Márta Fata. Das Ungarnbild der deutschen Historiographie. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2004. 334 S. EUR 48.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-3-515-08428-4.

Reviewed by Timothy Dowling (Department of History, Virginia Military Institute)
Published on H-German (December, 2005)

What a Difference a Day-Trip Makes

The first time I read this book, I thought it dispensable and just a bit odd. Yes, Europe is redefining itself--particularly the central and eastern portions--and scholars in several fields are pouring out books exploring the process from all angles. In her introductory material (pp. 11-24), Marta Fata seemed to place the volume squarely in this context of "where is Hungary"? The basic idea of the volume, she noted, was rooted in the 1983 call of Hungarian historian Jeno Szucs for a "third region" of Europe to be defined for study, beyond East and West (p. 12). Certainly Hungary's place in Europe, currently and historically, geographically and politically, is a question worth considering. But was there really a call for an entire book on the German historiography of Hungary? Apparently not. Only about half the contents of the volume actually deal with that subject. The other half includes an article by Richard Evans on the British historiography of Hungary, an attempt to place the development of the Hungarian national ideology in a broader European context, a review of how Germans viewed the ethnic Germans who were expelled from Hungary after the Second World War, and a section on the links between the Hungarian legal system and the German. So I was fully prepared to write the work off as one of those niche publications from a local historical institute.

And then I went to Hungary, where I was to teach summer school for six weeks. Budapest was less than three hours from Vienna (my usual summer haunt) by automobile, and yet it seemed a world apart--perhaps even more so than during the Soviet era, in some ways. Both the Austrians and the Hungarians certainly viewed it that way; nobody was quite willing to admit that Hungary was really part of Europe, no matter whether "central" or "eastern." This theme became more pronounced as I re-read Das Ungarnbild der deutschen Historiographie in preparation for this review, and I found it creeping into my teaching that summer as well. No one, it seems--not the Germans, not the British, not the Hungarians themselves--has ever seen Hungary as anywhere but on the fringes of Europe, both geographically and culturally. This is the thread that ties the book together and makes it worth reading for a broader audience, and which I had overlooked in my original reading of it. In one way or another, each essay illuminates the subtle and often fragile connections between Hungary and the rest of Europe.

Picking out that thread is not easy if you aren't looking for it. (I certainly missed it the first time through.) Many of the essays are highly specialized and require some heavy slogging. The contributions on the legal system ("Das historische Ungarnbild in der deutschen Rechtsgeschichtswissenschaft. Eine Geschichte der Forschung und der interkulturellen Wissenschaftsbeziehungen bis 1945" by Katalin Goenezi; "Die Aufarbeitung der ungarischen Rechtsentwicklung zwischen 1945 und 1990 durch die deutsche Rechtswissenschaft" by Georg Brunner; and "Der Minderheitenschutz im ungarischen Recht nach 1990 im Spiegel der deutschen Fachliteratur" by Johannes Berger) are rather specialized and technical in nature. Goenezi's is the most useful contribution for generalists. Likewise, both Janos Bak's "Herrschergestalten des mittlealterlichen deutschen Mediaevistik" and Istvan Futaky's "'Die Völkergeschichte hat wenige Beyspeile einer solchen Veredlung.' Die Ungarische Geschichte an der Göttinger Universität im 18. Jahrhundert" (pp. 31-48) are larded with lengthy footnotes and will confound many readers with the array of languages used. Futaky, for example, is fond of using long Latin quotations with the Hungarian translation, not the German, in the footnote. He nevertheless succeeds in showing that because of Habsburg censorship, the study of Hungarian history--a marginal field at best before the nineteenth century--was inextricably bound with and influenced by scholars at the University of Göttingen.

The essays that follow make it clear that as contacts increased, Hungary came closer to "Europe" but was never fully accepted. Fata's second contribution, "'Mein geliebtes Kalmuckenvolk'. Ungarns Geschichte in deutschen historischen Darstellung zwischen Nationalismus, Konservatismus und Liberalismus im ersten Drittel des 19. Jahrhunderts" is particularly effective in this regard. She elucidates the work of three German thinkers--Ernst Moritz Arndt, Friedrich Schlegel, and Karl von Rotteck--with regard to Hungary. Noted as "Enlightened" thinkers, none fully accepted Hungary as European but all worked to alter the general continental perception of Hungary as "foreign" and "backward" even if they did not always do so in the most flattering of terms. Arndt, for example, argued that Hungarians were not "backward" but merely "underachievers" in European-ness (pp. 64-65). Like Schlegel and Rotteck, he believed that increased contact with Christianity [!] and Germans would soon "Europeanize" the Hungarians (pp. 64-65, 74, 77).

Attilla Pok argues, somewhat ironically, that this was indeed the case, at least so far as the practice and writing of history were concerned, in "Rankes Einfluss auf Geschichtsschreibung und Geschichtsdenken in Ungarn. Ein historisierter Historiker." As more Hungarians traveled to and studied in Europe, the influence of European models increased in the way Hungarian history was written and perceived. Pok, in fact, ties the professionalization of history in Hungary directly to Ranke, though he admits Thomas Macaulay and Augustin Thierry exercised some stylistic influence (p. 101). This information brings up two rather interesting points. The first, as Pok makes clear, is that Hungarian history was always--even during the Soviet period--following European models, never in step with them or, heaven forbid, ahead of the curve. This conclusion confirms the rather ironic notion put forth in the preceding essay, "Kein europäischer Sonderfall. Ungarns Nationalitätenproblem im 19. Jahrhundert und die jüngere Nationalismusforschung" by Joachim von Puttkamer, that the development of nationalism in Hungary--Magyarization, if you will--was seen internally as a means not only of modernizing, but of gaining recognition as a "European nation" (p. 90). For Hungarians and to German observers, Puttkamer tells us, the two were coterminous (p. 90).

The second point is elucidated by Evans: Europe never really took any notice of Hungary, and still hasn't. As he points out, there was no notion of Hungary as anything but a geographic region in the British mind prior to 1849, much less a historiography of Hungary. Indeed, only the arrival of several Hungarians fleeing the consequences of the revolution even brought the notion of Hungary as an area of study to light. Even then, Hungarian history (and presumably Hungarian language, culture, and society) remained but a small speck on the ocean. Not until 1908 was a history of Hungary written using Hungarian language sources, and disciples of the exiled Hungarian leaders or those dispatched to Hungary on diplomatic business concerned themselves with the region (pp. 116-117). One gets the impression that had the revolution of 1956 not sent another wave of exiles into Europe, Hungarian history might have vanished altogether on the continent "proper" (pp. 120-125).

Presumably, the articles that follow Evans's are meant to counteract this notion by demonstrating that Germans, at least, remained concerned with the questions of Hungarian historical development. The results are, however, a mixed bag. Laszlo Orosz's "Die Verbindungen der deutschen Südostforschung zur ungarischen Wissenschaft zwischen 1935 und 1944. Ein Problemaufriss anhand des Briefwechsels zwischen Fritz Valjavec and Elemer Jalyasz" is a micro-history of Hungary's contact with Europe of impressive length and depth, yet it only reinforces the notion that connections between Germany and Hungary were extremely limited. Krisztina Kaltenecker's study of Germans deported from Hungary after 1945 also demonstrates the almost total lack of connectivity between Germans and Hungary. Kaltenecker raises several interesting points but ultimately the article is about Germans in Hungary, not Hungary itself.

The next two contributions demonstrate at length that connections do remain. Gerhard Seewann's "Zwischen Positivmus, Anpassung und Innovation. Deutsche Historiker zur Geschichte Ungarns im 20. Jahrhundert" provides a good, short overview of the situation. He also provides an extensive bibliography for anyone interested in modern Hungarian history who can read German. Andreas Schmidt-Schweizer, on the other hand, confirms that German historians are still concerned with Hungary only by concerning himself with it. "Der politische Systemwechsel in Ungarn 1988/1989 aus der Sicht eines deutschen Historikers" (pp. 214-226) provides an excellent, if brief, exercise in comparative history. Instead of the "stereotypical Western view" of the Hungarian revolution of 1988-1989 as one of people vs. powers, Schmidt-Schweizer sees a "transformation from within" (p. 223). It is a certainly a notion worth considering, and in and of itself, it answers the question Schmidt-Schweizer poses at the outset of his essay--the same question subtly posed by this book as a whole: "does the German perspective make any difference?"

The book closes with four essays similar to Schmidt-Schweizer's in approach that, to my mind, help answer that question: "Mythen und Legenden versus Fakten und Strukturen. Zur Problematik deutschsprachiger Gesamtdarstellungen der ungarischen Geschichte" by Holger Fischer; "Die Lechfeldschlacht in der deutschen Geschichtsschreibung. Ein Ereignis zwischen historischer Forschung und populärwissenschaftlicher Darstellung" by Maximillian Georg Kellner; "Schlaglichter im Kontext deutscher Geschichte? Ungarn im deutschen Schulgeschichtsbüchern" by Martin Zückert; and "Grundlagen, Ursachen und Ziele der Neuprofilierung um die Jahrtausendwende" by Zsolt K. Lengyel. It would be easy to dismiss any or all of them as "micro-history," "local history" or some other, similar term, as I originally did. Given Schmidt-Schweizer's question, however, and the greater context that Fata has provided for them, these articles serve as reminders of just how important perspective can be.

Perhaps it was just that I was in Hungary at the time, trying to teach some Hungarian history to a few American students. Perhaps it was that short day-trip to Vienna that alerted me to the differences in perception. Perhaps it was the six-year-old review of Coasts of Bohemia, which spoke persuasively on perceptions of history and identity and that I finally got around to cataloging during the trip.[1] It could have been any or all of them, but what I realized (again) while re-reading this collection of essays was what I always tell my students: that history is made up of bricks, tiny bits that eventually come together to create a larger structure. One has to do the construction oneself to really understand it. There are plenty of building materials in this work for those who are changing their courses from "Eastern Europe [pick a timeframe]" to "Central Europe [pick a timeframe]"--but only for those willing to do the work of sifting through them to find what they need.

Das Ungarnbild der deutschen Historiographie is neither the easiest book to read nor the most penetrating synthesis of how Hungary fits into the evolving pattern of the "new Europe." It will, however, provide plenty of food for thought for those who are grappling with the question of where states like Hungary--or Slovakia, or Ukraine, or Turkey [!]--fit into "Europe," if they fit at all.

Note

[1]. Derek Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia: A Czech History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998). Reviewed for H-Habsburg by Hugh Agnew, October 1999.

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Citation: Timothy Dowling. Review of Fata, Márta, Das Ungarnbild der deutschen Historiographie. H-German, H-Net Reviews. December, 2005.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=11291

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