SOME OBSERVATIONS ON HUNGARIAN–AMERICAN
TIES AND CONTACTS
Zsolt Virágos
University of Debrecen, Hungary
[1] Introductory remarks
There is no theory of Hungarian–American contacts. Indeed, it continues to be a
laborious exercise even to come up with a sufficiently descriptive single noun to apply to
the varied topography of "that which joins or relates," "cements and unites" between
Hungary and the United States in either or both of these countries or between Hungarians
and Americans anywhere in the world: diplomatic relations and other institutional links,
scholarly and scientific cooperation, chance encounters, artistic or technological
influence, etc. The top contenders for such a term could be relation, relationship, contact,
link, interaction, connection, tie, or bond. Perhaps even meeting point.
Neither are there absolutely reliable data available regarding the actual number of
Hungarians in the New World; the overall figure is estimated to be anything between 1.5
to 6 million. In the U.S.A., census figures for the year 2000 indicate that a mere 1.4
million American citizens responded in the affirmative to the question whether they
regarded themselves Hungarian. This number is 181.000 fewer than it was during the
previous census a decade before. Despite the uneven distribution of the Hungarian stock
in the fifty statesi and the traditional lack of consensus among Hungarian American
communities, the million and a half or so populace with a Hungarian background is still
sufficiently potent to keep ethnocentric impulses alive. Despite the fact, I should add, that
in the United States, Hungarian America, in the classic sense of the world, is a thing of
the past. Ironically, the dwindling mass of Hungarians in the U.S.A. appears to be no
impediment to the mounting intensity of study and research of Hungarian-American
cultural ties and contacts.
[2] American Studies and the study of Hungarian–American links
In Hungary, besides the fact that a sort of popular awareness of Hungarian–American
links and contacts has been part of the national consciousness, the study of these ties and
relations is relatively recent, if not belated, and it has become largely institutionalized.
This primarily means that for the past few decades, together with the unprecedented
outgrowth of American Studies in Hungary ("amerikanisztika" as a self-contained
discipline surfaced in Hungary in the early 1960s), this particular brand of intercultural
studies has become integrated into the curricula of most of the major Hungarian colleges
and universities. Of course, in theory you do not need American Studies to teach and
research Hungarian–American ties and contacts. Since, as indicated above, Hungarian–
American relations have no specific theory, thus no distinctive methodology either,
cultural history has proved an adequate tool. Such study, as we shall see, had existed well
before the very concept of American Studies emerged.
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However, it helps if such intercultural inquiry is made visible as an integral
component of a larger field of study and research. Under Hungarian conditions, the
favored sites of institutionalization of the fact and concept of Hungarian–American ties
are, within the institutions mentioned, one, the curriculum, thus ultimately the classroom
and, two, the disciplinary recognition of this intercultural inquiry as a legitimate field of
study and research. As regards the first, no student of English at the major Hungarian
universities, for instance, can graduate without substantial previous exposure to U.S.
culture and institutions. As regards the legitimacy of inquiry, disciplinary sanctions come
from various sources, one of them being a landmark publication entitled Bevezetés az
amerikanisztikába (Introduction to American Studies; 1972) by László Országh (1907–
1984), one-time professor of the Department of English at Debrecen's Kossuth University
(now the University of Debrecen), the founder of American Studies in Hungary. In this
book, a special subchapter is devoted to "Európai-amerikai kölcsönhatások" [European–
American interrelations].
This intercultural awareness can be well observed, for instance, in recently created
histories of the American literary culture published in Hungarian, by Hungarian authors,
in Hungary. The commendable added feature of the earliest of these, a history of
American literature published in 1967 by the above-mentioned László Országh, is that
the author usefully explored and registered a wealth of information pertaining to
Hungarian–American links and relations that he considered relevant: from Captain John's
Smith's ties to Zsigmond Báthory, Prince of Transylvania (1588–1597), via the
impressions of early 19th-century Hungarian travelers in America, to how Whitman
personally met (or went to hear) Kossuth while the latter visited the U.S.A., or the
Hungarian origin of the epitaph in Mark Twain's novel of Joan of Arc. Later histories of
the literary culture―for instance my The Modernists and Others―point out Hungarian
contributions to American culture such as Béla Bartók's indirect influence on American
modernism, Ferenc Molnár's unprecedented success on Broadway, the role of Joseph
Galambos in designing the famous Model T as Chief Engineer at Ford Motor Company
from 1906 to 1945, etc.
[3] "Anglistik"
Of course, intercultural studies of this sort were not invented by the practitioners of
American Studies. Indeed, if we take a brief backward glance at the overall status of
philology in Hungary during the first half of the 20th century, we can see that with the
sole exception of German Studies, modern philology was in its infancy. The university
curriculum even at Budapest's Institute of English offered only a four-semester course
(basically lectures cum follow-up seminars) of British literature, which meant a bird'seye-view survey from Beowulf to the mid-19th century. Research concentrated on a rather
peculiar territory: Anglistik, as it was called. The German word was meant to designate
the investigation of Anglo–Hungarian contacts―cultural, political, literary, and personal.
This research orientation had been dominant in Hungary ever since Arthur Yolland,
former English "lektor" and resident native speaker, became Professor of English and
Chair of the Budapest department of English in 1908. He turned all his academic interest
to the study of the intercultural study of binational contacts―and made his colleagues
and students do the same. One typical study of this sort was, for example, this: "James
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Bogdani, a Hungarian painter in the courts of William III and Queen Anne" published in
Hungarian ("James Bogdani magyar festő III. Vilmos és Anna királynő udvarában") in
volume II of Angol Filológiai Tanulmányok [Studies in English Philology] in 1937.
Although the excessive priority given to this field of study was somewhat delimiting,
there can be no doubt about the relatively high scholarly standard achieved in the
published material of interdisciplinary research of this nature. Moreover, needless to say,
things British were given a high priority, and U.S.-related aspects were to take a back seat
in comparison.
[4] The name of America
No consideration of Hungarian–American ties, indeed no chronology of the Hungarian–
American past can be complete without at least a side glance at the possible Magyar
source of the name of the Americas. In this assumption, it is claimed that the name
America, thus the name of what is meant by the Americas, was suggested after
Columbus's time by a German geographer, Martin Waldseemüller, in a pamphlet
published in 1507. It is also believed that indirectly and by way of Italy a Hungarian
saint, the son of Stephen I, contributed to this geographical designation. This is the Imre
→ Emeric → Amerigo → America line. The narrative behind this naming event is that
the Hungarian St. Emeric was popular with the Italians and in 1451 Nastagio Vespucci, a
notary of Florence, named his new son Amerigo Vespucci (1451–1512) after the
Hungarian saint. In Italian the word Emeric becomes Amerigo.
Onomatologists offer a basically similar but more complicated alternative. Béla
Kálmán, a linguist, for instance, also claims that the name of the American continent has,
to some extent, some Hungarian prehistory as well, but he takes us back to the name
Henrik (Henry), the first element of which is of uncertain origin: it may have been
Haimrík 'home ruler.' In this version, Hungary's first Christian king named his son
Haimrík, probably after the monarch Stephen I's German father-in-law. In Hungarian the
name was first transformed into Imrik ~ Emrik, then became Imreh ~ Imre. From the
Hungarian form Emrik the Latinized version became Emericus, and it was by this name
that Imre became one of the "saints." Owing to the Hungarian saint, the name became
quite popular in Hungary in medieval times. During the campaigns of Nagy Lajos (Louis
the Great) the name was introduced in Italy as well, where it was, even if not extensively,
used. "In form the name" Professor Kálmán argues, "is distinctly separate from Henrik in
Italian, too, because this in Italian is Enrico, while Imre became Emerico, in dialect
Emerigo ~ Amerigo" (33). In this way, the first name of the Italian seafarer and explorer
after whom America was named, Amerigo Vespucci, is an Italian variant of the
Germanic-originated Hungarian name.
[5] Hungarian–American ties: a give-and-take process
As viewed today, the nature and history of Hungarian–American links and contacts, both
spontaneous and institutional, can be best understood as a sort of give-and-take
relationship. One side of the coin is the steady intrusion of American economic, political,
technological and cultural influence into Hungarian life, a trickle that has by now become
a flood: a flood of American technology, knowhow, popular culture (especially the
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massive output of the entertainment industry), and American ends and means in general.
An intriguing quality of this intrusive flood is that it is happening so fast that we do not
always notice that, for instance, we are adopting ways of doing things without knowing
that we are acquiring American modes of operation.
By now most of the things that tend to be absorbed, retained and accommodated by
Hungarian culture in this way have been extensively written about and these take the
form of a sort of well-rehearsed list: TV game shows, talk shows, standardized series,
installment buying, jazz, rap music, de-emphasizing lunch (the quick bite; indeed,
Hungarians are also becoming a nation of fast-food eaters), computers, IT (information
technology), shopping malls, supermarkets, plazas, business education, some banking
practices, mail-order purchasing, comic strips, soap operas, crop dusting, the ready-towear trend. And, less significantly, chewing gum. And, more importantly, an increasingly
better understanding of the nuts and bolts of America's diverse and multi-layered
iconography and the relatively recent realization that in an international context image
banks are the alphabet of another culture.
Which ultimately means that decoding "the America phenomenon" and the give-andtake process referred to above is a learning process in which the potential knower (the
student of things American) is burdened with added responsibilities for the simple reason
that he is also bound to be implicated in a moral sense. The moral dimension is expected
to surface inevitably in transactions within the twin domains of national pride and pious
patriotism. Indeed, it can be safely claimed that the loosely defined affective zone, where
enthusiasm can easily outrun reason, tends to be "contaminated": subjectivized and
mythicized for the simple reason that nationalistic urges and ethnocentric impulses, either
"benign" or "malignant," are proverbially difficult to control: they are often likely to be
questionable and contingent.
[6] The other side of the coin
Despite these cautionary remarks pertaining to the potential risks of assessing the
factuality and impact of cross-cultural exports versus imports, there is no avoiding the
other side of the coin: the Hungarian contribution to the making of America. There is a
growing recognition of the fact and significance of this massive and dramatic
contribution, an increasingly more solid belief in the Hungarian national consciousness
that a slice of the American pie has a Hungarian filling.
The presence and undeniable impact of this "Hungarian filling" in science and
technology (the Manhattan Project, the hydrogen bomb, computers, aeronautics,
astrophysics, designing the Model T Ford, etc.), the Hollywood film industry, the concert
halls of America, the Broadway theaters, sports and Olympic coaches, etc. have been
discussed and amply documented in the relevant literature. Most of these facts and
accomplishments have been preserved in the Hungarian–American consciousness as a
series of episodes, with some of them clearly anecdotal or mythicized: the Hungarian
origin of America's Christian name (see below); a Hungarian crewman (Tyrker) and Leif
Ericson; an English expedition to America in 1583 (that of Sir Humphrey Gilbert) and a
Hungarian scholar (Parmenius) as crewman; George Washington's "Hungarian ancestry";
Colonel Commandant Michael de Kováts, military hero, Father of U.S. Cavalry; the
"Hungarian Tocqueville" (i.e., Sándor Bölöni-Farkas); the unforgettable reception of the
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Hungarian "Torch of Liberty" (Governor Kossuth) in New York City in December 1851;
the Hungarian Commander of the "American Charge of the Light Brigade" (Colonel
Charles Zágonyi's "Death Ride of Springfield" during the Civil War); Joe Namath and
Larry Csonka in the American Football Hall of Fame; Hungarian-American fencing
champions of the U.S.; the Hollywood scene: Adolf Zukor, William Fox, Michael Curtis,
Béla Lugosi, Tony Curtis, Miklós Rózsa, etc.; how "The Bomb" was born; music: Jenő
Ormándy, Antal Dorati, Fritz Reiner, Tibor Kozma, Sir George Solti, etc., and much
further relevant information on outstanding Hungarian-American artists (e.g. Joseph
Domjan, Lajos Szalay), journalists and publishers (the best known being Joseph Pulitzer,
1847–1911), businessmen (e.g. investment banker György Soros), etc.
Perhaps the most glorious chapter in the history of Hungarian–American contacts has
been written by our scientists who received their education in Hungary and who later
were involved in a special kind of brain drain that contributed a large number of expertly
trained Hungarian scientists to the U.S. In his America's Amazing Hungarians Stephen
Sisa devotes a separate chapter to "The Magnificent Seven" who, the author claims, not
only affected millions but whose works "have been of universal significance" (27): Leo
Szilárd (1898-1964, Nobel-Prize winning physicist, involved in the Manhattan Project),
Jenő Wigner (Eugene Wigner, 1902-1995, Nobel-Prize winner, co-developed the atomic
bomb); János Neumann (John von Neumann, 1903-1957, mathematician, co-developed
the atomic bomb, father of binary code and computer programing), Ede Teller (Edward
Teller, 1908-2003, father of the hydrogen bomb), Tódor Kármán (Theodore von
Karman, 1881-1963, aeronautical engineer, "father of the jet age"), Albert SzentGyörgyi (1893-1986, Nobel Prize for his discoveries in connection with the biological
combustion process with special reference to vitamin C and the catalysis of fumaric acid)
and Zoltán Bay (1900-1992, the founder of a new branch of physics: radar astronomy). It
is not an exaggeration to claim that the joint intellectual achievement of the "magnificent
seven" superachievers largely contributed to American and universal science. Sisa's
"magnificent seven" could become the "magnificent nine" if we add two other greats to
the group: George von Bekesy (1899-1972), a biophysicist who obtained his doctorate in
Budapest, joined the staff of the Psycho–Acoustic Laboratory at Harvard University
(1947), and was awarded the 1861 Nobel Prize in medicine and physiology for his
findings concerning "the stimulation of the cochlea of the ear"; George Oláh (1927–),
who, after being trained in chemistry in Hungary moved to the U.S. in 1956 and received
the 1994 Nobel Prize for the study of hydrocarbons, the ingredients of crude oil and
natural gas, and his discovery of new ways to use them.
Among the most recent crop of published researched material on outstanding
Hungarian achievers in the U.S.A. a brief mention will be made of the HungarianAmerican journalist, Kati Marton's best-selling book The Great Escape: Nine Jews Who
Fled Hitler and Changed the World (2006), which focuses on the stories and portraits of
Jewish-Hungarian personalities who ecaped Nazism, became successful in their
respective fields of excellence in their chosen country, the United States (or, in the case
of Koestler, Great Britain). Not only did these nine people become world famous as
Nobel-Prize winners and Oscar awardees, Marton asserts, but some of them also turned
out to be the shapers of world affairs at some dramatic juncture of human history.
Marton's spectacular gallery of extraordinary individuals includes Edward Teller, Andor
Kertész (alias André/Andrew Kertesz, acclaimed photographer), Sándor Korda (i.e., Sir
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Alexander Korda, film director), John von Neumann, Artúr Kösztler (author Arthur
Koestler), Mihály Kertész (Michael Curtis, Oscar-winning film director of
"Casablanca"), Leó Szilárd, Jenő Wigner, Endre Friedmann (alias Robert Capa, photo
artist). An equally impressive, by now legendary, stories could be told about the
Hungarian contribution to American civilization in areas as diverse as the development
of Hollywood (indeed Hungarians such as Adolph Zukor [1873-1976] and William Fox
[1879-1952], founders of Paramount Pictures and Twentieth-Century Fox, respectively,
were not only prime movers of the early American film industry but, indirectly, the
disseminators of the mass entertainment version of the American way of life), as well as
about the roles Hungarians played, as conductors, instrumentalists, and musical directors
at several of America's major symphony orchestras, etc.
On the level of both institutionalized and spontaneous social consciousness
Hungarians have been ready to embrace the Hungarian contributors to the making of
America as their own heroes, and with good reason. Thus, for instance, a community of
outstanding scientists was duly recognized a couple of years ago when the Wall of
Scientists at Budapest's West End City Center was erected with 16 Hungarian (or
Hungarian-born) Nobel-Prize winners duly recognized as culture heroes of the Magyars.
Again, with good reason. In the spontaneous―and predominantly affective―realm the
increasing amount of relevant information has fanned patriotic pride. It has also been
both natural and inevitable that in this affective zone ethnocentric impulses should be
triggered and boosted, with a firm belief in the various myths about a unique Hungarian
talent and the exceptionalism of the Magyars. In Hungary today, a dispassionate
assessment of the extraordinary Magyar performance in the U.S. lies somewhere between
neglect and heroification bordering on hagiography. A useful explanation for the
"mystique" of Hungarian contribution has been offered by Steven Bela Vardy, who
claimed more than two decades ago in a book published in the U.S.A. that "[t]heir native
talents and their natural desire to excel, combined with the unique opportunities offered
by this unusually tolerant land, have brought the best out of the Hungarian immigrants
and their descendents. And thus they have made discoveries and achieved goals that they
could never have made and achieved within the confines of their much-loved but small
homeland, with its limited opportunities. And this process of achievement is still
continuing, with perhaps many surprises in the remaining years of our millennium" (The
Hungarian–Americans, 172).
[7] New World achievement as a marker of Hungarian identity?
What has been so far discussed will still leave us with dozens of unanswered questions as
to whether and to what extent Hungarian performance impinges upon a hypothetical
sense of Hungarian identity of the Magyars. Thus the question inevitably comes up
whether the individual items of the incredibly long lists of Hungarian-born American
achievers can be counted as iconic signifiers, thus ultimately, as markers of cultural
identity. Do these define the Hungarianness of Magyars, no matter where these Magyars
should be living? At this moment, while I am speaking here as a conference contributor, a
Hungarian–American space tourist by the name of Charles Simonyi is orbiting the earth
in a spaceship. Does the fact that in the history of space travel he is the second
Hungarian-born individual to have ventured so far and high matter? Does this concern
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Hungarianness in a direct or subtle way? Is the fact that a man by the name of Vilmos
Friedman (of Tolcsva) later became known as William Fox of Hollywood's TwentiethCentury Fox relevant to the average Magyar's sense of identity? When a Hungarian looks
at or thinks of the Statue of Liberty, is it significant for him to know that Joseph Pulitzer
raised the money for erecting the pedestal and that the cost of illuminating America's
perhaps most widely known icon at night also comes from a fund created by the
Hungarian-born newspaper king and philantropist? Is it important that a certain American
lawmaker's grandfather was Hungarian? Is it significant that one of Joyce Carol Oates'
grandmothers was Hungarian, that Philip Roth has a Hungarian background, that without
Jozsef Galambos (1881–1955) the Model T Ford would have been a less efficient
automobile?
We are obviously talking here about a widely dispersed cultural—primarily
intellectual—property, which makes defining "ownership" difficult. It is certain,
however, that Hungarians possess an indubitable birthright to appreciate and feel proud
of every worthy manifestation of Hungarian-born talent in the U.S. Which also means
that the answers to the questions posed above should all be in the affirmative. So should
Charles Simonyi, who is now orbiting the earth, be honored with an episode in the history
of Hungarian-American ties and and a niche in the intercultural pantheon? The answer is
yes. Even if the spaceship is Russian.
Works Cited
Gracza, Rezsoe and Margaret. The Hungarians in America. Minneapolis, MIN: Lerner
Publications Company, 1969.
Kálmán, Béla. The World of Names: A Study in Hungarian Onomatology. Trans. Zsolt
Virágos. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1978.
Sisa, Stephen. The Spirit of Hungary: A Panorama of Hungarian History and Culture.
Toronto: Rákóczi Foundation, 2nd ed. 1990.
Sisa, Stephen. America's Amazing Hungarians. private publication, 1987.
Teleky, Richard. Hungarian Rhapsodies: Essays on Ethnicity, Identity and Culture.
Seattle: U of Washington P, 1997.
Vajna, Tamás. "Filmszínház az egész világ. Magyarok a moziban I." HVG (Heti
Világgazdaság) June 22, 1996. 83-84.
Vardy, Steven Bela. The Hungarian-Americans. Boston: Twayne, 1985.
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Várdy, Béla. Magyarok az újvilágban: az észak-amerikai magyarság rendhagyó története
[Hungarians in the New World: An Unorthodox History of HungarianAmericans]. Budapest: A Magyar Nyelv és Kultúra Nemzetközi Társasága, 2000).
Virágos, Zsolt and Varró Gabriella. JimCrow örökösei: Mítosz és sztereotípia az
amerikai társadalmi tudatban és kultúrában. Budapest: Eötvös, 2002.
Virágos, Zsolt. The Modernists and Others: The American Literary Culture in the Age of the
Modernist Revolution. Debrecen. University of Debrecen: Institute of English
and American Studies. 2006. 511 pp. (2007. rev. ed. 540 pp.)
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The 2000 census shows that the largest number of Hungarian Americans continue to live in the state of
Ohio (193,951), which is followed by California (133,988), Pennsylvania (132,184), New Jersey (115,615).
The top four states are closely followed by Michigan and Florida (both registering a Hungarian presence
just below the 100,000 mark). The demographic indicators in the rest of the states show figures well below
the 50,000 level.
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