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The Arrow Cross. the Ideology of Hungarian Fascism. -A Conceptual Approach

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The Arrow Cross. the Ideology of Hungarian Fascism. -A Conceptual Approach DOI: 10.14754/CEU.2015.06 The Arrow Cross. The Ideology of Hungarian Fascism. -A conceptual approach- By Áron Szele Central European University, Budapest 2015 CEU eTD Collection 1 DOI: 10.14754/CEU.2015.06 Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 7 Fascism in Hungarian historical writing ................................................................................................ 9 What is fascism? Delimiting the concept ............................................................................................ 26 Populism and the populist style ......................................................................................................... 30 Circumscribing the field: the far right and fascism. The theory of the political family ......................... 33 The history of transfers ...................................................................................................................... 35 Conspiracies and fears ....................................................................................................................... 39 The study of ideology through political concepts ............................................................................... 43 Interwar Hungary- ossification and revolt .......................................................................................... 46 The intellectual and political roots of Hungarian Fascism ................................................................... 56 Fascist Charisma in interwar Hungary ................................................................................................... 63 Horthy and the others ....................................................................................................................... 70 Popular geniuses ............................................................................................................................... 73 Bringers of the new age ..................................................................................................................... 78 Martyrdom and leadership without leader ........................................................................................ 81 Conclusions ....................................................................................................................................... 90 The concept of the nation ..................................................................................................................... 92 Symbolic geography and nationalism: spatial understanding of the nation ........................................ 92 Matolcsy’s New Europe ................................................................................................................... 112 Nation, community and race within Hungarian fascist ideology ....................................................... 118 The harmonious nation: the Hungarian “national community” ........................................................ 120 Demography and paranoia .............................................................................................................. 133 The nationalities in the “Hungarian empire” .................................................................................... 136 Nation versus Race. The search for the Hungarian national character .............................................. 138 Anti-Semitism and Hungarian fascism .............................................................................................. 159 The road to Jew-Hatred ................................................................................................................... 160 CEU eTD Collection Other races ...................................................................................................................................... 172 People and society in Hungarian fascist discourses ............................................................................ 175 Populism and the social question: the early years ............................................................................ 175 The Scythe Cross and the urban-rural divide .................................................................................... 190 The development of a populist discourse ......................................................................................... 194 2 DOI: 10.14754/CEU.2015.06 Land reform ..................................................................................................................................... 199 Szálasi, between fascist corporatism and “the Work-State” ............................................................. 202 Women ........................................................................................................................................... 217 The historical teleology and worldview of Hungarian fascism in the 1930’s-1940’s............................ 227 The beginnings of historical theory .................................................................................................. 229 Radical right histories ...................................................................................................................... 239 Sacred histories, dark presents, bright futures ................................................................................. 243 Decay and rebirth ............................................................................................................................ 246 Baráth Tibor: the culmination of the fascist thesis of history ............................................................ 255 Conclusions ..................................................................................................................................... 261 Conclusions ......................................................................................................................................... 263 Annexes .............................................................................................................................................. 279 A short biographical dictionary of fascist politicians in Hungary ....................................................... 279 Chronology of events ...................................................................................................................... 310 Photographic evidence .................................................................................................................... 315 CEU eTD Collection 3 DOI: 10.14754/CEU.2015.06 Acknowledgments The development and completion of this dissertation is the product of my long-standing interest in the history of political ideas, and particularly, the history of nationalism in modern and contemporary Central and Eastern Europe. This interest was fostered and nurtured by a great many historians and social scientist I had the privilege to work with and interact during my time as a student of the Central European University in Budapest. I would first of all like to express my gratitude and appreciation for the supervisor of my thesis, Balázs Trencsényi. Professor Trencsényi, who has also helped supervise my Master‘s dissertation, has served as an intellectual beacon, helping to guide my work, clarify my ideas and my academic demarche. He has also provided me with motivation and through his vast knowledge of the intellectual sources and the history of ideas in Eastern, Central and Southern Europe has also helped me embed my work into larger theoretical debates. I would also like to thank professor Constantin Iordachi for his help, which was invaluable during both the preparation of the application for my Ph.D. work, and during the research process itself. It was in his classes on totalitarianism and fascism that I have developed the basic idea which constitutes CEU eTD Collection this thesis, and he was the one who introduced and familiarized me with the most important theoretical tenets within the field. Professor Iordachi has also involved me in a project in comparative fascism studies, which has greatly helped me in gathering data and comparing my 4 DOI: 10.14754/CEU.2015.06 findings to others; he has also closely followed and guided my work through numerous discussions we had over the years. I am also very grateful to László Kontler, who has helped me over the years, providing me with the opportunity of serving as a teaching assistant in his class on modern historiography and historical theory, and who has been gracious enough to provide me with encouragement and assistance over the years. Parts of this thesis would not have been possible without the positive and critical input of Gábor Egry, an expert on interwar Hungarian history, whose positive advice and input enabled me to better understand the context in which Hungarian fascist ideology and discourse developed and existed. I would like to express my gratitude to professor Péter Balázs, the director of the Center for European Enlargement Studies. Professor Balázs‘ support was invaluable, as he helped to further develop my interest in the study of the ideology and discourse of the far right by enabling me to coordinate a project on the contemporary Central European far right. His academic input, advice and encouragement of my projects during my stint as a Research Assistant at CENS facilitated my intellectual development beyond history, toward a multi-disciplinary approach, including political science and international
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