European Influences and National Tradition in Medieval Hungarian Theater

European Influences and National Tradition in Medieval Hungarian Theater Gydrgy E. Szonyi I Although dramatic representation has been said to have been first developed with agricultural rituals, semi-professional and professional acting and theatrical performance cannot be imagined without the development of an urban society and independent town life which established production and trade at a distance from agriculture. Such social conditions, of course, characterized ancient Athens as well as the medieval cities, which were centers of Greek drama and mystery festivities respectively. When the dramatic spectacle is homogeneous, intui­ tive, and unchangeable, it is nothing more than a ritual. Theater begins with a specialization which generates detached institu­ tions of acting and staging and presupposes an audience and a demand for combining moral teaching or other elements with entertaining matter. Theater means competition. The basis for all these conditions is town life or urbanization with a con­ siderable population, rival guilds, and a cultural atmosphere influenced by monasteries, schools, or aristocratic centers. Theatrical activity requires not only an economical and cultural basis, but also stable political conditions as well. Medieval Hungary was not provided with the ideal condi­ tions for the development of drama present in such countries as England and France. Among the tribes of the Great Migration, the Hungarians had arrived last in Europe. When they occupied the basin of the Carpathian Mountains, they encountered an existing social and cultural system, to which they adapted themselves as a condition of their survival. While the reform of Cluny and the ars nova stirred up Western intellectual life, the Hungarian Church still found that it must occupy itself with the suppression of latent pagan rites among the natives. It was 159 160 Comparative Drama also busy Christianizing newly arrived nomadic tribes such as the Kuns and some Tatar groups. Another obstacle retarding the growth of an independent national culture was that not only Western norms but also intellectuals were simply imported by the first state-building kings. Foreign monks organized cultural centers and the school system. First Byzantine advisers were drawn upon for administration, and later men of German origin were utilized, though we must not ignore other influences— Czech, Italian, French, etc. Such a young and unsettled country was burdened by a constant state of emergency resulting from recurring attempts by its western neighbors to put an end to the independence of the kingdom and to reduce it to a vassal of the Holy Roman Empire. On the other hand, the eastern frontiers always had to function as a shield against attacking pagan hordes—e.g., the Tatars in the thirteenth century and the Turks from the beginning of the fifteenth century. The fourteenth century was a period of stabilization and of flourishing medieval culture, however. After the extinction of the Arpad dynasty which had ruled from the ninth century to 1301, the Naples branch of the Anjou family acquired the throne (1308-82), followed by Sigismund of Luxembourg (1385-1437) who brought again French and German cultural influences. Only in 1458 did Hungary acquire a national king, Matthias, who, being a great Renaissance prince, once more decided to import culture, in this instance from the Platonist academies and brilliant courts of the Italian quattrocento.1 But in the fourteenth century, the Anjou reign had created not only a prosperous economy in Hungary, but also a courtly tradition, a richly ornamented Gothic architecture and sculpture, a well developed school and university system, and a literary life as well.2 These developments were not reversed during the Luxembourg era. Towns also grew, and the network of guilds became complete. However, because of later destruction, we rarely find literary works from this period. Nor may we expect such a crucible of political and cultural crosscurrents to have produced a homogeneous Hungarian literature but rather a mishmash of different kinds of influence, dominated by Latin mixed with German. The national tongue thus only slowly rose to take its role. Nevertheless, drama in fact did exist in this part of Europe, and it is indeed interesting to see the transformations through which medieval drama reached the Gyorgy E. Szdnyi 161 frontiers of European culture. On the other hand, we cannot help noticing...