ITALIAN-HUNGARIAN LITERARY RELATIONS

The study of unilateral and reciprocal literary interactions, whether between individuals or nations, has been the oldest preoccupation of comparative literature. It is almost unbelievable, then, that neither the different forms of such interaction nor the methods of comparison between authors, groups, or national literatures, have generated any theory of how and why this contact occurs. A treasure-house of concrete data may be hidden in the many thousands of volumes of comparative literary studies published thus far; nevertheless, until now no one has undertaken the task of deriving generalizations from these data in order to build a theory of literary interaction. The purpose of this paper is not to contribute more data to this treasure-house of comparative facts. In the first place, the chosen topic: "Italian-Hungarian literary relations," has been repeatedly and thoroughly researched by scholars whose publications are available in both languages and do not need any urgent updating or correcting.1 Second, one can, with good reason, ask the question: why should we compare the literature of Italy and Hungary in particular? Does this comparison not seem to be that of the smart comparatist who, possessing a few elementary methodological techniques and much sophism, is ready to compare any literature of the world with any other? The fact is that conventional methods (such as those of traditional comparative literature) provide a means of gaining valid insights and even theoretical recognitions. Routine tempts one to stick to well- trodden paths, while a few paces away the richness and vastness of the field become evident. It is hoped that the following, by no means exhaustive, survey of selected stages of Italian-Hungarian cultural

- 116- relations will open vistas which also have theoretical ramifications. It is a lofty but illusory view that only movements, great authors, and particular works inspire literature. There are generally shared images, stereotypes of other cultures, that influence the public consciousness of people in different cultures and times. Stereotypes are not fixed and may change, often and even radically — yet the blunt refusal of their existence, whether by sociologists,2 or by literary scholars,3 is unwarranted. The enlightened, pragmatic, and culturally optimistic spirit of Anglo-American civilization, in particular, has assumed that the source of stereotypes was ignorance. Moreover, our culture also dictates that once the different cultures and peoples learn about each other, those stereotypes disappear. As recent North Ameri­ can sociological studies have demonstrated, stereotypes exist in multi­ cultural societies as well; however, they correspond by and large to verifiable social statistics.4 That is, in our world of multi-channelled mass information, stereotypes may be regarded as naive but by and large, statistically correct references to other cultures. Of course, this was not always the case. There is one quite unflattering and very "unscientific" characteris­ tic of Italian-Hungarian cultural relations: namely, it is the Italian concept of Hungarians as barbaric, cruel warriors. This was not the only image of the Hungarians; but it was a stubbornly recurring one from the tenth through the nineteenth centuries. While this circums­ tance refutes the rationalistic view of literary theorists on stereotypes as basically peripheral to literary studies, it also corroborates their opinion that knowledge and understanding invalidate stereotypes — or at least correct them. No one denies that there was a grain of truth in this stereotype of the Hungarians. The warlike invasions of the pagan Hungarians during the tenth century had little which would have endeared the former to the Italians. Liutprando da Pavia, bishop of Cremona, depicts the horror that the Hungarian light cavalry inflicted on his compatriots in particularly vivid images: how the invaders set the city of Pavia aflame, killing by their hailstorm of arrows those who tried to escape.5 Similar dark images evolve from the monk Benedetto's description of how the Hungarian warriors acted in Italy when Pietro di Spoleto asked for their help against Rome in 927 A.D.6 There are several other docu­ ments illustrating the shock which Italy experienced following confrontation with the thousands of deadly efficient riders, matched in skill only by Attila's invasion in 452. The analogy was too tempting, the historical counter-evidence nonexistent — hence Italians forged

- 117 - the myth which was to survive for centuries, namely, that the Hunga­ rians were the descendants of the Huns and just as barbaric and destructive as the latter. It is no wonder that such a historical myth was created at an early stage of medieval civilization. It is much more remarkable that it prevailed even after Hungary had become a Christian kingdom of considerable cultural achievements. Andrew, husband of Giovanna of Naples who was a descendant of the Hungaricized Anjous and was cruelly murdered with the complicity of his wife, was called "the Hun" in the Neapolitan court.7 In the latter part of the fifteenth century, during the reign of the enlightened Hungarian monarch King Mat­ thias (1458-1490), Italian and Hungarian interrelations were perhaps stronger than ever, as demonstrated by several Italian humanist chro­ niclers, a number of whom provided fair assessments (Antonio Bon- fini, Ludovico Carbone, Battista Guarino), while others wrote overwhelmingly flattering accounts (Galeotto Marzio, Naldo Naldi) of Hungary as compared to Italy. In the same period, however, Filippo Buonaccorsi published, under the pen-name "Callimachus," a drama titled Attila (1489) in which he rehashed the old stereotype and presented Matthias as ruthless ruler posed to conquer the world. It is interesting to note that the author wrote his play in the court of King Kazimir of Poland, an enemy of King Matthias. After 1541 Hungary was partitioned into three parts, one domina­ ted by Austrian imperial interests, another by the Ottoman Empire, and the third was independent. Although the Turkish invasion of Europe also threatened Italian (notably Venetian) interests, the Ita­ lians had more options to seek peaceful settlements with Constantino­ ple than did the Hungarians. Also there were Italian historians and clergymen in the Viennese court, and their unfavourable statements on Hungary demonstrated the diplomatic skill of the Habsburgs who kept two volatile flanks of their empire, Italy and Hungary, apart, in ignorance of each other and in mutual suspicion. The remarks of Giovanni Michiel,8 Giovanni Correr,9 Gerolamo Soranzo,10 Battista Nani,11 and numerous other sixteenth and seventeenth-century chroni­ clers about the perfidy, unruliness, inhumanity, and innate anti­ democratic behaviour of the Hungarians contributed to the historical claim of the Habsburgs in occupying the entire country in 1686, after driving our the Turks, under the pretext of "civilizing" the barbaric Hungarians. After the French Revolution and during the simulta­ neous awakening of nationalism in Italy and Hungary, it became important for the Habsburgs, more than ever, to prevent the exchange

- 118 - of information between the two countries. Even travel was made difficult. It is no wonder that the "Hun" stereotype of the Hungarians prevailed as late as 1822 when David Bertolotti's novel La calata degli Ungheresi in Italia nel novecento was published. With its melodramatic clichés (the Italian heroine sacrifices herself to the fierce Hungarians in order to save her town; or, the awe of the Eastern barbarians at the sight of Italy's beauties, cultural as well as feminine), the novel is probably not much worse than third-rate romantic prose in general — except that it is especially embarrasing reading for a Hungarian. Fortunately, there was another image of Hungary in Italian litera­ ture as well. Ethnocentric and partial to Italy as it may have been, it was nevertheless voiced by the more representative segment of Italian literature — indeed, occasionally by the greatest authors. This should at least recognize that men of wide scope, generosity, and true artistic attitude tend to conceptualize cultural differences in a relatively less stereotyped and hostile manner. In Medieval and Renaissance Italian writing, Hungary appears not as a land inhabited by Attila's barbaric descendants but a country of beautiful landscapes, generous hospitality, bravery, noticeable wealth, and pretty women. Even such negative statement as the following, when Giacomo Pugliese mourns for his deceased lady, demonstrates a degree of admiration noticeable already in the early thirteenth century:

Se fosse mio'l reame d'Ungaria con Greza e Lamagna infino in Franza, lo gran tesoro di Santa Sofia, non poria ristorar si gran perdanza.12

Sympathy with Hungary's future well-being was spelled out by Dante in Paradiso, in which he happily noted this country's great fortune to have his benefactor, Charles Martel, as her new king.13 Although Martel died young and was just a pretender to the Hungarian throne, his son, Charles Robert, became a king and ruled Hungary for decades. "O beata Ungheria!" Dante rejoiced at the enormous luck of this country in having a great Western European-born king.14 The cordial relation between the two countries culminated in the latter part of the fifteenth century when the strong and popular Hungarian monarch, King Matthias, invited a great number of Italian humanists to his court, purchased a tremendous library which was envied even by Lorenzo de' Medici, and took Beatrice of Aragon as his second wife. Following his second marriage, the Hungarian court became fully Italian, and the aging king consented to the many whims

-119- of his young wife. Among these was the appointment of Beatrice's ten-year-old nephew, Ippolito d'Esté, as Bishop of Esztergom, the highest religious position in the country. Half a century later Ariosto praised the king's insight in recognizing true genius in the young boy.15 Hungarians thought otherwise; both Beatrice and her nephew found it best to leave the country after Matthias's death. The sixteenth century signalled a low ebb in the relations between the two countries which prevailed until the second half of the nine­ teenth century. There were some exceptions to the generally negative image of Hungary in Italy. Around 1530 Pietro Bembo mourned the loss of Hungarian independence in one of his sonnets.16 One-and-a- half centuries later the liberation of Buda and the end of the Turkish occupation inspired a great number of mannerist epics, such as Fede­ rigo Nomi's Buda liberata (1703), or Marco Rossetti's Sacra Lega (1696). Giuseppe Berni even wrote a mock epic on the occasion (Meo Patacca, 1695). Altogether as many as 2000 Italian odes and shorter poems may have celebrated the victory of Christianity over heathen­ dom,17 most, however, presented the event as a European cause and just marginally, if at all, a Hungarian one. As was mentioned earlier, the anti-Hungarian, manipulated stereo­ types of the Habsburgs prevailed in Italian literature during the eigh­ teenth century. A few Italian travellers after the French Revolution finally described Hungary in favourable terms. By the time Italy became genuinely interested in the impressive endeavours of nineteenth-century Hungarian nationalism, the misunderstanding took a reverse direction. In the great Hungarian classical novels of the mid-nineteenth century Italy usually stood for decadence, immorality, and greed — that is, anything but an ideal for a nation aspiring for independence. Mór Jókai (1825-1904), perhaps the most popular of all Hungarian prose writers, had a typically ambivalent attitude toward Italy. While he appreciated the Italian landscape and the glorious historical and artistic past,18 he also spelled out such historical facts as the role that imperial Italian troops played in defending the fort of Buda against the Hungarian revolutionary army during the war of independence of 1848-1849.19 The affiliations among revolutionary politicians, such as Kossuth and Mazzini, or the history of the Hunga­ rian "Klapka Legion" under Garibaldi's command, were political episodes without cultural or literary extensions. It was not until the 1870s, when Italy became united and Hungary attained its sove­ reignty, that the literary life and mutai cultural interest of the two countries finally intersected. Yet Attila still remains a haunting figure,

- 120- and in Bertolucci's controversial film 1900, an Attila with an indistinct Hungarian family name (perhaps Örkény), takes the form of a troglo- dytic monster, who represents the worst excesses of fascism. Thus far, Italy has been discussed as a cultural receptor. As it appears from the examples mentioned, Hungary primarily made a historical and social impact on Italian literature. It was especially the political conditions and activities of this country that Italian literature reflected upon. Except for the recent century, there has been an absolutely minimal amount of awareness or appreciation of Hunga­ rian language and literature in Italy. The cultural state of the country was also regarded with ethnocentrism. King Matthias, for instance, was a good ruler because he introduced Italian values and manners into the Hungarian court, and the Habsburgs were praised as the knights of Western Europe and Catholicism, with which historians of the Italian baroque could also identify. The appreciation of Italian culture in Hungary was also reflected in its national literature, perhaps more frequently than not. Like most European national literatures, Hungarian was evolving more slowly than Italian. The first demonstrably Italian element in Hungarian literature was the genre of the first Latin courtly chronicler whose name is unknown; he is, therefore, referred to as Anonymus. His Gesta Hungarorum (early 13th c.) brought a break with the earlier, less sophisticated German way of writing chronicles by listing the data of historical events; instead, it was a carefully composed "geste" of considerable literary ambition. In a later geste of the same century, written by Simon de Kéza (ca. 1283), even the impact of the Italian language is noticeable, since the writer embellished his Latin with such Italianisms as partita, antiqualia, and even with Venetian dialect (vec­ cia Venezia, Realt). The writer is assumed to have studied in Italy, perhaps in Padova. Most of his thirteenth-century contemporaries studied in Bologna, where they even formed their own student associa­ tion, "Natio Hungarica." In 1316 the student body managed to elect a compatriot, Miklós Dörögi, as president of the university. This was the first but not the only example of a Hungarian being named rector to an Italian university. The number of students of Hungarian origin increased steadily; after Matthias's death, in the late fifteenth century, there were 160 Hungarian students in Padova alone. The total impact of this Italian-educated intellectual elite on Hungary was, naturally, extremely significant. During the rule of the Neapolitan Anjous, as demonstrated by one of the stories of Giovanni da Prato's Paradiso degli Alberti,20 Italians

- 121 - enjoyed a number of privileges in Hungary. Active and wide-scale reception of the Italian language made Hungarian more refined and expressive and it was utilized to denote new social and political pheno­ mena. Although the Anjous — Charles Robert and his son Louis I — became Hungarianized, the interaction between the two countries took its first positive upswing and affected the whole society through such words of trade and fashion as gàlya (< galea),dùs(= "rich," < doge), paszomàny (= "braid," < passamàn); military art (kapitdny, < capitano, mustra = "parade," < mostra); social interaction (tréfa = "joke," < traffa, csùf = < ciòfo); and in many other fields of social activity. The new vocabulary was "imported" mostly from Northern Italy. Hungary's monetary unit of that time (after 1325) which is also currently used, the forint, goes back to the fiorino d'oro which was in circulation since 1252 in Florence. New Italian tendencies are observable in the Hungarian chronicles of the Anjou period as well. The term "chronicle" returns, instead of the geste, but with a newly acquired meaning. While the previous chronicles and gestes recorded historical events and, at least in Hun­ gary, semi-mythological tales of prehistoric times, the Anjou chroni­ cles (Chronica Hungarorum, by Marcus de Kàlt, ca. 1358-1368; the Chronicle of King Louis I, "the Great," by Jànos Küküllei, written after 1363) focused their presentation on the biographies of kings. This probably reflects the germinating ideology of humanism and the Renaissance, with their emphasis on individual achievement and the cult of the absolute monarch. The motif of individual heroism as well as King Louis's punishing expedition against the Neapolitan kingdom provided ample stimulus for Hungarian literary fantasy. The most prominent hero of these times was a Miklós Toldi, or'Nicolaus comes de Thodi," a Hungarian knight of great physical strength who also fought in Italy as a merce­ nary captain. Another figure of a popular historical tale, Lorinc (Lawrence) Tar de Râtold, was actually the hero of the early fifteenth century when Sigismund of Luxemburg followed the Anjous as King of Hungary. As a Hungarian scholar of Italian literature speculates, however, the unknown author may have been present at the synod of Konstanz when Giovanni Serravalle presented Sigismund, as Holy Roman Emperor, with his Latin translation of the Divine Comedy.21 In the Hungarian tale about Lorinc Tar's adventures and his strange visions in St. Patrick's Purgatory in Ireland, there are several allusions to Dante. Like Dante, LÖrinc also believed that he was actually physically present in that other sphere of existence where he met

- 122 - several relatives and acquaintances — among them King Sigismund himself, boiling in hot water for his lewd behaviour. It was not until the mid nineteenth-century national romantic period that the great poet Jânos Arany brought together Toldi and Tar in a marvellous epic work which also dwelt at great length on Toldi's adventures in Italy.22 The Anjou prelude was followed by the golden age of Italian- Hungarian contacts during the reign of King Matthias. This age produced the first great poet of Hungarian literature who still wrote in Latin. Although he was born of a noble family, his name and place of birth are still debated — nevertheless Italian-educated "Janus Panno- nius" (by his assumed scholarly name, 1434-1472) was the epitome of what that country meant to Hungary in the fifteenth century. He studied in Ferrara and Padova. He later wrote a long panegyric to his master, Guarino da Verona, which is also a summary of the new values of the age: appreciation of the natural sciences and of classical culture, and a merging of national cultures into a supra-national one.23 Janus's uncle was Jânos Vitéz, Matthias's omnipotent chancellor, who obtained the bishopric of Pécs for his nephew. Janus visited Italy again in 1465 and mentally never really left that country. During his lifetime Matthias's court did not yet show the impact of the Italian Renais­ sance as much as it did in the king's later years, and Janus felt alone in Hungary with his Mediterranean mentality. Although his poems also* demonstrated nascent Renaissance patriotism ("Thus far books have only been printed in Italy, /Now Pannonia also abounds with beauti­ ful poems"),24 he actually felt like an almond-tree planted in the Hungarian winter — that is, as somebody who didn't belong.25 Those poems in which Janus ostracizes the pilgrims of Europe heading for Rome — among them the Italian humanist of Matthias's court, Galeotto Marzio — are not particularly appropriate to his calling, although they are definitely in the Renaissance vein. "Can't you spend your money at home instead of making the Italians rich?" he asks the pilgrims.26 He also warns Galeotto: "a believer cannot be a poet."27 Take the advice of a bishop! It was definitely Janus, however, who made Hungarians realize that more than half of their country coinci­ ded with the Roman colonies of Pannonia and Dacia; therefore, they were guardians of the great classical culture. During the dark centuries of the 1500s and 1600s, Hungary,"bleed­ ing between two pagans" (that is, the Austrians and the Turks, in the metaphoric words of an anonymous poet of the time), looked with admiration at Italy as a cultural stronghold. Although Italy had absolutely no political relevance to Hungary, and hardly ever offered

- 123 - any serious and consistent support against the Turks, Hungarians attached as much importance to their national language and literature as did the Italians. The stream of students leaving for, and returning from, Italian universities, never ceased. The beginning of Hungarian drama during the sixteenth century was probably due to Italian exam­ ples and impetus. The first great poet of the Hungarian vernacular, Bâlint Baiassi(1554-1594), who never travelled in Italy himself, preser­ ved the melody of the "Gianeta Padovana," a popular song of the Paduan students, to which he wrote one of his poems. Baiassi also knew and mediated Petrarca toward Hungarian literature by inventi­ vely adopting many of Petrarca's idioms and several of his formal devices. At the same time, Il Decamerone became popular reading and a model to follow for the developing Hungarian prose. Since the majority of the Hungarians turned Protestant in the sixteenth century and the religious feud was ongoing (fortunately, in a rhetorical rather than violent action), Boccaccio's spicy tales about immoral priests made good polemic material in the hands of Protestant preachers. The need to settle the more than 100-year-old erosion of national independence, military might, and culture became more and more prevalent in the latter part of the seventeenth century. During this period one of Hungary's greatest statesmen, thinkers, and poets, Count Miklós Zrinyi(1620-1664), came to the fore. A native of Croatia where the interaction with Italy was always vital, in his youth Zrinyi also spent eight months in Rome, which contributed enor­ mously to his intellectual development. His Szigeti veszedelem (The Peril of Fort Sziget) is a grandiose heroic epic which he wrote in 1645-1646 to the memory of an ancestor who fell while defending the family stronghold against the Turks. It reflects the artistic inspiration of numerous Italian Renaissance and baroque epics but especially of Marino's Gerusalemme distrutta and La Strage degli Innocenti, and, of Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata. He called his poetry "The siren of the Adriatic" (which was the title of his major poetic collection, published in 1651), probably alluding to Marino's "La Ninfa tiberina." His poetry is baroque at its purest formal manifestation, yet fully permea­ ted by a patriotic commitment. In his political and military prose Zrinyi supported the need for a strong national king: an idea akin to Machiavelli's. The Italian artistic impact may have been just as evident in other Hungarian poets as well, but it was hardly ever combined with an ideological consanguinity as perfectly as it was in Zrinyi. If the great mentors of seventeenth-century Hungarian writers were Ariosto and Marino, the one of the eighteenth century was Metastasio.

- 124- It is impossible to say how many of his plays were translated into Hungarian if one considers thematic adaptations, non-musical and non-lyrical variants, and the like. They were also widely performed, but in the seventeenth century exclusively by college students, since professional theatre performances started in Hungary only in 1790. His refined rococo style and mannerism fascinated Hungarian poets throughout the century, but a significant reception came with the end of the eighteenth century, after the French Revolution, when the enrichment of the national language and the chiselling of poetic expression became parts of the program of national revival. In this context, it is interesting to note how a poet who was as far from revolutionary ideology as Metastasio, indirectly contributed to this ideology in Hungary due to the timing of his literary reception. Metastasio's first poetic impact in this direction is observable in the poetry of Mihâly Vitéz Csokonai(1773-1805). It would be somewhat harder to explain the belated cult of Petrarca and the sonnet form in general in early nineteenth century Hungarian poetry, particularly in the work of Ferenc Kazinczy (1759-1831), Dàniel Berzsenyi(1776- 1836), Ferenc Kölcsey (1790-1838), and others. As it happened the other way around, personal experience contributed to the better know­ ledge and mutai sympathy between the two countries. In the eigh­ teenth and nineteenth centuries Hungarian officers of the imperial army who served in Italy returned with abundant first-hand human experiences, love being one of them. As the officer-hero of Jânos Lakos's novel Marietta Biondi(1789) fell in love with an actress in Torino, so did the poet Sândor Kisfaludy (1772-1844) fall in love with the famous dancer Maria Medina, and later with Countess Colloredo. The poet then took his memories back to Hungary to develop them into the poetic collection entitled A kesergo szerelem (Bitter Love, 1801). Hungarian historians of literature agree on the assumption that Sândor Kisfaludy's peculiar eight-line stanzas are variations of the Petrarchan sonnet without the last six lines. Two decades later Sândor Kisfaludy's younger brother Kàroly (1788-1830: Kâroly was sixteen years younger than Sândor) actually created the genuine Hungarian comedy under the recognizable influence of Goldoni. Goldoni had been widely translated and adap­ ted since the 1790s: his Il padre di famiglia, La vedova scaltra, and other plays, were great successes in Hungary. Only in Kisfaludy's own original comedies, however, can one find the full domestication of the foreign model. It was probably Goldoni's wide social scale and the democratic spirit of his writings which appealed to the Hungarian

- 125 - society of the 1820s whose best writers and progressive politicians were determined to modernize the socio-political structure and position of the country, preferably by reforms. In the second half of the nineteenth century Italian and Hungarian literary interaction gained a new dimension. Translations from the Italian and the information of the Hungarian public about Italian literary life became regular features, and the scholarly study of Italian literature resulted in a regular series of publications. Italy became a thematic motif as well, although the artistic and ideological character of its influence on Hungary remained predominant. Because of the intensity and variety of the reception of Italian literature in Hungary, the following brief survey of the past century will concentrate on one phenomenon only, namely, the interest in Dante. In 1852, three years after Hungary's defeat in its hopeful struggle for independence from Austria, the great poet Jânos Arany (1817­ 1882) wrote a poem on Dante. This poem bridged over 500 years, establishing continuity between the age of revealed divine order (the Middle Ages) and another, newer age wherein reason made the understanding of this former order impossible. What Arany attributed to Dante in his own age was that the great Italian still taught the no longer believing mankind to appreciate the no longer self-revealing divinity. The existentialist recognition of faith overcoming absurdity is evident in the poem. About the same time when Arany contemplated Dante, Ferenc Csâszâr made the first attempt to translate Vita Nuova. Two others (Gyula Bàlinth and Jânos Angyal) followed suit with translations which are now regarded as curiosities.Then came the Calvinist bishop Kâroly Szâsz who translated the entire Divina Commedia in 1885-1899. As it occasionally happens in the history of translations, this entreprise was not regarded as definitive; rather, it triggered a challenge to other translators. After at least three other attempts (by Àrpàd Zigâny, József Cs. Papp, and Géza Gârdonyi), a young high school teacher, Mihâly Babits (1883-1941), who was to become one of the leading twentieth-century Hungarian men of letters, produced a new transla­ tion (1912-1922) that is regarded as an unparalleled masterpiece in modern Hungarian translation. Babits not only performed an admirable work of art, he also commented on it in several of his essays. He opposed Kâroly Szâsz's didactic outlook on Dante's work which was evident from that earlier translation, and emphasized rather the perennial artistic and philoso­ phical greatness of the Comedy.28 In his introduction to the Hungarian

- 126- translation, he provided a thorough commentary on Dante's life and times by illustrating his theses with quotations from the Comedy.29 Babits enhanced this introduction in an independent volume on Dante.30 In Babits's view, the modern reader found in Dante an analogy with his own time. At the end of a once great but finally decadent age, Dante relied on his own subjectivity to experience the prototypical divine order and find a new, personal universe for himself. Babits belonged to those intellectuals before and after World War I who regarded the new age of mass society and the assumedly "objective" and "scientific" values with scepticism. With due admiration, he regarded Shakespeare as a writer whose outlook denied the identity of the subjective self. Dante, on the other hand, represented this identity and thereby provided an alternative for modern man.31 In yet another essay Babits also offered a penetrating evaluation of the the artistic complexity of the Comedy and the problems which this complexity posed for the translator.32 In order to underline the message of Italian literature for Hunga­ rians, Babits did more than translate the Comedy. He wrote a number of essays and book reviews about diverse topics such as the transla­ tions of Hungarian poetry into Italian and the ideology of futurism. He also wrote poems related to the Italian experience. One particularly significant poem was "Italia" (1908) which reads as a poetic confession of Italy's significance for a Hungarian. In it Babits first lists the "significant differences" between Italy and Hungary: the vivacious crowds filling the narrow alleys of the Italian towns, the constant vibration of the milieu, the magnificent urban architecture, and the magic of recreating the atmosphere of ages long past. But, he conti­ nues: "your sky is not bluer, nor are your hills greener/than our hills, and our Pannonian sky."33 Nor can the Italian soul be more loaded with the memory of the past than the Hungarian. In this poem, whose essential perspective is purely subjective, Babits touched on the unifying similarities behind the apparently differing Italian and Hungarian cultural tradition and social psyche. The dichotomy marked by Janus Pannonius, namely that which existed between a refined centre (Italy) and a harsh periphery (Hun­ gary) was dialectically solved. The popularity and wide recognition that Italian literature has enjoyed in modern Hungary is exemplified in miniature form in Mihàly Babits's activity. Reviewing the seemingly disjointed highlights of Italian-Hungarian cultural interactions, one cannot help but wonder whether it is possi-

- 127 - ble to draw an enlightened conclusion from a few dozen examples. At the same time it is evident that certain patterns can be traced in these examples. Although listing these patterns may not substitute for a conclusion, they serve as tentative findings for later, more systematic studies.34 Considering the quantitative aspects of this interaction (such as its time span and intensity), we find that, during the past 1000 years, Italian and Hungarian literary contacts have been fairly continuous; they have been ongoing with varying degrees of intensity but without any significantly long cessation. (A striking case is the history of Italian-Scandinavian literary relations which were suspended for almost three centuries after the conversion of the Northern countries to Lutheranism.) Qualitatively speaking, the receptional patterns in Italy and Hungary show different but complementary tendencies. It has been mentioned earlier that Hungary functioned as a socio- historical theme and motif for Italian literature. Conversely, it was predominantly the artistic sophistication of Italian literature, and certain selected ideas emanating from Italy (such as political Machia­ vellianism and the values of humanism) that exerted their effect on Hungarian literature. The values of both sides corroborate the basic thesis of reception theory that a historically verifiable "truth" does not always play a significant role in interactional processes; rather, "facts" are a matter of interpretation. In the eyes of the Italian authors Hungarians were people to be civilized; at one point in their history (during the later fifteenth century) they almost attained the laudable goal of behaving like Italians. Conversely, the dominating image of Italy in Hungarian literature is that of a more sophisticated and universal civilization, with ancient Roman greatness, strength, and integrated unity, indirectly providing a model for Hungary to follow. It would be facile to generalize from this observation that the expor­ ting of culture is an Italian trait while an inferiority complex is a Hungarian one. Rather, one should ask whether the higher degree of existential awareness and the more penetrating, corrective self- criticism of Hungarian literature vis-à-vis the Italian is not a more positive trait than the inbred ethnocentrism of Italian literature. Natu­ rally, it is hardly possible to disprove the breadth and depth of Italy's impact on Hungarian literature. Literary evidence shows that comparing Italian and Hungarian literature is not a matter of juggling with isolated facts. The two countries are parts of a cultural community which may be labelled South-Central European (which, of course, takes into consideration

- 128 - the fact that Hungary's interaction took place almost exclusively with Northern Italy). Other factors may be added to the history of Italian and Hungarian literary relations such as the common historical threat imposed by the Turks and later the Habsburgs, or, centuries after, the belated but rapid pace of industrialization, and the easily detectable but superficial observations about temperamental and behavioural similarities. Although the historical imbalance has survived (Hunga­ rians are much better acquainted with Italian literature and culture than otherwise), recent social experiments which also affect literature have brought the two countries closer to each other and reinforced the relevance of talking about South-Central Europe. In Italy Eurocom- munist ideology and the strong socialist undercurrent of culture and in Hungary the liberalization of economic and cultural life, have put the two countries in the middle of the European scale whose poles are capitalism and communism. It is no wonder that the Hungarian who made the greatest impression on Italian intellectuals during the recent decades was not a writer but a philosopher, George Lukàcs. His influence is parallel to that of Gramsci's on modern Hungarian thought. But, Hungarians can also read in translation (and do so in great numbers) the works of Betti, Buzzati, Calvino, Ginsburg, Mora­ via, Soldati, Venturi, and other contemporary Italian writers as well.

GEORGE BISZTRAY

University of Toronto

NOTES 1 Most recognized facts of the Italian and Hungarian literary relations stem from the following sources: Imre Vârady, La letteratura italiana e la sua influenza in Ungheria, 2 Vols. (Roma, 1933-1934); Jeno Koltay-Kastner, Olasz- magyar muvelodési kapcsolatok (Italian-Hungarian Cultural Contacts. Buda­ pest, 1941); Magda Jàszay, Pàrhuzamok és keresztezodések: a magyar-olasz kapcsolatok történetébol (Parallels and Cross-Tendencies: From the History of Hungarian and Italian Interrelations, Budapest, 1982). 2 See, for example, the large group adhering to Walter Lippmann's view of social stereotypes as elaborated in his Public Opinion (New York, 1922). 3 See, for example, R. Wellek, "The Crisis of Comparative Literature," in Concepts of Criticism (New Haven, 1963), pp. 284-285; U. Weisstein, Compa­ rative Literature and Literary Theory (Bloomington, 1973), pp. 5-6. 4 See. for example, M. Mackie, "Ethnic Stereotypes and Prejudice," Canadian Ethnic Studies, 1-2, (1974), pp. 39-52; P. M. Middlebrook, Social Psychology and Modern Life (New York, 1980), p. 165 (with several additional references).

- 129 - 5 Liutprando, Antopodosis (Budapest, 1908), II, 9. 6 Benedetto monaco di S. Andrea del Soratte, Chronicon. Fonti per la Storia d'Italia. Scrittori, sec. X-XI (Roma, 1920). 7 Cf. Jâszay, p. 79. 8 Relationen venetianischer Botschaften über Deutschland und Österreich im XVI Jahrhundert, ed. J. Fiedler. Fontes Rerum Austriacarum, pt. 2, Vol. 30 (Vienna, 1870), p. 239. 9 Ibid., pp. 326-327. 10Die Relationen der Botschafter Venedigs über Deutschland und Österreich im XVII Jahrhundert, ed. J. Fiedler. Fontes Rerum Austriacarum, pt. 2, Vol. 26 (Vienna, 1866), p. 17. 11Ibid., p. 13. 12"In morte della sua donna." 13Paradiso, VIII, 64. 14Ibid., XIX, 142-143. 15Orlando Furioso, XLVI, 86-105. 16"Sonetto XCVII" (La nostra e di Gesù nemica gente...), Opere (Milano, 1808), II, 81. 17Cf. Jâszay, p. 289. 18Cf. M. Jókai, Egy az Isten (There Is One God, 1877); Utazàs egy sirdomb körül (Travelling Around a Grave, 1889). 19 Jókai, A koszivuv ember fiai (English tr.: The Baron's Sons; originally published in 1869). 20Libro IV: "Novella del Sonaglino," Opere Complete (Palermo, 1976), I, 207-220. 21Cf. Koltay-Kastner, pp. 29-30. 22J. Arany, Toldi, consisting of three parts, of which the middle one, Toldi szerelme (Toldi's Love, written between 1850-1879) contains the description of the Neapolitan campaign. 23"Silva panegyrica ad Guarinum Veronensem praeceptorem suum." 24"Laus Pannoniae." 25"De amygdalo in Pannonia nata." 26"Deridet euntes Romam ad iubilaeum." 27"Galeotti peregrinationem irridet." 28Mihàly Babits, "Dante forditàsa" ("Translating Dante"), in his Muvei: Esszék, tanulmànyok (Collected Works: Essays and Papers) (Budapest, 1978), I, pp. 269-285; ref. to p. 273. 29Babits, "Dante élete" ("Dante's Life"), pp. 7-34 in his translation A pokol (Inferno) (Budapest, 1913). 30Babits, Dante. Bevezetés a Divina Commedia olvasasahoz (Dante: An Introduction to Reading the Divine Comedy,Budapest, 1930). 31Ibid., pp. 4-5. 32"Dante fordìtasa," loc. cit. 33De nem kékebb eged és a dombod se zöldebb, mint honni dombjaink s a dunàntùli ég...(Babits, Italia). 34Existing studies of the Italian-Hungarian cultural relations which have

- 130- been listed earlier are thorough in presenting facts but spell out no general theses whatsoever; in this respect, they reflect the dominating influence of the ideology of literary positivism.

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