Transplanting the Work of "that rooted man": The Reception of John Millington Synge's Drama in Hungary

During John Millington Synge's lifetime (1871–1909) Hungary was part of a so-called dual monarchy that was established under the terms of the Compromise with Austria in 1867. In accordance with the compromise, the "two halves of the empire were to be sovereign states as regards their internal affairs" but remained "bound together by the rights of the ruler" and had certain common responsibilities like defense, foreign affairs, and finances.¹ Throughout the period of dualism Hungary was an economically fast developing, multinational country that, however, also harbored contradictions due to extreme social differences and the tension between traditional ways of life and the onslaught of modernity. There existed a rather static "rural hierarchy of social relations and attitudes" contrasting the rise of "an exciting urban culture," and the capital, Budapest, was dynamically growing to become "a true metropolis."² At the same time, the post-compromise decades witnessed an uncommon enrichment of the arts and quality journalism in Hungary. Avant-garde painting flourished, and the modernist literature of the period was hallmarked by the sophisticated, multilevel symbolist poetry of Endre Ady, the anecdotic narrative style of Kálmán Mikszáth, and the surrealist prose of Gyula Krúdy, to mention only a few of the considerable number of important names. The respective careers of composers Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály started around this time too; they embarked on the first of their several field trips to collect authentic folk songs in 1906.

The foundation of the predecessor of what is now the Hungarian National Theatre in Budapest dates back to 1837, a year in the middle of the Reform Era leading up to both the anti-Habsburg Revolution and the War of Independence from 1848 to 1849. It came into being as an important institution contributing to the struggle for cultural and linguistic autonomy. By the early twentieth century, the full settlement of dualism had changed the situation, but the need to express a national consciousness and the pride of being equal to the Austrians was present and found its way into popular forms of culture like the operetta, for which a world-famous example is Imre Kálmán's Csárdás Queen. Following international developments in the theater world, a new, experimental company called Thália (1904–8) was established in Budapest and performed Ibsen, Shaw, Strindberg, Hauptmann, Gorky, and Wedekind. These years proved to be a kind of golden age of home-grown drama as well, witnessing the rise of Ferenc Molnár, to mention the most talented of the playwrights, whose comedies of urban life earned him worldwide fame due to their subtle irony and skillful stage mastery. Among his Hungarian contemporaries is Sándor Bródy, author of A tanítónő (The School-mistress, 1908), a play focusing on Flóra, a young and pretty teacher just out of college. Flora arrives in a village where the male leaders of the community patronize her and expect her to be subservient and "kind" to them. When she dares to follow her own mind and reject the men, they set up a mini trial and, announcing themselves to be representatives of church, state, and society, indict Flóra as an immoral woman. Admiring her strength and self-control, the son of the omnipotent local landowner proposes to her, an act that alters the attitude of the villagers completely. Yet she refuses to marry the young man: the derisive remarks of his parents remind her of the unbridgeable social gap between them. Flóra decides to leave the place for good, and the play's final words come from an old priest, resembling Shaw's Father Keegan, about the stupidity of the rich who now cast out life and the future represented by Flóra. On consideration, the clash between an individual and community prejudices in this 1908 play invites comparison with Christy Mahon's difference from the Mayo people in Synge's The Playboy of the Western World (1907).

Hungarian artists at the turn of...