarian plays (Nuptials of Ipafa; Legend of Tabán; Graf of Luxembourg) and one Austrian play (Benatzky: The King with the Umbrella). The fifth was Olympia by Ferenc Molnár. So the offer was restricted to comedies and light musical performances, complemented with two operas (Bánk bán, Don Juan). László Németh’s Galilei and two social critical comedies (a contemporary French satire in crime-story form by Marc-Gilbert Sauvajon and a Yugoslav comedy by Branislav Nušić), which were first performed before the revolution, had been cancelled since January.

According to a March 15 article in Élet és Irodalom demanding order in culture, the situation at the houses of culture was even worse:

 

In the Young Guard Cultural Home One Kiss and Nothing Else is played. Danuvia Cultural Home plays the comedy by László Fodor. The István Pataki House of Culture plays The Moonlight Groom. MOM House of Culture plays Let’s Dance Mambo, the Zsigmond Móricz House of Culture plays Drum Duel and Rock and Roll, and the House of Culture of the Duna Shoe Factory played a comedy entitled Bubus by Gábor Vaszary.34

In the subsequent months the popular French playwright, Jean Anouilh, also known in Hungary between 1945 and 1948, returned to the stage with Eurydice and Rendezvous in Senlis, along with other entertaining plays, such as Dario Niccodemi’s Morning, Noon and Night, which the reviewer of Népszabadság found a “real Italian orange juice, does not bemuse, does not intoxicate, does not have strength or alcoholic content, but is bland and refreshing.”35

In the case of theaters, there was no such central body as for film import decisions: theaters as creative workshops composed their own yearly plans and submitted them to the Ministry of Culture. Of course, they paid regard to proportions, and the necessity of including an appropriate number of contemporary Hungarian, Soviet, socialist, and classical plays in their programs. These program plans were discussed by the leaders of the Ministry of Culture in the second half of 1957, and plays were accepted which later caused the biggest problems. However, the conference emphasized that the number of Soviet and socialist plays should be raised and propagated more intensely (Vsevolod Vishnevsky’s Optimist Tragedy was the core drama in that year), and plans were also made to cut back the number of “products of low-level bourgeois literature.” They also criticized theaters for trying to win over audiences by compromising principles: “theater directors in the capital have been fighting for a recent Western play for weeks.” Nevertheless, after the revolution theaters could not help offering numerous foreign plays: most of the writers did not write, so there were not enough new contemporary Hungarian plays. The theater with the worst proportion offered 11 premiers of which only 2 were Hungarian. 36

In 1957, the inclusion of earlier discredited leftist authors was continued with Frederico Garcia Lorca. In April, the National Theater in Budapest showed Blood Wedding, in the autumn the National Theater of Miskolc opted for The House of Bernarda Alba. Several theaters included Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck and Before Sunset by Gerhart Hauptmann. The Attila József Theater selected an Italian play by Gian Paolo Callegari (The Girls Who Burned out Early), which reflected on the so called Montesi-scandal. Some other plays added to the Western socially critical pieces (The Little Foxes by Lilian Hellmann and The Diary of Anne Frank), while Naples Millionaire by Eduardo di Filippo and a comedy by Victorien Sardou represented the lighter line.

The two problematic plays might have passed as critical plays by Western authors, one targeting the circumstances in capitalist society and the other slamming the American occupation of Japan. As reviews make clear, the cultural watchdogs only attacked these plays after they had been brought to the stage. The Egg by Félicien Marceau was heralded as a drama unveiling the lies of “bourgeois society,” in which one must sacrifice all moral values in order to prosper.37 However, cultural policy makers and critics soon realized that it represented Existentialism, which was only tolerated in very small doses after 1953.38 Later criticism tried to insist that the drama was harmful since it allegedly propagated nihilism and cynicism, and the way it typified “petty bourgeois points of views” as characteristic of all mankind and gave up hope for change was not acceptable.39As a critic writing for Népszabadság contended,

 

[t]his writer’s approach does not know humanity, benignity, or moral sense, he does not believe in anything anymore. Its ideal is the perspective of a wood louse, where nothing but instincts remain, you do not have to care for anything, you must not think... This is the denial of everything that is human, this is animal life, it reveals the last moments of a culture. That is why this anti-human art is unacceptable to us, even if it draws a harsh picture of the gray petty bourgeois soul and offers several well-crafted characters. It is unacceptable because it reflects the anarchist worldview against which we are fighting a hard, passionate, and enduring struggle.40

 

Theater critic Ferenc Gy. Simon directly blamed the actors and actresses for elevating such an equivocal play by doing an outstanding performance with great enthusiasm.41

The other play in the crossfire was an American one depicting life in occupied Japan after 1945 with a sense of irony. Some theater experts thought it was appropriate,42 but partisan critics found The Teahouse of the August Moon too “back-slapping.” Indeed, in their contention it is embodied the propagation of the American occupation: “the holder of the Pulitzer Prize and the voluntary PR-manager of the US Army makes very tricky propaganda about the humanitarian goodness of the occupying army of imperialism.”43

Book publishing was similar in its practices and the shifts it underwent. The medium-term plans of workshops were accepted by a central body. One can observe the rise of commercial culture here, too, i.e. the influence of considerations of profitability and public demand. However, the plans were compiled in a situation of unrest, and the Ministry of Culture could only discuss the quarterly plans of the publishing houses as of the second half of 1957.44 It was too late, however, to make significant changes. The plans of Európa Kiadó, the publishing house with the profile of world literature, had 28 foreign operas for the third quarter of 1957: six Soviet, eight “socialist,” and fourteen “Western” works. The five volumes of “contemporary” “people’s democratic” literature included Franz Kafka and Bertold Brecht. However, the Ministry intervened in the first case. Kafka only began to become acceptable to the cultural organs of the regime in the mid-1960s, as was signaled by a Kafka-study and the publication of one of his novels.45 The long-time “exiled” Brecht was permitted to return with the Threepenny novel, and in April The Good Person of Szechwan was staged in the József Katona Theater,46 followed by further Brecht plays in 1958. Among the fourteen Western authors, six were contemporary. The Hungarian audience may well have remembered Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz, W. Somerset Maugham, and Jean Cocteau from before 1948, while novels by the Indian Mulk Raj Anand had been published under Rákosi, too. The first Hungarian translation by Alberto Moravia (The Roman Stories) was published in 1957, but the real sensation was the publication of the novel by Françoise Sagan. Her first novel, Hello Sadness, was a strange composition even in the French cultural landscape at the time, so its Hungarian publication was really surprising, though Polish audiences had been able to read it since 1956. Nevertheless, it had become common practice by then for publishers to bring out works from the West that were questionable according to the ideology of the regime, although these works were only available to small readership because of issues of circulation. Sagan, who introduced her readers to the world of rebel teenagers, was usually labelled an existentialist, but her book was much better received than the two abovementioned plays. Its novelty, strange honesty, and credible reportage could be emphasized, and this constituted an advantage. It could be characterized as a presentation of “the whole disturbing and mysterious field, about which we only know the outbursts: from rock and roll to the matricides, patricides, and infanticides committed out of boredom”.47 However, the publication of Sagan was not the general rule, but rather the exception, a kind of peculiarity which was much desired by the intellectuals to satisfy rather than whet the appetite. As László Kardos put it when writing about the treatment of the new phenomena of Western literature in earlier years, “curiosity slowly distorted into actual thirst, and thirst spelled illusions about value for the thirsty which were not proportional to the real values of Western literature.”48

The Return of Banned Genres

Official cultural policy made its first timid steps toward the acceptance of jazz after Stalin’s death. This tendency continued after 1956, although it did not lead to the support of “decent” jazz smoothly. Jazz and other practically banned forms, genres, and products of Western culture were regarded as destructive and decadent. As a consequence of the anti-jazz campaign, which began as early as 1946 in the Soviet Union, many jazz musicians were sent to labor camps. Jazz was condemned as a tool of dehumanization, the very opposite of a form of art that was culturally valuable, and even a weapon of American imperialism, since it allegedly killed human feelings and thoughts therefore turned the individual into a cog-wheel of American war machinery. In Hungary, popular jazz melodies did not entirely disappear. Some of them were still played at bars. A circular letter of the Union of Working Youth (Dolgozó Ifjúság Szövetsége, or DISZ) proves that even the communist youth organization had to make concessions to the interests of youngsters: some American songs (“In the Mood,” “Chattanooga Choo-Choo”) were even accepted in DISZ clubs.49

The shift in jazz policy in the Soviet bloc began in 1953. Jazz was also included in radio programs, and more and more jazz hits were played in bars and clubs. New ideological explanations were given: the roots of the genre allegedly were found in folk music, jazz was understood as the music of the American black population, so it was the music of the oppressed.50 Jazz of course remained part of the cultural palate after 1956. The magazine Rádióújság recommended the music of the American Gerry Mulligan sextet for listeners who “had been denied the opportunity to form their own opinions,” and it criticized the earlier “narrow-minded” and “hard-shell” cultural policy.51 However, jazz had deeper roots—and larger audiences—in Poland and Czechoslovakia. Jazz bands from these two countries took part in some of the biggest jazz concerts of 1957, too. In July, Polish Hot Jazz performed in Budapest, followed by the Karel Vlach Orchestra from Prague in September and the American Hot Shots in January 1958.52

When Népszabadság emphasized that Elisabeth Charles, the Scottish singer of Hot Jazz, was an extraordinary example of “true jazz singing without unnecessary writhing or false, external tools,” it targeted some spontaneous tendencies in Budapest bars. A phenomenon that the Metropolitan Council had already detected between 1953 and 1955 began to return to the places of entertainment: “The bands, seeing the lack of orientation, thought everything is possible, and they can smuggle American songs into their shows without any restriction. Moreover, they tried to score and perform the Hungarian songs in Western styles.”53 “Wildings,” as this performance style was called, also appeared after 1956, although cultural policy demanded an aesthetic jazz style without wild improvisation. The embrace of official jazz was set back by the events of the international jazz festival in Budapest in the summer of 1958, when some of the groups and members of the audience did a “dervish St. Vitus’s dance’: “some of the youngsters in the hall forgot themselves, and forgot about their fellows, and they improvised a turbulent, wild fury under the rock and roll music,” lamented the party daily, rebuking both the participants and the organizers.54

Rock, or as it was often called beat, was only fostered by the Hungarian Young Communist League (Magyar Kommunista Ifjúsági Szövetség, KISZ) around 1964, after a comprehensive survey on youth pastimes. From this point on, efforts were made to shepherd the “guitar bands” within the walls of KISZ clubs and houses of culture. However, 1956/57 was still a time of reluctance, even in the West. In addition to generational conflicts, this reluctance was nourished by the century-long opposition of highbrow and lowbrow culture,55 and also the averseness of European elites to Americanization.56 Nonetheless, in Western Europe Bill Haley’s and Elvis Presley’s music made its way through, while cultural mass production quickly exploited the new craze in the pursuit of its material interests. Expresso Bongo, a 1958 musical by Wolf Mankowitz (which was also performed in Hungary in 1963), showed this process from a critical perspective, though it was in fact a successful part of the same music industry at the time.

At the level of official cultural policy, in the mid-1950s the typical attitude toward rock and roll music was rigid rejection, so it was rather surprising that rock and roll was mentioned in a relatively gentle, almost positive context after November 1956. In January 1957, Hungarian journalists started to introduce the greatest Western stars to the Hungarian public, and they left behind the usual pejorative insinuations. József Vető’s report from Vienna described the so-called “Halbstarke” (rock hooligans) almost as waggish music fans, who were called “jampec” in Hungary, which meant a kind of swaggering dandy. Vető emphasized the irresistible ancient power of the music, a notion that would only return in the second half of the 1960s: “Even if I do think hard, I cannot remember a tune, one cannot memorize even a tune from this music, but one still feels saturated with it, and one feels that one must follow the astoundingly inflammatory rhythm.”57 He even wrote appreciatively of how the Austrian audience of the Bill Haley film Rock Around the Clock had stomped, clapped, whistled, and stood up to dance in the projection room. After the film, he was not looking for broken shop windows, but rather noticed that “cheerfulness rings through the neighborhood around the cinema, hundreds, even thousands of people came out dancing in the streets.”58 Magyar Ifjúság also described rock and roll as “thrilling” music in its portrait of Elvis Presley. However, the article downgraded the music of the American idol. The author was rather sympathetic with the enthusiastic youth, and he reminded members of the older generations that they had had their own craze, which also had been intolerable as far as their parents had been concerned.59 Moreover, the rhythms of Elvis also could be heard on the radio thanks to the journalist Kitty Havas, who did reports during the New York trip of the Hungarian UN-delegation and purchased some trendy records, among them Elvis and Harry Belafonte, to be broadcast over the Hungarian Radio in June.60

In addition to popular music, genres of the visual arts that had long disappeared from public spaces were also revived. In the spring of 1957, the lovers of fine arts (some 71,000 people),61 could enjoy a peculiar experience. After eight years, works of abstract art were displayed again in an exhibition called the Spring Salon. Officially it was not organized by the ministry, and four juries of artists made selections from the materials that had been submitted. One of the juries was assigned to assess abstract works by artists led by Dezső Korniss, who had been expelled from the university in 1948 and had worked with little hope of ever having any public exposure until 1956. A separate room was arranged for abstract pieces, among them Miska, a painting by Korniss. It depicted a Hungarian peasant constructed out of geometric shapes. It was not a non-figurative painting in the narrow sense, much like those of Picasso, but the vision of the half and full oval and round plane figures was met with such aversion that Péter Rényi, deputy editor-in-chief at Népszabadság could quote disparaging remarks from the guest book: “If artistic freedom means Miska and co., then Révai was right.”62

Most critics welcomed the initiative, but did not argue in favor of the equality of abstract or “naturalist” styles. Rather, they espoused the idea also prevalent in other cultural spheres like literature and book publishing, according to which any denial of exposure to the public will only lead to overvaluation of undesirable tendencies.

However, even those who were receptive to the exhibition and its aims could not help noticing that politics—and “socialist realism”—had almost disappeared. Anna Oelmacher wrote on behalf of those criticizing the government from the left in Élet és Irodalom. This group held the plethora of neutral topics and the absolute lack of political commitment as the greatest problem. But from Oelmacher’s view, it was seen as anti-socialism, revisionism, and conscious resistance. “The Spring Salon is a manifestation of petty bourgeois revisionism in the fine arts. [It is an expression of] anarchist freedom that claims independence from the foundations and motion of society.”63

She also played the “national card,” underscoring that deniers of forced Sovietization were adopting foreign (Western) patterns: “But today people claim to be modern who operate with esoteric shapes. And people who kept inciting against Soviet patterns, why have not they turned to our lively and still vibrant traditions, and why make our ‘most modern’ ones outworn Bauhaus art, French surrealism, Dutch constructivism, etc.?” The author representing the platform of Révai jumped to general conclusions from the return of “withered streams”: the call for freedom in art is the denial of party control and socialist cultural policy. In this debate, both sides often referred to the Hundred Flowers Campaign of Mao Zedong, launched in May 1956. It could serve as an argument for openness; it was the idea behind the decisions of the four juries of the Spring Salon, which embraced the idea of separate salons for different streams. And this was the formula used by the leftist equation of artistic freedom with libertinage, denial of party control as an outcry against resistance and revisionism. In their metaphors, they referred to gardens instead of meadows of wildflowers: “Let it be ten or twenty salons, flowers would grow wild without a careful gardener.”64 Or as Károly Kiss, secretary of the Central Committee of the HSWP put it in the parliament: “Now they say we should let all flowers bloom and all birds sing, following the example of our Chinese comrades. Our party agrees with the Chinese comrades that all nice, useful, and odorous flowers can bloom, except for poppy flowers. And our party is supportive if all songbirds with a good voice sing, but harmony demands the silencing of ‘good-birds.’”65 Journalist and former minister of information Ernő Mihályfi, summarizing the debate in Élet és Irodalom, suggested that the policies that might be appropriate in Chinese environment were not applicable in post-(counter)revolutionary Hungary, because the Spring Salon had dredged up streams of thought and art that had already been transcended: “So it is not about deciding the future of newly emerging streams and styles, but tested and well-known old weeds had come to light.”66

However, the standpoint of the government remained unclear for contemporary actors. The hardline supporters of the government would have expected greater severity and ideological consistency. However, the cultural policy of the post-1956 communist government directed by György Aczél opted for a more open cultural life and the continuation of the de-Stalinization policies in culture. Paradoxically, the goal of this cultural opening up was to reestablish and strengthen the party’s authority and position in cultural life. This complicated situation provided the background for the relaunch of the monthly literary journal Nagyvilág which mediated contemporary Western high culture, as well as for the successful negotiations with Hollywood and the approval of Spring Salon, the forum in which contemporary Western-influenced works of the fine arts were exhibited. In this regard, even official cultural policy tried to represent itself as resistance to the former Stalinist practices. Promoting the transfer of Western culture could be understood as a defense of the de-Stalinization process in culture.

Decision makers on the intermediary levels (at editorial boards, theater offices, organizing committees etc.) found themselves in a situation in which they could try to shape the cultural processes in Hungary. Their contributions were inevitable in the selection, promotion, and publishing of works of Western arts and culture. However, while on the one hand accepting one of these roles after November 1956 was tantamount to an acknowledgement of the Kádár government, on the other hand the people who were in these positions were able to work to ensure the survival of the de-Stalinization tendency and the preservation of some degree of openness. This was important, since it was not clear at all whether or not the Kádár regime would (be able to) continue in this direction. Many of them were against a re-Stalinization process in culture and resisted a supposed move away from the result of de-Stalinization. In other words, they worked against attempts by the regime to slow the relatively still narrow process of cultural openness.

In this mix-up, earlier displaced and allegedly “transcended” contents returned, both from the “bourgeois past” of national culture and the “bourgeois present” of the West. In this regard, Western culture, which was to some extent readmitted after 1953 and then not rejected by the Kádár government, could serve a different role from the place it had been given as a subservient form of culture in the controlled de-Stalinization process. What was received from Western culture was far from being entirely “progressive.” Re-opened channels of transfer created a situation in which some kinds of counterculture could be nourished. This counterculture included ideological and artistic streams alien to Marxism, such as existentialism and abstract art, as well as the spread of popular mass culture.

 

Bibliography

Brugge, Peter. “Swinging Sixties Made in Czechoslovakia: The Adaptation of Western Impulses in Czechoslovak Youth Culture.” In 1968: České křižovatky evropských dějin, edited by Ivan Šedivý, Jan Němeček, Jiří Kocian, and Oldřich Tůma, 143–55. Prague: ÚSD, 2011.

Burroughs, Edgar Rice. Tarzan, a dzsungel fia [Tarzan of the Apes]. Budapest: Budapesti Lapnyomda, 1956.

Burroughs, Edgar Rice. Tarzan visszatérése [The Return of Tarzan]. Budapest: Kossuth Kiadó, 1957.

Cseh, Gergő Bendegúz, Melinda Kalmár, and Edit Pór, eds. Zárt, bizalmas, számozott: Tájékoztatáspolitika és cenzúra 1956–1963 [Closed, confidential, numbered: information policy and censorship 1956–1963]. Budapest: Osiris, 1999.

Kardos, László. “Vihar után” [After the storm]. Nagyvilág 2, no. 1 (1957): 3–4.

Kafka, Franz. A kastély [The castle]. Budapest: Európa Könyvkiadó, 1964.

Lukács, György. “Magyar irodalom – világirodalom” [Hungarian literature – World literature]. Nagyvilág 1, no. 1 (1956): 3–5.

Magyar Statisztikai Évkönyv 1954–1960. [Hungarian statistical yearbook 1954–1960].

Murányi, Gábor. “A magyar sajtó története 1948-tól 1988-ig” [The history of the Hungarian press from 1948 to 1988]. In György Kókay, Géza Buzinkay, and Gábor Murányi. A magyar sajtó története [The history of the Hungarian press], 201–29. Budapest: MÚOSZ, 1994.

Némethné Vágyi, Karola, and Károly Urbán, eds. A Magyar Szocialista Munkáspárt ideiglenes vezető testületeinek jegyzőkönyvei II [Records of the temporary leading bodies of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party II]. Budapest: InteraRt., 1993.

Poiger, Uta G. “Rock ’n’ Roll, Female Sexuality and the Cold War Battle over German Identites.” The Journal of Modern History 40, no. 3 (1996): 579–83.

Révész, Sándor. Egyetlen élet: Gimes Miklós története [One single life: The story of Miklós Gimes]. Budapest: 1956-os Intézet–Sík Kiadó, 1999.

Ryback, Timothy W. Rock around the Block: A History of Rock Music in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. New York–Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Sipos, Levente. “A Népszabadság letiltott cikke 1956 novemberében” [The banned article of Népszabadság in November 1956]. Múltunk 4, no. 1 (1992): 131–44.

Standeisky, Éva. Az írók és a hatalom 1956–1963 [The writers and the power 1956–1963]. Budapest: 1956-os Intézet, 1996.

Szigethy, Gábor. “Vilcsi” [Vilcsi]. Kortárs 4 (2014). Accessed June 6, 2016. http://www.kortarsonline.hu/2014/04/arch-vilcsi/23285.

Szobotka, Tibor. “Kafka kettős világa” [The dual world of Kafka]. Filozófiai közlemények 1–2 (1963): 87–112.

 

Phantom Voices from the Past: Memory of the 1956 Revolution and Hungarian Audiences of Radio Free Europe

Gábor Danyi

Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest

 

Following the short period of consolidation under János Kádár in the immediate aftermath of the 1956 revolution, expressions of the legacy and memory of the uprising were no longer permitted in the public sphere and had to be confined to the private sphere. The activity of émigré actors and institutions, including the broadcasts of Western radio stations, played a crucial role in sustaining the memory and the mentality of the revolution. In 1986, thirty years after the national trauma of 1956, Radio Free Europe broadcasted an array of programs commemorating the revolution, while the official socialist media in Hungary contended again that what had happened in 1956 had been a counterrevolution. This study primarily investigates two questions. Firstly, it casts light on the importance of the RFE’s archival machinery, which recorded on magnetic tape the broadcasts of the Hungarian radio stations during the revolution in 1956. Sharing these audio-documents with audiences 30 years later, RFE could replay the revolution, significantly strengthening the interpretation of the events as a revolution. The idiosyncratic voices of the key figures of the revolution guaranteed the authenticity of the commemoration programs even for members of the younger generation among the audiences. Secondly, this study sheds light on the counter-cultural practices through which listeners tried to reconstruct the “body” of the “specters” of the suppressed cultural heritage and eliminate the asymmetry between the radio’s accessible voice and its non-accessible physical vehicle.

Keywords: communist historical representation, documentary programs, authenticity, “presence effects,” samizdat, radizdat, magnitizdat, counter-cultural practices

 

“October 23 passed in such utter silence that people did not even dare mention the date,”1 wrote a listener to Radio Free Europe on the 10th anniversary of the 1956 Revolution. According to this source, all traces of the “experience of togetherness forged by the revolution had been broken by then.”2 This was one of the consequences of the brutally violent policies carried out by János Kádár’s new regime, which imposed the Party’s official interpretation of counterrevolution on society following intervention by Soviet forces on November 4th. Expressions of the suppressed memory and mentality of the 1956 Revolution were no longer possible in the public sphere and had to be confined to the private sphere, creating a kind of “widespread national oblivion.”3 Three decades later, however, expressions of an enduring collective memory of the revolution began to appear, and they came to play an important role in undermining the legitimacy of the one-party state.

While the narrative of the “counterrevolution” served as a means of legitimizing Kádár’s regime, any attempt to cultivate the memory of the 1956 Revolution belonged to the history of resistance. This history of political or artistic resistance not only included sporadic domestic manifestations originating from personal memory, but also the activity of the democratic opposition, present as of the late 1970s. The activity of émigré actors and institutions―including broadcasts from Western radio stations and émigré newspapers published abroad, but still resonating in Hungary―should also be taken into account, as they played a crucial role in counterbalancing the predominance of socialist propaganda by presenting an interpretation of the October events as a revolution.4

In the West, stations such as Radio Free Europe (RFE) and the BBC regularly commemorated the revolution in Hungarian-language broadcasts transmitted from the far side of the Iron Curtain. “Even as we keep trying to forget the October events, we were pleased to listen to a proper commemoration of this national event,”5 wrote the previously cited listener to RFE in 1966. Twenty years later, on the 30th anniversary, between July 1 and December 31, 1986 a wide repertoire of commemorative programs was broadcast concerning the background, the events, and the aftermath of the 1956 Revolution.6

Naturally, RFE’s commemorative programs ran parallel to those aired in the socialist mass media, so listeners had no choice but to question the authenticity of these contradictory sources. In 1986, authenticity was a crucial question, because the audiences for all of these commemorations included not only the generation which witnessed the events, but members of younger generations as well, i.e. people with no personal memories of 1956. This study investigates the struggle over interpretations of 1956’s meaning within the framework of the attempts made by the two most important agents, the socialist mass media and RFE, to establish the authenticity of their own commemorations.

By the time of the 30th anniversary of 1956 in 1986, a struggle had begun for Kádár’s position as general secretary, and a period of economic stagnation was engendering increased expectations by society at large. In this regard, how the past surrounding 1956 was treated became a kind of “litmus test”7 for the Party’s ability to change and provide effective reforms. The question of whether 1956 could be given a new, official interpretation therefore became a key issue in Hungary.

“History belongs entirely to us”: The 30th Anniversary of 1956 in Official Socialist Media

While in the autumn of 1985 it may have seemed that the official interpretation of 1956 had shifted just in time for the 30th anniversary,8 events actually took another direction. At the 13th Congress of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party (MSZMP), János Berecz was appointed Secretary of the Central Committee and Chief of the Agitprop Committee. The neo-dogmatic cultural policies of Berecz, who had been one of the major voices in the counterrevolutionary narrative,9 left their mark on the commemoration activities surrounding the 30th anniversary.

The aim to represent and again retell what had happened in the dramatic days of late October was motivated by at least two factors. Firstly, Berecz was attempting to gain power by extending Kádár’s offer one more time. This offer to Hungarian society was a promise to raise the standards of living in exchange for acceptance of the communist political system. Secondly, the socialist organs were conscious of the increase in activity by émigré organizations and their intensive relationships with Hungary’s internal opposition, which was eager to rehabilitate 1956 as a revolution. The Agitprop Committee therefore decided to counterbalance the effects of Western “propaganda” and unveil its alleged falsifications by cementing the official counterrevolutionary narrative. Thus, Hungary’s official commemoration of the revolution’s 30th anniversary resulted in propaganda activity that was more dogmatic in approach compared to that experienced five years before.

According to a statement by the Agitprop Committee made in March, 1986, “the propaganda connected to the 30th anniversary [had to] emphasize the unchanged, constant interpretation.”10 On November 4, 1986, at the “great celebration” of both the crushed counterrevolution and the establishment of Kádár’s counter-government, Berecz made the following statement in his speech: “Today there is no need to evaluate the events of 1956 and the processes that led to it in any other way than we did then, at the end of 1956.”11

Berecz was referring to the party resolution issued on December 5, 1956, according to which the October events could only be classified as a total “counterrevolution.”12 The resolution confirmed that the counterrevolutionary forces had consisted of reactionaries―former land-owners, Horthy-fascists, etc.―aiming to crush socialist achievements and restore the partially capitalist, partially feudal system of an earlier era. The resolution stated that even if the majority of those who participated in the events had been honest socialist patriots, they inevitably had aided the counterrevolution. This was the authoritative interpretation held by the ideology of the Kádár regime over the course of the next three decades.

On the occasion of the 30th anniversary, in the official socialist media dominated by this neo-dogmatic cultural policy, several programs, articles, and reminiscences focused on the October events. Of these, the documentary series entitled Velünk élő történelem [Our living history], the chief editor of which was Berecz, reached the widest audience.13 The series was evidence of a search for a new narrative form and technological pathways that would convince society of the regime’s interpretation of 1956. On the one hand, the first three episodes each had the same form. Specifically, they all conjured the history of the counterrevolution by means of “talking-head” interviews with witnesses of the events at the time. The series therefore opened up the emotional dimensions of the counterrevolution by presenting personal testimonies.

The six episodes of Velünk élő történelem were aired on Hungarian Television beginning in the middle of October.14 On the day after the airing of the first episode, Pál Geszti, the cultural editor of the daily newspaper Magyar Hírlap, published an article about the series. This article’s aim was to smooth out the dissimilarities between this official representation of events and personal experiences of the history itself. For Geszti, it was clear that the experiences witnessed by the generation of the time did not correspond to the meanings fashioned in the official representations. “Yesterday evening,” he wrote, “the first episode shown on television certainly generated as many reactions, questions, memories, and emotions as there were viewers.” Geszti attempted to eliminate contradictions surrounding the episode’s reception by comparing a “complex, scientific, essential” representation of history to the contingency of lived history and personal experiences. “The individual experience is always contingent and depends on chance.” Therefore, “there is no certainty that what was lived by XY as a witness or a participant really represented (some kind of) truth.”15 Velünk élő történelem had to base its authenticity on the relationship between the official truth of the counterrevolution and a minority of thoroughly sifted, personal memories.

The director of the series, Mihály Mátray, divided the roughly one hundred individuals appearing on screen into two groups: the first included witnesses and 1956 participants, and the second consisted of historians presenting nothing beyond the results of their historical research.16 Berecz was part of this latter group, in the role of historian. Ervin Hollós, the most qualified expert on the counterrevolution and the author of several propaganda books, was also featured. Hollós’s objectivity, however, can be seriously questioned. As of April, 1957, in his role as deputy head and then chief of the sub-department for counterintelligence against internal reaction in the Ministry of Interior, Hollós took an active part in the retaliatory measures taken against alleged participants in the revolution.17 The backbone of the narratives consisted of reminiscences by the political elite of the Kádár regime. The reflections uttered by Antal Apró, György Marosán, Valéria Benke, and Béla Biszku smoothly fitted into the “complex, scientific” picture of the counterrevolution, since these agents were among those who actively shaped the official genesis myth of the Kádár era. By simultaneously presenting reminiscences of others, including radio operators, workers’ militiamen, and university students, the series aimed to demonstrate that the counterrevolutionary narrative created and nurtured by a narrow political elite was actually “true” on the level of widespread social experience.

The first three episodes of Velünk élő történelem primarily illustrated the course of counterrevolutionary violence, depicting the process leading from the peaceful demonstration on October 23 to the siege of the headquarters of the Hungarian Radio and the tumultuous brutality committed by the counterrevolutionary rabble on Köztársaság [Republic] Square on October 30. When depicting how events unfolded at Köztársaság Square, the tale of violence came to a crescendo. From as early as November, 1956, the tragic and undoubtedly brutally violent siege of the Party house formed the hub of the image projected by the Kádár-regime concerning how events had occurred.18 Köztársaság Square was used as the most obvious evidence in support of the official characterization of events as an example of a counterrevolution and raging white terror. László Laboda, a member of Workers’ Council in Diósgyőr, offered the following recollection:

 

Another trauma in my life was that […] next to the town hall of Ózd two men were hanging upside down, they had been… brutally stabbed with a pitchfork or I don’t know what kind of tool, their clothes had been torn off, they were hanging, covered in blood. It is not possible to forget that, even if one were to live a hundred years.19

 

The dramatic atmosphere of this scene was guaranteed by the piercing sounds of a violin in the background and the sharply-focused camera shot which closed in on Laboda’s face while he was relaying the bloody details.

According to Velünk élő történelem, in contrast to the “passive route” taken by Imre Nagy in stemming the tide of the brutal counterrevolution, the members of the Kádárist political elite had been actively searching for the right solution. György Marosán repeatedly swore that—had it been given in time—the command to fire would have crushed the counterrevolution. This particular opinion from the dogmatic politician, however, was not his reminiscence of the past so much as it was a revitalization of the offer of the Kádár regime and a justification of the brutal retaliations. According to the documentary series, Kádár’s counter-government, which was set up on November 4, provided the “real turn.” The last two episodes related the story of how society’s trust had been gained by the Revolutionary Workers’ Peasants’ Government and how socialist Hungary had been renewed.

In the actual political context of 1986, the configurations of “continuity” and “resumption” gained new meaning. In one of his articles, Berecz underscored the notion that, “as a consequence of the traditions of the Hungarian revolutionary labor movement, by necessity there were people who have accepted the break with the mistakes of the previous years, and meanwhile the continuity and the renewal in socialism.”20 Berecz summoned the last two nouns as a means of mobilizing the Party’s potential to resolve the actual upcoming problems. “Our Party has already many times given examples of this renewal”; “this time, the task ahead of us is to find new and necessary answers for any new and unresolved problems in society.”21 Continuity―in the sense of expropriating the meaning of history―had to express the absolute right to do this: “the character of continuity is that history belongs entirely to us, together with its successes, its failures, and their lessons.”22

The makers of the series did not properly assess the risks involved in demonstrating this absolute control over history by means of presenting the personal memories of the political elite. In Velünk élő történelem, the October events were represented within the framework of personal recollections, thereby implying that the reminiscences of the political elite were comparable to the memories of the television audiences. Velünk élő történelem definitely met with resistance on the part of viewers who remembered the events of 1956 differently. Imprisoned for counterrevolutionary activity at the end of 1956, Imre Simonyi listened to RFE’s commemorative programs while also viewing Velünk élő történelem. While Simonyi rated the RFE programs as “incredibly good,” the performance given by Marosán on television had him alternating between wild laughter and gripping the arms of his chair until his knuckles turned white.23

Thus, Velünk élő történelem was not received entirely according to the official plan. This counter-productivity was due not only to the propagandistic nature of the series. In this period of increasing political-economic crisis and an emerging discussion among different dissident groups in Hungary, the reiteration of the old offer of the Kádár regime came off as anachronistic. Furthermore, if the issue of 1956 was the “litmus test” of the Party’s ability to change, this dogmatic restoration of the official interpretation of 1956 partially undermined any attempt by the Party to project an image of reform. The events held in memory of the 30th anniversary completely disappointed a society eagerly awaiting comprehensive reforms that were expected to offer a way out of a stagnating situation. In consequence, many people began looking for alternative ideas and information, while many more became interested in learning more about what had actually happened in 1956.24

Radio Free Europe and Warrants of Authenticity

In the aftermath of the 1956 Revolution, socialist propaganda made serious accusations against RFE, essentially laying blame for the tragic events on the radio station. These charges included statements that―among other transgressions―RFE had urged Hungarians to fight the Soviet army, promised Western assistance, and provoked Soviet intervention.25 While admittedly overestimating the radio’s role, socialist propaganda indirectly suggested that Western assistance was a vain hope and communism was there to stay. At the same time, “these historic events made clear both the importance and the responsibility of [RFE], and also proved that this venture would not be merely a temporary one.”26 Consequentially, RFE was forced to analyze and reorganize its attitudes concerning both program policies and its practices of information acquisition, including research and archival work.27 After 1956, RFE also undertook the mission of preserving the memory of the revolution, and during the decades of the Kádár regime it regularly broadcasted programs commemorating 1956.

Considering the reception of these programs, very limited feedback is available in the so-called “Information Items” gathered at RFE’s Munich headquarters as a means of reducing the state of isolation in which the radio station found itself regarding information coming from the Eastern bloc. These documents were generally based on correspondence conducted with anonymous sources located within the bloc or interviews provided by Eastern emigrants and defectors. Their reliability and credibility were carefully checked by various filtering systems. Even if the items “later proved to be reliable historical data,” they nonetheless must be interpreted with a due degree of circumspection, since they may be the products of an interview situation filled with suspicion and ruled by certain sets of presumptions.28 Concerning feedback provided by listeners on the RFE commemorative programs, another source of evidence is also available: the transcripts of messages recorded by the radio’s answering machine in the second half of the 1980s.

Set up in 1985, the answering machine29 was intended to modernize the communication channel between RFE and its audiences, while also replacing correspondence. The answering machine recorded listeners’ calls and messages in two-minute intervals, around the clock, 24 hours a day. While transcripts of the calls were handed to editors, the most important and relevant messages and questions were answered every week during a ten-minute long program entitled Hallgatók Fóruma [Listeners’ forum].30 In comparison to the items, these telephone call transcripts have three advantages. Firstly, listeners called the answering machine of their own volition, hence the suspicion and presumptions that could eventually pervade interview situations31 were lacking. Secondly, the transcripts―appended with additional comments only in extreme cases―preserved the listeners’ views without any kind of distortion or condensing. Finally, in contrast to the anonymous reports found in the Items, in certain and limited cases it was possible to identify the callers; it is, however, true, that those contacting the RFE from within the bloc characteristically used code names.

Hungarian listeners usually called the answering machine service in order to comment on the programs, request that broadcasts be repeated, complain about the signal’s frequently bad quality, share jokes on the current political situation, etc. In the case of important public affairs―such as the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, demonstrations against the Gabčíkovo–Nagymaros Waterworks, and the soccer match loss of 6:0 against the Soviets at the 1986 World Cup―the number of calls increased. In autumn, 1986, many callers discussed the merits of RFE programs commemorating the Hungarian revolution: “Great work, boys, great work, girls. I cannot say anything else. I haven’t heard for 30 years […] such a beautiful and touching […] commemoration. If the Hungarian soccer team had played like this, the net of the Soviets would have been worn out.”32

Another listener left the following message:

 

First of all, I would like to say thank you for the carefully compiled documentary program which was broadcast these days on the occasion of the freedom fight. I myself, who am over 60 years old, took part in the 1956 events, and I can testify that the documentary is trustworthy down to its smallest detail.33

Naturally, one could cite additional examples of this kind of feedback. In these comments, of the RFE’s rich selection of commemorative programs, the documentary programs edited by László Kasza (entitled Thirteen Days of the Revolution and Freedom Fight and The Decline of Freedom: The History of Twelve Days) was mentioned the most frequently. Following in the footsteps of previous RFE broadcasts,34 these two programs contained a chronological examination of the events leading to the victory of the revolution, piecing this historical episode together day by day. This was then followed by the history of the fight for freedom against Soviet intervention. These programs generally consisted of a well-edited montage of audio-recordings dating from the period of the revolution, as well as recollections by witnesses.

As a very characteristic feature of the feedback, listeners emphasized the role of the original audio-documents. “I spoke of this program to several acquaintances, and it was the general opinion that such programs are very necessary―with the help of original sound recordings―to refute the official lies that distort the past.”35 In 1986, in the Hallgatók Fóruma, some opinions were broadcast which, like the denouncements made by socialist propaganda, accused the radio of vulgar rabble-rousing. On the following day, many listeners called the answering machine to deny these charges indignantly. One such caller offered the following argument:

 

Did these listeners actually listen to the documentary serial or are they deaf? All right, if we want, we can give credence to László Kasza, if we don’t want to, we don’t have to. But I must ask whether these 50-minute programs consisted of only the voice of László Kasza? Like hell! They were filled with conclusive evidence, since they evoked programs broadcast at the time by Radio Free Kossuth.36

 

It is worth noting that RFE possessed the most complete archival collection of broadcasts made in Hungary at the time of the revolution. In addition to other techniques used to acquire information, RFE “closely followed the events in the so-called ‘target-countries’ by listening to and recording the official radio broadcasts coming through the air from the communist world.”37 During the revolution, the Hungarian Desk’s attention was focused entirely on the events unfolding in Hungary. At the time, Radio (Free) Kossuth and an increasing number of amateur, independent radio stations served as the main source of information. Throughout each day of the revolution, their broadcasts were being recorded on magnetic tape by RFE’s archival machinery. As a result, a unique collection of historical archives was created that served as a source of original audio-documents to be broadcast again and again into Hungary during Kádár’s regime.

To paraphrase Jacques Derrida, the various types of technological apparatuses used to record, store and replay sound allow phantoms from the past to come back and haunt us,38 thereby making an apparently absent entity present again. “The realm of the dead is as extensive as the storage and transmission capabilities of a given culture,”39 writes Friedrich Kittler. When replayed thirty years later, the audio-inserts originally recorded in 1956 resulted in the resurrection of both the martyrs of the revolution and the apparently dead revolution. When mapping this resurrection, this study turns to the thesis of Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, an author mostly interested in the “presentification of past worlds, that is the techniques that produce the impression (or, rather, the illusion) that worlds of the past can become tangible again.”40 Gumbrecht―while “challeng[ing] a broadly institutionalized tradition according to which interpretations, that is, the identification and/or attribution of meaning, is […] the exclusive core practice […] of the humanities”41―suggests that we “conceive of aesthetic experience as an oscillation (and sometimes as an interference) between ‘presence effects’ and ‘meaning effects’.”42 When discussing the “production of presence,” Gumbrecht focuses on the materialities of communication. According to his definition, “to speak of ‘the production of presence’ implies that the (spatial) tangibility effect coming from the communication media is subjected, in space, to movement of greater or lesser proximity, and of greater or lesser intensity.”43 When transmitting the memory of the revolution, the replayed original audio-recordings brought about these “presence effects,” thereby guaranteeing a high level of proximity and intensity, i.e., the “touching on the bodies” of listeners. Thus, the semantics of the RFE commemorative programs originated from the physical effects generating the illusion of presence. Divided by the generation gap into either witnesses or people with no personal memories of the revolution, listener groups perceived the “presence effects” according to different constellations.

First of all, throughout the 1986 commemorative programs, the “scene of radio listening”44 from 1956 was repeated, though it transmitted a different experience. In the 1950s, listeners had to become accustomed to the jamming against “enemy radio stations.” Jamming, however―as István Rév described the situation―“did not simply aim to make the enemy broadcasts inaudible.” Rather, “the noise also established and confirmed the presence of the Communist authorities in the air, and thus in the private sphere [...] constantly remind[ing] the listener of the continuous surveillance.”45 When all jamming facilities were closed down on October 24, 1956, the lack of the deliberately generated noise transmitted a clear message: “We [the West] are here, and they [the Communists or the Soviets] have gone.”46 In this historic moment, media technology supported the collective imagination in the face of mere reality. Thirty years later, when listening to the original recordings, the same voices emerged from the same “box.” Conversely, in contrast to the original “scene of listening,” the replayed recordings came to represent quite the opposite meaning. On the one hand, the shredded, bad quality of the recordings underscored the fragility of traces of memory concerning the revolution. On the other hand, the majority of listeners―as a consequence of their social conditioning―attributed the bad reception not to atmospheric noise, but to the jamming that had actually been halted in 1972.47 Thus, the bad quality of the commemorative programs broadcasting original recordings once again signaled the presence of the repressive Communist authorities, albeit inadvertently.

Secondly, “reviving the already dim recollection with original recordings”48 also meant that the “scene of radio listening” was once more occupied by the main players in the revolution, brought back to life both through recordings and personal recollections. The interconnection between the replayed recordings and the stimulated development of memories offered the experience of reliving the events of the revolution all over again. One person, who accepted the broadcast programs as representations of her own memories, left the following message:

 

In 1956, I was a student in my first year at the University of Horticulture. On [October] 23, I was present at the general assembly at the Technical University, and afterward I was everywhere, wherever it was possible, until November 4. Now, as I listen to your reminiscences, I am reliving those minutes again and [I testify to] the credibility of the witness, declaring with absolute faith that everything happened exactly the way it was related. God bless you for these true words and for keeping the memory of the revolution alive.49

 

The program’s authenticity was based on the relationship between personal recollection and original recordings, which mutually legitimized each other. The “credibility of the witness” included the compatibility between these different perspectives: “those who listened to it were convinced that it was arranged by an editor who had been an eye-witness of the events in 1956.”50

In the case of the younger generation, the authenticity of these programs was established through recognition of the idiosyncratic nature of the recorded voices. Here, the reception process was situated within an acousmatic situation, since the proper source of the sound coming from the radio remained unseen.51 Listeners were therefore forced to confront both the phantom character of the voice as well as the unlocalizable character of the missing body. Consequently, the problem of identifying the two also arose. The rupture resulting from the separation of the voice from the body, however, was not complete, even in the cases of voices replayed in several transposals. The tone, the pitch and the volume of the speech sound attests to the build of the body which becomes the “organon” of the announcement.52 Following this train of thought, the speech sound of the revolutionary players―after being separated onto storage devices and transmission media―gave the impression that it was still permeated by the traces of the body. In other words, the recordings allowed listeners to recognize idiosyncratic voices belonging to identifiable bodies.

A listener who at the time of the revolution was eighteen months old referred to the idiosyncrasy of the voices coming from the radio. In certain cases―such as that of the well-known voice of the Communist Secretary―he could identify the speech sound based on his own experiences: “The audio-documents resembled a real experience for me, like the radio speeches of Imre Nagy or the radio speech of János Kádár, with the promises that he has not kept. If I had not heard it from his own mouth, I would have not believed it, really.”53 For the younger generation, this type of identification could verify the authenticity of other documents as well.

This authenticity was crucial since the RFE commemorative programs drew on many historical sources that had been silenced by the one-party state system. In April, 1986, a listener thought it high time to wash Kádár’s dirty linen in public, especially for the sake of the younger generation.54 This listener’s request was granted.55 In Kasza’s program, Kádár’s speech―originally broadcast on November 1, 1956 by Radio Free Kossuth―was replayed. While also informing the public of the establishment of the new party, MSZMP, this speech included Kádár’s statement describing the events as “the people’s glorious uprising.”56 This document, which contradicted the official stance later adopted by Kádár as the head of the regime and thus raised significant questions concerning his character, was fully reviewed in the program.

The bad quality of the recording, however, meant that only a limited part of the tape could actually be replayed; the rest of the speech had to be read aloud.57 This excerpt was only a few seconds long and unfortunately did not contain the words “glorious uprising.” In spite of this technical difficulty, the recording still possessed the power to authenticate the essential standpoint of the program. The recording itself can be compared with an earlier published version of the speech found in the émigré journal Magyar Füzetek in 1981.58 The transcript of the speech was accompanied by the reproduced title page of Népszabadság―the newspaper in which the speech was originally published―bearing the date November 2, 1956. This reproduction served as a trace of the primary inscription of the actual events, a small, but significant detail that escaped the purges of the memory policies of the Kádár regime. The mere presence of the otherwise illegible reproduction was to verify the entire transcript of the text. This case of “iconic verification” can be compared to the “acoustic verification” accomplished through the partial replay of a recording that created an aura of authenticity for the entire broadcast. Thus, “presence effects” worked to strengthen “meaning effects” in the sense that perception of the physical characteristics of the original documents pervaded the semantic dimension of their reception.

Listeners could not avoid the influence of the intense interplay between “presence effects” and “meaning effects.” One of them swore never to forget the recording of Rákóczi Station broadcasting from the city of Sztálinváros59 in the days of Soviet intervention. In his call to the answering machine he retold what he had heard: “»This is Rákóczi Station, Hungary, this is Rákóczi Station, Hungary! Free Europe, Munich, Free Europe, Munich! Help us, help us! Soviets have marched into Dunapentele. They are firing on our city. We beg you, help us, help us!« Believe me, I am not a sentimental man, but my eyes filled with tears.”60

In the case of both generations, the narratives of the revolution were created according to the listeners’ own past, “from within, not imported or imposed from without.”61 There was ample evidence attesting to their experiences of the revolution, which for them was historically verifiable and possessed great power to inspire.62 This was also reflected in the counter-cultural practices which accompanied the act of listening to Western radio stations, which from the socialist perspective represented the “enemy.”

The Phantom Voice and the Body of the Text

In October, 1985, an elderly woman left a message on the RFE’s answering machine. Her story was both typical and yet unique.

 

Good evening. Actually, I have been listening to the program by György Faludy on the radio. It recalls very, very beautiful memories of mine, because when I was young, we typed his poems and gave them to one another as a big, big present… […] I had quite a huge collection, but unfortunately my whole apartment burned down in 1956. I lived at the corner of Ferenc Avenue and Üllői Street. […] Well, these treasures of mine ceased to exist. How could I get access to the entire book?63

It was unusual that a listener shared her personal story in such an open and direct tone while also relating details concerning the cultural resistance of the 1950s. Her description of collecting, typing and disseminating texts by a poet interned in 1949 serves as a very early example of samizdat literature circulating beyond the bounds of censorship in Hungary.64

The localization of the apartment and the date of its destruction make it likely that this private samizdat collection disappeared during the Soviet intervention, in the course of the intense fighting that took place in the area around Corvin köz, not far from her apartment. This background information reveals the fragility of samizdat materials, showing that often it was difficult or impossible to preserve them for longer periods of time.

On the other hand, this story is also very characteristic in that it draws attention to the important role RFE played in transmitting cultural products that remained out of reach during the decades of communism. The radio station, however, could make these cultural products available through its “phantom voice,” which―like sound itself―“is more flux and fluid than material.”65 The dissolving, vanishing body of the radio’s phantom voice urged listeners to reconstruct this body physically, to transform the fluid voice into some form of hard copy. In the case of the RFE’s commemorative programs, generally three counter-cultural practices―recording or transcribing broadcasts (the phenomenon of so-called “radizdat” or “magnitizdat”),66 buying materials in the West, or acquiring samizdat texts from local sources―came into play.

Under the name “Hungarian October,” one of the most significant samizdat publishers during the 1980s, György Krassó published a 90-minute long audiocassette entitled The Voice of the Hungarian Revolution as a means of marking the 26th anniversary of the revolution.67 The cassette included recordings of broadcasts by Western radios. Since only a few hundred copies were made, the cassette soon became inaccessible, in spite of the fact that private exchanges obviously added to the number of copies that were made.

It therefore comes as no surprise that in 1986 many listeners made sure to record the commemorative programs. “On behalf of a small group of listeners, I turn to you with the following request. While we succeeded in recording the commemorative program, the jamming sometimes was so extensive that important parts were incomprehensible.”68 The members of this “small group” requesting that the programs edited by Kasza be repeated were most likely working together to copy and share materials among one another.

In 1987, another message providing evidence of one unique case of “radizdat” made its way to RFE’s answering machine. The listener―who was from the eastern side of the Iron Curtain, judging from the fact that he used a pseudonym―happily reported that on the occasion of the 31st anniversary of the revolution, a 500-paged typewritten book had been prepared bearing the title, The Hungarian Revolution, 1956: Commemorative Radio Programs and Historical Series.69 The ability to prepare such a typewritten book meant previous broadcasts had to have been recorded on magnetic tape. The whole year that passed between the recording process and the completion of the typewritten product shows the enormous effort made to create a hard copy of the “phantom voice.”

Including callers from both sides of the Iron Curtain, the largest number of messages was left for RFE by people who wanted to buy the commemorative programs in cassette form. While the radio workers felt it impossible to publish the programs in cassette form,70 the overwhelming interest and large number of requests eventually convinced them to publish the commemorative programs in book form. Published at the beginning of 1988, the book At the Doorstep of Freedom could be ordered from France for 24 German marks.71 In September, 1988, during the program Hallgatók Fóruma, Júlia Lángh was able to point callers interested in the 1986 commemorative programs to Hungarian bookstores located in the West.72

This RFE publication came to Krassó’s attention. Before his brother living in London died, Krassó was finally able to get a Western passport. In 1986 he established the “Hungarian October” independent news agency in London, although this did not mean that he abandoned his samizdat publication activities, especially in respect to the widespread practice of reprinting Western publications in samizdat form. After RFE’s book was published,73 Krassó organized its samizdat reprint in Hungary, including the original typeset and the logo of “Hungarian October” Publishing House. In this version, however, the paper displayed the poor quality and brown-black colors typical of samizdat editions.74 Thanks to the original and samizdat edition, the book At the Doorstep of Freedom was available both in Hungary and the in West.

As a consequence of counter-cultural practices that arose as a result of the act of listening to radio broadcasts, materials concerning the Hungarian revolution were first stored and then broadcast by the radio stations, later entering the listeners’ private archives in some kind of a hard copy form. During this process, the materials that had been broadcasted changed their form and sometimes their media as well (e.g. from magnetic tape to another magnetic tape or a typescript, or from magnetic tape to a book, and then a samizdat reprint). Through these practices, listeners attempted to transform a past that they recognized as authentic into physical materials that were available within arm’s reach and beyond the limits imposed by time. Accompanied by an audio recording, a samizdat edition or book published in the West guaranteed that personal recollections could be revived, thereby allowing people to experience the events of the revolution again and again. The externalization of the memory of the revolution and the dissemination of the vessels in which this memory was preserved created little pockets of resistance to the memory politics of the Kádár regime.

Conclusion

While a vigorous attempt was made to reassert the legitimacy of the official assessment of the 1956 Revolution and the rhetoric of the official depictions of the events during the commemoration of its 30th anniversary, RFE’s commemorative programs broadcast from the West offered an alternative narrative that was accessible to a significant segment of Hungarian society. Velünk élő történelem, a re-projection of the counterrevolution rhetoric used by the political elite of the Kádár regime, exemplified and brought to the fore the profound discrepancies between the official historical abstraction and people’s personal memories. In the end, this official interpretation proved counterproductive. In contrast, RFE commemorative programs were successful in their presentation of the past on the basis of personal recollections, based in part on the approach according to which “understanding the past as history primarily happens in the course of memory, before historical abstraction can settle over it, generously obscuring the fact of this genesis.”75

Within the process of these documentary strategies, the issue of authenticity underlies the question of how to create a representation of the historical events of 1956. In the case of RFE, the Gumbrechtian “presence effects” played an important role in creating a kind of authenticity rooted in archival practices and information acquisition, the media-technological conditions of recording and replaying human voices, as well as the listeners’ social conditioning and personal recollections. Last but not least, the programs’ narrative structure provided the appropriate vehicle for this process. The special configuration of these elements guaranteed the programs’ effectiveness, reviving memories of the revolution from the chronological distance of three decades. While in the case of Velünk élő történelem archival documents functioned only as illustrations of narrative, archival recordings took on lives of their own in the RFE broadcasts, serving as “presence effects.” From this perspective, it can be argued that the “practices of reconstructing” the “phantom voice” were motivated not only by the fluidity of the voice, but also by its “presence effects.” In other words, this phenomenon was influenced by the ephemeral character of the presence, i.e. the feeling “that we cannot hold on to those presence effects, that they […] are ephemeral.”76

In the three-decade-long struggle over interpretations of 1956, the year 1986 brought a significant change. This change was brought about by the fact that RFE’s commemorative programs―in comparison to the influence of opposition groups active as of the late 1970s―created a far wider social basis for the interpretation according to which the October events constituted a revolution, not a counterrevolution.77 If “the first victory of the Kádár era was the successful transformation of shared silence into social oblivion,”78 RFE deserves credit for reviving and replaying the revolution in 1986, while attacking the Kádár regime at its weakest point: its genesis myth. By making voices travel through both time and space, RFE could bridge the gap between past and present, between different agents and distant parts of a divided Europe, obliterating the amnesia of the Kádár era, which had hampered listeners’ efforts to maintain their own personal recollections.

 

Bibliography

 

Petőfi Irodalmi Múzeum Médiatára, Saáry Éva hanggyűjteménye, Budapest [Media Archives of the Petőfi Literary Museum, Audio Collection of Éva Saáry].

1956 – Napról napra. Szabad Európa Rádió, München, 1974 [1956 – From Day to Day. Radio Free Europe, Munich].

Magyar Távirati Iroda, Hírarchívum, Budapest [Hungarian News Agency, News Archives].

Levelesláda (Rajki László, SZER, Hallgatók Fóruma) [Letterbox (László Rajki, RFE, Listeners’ Forum)], München, 1988. május 28. [Munich, May 28, 1988], MTI Hírarchívum 1988–, Rádiófigyelés [Hungarian News Agency, News Archives 1988–, Radio Monitoring].

Magyar szamizdat (Kasza László, SZER) [Hungarian Samizdat (László Kasza, RFE)], München, 1988. október 16., (MTI Hírarchívum 1988–, Rádiófigyelés [Hungarian News Agency, News Arlines 1988–, Radio Monitoring]).

Válasz a hallgatóknak (Láng Júlia, SZER, Hallgatók Fóruma) [Answer for the Listeners (Júlia Láng, RFE, Listeners’ Forum)], München, 1988. szeptember 24. [Munich, September 24, 1988], MTI Hírarchívum 1988–, Rádiófigyelés [Hungarian News Agency, News Archives 1988–, Radio Monitoring].

 

Vera & Donald Blinken Open Society Archives, Budapest

Observance on the 10th anniversary, Item No. 2303/66., December 22, 1966, HU OSA 300-40-4 Box 9 [RFE General, 1965–66]; Records of the Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty Research Institute (Fonds 300), Hungarian Unit (Subfonds 40), Information Items (Series 4).

Opinion on RFE, Item No. 1977/69., December 31, 1969, HU OSA 300-40-4 Box 9 [RFE General 1969-73], HU OSA 300-40-4 Box 9 [RFE General, 1969–73]; Records of the Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty Research Institute (Fonds 300), Hungarian Unit (Subfonds 40), Information Items (Series 4).

Reaction to anti-RFE propaganda campaign, Item No. 1228/69, August 1, 1969, HU OSA 300-40-4 Box 9 [RFE General, 1969–73]; Records of the Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty Research Institute (Fonds 300), Hungarian Unit (Subfonds 40), Information Items (Series 4).

Telefonhívások [Telephone Calls] 12. (Hungarian Service October 7, 1985), 2.; HU OSA 300-40-14 Box 1 [Telephone calls Aug – Oct 1985]; Records of RFE/RL Research Institut (Fonds 300), Hungarian Unit (Subfonds 40), Telephone Calls (Series 12).

Telefonhívások [Telephone Calls] 37. (Hungarian Service April 2, 1986); HU OSA 300-40-14 Box 1 [Telephone calls Apr – Jun 1986]; Records of RFE/RL Research Institut (Fonds 300), Hungarian Unit (Subfonds 40), Telephone Calls (Series 12).

Telefonhívások [Telephone Calls] 68. (Hungarian Service November 5, 1986); HU OSA 300-40-14 Box 1 [Telephone calls Nov – Dec 1986]; Records of RFE/RL Research Institut (Fonds 300), Hungarian Unit (Subfonds 40), Telephone Calls (Series 12).

Telefonhívások [Telephone Calls] 69. (Hungarian Service November 12, 1986); HU OSA 300-40-14 Box 1 [Telephone calls Nov – Dec 1986]; Records of RFE/RL Research Institut (Fonds 300), Hungarian Unit (Subfonds 40), Telephone Calls (Series 12).

Telefonhívások [Telephone Calls] 72. (Hungarian Service December 3, 1986); HU OSA 300-40-14 Box 1 [Telephone calls Nov – Dec 1986]; Records of RFE/RL Research Institut (Fonds 300), Hungarian Unit (Subfonds 40), Telephone Calls (Series 12).

Telefonhívások [Telephone Calls] 118. (Hungarian Service October 28, 1987); HU OSA 300-40-14 Box 2 [Telephone calls Sep – Dec 1987]; Records of RFE/RL Research Institut (Fonds 300), Hungarian Unit (Subfonds 40), Telephone Calls (Series 12).

Telefonhívások [Telephone Calls] 121. (Hungarian Service November 19, 1987); HU OSA 300-40-14 Box 2 [Telephone calls Sep – Dec 1987]; Records of RFE/RL Research Institut (Fonds 300), Hungarian Unit (Subfonds 40), Telephone Calls (Series 12).

Velünk élő történelem [Our Living History] I–III, edited by János Berecz, directed by Mihály Mátray, 1986, Call no. HU OSA306-0-4:24/2-4; Collective Fonds – Records Relating to the 1956 Hungarian Revolution: Video Materials Relating to the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.

 

A magyar forradalom hangja: A “Magyar Október Szabadsajtó” kiadásában 1982-ben, a forradalom 26. évfordulójára forgalomba hozott 90 perces magnetofonkazetta teljes hanganyaga [The voice of the Hungarian revolution: The entire audio collection of the 90-minute long audiocassette published in 1982 by the Hungarian October Free Press on the occasion of the 26th anniversary of the revolution]. London–Budapest: “Magyar Október” Szabadsajtó, 1981.

Apor, Péter. “Spectacular History: Photography, Film and Exhibitions in Representations of the Hungarian Soviet Republic after 1956.” The Hungarian Historical Review 3, no. 2 (2014): 337–62.

Árpási, Zoltán. Költő, az innenső parton [Poet on the near bank]. Arad: Irodalmi Jelen Könyvek, 2008.

A szabadság kapujában: A Szabad Európa Rádió emlékműsora a magyar forradalom és szabadságharc harmincadik évfordulóján. Részletek [At the doorstep of freedom: Radio Free Europe’s program commemorating the Hungarian revolution and freedom fight on the 30th anniversary. Excerpts]. Munich: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1988.

“Az MSZMP Ideiglenes Központi Bizottságának határozata, 1956. december 5. [Resolution of the provisional Central Committee of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party, December 5, 1956].” In A Magyar Szocialista Munkáspárt Határozatai és Dokumentumai 1956–1962 [Resolutions and Documents of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party], edited by Henrik Vass, 13–17. Budapest: MSZMP Központi Bizottság, Párttörténeti Intézet, 1964.

Benne, Christian. “Gegenständlichkeitsszenen.” In idem., Die Erfindung des Manuskripts: Zu Theorie und Geschichte literarischer Gegenstandlichkeit, 600–14. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2015.

Berecz, János. Ellenforradalom tollal és fegyverrel [Counterrevolution with pen and weapon]. Budapest: Kossuth, 1986.

Berecz, János. “Gondolatok a nemzet és a munkásmozgalom történetéről [Reflections on the history of nation and the labor movement].” Társadalmi Szemle 41, no. 6 (1986): 3–13.

Borbándi, Gyula. Magyarok az Angol Kertben: A Szabad Európa Rádió története [Hungarians in the English Garden: A history of Radio Free Europe]. Budapest: Mundus Magyar Egyetemi Kiadó, 2004.

Chion, Michel. La voix au cinéma. Paris: Editions de l’Etoile, [1984].

Gumbrecht, Hans Ulrich. Production of Presence: What Meaning Cannot Convey. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2004.

Gyáni, Gábor. “Kollektív emlékezet és történetírás: Kapcsolatuk ellentmondásossága [Collective memory and history writing: A contradictory relationship].” In idem., Az elveszíthető múlt: A tapasztalat mint emlékezet és történelem [The past that may be lost: Experience as memory and history], 68–84. Budapest: Nyitott Könyvműhely, 2010.

György, Péter. Néma hagyomány: Kollektív felejtés és a kései múltértelmezés [Mute tradition: Collective oblivion and belated interpretation of the past]. Budapest: Magvető, 2000.

Hann, Endre. “Éteri verseny: A Szabad Európa Rádió hallgatása a nyolcvanas években [Ethereal competition: Listening to Radio Free Europe in the 1980s].” Mozgó Világ 15, no. 4 [1989]: 47–50.

Hagen, Trever. “Calling Out to Tune In: Radio Free Europe in Czechoslovakia.” In Airy Curtains in the European Ether: Broadcasting and the Cold War, edited by Alexander Badenoch, Andreas Fickers, and Christian Henrich-Franke, 123–48. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2013.

Hutton, Patrick. History as an Art of Memory. Hanover–London: University Press of New England, 1993.

Johnson, A. Ross. “To the Barricades: Did Radio Free Europe Inflame the Hungarian Revolutionaries of 1956? Exploring One of the Cold War’s Most Stubborn Myths.” Hoover Digest October 18, 2007, Accessed October 26, 2016. http://www.hoover.org/research/barricades.

“Kádár János 1956. november 1-jei rádióbeszéde [János Kádár’s radio speech on November 1, 1956].” Magyar Füzetek 9–10, (1981): 212–16.

Kittler, Friedrich A. Gramophone, Film, Typewriter, translated by Geoffrey Winthrop-Young and Michael Wutz. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999.

Krämer, Sybille. “Negative Semiologie der Stimme.” In Medien/Stimmen, edited by Cornelia Epping-Jäger and Erika Linz, 65–82. Cologne: DuMont, 2003.

Lénárt, András. “Az erőszak tere: A budapesti pártbizottság 1956-os ostromának ábrázolásai [The square of violence: Representations of the siege of the Budapest Party Committee headquarters in 1956].” In Esemény, trauma, nyilvánosság [Event, trauma, publicity], edited by Mónika Dánél, Péter Fodor, and Péter L. Varga, 79–111. Budapest: Ráció, 2012.

Litván, György. “1956 emlékének szerepe a rendszerváltásban [The role of the memory of 1956 during the transition].” Beszélő 12, no. 1 (2007): 46–50.

Mink, András. “The Archives in Munich.” In Open Society Archives, edited by Leszek Pudłowski and Iván Székely, 39–45. Budapest: Open Society Archives at Central European University, 1999.

Poetics Today. Publish and Perish: Samizdat and Underground Cultural Practices in the Soviet Bloc, no. 4 (2008) and no. 1 (2009).

Révész, Sándor. Aczél és korunk [Aczél and our era]. Budapest: Sík, 1997.

Rév, István. “Just Noise? Impact of Radio Free Europe in Hungary.” In Cold War Broadcasting: Impact in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. A Collection of Studies and Documents, edited by A. Ross Johnson and R. Eugene Parta, 239–57. Budapest–New York: Central European University Press, 2010.

Rév, István. “The Enemy-archives.” In Open Society Archives, edited by Leszek Pudłowski and Iván Székely, 14–18. Budapest: Open Society Archives at Central European University, 1999.

Samizdat, Tamizdat, and Beyond: Transnational Media During and After Socialism. Edited by Friederike Kind-Kovács and Jessie Labov. New York: Berghahn, 2013.

Smith, Anthony D. “The ‘Golden Age’ and National Renewal.” In idem. The Antiquity of Nations, 211–35. Cambridge: Polity, 2004.

Steiner, Peter. “Introduction: On Samizdat, Tamizdat, Magnitizdat, and Other Strange Words That Are Difficult to Pronounce.” Poetics Today, no. 4 (2008): 613–20.

Szilágyi, Csaba. “Records of the Hungarian Unit.” In Open Society Archives, edited by Leszek Pudłowski and Iván Székely, 55–58. Budapest: Open Society Archives at Central European University, 1999.

Ungváry, Krisztián. “Egyenes út a csúcsra: Harangozó Szilveszter, egy állambiztonsági főcsoportfőnök karrierje [Direct route toward the peak: The career of Szilveszter Harangozó, a head of a main department of the state security].” Rubicon 18, no. 3 (2007): 29–35.

Socialist-Era New Yugoslav Feminism between “Mainstreaming” and “Disengagement”: The Possibilities for Resistance, Critical Opposition and Dissent1

Zsófia Lóránd

Lichtenberg-Kolleg, Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen

 

Through a focus on early publications by feminist intellectuals in Yugoslavia during the 1970s, this paper aims to demonstrate methods of feminist critique of the theory and practice of women’s emancipation in the context of a state socialist (in this case self-managing socialist) country in East Central Europe. After a brief overview of feminist organizing in Yugoslavia until the late 1980s, this paper looks at conferences and journal publications, which also provides the opportunity to better understand the workings of the Yugoslav public space and publishing processes. The text, written with a conceptual and intellectual historical focus, analyzes the discursive interventions and reformulations of matters related to women’s emancipation. The new Yugoslav feminist approaches rethought and reformulated the “women’s question.” Reading the prevailing currents of feminism in North America and Western Europe, feminists in Yugoslavia searched for ways to reframe this question into a critique that was constructive as well as innovative in its own context.

Keywords: Feminism, dissent, socialism, women’s question, Marxism, sisterhood.

 

“Criticism of the family and marriage […] is already the criticism of the state itself,” wrote Rada Iveković in 1981.2 This sentence reveals the essential role of feminism in post-Second World War East Europea[n socialist states, which, however, was an underrepresented discourse amid the variety of dissent, dissidence and countercultural criticism. The close reading of the work of feminists during the 1970s and 1980s in Yugoslavia, where feminism reappeared in a semi-organized form and with a wide range of activities—from intellectual discussion through artwork to explicit political activism—tells us a lot about the potential critiques of state-socialist women’s emancipation in general and thus it is relevant for the region of state-socialist Eastern Europe, while it also allows us to understand the specificities of self-managing Yugoslavia. In this paper, I focus on the early, mostly academic, publications by feminists in Yugoslavia in order to show some of the possibilities and actual meanings of feminist opposition in the context of a socialist state. I argue that their activity is somewhere in between the two ends of the scale that Linda Briskin calls “mainstreaming” and “disengagement,” between trying to negotiate their agenda into the official policies and self-organizing critical, external discourses and actions.3

My approach comes from intellectual and conceptual history. While conceptual history focuses on the meanings of the texts through a contextual reading, for feminist historiography, there is always an explicit political stake in recovering events of the past. In my reading, the two support each other in the sense that it is in the interest of feminist historiography to have meanings of concepts central to certain recovered ideologies, while the contextualism of intellectual history implicitly and often even explicitly subscribes to the importance of the personal within the political. The strategies behind feminist movements always necessarily involve an intervention with language and a struggle for meanings, the reconstruction of which is the primary aim of conceptual and intellectual history—which at the very same time respects the importance of the role of the personal and the individual as well.

The interpretative techniques I employ here focus on written sources, published (articles in newspapers, magazines, journals, as well as books) and unpublished (primarily archival documentation of activist work), artworks and videos, and also oral history interviews with the participants of the feminist groups. I base my analysis on the work and discourse of the members of feminist groups called Žena i društvo [Woman and Society] and their allies. I call the phenomenon in focus new Yugoslav feminism. Some publications and some members of the Žena i društvo use the term “neofeminizam,” that is “new feminism”—a name that not all participants, however, acknowledged. “New feminism” is also a general name widely used to describe that version of feminism, which in its diversity emerges in the 1960s in Western Europe and North America. This is what is mostly known today as the “second wave,” another problematic term I will try to avoid using, because it blends an at least 100-year-long complex history of feminist movements and discourses into one “wave.”4 However, for the Yugoslav feminists of the 1970s, the designation “new” refers to the pre-Second World War feminist history of the country, and this conscious admittance of continuity is important to highlight. The women and few men active in and around the Žena i društvo groups in Belgrade, Ljubljana and Zagreb were not a fixed and coherent group throughout the almost 20 years in focus in this paper. The individual stakes and life trajectories, the different intellectual approaches, the inherent differences within the local scenes intellectually and in the actual infrastructures make this a loose network, connected, however, by the shared fascination of a feminist critique of socialism in Yugoslavia.

The Return of Feminism

The story begins in the early 1970s: at this time, what we find in the open is journal publications and what we find backstage is a handful of young women and a few university professors. As we can see from the interviews and from their biographies, these women came from a rather homogeneous social background and, with two exceptions, were from the same generation. This generation was born after the Second World War to mothers who had a first-hand war experience and were themselves very often active participants of the partisan movement. Unlike their mothers, they were puzzled by the contradiction between the promise of the regime and their own experience of their own emancipation. They were also critical of the idea that their mothers had equality with men: the way they saw it, these women were far from having equal rights and status.5 Academia seemed to be a relatively safe space for the first tentative publications about “what is happening to American women.”6 The interest, of course, was not only in women in the United States: Europe and the “Third World” were on the radar too, especially Italy, England, France, Germany and India.

The new feminists in Yugoslavia could explore the possibilities of a feminist critique of state socialism in the space between the official and the unofficial.7 They started with meetings in each other’s homes, which later moved to the student centers and research institutes until they formed their own semi-institutions with the foundation of the SOS helplines and the shelters. There is a difference between the activities in the three major cities in which the Žena i društvo groups were organized. University seminars or talks took place mostly in Ljubljana and Zagreb, where the groups called Žena i društvo were part of post-secondary sociology departments. In Ljubljana, the ŠKUC, i.e., the Študentski kulturno-umetniški center [Students’ Cultural and Art Center], was an equally important venue at which the feminists shared the space with other countercultural and political groups, such the punk and green movements. The most important feature of the Ljubljana group was that lesbian women and straight or still closeted lesbian women worked together in the same group from the beginning. In the mid-1980s, the lesbian members played an increasingly defining role in Belgrade too. In Belgrade, the most important stronghold of new feminism was the SKC, the Students’ Cultural Center, where the director of the Gallery of the SKC, later the director of the whole institution, was Dunja Blažević. Under the auspices of the SKC, the first international feminist conference in Yugoslavia took place in 1978. Many women joined the feminist circles after attending this conference called Drug-ca žena: Novi pristup [Comrade-ess Woman: a New Approach].

This famous and canonical conference, however, was preceded by many publications (already in 1972)8 and a lot of brainstorming, even feminist presentations at the conferences organized by the state women’s organization, the Konferencija za društvenu aktivnost žena [Conference for the Social Participation of Women], that is, KDAŽ, first in 1976 in Portorož.9 In Belgrade, the SKC offered a series of discussions, the tribine. The conferences (the 1978 international one in Belgrade, and then the Yugoslav feminist conferences in 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1990) and the summer schools at the Inter-University Centre Dubrovnik beginning in 1987 were attracting the largest audiences and opened up to women who would otherwise not have attended the feminist meetings. After 1985, the small group meetings returned: these were a space in which personal experiences were emphasized (very similar to the consciousness-raising groups elsewhere) and the training groups for the SOS helplines for abused women and victims of domestic violence required the closed format. At the same time, because of the SOS helpline and the activities around it, the feminists reached a much wider audience, which could have even served as a basis for a wider grassroots movement had the war not broken out. The women and few men in the three cities cooperated very closely in the creation of these helplines, sharing knowledge and experience.

During the early phase that is the focus of this paper, journal publications were of crucial importance. Because of the influence of some professors and the openness of some women officials in the KDAŽ, some of the young women and men could participate in the conferences and editorial work of the journal Žena [Woman]. As we shall see and as research shows, some of the women indeed were dedicated to the betterment of women’s position in society, to such an extent that they were willing to give space to the feminist ideas of young women—ideas with which they themselves did not agree. This makes Žena an interesting case study of inter-generational and inter-ideological encounters.

Meanwhile, the array of journals accepting feminist articles was extended relatively quickly. From 1975 on, it included social science and humanities journals such as Pitanja [Questions], Naše teme [Our topics], Argumenti [Arguments], Ideje [Ideas], Socijalizam u svetu [Socialism in the World], Republika [Republic], etc., and in the 1980s Problemi [Problems] in Slovenia. The student journals Mladina in Ljubljana and Student and Vidici [Views] in Belgrade also provided important forums for new feminist discussions, which is not by accident: the youth organizations enjoyed relative freedom from state control in their activities.10 With time, the feminist articles reached a wider audience through newspapers and weeklies, such as Danas [Today] and Start, as well as women’s magazines, such as Bazar published in Belgrade, Svijet [World] in Zagreb and Jana in Ljubljana.11 Naša žena [Our women], another print medium in Ljubljana, was a magazine situated on the spectrum between the more serious Žena, which still followed the party lines regarding the women’s question, and the popular women’s magazines (some of which, such as Bazar and Svijet, occasionally did publish feminist articles). The full picture of the feminist discussions, however, includes art, literature, as well as literary and art theory, besides the academic discussions and the activist work. Because of the curators at the SKC, art and literature were extensively present in the feminist programs, including the flourishing artists from Zagreb such as Sanja Iveković. Possibilities for feminist writing were presented and discussed through the work of Irena Vrkjlan, Dubravka Ugrešić and Biljana Jovanović, among others.

The history of the new Yugoslav feminism has its own periodization, while it was running parallel with the new or second wave feminisms in the “West” after the beginnings in the early 1970s, which was characterised by private (kitchen table) conversations and academic publishing, there was a turn around the years 1985–86, called a “second wave” by many, when group members wanted a change in the work of the groups that would serve to focus more on activism and consciousness-raising in small, women-only groups. The next phase in their story started around 1990, when more and more new and much more diverse groups were born out of the Žena i društvo circles and went in different directions. These directions ranged from political and anti-war activism through a more spelled-out LGBTQ activism to anti-violence activism and institutionalization of feminist knowledge through the creation of women’s studies or gender studies centers and departments at universities or parallel to them.12

The type of critique the feminists in Yugoslavia articulated towards the system is hard to compare to any other form of opposition in the region at the time. While there is a temptation to attribute the phenomenon to the exceptionality of Yugoslav self-managing socialism,13 the situation is more complex than that. Due to the organization of the state, the KDAŽ, the student centers as well as the journals and magazines (those in various constellations) were working under the umbrella of the SSRNJ [Socijalistički savez radnog naroda Jugoslavije – Socialist Alliance of Working People of Yugoslavia].14 This, as I explain later in this paper was, however, far from a complete freedom of the press, but there were just enough cracks in the wall that a wide selection ideas, including feminist ones, could reach the public. In addition to the legal and infrastructural circumstances, there is a crucial source of historical inspiration that is also part of the explanation: the large numbers of women involved in the partisan movement,15 their active participation in the National Liberation Struggle and the basis this gave to the extensive emancipation of women after the Second World War, which indeed did entail substantial societal change.16 (Although it is beyond the scope of this paper, there is important current research on the state violence exerted against women in Yugoslavia in addition to the literature on women’s emancipation.)17 Besides these two factors, I would emphasize the importance of contingency: that these women in the Žena i društvo groups met, decided to like each other, decided to focus on feminism, decided to organize the women-only discussion forums and made smaller- and larger-scale decisions that subsequently defined their path. It was the path to feminism, instead of liberalism, deconstruction, Marxist revisionism, nationalism, to mention a few schools that did flourish at the time in the other socialist countries in the region despite the prevailing censorship, despite the lack of a partisan tradition and despite the closed borders.18

Dissent, Resistance, Mainstreaming and Disengagement

The new Yugoslav feminists held a position vis-à-vis the state that was between opposition and inner critique. The entire post-socialist master narrative deserves a more refined approach in order that they not “implicitly and explicitly reproduce binary categories of the Cold War and the opposition between ‘first world’ and ‘second world’,” thus ignoring the ethical and aesthetic complexities of socialist life.19 For various reasons, new Yugoslav feminism is a case par excellence of the productive encounter of discourses. Engaging in a dialogue with the state, building on its promise of gender equality, the new Yugoslav feminists do not directly oppose the Yugoslav state, but see the place of women there as constant opposition. The disappointment of this new generation of young women is similar to the experience of the feminists in the United States and Western Europe and this aspect should be constantly kept in mind when we discuss the difference between the so-called East and the so-called West. Despite the differences in the economic and political systems, the new feminist movement and ideology was born out of a disappointment with the promises of left politics, that is, with the socialist regime in Yugoslavia and the new left, the civil rights movements and the anti-war movements in Western Europe and North America.20

The new Yugoslav feminists learned about the situation of women in the West and the criticism of existing democracies through the inner, feminist dissidence,21 thus they were inspired and critical of Western capitalist democracies at the same time, unlike, for example, the liberal dissident groups in Central Europe. The new Yugoslav feminism, as we shall see, voiced strict criticism through pointing out the systemic nature of the oppression of women, thematizing women’s sexuality and, most importantly, being the first to thematize the violence that women endure without the intervention of the system. Their claim is that the state did not change the status quo, one of their conclusions being that once the regime was built on patriarchy it became ideologically impossible for women to achieve real equality.

I call the new feminist discourse in Yugoslavia a critical one, more similar in its attempt to engage the state in a dialogue than refusing it per se as most dissidence does. In the meantime, it makes sense to look at this new feminism in light of dissenting discourses because of the dissenting status of feminism elsewhere and because of the windows the dissidents themselves offer for this.22 The new feminists in Yugoslavia did not publish in samizdat nor were they imprisoned for their writings. However, they were in search of critical or oppositional positions within the state’s mainstream. They created a micro space in which nonconformist ideas could be discussed and critical thoughts disseminated outside the official classroom space and in which new research was done despite the resistance of the institutions.

Sharon Zukin, looking at “possibilities of dissent” in Yugoslavia, argues that “[i]n states that claim to operate on the basis of a Marxist ideology, there is an enormous vulnerability to dissent because of the gap between theory and practice. In capitalist states, dissent arises in more limited institutional contexts, notably over the excesses of administrative agencies or the dishonesty of executive authorities.”23 Zukin claims that due to the framework, the activity of Đilas or the Praxis group is closer to “whistle-blowing” in the United States than to East European dissidence. In the meantime, she also debates the “liberalism” of the Yugoslav state, suggesting rather discussing different strategies of control, such as creating a controlled space within the state: “neither self-management nor market socialism is as central to Yugoslav development as the relatively non-coercive strategies of labor mobilization and capital accumulation that the leadership established in response to internal and external pressures beginning in 1947 and 1948. And it is wrong to characterize these strategies as liberalism.”24 Even for critical intellectual positions, a publication in a scholarly journal or in the form of poetry could entail severe consequences.25 Editors of journals could also be dismissed by the “publisher” of the journal, i.e., the associations, companies, social, political, educational and other specialized professional institutions26 that were working under the umbrella of the SSRNJ.27

Besides the organizational aspect, according to the data provided by Pedro (Sabrina) Ramet, 80 per cent of journalists were party members and the information published about politics and the economy was acquired mostly via governmental channels. Robinson confirms Ramet’s thesis: based on research regarding “freedom of criticism in various Yugoslav elites,” journalists tend to be less critical than other groups of the Yugoslav decision-making élite.28 Part of the explanation for this tendency lies in the highly political process of their selection. Furthermore, there were annual reviews of the media products and the supervising body, like the publisher’s councils under the authority of the SSRNJ, which could issue warnings, impose penalties on editors, or even dismiss them and the journalists who wrote articles the council found unacceptable. In some cases, issues of journals or newspapers could be banned or confiscated. In the case of those newspapers, journals or magazines that were funded by the SKJ or the SSRNJ, the end of funding meant the end of the medium as well, the most famous example being the journal Praxis.29

The new Yugoslav feminists, therefore, did not face the same level of persecution that the dissidents of Central European countries or the Soviet Union did.30 On the other hand, there is barely any talk about the situation of women in the work of dissidence in Central Europe and the Soviet Union: they overlook the shortcomings of state socialism in this regard, which largely defines the possibilities of thinking about feminism in their discourse after 1989. The difficulties of developing a feminist movement in the new democracies in East Central Europe have been raised by many authors.31 In countries that offer a rich and compelling discussion of human rights, freedom of speech and social justice, the violation of women in the private sphere and exclusion of women from the public gets little attention, an issue that, with few exceptions, has not been examined by existing scholarship until very recently. The new Yugoslav feminist criticism of the state, although it was not a dissident group per se, but something between cooperation and dissidence, helps us to understand what would have been the opportunities in other East European countries to develop a feminist dissidence. The case of new Yugoslav feminism explains to us how the ambivalent emancipation offered by the state socialist regimes made it impossible for dissidents who by the 1980s almost entirely gave up on Marxism to relate to a feminism that had to at least partly acknowledge some of the improvements in the situation of women in socialist countries.32

Investigating Possibilities of a Feminist Critique of Marxian Thought and Yugoslav Socialism

Through their textual interventions, the new Yugoslav feminists not only opposed the state, they also stretched the boundaries of the ways academia thinks of itself and the ways the state presents the position of women in Yugoslavia. Through the reading of new feminist texts from the United States and Western Europe as well as critical Marxist texts from different schools of thought and sometimes even through philosophy from India, the new feminist discourse in Yugoslavia attributes new meanings to the concept of feminism itself. Their political action in academic discussions is rather a discursive one: balancing between disengagement and mainstreaming,33 they try to create a new language to talk about women’s emancipation and the relations between men and women. This involves not only redefining what feminism means, but also the reconceptualization of consciousness, women’s universal experience, patriarchy, family, work, “homosexuality,”34 the relationship between the private and the public as well as the introduction of the concept of gender.

The theme of the relations between the communists and the women’s movement is paradigmatic for the focus of the discourse, inasmuch that leftist, Marxist and socialist feminisms from all over the world prevail in the new Yugoslav feminist intertexts. This always linked the feminist discussions to the broader frame of Yugoslav state socialist ideology. Both the context and the audience, i.e., the community of the text’s implied readers (including the fellow authors in this very issue of the journal Dometi [Throw], mostly from the Žena i društvo group), support this interpretation. There is a debate about a new approach (novi pristup) to the women’s question (žensko pitanje) in Yugoslavia, which for the protagonists of my text is more or less explicitly the new feminism, neofeminizam. In several introductions of journal special issues, the editors openly admit that their quest aims to learn from the feminists elsewhere—the difference is in the scale of how many positive elements they find and to what extent is it the negative examples that teach about paths not to be taken. Therefore, it is not only Žarana Papić in the more independent youth journal Student in 1976 (cf. below), but also several articles in Žena and other journals, such as Argumenti (publishing a documentation of the legendary 1978 Drug-ca žena conference) that give voice to the opinion framed by Mirjana Oklobdžija in Dometi “that even today, in all societies to a smaller or greater extent, women are ‘second rate citizens.’”35

Instead of the state-offered discourse on the women’s question (žensko pitanje), investigations of the ideas of the new feminism bring along a conceptual replacement of the former with the latter. Texts started to emerge only in the early 1970s: reports on the new feminist movement in the United States and various countries of Western Europe, from time to time even South America and Asia, were also published. In reflection on the proclaimed success of women’s emancipation in Yugoslavia, there are at least two parallel stories about feminisms “elsewhere” with emphasis on the “new feminism.” Telling the story of new feminisms in the world involves evaluation and therefore reveals the opinion of the authors, in the manner of which these can be read as manifestos on behalf of the authors. Especially in case of those Yugoslav new feminists who, either as young scholars, like Rada Iveković or Žarana Papić, or as established professors, like Blaženka Despot or Gordana Bosanac, were attempting to introduce a new, competing ideology for which the innocent-looking informative introductions to the currents of “new feminism” in other countries proved to be a good strategy.

In exploring the different strategies aimed at gaining a place in the discourse for new feminism through transfers and translations, I read Rada Iveković’s review on Italian feminism as an implicit programmatic text for the new feminism in Yugoslavia. The article was published almost ten years after the first endeavors to understand the new feminist phenomena, the time being mature enough for making explicit claims of themes and concepts. In Iveković’s article,36 feminism is presented through the history of the Italian communists, which bears many similarities to the history of Yugoslav communists. What makes the text programmatic is the way the author makes an attempt to reconcile the relationship between the women’s movement and the communists – in Italy. The story Iveković presents can be read as an implicit parabolic tale for how the relationship of feminism and the communist party should take shape in Yugoslavia. It does tell the story without explicitly pointing out the similarities, though these similarities nevertheless stand out.

The article begins with the emphasis on the proletarian roots of the women’s movement, which outweigh the traditions of the civil-rights-based bourgeois roots. Iveković discusses in detail the situation and its consequences when the more radical and revolutionary women at the fin-de-siècle joined the Socialist Party of Italy (SPI), which in 1911 severed the ties with the bourgeois women’s groups that were demanding franchise for women. This meant the “liquidation of the women’s question,” with the elimination of the claim for suffrage, which was otherwise also supported by the revolutionary feminists. The SPI’s argument was that this issue did not concern either the class struggle or the working class and thus the paths of the communists and the women’s movement parted for a lengthy period of time. According to Iveković, the interwar period brought along the recognition that there was need for a separate proletarian women’s movement, because the working class is ruled by conservative prejudice against women. However, not much changed in the interwar period, when the major issue was the struggle against fascism and women’s emancipation was present only as a remnant from the previous century (“instead of the swing of the revolutionary flame”).

After the overview of the changes after the Second World War, including the guarantee of the franchise for women, Iveković summarizes the conclusion for the new Italian feminists: despite the normative questions being solved and the laws having been changed “in bourgeois society,” the patriarchal mentality prevailed, proving to be the main barrier to women’s liberation (37). This conclusion is followed by a positive evaluation of the appearance of neofeminizam in Italy in the years 1968–69, which stemmed from the new left movements and student protests, from the experience that even within the student movement women face the same marginalization and discrimination. Feminism in Italy, Iveković concludes, is “without doubt an oppositional movement in relation to the existing social order” as “masses of women, mostly young ones, cannot identify with a single existing political party, not even in the left” (39, emphasis mine). Besides this left-wing feminism, Iveković mentions “that other feminism,” “bourgeois and sexist, which identifies men as the enemy” This idea comes up in other texts I analyze below, addressing the juxtaposition of “good” and “bad” feminisms.

The importance and specificity of neofeminizam in Italy lay in highlighting various topics, which repeatedly return as central concepts of the new Yugoslav feminist discourse: women’s creativity in the arts and the humanities, the debates about sexuality (in Italy mostly with regard to the right to contraception and abortion), consciousness-raising – and through this, the relations between the public and the private, domestic violence and sexual violence. The article ends with the optimistic conclusion: “It is encouraging [to see] that all women with a leftist orientation in Italy are in accord in their struggle, regardless of whether they belong or do not belong to regular parties. Because they all belong to the women’s movement in a broad sense. This way, today even communist women proudly announce that they are also feminists (44).” The story Iveković tells, with the closure about the success of the feminists, makes the reader think of this as a path to follow.

The implied conclusions for the new Yugoslav feminism are manifold. The argument that the roots of the women’s movement, both in the late nineteenth century—fin-de-siècle (first wave) and in the 1960s (second wave), are deeper in the worker’s movement and the in the political left in general addresses both the state establishment and those who want to join the new groups and share the ideas. Further elements of the analysis, which can be directly translated into the current Yugoslav context, are those of the relations between the SPI and the women’s movements in the interwar period and during the Second World War, highlighting the parallel between the NOB (Narodna oslobodilačka borba – People’s Liberation Struggle) and the Alijansa ženskih pokreta [Alliance of the Women’s Movements] and the feminist examination of the reasons for which women’s equality had not been achieved despite the new post-Second World War legislation meant to ensure equality. The ambiguous relationship between the SPI and the women’s movement as allies and rivals of each other is clarified when Iveković points out the oppositional nature of the movement.

The closure of the article is of major significance from a terminological perspective: whereas Iveković does not differentiate between the use of the terms women’s movement and feminism throughout the article, here she makes a distinction. To her, the two concepts are synonymous—women’s movements are based on feminist ideology—and it is a significant development in the Italian context that communist women support feminism. In the meantime, Iveković clarifies the agenda and therefore the meaning of new feminism, which is defined along themes and concepts that are recurrently present in the Yugoslav case as well.

The recognition of different women’s movements and, therefore, feminisms leads to the description of the different currents of feminism through opposing pairs in the early Yugoslav publications. These texts categorize feminism according to the distinction between radical revolutionary women’s movements (Marxist) and bourgeois movements, on the one hand, and extremist (radical, hyper-feminist) movements as opposed to the moderate (socialist, Marxist) movements on the other hand. The two oppositions are clearly contradict one another and represent a certain socialist conservatism when it comes to self-expression.

Silva Mežnarić, a sociologist and editor of the journal Žena who lived both in Zagreb and Ljubljana and was a member of the KDAŽ Croatia in 1972 and joined the feminist group Žena i društvo, initiated a series of articles introducing American feminism. The “series” ended after two articles and feminism as a topic returns on the pages of Žena only in 1975 with the United Nations’ “Year of Women” in 1975, which was followed by the “Decade of Women”, lasting until 1985. Mežnarić’s first article in 1972 bears the investigative title “What is Happening to the American Woman?”37 Her claim is that she wants to demystify the way this “socially-ideationally relevant phenomenon” (57) had been presented in the media up to then. She emphasizes that new feminism is not only relevant in the society in which it originates, alluding to the Yugoslav situation, and adds that her aim is not to judge, rather to represent based on the work of other researchers. Using analyses from economics and sociology, the author shows the economic and social problems American women face, including employment and reproduction. Mežnarić’s conclusion is that the situation of women in both communist and capitalist modernized societies legitimizes feminist claims.

A few years later, in 1976 in Portorož, at the first official conference about women in which the new Yugoslav feminists participated, Gordana Cerjan-Letica mentioned the problem of the lack of knowledge of and limited access to information about new feminism in Yugoslavia. To her, this is the reason for “so many non-objective and scholarly non-justifiable criticism by us against the feminist movement.”38 In this other publication from the same year, Cerjan-Letica prepared an overview of feminism that discussed the issues of radicalism in feminism.39 Summarizing the past ten years of American new feminism, she noticed that radical feminists “in the track of the sensibility of the New Left” politicize “the most human and most hidden spheres of human life–such as the family, marriage, sexuality”(8).

Other authors approached American radical feminists with much more caution. A selection of texts by the members of the Žena i društvo group was published in a 1978 issue of Pitanja entitled “Women, or about Freedom.” The issue claims to be about the žensko pitanje and not feminism, while most of the inspiring and quoted texts and the questions posed are those of new feminism. The Sarajevo-based social scientist, Nada Ler-Sofronić, provided a thought-provoking new theoretical-methodological framework based on a critical reading of new feminist theory from the West for dealing with women’s inequality in Yugoslavia. The selection of authors is colorful and while she is dismissive of Shulamith Firestone for her “extremeness,” “overvaluation of women’s characteristics” and for overemphasizing “women’s nature,”40 she is appreciative of Betty Friedan. Whereas Friedan is often criticized by left-wing feminists both in the United States and elsewhere for her bourgeois lens of analysis, Ler-Sofronić realises that Friedan criticizes bourgeois values when speaking of the lives of bourgeois women. She finds the idealization of women by the radical feminist Firestone more problematic: authors like Firestone are “mistakenly” called “radical,” reclaiming “radicalism” as a synonym for “revolutionary” (21).

Jasna Tkalec also welcomed “radical legislative change,” in this case in France. She embraced the French “new feminism” born in the aftermath of May 1968, which had a radical agenda with “the radical demands for the equality of sexual morals for men and women, loudly seeking rehabilitation from a Freudian position of women’s erotica, the sexuality of children and adolescents and even of homosexuality.”41 This text, inspired by Edgar Morin’s essay in the volume La Femme majeure42 interprets the new French feminism as a human-rights movement (1162), whereas it realizes that, despite the similarities between the feminist discourse and those of Marxism and “decolonialism,” women cannot be treated either as a class or as an ethnic group. Tkalec suggests looking at women as a “bio-social class” and valorizes the potential of the radical demands within the women’s movement (i.e., new feminism), which introduces a specific culture of revolution to the West (1167). The radical demand of the new feminism involves “a reanalysis of the entire social system with regard to the past and future as well. This research raises and actualizes fundamental social and scientific problems and rephrases them in a completely new way” (1167).

A colorful image of feminism unfolds from this range of highly different texts. Revolution in feminism has the appreciation of the authors, while radicalism is already ambiguous. The attributed meanings vary from positive, for example in the sense of “revolutionary,” to problematic as much as it is “bourgeois.” Bourgeois feminism is unanimously criticized by all authors. Another characteristic of the early steps the new feminists in Yugoslavia took is the strategy of suggesting that at the new manifestations of feminism be regarded as relevant due to the “universal experience” of women from the perspective of the ideas presented and from the perspective of “our still patriarchal environment.”43 Universality is useful not only as a “disguise” of the dissenting ideas, but as a category countering the idea that the solution to the class questions is a solution to the women’s question as well.

One of the early examples appears in an issue of Student, edited by Žarana Papić and Ivan Vejvoda in 1976 (a rare case in which only foreign material is presented in translation). It includes texts from Robin Morgan’s edited volume Sisterhood is Powerful by Zoe Moss and Pat Mainardi (from the Redstockings group, which belongs to the above- mentioned “radical” Women’s Liberation groups), an interview with Luce Irigaray by Cathèrine Clément that appeared originally in La Nouvelle Critique, one text by Marie-Thérèse Baudrillard from Politique Hebdo and an excerpt from Shulamith Firestone’s The Dialectic of Sex. What they state in the introduction may not look extremely complicated:

It is interesting to get acquainted with insights of the new thinking of the “problem” of women, her speech (govor), agency (delanje) and living (življenje), and this through a mosaic of broad elements, from analytical-theoretical approaches to personal statements. Though here it is seemingly only about “foreign experience,” a lot of this experience of women is universal.44

 

The introduction does not identify the selection of texts as feminist, but it also avoids the term žensko pitanje through use of “the ‘problem’ of women,” where the quotation marks distance the authors from identifying with those who consider women a “problem.” The terms agency and speech point toward the language of the new feminism as does the selection from the more avant-garde or radical texts, which, by other authors in the Yugoslav publications, are dismissed for various reasons. The reasons for this can be well organized around the evaluation of and reservation to a stream of feminism as radical, revolutionary or extremist on the one hand, and reactionary-bourgeois on the other hand. The identification or appreciation of these varieties of feminism is rather divergent and needs to be treated in the “revolutionary Yugoslav” context.

The choices of Papić and Vejvoda reflect an appreciation of the radical stream of American feminism as well as of the more theoretical, but rather avant-garde, French wave. The tendency to affiliate oneself with the socialist Western feminists and thus legitimate the introduction of these ideas into the local context prevails in the Yugoslav new feminist context, however, in this case there is also an attempt to reconcile the complex theoretical approach of Irigaray (and elsewhere, Hélène Cixous and Julia Kristeva) with an expectation that writing about society serves the revolutionary change in that very society. The cross-reading of radical feminism with French post-structuralism is an “invention” of the Yugoslav feminists and here is made explicit by the choice of an interview with Irigaray, conducted by Catherine Clément, instead of an excerpt from her Speculum de l’autre femme45 with regard to which the interview was made.46 For discussing the social use of theories, writings and artworks, Clément returns to the concept of struggle (borba in Serbo-Croatian and lutte/combat in French). Clément’s choice of the word has a new relevance in the new context of the space defined by the success ideology of the NOB. This was followed by smaller-scale “struggles” for the fulfilment of the aims of self-managing socialism.

Clément contextualizes Irigaray within 1968 as a movement: “Where, what kind of a relation do you think you have with women’s struggle? The question is all the more important since your book was not a book which we would usually call as one designed for struggles?”47 Irigaray explains her position, which she begins with the assertion that to her, all philosophical discussions have political implications:

 

Maybe we should go that far that we say there is no “politics” of women that does not take shape either in the form of apolitical statements or disavowal of the political, this is already a demand (zahtjev) which must be fulfilled. [...] In the meantime, if the starting point of women’s struggle (borba) is simply to get to the steering wheel of power, then women wanted what they don’t [want] to be subordinated to the phallic order. […] However, we need to be constantly and without mistakes alert. Phallocracy most probably still has not exhausted all its resources. Are we not witnesses to how today men overtake the women’s question (žensko pitanje)? It is important for them to be able to keep the initiative within the[ir] discourse.48

 

What Irigaray does in her Speculum is political and radical. Her radicalism is read into a Yugoslav context in which radicalism is read as revolutionary struggle. Through this reading in Student, Irigaray is brought into a dialogue with American second-wave radicalism (even though radicalism assumes different meanings in the original contexts of French theory and the U.S. movement) as she identifies the need for radical (down to the roots) change in the discourse conveying power relations. Getting positions in the existing phallic [phallogocentric] order does not change the discourse and the place of women within that discourse. The “women’s question” gets appropriated by male political actors and immersed into the existing order; Irigaray does not spell it out here, however—her train of thought reminds of the dichotomy between the use of the concept of the “women’s question” and the use of the concept “feminism”, with the underlying political and strategic implications. As feminism takes the women’s question out of the patriarchal context, it means taking the initiative and means intervention into the discourse.

Radicalism, and in relation to that, revolution and the revolutionary nature of an ideology or movement, is a recurrent theme in the new Yugoslav feminist writings of the 1970s and early 1980s and is a crucial factor in their self-positioning within the Yugoslav discursive space, simultaneously adjusting to and challenging the status quo. As we have seen above, Iveković, for example, based on Anna Maria Mazzoni’s classification, identifies the revolutionary branch of Italian feminism as progressive and points it out as exemplary; however, she refrains from calling it “radical.” One of the articles in the hereby analyzed issue of Student, from Sisterhood is Powerful by Pat Mainardi, discusses the “politics of housework,” which is not only relevant from the point of the relations between the private and the public, but also for a statement that identifies the “women’s liberation movement” as “revolution.”49 Here we find a conceptually fascinating distinction between radical revolutionary women’s movements and bourgeois women’s movements, on the one hand, and extremist (radical) ones as opposed to the moderate (socialist) ones on the other.

In Catherine Clément’s previously analyzed interview with Luce Irigaray, Clément and Irigaray agree on the need for a radical change of discourse and then they go even further via Irigaray’s answer to Cléments’s question of whether she thinks the “class struggle” would sufficiently describe these power relations. Irigaray points out that this is exactly the reason for which radical change is needed: men “overtake the women’s question.” Irigaray turns the question around and suggests that class be translated into “men and women” and then adds: “Or, we should admit that today’s praxis of Marxism is not willing to acknowledge this difference and this exploitation of women.”50 This takes us to another crucial question dividing the state discourse and the new feminist discourse, considering whether solving the class question automatically solves gender equality and makes women’s oppression disappear. Irigaray resists this idea by emphasizing that Marxism, at its present stage, is not sufficient. This is in contrast with the claims of the KDAŽ, even with regard to the International Year of Women, when the problems women faced were thematized, or the introductions in books like Đorđević’s Žensko pitanje, which treat the work of Marx, Engels and the early Marxists as not very detailed, but in principle authoritative with regard to the women’s question and which persistently take the žensko pitanje back to the realization of općeljudske emancipacije.

Whereas in the local feminist mythology the 1976 Portorož conference does not hold the same place as 1978, looking at the documentation of the debate we find most of the most important ideas of the new Yugoslav feminists there.51 At this time, Gordana Bosanac and Anđelka Milić were members of the editorial board of the journal and Lydia Sklevický, Vesna Pusić, Nadežda Čačinovič-Puhovski, Silva Mežnarić and Gordana Cerjan-Letica all participated in the conference. Members of the editorial board apparently had to explain themselves for the appearance of the feministička grupacija at the meeting, offering a variety of understandings of what feminism is: “it is important to differentiate between the feminist movement in its basic starting point and of a provocation for a fight against the male sex and the […] progressive movement of women who search for a way for their own action […] for the political, economic, cultural and other forms of development in their own country.”52 The introduction, however, emphasizes the importance of the Marxist stakes in the issue of women and the family, especially the contributions of Vranicki and Šoljan to the conference. So does the closing speech by Breda Pavlić, with the usual conclusion that, on the one hand, many of the demands of the Western feminists have been provided to women in Yugoslavia and, on the other hand, that if feminists want to achieve their goals, they have to return to Marx.53 This happens only to a certain extent: there is a left-wing, most often Marxist, inclination in the feminist theories written by the new Yugoslav feminists, but they almost unanimously refuse to subsume women’s equality to the class question.

Despite the editorial board’s gesture to diminish the significance of the feminist participants, they claim the legitimacy of new feminism. Sklevický, in highlighting the importance of the “history of forgotten sisters,” describes the transition from the “old” feminism to the new wave, which realizes that basic rights do not ensure real gender equality, and therefore demands a liberation from gender roles through various actions.54 The English-language new or second-wave canon was introduced by Gordana Cerjan-Letica, for instance, Firestone; Friedan; Greer; Millett; Margaret Dixon; and Margaret Benston. Cerjan-Letica argued for the alignment of feminism with socialism: “the goal of a non-repressive civilization is there within all heterogeneous left-wing movements,” while refusing to treat women as a class.55 This, in her reading, makes feminism more radical in its demands for equality. Vesna Pusić addresses the anti-, or rather, post-feminist arguments: at first feminism may appear aggressive or explosive—it may even be accused of theoretical incoherence; “however, if we approach it as a manifestation of one broad, global theory, we will much more easily get the dimension of the universality it contains. In other words, even if it is not a theory in itself, it presents a manifestation and is integral part of one broad theory of social change and dialectical development of society.”56

By the time the 1978 conference took place in Belgrade, the new Yugoslav feminists became more and more conscious of radical feminism being closer to their own vision of feminism, revaluation what “radical” and “military” means, with reference to the revolutionary partisan tradition as a source of legitimacy. An effective strategy of Vesna Kesić in the magazine Start is to compare the feminist movement to the workers’ movement. The comparison is triggered by Kesić’s annoyance with the “militant” epitheton ornans of all feminisms in all times, also present in the state representatives’ discussion of feminism. While it is hard to see what it means, writes Kesić, “this is as if the workers on strike would be advised not to choose such a ‘militant’ way of fighting,” and “fighting” here is a “re-vindication of one’s rights.”57 Clearly, a political system supporting the workers in all places to stand up for their rights and heralding the workers being self-managers of their lives in Yugoslavia as well as women’s equality cannot afford labelling women voicing the exact same “militant” demands. In the very same magazine, Slavenka Drakulić reflects at length on the role and challenges of feminism “as a revolutionary movement.”58 Nada Ler-Sofronić even reclaims “radical” for those revolutionary leftist ideas she agrees with: due to its essentialism, she suggests that Shulamith Firestone’s The Dialectic of Sex from 1970 is incorrectly categorized as “radical” and that it is rather “extreme” feminism.59

Conclusion

The quest for meanings of feminism and the possibilities to employ feminist ideas for change—slow and transitional or radical change—in the position of women in Yugoslavia lies behind the early intellectual endeavors of the new Yugoslav feminists. Whether looking at Italian feminism in historical perspective or investigating recent feminist theories and movements, the aim is always to see the relevance of these for the Yugoslav case. The theoretical criticisms shed light on the contradictions within the emancipation project promised by the socialist state and its implementation. It is, however, this promise on behalf of the state that makes the relationship with the feminist groups multi-layered and instead of being dissident (which many radical feminist groups become in other countries),60 the position of the new Yugoslav feminists vis-à-vis the state is critical or dissenting. This position is made easier by the flexibilities within the Yugoslav regime as much as the access to institutions and publication possibilities is concerned. The systematic reading of theories, especially their discussion and their publication, was made possible at least in part by these infrastructures and the discursive practices and linguistic interventions paved the way for activism. They formulated a critique of the socialist regimes that no other opposition group could. Thus they reformulated the relevance of feminism in the region and by challenging the policies and institutions introduced by the socialist governments to achieve the equality of women and men, they offer a different vision of women’s emancipation and gender equality.

 

Bibliography

Allcock, John B. Explaining Yugoslavia. London: C. Hurst, 2000.

Batinić, Jelena. Women and Yugoslav Partisans: A History of World War II Resistance. New York, NY: Cambridge UP, 2015.

Bilić, Bojan. We Were Gasping for Air: [Post-]Yugoslav Anti-War Activism and its Legacy. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2012.

Bilić, Bojan, and Vesna Janković, eds. Resisting the Evil: [Post-]Yugoslav Anti-War Contention. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2012.

Bonfiglioli, Chiara. “Revolutionary Networks: Women’s Political and Social Activism in Cold War Italy and Yugoslavia.” PhD diss., University of Utrecht, 2012.

Briskin, Linda. “Feminist Practice: A New Approach to Evaluating Feminist Strategy.” In Women and Social Change: Feminist Activism in Canada, edited by Jeri Dawn Wine and Janice L. Ristock, 24–40. Toronto: James Lorimer & Co., 1991.

Cerjan-Letica, Gordana. “Feminizam – na tragu radikalizma šezdesetih godina” [Feminism – in the footprints of the radicalism of the 1960s]. Pitanja 8, no. 7 (1975): 6–8.

Cerjan-Letica, Gordana. “Neki dominantni stavovi suvremenog feminizma o porodici” [A few dominant positions of contemporary feminism about the family]. Žena 34, no. 3 (1976): 100–14.

Clément, Cathèrine and Luce Irigaray. “Žena, njen spol i jezik” [Woman, her sex and language]. Translated by Žarana Papić and Ivan Vejvoda. Student, no. 9 (1976): 7.

Crow, Thomas. The Rise of the Sixties: American and European Art in the Era of Dissent. 2nd ed. London: Laurence King Publishing, 2004.

Csizmadia, Ervin. A magyar demokratikus ellenzék története [The history of the Hungarian democratic opposition]. Budapest: T-Twins, 1995.

Davis, Flora. Moving the Mountain: The Women’s Movement in America since 1960. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999.

Dobos, Manuela. “The Women’s Movement in Yugoslavia: The Case of the Conference for the Social Activity of Women in Croatia, 1965–1974.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 7, no. 2 (1983): 47–55.

Dragović-Soso, Jasna. Saviours of the Nation?: Serbia’s Intellectual Opposition and the Revival of Nationalism. London: Hurst & Co., 2002.

Drakulić-Ilić, Slavenka. “Pornografija u novoj prohibiciji” [Pornography in a new prohibition]. Start, February 9, 1985, 68–70.

Echols, Alice. Daring to be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967–1975. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989.

Falk, Barbara J. The Dilemmas of Dissidence in East-Central Europe: Citizen Intellectuals and Philosopher Kings. Budapest: CEU Press, 2002.

Gállos, Orsolya. Szlovéniai változások [Changes in Slovenia]. Pécs: Pro Pannonia, 2012.

Graycar, Regina, ed. Dissenting Opinions: Feminist Explorations in Law and Society. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1990.

Gudac-Dodić, Vera. Žena u socijalizmu: Položaj žene u Srbiji u drugoj polovini 20. veka [Women in Socialism: The position of women in Serbia in the second half of the 20th century]. Belgrade: INIS, 2006.

Harms, Victoria E. “Destined or Doomed? Hungarian Dissidents and Their Western Friends, 1973–1998.” PhD diss., University of Pittsburgh, 2015.

Hartmann, Heidi I. “The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism: Towards a More Progressive Union.” In Feminist Frameworks: Alternative Theoretical Accounts of the Relations between Men and Women, edited by Alison M. Jaggar and Paula S. Rothenberg, 172–89. New York: McGraw Hill, 1993.

Hartmann, Heidi I. “Nesrećni brak marksizma i feminizma: Ka progresivnijem za jedništvu.” Marksizam u svetu 9, no. 3 (1983): 179–217.

Helms, Elissa. Innocence and Victimhood: Gender, Nation, and Women’s Activism in Postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina. Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2013.

Hewitt, Nancy A. “Introduction.” In No Permanent Waves: Recasting Histories of U.S. Feminism, edited by idem, 1–14. New Brunswick–New Jersey–London: Rutgers UP, 2010.

Irigaray, Luce. “I jedna, ne miće bez druge” [One does not move without the other]. Translated by Lizdek Slobodanka. Izraz 36, no. 2–3 (1990): 298–304.

Irigaray, Luce. “Izlaz iz pećine” [The way out of the cave]. Translated by Rada Iveković. Republika, no. 11–12 (1983): 107–11.

Irigaray, Luce. “Ogledao druge žene” [Speculum of the other woman]. Translated by J. V. and R. I. Marksizam u svetu 8. no. 8–9 (1981): 443–86.

Irigaray, Luce. Speculum de l’autre femme. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1974.

Irigaray, Luce. “Taj pol koji nije jedan” [This sex which is not one]. Translated by Aleksandar Zistakis. Gledišta, no. 1–2 (1990): 9–16.

Iveković, Rada. “Indija je nijema žena: Poklici žena” [India is a mute woman: Howls of women]. Delo 27, no. 4 (1981): 88–108.

Iveković, Rada. “Talijanski komunisti i ženski pokret” [The Italian Communists and the women’s movement]. Dometi 13, no. 2 (1980): 31–44.

Jambrešić Kirin, Renata. “Komunističko totalitarno nasilje: Žene na Golom otoku i sv. Grguru” [Communist totalitarian violence: Women on Goli otok and St. Grgur]. In Sjećanja žena žrtava nacizma i nedemokratskih režima [The memories of women victims of Nazism and non-democratic regimes], edited by Sandra Prlenda, 47–67. Zagreb: Centar za ženske studije, 2009.

Jambrešić Kirin, Renata. “Žene u formativnom socijalizmu” [Women in formative socialism]. In Refleksije vremena: 1945–1955. [Reflections of the time: 1945–1955], edited by Jasmina Bavoljak, 182–201. Zagreb: Galerija Klovićevi dvori, 2012.

Jambrešić Kirin, Renata. Dom i svijet: O ženskoj kulturi pamćenja [Home and the world: On women’s cultural memory]. Zagreb: Centar za ženske studije, 2008.

Jancar-Webster, Barbara. Women & Revolution in Yugoslavia 1941–45. Denver, Colorado: Arden Press Inc., 1990.

Judt, Tony. “The Dilemmas of Dissidence: The Politics of Opposition in East-Central Europe.” East European Politics & Societies 2, no. 2 (1988): 185–240.

Kesić, Vesna. “Nije li pornografija cinična?” [Isn’t pornography cynical?]. Start, August 28, 1982. 74–75.

Kopeček, Michal. “Human Rights Facing a National Past: Dissident ‘Civic Patriotism’ and the Return of History in East Central Europe, 1968–1989.” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 38, no. 4. (2012): 573–602.

Kopeček, Michal and Piotr Wcíslik, eds. Political Thought in Eastern Europe after 1989. Budapest: CEU Press, 2014.

Lapierre, Nicole, Edgar Morin, and Bernard Paillard, eds. La Femme majeure, nouvelle féminité, nouveau féminisme. Paris: Seuil, 1973.

Ler-Sofronić, Nada. “Odiseja ljudskog identiteta žene” [The Odyssey of the human identity of women]. Pitanja 10, no. 7–8 (1978): 21.

Linz, Juan J., and Alfred Stepan. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1996.

Long, Kristi S. We All Fought for Freedom: Women in Poland’s Solidarity Movement. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996.

Lóránd, Zsófia. “‘Nem osztálykérdés, nem biológiai meghatározottság:’ A feminista ellenzék elméleti keretei a Tito alatti Jugoszláviában” [“Neither class nor nature:” The theoretical frameworks of feminist opposition in Tito’s Yugoslavia]. Translated by Éva Cserháti. Eszmélet 27, no. 108 (2015): 131–50.

Mainardi, Pat. “Politika domaćeg posla” [The politics of housework]. Student no. 9 (1976): 7.

Mezei, Stevan, et al. Samoupravni socijalizam [Self-managing socialism]. Belgrade: Savremena administracija, 1976.

Mežnarić, Silva. “Što se događa s amerićkom ženom?” [What is happening to the American woman?]. Žena 30, no. 6 (1972): 57–62.

Miller, Nick. The Nonconformists: Culture, Politics, and Nationalism in a Serbian Intellectual Circle, 1944–1991. New York: Central European University Press, 2007.

Miller, Nick. “Where Was the Serbian Havel?” In The End and the Beginning: The Revolutions of 1989 and the Resurgence of History, edited by Vladimir Tismaneanu and Bogdan C. Iacob, 363–79. Budapest–New York: CEU Press, 2012.

Miškovska-Kajevska, Ana. “Taking a Stand in Times of Violent Societal Changes: Belgrade and Zagreb Feminists’ Positionings on the (Post-)Yugoslav Wars and Each Other (1991–2000).” PhD diss., Universiteit van Amsterdam, 2014.

Mitrović, Marijana. “Genealogy of the Conferences on Women’s Writing at the Inter University Center (Dubrovnik) from 1986 to 1990.” ProFemina, Special Issue, no. 2 (2011): 157–66.

Mladjenovic, Lepa, and Donna M. Hughes. “Feminist Resistance to War and Violence in Serbia.” In Frontline Feminisms: Women, War, and Resistance, edited by Marguerite R. Waller and Jennifer Rycenga, 247–74. New York: Garland Publications, 2000.

Oklobdžija, Mirjana. “Uvod” [Introduction]. Dometi 13, no. 2 (1980): 4.

Ost, David. Solidarity and the Politics of Anti-Politics: Opposition and Reform in Poland since 1968. New York: Columbia UP, 1990.

Pantelić, Ivana. Partizanke kao građanke: Društvena emancipacija partizanki u Srbiji, 1945–1953 [Partisan women as citizens: Social emancipation of partisan women in Serbia, 1945–53]. Belgrade: Institut za savremenu istoriju, 2011.

Papić, Žarana, and Ivan Vejvoda. “Žena je čovjek: Umesto uvoda” [Woman is a human: Instead of an introduction]. Student, no. 9. 1976. 7.

Pavlić, Breda. “Ciljevi i metode suvremenog feminizma” [The goals and methods of contemporary feminism]. Žena 34, no. 3 (1976): 129–45.

Pavlowitch, Stevan K. Yugoslavia. London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1971.

Penn, Shana. Solidarity’s Secret: The Women Who Defeated Communism in Poland. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005.

Perović, Latinka, ed. Žene i deca 4. Srbija u modernizacijskim procesima XIX i XX veka [Women and children 4. Serbia in the modernisation processes of the 19th and 20th centuries]. Beograd: Helsinški odbor za ljudska prava u Srbiji, 2006.

Petrović, Jelena, and Damir Arsenijević, eds. Jugoslovenski feminizmi [Yugoslav feminisms]. ProFemina Special Issue, no. 2 (2011).

Pollack, Detlef and Jan Wielgohs, eds. Dissent and Opposition in Communist Eastern Europe: Origins of Civil Society and Democratic Transition. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, c2004.

Popov, Nebojša, ed. The Road to War in Serbia: Trauma and Catharsis. English version ed. Drinka Gojković. Budapest: CEU Press, 2000.

Pusić, Vesna. “O nekim aspektima uloge feminizma u suvremenom društvu” [About a few aspects of the position of feminism in contemporary society]. Žena 34, no. 3 (1976): 120–24.

Ramet, Pedro. “The Yugoslav Press in Flux.” In Yugoslavia in the 1980s, ed. idem, 100–27. Boulder and London: Westview, 1985.

Redakcija [Editorial]. “Portorož i poslije njega” [Portorož and after]. Žena 34, no. 3 (1976): 2–6.

Renwick, Alan. “Anti-Political or Just Anti-Communist? Varieties of Dissidence in East-Central Europe and their Implications for the Development of Political Society.” East European Politics and Societies, 20, no. 2 (2006): 286–318.

Robinson, Gertrude Joch. Tito’s Maverick Media: The Politics of Mass Communications in Yugoslavia. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977.

Sargent, Lydia, ed. Women and Revolution: A Discussion of the Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism. Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1981.

Satterwhite, James H. Varieties of Marxist Humanism: Philosophical Revision in Postwar Eastern Europe. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992.

Shore, Marci. Caviar and Ashes: A Warsaw Generation’s Life and Death in Marxism, 1918–1968. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

Skilling, Gordon H. Samizdat and an Independent Society in Central and Eastern Europe. Houndmills–Basingstoke–Hampshire: Macmillan, 1989.

Sklevický, Lydia. “Od borbe za prava do prave borbe” [From the struggle for rights to the right to fight]. Žena 34, no. 3 (1976): 52–9.

Sparks, Holloway. “Dissident Citizenship: Democratic Theory, Political Courage, and Activist Women.” Hypatia 12, no. 4 (1997): 74–110.

Thompson, Mark. Forging War: The Media in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina. London: Article 19. International Centre against Censorship, 1994.

Tkalec, Jasna. “Dolazak i događaj feminizma” [The arrival and happening of Feminism]. Naše teme 21, no. 5 (1977): 1160–67.

Todorović-Uzelac, Neda. Ženska štampa i kultura žensvenosti [Women’s press and the culture of femininity]. Belgrade: Naučna knjiga, 1987.

Wiesinger, Barbara. Partisaninnen: Widerstand in Jugoslawien, 1941–1945. Vienna: Böhlau, 2008.

Yurchak, Alexei. Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006.

“Društveni položaj žene i razvoj porodice u socijalističkom samoupravnom društvu” [The social position of women and the development of the family in the socialist self-managing society]. Žena 34, no. 3 (1976).

Zubak, Marko. “The Yugoslav Youth Press (1968–1980): Student Movements, Subcultures and Communist Alternative Media.” PhD diss., Central European University, Budapest, 2013.

Zukin, Sharon. “Sources of Dissent and Nondissent in Yugoslavia.” In Dissent in Eastern Europe, edited by Jane Leftwich Curry, 117–37. New York: Praeger, 1983.

Žarkov, Dubravka. The Body of War: Media, Ethnicity, and Gender in the Break-Up of Yugoslavia. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007.

Unspectacular Destalinization: The Case of Slovak Writers after 1956

Juraj Marušiak

Institute of Political Science, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava

 

On the basis of archival sources, in this essay I examine the debates that took place among Slovak writers in the spring of 1956 and afterwards. I focus on the clashes between the Union of Slovak Writers and the leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (CPCz) that began at the time, and also on the internal discussions among the pro-Communist intellectuals concerning the interpretation of de-Stalinization process. The CPCz leadership essentially brought an end to the “political discussion” which temporarily had been allowed during the “thaw” following the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Research shows that the relatively weak persecutions allowed the gradual development of reformist thinking and the pluralization of the literary life in Slovakia in the second half of the 1950s and, later, in the 1960s. The political clashes between writers and Communist Party took place in both parts of Czechoslovakia in different ways.

Keywords: de-Stalinization; Union of Czechoslovak Writers, Union of Slovak Writers, liberalization, Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, Communist Party of Slovakia

Introduction

On the eve of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the process of reconstructing the communist regime in Czechoslovakia after the crisis in 1953 had come to an end, both in terms of the establishment of a new balance of power within the narrow leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and in terms of setting the political and socio-economic priorities of the communist power. In this essay, I examine the cultural ferment in Slovakia in the spring of 1956 and its aftermath. I focus in particular on the attempts of Slovak writers, mainly those who were members or supporters of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, to liberalize ideological control over literature, which included censorship in practice and an insistence on the principles of so-called Socialist Realism. My aim is to discuss the extent to which the rebellion on the part of the Slovak writers was a predominantly autonomous process in the context of the community of writers in Czechoslovakia. I will also seek an answer to the question as to why Slovak intellectuals, who were struggling for the liberalization of the regime, were not able to exert stronger influence on Slovak society.

The Early Phase of Criticism

In Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary, the process of the gradual “de-canonization” of so-called Socialist Realism as an obligatory and exclusively allowed style of art had begun before 1956. In 1954, literary texts began to appear disputing the heroic pathos of the “construction of Socialism,” abandoning “Manichean worldviews” and didactic approaches, and seeking to “inform, inculcate, and inspire”1 readers. The return to individual reflections and emotions, instead of the officially required glorification of the official ideology and policies, was significant for the novel Sklený vrch [The glass hill] by Slovak writer Alfonz Bednár2 and the book of poetry by Ivan Kupec entitled Nížinami výšinami [Through the lowlands, through the uplands].3 However, the first open argument broke out at the end of 1955, when Kupec and novelist Dominik Tatarka (a man who, in 1948–55, had been an active supporter of Socialist Realism and Stalinism) started to criticize the official concept of art and literature openly. Kupec,4 together with Ján Brezina and other poets, sought the separation of art from political propaganda.

The issue of the autonomy of culture and, in particular, literature from state control was openly raised by Tatarka, when he criticized the novel Drevená dedina [Wooden village]5 by František Hečko, which at that time was considered the most outstanding Slovak “socialist” novel and was praised by the state propaganda. According to Tatarka, the novel was an example of “artificial, scholastic literature.”6 Tatarka criticized the growing role of the apparatus of the Union of Slovak Writers, and he claimed to create literary groups outside the structures of the Union, i.e. he claimed to seek to change the mission of the Union as a tool that was used to exert control over writers to further the Party’ s ideological control over literature. His article met with a negative reaction. Novelist Vladimír Mináč accused Tatarka and Kupec of having made “attempts to reconcile idealist esthetics with the esthetics of dialectic materialism.”7 Hečko, the author of the novel that Tatarka and Kupec had criticized, merged the ideological and political arguments in order to stifle Tatarka. According to him, both Kupec and Tatarka were ready to “sell all our socialism for a cherrystone.”8 No restrictive measures were taken against Tatarka or Kupec, which would have been unimaginable in the first half of the decade. But during the first months of 1956, the discussion in the weekly Kultúrny život [Cultural life]9 continued. Subsequently, Tatarka criticized not only the abovementioned novel “Wooden Village” as a “tragic mistake of the Slovak literature,” but also the entire official concept of literature, which according to him was “non-realistic, non-scientific, [and] misleading.” He raised the following questions: “[does] our contemporary [literature] express the truth of our life and the feeling of our life? [Does it express our feelings as people] who went through World War II, [and] who fight against the next war?”10 In his reports, which were published after he had taken trips in Western Europe, he stated, “we don’t want the division of the world, which was invented by the enemy.”11 This statement prompted a negative response on the part of the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Slovakia (CPS) Karol Bacílek.12 The dispute between Tatarka on the one hand and Mináč and Hečko on the other is an example of the “differentiation of the political languages of Marxism.”13 However, it began before the 20th Congress of the CPSU. In fact, Tatarka disavowed one of the key aims of Socialist Realism when he stressed that he never wanted to “construct a new type of human.”14

The pace of discussions in Kultúrny život accelerated after the 20th Congress of CPSU, as the condemnation of Joseph Stalin by the first secretary of the Soviet Communists Nikita Khrushchev caused an “essential crisis of identity,” in particular among members of the younger generation of the communist intelligentsia. 15 Former CPS official and writer Juraj Špitzer, referring to the Polish literary scientist Stefan Żółkiewski, made the following contention: “discussion of art is political discussion… discussion of the all of life, all social issues, the direction of their development.”16 In opposition to the Secretary of the Union of Slovak Writers Ctibor Štítnický, Špitzer tried to publish texts by authors who had been the main representatives of Slovak literature before World War II, but these writings had been put on the “black list” since the Communist coup in February 1948 (works by authors such as Milo Urban, Emil Boleslav Lukáč, Ján Smrek, and Valentín Beniak). Špitzer called for a rehabilitation of Slovak surrealist (so-called “nadrealizmus”) poetry.17 Literary scientist Branislav Choma criticized the prevailing understanding of socialism as “too politicized, narrow, and inhumanly egoistic.” According to him, socialism had to be a “path to greater humanity, greater freedom, and a life that is actually nicer.”18 On the other hand, only two staunchly Social Realist poets, Andrej Plávka and Milan Lajčiak, openly defended the official cultural policy of the regime. According to Lajčiak, the discussion had to be stopped because it was becoming a “crossroad.” According to him, the freedom of writing was the freedom to write in an irresponsible manner.19 However, until April 1956, the discussion in Kultúrny život was focused on the issues strictly connected with the literature, and it did not affect the broader political and socio-economic context.

The 2nd Congress of Czechoslovak Writers and its Aftermath

The open conflict with the power center emerged during the 2nd Congress of Czechoslovak Writers (April 22–29, 1956). Kultúrny život adopted a pro-reform stance before reforms had even begun, and it declared its open support for Tatarka and his criticism of Drevená dedina. More and more articles were printed focusing on intellectual life in Poland, Hungary, and Yugoslavia, i.e. in the Soviet bloc countries in which people enjoyed a larger degree of freedom of speech. Initially, the leadership of the CPCz was anxious about the congress of writers, and it even considered postponing it, because party leaders expected that critics would begin to find a voice. The congress took place in the spring of 1956, when the “discussion” within the CPCz raised by the 20th Congress of the CPSU and the process of de-Stalinization reached its peak. About 425 basic Party organizations in Czechoslovakia demanded the convocation of an extraordinary Party congress, which would threaten the positions of the CPCz leadership. Among the Slovak writers, Stalinist methods were criticized mainly by Tatarka, Mináč, Ladislav Mňačko and Kupec. On the other hand, the CPCz party leadership appreciated the statements of Hečko and Štítnický, because they defended the “party-spirit of literature against the manifestations of liberalism.”20

During the congress, the most famous speeches were held by two Czech poets: Jaroslav Seifert and František Hrubín. Seifert proposed demanding the release of all imprisoned writers and inviting all silenced authors to cooperate.21 Hrubín required the independence of art from ideology.22 However, the Slovak writers were actively involved in the congress as well. The novelist Katarína Lazarová criticized the practices of the censors, although people were officially forbidden to speak about the existence of the main authority of press control.23 She said: “We were in the service of evil headlong. We simply believed that we served the people in the best way.”24 The Congress condemned “any authoritarian solution of the issues of creativity.” However, the statement according to which the processes which had begun at the 20th Congress of CPSU had been the “beginning of the new revolutionary process in our life” were not included in the congress’ final resolution.25 Nevertheless, the Congress, together with the protests led by university students (mainly in Prague and Bratislava), was the first open confrontation between the Communist power and society after the 20th Congress of CPSU. All speeches held at the congress were published in the extraordinary issues of the writers’ weekly newspaper Literární noviny [Literary newspaper] in Czech lands and Kultúrny život in Slovakia. At the same time, Démon súhlasu [Demon of agreement] by Tatarka was published in Kultúrny život in serial form.26 His prose belongs to the works of alignment with the period of Stalinism in Central and Eastern Europe, like the prosaic works by Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Vladimir Dudintsev in Russia, and Jerzy Andrzejewski, Kazimierz Brandys, and Adam Ważyk in Poland. The main message of the prose is a call for a return to human individuality and a thorough deconstruction of the mechanisms of hypocrisy among the people, who “lost their personality”27 in the period of Stalinism.

The first reactions of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of CPCz to the Congress, which was discussed during the session on April 25, 1956, were negative. According to the Bureau, the congress had become a “palace revolution against the Party leadership.” But they were mostly concerned with the speeches that had been held by Czech writers. Subsequently, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPCz discussed the work and results of writer´s congress on May 21, 1956. According to Jiří Hendrych, the Party Secretary responsible for ideological affairs, “most of the writers remained unconvinced, and they oscillated.” He stressed the expression of “wrong opinions” and “hostile invectives.” According to the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPCz, the congress became an “extraordinary valuable… big political verification of our writers.” Among the Slovak writers, only Mináč and Lazarová won recognition. Hela Volanská was characterized in a negative way.28

The position of the pro-reform intellectuals within the Union of Slovak Writers was strengthened after its Plenary Session on June 1, 1956. The first secretary of the Slovak branch of the Union, Štítnický, who supported the official politics of the CPCz, suddenly adopted the pro-reform stance after the Congress. In his speech, he demanded the rehabilitation of the Slovak communist intellectuals who were associated with DAV, a left-leaning journal published between 1924 and 1937. At the beginning of the 1950s, they were accused of being “Slovak bourgeois nationalists,” and they were even sentenced in the political trials in 1954. Štítnický condemned censorship.29 Tatarka demanded the ideological differentiation of the literary journals.30 The result of the plenary session was the appointment of Špitzer as the new editor-in-chief of Kultúrny život. At the time, Špitzer gave voice to criticism of the Stalinist cultural policy, and he advocated a principle of plurality of views published in the journal, although in 1950–51 he was one of the main promoters of Stalinism in Slovak art, and he actively participated in the Stalinist purges among the writers.31 The most important outcome of the plenary session was the decision to establish a new literary journal entitled Mladá tvorba [Young creation], focusing on the younger generation of writers. Poet and journalist Milan Ferko was appointed as the first editor-in-chief of the new journal.

On May 2, 1956, the Political Bureau of the CPCz, due to the intervention of the Embassy of the USSR in Prague, decided to stop the “discussion,” i.e. the short-term liberalization. Already the General Party Conference, which had been held on June 11–15, 1956 instead of the extraordinary congress of the CPCz, condemned any demands for substantial changes of the official course in order to avoid any requirements for personnel changes. Only the “ideological front” had been identified as a crucial point in the struggle against the “class enemy.” One of the most sharply criticized members of the Political Bureau of the CPCz, Václav Kopecký, the most emphatic representative of the rigid ideological stance, described the writers’ congress as “passionate exaltations in the spirit of pure liberalism.” He equated Literární noviny with Radio Free Europe, and he appealed to writers “to clarify their attitude to the speeches presented at the congress,” i.e. to disavow the congress. Subsequently, he stressed that only the Union of Writers would be held responsible for it.32 In fact, Kopecký was the first party official who publicly condemned the congress and the student revolts, along with Antonín Zápotocký (who had been serving President of the Czechoslovak Republic since Stalin’s death in 1953) and Zdeněk Fierlinger (Speaker of the National Assembly of Czehoslovakia), who attacked the discontented writers immediately during the congress debates. Kopecký held his speech without having consulted with other members of the Party leadership. Therefore, initially, at the first session of the Political Bureau since the General Party Conference on June 30, 1956, he was criticized not only by A. Zápotocký, but also by Antonín Novotný, the First Secretary of CPCz. On the other hand, another member of the Political Bureau, Czechoslovak Minister of Interior Rudolf Barák, backed Kopecký up. Finally, the Czechoslovak Party leadership gave its support to Kopecký.33

In the summer and autumn of 1956, Kultúrny život published editorials written by the former Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPS (1944) and the President of the Slovak Academy of Sciences Ondrej Pavlík, who criticized the Party policy towards intellectuals and reform of education system in 1953 prepared by the Commissioner for Education and Culture Ernest Sýkora, representative of the hard-liners within the CPS.34 However, Pavlík was known not only as the author of some of the abovementioned articles indirectly attacking the members of the Slovak Party leadership. Several times, he had expressed his support of the rehabilitation of the communist victims of Stalinist political trials, namely in the case of Gustáv Husák and Ladislav Novomeský, who had been accused of “Slovak bourgeois nationalism” and sentenced in 1954.35 The resistance of the group of writers connected with Kultúrny život would probably have been impossible without close informal contacts with some of the members of Central Committee of the CPS apparatus, such as Ladislav Ťažký (who was also a writer), Ján Komiňár (instructor of the Central Committee of the CPS for literature), and philosopher Ján Uher (assistant to Augustín Michalička), who supported the pro-reform initiatives.36 Uher was the author of a noticeable article in which he inspired intellectuals to communicate with other social strata.37 However, the activities of these intellectuals and their informal meetings and discussions were monitored by the state security forces, and the state security officers sent regular information about them to the CPS leadership.

The leadership of the CPS discussed the activities of Slovak writers only in autumn 1956, on the eve of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. The report of the state security forces from September 1956 characterized Špitzer as a “saboteur.” According to the document, Špitzer and his collaborators “fight consciously, but in a sophisticated way, not only against certain party officials,38 but against the party leadership in general.”39 Novotný put pressure on Bacílek as well. He participated in the session of the Bureau of CPS on October 18, 1956, at which he stressed the “uneven development of the understanding of results of 20th Congress in Slovakia and in Czech lands.” According to him, there had been no open attacks against the party leadership in the Czech lands, but “[they] continue in Slovakia.” At the same time, he appealed to the leadership of the CPS to solve the “shortcomings in Kultúrny život.” Bacílek preferred a successive approach to a frontal attack. He considered removing Špitzer from Kultúrny život, strengthening censorship, and organizing a talk with Kupec. If they wouldn’t renounce their views, disciplinary measures would be taken. However, Novotný accused Bacílek of adopting a defensive approach. As a consequence of his intervention the report focusing on the ideological issues in Slovakia, which had been prepared by Bacílek, was rejected by the Bureau, which meant the weakening of the position of the First Secretary of the CPS. Subsequently, the so-called “Slovak bourgeois nationalism” was proclaimed the main political threat, and the campaign against it was resumed. Špitzer, according to Bacílek, was the “elder statesman,” i.e. an informal leader among the writers. As he said, Kupec was perceived by the CPS leadership as a man with “anti-Marxist” views, together with some other former interwar surrealist poets (Vladimír Reisel, Štefan Žáry, Pavol Bunčák) and novelist Bednár. The alliance of the rebelling intellectuals with some former Communist politicians (Špitzer, Plávka) was perceived by Bacílek and Pavol David as a threat to their power. According to Michalička, the Union of Slovak Writers became a “center of revisionist ideas,” and he stressed that not Špitzer, but the Secretary of Union Štítnický was the main source of their inspiration.40

Events in Hungary and Poland in October 1956 and the Suppression
of the Writers’ Resistance

The uprising in Hungary in October 1956 postponed a prepared intervention against the Union of Slovak Writers. Although the so-called “Polish October,” i.e. the appointment of the former victim of Stalinist persecutions Władysław Gomułka to the position of First Secretary of the Polish United Workers’ Party and the consequent liberalization of public life, was perceived by the CPCz leadership in a negative way, many Slovak intellectuals sympathized with the changes taking place in Poland. Tough censorship, however, did not allow them to publish any articles opposing the anti-intellectual stance of the CPCz leadership or the speech of Kopecký. Not only Mňačko, but also Mináč were not allowed to publish their articles or open letters reacting to Kopecký’s speech at the Party Conference in June 1956.41

At its session on October 24, 1956, the Party Group within the Union of Slovak Writers did not accept the interpretation of “Polish October” presented by Bacílek. According to its members, the “slowness of democratization, not the democratization itself, caused the events.” Špitzer considered preparing a protest against the dissolution of the Union of Hungarian Writers, but poet Ján Kostra, playwright Peter Karvaš, and Štítnický were against such a step.42 Finally, on October 26, 1956, the leadership of the Union of Czechoslovak Writers decided to condemn the Hungarian uprising “after the intervention of the Party.” Even writers who presented critical attitudes towards the official politics of CPCz before October 1956 participated in the discussions with the citizens living in southern Slovakia, organized by the CPS leadership, including Štítnický, Špitzer, Mináč, Ferko, and others. The aim of these discussions was to prevent the anti-communist mobilization of the members of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia in support of the Hungarian revolution.43

In spite of these intentions, Kultúrny život was criticized by the head of the Board of Commissioners Rudolf Strechaj because of the alleged misguidedness of the Hungarian revolution. In November 1956, similar statements were made during the informal meeting of Bacílek, Michalička, and other Party officials with writers at the premises of the Central Committee of the CPS. The criticism of some Czechoslovak writers to the official policy of CPCz didn’t mean their support to the Hungarian revolution. Therefore, Mňačko in March 1957 joined the delegation of Czechoslovak writers, together with Bohumil Říha, Jiří Marek (from Czech lands) and Viktor Egri (Hungarian writer from South Slovakia)44 to Hungary to conduct a meeting with Hungarian writers Pál Szabó and Pétér Véres. Their mission was to persuade Hungarian writers to support the regime of the new head of Hungarian Socialist Worker’s Party János Kádár.45

In December 1956, the CPS leadership started to use tougher language addressing the Slovak writers. This was in line with the new campaign against “revisionism,” i.e. attempts at political liberalization in the Soviet bloc. On December 15, 1956, Bacílek threatened to prohibit the insubordinate from publishing. David, as the main hardliner within the CPS leadership, quoted the slogan pronounced by Klement Gottwald: “We will not allow subversion of the republic,” which meant the direct threat of violent persecutions.46 Hečko, who by this time was the chairman of the Union of Slovak Writers and remained committed to the official stance of the CPS, fell into full isolation within organization. He was no longer able to control it, although the party leaders expressed appreciation for his loyalist positions several times. This was the reason for his resignation. In the letter addressed to the CPS leadership on 31 December 1956, he stressed that his resignation was a “protest against the ideological distortions and revisionist tendencies within the Union of Slovak Writers and in all their facilities.” He announced his withdrawal from the Union as well. Lazarová followed Hečko, and she withdrew from all duties within the Union of Slovak Writers as well, but she remained a member of organization.47

In spite of the increasingly open threats to the writers and the intervention of the official censorship, Kultúrny život pushed to continue its previous course. The editorial in the New Year issue in January 1957 confirmed the commitment of the journal to the 2nd Congress of Czechoslovak Writers. Kultúrny život was sharply attacked by the pro-regime writers, such as Miloš Krno48 and poetess Krista Bendová.49 Ideological Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPS Michalička was entrusted with the task of preparing a report on the situation in Kultúrny život and suggesting appropriate personnel measures. On the grounds of the reports of the state security forces, a new “categorization” of the Slovak writers and intellectuals was prepared. Hečko, Plávka, Mňačko, Lajčiak, Lazarová, Krno, and Bendová, along with philosophers Ladislav Szántó, Andrej Sirácky, and Michal Topoľský, literary scientist Andrej Mráz, historian Miloš Gosiorovský, and actor Andrej Bagar were evaluated in a positive way as loyal and committed to the Party. The second group of writers, who were not “on the platform of Socialism and Socialist Realism,” was, according to respective reports, represented by Špitzer, Tatarka, Kupec, Smrek, Reisel, Pavlík, Štítnický, poet Pavol Horov, literary scientist Alexander Matuška, etc. The third group, represented by poets Kostra and Vojtech Mihálik and novelist Ferdinand Gabaj, was characterized as “neutral.”50 However, the division of writers and intellectuals was more complicated. Some members of the first group were people who had joined the Communist Party before World War II or before the communist coup in February 1948, such as Szántó, Július J. Šefránek, Krno, Lajčiak, Sirácky, Plávka and Bagar, but some of them joined the Communist Party only after 1948, either out of of fear (Matuška) or for reasons of professional ambition, as in the case of Hečko, Gosiorovský, Mráz, Mihálik, Kostra, and others. Some of the intellectuals, who were mentioned in the category of “loyal” party members, already adopted a more critical stance with regards to the official course of CPCz, namely Mňačko and Lazarová. However, Mňačko, in spite of his critical remarks concerning official politics, maintained a close personal friendship with Bacílek,51 and Lazarová was a secret informant of the state security forces. Some writers (Horov, Matuška) manifested their critical stance towards the politics of the CPCz only in private conversations, but the state security forces were well informed about these conversations. By that time, Smrek and Lukáč had been sent into “internal exile”. Before the establishment of communist rule, they had been prominent poets, but due to their political engagement or non-Marxist ideological orientations they were essentially not allowed to publish their works.52

Bednár, who was not a member of the Communist Party and expressed his critical stance towards Stalinism, had been assumed to be the exemplary victim of the planned repressive measures, announced by David. His book Hodiny a minúty [Hours and Minutes], (1956) contained critical reflections on the moral failures of some active participants in the anti-fascist resistance after World War II and during the period of Stalinism. He wrote about misuses of power, careerism, etc. The book was published during the short period of political “thaw” in 1956, when censorship was more relaxed. The official daily of the CPS, Pravda [Truth], published a review by an official of the Central Committee of the CPS apparatus Viliam Šalgovič (who was a former officer of the state security forces). According to him, Bednár was on the same platform as the people “we had fought against in the past,” i.e. on the platform of the fascists and enemies of Socialism.53 The state security forces considered imprisoning him, but the Party group in the Union of Slovak Writers in autumn 1956 refused to persecute Bednár. His book was reviewed in a positive way by many other writers and literary scientists, including Mňačko, Michal Chorváth, Ján Rozner, and others. In fact, none of the intellectuals was willing to publish a negative review, which would have contributed to his eventual imprisonment. On the other hand, the Commissioner of Interior Oskár Jeleň stated that the content of Bednár’s book was “scary” and aimed “against our regime.” He pointed out that the editors of Kultúrny život regularly submitted articles with “doubtful content,” and they tried to persuade the officials of the STD to allow them to be published. Other members of the Bureau of the CPS urged the adoption of rigorous measures. David stressed that the conflict with Kultúrny život had to be solved at least before the CPS congress, scheduled for April 1957.54 The Slovak leadership put economic pressure on the Union of Slovak Writers as well. They reduced the circulation of the literary journals Kultúrny život, Mladá tvorba, and Slovenské pohľady [Slovak views], all of which were published by the Union, allegedly because of a “shortage of paper.”55 Whereas Bednár managed to publish his book in the short period of thaw, the publication of a volume of short stories by Mináč entitled Z nedávnych čias [From the recent past],56 which was prepared for release in 1957, was forbidden.

The presidium of the Union of Slovak Writers initiated an informal meeting with Zápotocký. The head of the Union’s delegation was the chair of the Party group within the Union, translator Zora Jesenská. Špitzer was also a member of the delegation. He tried to explain to the president the arguments of the discontented writers. He rejected the notion that there was any connection between the “discussion” in Czechoslovakia and the Hungarian revolution, but he also disputed the official interpretation of the events in Hungary. According to him, the mere lack of the free exchange of ideas was the reason for the conflict. Zápotocký, however, did not make any changes to the hardline cultural policy. He stressed that the Party would not allow any discussion “aimed to destroy the target: socialism.” “You can discuss at the closed meetings, we can admit even heretical views there, but not in public.”57

The Slovak Party leadership decided on March 22, 1957 to establish a special commission at the Bureau led by Jeleň. At the same time, before the establishment of the commission, the members of the Bureau of the CPS decided to indicate Pavlík as an “ideological leader” of the “group” around the Kultúrny život, Kupec and Tatarka were indicated to be the main representatives of the “wrong views.” Špitzer was accused of being responsible for the publication of their works, and Štítnický was blamed for alleged “dodging and temporizing” within the leadership of the Union of Slovak Writers. Although Tatarka was criticized several times by the high-ranking party official, at least he was not identified as a member of this “group.” The purpose of the commission was to force the abovementioned intellectuals to deliver “self-criticism.”

The target of criticism was not only the Union of Writers and the literary journals Kultúrny život and Mladá tvorba, but also the Section of the Social Sciences in the Slovak Academy of Sciences, some other publishing houses, the Faculty of Arts of the Comenius University in Bratislava, and the journal Slovenské pohľady.” David suggested accusing the “group” consisting of Pavlík, Špitzer, Kupec and Štítnický of “bourgeois nationalism.” “We didn’t fight against them enough,” he contended.

The members of the commission established by the Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPS accused Pavlík and his colleagues of being the Slovak version of the “Petöfi circle,” the Hungarian forum of intellectual dissent in 1956. Jeleň compared the activities of Kultúrny život with the attempts to create a “second ideological center,” and the head of the Board of Commissioners accused Pavlík of ambitions to play the role of Imre Nagy in Slovakia. Initially, the Bureau of the CPS did not intend to expel the discontented intellectuals from the Party. However, the Czechoslovak Party leadership decided on April 9, 1957 to expel Pavlík from the Communist Party. Other members of the so-called “group,” i.e. Špitzer, Kupec, and Štítnický, were removed from their positions within the Union of Slovak Writers. Pro-regime poet Plávka was appointed as the new secretary of the Union of Slovak Writers. However, in his reply to a question of Novotný regarding the scope of the “group,” Bacílek insisted that Tatarka and Mináč were involved, in part. He stressed the existence of the close ties with other former Slovak high-ranking Communist politicians, namely Edo Friš, Samuel Falťan, and Anton Rašla.

In spite of the political and economic pressure put on the Union of Slovak Writers by the CPS leadership, the Party organization at the Union did not accept the resolution against Pavlík and Kultúrny život. Ján Prohácka became the new editor-in-chief of the journal. The campaign against the writers continued in June 1956, after the plenary session of the Central Committee of CPCz, which focused on ideological issues. Secretary of the Central Committee of CPCz Hendrych stressed that the CPCz leadership would not allow a “hostile crusade as a token of the struggle against so-called Stalinism, that is, an attempt to destroy the revolutionary foundations of our Marxist-Leninist doctrine.” He refused any manifestations of so-called “revisionism,” and he identified the major task as “discovering and disarming” all of its expressions permanently.58 Kopecký addressed his speech directly to the Union of Czechoslovak Writers. He demanded explicit distancing from the speeches that had been given by Hrubín and Seifert at the Congress in April 1956. He accused Mináč and Tatarka of “liberalism.”59 Subsequently, at the plenary session of Czech writers on June 26, 1957, the leaders of the Union of Czechoslovak Writers delivered a self-critical report, in which they rejected all “wrong tendencies.”60 The resolution of the plenary session contained a condemnation of the statements made at the Congress in 1956. Although the Slovak Union of Writers was only the regional branch of the single centralized writers’ union in Czechoslovakia, its reactions to Hendrych’s and Kopecký’s speeches were different. The leadership of the Slovak organization unanimously approved the thesis of Hendrych’s report, but they did not adopt any resolution condemning the writers’ congress or the activities of Kultúrny život. The enlarged session of the Party group at the Union of Slovak Writers convoked on September 18–19, 1957 in the presence of Bacílek, Jeleň, and Michalička with the aim of condemning the congress did not meet the expectations of the organizers. In fact, only Krno, Hečko, and the representative of the group of Ukrainian writers living in Slovakia supported the speeches of the official representatives of the Communist Party. The rest of writers present either did not say anything or rejected the persecutions against Kultúrny život, for instance Špitzer, Kupec, Mňačko, Štítnický, Mináč, Karvaš, and even the writers considered loyal pillars of the official cultural policy, such as Kostra. Some members of the Bureau of the Central Committee of CPS analyzing the results of the session said that the CPS did not have any “core” within the writers’ organization. The Slovak Party leadership considered the results of the meeting with the writers a clear failure. Therefore, the plenary session of the entire Union of Slovak Writers took place only on December 19–20, 1957, but the issue of the writers’ congress in April 1956 was not discussed.61 In February 1958, Tatarka was forced to withdraw from the Committee of the Union of Writers as well. The reasons were his articles published in Kultúrny život.

Conclusions

The rebellion conducted by some of the Czechoslovak intellectuals in 1956 was suppressed. However, whereas in the Czech lands the Czechoslovak Party leadership successfully managed to compel or persuade writers to capitulate, i.e. to distance themselves from the 2nd Congress of Czechoslovak Writers in April 1956, in Slovakia they did not enjoy the same success. Although the Slovak writers were not more radical in their requirements than their Czech colleagues, they resisted more efficaciously. The leadership of CPS was forced to restore control over the writers’ union and literary journals through administrative measures, although they tried to avoid it. One of the very important results of the short-term liberalization of cultural policy in Slovakia in the spring of 1956 was the establishment of the new literary journal Mladá tvorba. The new journal provided a forum for the publication of several “generation layers”62 of younger poets and writers who had not been able to or had not wanted to publish their works after 1948, because the works in question had not conformed to the obligatory style of “Socialist Realism.” From this perspective, the new milestones in Slovak literature were not only the novels and short stories by Bednár or “Demon of Agreement” by Tatarka, but also the publication of the first collection of poetry by Milan Rúfus (Až dozrieme, or “When We Grow Mature,” 1956), which became a signal of the comeback of lyrical poetry based on the individual’s reflections on the surrounding world. At the same time, the poetry of Kupec (Nížinami, výšinami, 1955) was a signal of the return to the sensualist poetry characteristic of the interwar avant-garde movements. The “thaw” in 1956 brought the first attempts to return to literature by non-communist authors, which had been forbidden since 1948. However, the process of the “rehabilitation” of the Slovak non-communist literary heritage took a long time, and it continued well into the second half of 1960s. In spite of the strengthening of censorship, which began in the summer of 1956, the volume of the new poetry of Smrek was published in 1958 (Obraz sveta, “Image of the World”), which contained several allegorical allusions to communist ideology and politics.

The most significant change was a discreet, unspectacular change in the relations between intellectuals and power. This process had already begun in 1955, thus, the 20th Congress of the CPSU was not so much a new spark as it was an event that catalyzed and accelerated discussions among the Slovak writers. Very strong informal ties persisted between pro-communist intellectuals, who remained committed to the official ideology in spite of having criticized the cultural policy of the regime and the lack of the freedom of speech. This was true of writers such as Mňačko, Štítnický, Mináč and Špitzer. On the other hand, if the ruling elites wanted to restore their control over the Union of Writers and the journal Kultúrny život, they could not rely on the loyal writers within the union and the literary community. They were forced to take administrative measures. Due to the low support among intellectuals, but also due to the exhaustion of the rigid style known as Socialist Realism, it was impossible to restore the esthetics and power relations in the field of culture that had prevailed in the period before 1956. The mechanisms of direct control and censorship were still applied, but to a lesser extent than in the first half of 1950s. In addition to these mechanisms, mechanisms of “negotiation” were often applied, especially in terms of censorship. The lack of any direct confrontation between the communist power and intellectuals in 1956 contributed to the gradual liberalization of cultural policy during the second wave of de-Stalinization in Czechoslovakia, which began in 1963. Although the “cultural ferment” in Czechoslovakia and, in particular, in Slovakia was in many ways connected with the processes underway at the time in Poland and Hungary, it was an autonomous movement. In the case of postwar Czechoslovakia, it is significant that even the clashes between the intellectuals and power took place, to a large extent, separately in the Czech lands and Slovakia.

Archival sources

Archív Asociácie organizácií spisovateľov Slovenska [Archives of the Association of the Organization of Writers of Slovakia], fond II. zjazd Zväzu československých spisovateľov.

National Archives in Prague (NA), Archives of Central Committee of Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (A ÚV KSČ), fond 01 – Plenary sessions of the Central Committee of CPCz.

National Archives in Prague (NA), Archives of Central Committee of Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (A ÚV KSČ), fond 02/2 – Presidium of the Central Committee of CPCz.

Personal Archives of Dalma Špitzerová.

Slovak National Archives (SNA), Archives of the Central Committee of Communist Party of Slovakia (A ÚV KSS), fond – Presidium of Central Committee of CPS (PÚV KSS).

Bibliography

II. sjezd Svazu československých spisovatelů 22.–29. 4. 1956, vol. I. (protokol) [2nd Congress of the Union of Czechoslovak Writers, 22–29 April 1956, vol. 1. protocol], edited by Michal Bauer. Prague: Akropolis, 2011.

Bátorová, Mária. Dominik Tatarka: Slovenský Don Quijote [Dominik Tatarka: The Slovak Don Quijote]. Bratislava: Veda, 2012.

Bednár, Alfonz. Sklený vrch [The glass hill]. Bratislava: Slovenský spisovateľ, 1954.

Choma, Branislav. “Literatúra a naša doba” [Literature and our era]. Kultúrny život 11, no. 15 (1956): 4

Chorváth, Michal. “Pred plenárkou slovenských spisovateľov” [Before the plenary session of Slovak writers]. Kultúrny život 12, no. 35 (1957): 1–4.

Drug, Štefan. “Premeny umeleckého života po roku 1948” [The changes in an artistic life after 1948]. In Umenie v službách totality 1948–1953 [Art in the service of totalitarianism], edited by Štefan Drug, 17–38. Bratislava: Ústav slovenskej literatúry, 2000.

Ferko, Milan. “Z diskusie na II. sjazde československých spisovateľov” [From the discussion at the second Congress of Czechoslovak Writers]. Kultúrny život 11, no. 19 (1956): 4.

Hečko, František. Drevená dedina [The wooden village]. Bratislava: Slovenský spisovateľ, 1951.

Hečko, František. “To je to, v čom sa rozchádzame” [This is the substance of our split]. Kultúrny život 10, no. 51 (1955): 6.

Hečko, František, and Mária Jančová. Denníky 1938–1960 [Diaries 1938–1960]. Bratislava: Marenčin PT 2011.

Kaplan, Karel. Mocní a bezmocní [Powerful and powerless]. Toronto: Sixty-eight Publishers, 1989.

Kopeček, Michal. Hledání ztraceného smyslu revoluce [Seeking the lost sense of revolution]. Prague: Argo 2009.

Krno, Miloš: “Zastieraním nesprávnych názorov nepomôžeme literature” [We won’t help the literature by concealing the wrong views]. Kultúrny život 12, no. 5 (1957): 6.

Kupec, Ivan. “Na obranu poézie” [In defense of poetry]. Kultúrny život 10, no. 44 (1955): 4–5.

Kupec, Ivan. Nížinami výšinami [Through the lowlands, through the highlands]. Bratislava: Slovenský spisovateľ, 1955.

Lajčiak, Milan. “Diskusný príspevok Milana Lajčiaka” [Contribution of Milan Lajčiak]. Kultúrny život 11 no. 3 (1956): 6.

Lazarová, Katarína. “Z diskusie na II. sjazde československých spisovateľov” [From the discussion at the 2nd Congress of Czechoslovak Writers]. Kultúrny život 11, no. 19 (1956): 3–4.

Leikert, Jozef. Taký bol Ladislav Mňačko [This was Ladislav Mňačko]. Bratislava: Luna, 2008.

Matejovič, Pavel. “Mináč ako záhadný autor?” [Mináč as a mysterious author?]. In Mináč, Vladimír. Zakázané prózy [Forbidden works of prose], 9–18. Bratislava: Kalligram, 2015.

Matejovič, Pavel. Vladimír Mináč a podoby literárneho diskurzu druhej polovice 20. storočia [Vladimír Mináč and the shape of the literary discourse in the second half of the twentieth century]. Bratislava: Kalligram, 2013.

Matuška, Alexander. “O slovenskej poézii” [On Slovak poetry]. Kultúrny život 11, no. 16b (1956): 6–10.

Mináč, Vladimír. “Kríza kritérií” [The crisis of criteria]. Kultúrny život 10, no. 49 (1955): 6-7.

Mňačko, Ladislav. “Z prvých dní diskusie” [From the first days of discussion]. Kultúrny život 11, no. 17 (1956): 11.

Petrík, Vladimír. Hodnoty a podnety [Values and impulses]. Bratislava: Slovenský spisovateľ, 1980.

Rúfus, Milan. Až dozrieme [When we mature]. Bratislava: Slovenský spisovateľ, 1956.

Seifert, Jaroslav. “Z diskusie na II. sjazde československých spisovateľov” [From the discussion at the 2nd Congress of Czechoslovak Writers]. Kultúrny život 11, no. 18 (1956): 3.

Shore, Marci. “Engineering in the Age of Innocence: A Genealogy of Discourse Inside the Czechoslovak Writer´s Union, 1949–67.” East European Politics and Societies 12, no. 3 (1998): 397–441.

Smrek, Ján. Obraz sveta [The image of the world]. Bratislava: Slovenský spisovateľ, 1958.

Štítnický, Ctibor. “Za úspech II. Sjazdu čs. Spisovateľov, za ďalší rozkvet slovenskej literatúry” [For the success of the 2nd Congress of Czechoslovak Writers, for the further development of Slovak literature]. Kultúrny život 11, no. 7 (1956): 3–4.

Štítnický, Ctibor. “Úlohy slovenských spisovateľov po II. sjazde československých spisovateľov” [The tasks of Slovak writers after the 2nd Congress of Czechoslovak Writers]. Kultúrny život 11, no. 22 (1956):1, 3–4.

Tatarka, Dominik. Démon súhlasu [Demon of agreement]. Kultúrny život 11, no. 15, 16, 17 (1956)

Tatarka, Dominik. “Diskusný príspevok Dominika Tatarku” [The discussion contribution of Dominik Tatarka]. Kultúrny život 11, no. 2 (1956): 4.

Tatarka, Dominik. “Slovo k súčasníkom o literature” [Talk to the fellows about literature]. Kultúrny život 10, no. 47 (1955): 6–7.

Tatarka, Dominik. “Malé vysvetlenie” [A little explanation]. Kultúrny život 11, no. 25 (1956): 3.

“Treba posilniť podiel tvorcov pri formovaní nášho života” [The share of creators in the shaping of our life should be strengthened]. Kultúrny život 11, no. 9 (1956): 3.

Uher, Ján: “Problémy a úlohy našej inteligencie” [Problems and tasks of our intelligentsia]. Kultúrny život 11, no. 34 (1956): 9.

“Zo snemovania Sväzu čs. Spisovateľov” [From the session of the Union of Czechoslovak Writers]. Kultúrny život 12, no. 27 (1957): 1, 3, 6.

Florentine Families in Hungary in the First Half of the Fifteenth Century*

Krisztina Arany

National Archives of Hungary

 

This essay, based on a prosopographic database backed by extensive archival research both in Florence and Hungary, offers an overview on the patterns of the presence of Florentine merchants in medieval Hungary. Among the research questions, the Florentine businessmen’s main fields of interest in the kingdom are of utmost importance, because their interests shaped the patterns of their presence in the kingdom. Also, their financial and economic background in Florence significantly influenced the opportunities they had in Hungary. Thus, the forms of cooperation within the closer local and extended international networks within which they moved prove to be revealing with regards to business as it was run in Hungary. The reconstruction of this network also allows us to identify clusters of Florentine business partners residing in Florence who were investing in Hungary by cooperating with their fellow countrymen actively present in the country. I also offer a detailed analysis of the Florentines’ use of credit in Hungary, focusing on both commercial and money credit transactions and the various forms of transactions used to run business ventures there. Finally, I examine Buda’s role as a royal seat and major trade hub from the point of view of the two major foreign trading diasporas hosted in the town, the Italian/Florentine and southern German ethnic groups. I offer a comparative analysis of their interaction and the different patterns of their social ambitions and economic activity in Buda.

Keywords: Florentine merchants, German merchants, Hungary, Buda, King Sigismund of Luxemburg, Florentine Catasto, financial administration, economic relations

 

Introduction

Florentine merchants were present all over medieval Europe, trading in a wide range of goods, providing large loans, and holding key offices in financial administrations in several regions, including Central Europe. In this essay, I offer an overview of the patterns of their presence in medieval Hungary. In particular, I seek to explore the economic and social context provided by the Hungarian Kingdom for a relatively large number of Florentine businessmen working there, whose activity is documented in both Florentine and Hungarian sources.

The study of the activities of Florentine merchants in various geographical regions of medieval Europe looks back on a long historiographic tradition. However, for a number of reasons, in this context, Central Europe has been considered an area of less importance in the international scholarship.1 In Hungary, in contrast, the question of medieval Florentine–Hungarian relations has been a subject of interest in the scholarship from as early as the late nineteenth century. The majority of the works focusing on the topic, however, address predominantly the history of diplomatic relations, leaving out the study of economic affairs partly because of a lack of relevant source material available in Hungary at the time. However, this neglect of the socio-economic aspects of the presence in Hungary of a social cluster characterized by marked international mercantile activity today seems symptomatic of a somewhat misleading approach. Fortunately, this tendency to regard political historical analysis as the priority when addressing the topic has undergone a shift in recent decades, as evidenced by a number of recent economic historical studies.2 These inquiries lay the foundations for more thorough analyses of Florentine–Hungarian economic relations in the Hungarian historical context.

Following in the footsteps of these recent publications on the topic and, at the same time, making extensive use of new possibilities provided by the easier access to information (the result of mass digitization, processing, and the online publication of archival sources), I pursued research on the different aspects of the economic activity and social strategies of the Florentine families working in Hungary, drawing on as diverse an array of sources as possible. My research yielded a set of data, which can be regarded as unusually rich in the Central European context, as it includes written evidence from various Florentine, Hungarian, German, etc. archives. Building also on hitherto unused evidence, I explore new aspects of these businessmen’s strategies in Hungary. I also revisit some of the earlier research questions.3

My methodology is based on a comparative analysis carried out on two levels: a quantitative and qualitative one. The first is a generalized survey of the research questions from the whole data set collected in the form of a prosopographic database. The latter, the so-called micro level, consists of case studies of the activities of a few of the most characteristic and best documented families. This qualitative analysis is meant to function as a control for the results of the quantitative inquiry.4

A Word on the Sources

The prosopographic database primarily contains information from the fond of the Florentine Catasto, the documentation on the new, direct taxation system introduced in Florence in 1427.5 This is a corpus of fiscal documents, and it is homogeneous, unified, and extremely rich in information. Also, the Datini Archives of Prato were worth exploring, because a significant cluster of Prato businessmen were present in Central Europe.6 In addition, I examined the online Regesta Imperii and the digitized archival records and database of the Monasterium, looking in particular for information related to King Sigismund’s Florentine noble retainers (familiares). The data yielded by the Hungarian archival material is much smaller in quantity.7 Nevertheless, I consider these records very important complementary evidence, since the study is also intended as a comparative and complementary survey of the available Florentine fiscal sources and the rather scattered Central European records. The latter records also provide valuable evidence concerning the Florentines’ social and economic integration in this region, something not documented in the Italian archival material at all.8

This dataset, of course, could still be enlarged if further research were feasible in other rich holdings of the Florentine archives, and the project is still far from being complete. At present, the prosopographic database includes altogether 191 persons belonging to 100 Florentine families who worked or invested in Hungary. Out of this sample, 81 persons (43 families) appeared personally in the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary on at least one occasion. The database contains 31 families who had several family members (altogether 94 persons) interested in business in the territory of the kingdom, of whom 77 businessmen personally worked in the region. Where there were several family members of the same generation (basically brothers or cousins), 10 families (17 persons) are listed along with another nine families (31 persons) who stayed and established themselves in the kingdom for at least two generations. The latter two groups, altogether 19 families with 48 persons, are particularly relevant for the analysis of their attitude towards integration within the socio-economic structures they encountered in the Hungarian Kingdom.9

Florentines in the Hungarian Financial Administration

Florentine businessmen engaged in an array of activities in the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary. In all probability, the most important and best documented of these was their participation in the financial administration. In the case of the businessmen who were active in administration, we have a more complete picture of their activity, because the Florentine Catasto’s open account reported on the features of the complementary trading-banking operations, partners, and their social and economic backgrounds, and the majority of the scattered records preserved in Hungary and elsewhere in the region provide precious insights into their tasks as royal officers and noble retainers and their relations with local communities. Finally, these scattered sources sometimes corrected the picture given in the tax declarations on these merchants’ rather poor business profits in the kingdom. Therefore, I first outline and analyze the chronology of the first appearances of these merchants and their main activities in the kingdom.

Their presence was mainly tied to the collection of papal incomes and the lease and exploitation of mines for precious metals and salt until the second half of the fifteenth century. Based on the prosopography, of the 35 Florentines settled for a longer period of time in Hungary, 30 individuals (19 families) worked in the financial administration. The administration of royal revenues was a traditional field of activity for Florentine businessmen working abroad.10 The written records reveal their presence in the financial administration of a number of countries, including England, France, the German lands, and Poland. This kind of activity differed in its possibilities and duties from the work of the collectors of papal revenues.11 Unlike the collectors, who acted as part of an extended international network which also involved the great banking houses, the activity of the officers of the Hungarian royal chambers was based on their relationships as noble retainers to the chief officers, in other words, the counts of the chambers who employed them, and the leading office holders were also bound as servants to the king himself. The formation of royal monopolies required their prolonged presence in the country and their regular interaction with both the royal court and, in the case of second-level officers of the royal monopolies, also with members of the local nobility and urban clusters.12 Thus, for someone to work in the royal financial administration, it was preferable that he was continuously present in person, and it also required greater flexibility and an ability to adapt to changing conditions and increased the probability of someone settling in the chamber centers. The administrative reforms introduced by King Sigismund in 1395–97 set the framework for a mixed system of appointed officers and entrepreneurs, who managed the centralized chamber system, contrary to the previous general lease system of the chambers.13 Most of the Florentine office holders were rather officers and financial experts than entrepreneurs, especially in the case of the salt chambers and the offices of the thirtieth custom of the kingdom.14 This is confirmed by the research on the financial background of officers of Florentine origin. The information gathered is particularly revealing, as it shows that most of them, in fact, did not dispose of larger amounts of capital.15 The importance of the salt chambers is best shown by the keen participation of these businessmen in the proffered positions under the leadership of Filippo di Stefano Scolari.16 This, however, is not reflected in the Florentine Catasto entries, in which little mention is made on shipments of salt, an item generally considered a regular ware traded over long distances. Hungarian sources, on the other hand, include mentions of officers often being paid with salt, which had to be put to market.17

Many of the businessmen in the table of officers of mining and minting chambers also held offices in the salt administration on occasion.18 Sometimes, they were responsible for several offices in the same royal monopoly or even managed different monopolies at the same time. The counts of mining and minting chambers also had to fulfil local jurisdictional tasks. In a few cases, members of the same family acted in one another’s stead in the same office with royal permission, particularly in the case of the offices of salt chambers. Generally speaking, a restricted circle of leading officers of the salt and mining chambers replaced one another in the most important offices from year to year. This mobility also confirms that this replacement represented a shift in the top positions of the financial administration, and not new lease contracts.19 The only striking exceptions are the members of the Manini family, who focused almost exclusively on salt administration. This also limited their mobility, which remained confined geographically to Transylvania and the Maramureş region, where most of the salt mines were found. Transylvania seems distinctive as, at the moment, only one Florentine officer is known to have shifted offices between the salt administration and the mining and minting chambers found in that region.20

Also, the theory of business competition between southern German and Italian, mainly Florentine businessmen in the royal monopoly of precious metal mining at the turn of the fifteenth century (a theory further reinforced by the events between 1402–1403, which led to the expulsion of the Italian inhabitants of Buda and the seizure of their properties) needs to be reconsidered.21 The image of strong conflicts of interests should be revisited, particularly for Buda, in the light of new findings.22 Buda had a considerable Florentine community at the time. Citizenship in the city of Buda was also necessary for the Florentines working for the Buda minting chamber and trading in the first half of the fifteenth century. Furthermore, after 1410 Buda became the center of the royal financial administration (chambers), following King Sigismund’s centralizing reforms. The database also contains information on the appearance of southern Germans with Florentines in the royal administration, in particular on a count of the Buda minting chamber, Michael Nadler, a Buda burgher and judge and a member of the leading urban elite of southern German origin.23 He shared this office with Giovanni Noffri.24 In any case, King Sigismund’s preference to employ Florentine and southern German financial experts was probably mainly motivated by his desire to make the existing administration more efficient and draw as much liquid assets as possible from the royal monopolies.

The Buda Partnerships

The evidence concerning trade practices of Florentines in Hungary is much less representative in Hungarian archival material than the information on financial administration. Thus, the set of data provided in the 1427 Florentine Catasto of three Florentine companies with Buda as their principal seat (for the Carnesecchi–Fronte, the Melanesi, and the Panciatichi firms) is essential to any effort to obtain a more complete image of their activity and also of Buda’s position, at least in a regional context. Due to the array of information and the central position of the three partnerships in the business network of Florentines working in Hungary, social aspects and business forms are also addressed in detail. The members of the partnerships working in Hungary mostly ranked among the merchant-bankers of middling wealth in Florence. Although they worked in a less developed region, they continued involving external capital, as was general for Florentine partnerships. Their start-up and working capital rank them among the average-size partnerships in Florence.

The proportion of Hungarian and Florentine partners and clients and the volume of business could only be addressed in the case of the Carnesecchi–Fronte and Melanesi companies. Among the Florentines listed in their declarations, one most frequently comes across mention of their fellow countrymen working or investing in Buda and in Hungary in the period covered by the records. It is no surprise, of course, that the sums involved in Hungarian business by Florentines were decidedly higher than those sums, mostly debts, listed by the names of Hungarian partners. In fact, comparing the two latter Buda companies, the most striking difference seems to be with respect to the proportion of Hungarian partners and clients with the Florentines. The lists of the Melanesi brothers reveal fewer Hungarians compared to the Carnesecchi–Fronte company. The latter firm lists mainly members of the Hungarian lay aristocracy and prelates among their debtors and creditors, in some cases with larger sums, usually loans (3–400 fl), by their names. The debts and loans of the Melanesis’ Hungarian partners varied in their volume: from small loans up to 100–200 fl. The lists reveal extensive cooperation with some prominent burghers of Buda, among them Michael Nadler (144 fl) and Gregory Ferenci Gubacsi (136 fl), who was interested in cattle trade and also served as the town judge of Pest.25 They also met the needs and accepted various commissions of the guests, diplomats, and members of the royal court.26 Some of the foreigners staying at the court of Sigismund can be identified in the Florentine Catasto lists, including the Genoese Bartolomeo Mosca, legate of the duke of Milan, and Peter, the first duke of Coimbra (1392–1449), son of King John I of Portugal.27

The most important client of the Florentine investors and partnerships, although quite often identified as the worst one in their tax declarations, was King Sigismund himself, though his wife, Queen Barbara, is also mentioned a few times in the lists.28 The constant need for liquidity is well-known and fairly comprehensible in the case of Sigismund of Luxemburg, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and king of Hungary. On the other hand, the ruler’s support and his commissions were of utmost importance to these international merchant-bankers, though his changing political relations with Florence rendered circumstances unstable for them at times. The direct relation some of them (including representatives of the three stable Buda companies) managed to achieve by entering into the ruler’s service as his noble retainers notably increased the business potential of the region for them. Not surprisingly, agents of the two Buda partnerships were granted royal support for their activity in the kingdom.29 Nevertheless, as was the case among the Florentines in England prior to the bankruptcies, some of Sigismund’s “bankers,” like the Melanesi, faced serious losses against other Florentine investors involved in the Hungarian business, in all probability partly due to delayed or neglected rendering of the loans provided for the king.30 The ruler seems to have compensated them for their losses in some way or another, but their legal situation back home was worsened by these circumstances. The rather negative, somewhat one-sided picture of him as a client in the Florentine Catasto’s open accounts can probably be ascribed to these difficulties.31 However, some Hungarian archival records also preserved mentions of transactions in which the debts owed to the Florentines were settled by King Sigismund.32 According to these records, the payments were usually fulfilled by pledging royal revenues, like that of the yearly gift of royal free towns, to settle smaller loans, or salt was allocated for the settling of larger loans. In other cases possessions, sometimes including towns, were pledged with the restraint of redemption.33

Among the Florentine investors present with their capital in Hungary, a few businessmen of medium or higher wealth were identified.34 Their investments were distinctive, as they were present in Hungary with different investment forms at the same time: a common pattern is that, in addition to investing in the Buda companies, they apparently also employed their own agent in the kingdom.35 As we saw above, the aim may have been to keep the proportion of long term and more liquid investments balanced.

The highest ranking Florentine investor entrepreneurs and partnerships in the Hungarian market disposed of sizeable amounts of capital.36 They were investing in the Florentine companies of Buda, but their investments made in Hungary were not high compared to their funds in other, more developed geographical regions. Hungary attracted them with its stock of precious metals and salt, and may also have served as a secondary market to attenuate investment risks. In case of disputes abroad between Florentine citizens, they could turn for legal decision to the court of the Mercanzia of Florence.37 This was also true for Florentine business partners in connection with their common business ventures in Hungary. The Florentines were also supported by their urban government. In cases involving business problems in foreign lands, Florentine diplomacy moved on behalf of its citizens.38 Of course, when the ruler was the debtor, these efforts were not always effective.

The participation of some medium and small-scale investors, mostly belonging to the kin group or neighborhood of other Florentine businessmen working in the kingdom, is a clear indication of solidarity within the kinship network, a strategy particularly characteristic in Florentine economic context explicitly in the cluster of medium and small-scale entrepreneurs.39

Transaction Types and Volumes

Another question addressed by the research concerns the volume of these transactions, or more precisely, whether the rate of commercial and money credits is also reflected in their volume. Of course, Hungary lacked intensive circulation of money. As was observed in the analysis of the transaction types, commercial credit was more prevalent than money credit.40 Both credit types were risky due to lack of necessary capital on the side of most of the potential local Hungarian or German business partners. Interests, however, were clearly higher than in Italy in the same period, which made such transactions favorable despite the relatively high risks they involved.41 The high number of Florentine crediting partners can mainly be ascribed to the general tendency of diminishing risks not really by contract enforcement, but mainly by making a greater number of lower investments in different companies working in different regions at the same time. Also, the fact that their clients were primarily members of the lay aristocracy or part of the royal court (including the ruler himself) implies that they needed to gather major capital, be it money credit or, in most cases, commercial credit, and thus a broader base of partners and external investors provided the required assets.

The number of transactions carried out between Florentine–Hungarian business partners compared to that of Florentine–Florentine partners participating in business in Hungary confirms at the outset the predominance of the latter (44 transactions versus 237). This can only partly be explained by the motivation of Florentines to hide the transactions that were difficult for the otherwise very thorough Florentine taxation authorities to verify. Clearly, references to Hungarian or local partners in Hungary could be easily avoided if the Florentines chose to do so, blaming differing regional uses of contracting business and the general lack of literacy in trade in Hungary.42 This is somewhat contested by information found in the correspondence of Florentine chamber officers among themselves in Hungary, because here one finds references to debtors and even mention of accountant books.43 However, one must also take into account that the data used by the Florentine fiscal authorities were provided primarily by Florentine investors in Florence whose direct business partners were mainly Florentines working in Hungary and who, therefore, rarely had detailed information concerning their partners’ local business contacts, nor presumably considered it worthwhile to enter these data into the tax returns. Only in a few cases, particularly in the tax returns of Florentine entrepreneurs who employed their own agents in the region, are names of Hungarian persons listed, although usually they are registered jointly as Hungarian debtors.44

To sum up, I identified a rather restricted circle of local partners in the records. Clearly, the number of Florentine partners collaborating to meet the demand for luxury goods among a narrow circle of local clients (mainly members of the lay aristocracy and the ecclesiastical elite) was higher than that of the local partners. Also, transaction types need to be addressed, although again in a rather limited way, because details concerning transactions are sporadic in the source material. Altogether, the information on the Florentines’ crediting activity found in the Florentine tax returns provides hitherto unknown details both on the volume of cargo and the business and banking techniques applied among the Florentines to supply the Hungarian market. The general lack of references to bills of exchange in the Florentine sources (and a similar absence of references in the Hungarian records) and the extremely few banking operations also clearly indicate the limits to international trade and banking, given the lower level of development in the region.45 At this point, however, one must also emphasize Venice’s role as a banking center and seat of branches of Florentine banking houses, which basically covered the transfer of ecclesiastical revenues, a traditional business of Florentines in Europe.46

Florentines and Southern Germans in Buda: A Comparative Analysis

The gradually developing database showed the clear regional geographical preferences of the Florentines in the Kingdom of Hungary and in Central Europe on a wider, regional scale, and thus led to the conclusion that the presence itself of the Florentines and also the shifts in the intensity of their presence in the regional hubs of Central Europe may be of interest and would yet position the Kingdom of Hungary, and especially Buda, within a regional context. For this reason, I examine the main features of Florentine diasporas in the region, with particular emphasis on Buda.47

Italian merchants in Buda aimed to supply the demand for luxury goods for the whole Hungarian market in this period.48 In Buda by the late fourteenth century, however, they confronted a new, fully integrated German elite (mainly coming from Nuremberg, although there were Buda burghers from Basel, Passau, Vienna etc. in lesser numbers), which in the meantime took over the leadership of the town. They replaced the former, fourteenth-century urban elites, which had been rather passive in long-distance trade but were at the same time eager to integrate into the Hungarian nobility in the most important urban offices.49

As shown above, the theory of conflict among German and Italian merchants in the town has been interpreted as the result of business competition. However, in the context of Buda, the ambitions and business targets of the two ethnic groups and the strategies they developed to meet them seem to have been complementary rather than contrasting when it came to trade.

From the information gathered so far, it seems that rather than competing with each other, the Italians and southern Germans of Buda divided the fields of operation among themselves. The Germans’ activity mainly focused on the sale of lower-value wools, even those coming from northern Italy (Verona), whereas trade in luxury goods and prestigious textiles was “left” to the Italian businessmen with major financial potential. The Florentines were able to provide the necessary capital for such trade by involving homeland investors, using well-developed banking techniques, and, finally, taking advantage of the extensive business networks within which they operated. They were also active in providing large loans, not only to the ruler, but to the members of the Hungarian aristocracy and to foreigners visiting the Hungarian royal court, as one sees in the case of the Buda companies.50 The sources on their business activity reveal the use of occasional banking services in the form of assignments and bills of exchange carried out mainly for prominent foreigners sojourning at the court.

Both Germans and Italians in Buda were interested in the operations related to royal monopolies.51 Here too, the sources indicate cooperation among members of the two ethnic groups in Buda. The Italians still focused closely on the business of the sale of copper and salt and on the lease of the Slavonian thirtieth customs. All the officials operating in this field were noble retainers, that is, servants of the king, assessed usually as a rather medieval feature of the financial administration,52 which implied a personal relationship to King Sigismund of Luxemburg. Out of 12 noble retainers of Florentine origin, six certainly had Buda citizenship as well.

According to the Buda Town Law (Ofner Stadtrecht), retail trade or shop keeping in the territory of the town was only granted to the citizens of Buda, who also paid a tax for the right to sell merchandize.53 This norm, which most probably existed in earlier decades, made urban citizenship essential for wealthy foreign merchants from the late fourteenth century onwards. Therefore, most of both the Italians and southern Germans in Buda acquired citizenship of the town. As citizenship required possession of real estate, many of them also had houses, gardens, vineyards etc. within the town walls. Looking only at the Florentines, in the 1420s, at least 30 businessmen (belonging to 25 families) were Buda citizens based on the prosopographic database.

For the German elite of Buda, however, real estate may also have played a notable role in trade transactions. As these families frequently lacked the necessary capital for long distance trade in wool or cattle, these possessions may have also served as mortgage items for business operations. Although the medieval archives of Buda were destroyed, the existence of so-called Verbotbücher seems to be plausible based on analogy with other towns in the region engaged in the same sort of trade.54 Such operations were, in fact, inserted in the Verbotbücher of Pozsony (Pressburg, today Bratislava, Slovakia) and Vienna in order to cover the potential losses of the investors.55

The Germans tended to integrate into the local urban community. However, even their integration seems to be somewhat odd, as they were not keen to marry into Buda’s patrician families, whether they were from the former German elites of Regensburg origin or the developing Hungarian elites. In fact, the Germans preferred to establish family ties with members of the German elite in other Hungarian towns, particularly those involved in their business network, such as Pozsony, Vienna, Crakow, and especially Nuremberg, their hometown. In this respect, the southern Germans’ presence and social network has a marked regional character in Central Europe.56 As opposed to their marriage policies, the members of the southern German elite in Buda were very active politically. In fact, they were present in the town council and almost “monopolized” the office of the town judge in 1403–39.57

In the case of the southern Germans, not much changed over the course of the fifteenth century: their presence in Buda and in the economic life of the kingdom was continuous, with a greater number of newcomers observed in the 1470s. Later, the southern German trade houses, such as the Welser and Fugger from Augsburg, also established permanent agents in Buda.58 These German firms with their substantial capital finally set up real competition for the Italians, first in the field of tithe collection, which they took over in the Habsburg territories from the Italians,59 and then in Hungary particularly in the management of mining chambers.60 The Germans of Buda also provided supplies for the royal court on some occasions, although still at a lower volume compared to the Italians according to András Kubinyi, who analyzed the average value of their shipments in the accountancy of the royal court.61

Italians, in contrast, even if they were wealthy merchants or their established agents living and working in Buda for decades, rarely married into the local urban community. Most of them had left their families in their homeland and did not settle permanently in Buda.62 Accordingly, they did not directly participate in Buda’s urban government either, but tried to maintain good relations with the leading German and, later, also Hungarian merchants of the town.63 In the few cases of marriage alliances into local families, they mainly chose spouses from the nobility.

In any case, Buda seems to be the only Central European center which was targeted by flows of both the southern German and Florentine merchant diasporas from the last decades of the fourteenth century and throughout the fifteenth century. Therefore Buda can be perceived as a kind of borderline regional urban center, where direct contacts and on occasion even cooperation were documented between these two foreign merchant communities, which dominated regional trade and which did not appear to have had direct contacts elsewhere, except for Venice.64

Although Venice with its Fondaco dei Tedeschi and large Florentine community could and did function as such a trade hub, the Serenissima, as an intermediary center for long-distance trade, does not seem to have been considered sufficient to seek, find, and finally cover the increasing demands and possibilities provided by Central Europe during the reign of King Sigismund. One must also consider the city’s serious conflicts of interest with King Sigismund. Buda, in my understanding, must have benefited greatly from this controversy. The Florentine diaspora in Venice (the only institutionalized Florentine colony in the region), therefore, played a crucial role in promoting the area’s business possibilities, and the Venetian branches of Florentine banking houses provided the necessary banking facilities for trade in the region.65

Florentines in Central Europe

At this point of my inquiry, I look at the social economic patterns of the presence of Florentines in Central Europe in a relatively broad time framework, lasting from the early fourteenth century up to the end of sixteenth century. Except for Venice, no institutionalized Florentine colony seems to have been established in the region in the period in question, and the records indicate very few cases of exogamy or integration.66 Also, geographically Central Europe is considered here for the purposes of this investigation in a rather broad sense to include Ragusa (today Dubrovnik, Croatia) (which during most of fifteenth century was under nominal Hungarian overlordship and which had a significant Florentine community within its walls) to the south, Poland (primarily Crakow) to the north, and Wrocław, Vienna, and Nuremberg to the west.67

Ethnic provenance appearing in urban toponyms, like the vicus latinorum, platea italicorum etc., was present in several towns, although the case of Buda shows that this alone must not be overestimated as a crucial indicator for ethnic clustering of Italians and particularly Florentines in late medieval urban centers of Central Europe.68 However, it does suggest a relatively dense presence of Italians in the given urban environment in a certain (probably early) phase of urban evolution. Therefore, other factors, like use of language, political representation in urban community etc., must be evaluated as possible indicators of a more precise assessment of the possible presence of Florentine or Italian diasporas in the regional centers.

In contrast with Buda, the Latin community of Zagreb (also an important hub for Italians along the main inland trade route), which had formed earlier (beginning at the end of the thirteenth century) and was made up primarily of Italians (mainly Florentines) disposing of lesser assets (and including many artisans), seems to have been clearly identified as an ethnic cluster within the urban community.69 The Latins of Zagreb also aspired to acquire and acquired urban political representation as the town’s Latin nation in a peak period, which lasted from the last decades of the fourteenth century to the first half of the fifteenth century. This may be interpreted as a conscious endeavor on their part to participate and also to integrate into the local urban community, which is further confirmed by the higher number of marriage alliances with local families from other ethnic clusters of the town. Of course, limits to a comparative analysis again are set by the available sources, which differ both in their quality and quantity from place to place.

The notion of the Florentine diaspora as a diaspora’s diaspora based on geographical distance (Buda–Zagreb–and ultimately Venice) is an intriguing idea. However, one must take into consideration that in both Venice and Buda rather large-scale and medium-scale Florentine merchants were present, whereas Zagreb’s Italian community hosted mainly Florentines of a lower social and economic standing, more keen on integrating, particularly compared to the Florentines of Buda. Of course, there was a number of Florentines who figured in both or all three of these urban centers. Thus, their mobility can also be understood as a distinctive feature of a diaspora within a diaspora, but this question needs further research.70

Another point in favor of Buda’s rise as a regional trade hub can be ascribed to King Sigismund and the royal court’s definite establishment in the city. When addressing the factor played by the royal court in Buda, one must also emphasize Sigismund of Luxemburg’s rise to the position of emperor. Thus, Buda hosted the imperial aula from time to time and became a European political-representational center and thus must have generated an increasing presence of Florentines in the city. Neither Vienna, nor Prague, nor any other town in Central Europe assumed a position of such prominence in the fifteenth century. Buda also disposed of an international trade deposit and market hall, a Nyder lag as it was called in the Ofner Stadtrecht.71 The town’s staple rights, however, were from time to time weakened by similar privileges acquired by neighboring towns along the main trade routes in the early fifteenth century. The information on the three Florentine partnerships with seats in Buda in the 1420s (analyzed at length in the previous paragraphs) makes Buda the only Central European trading center with such an intensive Florentine presence in this period. The next town to host a Florentine company was Nuremberg (the earliest reference to this dates back to 1512).72 The presence of Florentine partnerships in Crakow also dates to the sixteenth century.73

Social and Economic Strategies of Florentine Families Working in Hungary

Eight families (Panciatichi, Buondelmonti, Manini, Attavanti, Melanesi, del Rosso, Lamberteschi, Capponi) were selected for the qualitative survey for a number of reasons. First, they represent a cross-section of Florentine merchant families from the perspectives of wealth and social standing.74 The Panciatichi family was taxed as one of the wealthiest families in Florence at the time. The Buondelmonti family had a high social status but a somewhat weakened financial situation at the time of their stay in Hungary. The Manini and Attavanti families were the last families recorded in the Florentine Catasto of 1427 as miserabile, with no taxable wealth at all. I focused on the role that the closer and extended family played in the activity of the Florentine businessmen working in the Kingdom of Hungary in the first half of the fifteenth century. I also investigated the extent and characteristics of cooperation among the members of a family belonging to both the same and consecutive generations, and I compared these features to the business organization of Florentine merchant families operating in their homeland.

In families involved in trade and credit activity in the kingdom, very often members of two generations cooperated. The father was the commissioner and owner of the goods, while the sons played the roles of agents, travelers, or resident agents. This was true in the case of both the Lamberteschi and the Panciatichi families. In the case of the Panciatichi partnership, the extended family was represented by Filippo di Simone Capponi, Giovanni di Bartolomeo’s Panciatichi’s brother-in-law, who worked as a salaried agent settled in Buda.75 Another example of members of a Florentine extended family jointly running a company in Hungary is provided by the Melanesi brothers, Simone and Tommaso. They resided in Buda, but were in partnership with their uncle, Filippo di Filippo, who remained in Florence. They also involved other members of the wider lineage, men like Melanese di Ridolfo Melanesi, in their business operations.76

Altogether, the solidarity of the Florentine families was realized in different ways in Hungary compared to their homeland, where business competition was much more intense. As the case of the Attavanti family shows, the solidarity and cooperation of the family found manifestation in several different ways. The separate fiscal declarations of the brothers Cristofano and Leonardo suggest two separate households. However, the fact that the younger children and the widowed mother also moved to Hungary suggests that probably both brothers supported them, and that the two separate fiscal households still formed an integral economic unit.77

The examples cited above show brothers staying together in a common household with their families and apparently running their business together and sharing the profit, the financial potential, and also the risks, regardless of their actual financial situation. This pattern is very different from the practice of merchant families operating in Florence. The few cases of integration, on the other hand, show full adaptation to the local community, be it urban or noble. In cases of integration into the nobility, there clearly was a tendency to give up previous activities, linked mainly to financial administration.

In the very few cases of ennoblement, the relationships of businessmen to the king and the types of services rendered to King Sigismund were crucial.78 In the case of families acquiring nobility and estates, their joint possession also secured the perpetuation of the estate for subsequent generations of the kin group, even if one of the ennobled branches became extinct. The case study proposed on Niccoló Buondelmonti’s settlement and integration into the Hungarian landed aristocracy in 1440, long after Scolari’s death and also after King Sigismund’s death, proves that the Buondelmonti kin group’s success cannot be ascribed solely to their family ties to the Scolaris. The Hungarian branch of the Florentine Buondelmonti family, however, became extinct after two generations, but the large estates in their possession from the Lévai and Treutel families were subject to long legal debates between the son of Peter Lévai Cseh on one side and Paul Herceg of Szekcső on the other.79

On the basis of our present knowledge, the majority of Florentines who settled in the Kingdom of Hungary lived in urban society. Leaving aside Buda for the moment, other towns can be identified as permanent or temporary residences of Florentines in the first half of the fifteenth century, among them mostly mining, minting, and trade centers, particularly Transylvanian Saxon towns. The Transylvanian towns, particularly the Saxon towns, which enjoyed notable autonomy from the late fourteenth century onwards, seem to have offered a particularly favorable context for urban integration for Florentines in Hungary.80 Thus, a few of them established themselves and integrated into local families of local leading elites through marriage in the Saxon communities of these towns. They had houses and estates in the most important local towns, and in a few cases we can trace the activity of their descendants in the area through the fifteenth century.81 Two of them, Cristoforo Italicus and Zanobi de Florentia, counts of the salt chambers at Vízakna (today Ocna Sibiului, Romania), were selected as examples of successful integration into urban community in Hungary. This time, the Hungarian source material served as the point of departure.82 These records at least revealed that they were brothers, and they also mentioned another count of chamber called Pero de Rassys.83 The identification of the family they belonged to was not possible exclusively on the basis of the Hungarian sources. Fortunately, the Florentine Catasto records provided necessary information to retrace them in Florence as members of the Del Rosso family. Their situation is somewhat similar to that of other Florentine families working in financial administration: more family members worked in Hungary due to the family’s weakened economic situation back in Florence according to their tax return (which was submitted collectively), except for one brother, Guido. The del Rosso family ranked among the guild consular families in Florence. Rosso, the father, held consular office nine times, and was interested in building constructions in the Tuscan city and producing kiln products.84 After his death, some of the altogether seven brothers sought business activity abroad, like Francesco di Rosso di Piero Rosso, the householder and eldest brother of all, who went to Rome and later to Naples. Another brother, whose name is not specified, was in Hungary working in the service of other Florentines in 1427.85 Cristoforo appears in the Hungarian sources only in 1438 for the first time, as count of the chamber of salt of Vízakna in the service of Matko Tallóci.86 In the Florentine records he is first mentioned to be in Hungary only in 1442.87 Among Cristoforo’s brothers, Zanobi appears in Hungary for the first time in 1442, while the earliest mention of his brother Giovanni having been in the city dates to 1469.88 Back in Florence, he also held the office of Prior twice (1442, 1456), and he served as guild consul for six terms.89 His apparent ambition to integrate notwithstanding, Cristoforo maintained contact with Florence to an extent that he even submitted his tax declaration in 1457, at least thirty years after his arrival to Hungary.90 The same seems to be confirmed by the fact that he and his brothers kept a few possessions in Florence until at least 1480. Cristoforo’s business interests were not restricted to his obligations of managing royal monopolies. In fact, he also had business activity in Venice, but he put it as a loss. His son Paul (Pagolo) appears in the family tree drawn by Goldthwaite.91 Zanobi’s wife Anna was daughter to Nicholas son of Ivan of Rakovica, a nobleman and estate owner in the neighborhood of Nagyszeben (Hermannstadt, today Sibiu, Romania). The family, known also as Zanobii in Nagyszeben, definitely settled in the city and was the forebear of the prominent Proll family, among them the renowned Nicholas Proll of Nagyszeben, who controlled the Transylvanian mint and in the 1490s also the salt chambers.92

Excursion: An Unrevealed Aspect of Florentine–Hungarian Economic Relations

Finally, my research on Florentine–Hungarian economic relations quite unexpectedly also shed light on the migration of skilled and unskilled craftsmen from Central Europe towards the Tuscan city. This was surprising, since it is only rarely documented and not in much detail.93 From the very isolated information, however, vague evidence of solidarity and cooperation among the Hungarians in Florence can be assumed, although it never matched the extent of solidarity among Germans, with its sophisticated organizational forms around lay confraternities. In fact, in a subsequent period, apparently the German speaking immigrants coming from Hungary tended to join the institutions of Germans in the Tuscan city, and this leads to the conclusion that German speaking persons from Hungary may be hidden among the householders identified as Germans in the Florentine Catasto of 1427. This phenomenon also led to another, completely new point, namely the question of levels of self-identification of members of the multiethnic and multilingual communities of Central Europe. This question is particularly interesting considering the foreign environment in which these Central European immigrants defined themselves, because this foreign context lacked an important aspect, namely the points of reference which the homeland multiethnic community provided to establish clearly the position of the people in the local context. Thus, in Florence these immigrants used a whole range of levels of self-identification, from the wider-closer geographical provenance, be it the home town or the wider geo-political unit, namely the Kingdom of Hungary, to ethnic affiliation and spoken language. The identification sometimes seems vague, although the sparse related information in the Florentine Catasto shows the prevailing use of geographical affiliation, whereas in other, later cases found in recent scholarly literature it seems to be clearly driven by conscious use of possibilities provided by Florentine urban organizations for foreign artisans. This may not be closely connected to the main research question, but it could be perceived as a starting point for a future inquiry to identify the main features of the other extremes (be it both the destination and the social cluster involved in it) of diasporas in late medieval Europe.

Conclusion

Altogether, both the quantitative data set and the case studies confirm that a large number of Florentines targeted the Kingdom of Hungary during the reign of King and Emperor Sigismund of Luxemburg. Most of them were keen on working in the royal financial administration, as their fellow countrymen did in other regions of contemporary Europe. Sigismund’s constant need for liquid assets certainly played a crucial role in the decision to employ them. However, when taking a closer look at these Florentines’ financial backgrounds in Florence, one finds that most of them did not belong to the social cluster of the wealthiest merchants in the Tuscan city. Some of them disposed of rather humble financial assets but still operated within a large and efficient business network created by the Florentines in general. Thus, they could involve external investors to gather larger amounts of capital for their transactions when needed. Also, the Florentine officers’ vast knowledge of financial operations, their ability to adapt to various local socio-economic contexts, and their mobility rendered their services useful to the ruler, who himself gradually fulfilled his high aspirations by finally being crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in 1433.

Florentine archival records also confirm the existence of extensive trading activity on the part of Florentines in Hungary, at least in the case of some better documented Florentine officers working for the Buda companies. The information on the volume and forms of their activity in Hungary is not preserved in Hungarian documents. Due to the comparative backwardness of the region, other classical fields of operation, particularly banking, were not present among their operations in Hungary. The Venice branches of Florentine banking houses mostly covered such transactions for the region. However, three major trading partnerships formed by middle and even large-scale merchants were active in Buda in the 1420s, a presence not yet verified for any other urban center of Central Europe. Also, the members of companies had close ties to the royal and even imperial court of the ruler, whose court rendered Buda an urban center of utmost importance. In fact, in one case the company’s apparent bankruptcy is clearly linked to their loans provided to the ruler, and this is a clear sign of the higher business risks in the region. The Florentines, however, were compensated with higher interest rates for the risks they ran in Hungary. When considering the major forms of loans, commercial credit prevailed, and during the analysis of business partners of Florentines related to transactions in Hungary, the number of Florentine partners is higher, whereas the circle of local partners is much more limited. This suggests business operations involving several Florentine investors with a small number of Hungarian clients.

Buda’s two major trading diasporas, the southern German and the Italian, cooperated in the royal financial administration, and when it came to trade they met differing demands, the Italians mainly shipping luxury goods, while southern Germans merchandized lower-value cloth, primarily for urban customers. This difference in the fields of interest shaped their relations with the local urban community and their ways of integration, but their presence rendered Buda the only Central European urban center that functioned as a long-term direct meeting point for the two trading ethnic clusters most active in long-distance trade in the region. Finally, the migration of artisans from the Kingdom of Hungary to Florence reveals unexpected aspects of migration of humbler clusters, like the complexity of layers of self-identification and identification of artisans coming from the colorful Central European region to the Tuscan city.

 

Bibliography

Archival sources

Archivio di Stato di Firenze (=ASF, The State Archives of Florence)

Archivio del Catasto.

Online Catasto of 1427. Version 1.3. Edited by David Herlihy, Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, R. Burr Litchfield, and Anthony Molho. [Machine readable data file based on D. Herlihy and C. Klapisch-Zuber, Census and Property Survey of Florentine Domains in the Province of Tuscany, 1427–1480.] Florentine Renaissance Resources/STG: Brown University, Providence, R.I, 2002. Accessed May 15, 2016. www.stg.brown.edu/projects/Catasto/overview.

 

Archivio di Stato di Prato

Fondo Datini.

Accessed May 15, 2016. http://datini.archiviodistato.prato.it/www/query.html.

 

Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára (=MNL OL, Hungarian National Archives)

Diplomatikai Levéltár (=DL, Medieval Charter Collection).

Diplomatikai Fényképtár (=DF, Photograph Collection of Charters).

The digitized version of the Medieval Charter Collection is accessible online. Accessed June 15, 2016. http://archives.hungaricana.hu/hu/charters/.

 

Secondary literature

Arany, Krisztina. “A cipész, a céhszolga és a szövőmester: Magyar származású családfők Firenzében az 1427. évi firenzei catasto anyagaiban” [The shoemaker, the guild servant and the weaver: Hungarian householders in Florence in the records of the Florentine Catasto of 1427]. In Pénz, posztó, piac. Gazdaságtörténeti tanulmányok a magyar középkorról [Money, cloth, market: Studies in Hungarian medieval economic history], edited by Boglárka Weisz, 493–514. Budapest: MTA Bölcsészettudományi Kutatóközpont, Történettudományi Intézet, 2016.

Arany, Krisztina. “Apák, fiúk, fivérek, üzleti partnerek: A XV. század első felében Magyarországon dolgozó firenzei családok együttműködésének formái” [Fathers, sons, brothers, business partners: The forms of cooperation among the Florentine families working in Hungary in the first half of the fifteenth century]. Fons (Forráskutatás és Történeti Segédtudományok) 16, no. 2 (2009): 157–91.

Arany, Krisztina. “Buda mint uralkodói székhely és távolsági kereskedelmi központ a 15. században, a firenzei és dél-német üzletemberek tevékenységének tükrében” [Buda as the seat of the ruler and a long-distance trade center in the fifteenth century, in the light of the activities of Florentine and southern German businessmen]. Urbs: Magyar Várostörténeti Évkönyv 7 (2012): 153–70.

Arany, Krisztina. “Firenzei kereskedők, bankárok és hivatalviselők Magyarországon 1370–1450: Prozopográfiai adattár” [Florentine merchants, bankers and office holders in Hungary, 1371–1450: Prosopoghraphic database]. Fons (Forráskutatás és Történeti Segédtudományok) 14 (2007): 483–549.

Arany, Krisztina. “Firenzei–magyar kereskedelmi kapcsolatok a 15. században” [Florentine–Hungarian commercial relations in the fifteenth century]. In Gazdaság és gazdálkodás a középkori Magyarországon: Gazdaságtörténet, anyagi kultúra, régészet [Economy in medieval Hungary: Economic history, material culture, archaeology], edited by András Kubinyi, József Laszlovszky, and Péter Szabó, 277–96. Budapest: Martin Opitz, 2008.

Arany, Krisztina. “Florentine Families in Hungary in the First Half of the Fifteenth Century.” PhD. diss., Central European University, 2014.

Arany, Krisztina. “Generations Abroad: Florentine Merchant Families in Hungary in the first Half of the Fifteenth Century.” In Generations in Towns: Succession and Success in Pre-Industrial Urban Societies, edited by Finn-Einar Eliassen and Katalin Szende, 133–40. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009.

Arany, Krisztina. “Magyarországi hitelezésre vonatkozó adatok az 1427. évi firenzei Catastóban” [Crediting activity of Florentines in Hungary as reflected in the Florentine Catasto of 1427]. In Tiszteletkör: Történeti tanulmányok Draskóczy István egyetemi tanár 60. születésnapjára [Lap of honor: Essays in honor of sixty-year-old István Draskóczy], edited by András Vadas, Gábor Mikó, and Bence Péterfi, 165–77. Budapest: ELTE Eötvös Kiadó, 2012.

Arany, Krisztina. “Success and Failure – Two Florentine Merchant Families in Buda during the Reign of King Sigismund (1387–1437).” In Annual of Medieval Studies at CEU, edited by Katalin Szende and Judith A. Rasson, 101–23. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2006.

Arany, Krisztina. “The Shoemaker, the Silk Weaver and the Guild Servant: Some Aspects of Artisan Migrations from Hungary to Florence in the Fifteenth Century.” In Reform and Renewal in East and Central Europe, edited by Miljan Suzana, Éva Halász, Alexandru Simon, and Martyn Rady. Forthcoming.

Arany, Krisztina.“Versatile profecto ingenium, naturae bonitas singularis”: Financial Advisors to Emperor and King Sigismund of Luxemburg.” In Ruling Composite Monarchies: Sigismund of Luxemburg (1368–1437), edited by Suzana Miljan, Alexandra Kaar and Christopher Nicholson. Turnhout: Brepols. Forthcoming.

Astorri, Antonella. La Mercanzia a Firenze nella prima metá del ’300. Florence: Leo Olschki editore, 1998.

Benda, Judit. “A kereskedelem épületei a középkori Budán: II. rész. Mészárszékek háza, Zsemleszékek háza, Árucsarnok” [Commercial buildings in medieval Buda II: House of butcheries, bakeries, market hall]. Tanulmányok Budapest Múltjából 37 (2012): 7–42.

Benda, Judit “Merchants, Markets and Shops in Late Medieval Buda, Pest and Óbuda.” In Medieval Buda in Context, edited by Balázs Nagy, Martyn Rady, Katalin Szende, and András Vadas, 255–78. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2016.

Bettarini, Francesco. “I fiorentini all’estero ed il catasto del 1427: Frodi, elusioni e ipercorrettismi.” Annali di Storia di Firenze 6 (2011): 37–64.

Bettarini, Francesco. La comunitá pratese di Ragusa (1413–1434). Crisi economica e migrazioni collettive nel Tardo Medioevo. Florence: Olschki, 2012.

Bettarini, Francesco. “La diaspora dalmata di tre notai pistoiesi.” Bullettino Storico Pistoiese 114/47 (2012): 41–56.

Blanchard, Ian. “Egyptian Specie Markets and the International Gold Crisis of the Early Fifteenth Century.” In Money, Markets and Trade in Late Medieval Europe: Essays in honor of John H. A. Munro, edited by Lawrin Armstrong, Ivana Elbl, and Martin M. Elbl, 383–410. Leiden: Brill, 2007.

Blazovich, László, and József Schmidt, eds. Buda város jogkönyve [Buda town law]. 2 vols. Szeged: Szegedi Középkorász Műhely, 2001.

Bonolis, Guido. La giurisdizione della Mercanzia in Firenze nel secolo 14. Florence: n.p., 1901.

Braudel, Fernand. “L’Italia fuori d’Italia. Due secoli e tre Italie.” In Storia d’Italia. Vol 2. 2109–10. Turin: Einaudi, 1974.

Bruscoli, Francesco Guidi. “Drappi di seta a tele di lino tra Firenze e Norimberga nella prima metá del Cinquecento.” Archivio Storico Italiano 159 (2001): 359–94.

Bruscoli, Francesco Guidi. “The Network of Florentine Merchant-Banking Companies in the North of Europe: Collaboration vs Competition.” Paper delivered at the International Medieval Congress, Leeds, UK. July 11, 2007.

Budak, Neven. “I fiorentini nella Slavonia e nella Croazia.” Archivio Storico Italiano 153 (1995): 681–95.

Carter, F. W. Trade and Urban Development in Poland: An Economic Geography of Cracow, from Its Origins to 1795. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Clarke, Paula. “The Identity of the Expatriate. Florentines in Venice in the late Fourteenth and Early Fifteenth Centuries.” In Society and Individual in Renaissance Florence, edited by William J. Conell, 384–408. London: University of California Press, 2002.

Dini, Bruno. “L’Archivio Datini.” In idem. Manifattura, commercio e banca nella Firenze medievale. Series La societá medievale. Saggi e ricerche, edited by Giovanni Cherubini and Giuliano Pinto, 199–208. Florence: Nardini editore, 2001.

Dini, Bruno. “L’economia fiorentina e l’Europa centro-orientale nelle fonti toscane.” Archivio Storico Italiano 153 (1995): 632–55.

Dini, Bruno. “Le forme e le tecniche del prestito nel tardo Medioevo.” In Manifattura, commercio e banca nella Firenze medievale. Serie La societá medievale. Saggi e rischerche, edited by Giovanni Cherubini and Giuliano Pinto, 83–103. Florence: Nardini editore, 2001.

Dini, Bruno. “Mercati e piazze bancarie nel Mediterraneo e in Europa nei secoli XIV–XVI: Presenze e strategie degli operatori economici fiorentini.” In idem. Manifattura, commercio e banca nella Firenze medievale. Series La societá medievale. Saggi and ricerche, edited by Giovanni Cherubini and Giuliano Pinto, 103–24. Florence: Nardini editore, 2001.

Dini, Bruno. Saggi su una economia-mondo: Firenze e l’Italia fra Mediterraneo ed Europa, Secc. XIII–XVI. Pisa: Pacini, 1995.

Draskóczy, István. “Adósjegyzék a 15. századból” [A tax list from the fifteenth century]. In In memoriam Barta Gábor. Tanulmányok Barta Gábor emlékére [Essays in memory of Gábor Barta], edited by István Lengvári, 93–112. Pécs: JPTE Továbbképző Központ Kiadói Iroda, 1996.

Draskóczy, István. “A sóigazgatás 1397. esztendei reformjáról” [Contribution to the 1397 reforms of the administration of salt chambers]. In Változatok a történelemre. Tanulmányok Székely György tiszteletére [Variations on history: Essays in honor of György Székely], edited by Gyöngyi Erdei and Balázs Nagy, 285–93. Monumenta Historica Budapestinensia 14. Budapest: Budapesti Történeti Múzeum, 2004.

Draskóczy, István. “Commercial Contacts of Buda along the Danube and beyond.” In Medieval Buda in Context, edited by Balázs Nagy, Martyn Rady, Katalin Szende, and András Vadas, 278–99. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2016.

Draskóczy, István. “Italiener in Siebenbürgen im 15. Jahrhundert.” In The First Millenium of Hungary in Europe, edited by Klára Pap and János Barta, 61–75. Debrecen: Debrecen University Press, 2002.

Draskóczy, István. “Italiens dans l’adminsitration de sel en Hongrie au 15ème siècle.” In Atti del Vo Congresso Internazionale di Studi Storici. Rapporti Genova-Meditterraneo-Atlantico nell’eta moderna, edited by Raffaele Belvederi, 235–56. Genoa: n.p., 1996.

Draskóczy István, “Kamarai jövedelem és urbura a 15. század első felében” [Cameral income and mining income in the first half of the fifteenth century]. In Gazdaságtörténet: Könyvtártörténet. Emlékkönyv Berlász Jenő 90. születésnapjára, edited by János Buza, 147–66. Budapest: MTA-BKAE, 2001.

Draskóczy, István. “Kapy András: Egy budai polgár pályája a XV. század elején” [András Kapy: The career of a Buda burgher in the early fifteenth century]. Levéltári Közlemények 54 (1983): 149–87.

Draskóczy, István. “Olaszok a 15. századi Erdélyben.” [Italians in fifteenth-century Transylvania]. In Scripta manent: Ünnepi tanulmányok a 60. életévét betöltött Gerics József pofesszor tiszteletére [Scripta manent: Studies in honor of Professor József Gerics for his sixtieth birthday], edited by István Draskóczy, 125–45. Budapest: ELTE, 1994.

Draskóczy, István. “Sigismund von Luxemburg und Ungarn.” In Sigismundus rex et imperator. Kunst und Kultur zur Zeit Sigismunds von Luxemburg 1387–1437. Ausstellungskatalog, edited by Imre Takács, 11–23. Darmstadt: Philipp von Zabern, 2006.

Ember, Melvin, Carol R. Ember, and Ian Skoggard, eds. Encyclopedia of Diasporas: Immigrant and Refugee Cultures Around the World. Vol. 1: Overviews and Topics. New York: Springer, 2005.

Engel, Pál. Királyi hatalom és arisztokrácia viszonya a Zsigmond-korban 1387–1437 [The relation between royal power and aristocracy during the reign of King Sigismund, 1387–1437]. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1977.

Engel, Pál. Magyarország világi archontológiája 1301–1457 [A secular archontology of Hungary, 1301–1457]. 2 vols. Budapest: História–MTA Történettudományi Intézet, 1996.

Engel, Pál. “Ozorai Pipo.” In Ozorai Pipo emlékezete [Remembering Pipo Ozorai], edited by Ferenc Vadas, 53–89. Szekszárd: Múzeumi Füzetek, 1987.

Engel, Pál. “Temetkezések a középkori székesfehérvári bazilikában” [Burials in the medieval cathedral of Székesfehérvár]. Századok 121 (1987): 613–37.

Engel, Pál. The Realm of St. Stephen: A History of Medieval Hungary, 895–1526. London: I. B. Tauris, 2005.

Fiumi, Enrico. Movimento urbanistico e classi sociali in Prato dall’etá communale ai tempi moderni. Florence: Olschki, 1968.

Goldthwaite, Richard A. The building of Renaissance Florence: An Economic and Social History. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980.

Goldthwaite, Richard A. The Economy of Renaissance Florence. Baltimore–London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.

Gramulla, Gertrud Susanna. Handelsbeziehungen Kölner Kaufleute zwischen 1500 und 1650. Forschungen zur Internationalen Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 4. Cologne–Vienna: Böhlau, 1972.

Gündisch, Kondrad G. Das Patriziat Siebenbürgische Städte im Mittelalter. Studia Transylvanica 18. Cologne–Weimar–Vienna: Böhlau, 1993.

Herlihy, David, and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber. I toscani e le loro famiglie. Uno studio sul catasto fiorentino del 1427. Bologna: il Mulino, 1988.

Huszti, Dénes. Olasz–magyar kereskedelmi kapcsolatok a középkorban [Italian–Hungarian commercial relations in the Middle Ages]. Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1941.

Incze, János. “My Kingdom in Pledge: King Sigismund of Luxemburg’s Town Pledging Policy, Case Studies of Segesd and Bártfa.” MA Thesis, Central European University–Budapest College, 2012.

Isenmann, Eberhard. “Reichsfinanzen und Reichssteuern im 15. Jahrhundert.” Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 7, no. 1. (1980): 1–17.

Johanek, Peter. “Vorwort.” In Krakau, Prag und Wien Funktionen von Metropolen im Frühmodernen Staat, edited by Marina Dmitrieva and Karen Lambrecht, 11–12. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2000.

Kellenbenz, Hermann. “Gli operatori economici italiani nell’Europa centrale ed orientale.” In Aspetti della vita economica medievale. Atti del Convegno di Studi nel X. anniversario della morte di Federigo Melis, edited by Bruno Dini, 333–57. Florence: Istituto di Storia Economica–Universitá degli Studi di Firenze, 1985.

Kenyeres, István. “The Fate of the Medieval Archives of Buda and Pest.” In Medieval Buda in Context, edited by Balázs Nagy, Martyn Rady, Katalin Szende, and András Vadas, 52–68. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2016.

Kubinyi, András. “A budai német patriciátus társadalmi helyzete családi összeköttetései tükrében a 13. századtól a 15. század második feléig” [The social status of the Geman patriciate of Buda as reflected in their family connections from the thirteenth till the second half of the fifteenth century]. In idem. Tanulmányok Budapest középkori történetéről [Studies on the medieval history of Budapest], edited by István Kenyeres, Péter Kis, and Csaba Sasfi, vol 2, 457–512. Budapest: Budapest Főváros Levéltára, 2009.

Kubinyi, András. “A kincstári személyzet a XV. század második felében” [The personnel of the treasury in the second half of the fifteenth century]. Tanulmányok Budapest Múltjából 12 (1957): 25–49.

Kubinyi, András. “A nürnbergi Hallerek Budán” [The Haller family from Nuremberg in Buda]. In idem. Tanulmányok Budapest középkori történetéről [Studies on the medieval history of Budapest], edited by István Kenyeres, Péter Kis, and Csaba Sasfi, vol 2 of 2, 705–42. Budapest: Budapest Főváros Levéltára, 2009.

Kubinyi, András. “A Pemfflingerek Bécsben és Budán. Adatok a két főváros polgárságának középkor végi gazdasági és családi összeköttetéseihez” [The Pemfflinger kin in Vienna and Buda: Contribution to the family and economic network of the burghers of the two capitals at the close of the Middle Ages]. In: idem. Tanulmányok Budapest középkori történetéről [Studies on the medieval history of Budapest], edited by István Kenyeres, Péter Kis, and Csaba Sasfi, vol 2 of 2, 743–57. Budapest: Budapest Főváros Levéltára, 2009.

Kubinyi, András. “Budai és pesti polgárok családi összeköttetései a Jagelló-korban” [Family alliances of Buda and Pest burghers in the Jagiellonian period]. In idem. Tanulmányok Budapest középkori történetéről [Studies on the medieval history of Budapest], 2 vols., edited by István Kenyeres, Péter Kis, and Csaba Sasfi, vol 2 of 2, 513–70. Budapest: Budapest Főváros Levéltára, 2009.

Kubinyi, András. “Budai kereskedők udvari szállításai a Jagelló-korban” [Court supply of Buda merchants in the Jagellonian period]. In idem. Tanulmányok Budapest középkori történetéről [Studies on the medieval history of Budapest], edited by István Kenyeres, Péter Kis, and Csaba Sasfi, vol 1 of 2, 337–59. Budapest: Budapest Főváros Levéltára, 2009.

Kubinyi, András. “Budapest története a későbbi középkorban Buda elestéig (1541-ig)” [History of Budapest in the Late Middle Ages (1301–1541]. In Budapest története a későbbi középkorban és a török hódoltság idején [The history of Budapest in the late medieval age and during the Ottoman rule], vol 2 of Budapest története [The history of Budapest], edited by László Gerevich and Domokos Kosáry. Budapest: Budapest Főváros Tanácsa, 1973.

Kubinyi, András. “Die Nürnberger Haller in Ofen.” Mitteilungen des Vereins für Geschichte der Stadt Nürnberg 52 (1963/64): 80–128.

Kubinyi, András. Tanulmányok Budapest középkori történetéről [Studies on the medieval history of Budapest], 2 vols., edited by István Kenyeres, Péter Kis, and Csaba Sasfi. Budapest: Budapest Főváros Levéltára, 2009.

Lederer, Emma. A középkori pénzüzletek története Magyarországon (1000–1458) [The history of money transactions in medieval Hungary (1000–1458)]. Budapest: MTA, 1932.

Mályusz, Elemér. Zsigmond király uralma Magyarországon [The reign of King Sigismund in Hungary]. Budapest: Gondolat, 1984.

Mályusz, Elemér, and Iván Borsa, eds. Zsigmondkori Oklevéltár [Charters from the time of King Sigismund of Luxemburg]. Budapest: Magyar Országos Levéltár, 1993.

Masi, Gino. Statuti delle colonie fiorentine all’estero (secc. XV–XVI). Milan: Giuffré, 1941.

Mazzei, Rita. Itinera mercatorum. Circolazione di uomini e beni nell’Europa centro-orientale 1550–1650. Pisa: Pacini, 1999.

Melis, Federigo. Documenti per la storia economica dei secoli XIII-XVI. Con una nota di Paleografia Commerciale. Istituto internazionale di storia economica „F. Datini” Prato. Pubblicazioni, Serie I. Documenti, ed. Elena Cecchi. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1972.

Mollay, Károly, ed. Das Ofner Stadtrecht. Eine deutschsprachige Rechtssammlung des fünfzehnten Jahrhunderts aus Ungarn. Monumenta Historica Budapestinensia 1. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959.

Mueller, Reinhold C. “Mercanti e imprenditori fiorentini a Venezia nel Tardo Medioevo.” Societá and Storia 55 (1992): 29–60.

Mueller, Reinhold C., and Frederick C. Lane. The Venetian Money Market: Banks, Panics and the Public Debt 1200–1500. Baltimore–London: Johns Hopkins University Press 1997.

Nagy, Balázs, Martyn Rady, Katalin Szende, and András Vadas, eds. Medieval Buda in Context. Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2016.

Nuti, Ruggero. “Un mercante pratese in Ungheria nel sec. XV. Simone di Pietro di Filippo Melanesi.” Archivio Storico Pratese 12 (1934): 1–8.

Petrovics, István. “Foreign Ethnic Groups in the Towns of Southern Hungary in the Middle Ages.” In Segregation – Integration – Assimilation: Religious and Ethnic Groups in the Medieval Towns of Central and Eastern Europe. Historical Urban Studies, edited by Derek Keene, Balázs Nagy, and Katalin Szende, 67–87. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009.

Prajda, Katalin. “Florentine Merchant Companies established in Buda at the Beginning of the Fifteenth century.” Mélanges de l’École française de Rome – Moyen Âge [En ligne], 125-1, 2013. Accessed December 8, 2013. http://mefrm.revues.org/1062.

Prajda, Katalin. “The Florentine Scolari Family at the Court of Sigismund of Luxemburg in Buda.” Journal of Early Modern History 14 (2010): 513–33.

Rácz, György. “Collectio Diplomatica Hungarica. Medieval Hungary online: The online Portal of the National Archives of Hungary on Medieval Charters.” In Archiv für Diplomatik: Schriftgeschichte Siegel- und Wappenkunde, vol. 56, edited by Walter Koch and Theo Kölzer, 423–45. Cologne–Weimar–Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2010.

Rady, Martyn. Medieval Buda: A Study of Municipal Government and Jurisdiction in the Kingdom of Hungary. Eastern European Monographs 182. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985.

Raukar, Tomisláv. “I fiorentini in Dalmazia nel sec. XIV.” Archivio Storico Italiano 153 (1995): 657–80.

Regesta Imperii. Accessed June 15, 2016. http://www.regesta-imperii.de/startseite.html, http://monasterium.net/.

Roover, Raymond de. The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank 1397–1494. Washington: Beard Books, 1999.

Skorka, Renáta. “A bécsi lerakat Magyarországra vezető kiskapui” [The loopholes in the Vienna staple right leading to Hungary]. Történelmi Szemle 54 (2012): 1–16.

Spufford, Peter. Money and its Use in Medieval Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Stromer, Wolfgang von. “Das Zusammenspiel Oberdeutscher und Florentiner Geldleute bei der Finanzierung von König Ruprechts Italien Zug 1401–1402.” In Öffentliche Finanzen und privates Kapitel im späten Mittelalter und in die erste Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts, edited by Hermann Kellebenz, 50–86. Stuttgart: n.p., 1971.

Stromer, Wolfgang von. “Oberdeutsche Hochfinanz 1350–1450.” 3 vols. Vierteljahrschrift zu Sozial und Wirtschaftsgeschichte. Beihefte. Wiesbaden: Steiner Verlag, 1970.

Szende, Katalin. “Integration through Language.” In Segregation – Integration – Assimilation: Religious and Ethnic Groups in the Medieval Towns of Central and Eastern Europe. Historical Urban Studies, edited by Derek Keene, Balázs Nagy, and Katalin Szende, 205–33. Ashgate, 2009.

Škreblin, Bruno. “Ethnic Groups in Zagreb’s Gradec in the Late Middle Ages.” Review of Croatian History 9 (2013): 25–59.

Tanzini, Lorenzo, and Sergio Tognetti, eds. “Mercatura è arte”. Uomini d’affari toscani in Europa e nel Mediterraneo tardomedievale. Rome: Viella, 2012.

Teke, Zsuzsa. “A firenzeiek vagyoni helyzete a Zsigmond-kori Magyarországon az 1427. évi Catasto alapján” [The Florentines’ wealth in Hungary during the reign of King Sigismund based on the material of the Catasto of 1427]. Történelmi Szemle 43 (2001): 55–59.

Teke, Zsuzsa. “Az 1427. évi firenzei catasto. Adalékok a firenzei–magyar kereskedelmi kapcsolatok történetéhez” [The Florentine Catasto of 1427: A contribution to the history of Florentine–Hungarian trade relations]. Történelmi Szemle 27, no. 1–2 (1984): 42–49.

Teke, Zsuzsa. “Firenze külpolitikája és Zsigmond (1409–1437)” [Florentine foreign policy and King Sigismund (1409–1437)]. In “Magyaroknak eleiről”. Ünnepi tanulmányok a hatvan esztendős Makk Ferenc tiszteletére [“On the forebears of the Hungarians:” Festschrift for sixty-year-old Ferenc Makk], edited by Ferenc Piti, 559–68. Szeged: n.p., 2000.

Teke, Zsuzsa. “Firenzei kereskedőtársaságok, kereskedők Magyarországon Zsigmond uralmának megszilárdulása után, 1404-37” [Florentine merchant companies and merchants in Hungary following the consolidation of the reign of Sigismund]. Századok 129, no. 2 (1995): 195–214.

Teke, Zsuzsa. “Firenzei üzletemberek Magyarországon 1373–1403” [Florentine businessmen in Hungary 1373–1403]. Történelmi Szemle 37 (1995): 129–51.

Teke, Zsuzsa. “Operatori economici fiorentini in Ungheria nel tardo Trecento e primo Quattrocento.” Archivio Storico Italiano 153 (1995): 697–707.

Tognetti, Sergio. “I mercanti-banchieri fiorentini e il ruolo di Venezia come piazza finanziaria europea nel tardo Medio Evo. In margine al lavoro di C. R. Mueller.” Archivio Storico Italiano 157 (1999): 351–56.

Tózsa-Rigó, Attila. “A pozsonyi gazdasági elit nürnbergi kapcsolatai a 16. században” [The network of Pressburg’s economic elite with Nuremberg in the sixteenth century]. Urbs Várostörténeti Évkönyv 3 (2008): 329–48.

Tózsa-Rigó, Attila. “A pozsonyi Tiltáskönyv (1538–1566) információs bázisa. (Különös tekintettel a pozsonyi felső és középréteg városon túlnyúló kapcsolatrendszerére)” [The set of data in the Pressburg Verbotsbuch, 1538–1566]. Századok 142 (2008): 1135–86.

Ulrich, Attila. “Geldpolitik und Geldverkehr in Ungarn während der Herrschaft Sigismunds.” In Das Zeitalter König Sigismund’s in Ungarn und im Deutschen Reich, edited by Tilmann Schmidt and Péter Gunst, 121–32. Debrecen: Universität Debrecen, Institut für Geschictswissenschaften–Debrecen University Press, 2000.

Végh, András. “of Buda: The Multiethnic Capital of Medieval Hungary.” In Segregation – Integration – Assimilation: Religious and Ethnic Groups in the Medieval Towns of Central and Eastern Europe. Historical Urban Studies, edited by Derek Keene, Balázs Nagy, and Katalin Szende, 89–101. Ashgate, 2009.

Végh, András. Buda város középkori helyrajza [Topography of the medieval town Buda]. Monumenta historica Budapestinensia 15–16. Budapest: Budapesti Történeti Múzeum, 2006–2008.

Weczerka, Hugo. “Breslaus Zentralität im ostmitteleuropaischen Raum um 1500.” In Metropolen im Wandel. Zentralität in Ostmitteleuropa an der Wende vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit, edited by Evamaria Engel, Karen Lambrecht, and Hanna Nogossek, 245–62. Berlin: n.p., 1995.

Weissen, Kurt. “Florentiner Kaufleute in Deutschland bis zum Ende des 14. Jahrhunderts.” In Zwischen Maas und Rhein. Beziehungen, Begegnungen und Konflikte in einem europäischen Kernraum von der Spätantike bis zum 19. Jahrhundert. Versuch einer Bilanz, edited by Franz Irsigler, 363–401. Trier: Kliomedia, 2006.

Weissen, Kurt. “I mercanti italiani e le fiere in Europa centrale alla fine del Medioevo e agli inizi dell’etá moderna.” In La pratica dello scambio: Sistemi di fiere, mercanti e cittá in Europa (1409–1700), edited by Paola Lanaro, 161–76. Venice: n.p., 2003.

Weisz, Boglárka. “Entrate reali e politica economica nell’età di Carlo I.” In L’Ungheria angioina. A cura di Enikő Csukovits. Rome: Viella, 2013. 205–36.

Weisz, Boglárka. Vásárok és lerakatok a középkori Magyar Királyságban [Markets and staples in the medieval Kingdom of Hungary]. Magyar történelmi emlékek, Értekezések. Budapest, MTA BTK Történettudományi Intézet, 2012.

Wenzel, Gusztáv. Ozorai Pipo. Magyar történelmi jellemrajz Zsigmond király korából [Pipo of Ozora: A Hungarian historical portrait from the age of King Sigismund]. Pest: n.p., 1863.

* This work was made possible with the support of the Croatian Science Foundation under project number 6547 (Sources, Manuals and Studies for Croatian History from the Middle Ages to the End of the Long Nineteenth Century; principal investigator: Damir Karbić).

Florentines’ Trade in the Kingdom of Hungary in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries: Trade Routes, Networks, and Commodities*

Katalin Prajda

Contract Researcher, University of Chicago, Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society

 

The article proposes to analyze some general characteristics of Florentine merchants’ trade in the Kingdom of Hungary in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries on the basis of written sources housed predominantly by various Italian archives. It opens with a new evaluation of the importance of Florentine merchants in long-distance trade by examining examples of the organizational framework of their enterprises in the town of Buda during the reign of Sigismund of Luxembourg (1387–1437). It also looks at the well-known cases of the families that were engaged in trade in Hungary, beginning with the period of Louis I (1342–82) and ending with the reign of Matthias Corvinus (1458–90). The second subchapter concentrates on the commodities transported by Florentines between the two states by describing their nature and their quantitative and qualitative features mentioned in the documents. Among the commercial goods, the article considers the import and export of metals like gold, silver, and copper, as well as Florentine silk and wool. It also mentions exotic animals and spices transported from extra-European territories. The third part of the article offers a reconstruction of the outreach of the Florentine network operating in Hungary, with particular consideration of its most important markets for raw materials and luxury goods. The fourth subchapter discusses the commercial routes used by Florentines when transporting their goods between the towns of Buda and Florence, emphasizing the importance of Venice as a major trading hub along the route. The conclusion puts the Florentines’ trade in Hungary into a broader picture of international trade, and it draws connections between the development of the Florentine silk industry, for which the city became famous, and the marketing of its finished products in Hungary.

Keywords: Buda, Florence, Hungary, Venice, commercial routes, merchant, textiles, silk, precious metals, merchant company, trade, network

 

The Florentine Community

Studies have already traced the existence of a Florentine trading community in the Kingdom of Hungary as far back as the reign of Louis I.1 Since Hungarian sources regarding commerce are very fragmented in nature, researchers mostly rely on Florentine documents, which started to be produced from the late fourteenth century. Recently found new written evidence have revealed the existence of a Latin consul in the town of Buda as early as 1392. The consul acted as a judge in cases involving the Florentines, and he was also the person in charge of mediating between the merchants and local Hungarian society. They occasionally appear also as royal relators when Florentine merchants were involved in court cases in Hungary. The Latin consulate in Buda, one of the earliest such organizations including Florentine merchants outside their homeland, functioned throughout the entire period of Sigismund of Luxemburg’s reign in Hungary (1387–1437).2 The first consul known by name, Giovanni Saracino, an important member of the royal administration, was of Paduan origins. Later, in the early 1430s, a Florentine (also a royal officer) occupied the position. In his absence, which might only have lasted for a relatively short period of time, a Sienese was elected to serve as deputy Latin judge.3 This information suggests that the judge or consul, indeed, was common for all merchants from the Italian Peninsula. No indications have been found so far suggesting that this form of organization survived even in the subsequent period. One can only suspect that, because of the general decadence of the relations between Florence and Hungary on the state level, Florentine merchants may have lost their representation in the region.4 Furthermore, King Sigismund’s order, issued sometime before 1428, authorized the town judge of Buda to act in cases involving foreign merchants who were trading within the territory of the town.5 This may have considerably weakened the role played by the Latin consul in the resolution of business conflicts between local and Florentine merchants.

Given the nature of the sources, we have no exact statistics regarding the population of the Florentine trading community in Buda or in other parts of the kingdom. All we know is that the community was well-connected to Florence and other European commercial centers. There must also have been a continuous flow of Florentine merchants between the two states. The resident Florentine community in Buda during the reign of Sigismund was seemingly more numerous than in the preceding and subsequent periods, including the reign of Matthias Corvinus (1458–90). The vivid life of the trading community in the Kingdom of Hungary probably came to an end when Sigismund’s attitude toward Florentine merchants changed, a shift that culminated in 1432 by his order to arrest all of them on Hungarian territory.6

The importance of the Florentine community is also illustrated by the fact that at least twelve Florentine trading companies were established in Buda during the first three decades of the fifteenth century. As far as we can tell, they were medium-size companies, mainly set up for the export of Florentine textiles to Hungary in exchange for precious metals from the local mines. The senior partners of these companies were important actors in long-distance Florentine trade, and they played a significant role in the textile industry of their homeland. Some of them were also leading investors in the Florentine silk industry, both in terms of domestic production and marketing abroad. In addition to the resident Florentine companies and autonomous partnerships, other merchants relied on their business networks or on independent agents when marketing their textiles in Hungary. The “accomanda” system, involving limited liability contracts, was also used in dealings between Buda-based companies and silk companies or silk firms and local agents.7

Meanwhile, the Florentine community during the reign of Louis I (1342–82), and even until about the turn of the century, was characterized by the strong presence of a small business group constituted by the business partners of Vieri di Cambio de’Medici and the Panciatichi family, the earliest documented companies operating in the region. By the first years of the fifteenth century, however, the business circle of the Scolari family had acquired a position of dominance in the Hungarian–Florentine long-distance trade. The years immediately following the deaths of the Scolari brothers in 1426 saw a power play between the Scolari nephews and the Bardi brothers, old familiares of the Scolari. Following these conflicts, the leading position of the Bardi brothers as well as other internal dynamics in Florence led probably to the reorganization of key positions in the royal administration and the network of long-distance trade.

1434 witnessed considerable changes in the history of Florence as well with the rise of the new regime headed by Cosimo de’Medici. Several families, which once had been important in long-distance trade with Hungary, lost their political influence and were exiled. Thus, their ties to domestic and international commercial networks loosened considerably. Among them, we find the Albizzi, Guadagni, and Infangati families, old friends, close relatives, and once political allies to the Scolari brothers.8

In the 1430s, this may have given rise to a new influx of Southern German businessmen to the royal administration and trade network in Hungary. Already in the 1390s, local Germans in Buda cooperated with Florentine and Venetian businessmen who sought to sell their goods in the city. Michael Nadler, a respected citizen of Buda of Southern German origins, acted as a dealer in Venetian merchants’ silk textiles with his partners, including his father, Michael Nadler senior.9 In 1427, he was among the debtors of the Melanesi di Buda, most probably because he was selling textiles for them as well.10 In the same year, he also acted as judge for the city.11 Nadler, who worked in the royal administration of mines, may have had other ties to the Melanesi, since Tommaso di Piero, a member of Sigismund’s familia and a citizen of Buda, managed copper mines in the kingdom. Nadler also established close business ties with the more influential Leonardo di Nofri de’Bardi, with whom he held royal offices.12 In the early 1430s, Leonardo and his brother Giovanni, both of whom were already Hungarian noblemen, figured in the role of Latin consul. In other words, they served as judges for the Florentines residing in Buda.13 In 1431, Leonardo Bardi was staying in Nuremberg, probably for a longer period of time, which may suggest that he actually had begun to cooperate in some way with local German merchants.14 Leonardo was probably away from Buda frequently for business purposes; another source mentions that he was staying in Bohemia for a certain time. The involvement of the Melanesi and the Bardi brothers, key figures of the local Florentine community, in business activity with some German businessmen, therefore, must have had long-term consequences.

Following King Sigismund’s death in 1437, very few of the Florentine families which had had an interest in the region as early as the turn of the fifteenth century continued to work in long-distance trade in the kingdom. Among them, we find members of the Del Bene and the Zati families, who thanks to their contacts in Buda, Florence and Venice managed to maintain their economic activity until around the middle of the fifteenth century.15 During the reign of Matthias Corvinus, however, the allies of the Medici dominated the Florentine-Hungarian relations; among them, members of the Attavanti and Gondi families became important distributors of Florentine goods in the royal court.16

 

Commodities

From its outset, the Florentine trading community in the Kingdom of Hungary was built upon the export of wool textiles from Florence and the import of precious metal coins/bullions to the Italian Peninsula. By the end of the fourteenth century, by which time some investors had begun to produce high quality silk fabrics in the city for the international market, Florentine merchants had already started to export silks to Hungary, among other places. Along with these goods, Florentines were occasionally involved in the administration and probably also in the marketing of salt, which was extracted in various parts of Hungary.17 Furthermore, exotic spices and animals are also mentioned in the sources. Few of the resident companies in Buda provided banking services, but a considerable share of money exchange and safe-keeping, as well as the purchase of trade insurance, may well have gone through the Florentine companies that operated in Florence and Venice. From this point of view, the Medici of Venice seem to have been especially important. Since, to our best knowledge, account books of Florentine companies based in Buda have not survived, we have only fragmented information at our disposal regarding the quantity and the quality of these commercial goods, as well as their transportation and marketing.

By the mid-fourteenth century, Florence was already considered an important producer of wool textiles; her goods had already reached the international market. There were two general types of wool textiles manufactured in the city: the high-quality San Martino cloths and the lower-quality Garbo cloths. The areas in which they were brought to market were decisively different. The high-quality cloths were sold mostly in the Italian and Iberian Peninsula, while the low-quality cloths were sold in the Levant.18 Though differences between the two were considerable, probably due to the absence of corresponding account books, Florentine sources do not refer to the type of wool textiles transported to the Kingdom of Hungary. They were generally labelled panni, a term which clearly distinguished them in the Florentine dialect from the silk drappi. Given the considerable distance between Florence and Buda, one can presume that profit-oriented Florentine businessmen sold mainly high-quality San Martino cloth in Hungary. This hypothesis is also supported by the activity of some of the merchant-entrepreneurs who had an interest in selling their goods in Hungary. In the fourteenth century, the Del Bene were among the most important entrepreneurs in the wool industry, and members of the family had already developed business connections in Hungary during the reign of Louis I.19 Similarly, around the turn of the fifteenth century, the Borghini brothers ran a wool workshop in the convent of San Martino, and they appear later as suppliers of textiles in the royal court. At that time, the Lamberteschi were also considered important producers of high-quality wool; they imported raw material directly from Flanders and sold some of their finished cloth in Hungary. They distributed wool textiles in Hungary, also by relying on other companies, like the Melanesi of Buda.20 The Melanesi brothers seem often to have acted as dealers in textiles produced by the workshops of other Florentine businessmen; they sold both finished and semi-finished cloth in Hungary.21 In most cases, the provenience of wool textiles sold in Hungary is not mentioned in the sources. Probably the earliest information on Florentine wool sold in Hungary dates back to 1387, when Gabriello di messer Bartolomeo Panciatichi sent four and a half pieces of textile to Zagreb.22

In addition to wool textiles, which definitely had a vast circle of customers, silk textiles became the other important item of Florentine trade. Richard Goldthwaite contends that silk textile was the first product manufactured in Florence which Florentine merchants sold all over Western Europe. The local silk industry underwent the earliest phase of its evolution in the first part of the fourteenth century.23 By that time, in addition to Lucca (the first major site of silk production in Italy), Bologna, Genoa, and Venice also emerged as centers of silk production. However, in the case of Florence, the manufacturers in the city only started to produce silk fabrics for the international market in the late fourteenth century. The first investments of considerable size into the sector arrived in the 1380s when maybe a handful of entrepreneurs and silk manufacturers began to invest their financial and human capital into the foundation of silk manufacturing companies.24

This important moment in the history of the domestic silk industry coincides with the earliest report about silk fabrics being sent to the royal court in Hungary. In 1376, the politician and wool manufacturer Giovanni di Amerigo del Bene advised the government to have the Florentine ambassadors heading to Hungary carry as gifts three pieces of velvet and three pieces of silk, decorated with gold.25 Though Giovanni did not specify whether or not the silk textiles should be domestic products, one can reasonably hypothesize that the gifts were intended to represent the city and therefore the domestic industry. In that particular case, however, we have no information at our disposal concerning whether these diplomatic gifts actually reached the royal court. Ten years later, in 1386, another document informs us that the count palatine of Hungary had purchased silk textiles of considerable value from a Florentine company.26 The provenience, even in this source, was unspecified. It might just as well have been Florence as Venice. However, both of the documents indicate the rise of a certain demand for silk textiles in the various courts of the kingdom.

It seems logical to assume that as soon as the volume and quality of domestic production permitted, Florentine silk companies, well-connected to the local Florentine network, tried to sell their products in Hungary too. The silk manufacturers who sent silk fabrics to the region included several pioneer businessmen of the domestic industry, such as the workshop-company of Bartolomeo di Luca Rinieri and Antonio di Giovanni Panciatichi and the workshop of Parente di Michele di ser Parente. They probably marketed their textiles in Hungary, using other Florentine companies operating in the region as agents. These silk fabrics may have consisted, for example, of red damask, the so-called “chermusi.”27 Others, like the merchant Bernardo di Sandro Talani, who maintained a very diverse business profile, purchased silk textiles in Florence in order to sell them in Hungary.28

The triple-rooted Zati family, whose members developed business and social ties simultaneously in Florence, Venice, and Hungary, had an important interest in the marketing of silk in the kingdom.29 In the 1430s, they traded in silver brocades, among other things.30 Also, the company of Zanobi Panciatichi exported silk fabrics of various colors to Hungary; velvet of black, green, blue, and red colors, green and brown silk and damask cloths.31 But they also sold “zetani,” i.e. very heavy silk fabrics, using the Melanesi of Buda as dealers.32

The Melanesi seem to have maintained a vast circle of suppliers among the producers of silk and wool textiles who used their services to bring their fabrics to market in Buda.33 The Melanesi brothers themselves also invested capital into a silk manufacturing company with the Davizi and the Corsi brothers, whose families had been engaged in silk production since the 1380s.34 Presumably, some of the silk fabrics sold by the Melanesi in Buda should have come directly from their own workshop.35 The same workshop might have provided silk fabrics for the funeral of Andrea and Matteo Scolari in Hungary, which were displayed as flags and other textiles of liturgical use during the ceremony.36

One of the leading figures of the Florentine silk industry, Tommaso di Domenico Borghini, also sold the products of his own workshop-warehouse in Hungary using his own merchant company, which he had set up with Matteo di Stefano Scolari.37 In 1424, for example, Tommaso and Matteo imported twenty braccia of heavy black silk fabrics to Buda.38 The frequent mention of Hungarian golden florins of considerable quantity in the account book of a Florentine silk manufacturing company also indicates that the royal and baronial courts in Hungary were considered important buyers of Florentine silk textiles.39 However, due to the lack of detailed references in documents closely related to the transportation and marketing of textiles in Hungary, we have only fragmented information at our disposal on the kind of silk fabrics the Florentines sold in the kingdom.

In addition to textiles, other luxury items like spices and exotic animals also appear occasionally in the sources. In 1386, István Lackfi bought spices from the Panciatichi company.40 In his chronicle, Bonaccorso di Neri Pitti notes that he, as an apprentice, took a load of saffron with his master, Matteo di Scelto Tinghi, to Buda.41 In 1422, Matteo Scolari mentions in his letters spices as well as exotic animals like Arabian horses, falcons, ostriches, and monkeys, which his agent imported from Tunis, probably in the intention of taking them to the royal court in Hungary and to his brother, Pippo Scolari.42

The most important import items transported to the Italian Peninsula by the Florentines were the precious metals: gold, silver, and copper. In 1429, for example, Tommaso di Piero Melanesi imported copper to Venice in the amount of 1,000 Venetian ducats.43 In 1435, Tommaso was in charge of copper mines, which suggests that he may have traded in copper bullions on a regular basis. Other Florentine merchants were engaged in the silver trade. Among them we find Bernardo di Sandro Talani, from whom King Sigismund confiscated textiles, money, and silver in 1427.44 Another Florentine, Giovanni del maestro Niccolò Falcucci, was probably also interested in the trade in silver and gold.45 In one case, Giovanni, at the demand of Andrea Scolari, sold a piece of gold in Italy (6 pesetti di Buda, 18 carats) for 522 florins, 66 denari and 100 solidi.46 Interestingly, the precious metal trade to Italy was not monopolized by Florentine businessmen. A few sources indicate that a business group from Arezzo may have cooperated with the Florentines, including the nobleman Mariotto di Biagio Griffolini, his grandson, and a couple of other businessmen, who occasionally traveled to various parts of Hungary.47 Furthermore, we have some fragmented information concerning the import of Hungarian leather to Italy.48

The Geographical Outreach of the Network

Thanks to their continuous travels and their cooperative enterprises with a number of businessmen coming from other Tuscan towns like Arezzo, Prato, and Siena, Florentine merchants operating in the Kingdom of Hungary maintained a vast business network outside their homeland. This network extended from Flanders to Tunis and from Catalonia to Alessandria. One of the most important trade hubs for Florentine merchants operating in the Italian Peninsula was Venice, which, by the late fourteenth century, was already filled with Florentines. Similarly, Ancona may have served as a port city for Florentines’ goods to be transported to Dalmatia. However fragmented, its archives may shed some light on the commercial activity of the city with the other side of the Adriatic Sea.49 Another major transit point was Genoa, which was used by Florentines who imported various luxury items from North Africa to Florence. Merchants like Matteo Scolari, the Zati brothers, and the Lamberteschi used the services of Genoese captains.50 In addition to Tunis, Florentine merchants operating in Hungary were well-connected through their networks to other extra-European markets as well. Matteo Scolari, for example, invested money into overseas ventures several times; he ordered goods with the first galley to Alessandria.51 Bernardo Lamberteschi also purchased goods in Alessandria, but his agents were mostly traveling to destinations like Flanders and Catalonia to ensure the supply of raw wool.52 In the 1430s, they relied on the services of the Florentine galleys, which departed from Pisa.

In Rome, the papal court also offered business opportunities for Florentine merchants. For instance, in cooperation with another churchman Currado di Piero Cardini, Andrea Scolari, the bishop of Várad (today Oradea, Romania), traded in textiles there.53 Matteo Scolari’s in-law, the banker Vieri di Vieri Guadagni, may have offered banking services in the papal court instead.54 Other merchants, like Filippo di Giovanni del Bene and the aforementioned Currado, became papal collectors in Hungary.

Commercial Routes between Florence and Buda

In spite of the considerable distance between the two cities, Florence and Buda became closely connected by commercial routes. The most important documents in this regard are the accounts of the brothers Rinaldo and Luca di messer Maso degli Albizzi, who traveled to the Kingdom of Hungary in 1426 and 1427.55 The two distinct collections reveal more than any other source about the itineraries and the difficulties of the most frequently used land and sea routes, on which Florentine merchants traveled for business purposes. Even though the Albizzi brothers were heading for Buda as members of diplomatic contingents, the reference to itinerant Florentine merchants in their travel accounts proves that businessmen used the very same routes.56

Both of the embassies used the commercial route leading north from Florence to Bologna through the Apennines. In Rinaldo’s case, the first segment of the trip after Bologna included Ferrara and Padua. Luca went through Corticella, Torre della Fossa, Francolino, Crespino, Loreo, and Chioggia.57 Generally, transport from Florence to Bologna was by pack animals over the Apennines. Travelers then went from Bologna to the region of Ferrara overland or by canal and river and from Ferrara to Venice by river and by sea. According to Luca’s diary, he was traveling by land until Corticella, located north of Bologna, from there he continued his trip by river to Ferrara. He then continued his journey on horseback again from Ferrara to nearby Francolino, a port on the Po River, where he boarded a boat. Turning to the north at Loreo, he left behind the Po River and arrived in Chioggia, probably by river, from where he took another boat to Venice. Including the several compulsory stops during their trip, which were made both for relaxation and networking, the travel from Florence to Venice took approximately one week.

As the main hub for the redistribution of commercial goods along the route, Venice played a crucial role in the transportation of the Florentines’ merchandise. They typically stopped there for several days to purchase goods, socialize with their fellow-citizens, and arrange shipping. After having arrived in Venice, Rinaldo continued his travels overland to the north, through Villach and Vienna, reaching Buda after 40 days of travel and diplomatic visits. At the same time, Luca took a ship in Venice and followed the coastline through Livenza (today Caorle, Italy), Daira (today Dajla, Croatia), Parenzo (today Poreč, Croatia), Fagiana (today Fažana, Croatia), Vegli (today Veli Brijuni, Croatia), Pola (today Pula, Croatia), Medulino (today Medulin, Croatia), and Ossero (today Osor, Croatia), arriving at the port of Segna after 8 days.58 Maritime navigation depended a great deal upon weather conditions, which might shorten or lengthen a trip. Because of an illness caused probably by the harsh weather at sea, Luca felt sick during their trip and was forced, after a long stay in Segna, to return to Florence, without ever reaching the royal court in Hungary. On the way back, Luca used the same sea route with smaller modifications. Having arrived from the Northwest to Hungary, Rinaldo left the kingdom in a southwestern direction, following another overland route past the Mura river, reaching Venice by following the road from Vienna.59

Given the fact that Florence was not a major transit center for commercial goods, it was the Florentine merchants who, by operating in the most important trade hubs, built up an international transport system for their goods.60 Therefore, in the travel of the Florentine ambassadors, the transportation of commercial goods, and the movement of Florentine merchants, a crucial role was given to cooperation between Florentine businessmen living in the cities situated along the commercial routes. Florentines offered each other hospitality in their foreign home, as well as shelter and supplies for their horses and sometimes even accompanying servants. Their reliable and experienced men carried messages and goods, and occasionally they offered traveling Florentines protection as well. The social network used by itinerant Florentine merchants was a business network of fellow-citizens who were active far from their homeland. Members of these networks very often maintained not only business but social ties as well with one another, thus ensuring the circulation of goods, messages, and people. Their primary concerns were weather conditions, health issues arising during their travels, and the security of their goods and people. Given this, merchants may well have often traveled together in order to guarantee their own safety and defray the otherwise elevated costs of toll and travel.61 For the safety of their goods, they might even have signed an insurance contract with one of the Florentine banks operating either in Florence or in Venice.62 Safe-conducts, obtained from the Florentine or the Venetian Signoria or from King Sigismund himself, may also have given traveling Florentine merchants a major sense of security.63

Venice as Major Trade Hub

There is no question that Venice played a crucial role in the redistribution of commercial goods transported by Florentine merchants and in their networking and business activity. The supply of raw wool in Florence and the circulation of finished Florentine textiles in the eastern Mediterranean and the eastern part of the continent depended a great deal upon the work of Florentines living in Venice. To a large extent, local and international banking, the trade of bills of exchange going through Venice, and the insurance business were in their hands.64 Thanks to its importance, Venice probably had the most sizeable Florentine business community living outside of their home city. Reinhold Mueller claims that Florentines settled in the city in high numbers as soon as the first part of the fourteenth century.65 However, in spite of the importance of the Florentines in Venetian trade and economy, Mueller’s study is the most detailed analysis of their economic activity in the city so far. Apart from the scholarship on the well-known cases of the Venetian branch of the Medici company and the settlement of members of the Gaddi family, no in-depth research has been done on Florentine merchant families who were engaged in trade around the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Earlier, Zsuzsa Teke suggested that some Florentines living in the Venetian Republic seem to have developed business connections in the Kingdom of Hungary as well.66 Her hypothesis has not been put to the test so far. Only the involvement of the Medicis in the Hungarian copper trade in the 1380s has been studied.

In 1433, at the time of the second general census in the city of Florence, nine companies were recorded which had been established by Florentine merchants in Venice.67 Among them, at least five cooperated with the Florentines who worked in the Kingdom of Hungary: the Panciatichi&Portinari, the Medici&Portinari, the Gaddi, the Zati, and the Ugolini.68 Unfortunately, the scarcity of documents regarding commercial activity in Venice leaves little room for analysis of their trade connections or their involvement in the redistribution of goods directed to and from Hungary. As has been suggested, in the first decades of the fifteenth century the Medici did not completely lose their interest in the region and may have continued to play an intermediary role, offering banking services in Venice and in Florence for the merchants working in Hungary. The possible role of the Medici of Venice in providing credit for Florentine merchants operating in the kingdom is underlined by its fragmented account book, dated to 1436. It lists among its clients several Florentine businessmen who traded simultaneously in Venice, Florence and Hungary, including for instance members of the Borghini, Scolari and Zati families.69

By the first decade of the century, Branca di Rinieri Scolari, a nephew of Andrea Scolari, had already settled in Treviso. He was followed by his brother, Giambonino di Rinieri Scolari. Their third brother, Filippo, returned to Florence in order to manage the family business and properties there. They had also a fourth brother, Lorenzo, who may have served as a kind of travel agent for the family, since he was occasionally in the Kingdom of Hungary. Unlike Lorenzo, Giambonino never returned to Florence. His heirs obtained Venetian citizenship, and their families lived in Treviso for two more centuries.70 The Scolari brothers’ careers could be said to exemplify the successes of the triple-rooted Florentine merchant families who developed commercial and social ties in the three states. This model was adopted by other families, for instance the Del Bene family and the Zati family. Their cooperative enterprises with other Florentine kinship networks active outside their homeland may also be called typical, like the Scolari, Borghini, and Melanesi families, each of which was an active participant in international trade in the three states.71

The Melanesi company and the Scolari family were also closely linked to the firm of Andrea Lamberteschi, a Florentine wool manufacturer and merchant. Lamberteschi himself managed the production of San Martino cloth in Florence, together with his eldest son, Tommaso. Meanwhile, his agent, Giovanni di Cenni Ugolini, ran the Venetian branch.72 Three other sons of his lived in Hungary. They traded in the textiles produced in their father’s workshop and also worked as employees of the Scolari family. Andrea’s fifth son was in charge of the import of raw wool from Flanders to Venice.73 In fact, Andrea is mentioned only rarely in the Venetian documents, while his branch manager and partner may have been the key figure of their activity in Venice. Ugolini, who settled for life in the Stato da Mar, is mentioned several times in documents of Venetian court cases.74

Giovanni Ugolini and the other aforementioned merchants maintained strong economic connections to Filippo di Giovanni del Bene as well.75 By the turn of the fifteenth century, Filippo had moved to Hungary, while his cousin, Jacopo di Francesco, with whom he had many business ventures, was exiled to Venice in the 1390s. Jacopo had been involved in business with Andrea Lamberteschi.76 Meanwhile, the Del Bene back home turned into important wool manufacturers by the first part of the fourteenth century. In Hungary, however, they were employed in various administrative positions, and they also became papal collectors.

Similarly, members of the Zati family developed this triple-rooted social and business profile. Close cooperation between the Zati siblings and cousins and the geographical spread of members of the family guaranteed the efficiency of their business network. The six brothers, Bartolomeo, Francesco, Niccolò, Simone, Giuliano, and Uberto d’Amerigo, kept merchant companies and businesses simultaneously in Buda, Florence, and Venice. They also cooperated closely with the Medici of Venice as agnatic kin to Lipaccio di Bindo Bardi, a partner of the company.77 The Zati acquired a reputation in Florence in the fourteenth century thanks to their participation in the wool-business. Their father was a wool manufacturer in Florence, and he was still active in the second decade of the fifteenth century.78 Into the 1420s, the six brothers maintained their Florentine citizenship and continued to pay taxes there, in spite of the fact that they used Venice as the base for their activity. For their businesses, they made use of Genoa as well, the other main maritime trade hub alongside Venice.79 Some of their commercial goods came directly from the workshops they maintained in Florence. In the mid-1410s, there was a wool manufacturing company registered under Uberto’s and Niccolò’s names which was still operating in 1433.80 It seems likely to me that one of them, Giuliano, who clearly lived in Venice, was running another workshop in Florence. The Venetian company, instead, was operating under Giuliano’s and Niccolò’s names, and they were the ones who formally operated the Buda branch in the 1430s.81 Meanwhile, Uberto played the role of travel agent in Buda. Their business in Hungary lasted at least until the 1440s, when Uberto died and his brothers petitioned to the Florentine chancery as heirs to help them recuperate his credits and other belongings in the Kingdom of Hungary. In addition to wool, which was also the most common item for the Lamberteschi-Ugolini company, the Zati sold silk textiles in the Kingdom of Hungary. As far as one can tell on the basis of the available sources, the supply of silk textiles in the royal court provided by the Zati brothers did not overlap chronologically with the Scolaris’ trade in silk fabrics in Hungary. There is no direct evidence indicating that the two families obtained, in the 1420s and 1430s, a monopoly in trading with silk textiles in the royal court. However, the lack of references to other merchants selling silk to King Sigismund suggests that the two families may have managed to secure an exclusive agreement with the sovereign.

Venice, as the major producer of wool and silk fabrics, exercised a protectionist policy aimed at strengthening the domestic industry throughout the period. In spite of this, Florentine textiles made their way to the city, and from there to the international market.82 Their trade may well have been facilitated by the Florentines who received citizenship in Venice, which made it easier for their fellow-citizens to obtain permissions for the transiting of domestic products.

Conclusion

By the second part of the reign of Louis I, the continuous trade contacts between the Florentine Republic and the Kingdom of Hungary gave rise to a lively Florentine community in Buda, which probably reached its peak in terms of political influence and economic activity during the reign of Sigismund of Luxemburg. After a depression of two or three decades following King Sigismund’s death, the period of Matthias Corvinus again saw the arrival of a considerable number of Florentine tradesmen to Hungary, who provided the royal and baronial courts with their goods. Because of the considerable distance between Florence and Buda, as well as her importance as a major trading hub and producer of wool and silk textiles, Venice played a leading role in the transportation and the redistribution of the Florentines’ goods. The commercial triangle formed between Florence, Venice, and Buda was built first and foremost upon the network of Florentine merchants. Venetians seem to have had only a minor share in this commerce. Throughout the period, the Florentines ensured the continuous distribution of their domestic products: wool textiles, initially, and later, from the 1380s onwards, also their high-quality silk fabrics. The appearance of Florentine silk textiles at this early phase of domestic production may testify to the simultaneous development of the Florentine silk industry and its marketing in the courts of Hungary. At the time, silk in the Kingdom of Hungary was often sold by the manufacturers themselves. Meanwhile, silk, which back then may have been a highly individualized item, became very popular and widespread by the reign of Matthias Corvinus, thanks to the development of the domestic industry, which made possible its continuous distribution by Florentine merchants even in the eastern part of the continent. The marketing of Florentine silk textiles, as luxury items, shaped the tastes of the local population. Imitations of silk, which were common in Florentine wall- and table-paintings, became part of the visual landscape.

Bibliography

Archival Sources

Archivio dell’Ospedale degli Innocenti (AOI)

Estranei

 

Archivio di Stato di Firenze (ASF)

Arte della Lana

Carte Strozziane

Serie I.

Catasto

Consulte e Pratiche

Corporazioni Religiose Soppresse dal Governo Francese (Corp. Rel. Sopp.)

Diplomatico

Mediceo avanti il Principato (MAP)

Mercanzia

Signori

Missive

I. Cancelleria

Dieci di Balia

Otto di Pratica

Legazioni e Commissarie

Missive e Responsive

Legazioni e Commissarie

 

Archivio di Stato di Treviso

Estimi

Archivio di Stato di Venezia (ASV)

Cassiere della bolla ducale

Grazie

Giudici di Petizion

Sentenze a giustizia

Sentenze e interdetti

 

Secondary sources

Arany, Krisztina. “Buda mint uralkodói székhely és távolsági kereskedelmi központ a 15. században, a firenzei és dél-német üzletemberek tevékenységének tükrében” [Buda as the seat of the ruler and a long-distance trade center in the fifteenth century, in the light of the activities of Florentine and southern German businessmen]. Urbs: Magyar Várostörténeti Évkönyv 7 (2012): 153–70.

Black, Robert. Benedetto Accolti and the Florentine Renaissance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.

“Civesveneciarum.” Accessed May 24, 2016. http://www.civesveneciarum.net/.

Draskóczy, István. “Italiener in Siebenbürgen im 15. Jahrhundert.” In The First Millennium of Hungary in Europe, edited by János Barta, Klára Papp, Attila Bárány, and Attila Györkös, 61–75. Debrecen: Multiplex Media–Debrecen University Press, 2002.

Draskóczy, István. “Kamarai jövedelem és urbura a 15. század első felében” [Chamber revenues and urbura in the first half of the fifteenth century]. In Gazdaságtörténet – Könyvtártörténet. Emlékkönyv Berlász Jenő 90. születésnapjára [Economic history – Library history: Essays in honor of ninety-year-old Jenő Berlász], edited by János Buza, 147–66. Budapest: BKÁE Gazdaság- és társadalomtörténeti kutatócsoport, 2001.

Goldthwaite, Richard A. The Economy of Renaissance Florence. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.

Guasti, Cesare, ed. Commissioni di Rinaldo degli Albizzi per il comune di Firenze dal 1399–1433. Vol. 2. Florence: Tipografia Cellini, 1869.

Hoshino, Hidetoshi. L’Arte della Lana in Firenze nel basso Medioevo: Il commercio della lana e il mercato dei panni fiorentini nei secoli XIII-XV. Florence: Olschki, 1980.

Kubinyi, András. “A budai német patriciátus társadalmi helyzete családi összeköttetései tükrében a 13. századtól a 15. század második feléig” [The social status of the Geman patriciate of Buda as reflected in their family connections from the thirteenth till the second half of the fifteenth century]. Levéltári közlemények 42 (1971): 203–69.

Mueller, Reinhold C., ed. Immigrazione e cittadinanza nella Venezia medievale. Rome: Viella, 2010.

Mueller, Reinhold C. “Mercanti e imprenditori fiorentini a Venezia nel tardo medioevo.” Società e Storia 55 (1992): 29-60.

Pataki, Vidor. “A budai vár középkori helyrajza” [The topography of the Buda Castle in the Middle Ages]. Budapest régiségei 15 (1950): 239–99.

Pitti, Bonaccorso. “Ricordi.” In Mercanti scrittori: Ricordi nella Firenze tra Medioevo e Rinascimento, edited by Vittore Branca, 366–67. Milan: Rusconi, 1986.

Prajda, Katalin. “Egy firenzei követjárás útinaplója” [Diary of a Florentine ambassadorship]. Lymbus: Magyarságtudományi Közlemények 9 (2011): 7–16.

Prajda, Katalin. “Egy firenzei sírköve a középkori Budán: Bene di Jacopo del Bene szerencsétlenül végződött követjárása” [A Florentine tombstone in medieval Buda: The tragic ambassadorship of Bene di Jacopo del Bene]. In És az oszlopok tetején liliomok formáltattak vala: Tanulmányok Bibó István tiszteletére [And lilies were formed on the top of the columns: Essays in honor of István Bibó], edited by Áron Tóth, 29–35. Budapest: CentrArt, 2011.

Prajda, Katalin. “Florentine Merchant Companies Established in Buda at the Beginning of the 15th Century.” Mélanges de l’École française de Rome - Moyen Âge [Online], 125-1 | 2013, Messo online il 21 ottobre 2013, consultato il 18 maggio 2017. Accessed May 28, 2017. http://mefrm.revues.org/1062 ; DOI : 10.4000/mefrm.1062.

Prajda, Katalin. “Goldsmiths, Goldbeaters and other Gold Workers in early Renaissance Florence, 1378–1433.” In Craftsmen and Guilds in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods, edited by Eva Jullien and Michel Pauly, 195–220. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2016.

Prajda, Katalin. “Justice in the Florentine Trading Community of Late Medieval Buda.” Mélanges de l’École française de Rome - Moyen Âge [Online], 127-2 | 2015, Messo online il 30 settembre 2015, consultato il 18 maggio 2017. Accessed May 28, 2017. http://mefrm.revues.org/2716 ; DOI : 10.4000/mefrm.2716

Prajda, Katalin. “Levelező üzletemberek: Firenzeiek a Zsigmond korban” [Businessmen of letters: Florentines in the reign of Sigismund of Luxemburg]. Századok 197, no. 2 (2010): 301–34.

Prajda, Katalin. “Representations of the Florentine Republic at the Royal Court in the Kingdom of Hungary.” In Routledge History of the Renaissance, edited by William Caferro, chapter 23. London: Routledge, 2017.

Prajda, Katalin. “Trade and Diplomacy in pre-Medici Florence: The Case of the Kingdom of Hungary (1349–1434).” In Causa unionis, causa fidei, causa reformationis in capite et membris, edited by Attila Bárány and László Pósán, 85–106. Debrecen: Debrecen University Press, 2016.

Prajda, Katalin. “Unions of Interest: Florentine Marriage Ties and Business Networks in the Kingdom of Hungary during the Reign of Sigismund of Luxemburg.” In Marriage in Premodern Europe: Italy and Beyond, edited by Jacqueline Murray, 147–66. Toronto: CRRS, 2012.

Skorka, Renáta. “Levél a városháza tornyából” [Letter from the tower of the city hall]. Accessed September 17, 2015. https://tti.btk.mta.hu/lendulet/kozepkori-gazdasagtortenet/havi-szines/1917-havi-szines-szeptember-level-a-varoshaza-tornyabol.html.

Spallacci, Giulia. I rapporti commerciali tra le città delle due sponde adriatiche nella documentazione dell’archivio di Ancona tra 1345 e 1514. PhD. diss. Università di Bologna, 2017 – submitted for defense.

Teke, Zsuzsa. “Economia e politica nei rapporti tra Firenze e l’Ungheria durante il Quattrocento.” In Mattia Corvino e Firenze: Arte e Umanesimo alla corte del re di Ungheria, edited by Péter Farbaky, Dániel Pócs, Magnolia Scudieri, Lia Brunori, Enikő Spekner, and András Végh, 68–75. Florence: Museo di San Marco, 2013.

Teke, Zsuzsa. “Firenzei kereskedőtársaságok, kereskedők Magyarországon Zsigmond uralmának megszilárdulása után, 1404-37” [Florentine merchant companies and merchants in Hungary following the consolidation of the reign of Sigismund]. Századok 129, no. 2 (1995): 195–214.

Teke, Zsuzsa. Velencei-magyar kereskedelmi kapcsolatok a XIII–XV. században [Venetian–Hungarian trade relations from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries]. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1979.

Tognetti, Sergio. Il banco Cambini: Affari e Mercanti di una compagnia mercantile-bancaria nella Firenze del XV secolo. Florence: Olschi, 1999.

Tognetti, Sergio. “The Development of the Florentine Silk Industry: A Positive Response to the Crisis of the Fourteenth Century.” Journal of Medieval History 31 (2005): 55–69.

* The study benefited from the support of the National Research, Development and Innovation Office - NKFIH no. PD. 117033 (entitled: Italy and Hungary in the Renaissance). Research at the Venetian National Archives and the National Archives in Treviso were supported by the Vittore Branca Center, The International Center for the Study of Italian Culture.