Hungary's anti-semitic provinces: Violence and ritual murder in the 1880s

Slavic Review

Volumn 66, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 20-44

  Nemes, Robert ^a  

^a Assistant Professor in the University Libraries   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 35748982623     PISSN: 00376779     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/20060145     Document Type: Article

References (131)

1. Samu Borovszky, ed., Komárom Sz. Kir. Város (Budapest, [1907]), 40-42.
2. "Antiszemita zavargás megyénkben," Komáromi Lapok, 22 September 1883;
3. and "Külöfélék," Komaromi Lapok, 29 September 1883.
4. In addition to Tiszaeszlár (1882-83), ritual murder trials took place in Xanten in the Rhineland (1891-92), Polná in Bohemia (1899-1900), and Konitz in west Prussia (1900-1901); these in turn were framed by two Russian trials, at Kutais in Georgia (1878-79) and Kiev in Ukraine (1911-13).
5. The term antisemitism gained wide currency in 1879, when Wilhelm Marr called for the formation of an Antisemitic League (Antisemiteliga) in Germany. The term entered Hungarian political discourse almost immediately and appeared routinely in the newspapers and pamphlets examined here.
6. The standard study in English is Andrew Handler, Blood Libel at Tiszaeszlár (Boulder, Colo., 1980);
7. remarkably, the most extensive narrative account in Hungarian remains Károly Eötvös, A nagy per, mely ezer éve folyik s még sincs vége, 3 vols. (Budapest, 1904). This makes the appearance of a forthcoming University of Chicago dissertation by Kati Vörös ("The Tiszaeszlár Blood Libel Affair: Society, Politics, and the Jews in Hungary, 1880-1890") especially welcome.
8. Curiously (or perhaps tellingly), the three-judge panel merely declared that the murder charges "could not be proved," rather than openly stating that the defendants were "not guilty." Handler, Blood Libel, 170.
9. There are obvious affinities between the historiography on Tiszaeszlár and the literature on other central European ritual murder cases and modern antisemitism more generally. For an overview of literature on German antisemitic violence, see Christhard Hoffmann, Werner Bergmann, and Helmut Walser Smith, "Introduction," in Christhard Hoffmann, Werner Bergmann, and Helmut Walser Smith, eds., Exclusionary Violence: Antisemitic Riots in Modern German History (Ann Arbor, 2002), 1-21.
10. I will not discuss here the antisemitic historiography of Tiszaeszlár, even though it remained influential through the 1930s and 1940s. For the relevant Hungarian bibliography, see János Gyurgyák, A zsidókérdés Magyarországon: Politikai eszmetöténet (Budapest, 2001), 637-40.
11. Vera Ranki, for example, sees in the government's response to the Tiszaeszlár blood libel "the hallmarks of strong commitment to liberal values" and, more generally, "the strength of democratic institutions" in Hungary. See Vera Ranki, The Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion: Jews and Nationalism in Hungary (New York, 1999), 68.
12. For similar appraisals, see László Katus, ed., Magyarország törtinele 1848-1890, 2 vols. (Budapest, 1979), 2:1271-78;
13. Tibor Frank, "Hungary and the Dual Monarchy," in Peter F. Sugar, ed., A History of Hungary (Bloomington, 1990), 263-64;
14. László Konder, A History of Hungary: Millennium in Central Europe (New York, 2002), 290;
15. and András Gergely, ed., Magyarország története a 19. században (Budapest, 2003), 375.
16. The work of Judit Kubinszky has been especially influential. See Kubinszky, "Adalékok az 1883. évi antiszemita zavargásokhoz," Századok 102 (1968): 158-77;
17. and Kubinszky, Politikai antiszemitizmus Magyarországon 1875-1890 (Budapest, 1976). Although the Marxist models that dominated postwar history writing in Hungary encouraged socio-economic interpretations of Tiszaeszlár, it is worth noting that contemporary western scholars writing on antisemitism often employed a similar framework.
18. See especially Jacob Katz, From Prejudice to Destruction: Anti-Semitism, 1700-1933 (Cambridge, Mass., 1980), 230-44, 273-80;
19. and Nathaniel Katzburg, Fejezetek az újkori zsidó történelemböl Magyarországon (Budapest, 1999).
20. Also see György Szabad, "A polgári jogegyenloség elleni támadás és kudarca a század végi Magyarországon," Társadalmi Szemle 37, nos. 8-9 (1982): 68-78;
21. Rolf Fischer, Entwicklungsstufen des Antisemitismus in Ungarn 1867-1939 (Munich, 1988);
22. and Gyurgyák, A zsidókérdés Magyarországon, 314-470.
23. Katz, From Prejudice to Destruction, 278-79.
24. Hillel Kieval, "The Importance of Place: Comparative Aspects of the Ritual Murder Trial in Modern Central Europe," in Todd M. Endelman, ed., Comparing Jewish Societies (Ann Arbor, 1997), 137.
25. My approach has also been influenced by three exemplary studies of communal violence:James F. Harris, The People Speak! Anti-Semitism and Emancipation in Nineteenth-Century Bavaria (Ann Arbor, 1994);
26. Paul R. Brass, Theft of an Idol: Text and Context in the Representation of Collective Violence (Princeton, 1997);
27. and Helmut Walser Smith, The Butcher's Tale. Murder and Anti-Semitism in a German Town (New York, 2002).
28. Oded Heilbronner, "From Antisemitic Peripheries to Antisemitic Centres: The Place of Antisemitism in Modern German History," Journal of Contemporary History 35, no. 4 (2000): 560.
29. Hungarian scholars have produced several good studies of local responses to Tiszaeszlár, although all of them focus exclusively on 1883 and emphasize socioeconomic factors: Ibolya Foki, "Az 1883-as zsidóellenes zavargások Zala Megyében," Zalai Gyüjtemény 25 (1986): 217-41;
30. Jeno Rácskay, "Politikai antiszemitizmus és a tiszaeszlári per hatása Vas megyében," Vasi Szemle 41, no. 4 (1987): 543-57;
31. and, most usefully, Sándor Bosze, "Az 1883-as Somogyi antiszemita zavargások," Somogy Megye Multjából 22 (1991): 72-93.
32. The selected counties include one recognized center of antisemitism (Somogy County), as well as two counties (Komárom and Veszprém) rarely considered in accounts of Tiszaeszlár. At the outset of my research, I intended to examine why antisemitism had "succeeded" in some areas and "failed" in others; I now see a continuum of antisemitism across western Hungary and thus more or less treat the three counties as a single unit.
33. Ten percent of the population claimed German as their mother tongue; the balance listed Slovak, Croatian, and other languages. Bilingualism was not uncommon in the larger towns and in certain villages. For demographic information on the counties,
34. see A magyar korona országaiban az 1881. év elején végrehajtott népszḿláĺas eredményei némely hasznos hazi _@acallatok kimutásdval együtt, 2 vols. (Budapest, 1882), 1: 26 -27
35. and A magyar korona országainak 1900. évi népszámlálása, vol. 1, A népesség általános leirása községenkint (Budapest, 1902), 509-10, 514, 522-24.
36. "Budapest," Somogy, 30 May 1882.
37. Kontler, History of Hungary, 302.
38. Jókai cited in Ferenc Szijj, Komárom a XIX. század végén (Komárom, 1941), 5.
39. Although Jews almost never held town offices, they did gain seats on town councils, either as "virilists"- the highest local taxpayers - or through direct election (in Komárom, Rabbi Schnitzer was repeatedly elected to the town council). This may explain why the provincial city halls, unlike the county assemblies and the Hungarian Parliament, rarely became a platform for antisemitic tribunes.
40. Ştátny okresný archív v Komárne, Komárom város közgyülési jegyzokönyuei, 1880-1883.
41. The phrase comes from Shimon Redlich, Together and Apart in Brzezany: Poles, Jews, and Ukrainians, 1919-1945 (Bloomington, 2002), 164.
42. Local priests routinely submitted requests to the episcopate to perform Catholic-Protestant marriages. For examples from Komárom, see Esztergomi Primási Levéltár, Simor Cal. 39. Nos. 504, 2184, 2576, 2977-78, and 3075.
43. See, the glowing description of a Jewish wedding in Kaposvár: "Fényes esküvo," Somogy, 18 January 1881. Only through conversion could Jews legally marry non-Jews, and this happened rarely: "Különfélék," Komáromi Lapok, 16 February 1884, reports that Jakab Rosenfeld, ajourneyman tailor, converted to Catholicism so that he could marry a local Catholic woman.
44. Although most Jewish communities in this region were officially Neolog (Reform), progressives and conservatives coexisted in most congregations. This could lead to tensions and even schism: the town of Pápa had separate Orthodox and Neolog congregations, and both sides freely aired their differences in the local press. See, for example, Zsidó-iskolaügyek Pápán," Veszprém, 29 August 1880. For reports of similar divisions within Komérom's Jewish community,
45. Különfélék," Komáromi Lopok, 14 January 1882. Teodor Lavi and Nathaniel Katzburg, Pinkas ha-kehilot.- Hungaryah (Jerusalem, 1976) provides useful information on the affiliation of individual communities.
46. "Ez a hazafiság!?" Komáromi Lapok, 3 August 1882. The head of Komárom's Orthodox community responded sharply in the following issue.
47. An emancipation law had been passed during the 1848-49 revolution, but the victorious Austrians had invalidated this and all other revolutionary laws and decrees. The 1867 law gave Jews full civil and political rights as individuals but did not meaningfully change the legal status of Judaism as a religion. Only in 1895, after a long political struggle, was Judaism established as one of Hungary's "received" religions, equal in status to the main Christian confessions.
48. For generally positive assessments of the period, see William O. McCagg, Jewish Nobles and Geniuses in Modern Hungary (Boulder, Colo., 1972);
49. Albert S. Lindemann, The Jew Accused: Three Anti-Semitic Affairs (Dreyfus, Beilis, Frank), 1894 -1915 (Cambridge, Eng., 1991), 40-56;
50. and, more cautiously, Gyurgyák, A zsidókérdés Magyarországon, esp. 65-87.
51. The Budapest daily Magyar Állam ran articles with such titles as "Because of the Jews!" "The Jewish Question Is Ripe," and "On the Jewification i elzsidósodás] and Population Decrease of Our Homeland." It was also the first newspaper to publicize the Tiszaeszlár ritual murder accusation.
52. Tiltakozások," Magyar Állam, 9 July 1881.
53. István Roboz, "Istóczy Gyozo ur és Jerusalem ...," Somogy, 21 September 1880; "A zsidókérdéshez," Veszprém, 3 and 10 October 1883;
54. and Nagyvasvári, "Az anti-semita mozgalomhoz," Komáromi Lapok, 18 December 1880.
55. Sámuel Freund, "A zsidókréshez," Somogy, 9 November and 21 December 1880;
56. Ábrahḿ Hochmut, "Tekintetes szerkesztoség!" Veszprém, 17 October 1880;
57. and Ármin Schnitzer, "Az anti-semita mozgalomhoz," Komáromi Lapok, 24 December 1880 and 1 January 1881.
58. Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe (Cambridge, Eng., 1996), 4-7.
59. As Michael Silber has shown, such pressure helps explain why Hungarian Ultra-Orthodoxy placed great religious emphasis on "name, language, and dress" (shalem according to their Hebrew acronym) in its definition of Jewishness. See Michael Silber, "The Emergence of Ultra-Orthodoxy: The Invention of a Tradition," in Jack Wertheimer, ed., The Uses of Tradition: Jewish Continuity in the Modern Era (Cambridge, Mass., 1992), 23-85.
60. On language use in sermons, see "Magyar hitszónoklatok a zsinagógában," Veszprémi Független Hirlap, 3 December 1881; on Sundays,
61. "A vasárnapi munka," Komáromi Lapok, 4 December 1880; and on name changes, "Magyarosodjunk!" Komáromi Lapok, 22 Jánuary 1881, and "Még egyszer a névmagyarositásról," Komáromi Lapok, 5 March 1881. Provincial newspapers routinely published lists of locals who changed their names.
62. Walter Pietsch, "A zsidók bevándorlása Galíciából és a magyarországi zsidóság," Vlóság 31, no. 11 (1988): 46-69, convincingly demonstrates that contemporaries and many later historians grossly exaggerated Jewish immigration from Galicia.
63. "Megyei törvényhatósági közgyülés," Somogy, 9 May 1882;
64. "Megyei közgyülés," Pápai Lapok, 11 June 1882;
65. and "A megyei közgyülés," Veszprém, 11 June 1882.
66. " Hireink," Veszprém, 16 July 1882. Remarkably, Rabbi Breuer made these comments in a sermon given after antisemitic violence had already broken out in Pápa.
67. See the sometimes conflicting reports in Veszprém, 9 and 16 July 1882. On the Jewish community in Pápa, see Jehuda-Gyula Láng, ed., A pápai zsidóság emlékkönyve (Tel-Aviv, n.d.)
68. The first wave of communal violence occurred in July 1882, and much of it appears to have been spontaneous or at least locally organized. The second wave came in October, triggered by the violent antisemitic disturbances in Pressburg/Pozsony (today Bratislava in Slovakia), which began in late September and lasted for nearly a week. Smaller acts of violence against Jews continued across western Hungary through the end of the year.
69. The posters read "Beat the Jews!" See "Éreden heccz," Komáromi Lapok, 1 July 1882, as well as the three subsequent issues of the same paper.
70. The three leading papers of Veszprém County illustrate the range of responses to Tiszaeszlár. The main liberal paper, Veszprém, generally shied away from direct attacks on Jews. The opposition's Veszprémi Független Hirlap, in contrast, was much more willing to publish antisemitic articles, and more than once it suggested that Jews bore a large measure of blame for the violence directed against them. Finally, Pápa's main paper, Pápai Lapok, did not provide coverage of Tiszaeszlár (or even of the riots that broke out in Pápa itself). Its editor explained that it was a "poor provincial paper" and could not afford to take a stand on the issue. See "Vizsgálatot kérünk," Pápai Lapok, 12 August 1883.
71. "Antiszemita gyülés," Somogy, 26 September 1882. There were several similar associations across Hungary. As Bosze notes, the Kaposvár Jewish community outfoxed the antisemites by renting the town's largest meeting hall (in the Crown Hotel) at a much higher price than the antisemites could pay, thus forcing them to meet instead in a small room in a local tavern.
72. See Bosze, "Az 1883-as Somogyi antiszemita zavargások," 79.
73. "Az október 30-iki értekezlet," Népjog, 3 November 1882. Echoing Istóczy, the society also pledged to work for the creation of a Jewish state and the concurrent removal of Jews from all "Christian states." The Hungarian minster of the interior later refused to sanction the associations by-laws, thereby removing its legal basis for existence.
74. The figure of thirty-two counties is from Kubinszky. who has mined the records of the Interior Ministry, See Kubinszky, "Adalékok," 176. The actual figure is likely higher, since many incidents (such as the violence in Ács described in the introduction) may not have been reported to the higher authorities.
75. "Zsidó ellenes mozgalmak a Dunántul," Somogy, 11 September 1883.
76. "Tuntetés Kaposvárott," Somogy, 21 August 1883.
77. Writing from exile in Turin, Kossuth publicly denounced antisemitic violence in both 1882 and 1883. Kossuth's pronouncements did much to check antisemitic tendencies among the political opposition. For local responses, see "Kossuth és a zsidó-kérdésrol," Somog, 21 November 1882;
78. and "Kossuth és az antiszemitizmus," Veszprémi Fuggetlen Hirlap, 25 August 1883.
79. "A városi kozgyülésbol," Komáromi Lapok, 19 October 1883.
80. Christhard Hoffmann, "Political Culture and Violence against Minorities: The Antisemitic Riots in Pomerania and-West Prussia," in Hoffmann, Bergmann, and Smith, eds, Exclusionary Violence, 84.
81. "Tumulte," Abendblatt des Pester Lloyd, 31 August 1883, 1, reported that in Csurgó (Somogy County), "A greater part of the so-called intelligentsia made all sorts of comments about the trial, which culminated in [the observation that] peace could not be restored until at least three or four Jews were hanged."
82. Katzburg, Fejezetek, 129.
83. "Tüntetés Kaposvárott," Somogy, 21 August 1883.
84. Literacy rates are published in A magyar korona országaiban, 1: 243-45.
85. For rumors of Jewish violence against Christians, see "Nipa 1882. julius. 14," Veszprém, 16 July 1882;
86. and "Zsidóellenes mozgalmak a Dunántul," Somogy, 28 August 1883.
87. For a succinct survey of anti-Jewish violence across Europe in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, see Hans Rogger, "Conclusion and Overview," in John D. Klier and Schlomo Lambroza, eds., Pogroms: Anti-Jewish Violence in Modern Russian History (Cambridge, Eng., 1992), 314-72.
88. István Roboz, "A társadalmi kholera," Somogy, 28 August 1883.
89. For a vivid description of the accused in Somogy County, see "Zsidóellenes mozgalmak a Dunántul," Somogy, 25 September 1883.
90. "Zsidóellenes mozgalmak a Dunántul," Somogy, 2 October 1883.
91. "Még egy pár oszinte szó a választások elott," Veszprém, 8 June 1884.
92. Brass, Theft of an Idol, 14; and Hoffmann, Bergmann, and Smith, "Introduction," 4-17.
93. But also see Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics, 2d ed. (Cambridge, Eng., 1998);
94. and Charles Tilly, The Politics of Collective Violence (Cambridge, Eng., 2003), both of which offer sophisticated typologies of collective violence.
95. Hoffmann, Bergmann, and Smith, "Introduction," 9. Also see Smith, Butcher's Tale, 172-80.
96. "Zsidó ellenes mozgalmak a Dunántul," Somogy, 4 September 1883.
97. "Zsidó ellenes mozgalmak," Somogy, 18 September 1883.
98. For a warning against Jewish "provocations," see "Hireink," Veszprém, 9 July 1882.
99. "Körözvény," Komáromi Lapok, 17 June 1882, describes a 1662 blood libel case in Danzig, and "Zsidóheccz Komáromban," Komáromi Lapok, 7 October 1882, recounts a 1753 case in Komárom.
100. Bosze notes that although outsiders were often blamed for the Violence in Somogy County, the county's investigations revealed that strangers had not played a meaningful role in the rioting. Bosze, "Az 1883-as Somogyi antiszemita zavargások," 84. This is not to deny the existence of "riot specialists" - Paul Brass's term for the "mobile gangs" of provocateurs, pamphleteers, and rumor-mongerers who convert local antagonisms into violent riots - but to suggest that their role in Hungary should not be overstated. See Brass, Theft of an Idol, 9, 16.
101. Iván Horváth, "A hiba," Egyenloség, 2 September 1883. A reporter from Csurgó likewise claimed that "several individuals of Slavic ancestry" had stirred up local "craftsmen, day laborers, gypsies, and Czechs." The time has arrived, he wrote, "for our town to be cleansed of these elements."
102. See "Zavargások a vidéken," Nemzet, 7 September 1883.
103. This could be seen most clearly in Veszprém County. At the height of the antisemitic violence, local papers seized on a controversy about the language of church services in the village of Rátóth. Traditionally, Catholic services had been held one week in German, the next in Hungarian. When-local Hungarian-speakers sent a petition to the bishop asking that all services be in Hungarian, this produced, in the newspaper's words, a violent "Demonstration against Magyardom." See "Tüntetés a magyarság ellen Rátóthon," Veszprém, 26 August 1883, as well as the 23 September and 14 October 1883 issues of the same paper and "A ráthóthi svábbogarak," Veszprémi Független Hirlap, 25 August 1883.
104. "Kaposvár okt. 7.," Somogy, 9 October 1883.
105. Veszprém, 16 September 1883.
106. "Zavargások avidéken," Nemzet, 5 September 1883, describes a Catholic priest and a Calvinist pastor who warned their congregations against violence. In contrast, Népjog contains a number of antisemitic letters and editorials written by Calvinist priests. For example, see "Vidékrol," Népjog, 12 October 1883;
107. and "Nyilt levél Pap Gábor ev. ref. püspök urhoz," Népjog, 16 May 1883. The extent to which (if at all) antisemitism closed the divide between Protestants and Catholics on the local level is a subject that requires further research.
108. Armin Schnitzer, Jüdische Kulturbilder (Aus meinem Leben) (Vienna, 1904), 220-21.
109. In his sermon, the Calvinist Bishop Pap said that the antisemitic movement brought the "spirit of the dark and distressing medieval past" into the present. During Tiszaeszlár, Pap claimed (improbably) that antisemitism had not infected Protestants, but he also stated clearly that "we must take a decisive stand against the antisemitic movement and obstruct the agitators' conquering campaign." See Gábor Pap, "Karácsony ünnepén," Komáromi Lapok, 24 December 1880;
110. and Pap, "Az antisemita ellen," Nemzet, 24 September 1883.
111. Both Sándor Rosenberg (rabbi of Kaposvár) and Samu Swarcz (president of the Kaposvir Israelite Community) sent letters to Népjog, Kaposvár's antisemitic weekly. After an editorial in Népjog characterized one of his sermons as a "declaration of war" against Catholics, Rosenberg patiently corrected the paper's mistakes and explained the meaning of his words. He also published Das Judentum und die Nationalitäts-Idee: Ein völkerpsychologische Studie (Kaposvár, 1885).
112. A[rmin] Schnitzer, Zwei Predigten vor und nach dem Tisza-Eszlarer Prozess gehalten (Budapest, 1883), 30.
113. Fischer, Entwicklungsstufen, 77-92.
114. See Kanizsai, "A zavargások," Népjog, 24 August 1883;
115. and "A zavargások. Kik az izgatók?" Függetlenség, 30 August 1883.
116. For an examination of how ritual murder discourse overlapped with national conflict in the neighboring Czech lands, see Hillel J. Kieval, "Death and the Nation: Ritual Murder as Political Discourse in the Czech Lands," Languages of Community: The Jewish Experience in the Czech Lands (Berkeley, 2000), 181-97.
117. Kanizsai, "Polgári házasság?" Népjog, 1 December 1882.
118. A wide range of scholars have suggested that Tiszaeszlár had an enduring influence in Hungary. Among others, see Hóman Bálint and Gyula Szekfü, Magyar Történet, 5 vols., 2d ed. (Budapest, 1935-36), 5:554;
119. Rácskay, "Politikai antiszemitizmus," 556;
120. and Gyurgyák, A zsidókérdés Magyarorzágon, 323.
121. The vote in the upper house was 109-103. The government's high sheriffs voted 40-2 in favor, but aristocrats (counts and barons) voted 55-77 against. All 27 Catholic prelates, who also sat in the upper house, opposed the proposed legislation. The upper house again rejected the proposed legislation in January 1884, this time by a vote of 200-191. On the "culture war" of the 1890s and its impact on the provinces, see Robert Nemes, "The Uncivil Origins of Civil Marriage: Hungary," in Christopher Clark and Wolfram Kaiser, eds., Culture Wars: Secular-Catholic Conflict in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Cambridge, Eng., 2003), 313-35.
122. On this aspect of German antisemitism, see Shulamit Volkov, "Antisemitism as a Cultural Code: Reflections on the History and Historiography of Antisemitism in Imperial Germany," Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 23 (1978): 25-46.
123. Recent historiography offers a more cautious assessment of the success of prewar German antisemitism: Heilbronner, "From Antisemitic Peripheries to Antisemitic Centres"; and Till van Rahden, "Words and Actions: Rethinking the Social History of German Antisemitism, Breslau, 1870-1914," German History 18, no. 4 (2000): 413-38.
124. "A zsidóellenes zavargások után," Somogy, 2 October 1883;
125. and "A városi közgyülésbol," Komáromi Lapok, 19 October 1883.
126. "Ujdonságok," Somogy, 11 September 1883.
127. "Pápa, 1883. november 14-én," Veszprém, 18 November 1883.
128. "Hirek," Komáromi Lapok, 9 February 1895.
129. "Ujdonságok," Somogy, 7 August 1883, 2, describes the lines for newspapers, adding: "Not only the intelligentsia, but the common people and even day laborers clamored for the newspaper."
130. István Roboz, "A társadalmi kholera," Somogy, 28 August 1883.
131. Eötvös, A nagy per, 1:388-89.