A new article examines the past and present of Traditionalism in Hungary. It is Magdalena Marsovszky, “’Gegen die moderne Welt’. Julius Evola in Ungarn” [Against the Modern World: Julius Evola in Hungary], Zeitschrift für Rechtsextremismusforschung 3, no. 1 (2023), pp. 19-34, available here (try here if the download does not work).
The first half of the article introduces Julius Evola and his thought. It then traces his influence though the Hungarian writers and philosophers Béla Hamvas (1897-1968), András László (born 1941), and Tibor I. Baranyi (born 1967). This, argues Marsovszky, matters much more than Evola’s own visits to Hungary between 1936 and 1942. Although he was invited by Countess Eduardine Zichy (1877-1964), the president of the Hungarian Literary Society who was supported by the minister of culture and education, Evola’s last Hungarian lecture, on “The Mystery of the Grail and Reich Thought" in March 1942, attracted only a small audience of 25.
The Hungarian Traditionalism of Hamvas, in contrast, grew in popularity after the 1960s and especially after the fall of Communism in 1989. Hamvas drew on Evola, René Guénon, and Guénon’s main German collaborator, the philosopher Leopold Ziegler (1881-1958), author of Überlieferung (Tradition, 1936). It was then further spread by Hamvas's follower László, and László’s follower Baranyi, both of whom taught at the King Atilla Academy established by the political party Jobbik, which she says has continued operating underground since its official closure in 2016.
Marsovszky considers Scientia Sacra (Sacred Science, i.e. Tradition, 1942-43) as Hamvas’s main work, and sees it following Evola in its conviction that decline from the Golden Age could be arrested through cyclical reincarnations of ‘initiatic communities’ following an ancient traditional Boreal higher order. He also followed Evola’s understanding of race as metaphysical and spiritual rather than biological (thus rejecting Nazi racism). She considers his most important departure from Evola and Guénon to have been his inclusion of Christianity in the perennial philosophy, which she believes Hamvas took from Ziegler.
“Today,” writes Marsovszky, “Hamvas's theses are often regarded in Hungary as a democratic alternative to the biologistic descent-oriented direction of the ethnic nationalists and are also classified by anti-fascists as anti-fascist, while Hamvas's and Evola's neo-Right ideology is not reflected upon analytically.” She continues “The fact that democracy in Hungary has not been able to become stable since the fall of communism in 1989 and that society has been infiltrated by anti-modern, anti-democratic attitudes is partly due to the dissemination of Evola's theses.” Although Jobbik and the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán are politically opposed, she believes, they in fact share much the same basic ideology.
As noted in an earlier blog post (here), the only book by Hamvas available in English remains his remarkable The Philosophy of Wine. Readers who want to get a feel for the dimensions of Hungarian Traditionalism can visit the Traditionalist publisher Kvintesszencia Kiadó at https://tradicio.org, and may consult Metaphysicum et politicum - A magyar tradicionális iskola bibliográfiája [Metaphysicum et politicum - Bibliography of the Hungarian Traditionalist School] by the Hungarian Traditionalist Ferenc Buji (Debrecen: A Metafizikai Hagyomány Centruma, 2008). In 334 pages, this lists and comments on Hungarian Traditionalists authors, publishers, and periodicals prior to its publication. It is available here.
