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CHAPTER 1 The Making of József Pogány My husband was not a pleasant individual. Indeed, he was aggressive and supercilious, and as a person of great learning he disdained those who were less educated. / IRÉN CZÓBEL POGÁNY, 1965 The Hungarian, who as József Pogány would play an important role in the short-lived Communist regime of 1919, was born in Budapest on November 8, 1886, as József Schwarz. The only available account of Pogány’s early life is found in the memoirs of the woman he married in 1909, Irén Czóbel. She stated that her husband came from a “poor, provincial family ” that always lived in “straitened circumstances.”1 This perhaps presents too bleak a picture. Pogány himself later made a confession in a Comintern questionnaire that most Communists of the time would have tried to avoid, namely that he came from a “petit bourgeois,” that is, lower middle -class, family.2 His father, Vilmos Schwarz, had, early in life, been a tradesman, but later obtained a minor civil service position. His mother, Hermina Weinberger, was a hairdresser. There were three children in the family, József being the oldest.3 The parents were practicing Jews in one of Budapest’s Neolog (Reformed) synagogues. Vilmos was an active member of the Chevra Kadisa in Pest and later in life was employed as the leader of prayers at the head of funeral processions. It is likely that his father enrolled József in the Chevra Kadisa as a young boy. Whether he had his bar mitzvah is unknown, since neither Pogány nor his wife ever mentioned anything about his Jewish upbringing. What seems quite clear is the keen interest that Vilmos and Hermina expressed in the education of their children, particularly József, who early on showed an aptitude for learning. They realized, as did countless other 1 “Pogány Józsefné Czóbel Irén visszaemlékezése” [The memoirs of Mrs. József Pogány, Irén Czóbel], Politikatudományi Intézet (Budapest), 867, fn. 2. p. 1. This memoir is a compilation of oral interviews Czóbel gave in 1965, at the Institute of Political Science of the Hungarian Communist Party. Hereafter cited as “Czóbel Memoir.” 2 Comintern questionnaire (Anketa) filled out by Pogány in November 1924, Records of the Communist International, Russian State Archive of Social and Political History, 495/199/1586/54–55. Hereafter cited as RGASPI, followed by the number of the collection /inventory/file/ and page. 3 Varga, “Pogány József,” 49. Jewish parents in Hungary in this era, that the surest means for escaping social isolation, advancing in society, and preparing for a possible antiSemitic outbreak in the future, was through education. Hungarian Jews, who represented 5% of the population of the Kingdom of Hungary, were at the time enjoying a degree of civil equality, tolerance, and access to education that was nearly unprecedented in Europe. By the turn of the century , Jews were graduating from Hungarian high schools (the gimnázium) and universities in numbers that greatly exceeded their percentage in the population as a whole.4 True, they were largely barred from professions that were deemed the private preserve of the Christian elite, including the government and the officer corps. But they were encouraged to enter those professions whose members were playing a key role in the modernization of the country. In Hungary on the eve of World War I, 85% of leading bankers, 42% of journalists, 49% of medical doctors, and 49% of lawyers were of Jewish origin.5 It was no doubt that their son would take advantage of these opportunities and rise high up from his humble family origins that prompted Vilmos and Hermina in 1896, to enroll József in one of Budapest’s most prestigious schools, the Barcsay Gimnázium. Given the meager financial resources of the family, it is probable that József received at least a partial scholarship. The Barcsay was a secular institution that boasted an excellent faculty and that attracted a broad range of students from middle- and upper-class families. Some of József’s classmates were to go on to distinguished careers as politicians, scholars, and artists. József was a good but not outstanding student. He excelled in Hungarian and history, but performed less well in mathematics and Latin. He graduated in 1903 with an overall grade of “good” (jó).6...

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