There were also another journal for Hungarian émigrés as Tűz (Fire), in Bratislava where Mannheim wrote when he lived in Heidelberg.

Who was the owner?

Edvard Benes, “funded to his discomfiture”, the journal1

Karl Polanyi’s Contributions

  1. Az új orosz politika esélyei”, 12 August 1921
  2. Forradalom és ideológia. Jegyzetek Szabó Ervin hátrahagyott müvéhez”, 18 September 1921
  3. A szocialista Nagybritannia alkotmánya”, 4 April 1922
  4. Az antropozófusok”, 11 June 1922
  5. A gildszocializmus”, 18 June 1922
  6. A Tisza István Dummer Augusztjal”, 27 June 1922
  7. A szociálforradalmárok pörének történelmi háttere”, 2 July 1922
  8. Lehet-e Oroszországonsegiteni?”, 22 August 1922
  9. Karl Kautsky és a demokrácia”, 17 september 1922
  10. H.G. Wells, a szocialista”, July 1922
  11. A bécsiek vándoroljanak ki Ausztráliába!”, 20 September 1922
  12. Titáni publicisztika”, 23 September 1922
  13. A török renaissance”, 26 September 1922
  14. Az elnéptelenedő Franciaország és a gyarapodó Németország”, 29 September 1922
  15. Új idöszámitás”, 10 October 1922
  16. Lloyd George”, 24 October 1922
  17. Szabadkereskedelmet!”, 2 November 1922
  18. Anglia választ”, 16 November 1922
  19. Anglia választásra készül”, 16 November 1922
  20. A „Consul“”, 6 December 1922
  21. Szabotálnak…”, 10 December 1922
  22. Polly bácsi”, 15 December 1922
  23. Látni akarunk”, 22 December 1922
  24. Kiket tart H.G. Wells a világtörténelem legnagyobb alakjainak?”, 1922
  25. H. G. Wells az eretnek fáraókról”, 1922
  26. A reparációs tárggalások magva”, 1922
  27. Válságos napok Irországban”, 1922
  28. Hága után”, 1922
  29. Az angol választások”, 1922
  30. Választások mindenfelé”, 1922
  31. A német szén Odysszeája”, 1922
  32. Kokszot szénért!”, 1922
  33. Uj Macchiavelli, Kipps és Tono-Bungay”, 1922
  34. Marne-csata a Ruhr-mentén”, 18 January 1923
  35. Gild és állam”, 29 March 1923
  36. Jézus feltámadása”, 5 April 1923
  37. Van-e elég kenyere Európanak?”, 11 May 1923
  38. A berlini fajvédők”, 21 June 1923
  39. A félelem ellen”, 7 July 1923
  40. Fehérek, feketék, barnák”, 3 October 1923
  41. Háború és béke kérdése Genfben”, 16 October 1923
  42. H.G. Wells, a civilizáció megmentéséről”, 21 October 1923
  43. A német iparbárók kivándorlása: világtrösztök felé”, 30 November 1923
  44. Egy könyvröl, amelyet ném olvastam”, 1923
  45. Az angol válsag”, 1923
  46. Miért Ingudazik u svajd frank?”, 1923
  47. Két kis hir
  48. A megvetett és a megbecsült munka
  49. Hugo Stinnes hadjárata
  50. Börtönök ma és régen
  51. A Ghandi-rejtély
  52. Egy év közgazdasága valutákban

Who wrote in the Bécsi Magyar Újság?

NameRole(s)
Baria Lajos
Bölöni GyörgyPublisher
Csóthi Deszö
Fráter Aladár
Garbai Elnök
Györffy Tivadar
Erdély Jenő (Dr)
Halmi József
Jászi OszkárPublisher
K.H.
Konrád Jenő
Konstandt RichardPublisher
Lázár Jenö (=Lzr?)Publisher
Lenz Itsván
Németh Andor
Róna Lajos
T.K.B.
Tollmann A.J.Publisher

Extracts from Litván’s biography of Jászi

To [help Károlyi in Prague, in Fall 1921], though, would mean his having to move to [this city], which for [Jászi] would have incurred serious financial and intellectual hardships, quite apart from preventing him from accomplishing his major plan, which was to take over the running of the Bécsi Magyar Újság, or Hungarian Newspaper of Vienna.

Litván 2006, 213

The Bécsi Magyar Újság had been banned from Slovakia as “a product of the Horthyist–Communist press” at the request of the socialists, who were preparing to set up a paper of their own. […] He was concerned about the fate of the Bécsi Magyar Újság, because at this point he had been looking to acquire this originally right-wing but later Communist-tinged newspaper to place under his own group’s direction.

Litván 2006, 223-4

In the middle of June [1921], after prolonged negotiations, the fate of the Bécsi Magyar Újság was decided. The change had probably been forced by the Slovakian ban on the paper, which covered one of the largest elements in its readership, due to its Communist sympathies, with the permit for further publication being tied to its being run by the Civic Radical exile group. Although several members of the previous management who were Communists, or at least closely associated with them, kept their posts for a while, Jászi assumed, as he wrote to Károlyi, “intellectual dictatorship” over the daily, which was all the more important because in the meantime the moderates in the Viennese émigré community had started their own paper. [·…] Jászi felt it was important that there be a newspaper that was uncompromising in representing the true spirit of the October revolution:
So, I would like to make the Bécsi Magyar Újság an organ of the left wing of the emigration, in a spirit of free, non-dogmatic socialism, which would be grouped around your person, which would be able to curb unprincipled compromises and exercise a salutary influence on the severed Hungarian community.

György Bölöni, who at the time still saw completely eye to eye with Jászi, became deputy editor, and through its first-rate staff, including the later famous Communist and then 1956 revolutionary Tibor Déry, the Bécsi Magyar Újság became a colorful, versatile title with a purview of international, cultural and literary matters that was important not just to the émigré community in Vienna but also to the Hungarians of Slovakia, Transylvania, Yugoslavia and even points westward. In Hungary itself there was just one subscriber, the press department of the prime minister’s office, but it was claimed that several thousand copies out of the total circulation of 35,000–40,000 were smuggled into the country daily. For two whole years, running the paper, providing it with leading articles and surmounting its recurrent money problems were Jászi’s main occupation and worry, which was also why he put thoughts of traveling to America to the back of his head for the time being.

Litván 2006, 227-8

The tone of the dispute that arose with the Communists of Bécsi Magyar Újság, and Andor Gábor above all, was entirely different. When Jászi took over direction of the newspaper they made a kind of mutual non-aggression pact. According to Gábor’s recollection:
We set down in writing that we had a common enemy, defeating whom was the most important thing for the time being. At the same time, we stipulated that just as I would not make Communist propaganda in the Bécsi Magyar, because that was not possible given that the paper was Civil Radical, equally Jászi would not write anti-Communist articles in the paper.

Litván 2006, 230

Spring [1922] did not bring any real easing of his stress: “Hassles till I drop,” he noted on the ides of March. [Jászi] was plagued by editorial problems at the Bécsi Magyar Újság, and the newspaper’s financial position was becoming ever more precarious—so much so that Károlyi felt obliged to agree to the sale of his most valuable asset, a painting by Anders Zorn, while by mortgaging the Károlyi fortune in Belgrade he set up the so-called Vera Fund, a personal loan to bankroll the Hungarian exile community, and the Bécsi Magyar Újság first and foremost.

Litván 2006, 239

Secondary Literature

GYURGYÁK János, [2000] “Karl Polanyi, Ozkar Jászi, at the Bécsi Magyar Újság”, chap. 28 of POLANYI-LEVITT / Mc ROBBIE (eds.) 2000, p. 319-324

LITVÁN György, [2006] A Twentieth-Century Prophet: Oscar Jászi. 1875-1957, eng. tr. Tim Wilkinson, Central European Budapest / University Press New Press, 535 p.

External Link

See also

« Benes, Jászi, le Bécsi Magyar Újság et Polanyi » (in French)

Notes and References

  1. Dale 2016, 75.