I was not satisfied with the effect of Káldy’s operation. Káldy’s talent and zeal were great, marveling. Kurucz music, resurrected from the depths of mourning, also created a wonderful atmosphere in those who heard and understood it. But I didn’t find the impact either fast enough, deep enough, or widespread enough in all parts of the country.
It hurt the thing.
In the consolation, Káldy performed ten or fifteen kurucz pieces. With singing and musical instruments. Even with a grater. There was also Count Albert Apponyi, the leader of the former national party. At that time, even the so-called ecclesiastical policy and all its embarrassment did not drive us far apart. I asked him with complete confidence what he said about this music? I expected him to be just as enthusiastic about him and him as I was. He answered with quite indifference:-232-
– Pretty interesting!
Hm! Pretty interesting! It’s like they poured cold water on his neck! I was surprised by the word. I was discouraged. I also complained to my friends about this. But I didn’t answer with Count Apponyi.
One is finally with music as well as with food and drink. He who does not love food or drink: man praises it in vain. It’s better not to offer it.
Count Apponyi was the view of the people of the Hungarian Royal Academy of Music. Count Apponyi also gained only such musical literacy as these people. And this education does not feel, understand or appreciate Hungarian music. This culture is incomplete from a scientific point of view, damaging and degrading from a Hungarian national point of view. But I did not hold Count Apponyi responsible for this, but his school, his teachers, his music lovers and the whole hostile world created by the Hungarian Royal Academy of Music to suppress Hungarian music.
I realized that this world is not conquered by Káldy himself. At least not in the capital of the country. After all, hearts are brittle here, and minds are bulging and uneducated to Hungarian music. The heart and mind of the upper society are like that in every case. So even more power is needed than Káldy’s power to reach the truth.
The government and parliament need to be moved. I considered it my job to start the job.
And now I’m telling a weird story. Real national -233-a story that is important enough didn’t happen long ago, but one that everyone forgot that now those who did it don’t even remember it.
Right now, nine years ago, in the snow of March 1892, I spoke in addition to our Hungarian racial music in the Finance Committee of the House of Representatives.
Count Albin Csáky was the country’s Minister of Culture at the time. Despite its main origin, it is quite a Hungarian man, with a decent amount of scientific merit, which also included a small amount of Hungarian merit. There was, of course, something else.
It is a peculiar coincidence that we have never had a full-blooded Hungarian minister of cult since 1848. Neither Baron Eötvös, nor Pauler, nor Trefort. All three are writers, all three are scientifically educated, all three are pretty good Hungarians in their minds and resolutions, but their heart, blood, instincts, unconscious thinking, way of speaking and reasoning are not perfect Hungarian. He is a famous man, a historical figure, but only all three kind of ex offo Hungarians. Because none of them had an ancient and pure Hungarian upbringing.
He was followed by Count Albin Csáky. His upbringing was not much purer than that of the Amazons, but he was a chieftain for a long time, and although he was a foreign-speaking county, his soul raised a lot of the Hungarians of the county. He is an expert on some issues, quite knowledgeable on many issues, but he is zealous and benevolent on all national issues: this is how he became the governor of souls and activities in Hungary.-234-
I considered it possible to win him over to the national cause of Hungarian music.
I therefore presented my view in the Committee on Finance. In short, all in all, with bulky arguments, perfect openness. Count Csáky was surprised, but he was also impressed by the image depicting the shameful repression of Hungarian music in Hungary by state power. He immediately promised to do everything he could to remedy the trouble.
He wrote a few words on a slightly smaller piece of paper than my palm. »Finance Committee. Eötvös. Hungarian music. Enquete, etc. «With that, he went into his ministry.
Enquete! This word in Hungarian makes us. In the language of the academy, it does: expert advice. In the language of life he does: ass. In the language of practical success it does: failure. Our Funeral Society of Ideas. Our provides for the colorful burial of clever and national ideas. He makes a death report, a crowded congregation; takes care of wagons, wreaths and mourners. When the governor does not know what to do or does not want what he should do: he entrusts the matter to us. And a smart man is never called to us. Only experts and “present-everywhere” everywhere. The ubiquitous man was meant for nothing, and the expert did not understand that much. I was wondering in advance what would happen to my Hungarian music dance.
I firmly state that the good Count Albin Csáky definitely wanted the best and with all due respect -235-he strived with worthy zeal for what I was. The only problem was that in his time as a minister, he too could only think with ministerial reason.
There are many kinds of reason in the world. Professor-mind, musician-mind, Jewish-mind, expert-mind, foolish-mind, sober-minded, minister-mind, and a few other thoughts. Ministerial reason is one of the most interesting, funniest, and most harmful minds. But now I will not write the natural history and physiology of ministerial reason. I would very much like to write, but the story of Kaldym would extend. So let’s just get to the point.
Our meeting was convened for the 30th day of the March of 1892. To the palace of the Ministry of Culture. I had to get tired of it there too. For I would have been the initiator, the proposer, the banker of ideas; I had to place my ideas on a fruitful investment.
The chairman of the meeting was Imre Szalay. That was a dignified ur back then, so the president couldn’t be different because of that. But I saw a fit young man in him anyway. Maybe I was really dealing with it for the first time then, but it aroused my sympathy. Shortly thereafter, he passed from there to the Director of the National Museum.
There was Ödön Mihálovich, the director of the Royal Hungarian Academy of Music and Performing Arts. I really liked his short speech and long beard. He visibly refrained from slipping deep into the explanation of the questions. Or maybe it was just me who showed up. Maybe he didn’t want to get involved. -236-All I noticed was that he was a great musicologist, but he didn’t understand anything about our music. You don’t even know what Hungarian racial music grows on your tree. The coldness of Hungarian music flowed from him to a Siberian extent. Under his leadership, the Hungarian Royal Academy of Music developed into a Hungarian-hated institute at the expense of the Hungarian nation. He runs this institute with such special care that Köszler and Popper of some things do not learn a word of Hungarian there for a decade, and therefore they destroy the Hungarianness with a German performance and infect the noble taste in Hungarian music and eradicate the national feeling from the student. There is no noble nation in the world that would tolerate this and even help against itself at great expense. And this is what our governing people regularly turn a blind eye to.
Mihály Bogisich, a provost and parish priest from Budavár, was there. I used to know it and I really appreciated it. Hungarian Catholic church music has brought great treasures to light. There is a huge amount of national material in this music. We owe this to Bogisich. I thank him. It is a great pity that he has become a great lord and is leaving the capital for a long time. I had high hopes for the triumph of our national music, but despite my great lordship, I still have high hopes for it.
István Bartalus was a good old friend of mine. Tears came to my eyes when I spoke of the greatness, nobility, and infinite richness of our music, and when I made my suggestion.-237-
“That’s what I thought, he says, that’s exactly what I thought to myself.” I’ve thought about it a hundred times, I just couldn’t explain it!
And then he turned to me.
“And I always thought you weren’t a musician.”
Gyula Káldy was there. I asked Count Csáky directly so that he would not be forgotten from the invitation. They wouldn’t have forgotten, though.
The meeting was noticed by Elek Lippich; a young, handsome, smiling, speechless bachelor whom I have not seen since, but nine years and five days later I saw again yesterday to ask if he still remembers what we had been discussing with such great effort nine years and five days ago? Remember the elf! Only the writings remember the musty cavities of the archives. Since then, he has risen high in terms of merit and years, he does not stop at the dignified lordship, and then he is included in the archival files, as is our music. Despite all his zeal, he already suspects that our Hungarian music, if appreciated by the government and the legislature of the country as before, will sooner or later become nothing.
Well, ours consisted of these gentlemen.
I made my suggestion.
I did not talk about the universal and universal value of our music. I considered it redundant. After all, if our racial music were not the richest in the world, but only small national music of a modest size, such as-238- to the Czechs, Germans or South Slavs: it would still be the most precious before us, and we would still have to take care of it.
And surely only we should take care of it, as no one else will take care of it.
My suggestion was what I have touched on in part in my previous communications: –
First of all, let’s collect historical memories and works of Hungarian music, even with all the versions. We need to include church music and both the Catholic separately and the Protestant separately in the collection, and we need to include works of heroic and lute music.
Secondly, let us form a standing committee that will continually collect the songs and music that live in the souls and lips of our people today and that multiply every year and day. It’s a big job. I don’t think I’ve heard more than a thousand songs and melodies in my life. I do not know the original and live songs of the Szeklers and the Hungarians on the left bank of the Tisza. Even here, the nobility of Szatmár and Szabolcs is different, and the life of the goulash, foal, shepherd and condom world of Hortobágy is different. I do not know or know very little about the very rich and varied music world of Gömör, Abauj, Torna river basin and Bükk plain. I barely know Uncle and Banat. Although there are many Hungarians here as well. I hear from music-savvy men that almost fifteen thousand separate melodies of Hungarian music still live today.
What an infinite wealth it is!-239-
Even if we combine all the versions into the original melody, if we exclude all bending in the music of the alien species, even if we do the work of the strictest selection: we still have thousands and thousands of melodies. Infinite and inexhaustible material, from which a suitable Hungarian flame spirit, a Bihari of Vörösmarty or Petőfi status, can present us with a new world creation. Show a folk race that would be richer in heart, feeling, songwriting than ours.
But once we really get to work: we have to do something else at the same time.
We must also collect the racial music of the peoples living in the territory of our country and the neighboring foreign lips. There is music for the Oláh and the South Slav. This music is closely related, but still one is different from the other. I don’t know Bulgarian music. Serbian folk music is highly developed. It was like the Hungarian one three and a half hundred years ago. I was very surprised and I was very pleased by the Serbian music, accompanied by heroic songs or love dreams. On the banks of the Danube, from the right and the left, what I heard, I also found some kinship with our lute music.
There is music for the Czech and Highland Lake. Czech music, no matter how small its original material, has been highly developed by some highly talented music poets. Deeply acting, beautiful, though rudimentary, the Polish and Russian people have music. How far does this music, on the borders of Europe and Asia, go to the Donig or the Volga or here and there: I don’t know.-240-
But I feel like we should be gathering this. Because I feel that there was a common source behind the disappeared centuries and regiments, and perhaps somewhere it is still buzzing from which the Hungarian, Polish, Cossack, Russian and Turani became Russian. I can’t help it: I feel it.
I find it natural, but also historically and ethnologically verifiable.
I want us to collect this too. When the light of the light of the sun would show that the soul of the Hungarians, when he composed his racial music, did not take over or imitate the music of the peoples of the infinite Sarmatian plain, but today its stream is Hungarian music.
That is why, thirdly, I proposed that we set up a committee to gather all the folk music from the northern slopes of the Carpathians to the valleys of the Dniester, Deneper and Volga and the banks of the lower Danube to the Balkans and make it available to the world.
But I wouldn’t stop here either.
Our ancestors had their own separate music when they broke into Europe.
Lehel had a horn. And if he already had it: he could not only growl, but also emit a melody from his bay. And that melody certainly didn’t come from the gypsy, not the Serbian, not the Russian.-241-
But let him who is pleased with this be disputed.
But a much more definite testimony is the legend of Bishop St. Gellert. He heard the Hungarian girl sing, but he did not recognize the melody. Yet Bishop Gellért was already a world-famous man. He knew Italian, Longobard, Slovenian, southern German, because he walked among them and no doubt heard their songs. It cannot be believed that this bishop would have been deaf. So if the Hungarian girl had hummed the melodies of one of those peoples: the bishop would recognize it immediately and would not question the girl’s song. It cannot be believed that this bishop would have been stupid. So stupid!
So the Hungarian girl was already singing strange racial music.
But even this can be argued over.
But above that, it is no longer possible that we have our racial music today and had it in our individuality even three hundred years ago. So long as one does not come forward and prove that the Hungarian soul took over its racial music, how and from whom it proves where and how the people and the world from which it took over and learned disappeared without a trace. : in front of me, no one should even talk about it as an assumption, not even an opportunity, that it would not have existed with all the individualities of our racial music even in the age of Árpád, although at a different stage of development.
Here I confess the truths of Akiba, Hegel, and Darwin. Nothing, what would not have happened and nothing-242-not lost, we have already. It just develops, becomes muscular, modifies and becomes richer.
But our ancestors visited elsewhere, not only on the banks of the Danube-Tisza. They walked around Deneper and Don; they walked in the region of the Volga and Ural rivers. They knew the peoples of Persia and the Caucasus. They were with them in peace as well as in war for centuries. They were related to the Turkish-Tatar Turanian peoples, and their ancestral phenomena can be recognized not only in skulls, language, customs, but also in music and dance.
Therefore, I considered it reasonable to compile the folk music of the Black Sea, the Caucasus, the Ural River, Lake Kaspi and Asia Minor. We find an ancient material everywhere, which is one of the cornerstones and decorations of the palace of Hungarian racial music.
I have already said that in the dance and dance music of their kalks I noticed some elements of the Hungarian knocker.
Count Jenő Zichy, this great dreamer, serious researcher and great world-traveling scientist, tells me that he discovered a Hungarian kinship in the singing and dancing of the ancient Zicsi family living on the northern slopes of the Caucasus.
These are perhaps small phenomena. In themselves, they may not prove anything. But I am demanding that we collect all the phenomena. I sincerely believe that success will be wonderful and will shed great light on many of the issues in which we are now swaying.
These were my suggestions.
What came of these minutes: I certainly did then -243-I didn’t look. I just checked it out. My fourth proposal was not even recorded in the minutes.
I don’t mention it as a complaint. They did well. Nothing else came of my other suggestions. Why would they have wasted ink and paper fiber?
Mihálovich spoke after me. He did not oppose my proposals, he only suggested that we first and foremost visit the Academy, the Society of Scientists.
Well, the provost of Budavár, the fresh, red-faced Bogisich, matched this.
What? The Academy? Well, if we want it to never be anything out of the ordinary: well, we just go to the Academy. He will bury this matter in the Academy forever. – The provost spoke like that.
I just looked, I just stared at this provost. That’s what it’s talking about! I didn’t even dare to talk like that in my windy being. I really don’t know at the moment if Bogisich is a member of the Academy. It never occurred to me to be a member or be a member of the Academy. So, of course, I had a better opinion of this scientific society. But I didn’t say no to the provost. In fact, I received his divination with great respect. But he was also cruelly right.
Káldy and Bartalus completely agreed with me on the reality of the issues. Káldy even made it to Mihálovich’s initiative to visit the Ethnographic Society.
When the minutes of the meeting were drawn up and when they were submitted to the Minister: I do not know. I don’t even know who put it in front of him with any comments.-244- Only two months later, on June 6, the minister approved the proposal of his wise man.
Who was this wise man; I don’t know, I’m not looking. He would also refuse his job if I dropped his name.
His suggestion was that the Society of Scholars should be approached to make Hungarian adverbs from foreign foreign words in musicology and music, and to establish the age, year and authenticity of the Kurucz and non-Kurucz poems used to sing.
I remember seeing from the documents, too, that was the minister’s action.
That is the ministerial mind!
I want: to collect the Hungarian melody, but also to collect the lake, Serbian, Oláh, Russian melodies in the territory of our country and the neighboring Polish, Russian and South Slavic folk music works. Instead, the government wants to know what bassus, diagnose, allegretto, fugato, contrapunctus, diatonica, motette, staccatissimo, quintola, pizzicato, timbre, partitura and several such pagan words mean in Hungarian.
I strive to gather all the memories and traditions of our glorious musical creations, to cleanse them of the aliens that have seeped into them, and to make them the daily treasure of our social life. And instead, the government orders the Society of Scholars to soften out when these lyrics came about: Don’t believe a buddy in German; Hejh Rákóczi, Bercsényi; Famous Huszt Castle, etc.
Well, I’m not saying not to be a staccatora -245-let’s make a Hungarian word if we find a very good word for it, but we didn’t say a word about it in the meeting. It didn’t even occur to anyone there. Heaven-earth difference is not as great as my aspiration and this dib-dáb is nothingness.
I know for a fact that Count Albin Csáky didn’t want it that way, he didn’t do it that way, it’s just that he did it that way with his name. They were presented with some three hundred documents to be signed, a lease agreement, a retiree’s retirement, the purchase of a picture, recognition for an old teacher, a construction bill, a textbook praise, a canonical appointment and among them the sacred cause of without a word. He may even have been told that the Eötvös-Káldy dissertation agreed on this.
That’s how it was and not otherwise. I don’t even think that it wasn’t the Hungarian Royal Academy of Music that gave some sleeping pills to the minister or his adviser.
And since the matter turned out to be quite urgent, four months later, towards the middle of October, the ministerial document was sent to the Society of Scientists at harvest time.
And there is no need to think that the Society of Scientists did not take this matter seriously.
How the scientist works for us: I know. He learns German and then translates or translates a German book into Hungarian. That’s how it works. We also have a scientist who researches, collects, travels, discovers.-246-Document, bronze, broken pot, seaweed, worms, bacilli, Hungarian language monuments. All necessary, nothing against my words. But no one does scientific and kind reading, masterpieces of Hungarian language and writing.
Well, he’ll do that too. Let us wait with patience and patriotic confidence.
But how the Society of Scientists works: I don’t know. I just guess.
The minister’s document is probably handed over to a department, the department publishes it to a scientist, and the scientist is not informed about the issues because he does not find any information in German books. Thus, the Society of Scientists will settle the matter on December 28 of this year and return it to the Minister.
And he writes that, in principle, he is happy to contribute to the task, but he can only form an opinion if he is certain of the task intended for the Society of Scientists.
Get nothing!
But there’s nothing you can’t even say about it to grab it.
So the Society of Scientists has no opinion.
He has no opinion because he does not know what task the government intended for him in this matter. You need to find out first!
But in principle, he is happy to contribute to the thing.
What do you contribute to?
What you don’t know your task for yet and what you don’t have an opinion for yet!
