László Bernát Veszprémy

The Prophet of the Third Way – Hungarian Writer Gyula Gombos born 110 years ago

Gyula Gombos was an important Hungarian writer and literary historian, born on 30
September 1913. He was a significant author, but not a popular one, and the most significant
segment of his work was in fact written about the history of ideas and meaning of other
writers. (While their names sound alike, he should not be confused with the right wing PM
of the early thirties, Gyula Gömbös).

In his memoirs, he described his simple childhood in Temesvár (today: Timisoara, Romania),
in a somewhat impressionistic way: he wrote of his father's moustache, his reserve, his
mother's home-made medicines, the pig slaughters and the games with the Jewish children
next door. He also described the end of the First World War, the French occupation, the
experience of humiliation. The family moved to Budapest in 1925, and from then on, he
wrote, his father was not only taciturn but also bad-tempered.

As a Calvinist student, he graduated from the Calvinist School in Lónyay Street and then took
up a teaching post. He wrote his first review of a sociography by Gyula Illyés, and later
published theatre and film reviews. Later he was assistant editor of the Hungarian
newspaper Magyar Élet (Hungarian Life), and from 1941 he edited it.

Magyar Élet was a journal of national politics, written by the right wing of ‘popular’ or
‘populist’ (népi) writers, but writers who eventually made their compromises with the
Communist left, such as Péter Veres, József Darvas and László Németh also wrote for it. In
1939 the paper was briefly banned because of an anti-German article by Dezső Szabó. The
paper took a peculiar stance, which was not uncommon at the time: it published both anti-
Semitic and anti-German articles. At the same time, it was rich in literature, criticism and art,
preferably, of course, from the pens of the simple sons of the Hungarian people - the
exploring of this intellectual source made the paper ‘populist’.

In August 1943, Gombos spoke at the so-called Szárszó Conference, where he argued for the
Hungarian ‘third way’ – meaning he called for a system that was neither Capitalist, nor
Communist. He was very young at the time, 30 years old – another indication of his decisive
character. In this speech he also gave an accurate picture of the negative aspects of interwar
Hungary, criticising it not from the left but from the ‘populist’ side. He gave an important
and insightful insight into the collapse of historic Hungary, the revolution of '18, the Soviet
republic of ‘19, the impact of the Trianon peace treaty, the difficulties of the social situation
and the limitations of Hungarian foreign policy. One of his important and still valid criticisms
was that intellectuals, writers and leading politicians speak a different language, and one of
the main problems is that they do not talk to each other and do not ‘promise’ each other
anything.

Gombos was an anti-German activist during the Second World War, but was arrested in 1947
in a show trial and imprisoned. He was released in 1948 and emigrated with his family to
Switzerland and later to America. During the years of emigration, he worked for Radio Free
Europe, and his work was strongly anti-communist. While in emigration, he wrote a book
about the suffering of Protestantism under communism and about various Hungarian
writers.

Of course, even during his years in the US, he was not blind to the state of society around
him - both the positives and the negatives - for example, he wrote an interesting essay on
social mobility in the US. As well as appreciating that hard-working and clever people from
the bottom can get ahead in America, he also noted that the main methods of breaking into
the top elite were by birth, invitation or connections with family and friends, especially from
one’s alma mater. This critique of his would place him more in line with the contemporary
left, although it has to be noted that this was simply a characteristic of the Hungarian
‘populist’ right: economic progressivism, while maintaining a national and Christian identity.

He was one of the youngest ‘populist’ writers, and perhaps unsurprisingly, unlike most
‘populist’ writers, he lived through the fall of the communist dictatorship. After the fall of
communism, he returned home and published mainly on Dezsó Szabó and László Németh.
He died in 2000 at the age of 87, and his work is still understudied, although he was an
important young member of the ‘populist’ writers (and literary historians). As one of his
admirers quite rightly wrote of him: 'His place in the hierarchy of “populist” thinkers and
writers is not in the second, but in the first rank, in the company of those whose intellectual
and creative achievements can be considered particularly valuable and significant.’