BETWEEN ASSIMILATION AND CATASTROPHE HUNGARIAN JEWISH INTELLECTUAL DISCOURSES IN THE SHADOW OF NAZISM Ferenc Laczó A DISSERTATION in History Presented to the Faculties of the Central European University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Budapest, Hungary 2010 CEU eTD Collection Supervisor of Dissertation COPYRIGHT NOTICE Copyright of this text rests exclusively with the Author. Copies by any process, either in full or in part, may be made only in accordance with the instructions given by the Author and lodged at the Library of the Central European University. Details may be obtained from the librarian. This page must be part of any such copies made. Further copies may not be made without the written permission of the Author. I hereby declare that this dissertation contains no materials accepted for any other degrees in any other institution and no materials previously written or published by any other person unless otherwise noted. CEU eTD Collection Abstract The dissertation is based on detailed empirical coverage of three publications, the IMIT yearbooks , the journal Libanon and the Ararát yearbooks that provide a representative sample of Hungarian Jewish scholarly and intellectual discourses in the second half of the Horthy era until right before the Hungarian Holocaust of 1944. In the course of the introduction, besides clarifying the subject, aim and scope of the work, a brief overview of modern Hungarian Jewish history is provided and the challenge of writing Hungarian Jewish intellectual history is explained and contextualized. Next to discussing the general characteristics of these three publications and providing overviews of their main contents, the six empirical chapters offer thematic analyses of Hungarian Jewish identity options, the ways internal and external relations were conceived, of alternative models of Jewish culture and assertions of defining values, of political-ideological platforms as well as of various stances on historicity and formulations of historical narratives. These chapters in turn clarify the differences between seven identity options (patriotic, nationalistic as well as five takes on dual identity labeled combined, mixed, primarily Jewish, formally dual and internally conflictual), analyze declarations of five different values as fundamental and fundamentally Jewish (ethics, truth, intellect and culture, life, adaptation and loyalty) and tackle five interpretations of the relevance of historicity stretching from stressing the completely ahistorical to emphasizing the thoroughly historical character of Jewry. Further chapters compare assimilationist - integrationist, interculturalist, particularist, universalist - essentialist and völkisch (népi) models of Jewish culture as well as semiliberal, conservative, corporatist, Zionist and religious revivalist political platforms. The dissertation also explores how authors included in this representative sample of the Jewish Hungarian Jewish scholarly elite interpreted the historical situation in the increasingly desperate years under scrutiny by studying the way historical consciousness worked, how the crisis of Jewry was narrated and what historical analogies were used until the unprecedented nature of the ongoing Judeocide CEU eTD Collection was realized. The dissertation also aims to show the ways in which these discourses transformed in the dramatic years under consideration where the primary focus is on attempts to formulate more inclusive Jewish platforms. Acknowledgements This dissertation grew out of my longstanding interest in the history of modern Hungarian and Hungarian Jewish intellectual discourses. This interest was gradually triggered by the desire to understand contemporary scholarly and public exchanges and controversies. Admittedly, they often seem politically charged and are hindered by various forms of miscommunication and misunderstanding. Experiencing such problems and often also a lack of empathy made me want to study divergent historical narratives, different communities of memory, various cultural conceptions and political platforms, to try to compare and, ultimately, to connect them to each other. I ended up focusing on what I see as a relevant historical segment of these more broadly relevant public issues. Even though completing the empirical research on the scale needed for a dissertation requires patience and perseverance through many mostly lonely hours, any dissertation is the result of many influences and much benevolence. Mine is certainly no exception. Therefore, I would like to thank, above all, my supervisor Viktor Karády, who has remained confident in me even when my work was progressing slower than expected and even when I had to seriously rethink my aims and sharpen my focus. He also kindly asked me to participate in an international, comparative research project which enabled me to let my thinking as well as this dissertation mature over the course of some additional years. I am very grateful to Balázs Trencsényi, who has served as a source of inspiration for many young intellectual historians in East Central Europe with his dedication and broad horizons. At the Department of History of the Central European University, I would like to thank László Kontler and Matthias Riedl who have helped me with recommendation letters, besides much else, and Karl Hall and Susan Zimmermann who have given me sound and useful advice. I have similarly benefited from the helpfulness of librarians, mostly those working at the National Széchényi Library and at the Metropolitan Ervin Szabó Library , both in Budapest. Péter Bencsik (at Aetas ), Gábor Egry (at Múltunk ) and Attila Novák (at Szombat ) have CEU eTD Collection generously agreed to edit and publish my articles in Hungarian that drew on elements of this dissertation project and thus helped me clarify my ideas and improve my writing. I could always count on the friendly support of many of my fellow doctoral student and I would like to particularly single out (in strict alphabetical order and with the danger in mind of forgetting some similarly important colleagues of mine) Maria Falina, Luka Lisjak Gabrijelčič, Bogdan Iacob, Gábor Kármán, Zsófia Lóránd, Vladimir Petrović, Katalin Stráner, Márton Zászkaliczky and Marko Zubak. Among my Hungarian peers, I would also like to thank Máté Rigó and Tamás Scheibner in particular (who both studied at CEU at some point). I am extremely grateful to my parents, grandmother, my siblings and Vera for putting up with me all these years and being patient enough to see this project grow into its final shape. It is to Vera in particular that I would like to dedicate this work. CEU eTD Collection Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 1 I. The Subject, Aims and Scope of the Dissertation .......................................................... 1 II. The Challenge of Jewish Intellectual History........................................................... 13 III. Modern Hungarian Jewish History and the Jewish Question ................................... 22 Chapter II The IMIT Yearbooks (1929-1943). Characteristics, Aims, Story ....................................... 38 I. The Basic Characteristics of IMIT ............................................................................... 38 II. Aims of the Analysis ................................................................................................ 43 III. IMIT in the Horthy Era ............................................................................................. 46 IV. The Aims of the Yearbooks in the Mirror of Self-Interpretations ............................ 55 Chapter III Discourses of Collective Identity .......................................................................................... 64 I. Hungarian Jewish Identity Options .............................................................................. 64 II. Jewish Traditions and the Scholarly Position ........................................................... 88 Chapter IV On the Historicity, Values and Roles of Jewry ................................................................. 108 I. Jewish Values and the Question of Historicity .......................................................... 108 II. Jewish Contributions .............................................................................................. 138 Chapter V A History of the Present ...................................................................................................... 160 I. Various Descriptions of the Age ................................................................................ 160 II. Discourse on Zionism and Palestine ....................................................................... 177 III. Germany and Nazism in IMIT ............................................................................... 200 Chapter VI Models of Culture and Historical Changes. The Hungarian Jewish Journal Libanon (1936-1943) ........................................................................................................................... 218 I. Introduction ................................................................................................................ 218 CEU eTD Collection II. Models of Jewish Culture ....................................................................................... 227 III. The Reflection of Historical Changes ...................................................................