The Making of a Hungarian Revolutionary: The Unpublished Diary of Bela Balazs

Author(s): Lee Congdon

Source: Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Jul., 1973), pp. 57-74
Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.
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The Making of a Hungarian
Revolutionary:
the Unpublished Diary of
Bela Balazs

Lee Congdon

Bela Balazs joined the Hungarian Communist Party soon

was organized in November I918. With the exception of
Lukacs, he was the most prominent member of the Hun
intelligentsia to commit himself to the revolutionary mo
He was also a most unlikely candidate for political activism
had never previously identified himself with any politic
ment. Moreover, his poetry and plays were concern
philosophical problems and were completely indifferent
political themes that have received so much attenti
twentieth-century literature.
To be sure, many European intellectuals of Balazs's gen
answered communism's siren call, but they did so after
agonized over the political and social questions initially r
the French Revolution. It was Balazs's denial of the fun
significance of precisely these questions that distinguis
from other revolutionary intellectuals and occasioned the
disbelief of his closest friends at the news of his party af
The political emphasis of the communist movement
surface at least, seemed to be entirely at variance with ev
that Balazs and his friends regarded as important.2
1 Though he is better known in the West as Bartok's libretti
Bluebeard's Castle, I911; The Wooden Prince, I914-16) and as a pione
of the film (Der sichtbare Mensch, 1924; Der Geist des Films, 1930), B
made his reputation in Hungary as a poet and dramatist.
2 More than 50 years later, Arnold Hauser could still recall how c
unexpected Balazs's decision was to those of their circle who remain
mitted to the Communist Party. Interview with Professor Hauser
28 August I971.

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CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

For what reason, then, did Balazs become a commu

subsequent explanations offered by Marxist literary
generally attribute his decision to his hatred of capit
increasing awareness of social and political realities.
shall see, this argument is not supported by the ind
source: the philosophical reflections and self-revelat
diary that Balazs kept from 1899 to I922.4
He was born Herbert Bauer to a family of Jewish o
provincial city of Szeged on 4 August I884. His
father encouraged his early interest in literature and
seems to have been any doubt in his mind that h
become a writer. From the first, however, he concei
something more than entertainment for the well-ed
diary entry dated 22 December I9OI, he wrote:
struggle against everything that exists ... This is my
Like the other intellectuals of his generation, Balaz
to 'struggle against everything that exists', for Hung
stifled by the dead hand of a ruling class whose Welt
had frozen in the sixteenth century (at the point whe
Tripartitum, a codification of noble rights, was com
garian culture had failed to produce any talent o
standing since the middle of the nineteenth century.
creative impulse that had been generated by the rev
1848-49 had been spent. With few exceptions, the wr
last half of the nineteenth century were epigones of San
Mihaly V6orsmarty, and Janos Arany. In music t
successor to Liszt; in philosophy there was no on
original thought. Moreover, the culture establishmen
of its prerogatives and fiercely opposed any initiative
and sciences. Any challenge to the cultural dictators

3 For an example, see Miklos Szabolcsi, 'Ut a maganytol a kozo

Bela', in Miklos Szabolcsi, ed., A magyar irodalom tirtenete Ig19
(Budapest 1966), 245-53.
4Balazs Bela naploi: I899-I922. Magyar Tudomanyos Akademia
Konyvtara: Kezirattar (hereafter MTAK:K), Ms 5023/1-12. A partial tran-
scription of the diary (5 January I899-16 February 1909) is also available:
5024/3. For a complete listing of Balazs's literary remains in the manuscr
archive of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and an introdu
tion to their content, see Dora F. Csanak, Balazs Bela hagyateka az Akademiai
Koinyvtar Kezirattaraban (Ms 5009-Ms 5024) (Budapest I966). In so far as I
am able to determine, the Balazs diary had been ignored both by Hungarian
and by Western scholars until I read it in the spring of I971.

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UNPUBLISHED DIARY OF BELA BALAZS

Academy of Sciences (which regarded itself as the guardi

national spirit) was considered to be un-Magyar.5
One of the few beacons in this dreary atmosphere
prestigious E6tvos Kollegium6 in Budapest. Shortly after
of the century, Balazs enrolled at the Kollegium to study
and Hungarian literature. It was there that he met the
Hungarian composer Zoltan Kodaly, to whom he first s
'revolution' in Hungary (diary entry, 22 August 1905).

I spoke to him about my secret, most sacred dreams, whic

never yet put into words; about a great Magyar culture
must create. It must enter into European development in
take the lead just as every other culture has done-E
French, German. Just as has little Norway, of which up t
one knew anything. Why not Magyar culture ?
I spoke about the great struggle for this culture; about t
which must be waged against everything that exists. I sp
him about an alliance which would have to be entered in
those among the young who are born for greatness a
undertake to achieve greatness; those who do not wa
something, but want to do something; those who stake th
for their goals, whether in mathematics, law, music, arch
poetry, or any other field, and if necessary lay aside ev
value for their goal. Those who naturally, out of the dep
their hearts, hate that shallow, frivolous clique that bur
science and our art... A cooperative new 'Sturm und
an intellectual revolution which would clean up this
(newspaper-writer art and buffoon science) and build a gr

5 In I908, one of the leading opponents of the official culture com

of everything that had been attacked as 'un-Magyar' during the
years. 'Budapest is un-Magyar. The secularization of administrati
Magyar. The stock exchange is un-Magyar. Socialism is un-Magya
tionalism is un-Magyar. The organization of agricultural workers is
Floating capital is un-Magyar. Secession and symbolism are un-M
exclusion of the denominations from education and the omission
instructions are un-Magyar. Irony is un-Magyar. The more toler
morality is un-Magyar. Universal suffrage is un-Magyar. Materi
Magyar, but so is that theory un-Magyar according to which men
form their institutions, even their sacraments, in accordance with
and their needs. And above all: He is un-Magyar who is not happ
situation in which we find ourselves and who is possessed of such ch
he leaves this country.' Ignotus, 'A magyar kultura es a nemze
Ignotus: valogatott irasai (Budapest I969), 617-I8.
The Eotv6s Kollegium was established in 1895 as an institu
training of a pedagogical elite.

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CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

fresh art and science, a great new culture in its place

culture we can step into European development and wil
belong to the obscurantist Balkans, renowned only fo
horses, and lawyers... I spoke about the rehabilitat
about the religion of art which ought to belong to this
Its church is the concert hall, the art gallery, or the th
the redeeming power of art-about how men will be
our society fresh and healthy.

As this outpouring indicates, Balazs was already lo

revolutionary solution to the problem of Hungar
cultural and social life. But it was to be a revolution of the mind
and spirit, not one fought on the barricades.
In 90o6, in the hope of pursuing his studies in a more favour-
able atmosphere, Balazs applied for and received a national grant
to attend the University of Berlin. There he enrolled in Georg
Simmel's seminar on aesthetics. The experience heightened his
awareness of his native land's cultural backwardness, for the
German students made little secret of their disdain for the
Magyars. Balazs was therefore overjoyed when, much to his
surprise, an early version of his Halalesztetika (Death Aesthetics)7
was enthusiastically received: 'I read "Death Aesthetics" to
Simmel and his students. I impressed the Germans. I am very
glad of this, but not for myself. I impressed them as a Magyar.
They were completely astounded that a Turanian Tatar can also
do such work. I could dance with delight' (diary entry 23 January
I907).
His studies in Berlin convinced Balazs that he could most
effectively serve the intellectual revolution through the medium of
the drama, because, as he wrote in I908, 'the drama was always a
much more serious cultural problem for men than other forms of
literature'.8 That was so, he argued, because the drama possessed
metaphysical significance; that is, its themes were universal, they
7 Bela Balazs, Halalesztetika (Budapest n.d.). The central argument of the
book is that art is possible only because of man's mortality. 'Art is the sensation
of life's transcendence. In other words: Art is the consciousness of life. If we
were immortal, we would not know that we were alive. In that case, neither the
concept nor even the beautiful word "life" would be conceivable. Only through
death is the consciousness of life possible. Death makes it possible for us to
recognize life as a wonderful event. "Der Tod ist der eigentliche inspirierende
Genius oder der Musaget der Philosophie", Schopenhauer says. We can only
catch sight of that which has boundaries.'
8 Nyugat, I6 January I908, 88.

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UNPUBLISHED DIARY OF BELA BALAZS

transcended the private, intensely personal concerns of

literary forms. The drama derived its metaphysical sign
from its origin in religious ceremony and its enrichmen
philosophy of ancient Greece. 'Since the failure of reali
materialism (in art, naturalism), we are now beginning t
higher esteem the metaphysical profundity with wh
Greeks and the Romantics] viewed the problem of human
individualism.' That was the essence of Balazs's intellectual revo-
lution: a return to the metaphysical understanding of the world
that had characterized western thought from Plato to Kant and
Hegel. But as he had suggested to Kodaly, the prerequisite for the
revolution was an alliance of like-minded intellectuals. Balazs was
determined to create that alliance in Hungary.

ON HIS RETURN TO BUDAPEST in I907, Balazs was encouraged to

discover that a counter-culture was beginning to form in oppo-
sition to the stagnant official culture of the Magyar gentry.9 The
moving spirit of this counter-culture was the poet-publicist Endre
Ady.l? The publication of Ady's Nezo Verses (I906) had been
more than a literary event, for the book challenged the official,
chauvinist version of 'Magyarism'. Ady, the scion of a family of
the impoverished nobility, insisted that he himself exemplified the
authentic national consciousness. Balazs was attracted by the
revolutionary tone of Ady's writings, but lamented the rebel
9 The only comprehensive survey of the counter-culture is Zoltan Horvath,
Magyar szazadfordulo: A masodik reformnemzedek t6rtenete (1896-I9I4)
(Budapest I96I). This work is also available in a slightly abridged German
translation: Die Jahrhundertwende in Ungarn: Geschichte der zweiten
Reformgeneration (Neuwied am Rhein I966). The author is preparing a book-
length study of the Hungarian intelligentsia from the turn of the century to the
end of the first world war: The Crisis of Hungarian Thought, I9oo-I9I9: A
Study in the Ideology of National Regeneration.
10 The literature on Ady (1877-I919) is enormous (but almost exclusively in
Hungarian). Only the more important attempts to assess Ady's impact on
Hungarian life can be mentioned here. Gyula Szekfu, Harom nemzedek es ami
utana kovetkezik (Budapest I935), 366-81; Lajos Ady, Ady Endre (Budapest
1923) is a memoir by Ady's conservative brother. Gyorgy Boloni, Az igazi Ady
(Paris 1934) emphasizes the revolutionary character of Ady's life and work.
Jozsef Revai, Ady (Budapest I945) is the standard Marxist study. For a
perceptive appraisal of Ady as the symbol of the 'crisis of Hungarian thought',
see Oszkar Jaszi in Vilag, I5 February 1914, and Gyorgy Lukacs, 'The
Importance and Influence of Ady', The New Hungarian Quarterly, Autumn
I969. Ady's poems have been collected as Ady Endre: osszes versei (Budapest
1967). The only comprehensive collection in a foreign language is: Poems of
Endre Ady (Buffalo, New York: Hungarian Cultural Foundation, 1969).

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CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

poet's lack of interest in philosophical thought and his e

for French culture. He decided that Ady did not quali
alliance. But if Ady could not be recruited, what of the
of the circles that had formed around the two major
the counter-culture, Nyugat (West) and Huszadi
(Twentieth Century) ?
Nyugat became the principal literary forum of the
culture almost immediately after it began publica
January 1908. Every important writer of the younger
contributed to the journal and Balazs was no excep
although he regularly published his poetry and essays i
Balazs recognized that the journal was committed to the
'art for art's sake'; it was satisfied to honour stylistic
without regard to content.11 The editors had no in
metaphysical questions, nor were they willing to be th
of any but a literary revolution.
Whereas Nyugat was reluctant to be anything mo
first-rate literary journal, the sociological review Husza
was more than willing to lead an intellectual revolution
to agitate for fundamental political and social reforms.
and driving force behind the journal was Oszkar Jaszi,
leading 'westernizer'.l2 Jaszi and his associates devoure
and English sociological literature (most of it posi
philosophy) and, on the basis of their studies, were conv
Hungary had to be transformed into a liberal democra
west European model. They attributed Hungary's cultu
wardness to the semi-feudal political and social system m
by the gentry out of class interest. Balazs could not, h
form an alliance with Jaszi and his followers for two
First, their intellectual revolution would create a scient

11 The literature on Nyugat is extensive. See especially Miksa Fe

Nyugat Literary Magazine and the Modem Hungarian Literatu
Hungarian Quarterly, No. 3-4, I962; and Aladar Schopflin, A magy
tortenete a XX. szazadban (Budapest I937). In Anna Lesznai's novel
of the years around the turn of the century, a contributor to Nyu
Uj Szo (i.e. Nyugat) I write what I want; it is enough if I write w
Lesznai, Kezdetben volt a kert (Budapest I966) II, 25I.
12 Jaszi was also an architect of the Sociological Society (founde
which though technically independent of Huszadik Szazad, was i
organizational arm of the journal. The best study of Jaszi and t
Szazad circle is still Gyula Merei, Polgari radikalizmus magyarorszagon,
I9oo-I9r9 (Budapest 1947).

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UNPUBLISHED DIARY OF BELA BALAZS

tality every bit as uncongenial to him as the chauvinist

ideology. Second, the emphasis they placed on social p
and reform was incomprehensible to Balazs, for whom so
were benign in comparison with the malignancy of ind
sins. In a diary entry of 4 August I908, he wrote:

Untruth. Once I attempted to reflect upon how the

untruth belonged to a completely different category than
sins of theft or of murder. It is something much deeper. R
and murder are only transgressions against the social
against human collectivities and confederations. Untruth is
something much more general and larger. There is an ins
human feeling that untruth should not be measured acco
its consequences, because it is sinful in itself. On the oth
to murder a murderer so that he will not murder is a com
able act. Untruth is a sin against consciousness, against life

The width of the gulf that separated Balazs from the so

is perhaps most clearly indicated by his account of
discussion he had with Jaszi on this same theme. In the
the evening Jaszi had argued that untruth, if it proceed
charity or goodwill, might be necessary for the mainte
social life. Balazs sharply rejected the idea (diary entry
I916).

A simple and unambiguous attitude must be given to the soul

because otherwise it will be without form. Attitudes cannot be
chosen from case to case. Is society possible in an atmosphere of
absolute truth? That is a sociological problem. Untruth is that
which is eternally foreign between souls. The obligatory untruth
of social life eats away at the roots of every desired possibility of
truth as well.

Unable to build his revolutionary alliance around either of the

principal journals of the counter-culture, Balazs finally found an
intellectual brother-in-arms in the brilliant young philosopher
and literary critic Georg Lukacs. Lukacs and Balazs first met
when both were actively engaged in the Thalia Theatre experi-
ment (I904-o8),13 but it was not until the appearance of Balazs's

13 Founded in April I904, Thalia's aim, according to its bylaws, was 'the
presentation of those dramatic or other performable works of art, old and new,

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CONTEMPORARY HISTIORY

poetry in the famous Holnap (Tomorrow) anthologies

Lukacs recognized him as a potential ally. Lukacs shared n
Balazs's distaste for Nyugat and Huszadik Szazad (he contr
to both journals, but always maintained a critical distanc
also his German training15 and commitment to metap
thinking. The two men formed their own 'field of force
Hungarian intellectual life.
The most obvious problem for the new alliance was the
an appropriate forum. Since there was no counter-cultural
devoted to serious philosphical problems, Lukacs, Bala
Lajos Fiilep (a philosopher of art who also worked in the G
intellectual tradition) began a new publication. Szellem (M
Spirit) was a journal of metaphysics, ethics, the philosop
religion, and aesthetics. The first issue (March 191 ) took
motto a quotation from Kant's Prolegomena which emph
man's inability to abandon metaphysical speculation:

It is as little to be expected that the spirit of man will one

wholly give up metaphysical enquiries, as that in order not
always breathing impure air we shall one day prefer to giv
breathing altogether.

In this way, Szellem served notice that it stood in opposi

the positivism and impressionism then fashionable in Hu
Indeed, the prevalence of anti-metaphysical thinking pre
the journal from winning a wide readership and it died in the
of its birth. Its short-lived existence reinforced Balazs's convi
that he and Lukacs needed to extend their small circle. Th
already close to Fiilep and to the poet-artist Anna Leszna
wife of Oszkar Jaszi). Balazs also hoped to recruit the phil

which are not included in the repertoire of Budapest's theatres, but which
nevertheless possess great artistic or cultural value and interest'. Cited in
Ferenc Katona and Tibor Denes, A Thalia t6rtenete (I904-90o8) (Budapest
I954), 5. According to one of Thalia's founders, the idea for the rebel theatre
was Lukacs's. Marcell Benedek, 'A harminceves Thalia', Szazadunk, I934, I73.
Balazs appeared in a number of Thalia's presentations.
14 The Holnap poetry anthologies were published by the Holnap Literary
Society in I908. As the title suggests, the poets included in the collections were
regarded as heralds of a new literature. Ady was one of the Holnap poets.
15 Gyirgy Lukacs, 'Eloszo', in Magyar irodalom-Magyar kultura (Budapest
I970), 8. Lukacs had also studied with Simmel at the University of Berlin.
16 This term was first used to describe the Balazs-Lukacs alliance by Ferenc

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UNPUBLISHED DIARY OF BELA BALAZS

Bela Zalai, an independent thinker who had done some

ticated work on the theory of knowledge and had contr
Szellem. This core membership would constitute the nu
an even larger group.

This is the only way that battle can begin, that our cons
and that of our opponents can grasp the fact that we
represent a casual opinion but are a different breed of men. W
become a clique and party because our battle is not a
debate but rather a social crisis... There will be a war for w
is necessary to prepare, but on a realistic and not m
doctrinaire basis. Social action must accompany it. We wi
a clique and a party. Perhaps we will give it a name (diary
February-July 1912).

The characterization of the members of the circle as 'a different

breed of men' suggests that Balazs had begun to think in terms of
something more than a new Weltanschauung. As he wrote to Anna
Lesznai on 17 August I9II: 'It is possible ... that we will soon
found a religion. (I didn't smile when I wrote this.)'l7

THE YEARS FROM 1910 TO I915 constituted a transitional stage in

Balazs's intellectual and spiritual odyssey. At the beginning of the
period he was still devoting his energies to the formation of an
alliance capable of leading the intellectual revolution, but by I915
ethical problems and questions claimed the greatest share of his
attention. He had, of course, always been concerned with
questions of morality; we have already seen him struggle with the
significance of untruth. Yet the importance of Weltanschauung
seemed to him to be paramount in I9Io. In that year he played a
leading role in a tragedy that gave his life new direction.
The story surrounding the suicide of Irma Seidler is not likely
ever to be told in full, nor need it be; its historical significance lies
in its dramatic effect on Balazs and Lukacs.l1 The two men
apparently met her in Germany and she made a lasting impres-
sion on both of them. Her relationship to Lukacs seems to have

Feher in 'Balazs Bela es Lukacs Gyorgy szivetsege a forradalomig',

Irodalomtirtenet, 1969, nos. 2 and 3. This is an excellent study by one of
Lukacs's students; it does not, however, make use of the Balazs diary.
17 MTAK:K. Ms 5023/18, appended to p.7.
18 I am indebted to Mr Ferenc Feher for calling my attention to this story.

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CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

been platonic, but it was the termination of a love aff

Balazs that led directly to her suicide in I9Io. Balazs con
his diary that the death of the young girl had quickened
of moral responsibility: 'This is my first sin. In the mos
sense of the word. Strange that before this I felt my life an
to be pure... Since Irma's death religious questions h
to me as well as the compelling thirst to meet my God
entries September I9II, July I9I3).
The effect of the tragedy on Lukacs was, if anything
greater. It awakened in him a sensitivity to ethical prob
was to leave its mark on everything he wrote. It for
background to the short story entitled 'On the Poverty
Soul' that Lukacs published in German (I9i2)19 and in
Hungarian (I9II; translated by Balazs for the second issue of
Szellem). A full account of the story would go beyond the scope
of this paper, but the central argument advanced was that all
formal ethics are lifeless and inhuman. In the story, a philosopher
condemns himself to death by his own hand because he had been
unable to prevent the suicide of a close female friend. (This is an
accurate description of Lukacs's feelings on the death of Irma
Seidler.) He believes that his actions had been governed by the
barren ethics of 'relationships between people', and not by that
unconditional identification with another that he calls 'goodness'.
Kant's and every other formal ethic had become for Lukacs one
of the powers of alienation. 'Form', the philosopher says, 'is that
kind of bridge which dissociates; a bridge on which we come and
go and always return to ourselves without ever meeting one
another.' According to Lukacs, only a metaethic of complete
identification with others, a direct bridge from soul to soul, could
overcome human alienation. Balazs commented in his diary
(July-August I9I2) on Lukacs's new dedication to ethical prob-
lems. 'Gyuri's new philosophy. Messianism... The immorality
of art. Gyuri's big turn towards ethics. This will be the centre of
his life and work... Gyuri discovered and acknowledges the ew
in himself!'
Though Balazs, as we have seen, had become more aware of
life's moral dimension, he did not yet assign to ethics the central
place it had achieved in Lukacs's thought. This divergence of
19 Georg Lukacs, 'Von der Armut am Geiste. Ein Gesprach und ein Brief',
Neue Bldtter, No. 5-6, I912.

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UNPUBLISHED DIARY OF BELA BALAZS

outlook is well illustrated by their respective responses

outbreak of the first world war. Lukacs judged the war c
in moral terms, and fell into a mood of deep despair
Fichte, he described the war years as the Zeitalter der vo
Siindhaftigkeit.'20 Balazs, however, was initially enthusia
the war and even volunteered for service at the front. He viewed
the hostilities as a struggle between Germany and France for
European cultural hegemony. The question posed by the war, he
noted in his diary in August I914, was whether the spirit of Paris
or of Berlin was to dominate Europe. Or, as he entitled a piece in
Nyugat, 'Paris or Weimar ?' The Latin spirit of French culture
was so stagnant, Balazs argued, that the young French intellec-
tuals were themselves turning from it to their Frankish heritage.
They had translated the great Germanic classics: Goethe,
Novalis, Hebbel, and Ibsen. Andre Gide had delivered a lecture
in German in Weimar (5 August 1903) and Romain Rolland had
written a biography of Beethoven. These young intellectuals,
many of them associated with the journal Nouvelle Revue
Franfaise, looked to Balzac and Cezanne, who though French, did
not express the Latin spirit. They tried to show, Balazs argued,
'that Mallarme's sanguinary obscurity and Claudel's primitive
profundity are more truly French. More truly French because
they are not Roman but Frank: of German origin!'21 In sum, it
was not for Hindenburg and Ludendorff that Balazs took up
arms, but for Kant and Hegel, for Goethe, Schiller, and
Humboldt (diary entry 9 May I9I5).
There was yet another reason for Balazs's enlistment in the
Austro-Hungarian army. He hoped that the war would ignite an
international intellectual revolution. Though many of his friends,
including Lukacs, argued that the war would increase the spirit of
nationalism and chauvinism, Balazs believed that it would foster a
spirit of internationalism. As evidence, he cited socialism and
Tolstoyanism as active anti-nationalist currents. Moreover,
Austria, with its many races within one political border, could
become a great experimental station on the way to international-
ism.22 After the war (with the help of Lukacs) he would organize

20 Georg Lukacs, 'Vorwort', in Die Theorie des Romans (Berlin 1963), I3.
21 Bela Balazs, 'Paris-e vagy Weimar ?', Nyugat, 1914, 200-03.
22 MTAK:K. Ms 5023/18, 81. August 1914.

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CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

a group committed to an 'international, spiritual world

His enthusiasm was short-lived. He was wounded in action and
returned to Budapest in I9I5. As the war dragged on, he began to
think that he had invested too much hope in what was, after all, a
test of military might, and he came to agree with Lukacs that the
war represented not so much a struggle for a great cultural
tradition as a moral crisis for European civilization. The decisive
change in his viewpoint came in I915 when, on reading Lukacs's
Die Theorie des Romans, he discovered 'how extremely important,
more important than a new Weltanschauung, is the first appear-
ance of new men' (diary entry 27 August I915). It followed,
Balazs decided, that an intellectual revolution, since its aim was to
create a new world view, was of secondary importance.
It did not follow, however, that a political-social revolution was
required. There was much talk of such a revolution in Hungary
during the war years and Balazs was certainly aware of it. 'A new
problem:' he wrote in his diary on 24 March I916, 'Would I take
part in a revolution ? I would not take part. It is not my life's work.
(I would take part in a revolution of the soul.)' A few weeks later,
on 7 May, Balazs was explicit about his new revolutionary
ambitions:

A moral aristocracy must be assembled and organized around me

in order to call into being, in a small camp, a niveau of intransigent
pride and exclusiveness of moral sensitivity that can give birth to
a rallying cry, a programme. In order to prepare a moral revo-
lution which is needed more than every social revolution. I think
that this is a great date in my life. 1916 May 7.

He still wanted to form an 'alliance', but its purpose was now the
making of a moral revolution.

BALAZS HAD REASON TO BE optimistic about the creation of a 'moral

aristocracy'. In 1915, a small group of Hungarian intellectuals had
begun to meet with him and Lukacs every Sunday afternoon for
discussion. The meetings were held at Balazs's home. 'It has
begun in such a way that perhaps it can become an ethical
academy for Szellem', he wrote. 'Only serious people who are
23 Diary entry I9 March I915. Less than a month later, on 9 April, Balazs
wrote: 'I feel that I will be a soldier and perhaps a prophet of this spiritual
internationalism.'

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UNPUBLISHED DIARY OF BELA BALAZS

metaphysically disposed are invited. Every new guest i

mended in advance and every member of the group has
of veto' (diary entry 23 December I915). In addition
Lesznai, the group included a remarkable contingent o
men, among whom were Karl Mannheim, Arnold H
Frederick Antal, Bela Fogarasi, and Michael Polanyi. Th
for discussion was always chosen by Lukacs and it i
centred on some ethical question. Politics and social
were never discussed.24
By 1917 the 'Sunday-afternooners' had formulated plans to set
up a 'free school', somewhat in the manner of the Free School of
the Sociological Society that had been organized in 1906 by
Oszkar Jaszi. According to Balazs, Lukacs was the driving force
behind the plans: 'He [Lukacs] must teach. He wants to form a
new generation by word of mouth and by direct influence.'25 The
school began in the spring of I917.26 Karl Mannheim, in a
programmatic lecture entitled 'Lelek es kultura' (The Soul and
Culture), spoke of the cultural tradition with which the faculty
wished to be identified.

... in Weltanschauung and attitude towards life, Dostoevski; in

our ethical convictions, Kierkegaard; in our philosophical point of
view, the German Logos, the Magyar Szellem, Lask, and Zalai; in
our aesthetic conviction, Paul Ernst and Riegl; in our artistic
culture, Cezanne, the new French lyric poetry, and particularly
the trend represented by the Nouvelle Revue Franfaise. Among our
own, those whose names can serve as rallying cries are Bartok and
Ady (on the basis of the many excellent verses that have outgrown
impressionism) and finally the Thalia Theatre movement.27

Two lectures a week were held on the premises of the Pedagogical

Institute. The faculty included Frederick Antal, Balazs, Bela
24 Interview with Professor Hauser in London, 28 August I971.
25 MTAK:K. Ms 5023/20, IO. Early in I918.
26 Balazs later recalled: 'There were eight or ten of us who never thought
about politics even in our dreams. We created (the school) in opposition to the
university's restricted, mindless, compendium-oriented "teacher training"
school.' 'Szabad iskola', in Balazs Bela valogatott cikkek es tanulmanyok
(Budapest I968), 9I.
27 Karoly Mannheim, Lelek es kultura (Budapest I9I8), 7. Logos was a journal
dedicated to the 'philosophy of culture'. Its contributors included Edmund
Husserl, Friedrich Meinecke, Heinrich Rickert, Georg Simmel, Ernst
Troeltsch, and Max Weber. Lukacs also contributed to Logos.

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CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

Bartok, Bela Fogarasi, Lajos Fiilep, Arnold Hause

Kodaly, Lukacs, Karl Mannheim, and Ervin Szabo. Balazs
described some of the lectures and lecturers in a diary entry of
28 May 1917.

Fogarasi's lectures on the theory of philosophical thinking were

first rate. Hauser's on 'Aesthetics after Kant' less able, but he had
done an impressive amount of work. Antal's lectures were a bit
weak. On the other hand, Mannheim's on the logic of epis-
temology were excellent, exciting, and rich; the first appearance of
an important philosopher of the future. Gyuri also arrived, and
although he improvised the ethical lectures, they were still par-
amount in importance!

The lectures, as the titles indicate, were not intended to serve

merely as introductions to their subject; they dealt with serious
philosophical problems at an advanced level. Attendance was
therefore necessarily small, but Balazs and Lukacs hoped that
those who did matriculate would form the nucleus of a new and
better generation. After the first year of lectures they had reason
to be optimistic. Balazs characterized the students as 'a new
philosophical and ethically serious generation', and added that
'these will truly be our people' (diary entry I5 July I918).
The Free School of the Humanistic Sciences (as the school was
called) evidently caused considerable unrest in university circles
and received the same jealous attention from the official culture
that every other expression of the counter-culture had received,
from Huszadik Szazad to Thalia to Ady's poetry. Balazs was
therefore receptive to the proposal that the Sociological Society
made to him and Lukacs in the summer of I9I8.

The Sociological Society received money from somewhere and

wants to improve its school by creating a high-level counter-
university. For the time being with two faculties; one for sociology
and political economy, the other for the humanistic sciences. The
latter is to be staffed by members of our school. Our faculty is to
have complete autonomy. This is very significant for we will no
longer be so isolated. It is true that our distinguished purity is also
endangered, but it is not necessary to lose it. Fulep is afraid.
'Until now we were the 12 fishermen and soon we will be made
into a church', he said (diary entry 15 July I918).

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UNPUBLISHED DIARY OF BELA BALAZS

The counter-university was never organized, but some

were made to establish closer relations between the two s
On one occasion, Fogarasi delivered a lecture ('Conservat
Progressive Idealism')28 before the Sociological Society,
he attempted to deny the supposed correlation between
philosophy and conservative politics. In a reply to the l
Lukacs presented the formal argument for the moral re
that both he and Balazs desired. He began by emphas
essential difference between the contemplative spheres
and aesthetics) and the practical spheres (ethics and pol
argued that what was crucial to progressive action was t
cular morality on which that action was based; it was,
tained, totally independent of any metaphysical th
Weltanschauung. As an example, Lukacs cited the unpro
character of Indian culture. That culture, he argued, w
connected with Indian ethics, with the teaching which h
everyone in this life has unalterable tasks. Compliance w
responsibilities was the highest virtue; movement out of
the greatest sin. This ethic had in the course of developm
correlated with the most distinct epistemologies and met
but because the ethic had remained the same, the ch
Weltanschauung from the Rigveda to the Buddha and be
not changed in the least the socially stagnant and unpr
character of the culture.
There remained the problem of the relationship betwe
and politics. Lukacs suggested that ethical activity was
towards the inner transformation of man, while politica
was concerned with the creation, security, or transform
institutions.

Ethical Idealism, in so far as it is directed towards politics

want anything other than the creation of such institution
best meet the requirements of the ethical Ideal and the rem
those that stand in the road of this Ideal's realization. An
politics based on this ethical Idealism is conscious at
moment that what it can attain is only political in nature: t
can accomplish only the creation of institutions which con
positively or negatively to this development. No kind of
can produce the ethically essential; the inner perfection o

28 Bela Fogarasi, Konzervativ es progressziv idealizmus (Budapest I9

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CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

the true realization of ethics. It can only push aside the

from the path of development.

Hence a political revolution could not in itself be signif

could only clear the way for the essential revolution.

The permanent revolution of ethical Idealism opposes

(i.e. institutions) as existence, as that which is of no valu
ethical Ideal; and because it is a permanent revolution, bec
an absolute revolution, it is capable of determining the dir
the never-coming-to-rest, never-stagnating development
ethical Ideal] and of regulating its movement.29

Lukacs and Balazs did not have long to wait. Hungary's

the war led to the dissolution of the Habsburg monarch
democratic revolution that brought Michael Karolyi to
The failure of that brief experiment seemed to provide t
an opportunity to prepare their moral revolution.

THE LEFT-LEANING BUT NON-COMMUNIST government

took its ideology from Oszkar Jaszi's writings, and Bal
have seen, could not live with that ideology. He and
along with Fogarasi and others of their circle, turne
newly-formed Hungarian Communist Party in the hope
communist revolution would become the concrete realiza
the moral revolution. Communism promised to destroy t
absolute sinfulness' and to create new and more perfect m
who would be internationalist in spirit and free of t
stigma attached to those who had plunged Europe into w
Karolyi was soon forced to turn the government over
Kun, the Communist Party leader, and the Hungari
Republic was formed in March I919. Lukacs became the
dictator of cultural affairs as Deputy People's Comm
Public Education, and Balazs served as the overseer of t
activity in the Republic. The brief and troubled history
Republic cannot be recounted here.30 It was unable to r
combined opposition of the 'White' Hungarian force
29 Gyirgy Lukacs, 'Felszolalasa', ibid., 27-36. Balazs wrote in his
December I9I5): 'Gyuri is wont to say that his great discovery
metaphysical realities are not in the sphere of value.'
30 See Rudolf L. T6kes, Bela Kun and the Hungarian Soviet Repu
York I967).

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UNPUBLISHED DIARY OF BELA BALAZS

Admiral Horthy and the Rumanian irredentists (cl

Transylvania) who were encouraged by the Allies. When
established a counter-revolutionary government in
I919, most of the communists, including Balazs and
emigrated.
The communist revolution had never emerged from its political
phase and the collapse of the Soviet Republic seemed to commit
Hungarian communists to an indefinite period of political activity
aimed at regaining power. Balazs was therefore confronted with a
dilemma, for although he retained his faith in communism's
moral mission, he did not wish to engage any longer in political
activity. The dilemma was dramatized for him by his friend
Lukacs's continued involvement with politics:

It seems that one must choose whether one writes or lives one's
ethic, just as the philosophers of religion reckon with but do not
live God. If this is true, then it seems that Gyorgy Lukacs, out of
integrity, out of moral imperative, is going to live to the very end
in untruth. Because Lukacs the conspirator, the active political
figure, the revolutionary, is assuming a mask, [is living in]
untruth; it is not his metaphysically-rooted mission. He was born
a quiet scholar, a lonely sage... Of course the question is: What
is more important, purity or the truth ? He lives a lie out of purity
(he does not live his own life). He commits a metaphysical sin. But
to intervene in the decision of a man of such deep ethical worth or
to judge him is not permitted. Who knows what kind of reasons he
has ? (diary entry 4 December I919).

Bela Balazs's decision marked the end of the II-year 'alliance'

with Lukacs; he chose to write his ethic. In the future his service
to the party would be literary only. He summed up his position in
the same entry: 'The truth is that I do not wish to take part any
longer in politics, just as I did not take part in them before;
because they are not my concern. Communism is my religion, not
my politics. From now on I want only to be an artist and nothing
more!'
Balazs never wavered in his determination to eschew politics;
the remaining 30 years of his life were largely devoted to working
out a socialist film aesthetic. Not only did the film possess great
artistic potential, it also offered unexplored possibilities for the
propagation of the revolutionary faith. Balazs could therefore be

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CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

of service to the party without re-entering the arena o

politics.
In Vienna, the first stop in his emigration, he wrote a film
column for the political daily Der Tag and in I924 published Der
sichtbare Mensch, one of his most important studies of the cinema.
The following year he moved to Berlin (then the scene of a
remarkable cultural renascence), where he contributed articles on
the film to Die Weltbiihne, the leftist journal edited by Siegfried
Jacobsohn, Kurt Tucholsky, and Carl von Ossietzky. The
advancing shadow of nazism, however, drove Balazs to the Soviet
Union in I93I. A member of a large community of Hungarian
communists in Moscow (Lukacs was also there), he was appointed
to the Film Academy and contributed to the emigre journal Uj
Hang (New Voice).
In 1945, Balazs returned to Budapest and was able, initially at
least, to carry on his work in a liberal atmosphere. He became
the director of the Institute of Film Science and was instrumental
in the development of the Hungarian cinema. But the problem of
politics pursued him to the end; he died on I7 May 1949, after
having been censured by the communist regime of Matyas Rakosi
for his opposition to the curtailment of artistic freedom.

The author would like to thank the International Research and

Exchanges Board (IREX) for the generous grant that made possible
the research for this paper.

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