Nyugat

Hungarian Literature

Course 1 · Chapter 5 · Nyugat and the Modern Turn

In 1908 a new literary journal appeared in Budapest under the name Nyugat, "West". It became the centre of Hungarian literary modernism, gathering the poets and novelists who turned the national literature towards the European present. This chapter follows the journal, its main poets (Ady, Babits, Kosztolányi) and prose writers (Móricz, Karinthy), and the arguments around them, including the place of the city and of Jewish writers in Hungarian culture. Names and dates are from general knowledge and flagged "check".

The Journal

Founding

Nyugat began in Budapest in 1908, edited and funded by a group that included Ignotus (Hugo Veigelsberg), Ernő Osvát and Miksa Fenyő (check). It ran until 1941, with a short successor, and published nearly every major writer of the period.

The aim

To bring Hungarian writing into step with Western European modernism, to value artistic quality over national sentiment, and to open the pages to new talent (check how the founders described it).

The setting

Budapest was growing fast as one of the twin capitals of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, with cafés where writers gathered, such as the New York Café (check). Many of the writers and the publishers were from the city's Jewish middle class (check).

The Poets

Poet (check dates)	Note
Endre Ady (1877 to 1919)	The leading figure of the first generation. His rich, symbolic, often prophetic poems about love, death, the nation and its backwardness startled readers. He spent time in Paris and drew on French symbolism; he died of illness during the First World War's aftermath.
Mihály Babits (1883 to 1941)	Poet, translator (including Dante) and critic, who edited Nyugat in its later years; learned, classical and ethically serious.
Dezső Kosztolányi (1885 to 1936)	Poet, novelist and journalist, known for subtle, ironic prose and poems about childhood and death; his novel Édes Anna (Anna Édes, 1926) is a classic.
Gyula Juhász and others	Provincial poets of the same wave with a quieter, more personal style (check).

Ady and the nation Ady's poems on Hungary, its failures and its possible renewal, are among the most quoted and argued over in the literature. Admirers saw a prophet who would not flatter his country, while critics accused him of contempt for it. After his death he was claimed by very different political groups, from the left to the right (check). The case shows how a poet's stance towards the nation can be read as love or as attack depending on the reader.

The Prose Writers

Zsigmond Móricz (1879 to 1942). A realist who wrote about the peasantry and the gentry with unsparing detail; his novel Légy jó mindhalálig (Be Faithful Unto Death, 1920) is a school classic, and his work was widely read (check).
Frigyes Karinthy (1887 to 1938). A humorist, parodist and essayist, known for Így írtok ti (This Is How You Write, parodies of fellow writers), for science-fiction fantasies and for the idea of "six degrees of separation" in a short story of 1929 (check the claim and the story).
Others. Gyula Krúdy, a master of atmosphere and memory, and Margit Kaffka, a woman novelist of the first Nyugat generation (check).
Women writers. Women writers were more numerous in the later generations, but their place in the canon is still being reassessed (check).

Arguments and Aftermath

The populist–urbanist divide. From the 1930s, writers who stressed the peasantry and rural roots (the "populists") and those who stressed the city and Western culture (the "urbanists") argued over what Hungarian literature should be, and the argument had political and sometimes antisemitic overtones (check).
Trianon. The Treaty of Trianon (1920) removed about two-thirds of the kingdom's territory and left millions of Hungarians outside the new borders, a shock that shaped the writing of the 1920s and after (check the figures).
Closure. Nyugat ended in 1941 after the death of Babits, under the pressure of war and political change (check).

A British comparison Compare The Criterion and The Egoist in Britain, or the Bloomsbury circle, where a small group of writers and editors reshaped literary taste (check). Nyugat was larger and more central to its national literature than any single British review.

Check the details Dates, founders and the details of the arguments are from general knowledge. The treatment of Jewish writers and the political uses of Nyugat after 1920 are sensitive topics, so verify against literary histories and avoid simple summaries.

Exercises

Exercise 1

Explain what Nyugat was, what it aimed to do and why its title mattered.

→ Solution

Exercise 2

Compare Ady, Babits and Kosztolányi: what did each bring, and how did their styles differ?

→ Solution

Exercise 3

Describe the populist–urbanist argument and say why a simple summary of it is risky.

→ Solution

Quick Reference

The journal: Nyugat, 1908 to 1941 (check)
Poets: Ady, Babits, Kosztolányi (check)
Prose: Móricz, Karinthy, Krúdy (check)
Context: growing Budapest, then Trianon in 1920 (check)
The caution: the populist–urbanist argument had political overtones