The other face of modernization: The collapse of rural society in east central European realism and naturalism

Tibor Klaniczay, in his essay “Les possibilités d'une littérature comparée de l'Europe orintale” (Acta Litteraria Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 5) (1962): 115–127), attributes the reducton of the literatures of East Central Europe to “une sorte d'appendice négligeable” (116) in the history of European literature as a whole to this very tradition of centering literary scholarship “dans une trop grande mesure ou měme exclusivement sur les nations” (117).Google Scholar

Walter Schmidt, in “The Nation in German History” (inThe National Question in Europe in Historical Context., Mikulás Teich and Roy Proter, eds, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993, 148–180), describes the unusual differentiation that characterized historical development in the German-speaking world (p. 148): “Historical development in the German-speaking part of Europe were highly contradictory and anything but linear. They did not-as in other parts of western and, in certain cases, also in eastern Europe-lead to a general congruence of ethnic, linguistic, governmental and national factors. On the contrary, during the transition from medievalism/feudalism to modern bourgeois society, they resulted in deeprooted governmental and social differences which, in extreme cases such as the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria and Luxembourg, also led to the foundation of independent nations... Favouring these separatist movements was the fact that, in distinction to western Europe, the German-speaking area was not characterized by the centralized government needed by capitalism and, in the majority of cases, achieved in the form of Absolutism, but, until well into the nineteenth century, the region was dominated by ... the so-called German multistate particularism (Mehrstaatlichkeit).”Google Scholar

Compare the chapter organization in such standard literary histories as Ernst Alker,Die deutsche Literatur im 19. Jahrhundert: 1832–1914 (Stuttgart: Kröner, 1969), and J. G. Robertson and Edna Purdie,A History of German Literature, 3rd ed. (Edinburgh-London.: William Blackwood and Sons, 1959).Google Scholar

See Klaniczay: 116. attributes the reduction of the literatures of East Central Europe to “une sorte d'appendice négligeable” (116) in the history of European literature as a whole to this very tradition of centering literary scholarship “dans une trop grande mesure ou même exclusivement sur les nations” (117).Google Scholar

J. G. Robertson and Edna Purdie, in theirGeschichte der deutschen Literatur (trans. by Gerhard Raabe; Göttigen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1968)., Refer to Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Karl Emil Franzos and Peter Rosegger as authors of novels “aus dem Provinzleben” (477). The same label is applied by Alker to Leopold Kompert, Fritz Mauthner and others (626–638).Google Scholar

What little scholarly attention Polenz has attracted over the past quarter century has, interestingly, been accorded him primarily by East Central European critics, especially the Hungarian Miklós Salyámosy, who has contributed a valuable monograph on him (Wilhelm von Polenz: Prosawerke eines Naturalisten, Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1985), as well as a number of articles, including “Wilhellm von Polenz um die Jahrhundertwende”,Annales Universitatis Scientiarum Budapestinensis de Rolando Eötvös Nominatae: Sectio Philologica Moderna 8 (1977): 89–111. Otherwise, very little has been written about Polenz in recent decades: “Seine spätere Rezeptionsgeschichte... hat eher Mißerfolge zu verzeichnen. In neueren Literaturgeschichten wird ‘Der Bütnerbauer’ nur als Randerscheinung erwähnt und meistens mit negativen Werturteilen vermerkt, zuletzt findet man Hinweise auf den ehemaligen Erfolgrenner nur noch in den Fußnoten der Literaturgeschichten” (Stefan H. Kaszynski, “Whilhelm von Polenz’ ‘Der Büttnerbauer’-Lesearten’, inTraditionen und Traditionsssuche des deutschen Faschismus, eds Günter Hartung and Hubert Orlowski, Halle: Martin-Luther-Universität, 1987, p. 72).Google Scholar

Klaniczay's brief survey of attempts at a comparative study ofEast European literature is very useful. As he points out, there is a well-developed tradition of uniting the Slavic literatures in scientific research, culminating in works such as Dmitrij Čiževskij'sOutline of Comparative Slavic Literatures (Boston: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1952). Here again, however, the setting of arbitrary linguistic boundaries results in major gaps, as hungarian, Romanian, and the Baltic literatures are left out of such studies, in spite of all they share in common with their Slavic counterparts. Germano-Hungarian literary relations have been the subject of a number of studies. György Mihály Vajda, co-editor of the important volumeStudien zur Geschichte der deutsch-ungarischen literarischen Beziehungen (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1969), contributed a practical survey entitled “Zur Geschichte der ungarisch-deutschen Literaturbeziehungen” (9–31), which contains an excellent bibliography, to which readers are referred. As Klaniczay rightly ponts out, however, the study of East Central European literatures in the context of German influence has more often than not implied a tendency to assume the predominance and “superiority” of the German (or Austrian=Viennese) culture, as did the proponents of “Ostforschung” under Hitler (120, 123). Such subjective value determination are not only inappropriate, but also counterproductive. In addition, the concept of a “Danubian” literature radiating out from the Austrian caital suffers from outmoded geo-political restrictions and ignores the differences that separate historically capitalistic, bourgeois Austria from feudalistic Hungary and Poland. Yet the predominantly Marxist-Leninist approach applied in most recent efforts to study the literatures of East Central Europe as a unit is hampered by similar artificial limitations. A typical example is Julius Dolanský's article “Das vergleichendhistorische Studium der Literaturen Osteuropas” (Acta Litteraria Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 5/1962/: 101–114), which comes to the vague and impractical conclusion: “Es ist nunmehr an der Zeit, daß... ein Werk in Angriff genommen wird, das, von... den Prinzipien des sozialistischen Internationalismus ausgehend, das brüderliche Verhältnis aller Völker untereinander unterstreicht und unserer großen Epoche des Sozialismus würdig ist” (114). Such studies are invevitably tarnished by the assumption of the polical superiority of socialism and thus serve the interests of propaganda more than they do those of objectivity. They reveal the urgent need to modernize the comparative study of East Central European literature.Google Scholar

Excellent summaries of these factors can be found in Klaniczay, 125–126, and Leslie C. Tihany,A History of Middle Europe: From the Earliest Times to the Age of the World Wars (New Brunswick: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1976), 3–7. An insightful survey of the debate surrounding the definition of “East Central Europe” can be found in Piotr. S. Wandycz,The Price of Freedom: A History of East Central Europe from the Middle Ages to the Present (London: Routledge, 1992), 1–11. See also Jenó Szúcs,Vázlat Európa három történeti régiójáról (Budapest: Magvetó, 1983), which has been translated into Germany by Béla Rásky asDie drei historischen Regionen Europas (Farnkfurt a. M.: Verlag Neue Kritik, 1990), and into French by Véronique Charaire:Les trois Europes (Paris: Editions l'Harmattan, 1985).Google Scholar

Robin Okey,Eastern Europe 1740–1985: Feudalism to Communism, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesoto Press, 1986), 13.Google Scholar

Robert S. Gottfried,The Black Death: Natural and Human Disaster in Medieval Europe (New York: The Free Press, 1983), 137.Google Scholar

Klaniczay,: 125. See also Wandycz, Piotr S. Wandycz,The Price of Freedom: A History of East Central Europe from the Middle Ages to the Presen (London: Routledge, 1992), 1–11. 54–62, 80–82: Denis SinorHistory of Hungary (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1959), 137–147; Péter Hanák,Ungarn in der Donaumonarchie: Probleme der bürgerlichen Umgestalung eines Vielvölkerstaates (Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1984); Iván Bertényi and Gábor Gyapay,Magyarország rövid története (Budapest: Maecenas, 1992), 200–202, 286–307; Peter Sugar, ed.A History of Hungary (Bollomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1990), 104–108; E. Garrison Walters,The Other Europe: Eastern Europe to 1945 (New York: Dorset Press, 1990), 114–118. Detailed discussion of the entrenchment of feudalism in Eastern Europe can be found in Laszlo Revesz,Der osteuropäische Bauer: Seine Rechtslage im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert unter besonderer Rücksichtigung Ungarns (Bern: Schweizerisches Ost-Institut, 1964).Google Scholar

Klaiczay: 126. See also Wandycz. Piotr S. Wandycz,The Price of Freedom: A History of east Central Europe from the Middle Ages to the Presen (London: Routledge, 1992), 171–180; Okey,Eastern Europe 1740–1985: Feudalism to Communism, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986), 114–118; Hanák,Ungarn in der Donaumonarchie: Probleme der bürgerlichen Umgestaltung eines Vielvölkerstaaytes (Vienna: Verlag fur Geschichte und Politik, 1984); Iván Bertényi and Gábor 59–60; Oscar Jászi,The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1929; Phoenix Books, 1961), 185–212.Google Scholar

Kálmán Kovács,Gyulai Pál széppprózája (Debrecen: Kossuth Lajos Tudományegyetem, 1976), 68–73. As Kovács emphasizes, the problem was particularly acute for members of the middle nobility, who were made to pay for their role in the 1848–49 Revolution by the Austriians, and who did not have the same access to political power that allowed the Hungarian aristorracy to bounce back after the debacle of the revolution. See also István Hermann, “beveszeté”,Válogatott múvei by Pál Gyulai (Budapest: Szépirodalmi Könyvkiadó, 1956) I: 12–13.Google Scholar

Eric J. Hobsbawm,The Age of Capital 1848–1875 (1975; London: Cardinal, 1988), 225. Hobsbawm explains his argument at some legth on pp. 214–227.Google Scholar

See the chapter entitled “Morbus Latifundi” in Jászi, 220–239.Google Scholar

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See Karl Wagner, “Eigensim und Untergang: Zur Frfahrung der Moderne bei Kretzer, Rosegger und Polenz” (Begegung mit dem Fremden: Grenzen-Traditionen-Vergleiche; Akten des VIII. Internationalen Germanisten-Kongresses, Tokyo 1990, Eijiro Iwasaki, ed., Munich: iudicium, 1991), 2. 182–183.Google Scholar

This state of affairs conforms to Durkheim's definition ofanomie, where he writes: “Tant que les forces sociales, ainsi mises en liberté, n'ont pas retrouvé l'équilibre, leur valeur respective reste indéterminé et, par conséquent, toute réglementation fait défaut pour un temps. On the sait plus ce qui est possible et ce qui ne l'est pas, ce qui est juste et ce qui est injuste, quelless sont les revendications et les espéraces légitimes, quelles sont celles qui passent la mesure.” Émile Durkheim,Le suicide: Étude de sociologie, new ed. (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1960), 280–281.Google Scholar

For discussion of these class development in late ninteenth-century Hungary, see Hanák,Ungarn in der Donaumonarchie: Prolleme der bürgerlichen Umgestaltung eines Vielvölkerstaates (Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1984); Iván Bertényi and Gábor 345–352.Google Scholar

Citing Hungary again, the number of emigrants during the period of the Dual Monarchy (1867–1914) exceeded two million-the majority of these settled in North America — 332. Graphic evidence of the appeal of the city to landless agricultural laborers is provided by the growth of Budapest from a city of 270, 685 in 1869 to 880,371 in 1910. In that year, Budapest and environs with 1,098,240 residents constituted 6% of Hungary's population (as opposed to 2% in 1869; Hanák, (Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1984); Iván Bertényi and Gábor 328). Further information on European migration in the period of capitalization can be found in Hobsbawn, 228–244.Google Scholar

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On nationalism in this context see Eric Hobsbawn,Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1992) 109.Google Scholar

The only existing translation into English of this story is the work of A. J. Patterson and can be found inThe Cornhill Magazine 1872: 357–384, 475–511.Google Scholar

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