WeAreCanadians.pdf

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I DEDICATE this brief history to my wife, Zsuzsanria,
to my daughters, Valeria and !lonka, who are all and
have been for the past six years, living in H unga ry , for
their understanding which has made my work easier;
to the younger generation of Hungarian-Canadians,
who are destined to take over and who have already
begun to take over the leadership from us;
to all Canadians, who would like to know more about
the original national and Canadian traditions and present
problems of the national groups so as to be better able
to work for working people's and patriotic unity - for
peace, Canadian independence and democracy.
1. Sz.

fiLET 'T BE A BLESSED BOUNTY . . . fI
WE ARE CANADIANS, about seventy-five thousand of
of Hungarian origin, part of the fift-een million people
Canada.
The people of Canada are recorded in the 1951 census
being of the following origins: nearly 7 million from the Britis
Isles (English, Scottish, Irish and others); over 4 millio
French; 620,000 German; 395,000 Ukrainian; 283,000 Scand]
navian (Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic) ; 264,000 fro
the Netherlands; 220,000 Polish; 182,000 Jewish; 166,000 In
dian and Innuit ("Eskimo"); 152,000 Italian; 91,000 Russia
64,000 Czechoslovakian : 60,000 Hungarian; 44,000 Finnis
33,000 Chinese; 32,000 Austrian; 22,000 Japanese; nearly 19
000 "others of Asiatic .or igin'"; 146,000 "others of Europea
origin" and 188,000 "others".
Although the official figure for Canadians of Hungaria
origin is 60,460, many people of Hungarian origin who ha
come to Canada from other countries were listed by the enu
merators in other groups and so we say that the true number I
between seventy and seventy-five thousand.
We do not want to be called "immigrants" any more th31
do the people of any other ethnic group making up the peop
of Canada for, with the exception of the Indians and Innuit
they, like us, were all immigrants at one time or another.
Not only a second, but also a third generation of us is gro
ing up here as Canadians. The first few of us came to Canad
- as far as we know now - after the revolutionary War 0
Independence in 1848-49, arriving after 1852. The firs
thousands of us from 1885 on, settled down in Manitoba an
mainly what was then called the North-\Nest Territories, heln
ing to create the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta. 'I'h
largest group came after World War I; the newest of all sine
the end of World War II.
We have a great sympathy toward the native Indians an
Innuits. We respect Canada's two n-ext oldest groups, those frp
France and the British Isles. We feel like brothers toward thes
and all other groups, who together make up the Canadia
people. Together with them we are ready to work with ha
and brain to make our Canada independent and great, h
4

people free and happy.
We are all Canadians. But each group of people has something
special to contribute to the common treasury. Our customs,
.our skills, our music, our rhythms of speech blend together
to make our two Canadian nations (French- and English-speaking)
and our Canadian people as a whole a stronger and richer
unit in this part of the world.
But no people can stand alone. And with our intimate connections
with the history and culture of our former homelands,
we can do much to broaden the outlook of the Canadian
brotherhood of all people. Here, on behalf of Hungarian-Canadians,
we should like to offer the spirit expressed over hundred
years ago by Sandor Petofi -
(hue 1IS peace! The world clamours,
P eace! But not as a tyrant's sop,
L et it be a bless ed bounty,
From th e sacred hand of Freedom.
5

FROM COAL THE DIAMOND
Our many lords weren't lazy nor stupid
In saving th eir estates from us ,
To th e Ameri cas went tattering
A million and a half of us.
SO WAS STATED the reason for the mass immigration from Hun
during the two main periods by Attila ]6zsef, the great poet
Hungarian proletariat between the two World Wars. He was
by misery, oppression, isolation
persecution of the terrorist,
fascist Horthy regime into contin
nervous break-downs and finaH
suicide on December 3, 1937, I
period of which he said : "This is
time of bankers and generals, the
sent time", when
Oppression in flocks is crowing,
Sets on living heart as on carr
And on the Globe misery is sel!
As saliva on face of idiot.
On the 10th anniversary Q
zsef's tragic death, Marton Horvs
the Szabad Nep (Budapest 's lea
daily) said in a lecture: "As from
the diamond, so was created tli
letarian poetry of Attila ]6z:..':!f
terrible pressure in our country.
poetry of Attila ]6zsef are clean
pressed all human relations a
class, not only the struggle, but friendship and lov-s, too. The
of the Hungarian land, the whole world are presented by him
where by anyone in world literature ... He is not only one
Hungarian classics, but a great poet of world litareture, the
whom, with the exception of Mayakovsky, was not' born in th
century."
Sensing the approaching new attacks by fascism and war, IT
6

wrote in January, 1937:
And we ask with horror, what is to come yet,
From where they will set on us new wolfish idees,
Is new poison boiling to spread among us ...
Returning from a couple of miserable, but enlightening years of
study at the universities of Vienna and Paris, Jozsef Attila found his
way into the illegal working class movement.
He never had a decent home and hardly ever had enough to eat.
He was three years old when his father, an industrial worker, was
driven out of the country by unemployment and by the police - "to
the Americas went tattering" with the "million and a half". Attila and
his two sisters, their mother being confined to hospital, were taken to
a home for waifs and later placed with a peasant family in the country.
This was a stark orphan's life. Attila was seven years old, when his
mother, temporarily recovered from her long illness, could take her
children back.
"My mother provided for us by doing laundry and house cleaning
for other folk", Attila Jozsef wrote. "I helped her as best I could. I
sold drinking water in the cinema, made coloured paper toys and sold
Attlla and Mother.
7

them to children whose life was better than mine. I earned money carr,
ing baskets and parcels in th-s market . . . When I was nine years 0
the world war began and our life became almost unbearable . . . "
When Attila was 14, his mother died. He found employment on
tugboat, "scrubbed and hauled pails of water and sacks" to earn ni
keep and put aside enough for school. Amidst all his difficulties, Attn
finished secondary school, though at times, he had to break off .
studies; he worked as a keeper, agricultural labourer and teacher
well-to-do children in order to go through school. When Attila was !1!
the "Nyugut", (West), the then leading literary periodical of
country, published his first poem. "They thought I was a child pro i
although I was only an orphan," he recalled later this period with bi
irony.
But at the Szeged University, Professor Horger, the allpoweilF
ruler of the counter-revolutionary university, "stated in front of
witnesses ... that, as long as he was alive, I would never qualify s
secondary-school teacher, because, he said, a man who writes po
like these - showing me an issue of the newspaper "Szeged" - caan
be entrusted with the education of the future generation."
His poetry explains the love of the workers and the hatred of
ruling class alike towards him. Whom are you sweating for? Who re
the fruits of your labour? In the "Belled of Capital Profit," he replie
r I
8
Whether you knead bread by gaslight's gloom,
or bake red porous bricks,
whether your palms get sore from the hoe
or you seIl your body, while your skirt still swings,
whether you lie on your back and scaffold the pit
or drag heavy sacks in tbe marketplace,
whether you learn a trade or whether you don't
it's only the profiteer who gains.
Or here is his revolutionary description of the "Slum Night":
A cop in tho:! street, a muttering worker.
A comrade with leaflets
hastens by.
Scenting ahead like a dog
and pricking his ears like a cat,
avoiding and shunning each lamp.
The pub's mouth vomits its rotten light
its window splutters a puddle,
the lamp chokingly swings inside
and the innkeeper dozes and breathes hard
there, a labourer sits alone and awake,

and he, gnashing towards the bare dirty walls,
hurries up on sultry stairs
and cheers the revolution with a sob.
He was the first Hungarian lyrical poet to use Marxist terminology
in his poems. "Overthrow capital, don't whine!" he calls in the "Wood
cutter". In the "Masses" the starving unemployed shout: "Work! Bread!
Work! Bread!". He was fighting among the workers of Budapest during
the great mass demonstration on September 1, 1930. He edited leafletn
during the campaign to save the lives of Sallai and Furst, two Communist
Party leaders facing the gallows in the 1930's. He had met
Matyas Rakosi once and had a long discussion with him just before the
arrest of the leader. He was working for the Red Aid and his powerful
poem "Comrade Help Those Who Are Betrey-ed" was dedicated to the
help of the political prisoners. He wrote a poem against Franco in 1936.
He admired the Soviet Union with pride and was confident that a sue-
The "Wood Cutter" monument, erected for the memory
of Attila Jc>zsef at Balatonszarsz6 in 1948.
.9

cessful revolution would liberate the Hungarian people as well. In on
of his many poems, as if he was answering the banning of Professo
Horger, he said:
My entire people will revel
And not on secondary level
In my teachings!
Already he had been confined in a sanatorium twice, but he stea
fastly hoped for a new world to come to Hungary too. On a summe
weekend excursion of young workers, to whom - after they shoke 0
a stoolpigeon - he lectured on the Soviet Union, while they we e
walking in the sunset homeward on the banks of the Danube, one e
the girls recited his beautifully powerful poem, "Workers", which Q;
picts the imperialist strivings abroad and the deep degradation at ho
and finishes up with a call on the workers to see the dawn of the n
world in making on the production line of history:
where the workers will on the dark factory
affix the red star of Man forever!
One of the young workers slapped Jozsef on the shoulder as t
walked and said: "You, Attila? this really . . . But, say, who will at
the red star on the factories? Maybe, those, who will follow us?
little son of brother Kovacs, when he grows up? "
"You will! You, young workers!" answered Jozsef vehemently.
"When?"
"You will not be an old trade unionist yet ... "
Attila Jozsef died in 1937, but in 1945 Liberation came by t
Soviet Army, the "saved estates" of the "many lords" were distrfbuf
by true Hungarian leadership to the poor peasantry and "the red star
Man" was affixed on the facade of Hungarian factories - forever!
10

Fallen, Wandering and Lasting Stars
The period of Attila J6zsef, however, was not the beginning of the
emigration of Magyars, but the climax of it.
The Magyars, wandering for centuries from the north-western part
of Europe, down south and then west, stopped in the middle of the yet
very fluid Europe, right on the highway of people's wandering, in the
mid-Danubian basin at the end of the 9th century. They had not fully
developed their feudal state as yet, when in 1241 their new homeland
was overrun by the devastating invasion of Genghis Khan's Tatar-Mongolian
hordes and received their first territorial loss from the grabbing '
Germans. Hardly coming into their own again, at the end of the 14th
century, the Turks from the south-east, the Habsburg-Germans from
the north-west began their attacks against the Magyars.
For 150 years partly under Turkish, for over 400 years partly,
later entirely under Habsburg rule, the Magyars were forced ­
especially after a series of defeats in their struggles for independence
- into various immigrations in almost every direction; they did not
establish any colonies, but they found their way to every part of the
known world - as toilers, travellers, adventurists, beggars as well as
artists, scientists and freedom fighters.
According to the early medieval Icelandic "Heimskrigla" chronicle,
Lei! Erikson den Hepne - son of "Red Erik" -, the explorer, in 1001,
found his way from Greenland to North America. Danish scientist
Schjbningins was the first to claim that one of Erikson's men, a "Stuthmahr"
named "Tyrker", was Hungarian. A Hungarian at "Helluland",
"Markland" (New Foundland) and "Vinland" (Nova Scotia) almost a
thousand years ago!
A certain "Maximilianua Transylvanus" - Mike Erdelyi - wrote
the history of the first trip around the earth, made by the expedition
of Dom Fernando de Magellan and lasting from 1519 to 1522.
A certain "Stephanus Budaeus Parmenius" - Istvan Pajzsos de
Buda - who studied at Oxford, England, a friend of Dr. Richard Hakluyt,
accompanied Sir Gilbert Humphrey, the explorer, in 1583, as his
writer and poet to the hardly known New Foundland. Four of the five
ships were lost on their way back, including the one with Parmenius
on it. However, his saga about the trip of Sir Gilbert Humphrey was
published by Dr. Hakluyt under the title "Epibainetikon", that is Advance.
Sandor Csoma de Koras (1784-1842) went on foot from Transylvania
to Tibet to locate the ancient relatives of the Magyars, but he
took work from the government of England and for many years, under
the most unusual conditions, he prepared the 40,000 word Tibetan
dictionary and grammar. He established the science of Tibetan
language and history, he began the scientific discovery of northern
Buddhims, but he died of malaria on his way in the search in regions
11

where he thought wrongly to find the relatives of the Magyars.
From the beginning of the 18th century, the Magyar emigrations ill
the main were directed to the West, especially to France and to th
Americas.
Here are some earlier and following leading examples:
After the full-scale invasion of Hungary by the Turks in 1526,
which was a direct consequance of the "Plague at Mohacs", J{mas Ga
1~
After Jacques Cartier, from 1534 on, had explored the Gulf
of St. Lawrence and the river as far as the present Montreal,
the most important explorer was Champlain (above),
the "Father of New France", which once extended down to
the mouth of the Mississippi. Champlain, in 1608, founded
Quebec and in the next four years explored the Georgian
Bay and Lake Ontario. La Salle in 1684 went down on the
Mississippi. (The above drawing of Champlain was done by
C. W. Jefferys, leading Canadian historical illustrator, who
died not long ago.)

ay, a young nobleman who was attached to the Hungarian legation in
Madrid, emigrated to Latin America; in 1571 he became the captaingeneral
of Paraguay, in 1573 he founded the city of Santa Fe on the
La Plata, in 1580 he refounded the devastated Buenos Aires.
With the defeat of Ferenc Rakoczi's war of independence against
the Habsburgs in 1711, tens of thousands of Hungarians emigrated to
France, so that at one time there were four Hungarian Hussar regiments
in the French army. In these years, Tamas Nedesdv, whose grandfather,
a leading Hungarian lord was executed for his activities against the
rule of the Habsburgs, emigrated to Chile and on the side of his Spanish
brother-in-law, Francisco de Pahua Duque Alba, he became a leader of
the rebellion against Spanish tyranny. Together with Alba, Nadasdy
was beheaded in 1741 at Valparaiso.
In the 1770's many hundreds of Hungarians from France fought
for American independence on the side of George Washington. It is very
likely, that earlier, in the 1750's, some of their comrades-in-arms participated
in the Seven-Year-War in Eastern Canada.
In 1831, a famous Hungarian traveller, Sandor Farkas de Bolon,
This

visited Quebec, Montreal and Niagara Falls.
In 1795, six leaders of the "Hungarian Jacobins" were beheaded by
the Habsburgs. The son of one of the martyrs, Istvan Oz, emigrated to
Brazil. He became the minister of agriculture of the Piratinin Republic.
After the overthrow of this first democratic republic in Latin America,
Oz was hanged at Rio de Janeiro in 1845.
[enos Pregev, who in the last half of the 1848/49 war of independence
led by Lajos Kossuth, under General Gyorgy Klapka, defended
the Hungarian fortress of Komarom as the chief engineer at the side
of Richard Guyon, the brave English general, in 1850 emigrated to
America; in New Orleans he joined with a dozen or so of his comradesin-arms
Narciso Lopez, leader of the revolutionary movement or
Cuba and he became the military leader of the revolution in Cuba for
a glorious eleven months. Defeated by the Spanish, Pragay shot himself
on Aug. 13, 1851, but eight of the Hungarians were taken into the
lead-mine of Ceuta in North Africa for 10 years forced labour. Pragay's
' 0.
Richard Defoubre Guyon
(1803-1856), the "Hero of
Branyiszk6", was an English
general in Kossuth's
army. This picture shows
him as he led his troops
to the capture of a mountain
pass on Feb. 5, 1849.
Later he joined the def.ence
forces of the Fort
of Komiirom. After capitulation
he withdrew to
Turkey with a s'mall
force. Guyon fought
against , the Tsarist Empire,
but on April 13,
1856, he died of cholera
at Scutari and was buried
there in the presence of
a number of his comrades
of the Hungarian campaign.
14

statue stands on the remnants of the fort at Cienfuegos, built under his
direction.
The first telephone switchboard system was installed at Boston in
1878, as an invention of Tivadar Puskas. After being neglected in Hungary,
he sailed to America, where again even Edison was very sceptical
of the workability of Puskas' invention. However, after Boston, switchboard
were installed in Paris in 1879; and in Budapest in 1881.
Lejos Kossuth, the great political leader of the 1848/49 revolutionary
war of independence of Hungary, after the defeat arrived to
New York in December, 1851 and for a- half year his cause and tour
was the main issue in New England. From January 1st to June 3rd,
1852, "The Globe" of Toronto and other Canadian papers were constantly
praising Kossuth, while condemning the Washington government
and the slave holders for not giving him the support the American
workers and town people demanded. Kossuth visited Niagara Falls,
Ont., in the middle of May, 1852. A few of Kossuth's "honveds" ­
defenders of the country - at that time and later on settled down in
Canada. One letter Kossuth wrote from Niagara ' Falls, Ont., among
other relics is saved in Budapest.
In the 1860's, some of the best military leaders of Kossuth, with
many hundreds of other Hungarians, fought on the side of the great
Lincoln, against the slave holders.
In 1865, Hungarian workers organized the first Canadian local of
the Cigarmakers in Montreal and led a successful strike for better
wages, giving stimulus to organize another local in Toronto.
Sinisterly enough, at the time of the Second Riel Rebellion in 1885,
an attempt was being made to establish a Hungarian military settlement
in Manitoba, by the Ottawa government, the C.P.R. and a Hungarian
count from New York, but they didn't succeed with their plan.
Next year, in 1886, in the south-east corner of the present Saskatchewan
province, then just North-West Territories, the first permanent Hungarian
farming settlement, Keposviir, began and in the following years
many others in the West. In 1900, Bekever (Fort of Peace) was established
near Kipling, Sask., and its two Hungarian schools were then
and are today still named after the two greatest Hungarian leaders of
independence - Rak6czi and Kossuth.
The plans of the enemies of the people were defeated by the people's
common strivings, united in the traditions of freedom of their
different origins and their common interests to live. It was the beginning
of that developing patriotic unity in which the Hungarian-Canad-
. 15

Louis Riel, the leader of the French­
Indian breed lUetis, was the "Father
of the West" of Canada. He led the
Red River Rebellion in 1860, which
- although suppressed - laid down
the basis of Manitoba province.
The Saskatchewan Rebellion in
1885, led by Louis Riel and Gabriel
Dumont, was also suppressed, but inevitably
led to the establislunent of
Saskatchewan and Alberta provinces.
ians of the West and East join now with all Canadian patriots to
about Louis Riel:
Let us do him now full honor,
For they hanged him for the crime,
That of standing up for justice,
As they do in our own time.
And the men who called him traitor,
Shouted down his honest name,
Today are not remembered,
But to Riel, a people's fame.
They who hanged him from the scaffold,
They are now forgotten men,
But to those who fight for freedom,
Louis Riel lives again.
(Marti n Heath)
· 16

TOA uFREE NEW WORLD"
The Human Ballast
ALMOST NO STATISTICS exist on the number of people coming
from Hungary to this continent in the 1870's and '80's, because in
those days no passport was needed; the Hungarian statistics dating
from the end of the '80's are not reliable. The fact is that the Hungarian
bourgeoisie, as part of the celebration of the one-thousand-year anniversary
of the arrival of the Magyars in the Carpathian basin, fostered
the nationalist iIlusion that the Magyar population was 20 millions ­
whereas in reality it was only about 12 millions - and refused to reveal
the truth about the number of citizens, both Magyar and non-Magyar,
who were being forced by economic and social pressure to look for a
new homeland. Official Hungarian statistics for the years 1899 to 1913,
for instance, give the number of emigrants as 1,390,525, while American
harbour statistics recorded the arrival of about 400,000 more.
The reasons for emigration were quite simple. Although the greater
part of Hungary had for 150 years been under Turkish rule, the power
of the Habsburgs had not lapsed. By the end of the seventeenth century
Austrian rule was extended over the whole of Hungary. Following
the Revolutionary War of Independence in 1848/49, the victorious
Habsburgs turned Hungary into their hinterland to produce food, raw
materials and cannon fodder. Though some compromises were later
made with the Hungarian bourgeoisie, in 1867, national-capitalist development
in Hungary was badly retarded. Right up till 1945 Hungary
was known as "the country of three miIlion beggars".
About the time that many of the three million were being forced
out, American propaganda agencies shifted their focus from Western
Europe to the central and eastern areas. They painted rosy pictures of
the "free new world" across the ocean. The shipping companies, faced
with growing competition, were lowering their fares. The British Cunard
Line -in the early 1900's ran two ships a week from Fiume on the Adriatic
to New York. A few years later ships of the German Continental
Pool cut into the business. This was the time when American wheat
began to flood European markets. But Europe was sending few exports
in exchange. So the German line offered to carry passengers to America
for 50 Hungarian crowns - the price of 200 kilos (about 416 pounds)
of wheat. The return trip of the grain ships was made with human
baIlast.
However, the United States was not the only part of the "free
17

"On Board of an .I mmigra nt Ship in the Thirties" is the title of this drawing
by C. W. Jefferys, taken from the "Picture Gallery of Canadian History" of
the leading Canadian historical illustrator.
18

new world" that needed more citizens. As -early as 1880 the Canadian
government called the attention of its agents in Europe to the large
movement from Austria-Hungary to the U.S.A., and in 1883 John Dyke,
the European advisor to the Dominion in these matters, left for continental
points to study the situation. In spite of under-cover arrangements
with shipping agents, bonuses, printed propaganda, no settlers
were at this time secured for Canada.
The difficulty was that the young Canadian capitalism, anxious to
develop and drive toward the Pacific, met heavy weather when it came
into competition with the already powerful Western States. Their agents
were solidly entrenched in Europe. And though Canada was anxious to
have settlers for Manitoba, or the North-West Territories (as Saskatchewan
and Alberta were then called) the government had nothing
specific to offer; organizations to take care of the immigrants on their
arrival and help them establish homes did not yet exist.
Hun's Valley and Kaposvar
Two years after Dyke's fiasco, however, the Canadian Pacific Railway
came into the picture. Despairing of getting workers directly
from Europe, the CPR and Ottawa accepted the offer of Count Paul
Esterhazy, who was already settled in the United States, to form a
It was on Nov. 7, 1887, that Sir Donald Smith drove the last spike that
completed the trans-continental railway that linked Canada from sea' to sea.
But U.S. interests, eager to grab Canada's wealth even then, said Canadians
would take 100 years to build a nation-wide rail line.
19

_.
..
-
_._----
Hungarian Legion tlsrre for them. These men were experienced farmers
but they also had military training, and Esterhazy suggested that
as well as being useful settlers they would come in handy for putting
down rebellions. After receiving a promise of financial aid from Sir
George Stephen, the CPR's president, Esterhazy went to the North­
West on a tour of inspection, mailed out enthusiastic circulars, and
then personally recruited in the mining towns of eastern Pennsylvania,
where wages for the Hungarian miners we.') low and livine conditions
miserable. He had considerable success at first, but when he was personally
attacked as a common swindler in the New' York Austrian­
American press, his supporters dwindled rapidly. In July 1885, thirtyfive
families left for Manitoba under the leadership of EsterhiLzy's lieutenant,
Geze Dory. With the help of the Manitoba and North-west Railway
Land Company they homesteaded near the town of Minnedosa. By
the end of the summer they were joined by a rccond groun, enough to
form a settlement called Hungarten or Hun's VaHey. These people,
mainly from upper Hungary, were of Magyar, Slovak, Carpatho-Ukrainian,
Czech and South Slav origin.
Esterhazy continued his recruiting trip that winter, travelling
through New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio, where the bulk of Hungarian
emigrants to the U.S.A. were living, but made little further
headway. He was blacklisted and oppoeed not only by the press but
also by the mine owners, who were threatened with the locs of their'
cheap labour, the grocers and saloon keepers, who wanted to keep their
customers, and the clergy, who vigorously herded their flocks. Deciding
that proper organization was the only answer, he formed and became
president of the Hungarian Immigration and Colonization Aid Society,
with headquarters in Pennsylvania. Armed with a further $25,000 of
CPR money he induced another 3S Pennsylvania Hungarian families to
move to the banks of the Qu'Appelle River where they formed a settle
ment named Ksposver,
After he had gotten the Hungarian Colonization Aid Society in
20

corporated in Canada, Esterhazy went on recruiting in Pennsylvania.
From the mining towns of Phoenixville, Manch, Chunk, Hazelton, Yeddo,
Schamokin, Mount Carmel and 'I'amayna, he gathered a group of
130 men. When they reached Winnipeg, they received the bad news, that
the Kaposvar colony where they intended to pass the winter, was partly
burned down, partly deserted. A contract arranged by Esterhazy for
jobs in Moore and Company's mine near Medicine Hat was never fulfilled.
Half-starved and disgusted, the 130 returned from the mine to
the immigrant shed at Medicine Hat, subsisted for a while on government
hand-outs and, some of them, drifted back to the States. During
the same winter (1886-7) a small party arrived at Montreal direct from
Hungary, penniless, having been robbed of all they possessed in Hamburg,
Germany. Following these fiascos, Esterbezy; was fired by the
Canadian government and the CPR refused him any more money.
The CPR had, however, by no means abandoned the idea of attrect-
To replace the first modest log structure, this church of Kaposv8.r
settlement was built in 1907-8. It required 1,600 loads of stones,
hauled by sleighs in the winter by the settlers. The stone, beautiful
in its natural state with its red brilliance, had to be cut. Mortar
was made from sand and chalk.
At the time of the 50th jubilee of the settlement in 1936, a stone
cairn was erected honoring the Hungarian pioneer settlers.
21

ing immigrants from Hungary. Combining forces with the Allan Shipping
Line they sent another agent, Theodore Zboray, to Europe. Zboray's
efforts were fruitless, for he was arrested for conducting emigration
propaganda in his native country and returned to Canada with
only one companion - his sister, whose fare was charged to Ottawa!
In the meantime Esterhazy continued his work, unofficially, in the
U.S.A., and through his efforts and those of other agents, combined
with the growing economic and social pressure in Austria-Hungary, a
steady flow of Magyars, Czechs, Slovaks, Carpatho-Ukrainians, Germans,
Croats and people of other nationalities under the Habsburg domination
crossed the Atlantic. Many of them made their way, both
directly and indirectly, to the Canadian West.
Bekevar Became Our Flag
After Kaposvar, but before 1900, at least three larger Hungarian
settlements were started in what is now Saskatchewan - Halmok, Otthon,
and Plunkett. In 1900 Bekever (Fort of Peace) was established
near Kipling; it soon grew large enough to have two school-houses,
named after the Hungarian national leaders Rak6czi and Kossuth. Esterhazy's
plan for a "Hungarian legion" was completely lost sight of.
The new settlers had no interest in or stomach for "putting down rehellions",
Fresh from oppression in their own former country, they felt
Janos SzabO and his wife Eszter
Molnar, were among the
founders of Bekevar, Sask., in
1900. This picture was taken in
the 1980's.
Whiie Kaposvar and Stockholm
are cen.tres of Catholics,
the Bekevar and Otthon settlements
are Protestant centres.
22

a kinship with the older Canadians, Metis, Indians, who had so recently
fought under the leadership of Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont for the
land, nationhood and democracy.
This was a time, when, after the 1867 Confederation and 1885 Riel
Rebellion, Emily Pauline Johnson, the great Canadian poet of Indian
stock, saw the native Indian people as part of a great Canadian brotherhood,
taking their place in the building of a huge country of many
peoples. In a poem written for the unveiling of a monument for Joseph
Brant, great Indian leader, she wrote:
Young Canada with mighty force sweeps on,
To gain in power and strength before the down
Then meet we as one common brotherhood
In peace and love with purpose understood,
Monument to Emily Pauline Johnson (1862-1913)
Stanley Park.
in Vancouver's
23

In the early 1900's other Hungarian settlements were established,
those named Stockholm, Wakaw, Lestock, Cupar, Magyar, Zala and
Prud'homme. But at the same time some Hungarians also moved into
the already settled regions, swelling the population of Melville, Yorkton,
Whitewood, Regina and Saskatoon. In and around Lethbridge,
Alta., the first Hungarian Sick Benefit Society was established. Thus
we may claim with truth and pride that Hungarian settlers had made
a considerable contribution to the establishment of Saskatchewan and
Alberta when, in 1905, they became Provinces.
These early Hungarian agricultural settlements in the West later
on, mainly after World War I, had spread out northward too, up to
Mistatim and Spiritwood, Sask., and to the Peace River district of Alberta.
Winnipeg, Man., was the oldest transition for Hungarian settlers,
but in 1904 they al so established there a Hungarian sick benefit society.
24

In the East, Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton, WeIland, Brantford,
Niagara Falls and Windsor all had their first Hungarian settlers in the
early 1900's.
The 1901 census listed 1,549 Hungarians. By 1911 this figure had
grown to 11,658 (over half of whom were living in Saskatchewan) and
by 1921 to 13,181. Many of these newcomers went into industrial centres,
from Cape Breton right across to Vancouver Island; they worked
in the mines and the logging camps; in Southern Ontario they raised
vegetables, tobacco, sugar beets, grew fruit, bred livestock as did many
of their compatriots in Alberta and British Columbia.
The census figures grew steadily. Between 1926 and 1930 over 26,­
000 Hungarian immigrants entered Canada. By 1941 the figure was
54,598. By 1951, with the addition of Hungarians from the D. P. camps
in Germany and Austria (but excluding about a thousand who were
repatriated from Canada to the new Hungary after the liberation), it
was over 60,000. However, as people of Hungarian origin who had come
from Czechoslovakia, Rumania and Yugoslavia often were not included
in the census figure, the true total is nearer to 70 or 75 thousand.
The official distribution of the Hungarian-Canadians by Provinces
is as follows: Maritimes 580, Quebec 4,127, Ontario 28,182, Manitoba
2,326, Saskatchewan 12,470, Alberta, 7,794, British Columbia 4,948, Yukon
and Northwest Territories 33. From these figures the shift away
from the early pattern of settlement may be seen: during World War
II many thousands of Hungarian-Canadians left the prairies for the cities
of Ontario and the West Coast. Now more than half of them are
classified as urban dwellers. This is the more surprising since the overwhelming
majority of them came to Canada as poor peasants or landless
agricultural workers. Now only about a third of them work on the
land. With the wartime prosperity and the new group of about 10,000
since 1945, the very small percentage of workshop-owners, merchants,
priests and other professionals has grown to some extent.
However, life is a great teacher and members of all three emigrations
are getting evermore integrated with each other and with the
Canadian people and life as a whole. So the vision of J. S. Wallace in his
"All My Brothers Are Beautiful" is in sight:
They were robbed wherever they went
Stand and deliver, profit and rent
Eating the ashes of discontent
Still for all their bitterness
All my brothers are beautiful.
. 20

MYTH AND HISTORY
WHAT ARE the Magyars? The name of "H un' s Valley" , the Latin
"Hungaria" and "Hungaricus", the German "Ungarn", the English
"Hungarian" are all based on the false assumption of a close Magyar­
Hun racial, blood-relation. In the Magyar literature the poetical term
of "Hunnia", meaning the Carpathian basin, the land where in the 5th
century A.D. the Hun's emperor Attila, "God's whip" ruled over
much of Western and Eastern Europe, and many so-called people's legends
about the Huns as an early "brother people" of the Magyars were
made up not so much by the people's imagination, as by the mostly
foreign-originated ruling classes of the Magyars to make themselves feel
"great" as followers of the "great" Hun people, and especially by the
feudal-capitalist lords' literary agents 1,000 years after the Magyars
came into the Carpathian basin, in 896 A. D . This myth has served in
the oppression of the Hungarian people and national minorities in the
. country all along and irredentist-imperialist aims after the dismembering
Trianon treaty of 1920-21, against neighbouring countries.
The ancient home of the Hun tribes was in Mongolia
around 500 B.C. , and the Chinese Wall was built as a defense against
them. The much fewer Magyar tribes at that time were grazing their
herds - close to the Finns and other members of the Finn-Ugorian
language family - on what later become the north-eastern part of
European Russia. During the people's wandering they both were driven
west, but the Huns came into the Carpathian basin around the beginning
of the 5th century A.D., and after the death of Attila in 453, the
Hun Empire of slaveholders was broken up ; the Huns were dispersed
east and south-east, the Germans and others went north and west. (The
German settlements in Hungary were established during the close to
1,000 years of the Hungarian state, established about 500 years later.)
The Magyars may have met with some remnants of the Huns 400 years
later on their way down south to the Kuban Land and from there to
north-west on the northern shores of the Black Sea into the Carpathian
basin; there is nothing to prove or disprove this, but there is proo
that they met on their way with Turks, Kazars, Bulgars and becam
mixed mainly with Slavs and this developed even further with th
Slovaks, who were already living in the northern mountainous part 0
the basin when the Magyars came in under the leadership of Prine
Arpad in 896.
26

"Honfoglalas", seizure of a new, permanent homeland by the nomad Magyars
under the leadership of Prince Arplid in the Carpathian basin in 896,
was painted by Mihaly MUllklicsy (1844-1900), who was one of the most
talented painters of his time. He made many historical paintings, especially
in connection with 1848-49, however he was greatest in portraying the life
and lot of the Hungarian working people.
The Birth of Hungary
At the time of their arrival in the Carpathian basin - where
besides the Slovaks in the northern part, there was no population in
the mostly swampy central plains, some Bulgars in the south, some
Franconians and other remnants of the Roman Empire in the hilly
Transdanubia in the west (province of Pannonia) and some in the
mountainous Transylvania in the east (province of Dacia)-the Magyars
were in a transitory stage from their ancient nomad communal society
to a society of slaveholders and slaves.
After many terrifying adventures against their neighbours, especially
to the west and south-west, and after suffering some serious defeats,
the nomad Magyars finally settled down to develop agriculture, stabilized
animal-raising and artisanship and their first state. In 1001, Prince
Istvan of the Arpad dynasty became the first crowned king (Stephanus
I) of the country and the development of the Christian feudal state
was furthered with· western help and the influx of foreign elements
(German, Italian, Slav) into the growing ruling class - . beginning
around 900, with bishops, priests, monks, some artisans and knights ­
was increased.
Magna Charta and Tatars .
Later, Laszlo the Brave (Ladislaus I) and Kalman the Book-lover
(Coloman, who strictly banned the much-cultivated witchhunting around
1100) consolidated the structure of the developing feudal state. However,
there was no rest: from the south the Turks, from west the Habsburg-Germans
soon began their attacks; the Pope, who donated part of
the crown, demanded certain rights and fees; feudal lords (including
27

the bishops), these "little kings" were weakening the structure from
inside by their individual class greediness. The petty nobility and free
peasantry (who had to serve in the king's army) and the serfs (who
had to till the lands and serve in the small armies of the feudal lords
and bishops, many times fighting against each other and sometimes
also against the king) were revolting against the burden.
(It was under Endre II, that in his absence in 1213, Biink the Bsn,
one of the richest lords of Hungary, became the leader of the discontented
elements and they killed the treacherous Queen Gertrudis, who
was a Meranian. In the revolutionary atmosphere in the middle of the
19th century, this "plot" became the theme of one of the first Hungarian
national dramas by [ozse! Katona and one of the best Hungarian
national operas by Ferenc Erkel. The problem of the oppressed peasantry,
the tragedy of a disgraced husband, the love of the country, the
Hungarian language and folk music was put in this opera against the
Germanizing Habsburg tyranny. The film "Erkel", on the life of the
great Hungarian composer, powerfully depicts this historical struggle.)
In 1222, Endre (Andrew) II, was forced to ensure the rights of
the petty nobility in a Bill of Rights, called "Golden Bulla" - just few
years after King John of England signed the Magna Charta.
However, when the Mongolian Tatar hordes broke into the country in
1241 and dispersed the small army of Bela (William) IV, neither the
28
A scene from the fibn "Erkel": The troubled Ban Bank and his wife
Melinda, ravished by the brother of Queer-. Gertrudis, in the opera
"Ban Bank".

landlords and bishops, nor t he western Christian leaders offered any
help to repell the invading hordes, rather the Habsburgs took the opportunity
to grab three western counties. Bourgeois historians are trying
to hide the fact, that it was in ellienoe with the Polish and Russian
princes that Bela IV began to build towns and forts in the scourched
country after the withdrawal of the in vaders, and that a second invasion
was avarted only by the Russian people freeing themselves of the Mongolian
yoke.
Anjous, Luxemburgs, Habsburgs, J agellos
After the death of Bela IV, in 1270, a feudal anarchy developed
by the feudal "little kings" like Mate Csak and many others, under the
last members of the Arpad dynasty; and a-fter the death of Andrew III,
in 1301, the last of the dynasty, the class rule itself was threatened by
the inner and outside conflicts. Finally in 1308, with the support of the
Pope a nd Italian bankers, Robert Karoly (Char les) of the Franconian
Anjou dynasty was accepted to the throne. He and his son, Lajos
(Louis) the Great, reorganized the feudal system, including the introduction
of the institute of Knights. For the time being the anarchy was
ended, mining and commerce began to develop.
(This was the period from which the heroic story of Mik16s Toldi,
the home-kept" and neglected younger brother of a feudal family is taken
by a friend of Petofi, Janos Arany, the great epic poet at the first
half of the 19th century. )
Under the daughter of Lajos I, Maria (1382-1387) anarchy set in
again and even her husband, Sigmund of Luxemburg (1387-1437) ­
who became the king of Rome and emperor of the declining Roman­
German Empire - could not consolidate his rule, while the attacks of
the Turks in the sout h became more and more continuous. Sigmund
played a double game with Popes, as well as with the followers of John
Huss, the great Czech religious and social reformer. It was und-er the
stimulation of the Hussitism, that the peasants and petty nobility of
Transylvania went into an unsuccessful revolt in 1437 against the feudal
lords led by inquisitor Bishop Gyorgy Lepes.
After Sigmund, his brother-in-law, Albrecht Habsburg became the
king of Hungary (1437-39) - this was the beginning of the rule of
the Habsburgs over Hungary, which lasted for 400 years, interrupted
here and there at its beginning, running paraIIel for 150 years with tlre
domination of the Turks over parts of the country, then becoming the
sole rulers of Hungary up to 1918. Meanwhile, however, out of the
common defense of Poland and Hungary against the Turks, in 1440,
the Polish king of the [egello dynasty was called on the throne of Hungary
- Ulasz16 (1440-1444) .
The Hunyadis
But the landlords and western rulers did not learn, and when the
29

Turks renewed their attacks in force against Hungary, it was the noble
Janos Hunyadi, who without any help from the lords and foreign rulers
mobilized the peasantry and in campaign after campaign repulsed and
drove the Turks far away into the Balkan Peninsula.
Albrecht's son was crowned as Ladislaus V in 1440 yet, but became
the ruler only in 1452, under the patronage of the anti-Hunyadi lords
led by Ulrik Cillei, In a counterplot, the followers of Hunyadi's older
30
A scene from the film "Erkel": Erzsebet Szilagyi, widow of Turkbeater
Janos Hunyadl, mother of L8.szl6 and Matyas, in the opera
''lAsz16 Bunyadi".

son, LaszlO, killed the treacherous Cillei. The Habsburg king then gave
his word by oath that he would not punish LaszlO Hunyadi, but called
him to Buda and renewing the old anti-Hunyadi plot - he beheaded the
son of the great anti-Turk hero of the Magyars. (This treachery of the
Habsburg king became the theme of poems by Janos Arany and Sandor
Petbii, and a powerful opera by Ferenc Erkel in the middle of the 19th
century.) However, the younger son of Janos Hunyadi became a ruler
by a proclamation of revolt on the ice of the Danube in 1458, as the
first freely selected king of Hungary. This last Hunyadi, the humanist
Matyas I (1458- 90) , became one of the most popular rulers of the
country, being a great supporter of the Rennaisance and defender of
the people against official bureaucracy and other injustices. Under his
rule the population of the country grew to 4 millions. Even recently the
old saying was still common among the Hungarian people: "King
Mathias died, so did Justice."
"Andras Hess in the Court of King MAtyas", a wallpainting by M6r Than
(1828-1899). Vice-chancellor Gereb introduces Andras Hess, the first Hungarian
printer to MAtyas.
The Peasant War and Mohacs
Under the weak UlaszlO II (1490-1516) feudal anarchy set in
again, which combined with the adventurist plan of Primate Tamas Bakocz
to become the head of the church in Constantinople and with the
connivance of the West to make the Hungarian forces victims of
the invading Turks - provoked the great Hungarian peasant revolt in
1514 under the leadership of Gyorgy Dozse, a Transylvanian, who previously
became a famous military leader against the Turks. All the
lords and bishops, even the Pope joined hands against the revolt while
the Habsburgs were just waiting for their chance to become the permanent
rulers of Hungary. After many victories of the peasant army
31

One of the "1514" DOzsaseries
of eleven woodcuts
made by GyuIa Derkovlts
(1894-1934) in 1928-29.
of Dozsa, the unity and trickery of the ruling class defeated them:
20,000 peasants were killed; Dozs« was burned on a red-hot fiery
throne as a "peasant king"; many participants (the first "Kurutzes";
named after their emblem the Cross, "crux" in Latin, because they
were intended to be thrown against the Turks untrained and withou
arms in a Crux-campaign to liberate the Holy Land) were marked witli
hot iron, and among the many severe new laws the free migration 0
the serfs from one bad lord to the other - was abolished. Some 10
years later, in 1526, the army of Lajos II, who was left alone by mos
of the lords, bishops, and all foreign rulers, was dispersed by the huge
army of the Turks on August 29 at Mohacs in Southern Hungary.
"Between Two Heathen"
From this time on - despite the heroic defenders of some fort ,
like Miklos Zrinyi of Szigetvar, Miklos [urisics of Kfiszeg, Istvan Do ~
of Eger, etc. - the south-centre part of the country was invaded an
became subjected to the robbing rule of the Turks for 150 years. Toe
western, sometime the northern parts too, were under even worse ru
of the Habsburgs, who now invaded to "help" the Magyars against t
Turks; the lords and bishops almost without exception sided with tB
Habsburgs. For most of these 150 years, however, the eastern pa
Transylvania, remained under Magyar rule, and most of her prine
(the Bocskays, Bethlens, Rakoczis, etc.) were the leaders' of many.u
32

successful liberating campaigns and defenders, supporters of the Reformation,
with some social betterments of the people's lot. A song of
the "Kurutzes" (volunteers of the liberating campaigns) reflects very
characteristically the situation under the rule of the Turks and Habsburgs:
"The Magyars are bleeding away between two heathen in the
one homeland".
The Stars of Eger
(The Hungarian People's Republic and its people in 1952, celebrated
the 400th anniversary of the heroic struggle of the defenders of
the Fort of Eger. Gez« Giudonyi's - 1863-1922 - excellent historical
novel in two volumes, "Stars of Eger", deals with this siege on the wide
background of this period. Under the leadership of Istvan Dobo, 3,000
poorly armed defenders of the mainly earthen fort on the hill, on the
southern slopes of the mountainous Upper Hungary were bleeding
away against a twenty-times larger and better equipped Turkish army,
but inflicted on them wounds so deep that they had to give up the
siege after hardly anything was left of the isolated fort and of its
heroic defenders. A wonderful example of initiative, resourcefulness
and heroism by a handful of patriots - peasants, tradesmen and some
soldiers who loved their country, their families and home - even if
their hope for the much needed help from the Habsburg Emperor was
entirely illusory and proved to be in vain.)
"The Women of Eger" were immortalized
in this painting by
Bertalan Szekiely (1885-1910),
whose art represent a landmark
in Hungarian national
painting. The women of Eger
laid claim to great fame for
bravely and resourcefully fighting
shoulder to shoulder with
the men agaif\St the Turks in
1554.
33

Rak6czi's War of Independence
With the weakening of the Turkish Empire of slaveholders, to
which the brave Kurutzes contributed greatly, the Habsburgs and their
Magyar stooges - with the help of the real Magyar patriots - quite
easily pushed out the Turks in the 1680-90's, but it did not bring liberation
for the Magyars, only a change to a more merciless rul-e, with all
the attempts at Germanization. And for this reason some Magyar
leaders, like Istvan Thokoly, sided with the Turks in these struggles.
In 1687, after the recapture of Buda from the Turks, the feudalist
assembly of Hungary accepted "in gratis" the Habsburg dynasty's
right of succession to the throne. But in 1703, something unique happened
in Hungary's history: Ferenc Rekoczi, a descendent of the Kurutz
leaders, the son of the heroic Ilona Zrinyi, married second time to
Istvan Th6k6ly, and the biggest landlord of Hungary - accepted the
leadership of the barefooted peasant movement of liberation. Rakoczi
(who 27 years of age had just escaped from the prison of the
Habsburgs) became the leader of an eight years long war of independence.
Unlike other landlords, he remained loyal to the cause until his
death. He won many victories with his peasant armies so that in a few
years almost the whole country was liberated. He met a few times Peter
Ferenc RakOczi meets Tamas Esze, leader of the barefooted serfs,
in a forest on Hungarian-Polish border in the spring of 1703. (Painting
by Gyorgy Konecsny, IV. National Art Exhibition in BUdapest,
1954.)

the Great of Russia and made an alliance with him; unfortunately Peter
was hard pressed from Swedish, later Turkish attack, while on the
other hand the Habsburgs won the Spanish war of succession over the
"Ilona Zrinyi Before Her Judges", a painting by Viktor Mada.n\sz (1880-1917).
Ilona Zrinyi was a descendant of MiklOs Zrinyi, captain of Szigeuw, a heroic
leader against the Turks, who died in the last out-stonning from the besieged
Szigetvar in 1566. The father of Ilona, Peter Zrinyi, poet and military leader,
was beheaded together with her uncle by the Habsburgs in 1670. Ilona, as
the widow of ;Prince Ferenc Rii.k6czi I of Transylvania, led the defense of
Mu~ for three years against overwhelming Habsburg forces until she
was forced to capitulate by a betrayal, Before the Babsburg judges we see
her with her son and daughter, Ferenc and Julianna Rii.koczi. After escaping
from a Habsburg prison, Ferenc became the leader of the War of Independence
in 1708-11.
35

Prince Ferenc RAk6czi II of Hungary (1676-1735).
French and were able to put all their strength against Rakoczi, In 1711,
while Rakoczi was on his way again to Peter, the treacherous landlord
leaders of the army, Count Karolyi and others, capitulated to the Habsburgs.
The rule of the Habsburgs over parts of Hungary was now
extended to the whole of Hungary. The lands of Rakoczi and other-loyal
leaders were given to the Scbonborn, Festetich, Batthyimy, Konigs,tgg,
Herruckern, Wenckheim, Karolyi and other families of German overlords
and Hungarian traitors, while Rakoczi himself - after getting
nothing but nice promises from his formal ally, the King of France ­
was exiled to Turkey with few loyal Kurutzes and died in 1730, at
Rodosto by the Marmara Sea.
After this many thousands of Hungarians emigrated to Turkey,
Poland and especially to France, from where many hundreds of them
or their sons sailed to America to participate in the War of Independence
under George Washington.
36

(From Rakoczi'a War of Independence is taken the theme of the
new film, "Rekoczi'« Lieutenant", which deals with the heroic deeds
and love of the peasant hero, ] anos Bornemissza, who served under
Bottyen the Blind, a peasant general of legendary fame. In a daring
raid with ten of his cavalrymen, Bornemissza captures the new commander-in-chief
of the Austrian army in Hungary. Bottyan sends him
with the high prisoner to Prince Rakoczi, who promotes the peasant
hero to lieutenancy and sends him back with an order of attack, which
leads Janos to the liberation of his village and sweethart. The battle
scenes in the open terrain of this film mark a turning point in the new
Hungarian film art.)
Jaqos Bomemissza, the peasant hero of the film "RAk6czi's Lieutenant",
arrives from left to join the' cavalrymen of Bottyan the
Blind (in centre), a Kurutz general of legendary fame.
Jacobins, Reformers, Revolution
After many unsuccessful revolts in Hungary and under the influence
of the Great French Revolution, in 1789, the first Hungarian
republican movement came into being in 1794, led by a monk, university
professor Igruu: Martinovics, and some enlightened noblemen. In 1795,
Martinovics and five of his comrades - the Hungarian ]acobins ­
were executed by the Habsburgs.
37

History, however, demanded a change in the structure of society.
At the beginning of the 19th century the Reiorm movement was born,
led by pauperized petty nobles and supported by some landlords whose
economy was ruined by its backwardness and Habsburg exploitation.
There was a literary renaissance and debates on social problems
intruded into the floor of the feudal House. The Hungarian Academy
of Sciences was established. This was the time when the fighting theatrical
national movement depicted in the fine film "Mrs. Dery", was born
at the head of a cultural revolution basing itself on the peasantry,
tradesmen and students against Germanization. The Magyar language,
which was pushed aside from the time of the first kings by Latin
and later on by German - and became unknown even for many of the
lords and for 800 years was saved mainly by the peasants, tradesman
and enlightened nobles - became a big issue. Against the German
Theatre, in Pest, the new developing city across the Danube, opposite
to the fort-town of Buda, the Magyar National Theatre was established
just before the 1848 revolution.
38
K!I:i.ry Tolnay, twice Kossuth prize-winner, as Mrs. Dery sings "Cse·
rebogar, siirga cserebogar" to peasants in an inn on the night before
market day. (From the film "Mrs. Dery")

Perofi among peasants in a Transdanubian inn, in February 1848,
just before the revolution. (A painting by Imre Revesz, 1859-1933).
Petofi and Kossuth
On March 15, 1848, with the help of the peasantry, tradesmen and
already some workers, the students led by the great revolutionary poet,
Sandor Petbil, moved the bourgeoisie of Pest to act and forced the
feudal House (with some enlightened members, who had travelled much
in the West of Europe) sitting in Pozsony, near the Austrian border,
from debates to deeds for a program based on the slogan "Equality,
Fraternity, Liberty". The Paris, Vienna and other revolutions in Western
and Eastern Europe, forced the Habsburg court to agree to the
demands of the Hungarian House by this time already led by Lajos
Kossuth, who after many years of fighting for reforms had used the
pressure of the Pest revolution to transform the ieudel House and
accept in the main the demands of the revolution. The Hungarian deputation
led by Kossuth to the Emperor in the revolutionary Vienna
was a. great success. However, the trickery of the Habsburgs and their
Metternich, and some Hungarian stooges working in Vienna, sabotaged
the sanctioning of the new laws, provoked the nationalities to revolts
and all this, including the hesitation of the first responsible government
of Hungary, soon led to open War of Independence in September
1848. Kossuth and his Honveds (defenders of the homeland) wrote the
most glorious pages into Hungarian history, but they became the
isolated and last European fighters for democracy and independence of
this period against the combined forces of the so-called Sacred Com-
39

A sc e.ie from the film "The Sea Has Rlsen": on March 15, 1818,
SAndorPetofi recites from the stairs of the National Museum of
Budapest, his famous National Song written the night before that
day of the Revolution. Its first stanza is:
Rise, Magyar! for this, thy Land,
Calls to thee - the hour's at hand!
AI18 we slaves or are we free?
This to ask - the choice to thee!
By the God, of the Magyar,
Do we swear,
Do we swear, chains no longer
Will we wear!
pact of the Habsburgs, the Czar of Russia and European reaction as a
whole, and amid much inner troubles, on August 13, 1849, the treacherous
General Arthur Giirgey ordered the army to lay down its arms at
Vi/agos, before the commander of the Czar. Petofi, the adjutant of the
Transylvanian commander, Polish General Bern, the world famous and
beloved internationalist, died in the battle of Segesver on July 31;
Kossuth after August 13 fled the country for a long and heroically
active emigration in Turkey, England, America, France and Italy, where
he died in 1894, in Turin.
(This historical period of glorious struggle - Kossuth and the
fighting Hungarian people was highly praised by Marx and Engels
is depicted in the excellent new Hungarian double film "The Sea Ha
Risen". The title is taken from PetOfi's poem with the same title. Her
40

Lajos Kossuth appeals in film "The Sea Has Risen" to the first
parliament of Hungary to raise a people's army to defend the revolution
against invading mercenary troops of the Habsburgs.
An attack by the P eople's Army of Hungary in 1848-49. (Contemporary
engj-avlng)
41

is another version of translation of the poem:
Rebellion rides the ocean
The ocean of mankind
Affrighting earth and heaven,
The maddened waves a leaven
To terrify the mind.
That carmagnole, you see it?
You hear that roundelay?
For you who might not know it,
The time is ripe to show it:
The way the people play!
The ocean howls, it rages,
The ships are flung about,
Till naught but hell avail or
The masthead and the sailor
Be brought to utter rout.
Roar out your rage, you deluge,
Roar out your raging fume,
Show low your deepest fathom,
Throw high on clouds at random
The fury of your spume.
Inscribe upon the heavens
For all eternity:
"Above, though rides the galley ­
Below, though waters rally ­
The sovereign is the sea!"
The film, as the poem, shows that although the torn boat, thrown
here and there, up and down by the waves, is still on the top - the
ocean of mankind is becoming the master. )
42
General J6zsef Bern ("Grandpa' B ern") and Sandor Pet6fi in the.
battle. (Painting by Sandor 1:k, IV. National Art Exhibition in Budapest,
1945.)

MihAly TMCsis, a revolutionary writer
of Hungary, had travelled widely In
western Europe and had made conneetions
there with the socialist movements
durtng the 1840's. He was not only
blamed, but also jailed, for trying to
'bri ng into feudal, Habsburg ruled Hungary
"the ugliest form of liberalism,
that is communism". He was released
from the Fort of Buda by the forces of
the Pest Revolution on March 15, 1848.
He was called the "Apostle of the
peasants", while during the Revolution
he edited and published the "Munk8s0k
Ujsagsagja", first working class journal
in Hungary.
Class Struggle vs, c.ompromise
After the dark period of Habsburg revenge, came the 1867 compromise,
when the Hungarian feudal-bourgeois ruling classes had agreed
to the continuation of Habsburg rule over Hungary "in gratis" to the
very feeble givings of the Habsburgs.
The freed serfs of 1848 were only part of the peasantry waiting for
liberation, and even most of them could not stay on "their" former
serf-lands because they were unable to pay the set reparation fees for
it; hundreds of thousands of peasants remained serfs in a modified form
as agrarian and court servants of the landlords, and of the bishops.
Half of the population had to live on the one-sixteenth of the arable
land. After the development of sheepraising before 1848, now Austria's
other main demand was wheat and competitive industrialization was
kept back. Under such circumstances, the growing masses of agrarian
and industrial workers had little chance to earn a living, wages were
kept at the lowest level. This situation had given impetus to the development
of the agrarian-socialist movement and to the creation of tbe
first workers' party in Hungary, but also to the beginning of the ma~s
43

Last heroic resistance of the iParisian communards in the Pere Laehalse
cemetery in 1871 against mercenaries of bourgeois betrayers of France.
emigration of nearly 2 million Hungarians, mostly to the "promisedland"
of the Americas, including Canada.
Leo Frankel was the Hungarian-born minister of labour and com-
''Panem! 1899." Painting by Imre Revesz (1859-1988), pj-otessor at the Art
College in Budapest. Jobless Hungarian agrarian proletars demand bread.
44

merce of the Paris Commune in 1871. At the second congress of the
International in London, Frankel, a member of the General Council of
the International in London, instructed by Marx - proposed the declaration
of the necessity of political struggle. He travelled all over Europe
and had been arrested many times. After returning home, he succeeded
in forcing from the lords of Hungary the right to organize the "General
Workers' Party of Hungary". In a libel suit he was sentenced to 18
months imprisonment, in 1883 he was set free and joined Engels in
creating the II. International.
In 1891 at Orosheze in South Hungary the first May Day was
celebrated and in 1894 at H6dmezovilsilrhely in the centre of Hungary,
the first shooting occured by the gendarme and soldiery at the masses.
The Social Democratic Party of Hungary not only put the brake on the
struggle of the workers, most of them already organized in trade unions,
but it also treacherously turned away from the cause of the poor peasantry.
In the summer of 1897 tens of thousands of harvesting workers
What was the yearly average number of immigrants
who left Hungary in different periods from 1880 to
19181

went on strike on the Great Hungarian Plain, there were many bloody
clashes. Slovak, Rumanian and Serbian harvesters were brought in and
a severe agricultural law was enacted. In 1905 about 10,000 agricultural
workers and servants went on strike, in 1906 over 100 ,000, and about
5,000 agricultural workers were put in jail. The landlords in the fall of
1906 agreed that for the next harvest they would bring in harvesters
Irom Russia, Galicia, Poland and Rumania. One of them even proposed
that they should bring in 100,000 coolies from China, but others argued
that the travelling expenses would be too high ...
Endre Ady (1877-1919) , by chronology the second of the Big Three
lyrical poets of Hungary - (Sandor Petofi, Endre Ady, Attila J6zsef)
- claimed himself to be "the grandson 01 Gyorgy Dozss", leader of
the Peasant War in 1514, who was executed
on a red-hot iron throne.
He was worth more than eighty abbots,
More sacred lord has not lived yet,
He sat on that red-hot throne burning,
As God up in the heaven sits.
Ady deeply loved the "three million
beggars" of agricultural Hungary
betrayed by the 1867 Compromise and
later by the leaders of the Social Democratic
Party, but he also recognized
the historical role 01 the then lastly de
veloping industrial working class and in
his seemingly hopeless period he passionately
urged a "new Dozse" to come
up with the "lazy Red Sun" - as if he
was sensing that its arrival will be too
late for him. (He died physically broken
just two months before the Socialist Revolution
in March, 1919, broke out.) His
contempt of the MiJ.te Cssks, the "little
kings" and their out-lived rule was as great as his love of the working
people whose free and rich future he restlessly longed for. He put all
this very powerfully into many of his poems from which here is the
one entitled "On Lands 01 MiJ.te Cssk":
46
On your necks set wild, bourgeoise Teters,
Sti11 lilted so proud are your heads.
You are great in your laith and Iresh in blood,
On the lands 01 MiJ.te Csak you are the God.
Forward, Hungarian proleters.
A11 that is beauty and lu11 01 hope, laith,

You around the Tisza are all that.
There is not as much sorrow in the world,
Not as many in chains elsewhere in the world,
As here, and there isn't hunger as great.
The hunger of bread, hunger for Culture,
Hunger for Beauty is driving you.
Never had a people a truth greater,
Never lived anywhere yet Netos meaner.
You are: the Present, you're: the Future.
My being sickly, waiting only am I,
Valiant fighter I cannot be.
Oh but I have earned the love of your heart,
My soul along with yours storms, exults and fights:
My blood, Hungarian proleter,
Imperialist War, Fascism, Liberation
The last deed of the agrarian-socialists was the plan to erect the
statue of Gyorgy Dozsa in 1914, to commemorate the 400 anniversary
of the Great Peasant Revolt. The outbreak of World War I prevented
this plan from being realized. (In the new Hungary a group statue of
Dozsa is under realization now in Budapest.)
At the end of the war, after the bourgeois-republican revolution in
1918, came the proletarian revolution in the spring of 1919, the last
"Idyd on the Banks of the Danube" is the No.1 of 20 drawings by Mih8.ly
Biro, whose album on Dorthy terror was published in Vienna, 1920. Among
many hundreds of victims, counterrevolutionary bandits in July of 1919 killed
two editors of the "Szegedi Naplo" and threw them into the Tisza river; at
the beginning of 1920 they kidnapped and killed editors Bela BacsO and Pal
Somogyi of the Budapest "Nepszava" and drowned them in the Danube.
47

Hungarian revolution and war of independence to be crushed by the
combined forces of European reaction (this time also with the help of
the Hoover Committee of the U.S.A.). Then came into the much reduced
Hungary, after Trianon, the bloody revenge of the semi-fascistirredentist
Horthy regime, which forced into emigration new tens of
thousands of Hungarians, and this was climaxed by dragging Hungary
into the Hitlerite war to almost complete national catastrophe, from
which the Soviet Army liberated Hungary in 1944-45 to begin a free
life in the enlarged camp of socialist reconstruction.
History Made It Possible
In 1953, commemorating the 250th anniversary of the beginning of
Rakoczi's Independence War, the present leader of the liberated Hungarian
people was widely quoted:
"The Hungarian people lost a war of independence in every century",
said Matyas Rakosi. "Rekoczi's Independence War, whose
banner bore the slogan 'pro Libertate' - 'For Freedom' - was defated.
The War of Independence of 1848-49 was defeated. The Revolution of
1919 was defeated. All these defeats were due in the main to foreign reactionary
forces which came to the assistance of the internal enemies of
the Hungarian people from abroad. It was not primarily its internal
weakness but the unfavourable turn of the international balance of
48

forces which defeated th-e Hungarian fight for freedom throughout three
centuries,"
Matyas Rakosi also pointed out that for the first time in many
centuries there is now a historic situation in which the advance of the
Hungarian people is not impeded, but assisted by her neighbours and
the international situation. On the side of the Soviet Union, liberator
of Hungary, and of the other peace and freedom-loving peoples, Hungary
upholds and realizes the national traditions of the fight for freedom."The
realization of the aims, for which the Kurutz soldiers of RiJ.­
koczi, the Honveds of Kossuth and the red army men of the 1919 Revolution
fought in vain, has now been made possible by history."
And the Hungarian people is now successfully striving towards the
goals visualized already over hundred years ago by Sandor PetOfi in his
beautiful poem "To the XIX Century Poets" -
When onc-e the horn of plenty holds
For everyone his equal share;
When once around the desk of rights
Each one will take his equal chair;
When once the sun of Spirit shines
On every dwelIing's windowpane:
Then we can say that we can stay,
For here is Canaan Land again!
49

WITH CANADA'S PEOPLE
T IS LIKELY, that in the 1750's some Hungarians directly from
I France, or from New England just before the American Revolution,
participated in the Canadian seven-year-war on the side of
the French against the British, but it is still a job to find some traces
50
Laura Secord, Canadian heroine of the War of 1812, picture by C.
W. Jefferys, relating her warntn of the U.S. invasion to Col. Fitzgibbon,
above, was a woman of wit and courage. Here is one of the
stories told about her and how the Canadians saved this country
from U.S. invasion:
"Three Americans called at her house in QueeI¥!ton to ask for
water. One of them said, 'When we come for good to this country
we'll divide the land, and I'll take this here for my share.' Mrs.
Secord was 80 nettled by the thought expressed that, although the
men were respectful, she replied sharply, 'You scroundel, ail you'll
ever get here will be six feet of earth! When they were gone her
heart reproached her for her heat, because the men had not molested
her property. To days later two of the men returned. They sald to
Mrs. Secord, 'You were right about the six feet of earth, missus.'
The third man has been killed."

of them, if any remained here.
We don't know yet, whether in 1812-14, any Hungarians participated
in the heroic struggles on and along the Great Lakes, the St.
Lawrence River or in the Maritimes, against the much bigger Yankee
Monument at Stoney
Creek, near Hamilton,
Ont., of smashing Canadian
victory over Yankee
invading troops in 1813.
The Invasion, started in
1812, overtook the Niagara
Peninsula. Then General
Vincent, commanding
the British - Canadian
troops and militia at Burlington,
decided on a daring
stroke. On June 6th,
with his small force, outnumbered
five to one,
only 90 rounds of ammunition
to each gun,
marched by way of what
are now York and Main
Streets, Hamilton, and at
2:00 a.m. stormed the
enemy encampent at
Stoney Creek. In utter
confusion of the enemy,
four guns and a hundred
prisoners were taken, including
two generals.
Harrassed later by Indian
fighters, the Americans
retreated all the way back
to Fort George. Electrified
by the victory, the
Canadians by the years
end retook Fort George,
captured Fort Niagara
across from it on the U.
S. side of the river, and
swept as far as Black
Rock.
51

It was Samuel Lount who led the rebels down Yonge Street of Toronto
(York) in December of 1887. Samuel Lount and Peter Matthews were hanged
on April 12, 1888, because they fought under the leadership of William Lyon
Mackenzie for responsible government against the tyranny of the Family'
Compact.
Samuel Lount was a blacksmith on Lot No. 108 on the west side of
Yonge St. The Indians "loved him and came long distances to get his axes".
One of his axes is at the Sharon Temple Museum north of Newmarket.
Peter Matthews was a well-to-do and highly respected farmer in Pickering
township, a veteran of the War of 1812 in which "he fought with conspicious
bravery".
invasion forces.
We don't know yet, whether the famous Hungarian traveller Sandor
Farkas de Bolon, visiting here in 1831, noticed something of
the Canadian struggles, which under the leadership of William Lyon
Mackenzie of York (now Toronto) in Upper Canada (now Ontario) and
Louis Joseph Papineau of Montreal in Lower Canada (now Quebec)
became the democratic revolution against the colonial Family Compact
in 1837-38.
We don't know, whether any Hungarians were here to greet and
help English-French national unity in action again when, against the
Family Compact in 1841, the Lower Canadian Patriot Leader Louis
Hyppolite Lafontaine after being defeated in Terrebone by Lord Syden-
5~

Sir John A. Macdonald, leader
of the Confederation.
ham's "machine", was elected to the House by the voters of North
York, and when later Robert Baldwin, the Upper Canadian Reform leader,
being defeated in Hastings County, was elected to the House by
t he French-Canadians of Rimouski on the lower St. Lawrence.
We know, that at least 40-50 Hungarians were here in 1867, when
a great step was made toward independent Canadian nationhood by the
Confederation, uniting the eastern provinces into the Canadian state.
And we can be certain, that in 1885, in Montreal the Hungarian
cigarmakers were among the thousands who protested against the death
sentence of Louis Riel, the Father of the West, and that Lejos Kossuth
during his West-European exile had joined with other leaders of the
emigres in protesting the death sentence of Louis Riel and in demanding
clemency, fully in support of the brave stand of Wilfred Laurier,
that great Canadian liberal: "Had I been born on the banks of the Sask
atchewan, I would myself have shouldered a musket to fight against
the neglect of the government and shameless greed of tbe speculators."
* * *
Most likely the first Hungarians to come to Canada to stay were a
few former soldiers of Kossuth. After the defeat in 1849, the Habsburg
re venge began. When the Italian War of Independence was lost in 1849,
General Haynau, "the hyene of Brescia," began his career as executioner
in Hungary when on October 6, 1849, he ordered the execution of the
fi rst Prime Minister of Hungary, Count Lejos Batthyany, and of 13
53

Lajos Kossuth (1802-1894)

Lajos Kossuth received by the people of New York city in December
of 1851. (Contemporary engraving.)
leading generals of the Hungarian War of Independence.
Many hundreds of leaders and thousands of Honveds, escaped from
Hungary to Turkey, western Europe and England and I more to what
they thought the "free" country of George Washington. Kossuth, himself,
until his death in Turin, Italy, on March 20, 1894, always planned
to return to liberate his country so that: "In the arms of sacred peace,
the free land of Hungary will, within a few years, become a paradise."
Kossuth in USA and Canada
In the autmun of 1851, Kossuth arrived in New York with some
of his closest friends and was welcomed by the people throughout the
United States as few had been welcomed before. But the American ruling
class - of which the southern slaveholders especially hated him ­
was very active in Europe in pursuing future economic advantages and
embarrassed Kossuth to the point that when he left America in 1852, it
was under the pseudonym of "Smith".
"The Globe" of Toronto, which, like the rest of the Canadian liberal
press of that time, paid very sympathetic attention to Kossuth's visit
on this continent, in its long editorial on May 18, 1852, outspokenly denounced
U.S. officialdom, which boasted about freedom in the U.S.,
while it coolly neglected, even opposed Kossuth, the symbol of European
freedom. "Can we say", wrote the Globe, "that Liberty is to be found
in the United States while 'Columbia's sons are bought and sold', while
they are ruled over by a slave-catching President, a slave-holding

Senate, and a slave-holding Congress? ... Before you weep over the
wrongs of Hungary, and the serfs of Ireland, go wash the gore out of
your national shambles .. . Then and not until then, may you boast
of perfect freedom.
"To think that man, thou just and gentle God,
Should stand before thee with a tyrant's rod,
O'er creature, like himself, with souls from thee,
Yet dare to boast of perfect liberty!
Away! away! I'd rather hold my neck
By doubtful tenure from Satan's beck,
In climes where liberty has scarce been named
Nor any right but that of ruling claim'd,
Than thus to live where boasted freedom waves
Her fustain flag in mockery over SLAVES."
The thrice-weekly Globe on January 22, 1852, thus begins its editorial
entitled "Kossut h" : "The Buffalo Express, ' a free soil paper ...
accounts for the caution with which Kossuth has been received at Washington
by the President and by Congress . . . Slavery might be attacked!
... "
On February 26, an item of The Globe from the "London Daily
News" under the title "Political prosp-ects of Kossuth" says: "Louis
Kossuth will have received a hard and unwelcome lesson" in the U.S.A.
On May 6, in the column "News by the Niagara" we read: "Severel
young men were arrested a short time ago, at Pesth, in Hungary, for
having worn tricolour ribbons, and cried "Long live Kossuth!" - Two
toy dealers were also arrested for having exposed for sale dolls and
toys ornamented with the national colours."
On May 29, in a news item "Austria" we read: "The authorities of
Austria are harmlessly amusing themselves by 'ex ecuting the effigies of
the exiled Hungarians." It wasn't so "harmless", we can see it from a
news item dated May 20 : "Emigration in general seems to be still inreasing.
Hundreds of respectable families are leaving Hungary, Bohemia,
Moravia . . . Such emigration from Austria was never Sf/en before .
One day, (the 16th inst.), 6,000 emigrants left the single port of
Bremen . . . "
Kossuth visited Niagara Falls, Ontario, briefly in May, 1852. Before
and after this visit, perhaps a dozen of his Honveds families, in
the United States, came to Canada and traces of them may still be
found in the Niagara peninsula, near Hamilton and in British Columbia.
More research concerning these first families is needed before a history
of Hungarian-Canadians can be written. We also have to find out,
how and when the Kossuth village near Kitchener, Onto gat its name,
etc. .
56

Zii.gonyi's "Death Riding" at Springfield, Missouri, 01\ Oct. 25, 1861. KAroly
Zagonyi was an officer of the Kossuth Hussars and became the commander
of the Fremont Guards in the American Civil War. From the Kossuth-immigration
2 major-generals, 5 generals, 17 colonels, 14 majors, 15 eaptalns and
many other smaUer officers served on the side of Lincoln against slavery
with many hundreds of Hungarians in the ranks.
A Group 'of Workers
In some contrast with the mostly agricultural Hungarian immigrat
ions into Canada, the first group historically recorded 'w as of industrial
workers. H. A. Logan's "Trade Unions in Canada" (MacMillans,
Toronto, 1948) in dealing with the cigarmakers says: " A local was
established at Montreal in 1865 at the instance of Hungarian workers
who had come from the United States in search of work. It seems to
have commanded a goodly number of adherents and to have done much
'to better the numerous evils of the trade'." (Souvenir de la Fete du
Trava il, Montreal, 1906. ) Then it goes on: "A second branch of the
sam e union was founded at Toronto in 1869 and staged an unsuccessful
st rik e for an advance in wages." (Ont ar io Workman, Oct. 10, 1872. )
The "Ontario Workman" weekly, in the first days of October 1872,
published a "Note addressed to the Employers" by the Cigarmakers,
dated Toronto, Oct. 1st:
"GENTLEMEN, - In presenting this matter for your consideration
and approval, we wish it to be understood that we do so from actual
57

necessity, and not from any desire to disturb the amicable relation now
existing between us as employers and employees.
Please note the inequality that exists in the price for our labor and
the rate we have to pay for necessaries of life - provisions, fuel, house
rent, etc. - you wiII find that we can barely make both ends meet,
leaving no margin in case of sickness or any casuality.
,Y ou wiII also observe that whereas the price of the necessaries we
consume have increased in many cases twenty per cent., in our request
we ask for an increase of ten, and in some cases only-Live.
Trusting that you will give the above your earliest consideration,
and confer a favor by returning an answer by the Sth inst.,
We remain, respectfuIly, on behalf of our
Shopemates and Union,
O. REINHOLD.
H. SIMON.
P. KEARNEY.
Cigarmakers' Committee Rooms,
Trades' Assembly Hell:"
There is some support to believe that one of the undersigned,
Simon, was a Hungarian, although that family name can be found with
other nationalities too.
The reference of Professor Logan is very brief and while Canadian
sources might reveal more details, fortunately. we have managed to
obtain a few facts from Hungarian historian Dezsb Lang, who is doing
some research on Hungarian-Canadian traditions from sources available
in Hungary.
The defeat of the Hungarian Revolution and War of Independence
in 1848--49, is the background of the organizers and leaders of the
How Toronto (York) looked 100 years ago when first locomotive was built
there.
58

Montreal and Toronto locals of the Cigarmakers in the 1860-70's.
(In the Oct. 31, 1872 edition of the "Ontario Workman" (page 1 ) we
find under the heading of "Labor Notes": "The cigar makers of this
city are still out on strike, and the employers, with the exception of
Messrs. Drouillard and Schuch, who give the advance, still show opposition
to the demand of the men.") In a letter dated at Salt Lake
City in 1870, Hungarian emigre, Imre Gorzo, says that Mark Szalatnay,
a second lieutenant in 1848-49, was the secretary of the Toronto local
and in connection with a lost strike, he was sentenced to four months
imprisonment, later was deported back to the U.S.A. He died in Los
Angeles, in 1875, when as a functionary of the National Labor Union
-e-r- he was killed with others by a blast of gunfire from the police force
during a famous breadfactory strike.
Karoly Lasz16, in his diary on the Hungarian-Canadian cigarmakers
noted on Nov. 7, 1864: "Younger Ihesz writes in a lett-er, that Mariassy
(Tasszil6 Marhissy was a captain of the Hussars at the Fort of Komarom
in Hungary, a comrade in arms of Szalatnay) and his 37 men, who
were occupied as cigarmakers in Maryland, after their industry was
cut by a recession as a result of the civil war, met a travelling Canadian
cigarmanufacturer and on his offer they went across to Montreal
to settle down there. However it became 'evident that they were cheated
in regards to wages, so our outrobbed comrades - who were thrown
out on the street by that crook when they dared to protest - talked
things over with local cigarmakers to establish a trade union to defend
their rights."
From a letter of Szalatnay to Kamel Fornet, dated Nov. 30, 1868,
Toronto, we know that Szalatnay, a seventh child of a Presbyterian
t eacher , was expelled from the University of Budapest in 1836, because
he advocated revolutionary ideas on the basis "of banned works of
French and American authors". In 1838, at the time of the big flood of
t he Danube, he delivered an agitational speech at the Livestock Market
Squar e to the flood victims in Pest, charging that the officials spent
the money expropriated for dam-works on the reception of the visiting
Queen Ludovica Maria and in fact, were decorated for it. For his speech
Szalat nay spent four years in prison, where he studied French and
E nglish and wrote his only work that remained in print, entitled
" Treditiones communes Hungarorum et populorum Balcanicorum"
(Common Traditions of the Hungarians and Balkan Peoples). Later
in France and Holland he was in contact with revolutionary movements
brewing before the Revolution. Some claim that he was the author of
the pamphlet "Les [ucobins" confiscated in Paris in 1845. After studying
at the Leyden University, he received his B. A. diploma at Dodrecht
.
'W hen the War of Independence in Hungary to defend the victorious
revolution was provoked by the treacherous Habsburgs in Septem-
59

er, 1848, Szalatnay returned to Hungary via Poland and until the time
of capitulation he served with the defence forces at the Fort of Komarom
as a second lieutenant. After capitulation he went to England,
where he made connections with leeders of the Chartists, the first workingclass
political movement in England. For six years he worked as the
secretary of the Miners Union of South Wales, participated "in seven
successful and twenty-four unsuccessful strikes and in thirty-four trials
as a defendant". In 1855, he proposed to the trade union movement of
England to endorse the "Communist Manifesto" of Marx and Engels, but
he was turned down, consequently lost his secretaryship and as an "unwished
alien" was deported by authorities from England.
In the United States, after much frustration, he joined the Cigarmakers
Union of Baltimore, led by his comrade Tasszi16 Mariassy. In
1860, when in protest to a demonstration of slaveholders he tried to
organize a counter-demonstration, a southern "gentleman" fired at him
- he was wounded in the lung and a couple of his ribs were brok-en.
Szalatnay came to Canada with his comrades, although he was
unable to do any more physical work. After being deported from Canada,
the sad news that he was shot by the police of Los Angeles during
a strike in 1875, was reported in Budapest papers on the basis of a
60
Unemployed on the labor market in one of Hungary's
country towns in the 1920-80's.

Where to move now? A scene under the Horthy regime.
let t er from Kslmen Ihesz: In the periodical " N eue Zeit" of the internat
iona l worgingclass movement at that time, an article in appraisal of
hi m appeared on Oct. 7, 1889, from the pen of Mary Fergusson, a leading
American feminist fighter - this brave woman was his life-mate
fo r the 20 year s he lived in the "new world" .
Settlements in the West
In 1885, the Hungarten in Manitoba, in 1886 the Kaposvar settlement
a nd following many other settlements were established in what
became the Provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta.
. By 1911, there were, according to the census, 11,648 Hungarians in
Cana da , more than half of them in Saskatchewan, and practically all
imm igra nt s from the United States after 1885. Many more came, but
many, baffled by the hardships of western pioneering, of the severe
wint er , returned to the United States.
Latterly , there was slightly more direct migration from Hungary
and in 1921, the Canadian population of Hungarian ancestry was 13 ,181.
This migration included many more family groups than in later years
and it sought a permanent homeland, with little hope that early change
would abolish Habsburg rule, or institute revolutionary land reform, or
ex t ensive industrialization in Hungary.
The Meaning of Second Immigration
After the defeat of the 1919 Socialist revolution in Hungary, a
per iod of large direct migration to Canada began. Immediately, there
was a large, political exodus from Hungary to Vienna, Paris, Berlin
and Moscow. This was followed by a lar ger and more continuous mig-
61

ation from Hungary, Rumania, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia to almost
every west-European country and to the Americas. Of these, Canada
received the most. A set quota limited immigration into the United
States and many came to Canada hoping to enter the United States,
legally, or illegally. But from Cuba, Argentina, from almost every Latin-American
country and from most west-European countries, Hungarians
found their way to Canada.
This immigration was greatest between 1926 and 1930 when more
then 26,000 Hungarians entered Canada. The 1941 census shows 54,598
Hungarian-Canadians, but it is likely the total was some 60,000 to 65,­
000.
These immigrants were mostly single men in the 20 to 30 age group,
or married men of similar age who in most cases had left a wife and
children in Hungary. Their ambition was to save a few thousand dollars
in a few years so that they might renovate their shabby house or
barn in Hungary, or buy land and equipment, or a small business, and
hoping that by that time, the reactionary-fascist regimes in Central
and South-Eastern Europe would be overthrown.
62
Winter Wonderland in West-Canada.

A picket on the Trans-Canada railway in a strike of 125,000 railway
workers.
These immigrants for purposes of entry, officially were "farmers",
or "farm-laborers", in reality, 60 or 70 per cent of them were peasants,
but their objectives were different from those of the first wave of Hungarians.
The first group had fewer opportunities, but they grasped the
one that existed, that of free western homesteads, and become farmers.
They built many schools and churches, in their rural communities but
in very few cities did they establish their communal organizations of a
class character. Something of this sort took place at Lethbridge in 1901;
Winnipeg in 1904; Hamilton in 1907 and Brantford in 1913. Traces of
the Socialist Labor Party with which they had been associated in the
ear ly 1900's in the United States, are to be found in the Hungarian
community in and around Lestock, Sask.
But their centre of interest was agricultural and especially in Saskatchewan.
Unfortunately, two-dollar wheat during the 1914-18 war,
led many into the unwise purchase of more land and equipment which
t hey subsequently lost.
Of the second immigration, many did not even go to Western Canada,
but remained in eastern industrial centres; others returned to the
east after their first harvest experience; some went west only for the
annual harvest; others were employed on western farms for several
years, but there was a constant flow to the cities, mining towns and
lumber camps. There was much wandering in search of the original
short-time, money-saving illusion.
More Class-conscious Organizat~on
The depression of the 30's ended these dreams of a short stay in
Canada and, with the worsening of the political situation in Europe, resulted
in many wives and children joining their husbands. Even before
· 63

Seven miners died in a fil'le> of nosco mine in Glace Bay, N. S.
the economic crisis fully developed, a movement toward more c1assconscious
organization had been initiated by the later immigrants and
extended to the first immigrants, not only in the industrial cities and
towns, but in the country districts as well.
Some of the second flow of immigration had working class organizational
experience. With the leadership of these, many hundreds of
Hungarian immigrants, soon after their arrival, joined hands with their
Canadian-born brothers and other immigrants in struggles for better
wages and conditions of work and health.
These took place wherever Hungarians worked - in the coal mines
and steel mills of Cape Breton; in the factories of Montreal and Toronto
and other cities of Ontario; in the mines and lumber and pulpwood
camps of Northern Ontario; in Winnipeg, with veterans of the
1919 strike; in Flin Flon; in the Estevan-Bienfait coal mines; in Regina,
Saskatoon, Medicine Hat, Lethbridge, Edmonton; at Crew's Nest
Pass, Drumheller Valley coal mines and mills and the Taber-Lethbridge
sugar beet fields in Alberta; at the Trail, B. C., mines and mills, on the
fruit, vegetables and animal raising fields of B. C., and at the logging
camps an coal mines of Vancouver Island, in the railroad building and
building trades throughout the country.
During the later 20's, many hundreds of Hungarian immigrants
worked at the construction of the Welland Canal.
64

The older, western Hungarian wheat farmers, had scarcely recovered
from the decline in the price of wheat after World War I, when
they were caught by the debacle of North American economy in 1929,
the first economic, over-production crisis in the general crisis of the
capitalist world. It was fortunate that by this time, many Hungarian­
Canadians, through trade union and similar experience, were prepared,
in some measure for the struggles of the 30's for relief, unemployment
insurance, public works and against discriminations and evictions.
Not only this, but they had begun to develop community organizations
such as a sick benefit society, their own language weekly newspaper
and won were to organize cultural clubs for class conscious education
of workers and farmers alike.
I.M.B.F. -
KOSSUTH SOCIETY
At this time, Hungarian-Canadian mutual benefit, social or cultural
organizations were extremely limited. What little existed, was likely
to be dominated by petty-bourgeois elements, mostly associated with
local leaders of the Liberal or Conservative parties, or with the Horthyite
consulates in Montreal and Winnipeg, or Horthyite, or Habsburgist
publications in Canada, or the United States.
Canadian Seamen Union pickets and HeMP's on the banks of the WeIland
Canal during the famous strike which received world-wide support.
-65

Some of the more experienced Hungarians of the second immigration
in Ontario saw the need for a progressive organization to serve
the interests of Hungarian-Canadian working people, and to give protection
against misfortunes at a cost they could afford to pay. It was
against this background that the Canadian Hungarian Mutual Benefit
Federation was initiated and from it the present Independent Mutual
Benefit Federation with its language sections developed.
In the fall of 1927, a group of Hungarians in Hamilton organized
a sick benefit society. Hungarian reactionaries in Canada, members of
the Horthyite consulates, careerist elements and, unfortunately, some
66
Jozsef KrIU, first President of the Mutual Benefit Federation.

clergymen, opposed this project and denounced it to the federal and
provincial governments.
In January, 1928, however, it was chartered by the department of
ins urance of Ontario under t he name of Canadian Hungarian Mutual
Beneiit Federation and from the beginning issued its monthly bulletin,
"Ut tiirb", The Pioneer. joseph Krsl, a tool and die maker, was first
president and played a leading part in the inception a nd growth of the
orga niza t ion. Many branches, alt hough relatively weak, were founded
dur ing the first few years on the initiative of Miklos Pesztor, now a
Guelph shoemaker, as its western organizer and general secretary. He
was succeeded by Domonkos Ferenczi, Saskatoon, joseph Magyar, Winnipeg,
joseph Blasko, Hamilton. Many others helped.
In 1933, at the depth of the depression, a decision was made to
ex tend the society to those in other language fields and in 1934, Slovak,
Ger ma n, and later, Polish, Carpatho-Russian and English branches were
organized on a. national scale. The Hungarian section still remains the
lar gest . In keeping with this policy the name was changed to Independent
Mutual Benefit Federation. During the first ten years, membership
remained small, but it increased substantially during the succeeding
15 years. During 2S years, members have received more than $600,­
000 in aid.
The 1944 convention of the Federation amended the constituton to
per mit the language sections to select a name to identify themselves
a nd to elect national committees for cultural and social purposes. These
were named Kossuth Sick Benefit Society (H ungar ian); Slovak Benefit
Society ; and Maple Leaf Mutual Society (E nglish-spea king), with some
Germa ns and others in the branches.
Federation of Clubs
During the first years of the sick benefit organization, almost
pa rallel federation of workers' and farmers' cultural clubs had grown.
In addition to their cultural, social and educational program, they
hel ped to organize the participation of Hungarians in activities common
to Canadian working people, such as the reliei struggles, hunger
m arches and the "On-to-Ottawa Trek" during the depression in the
"Hungry Thirties". One of the greatest campaigns was that to "Save
R ek osi" in 1936 when 11,000 signatures were collected. A world protest
alone saved Matyas Rakosi from execution by the Horthy regime.
Delegations presented the petitions to the consul-general in Montreal
and the vice-consulate in Winnipeg for transmission to Budapest.
More than 400 sympathizers picketed the offices of the Horthyite journal
"K anadai Magyar UjsiJ.g" in Winnipeg until its editor promised to
wit hdraw statements he had made against the campaign. Characteristically,
he published his recantation only in the Winnipeg copies of his
pa per.
67

The federation of the clubs for cultural purposes was dissolved
after the war. By this time, the Hungarian section of the LM.B.F., the
Kossuth Society, had developed its own cultural, social and 'educational
programs. The last great affair in which the clubs participated, was
jointly with the Kossuth Society in 1948 - a great festival in Kossuth
Park, near Hamilton, to commemorate the lOOth anniversary of the
"Save R:i.kosi" pickets, above, at
the front of the! Hungarian Vice­
Consulate in \Vinnipeg, while 400
others demonstrate against the
Horthyite "Kanadai Magyar Ujsag"
(top left) in 1936.
To the left we see unemployed
workers on top of a freight train,
a mush used way to get around
the country in the 1930's.
68

1848-49 War of Independence of the Hungarian people. Half a year
of preparation resulted in 300 Hungarian-Canadian yout h playing leading
roles.
Scenes of the 1848-1948 Festival at the Kossuth Park near Hamilton, Onto
For the night performance of the operette "Janos the Hero" the bushy hillside
was cleared out and transformed to be an amphitheatrum for the
audience.
69

Literature Association
After the dissolution of the clubs, the Hungarian Literature Association
was established to distribute progressive literature and to publish
annually the Hungarian-Canadian Year Book. Its local committees
work jointly with the committees of the progressive Hungarian-Canadian
paper, "Munkas".
The last general secretary of the clubs, ]6zsef Balogh, in 1947, was
selected to be the general secretary of the World Federation of Hungarians
in Budapest, a few years later he went to work to the ministry
of agriculture in Hungary. The management of the Hungarian Literature
Association in Toronto, from Adam Magyar, this year was taken
over by Istvan Markos. The activity of the Association had lately well
advanced the distributing of historical and other novels by Hungarian
and other classical and contemporary writers, especially of Gerdonyi,
MikszfJ.th, ]6kai, Moricz, PM Szabo, Peter Veres, etc. Beside marxist
literature and fiction, the distribution of the fine picturial magazine
"Hungary" and musical records from Hungary is advancing too.
A Book Fair of the Literature Association in 1953.
Kossuth Society in the Front
Before the dissolving of the clubs, but more especially after, the
Kossuth Society stepped up its cultural activities so that it has made
and is making a marked contribution to the welfare of its members and
their families, as well as 'enriching the general culture of the Canadian
70

The Toronto Ady Youth Club performed a great job in 1947, when during
four rainy week-ends with picks and shovels they cut across a loop of Duffin
Creek running through the Ady camp of the Toronto Kossuth branch near
Pickering. This new deep bed of the creek was christened "Ady Canal" at a
festival held on June 22, 1947.
people.
The Kossuth Society and the Slovak Society are the larger sections
of the I.M.B.F., and through their branches, they have set up language
and musical schools for their children. Choirs, dance and gymnastic
groups, and concerts and plays are a part of the very life of their members.
In addition to the original sick beneiits and group life insurance,
the LM.B.F. latterly had added medical and hospitalization facilities to
its program. Lectures are being given and publications issued on health
and education. It has helped the Kossuth and Slovak Societies to build
three summer camps where, not only adults and youth, but all children
are welcome to spend healthy, country holidays with the best of supervision.
The I.M.B.F. now has 74 branches in Canada and of these the
Kossuth Society has 34, namely at the following places: Toronto, Hamilton,
St. Catharines, Niagara Falls, WeIland, Port Colborne, Brantford,
Tillsonburg, Mount Brydges, Chatham, Kingsville, Leamington,
Harrow, Windsor, Oshawa, Galt, Sudbury, Fort William in Ontario;
New Waterford, Nova Scotia; Montreal, Que.; Winnipeg, Man.; Regina,
Sask. ; Taber, Lethbridge, Shaughnessy, Picture Butte, Calgary, New-
71

Finishing touches were applied on cabins at Lake Erie Children Camp of the
Kossuth Society before opening in 1952.
castle, East Coulee, Rosedale, Nacmine, Midlandvale, Hillcrest, Alta.;
and Osoyoos, B.C.
The I.M.B.F. has attained some financial strength with a membership
of 5,500 and assets in securities and real estate of a million dolIars.
Youth in Hungary and Here
A score of youth members of the Kossuth Society went to Hungary

The Kossuth branch of the IMBF took first prize with this float at the annual
Cherry Festival in Osoyoos, B. C., in recent years.
in 1948, after the great Centennial Festival, to continue their studies.
Under People's Democracy, they have all the free opportunities and
most of them are now finishing or already have finished their university
or art courses. There is a job for everyone. Many of them already
made a career and some of them have been highly decorated. Zolten
Mrazik from Montreal, for example, is now a decorated chief engineer
at the head of the tractor stations in Bacs county. Irma Rosso, who for
some time was on the staff of the "Munkas", Hungarian-Canadian
progressive weekly, before she repatriated, is still studying to be an
opera singer, but already appears on stage and we can enjoy her fine
voice on the short wave broadcasts of Radio Budapest.
With Canadian delegations to World Youth Festivals, the Kossuth
regular ly sends a youth delegate of its own. Some of the Kossuth Youth
have participated this year in the program of the Ontario Youth Festival
for a Greater Canada. Beside participation in organized forms at occasional
exchange affairs, individual members of the Kossuth Youth are
taking part in many other progressive movements, events and affairs.
In the summer of 1953, I.M.B.F. celebrated its 25th anniversary
with a festival at the Slovak Camp at Sts-eetsville, Onto The progressive
progra m was enriched by the participation of the Ukrainian and Jewish
frat er nal organizations in a collective production, just preceding'
Canada Day, of one of the most remarkable all-Canadian pageants. The
yout h played the major role in it.
73

The Canadiall delegation at the World Youth Festival in Budapest. 1949. In
the parade some Hungarian-Canadians, who went to Hungary to study, joined
the Canadian delegation or acted as interpreters at conferences,
There is a developing ambition among the younger members of
these organizations to establish parallel English-speaking branches beside
the older branches. This is especially true in the Kossuth and
The Kossuth dancers of Toronto performed the "Verbunkos", a recruiting
dance from the time of RAk6czi's War of Independence, at the Ontario
Youth Festival for a Greater Canada, June, 1954.
74

Toront o's Slovak dance group on the program of the 25th Jubilee Festival of
the IMBF, at the Slovak camp near StreetsvIlle, Ont., 1953.
Slova k Societies in southern Ontario. This can rejuvenate the whole
I.M.B. F., particularly the Hungarian and Slovak groups, lead to their
greater integration in Canadian life and make a greater contribution,
more directly to its progressive trend.
That this growing trend of Canadianization is in no contradiction
what ever with increased cultivation of progressive Hungarian traditions
and use of progressive cultural materials from the People's Republic of
Hungary or from other countries, is being recognized more and more.
The new 16 mm films from Hungary, distributed by Hungarian Film
Distributors, like "Mrs. Dery", "Erkel", or even such a film as the
"Soil Under Your Sole" and "Liberated Land" are bringing the youth
to a better understanding of the freedom struggles, traditions and culture
of the Hungarian people and of the meaning of Liberation in their
struggle for a better life, and through this they are helping to create a
better understanding between the younger and older generation and of
the Canadian problems of today. The national costumes sent by the
Inst it ute for Cultural Relations of Hungary as a present to the Kossuth
Society, were used by the Kossuth youth dancers of Toronto to per-
75

form the "Verbunkos", a recruiting dance of the Rakoczi period, to
wide audiences, thus helping to arouse Canadian national consciousness
for the very urgent fight for Canadian independence and peace.
Such things, at the same time, help to further integrate the older generation
into Canadian life and struggles for a better future for Canada
and for mankind as a whole.
John W. Hill, a machinist in Toronto, and active trade unionist, is
now national president of the I.M.B.F. The national secretary-treasurer
since the middle 1930's is Joseph Miller who is also secretary general
of the Kossuth Society and its representative on the National Council of
the Canadian Peace Congress. The National Committee of the Kossuth
Society was enlarged by adding two youth members in the fall of 1953,
and a Youth Council of 15 members was established.
76
The world-wide famous Hungarian soccer champion, Ferenc Puskas,
among enthusiastic youngsters.

"KANADAI MAGYAR MUNKAS"
(Canadian Hungar-ian Worker)
Even before the progressive Hungarian-Canadian organization was
esta blished, the necessity for a progressive Hungarian newspaper was
fe lt , at least by the more experienced, class-conscious immigrants in
Ontario. At first, the progressive Hungarian-American newspaper, "Uj
Elbre" (New Forward) served the need, but this need was only emphasized
when the Canadian government banned "Uj ElOre" and, at the
same time prompted the establishment of a Hungarian-Canadian leftwing
newspaper.
A drawing by Avrom, leading Canadian working class cartoonist, on the role
of the 25-years-old K. M. Munkas.
77

The "Verbunkos" by the Toronto Kossuth dancers at the 25th Jubilee Festival
of the K. M. Munkas, July, 19M.
The "Kanadai Magyar Munkas" (Ca nadia n Hungarian Worker)
was first published on July 16, 1929, at Hamilton, with some help from
American friends, and later transferred to Toronto. The "Munkas"
started out under the editorship of [ozsei Dohany and under the
management of Ferenc Kristoff, with the help of others like Istvan
Botos, Ferenc Bezso, Samuel Balogh, Bela Janosik, Gyorgy Princz and
others, later Gyula Nyerki and many others.
Only great sacrifice and devotion on the part of its supporters
carried this newspaper forward against the machinations of Hungarian
reactionary cliques; in spite of lack of experienced staff and with few
readers, many of whom were penniless during the depression. Only
relief pennies and contributions from meagre earnings kept it alive.
Many hundreds of Hungarians were losing their farms and their homes
while at the same time, many thousands of miles of roads in Canada,
railroads, bridges, factories, mines, logging camps, hundreds of cleared
and cultivated homesteads, the Welland Canal, the Royal York Hotel in
Toronto, gave evidence of their contribution to the Canadian scene.
Even on relief they helped to create the beautiful Rock Gerden at the
north-west entrance to Hamilton and the Craw's Nest Pass highway
on Iron Heel Bennett's 20 cents-a-day plan.
Under these most difficult conditions, the "Munkas" became a
78

Together with others in the struggles for jobs, wages, democratic rights and
collective agreements.
success because of its policies. It warned and defended Hungarian-Canadians
against unscrupulous exploitation and against reactionary
blandishments and intimidation. It burst the bubble of the theory that
to escape discrimination and even deportation, to have steady work, the
wor ker must isolate himself from any progressive organization or
action; must vote only for conventional parties; must be a sycophantic
flatterer of bosses and a servile truckler to any authority.
The "Munkas" demonstrated that to better their lot, Hungarian­
Canadians must organize, join trade unions and join in any and every
place with the progressive efforts of all Canadians, because their special
in terests cannot be separated from the common interests of the Canadian
working people as a whole.
As in Canada, the brotherhood of all ethnic groups is necessary to
their common interests, so in the international field, the brotherhood
of Canadian, Soviet, Hungarian and all peoples is required for their
Together with others in the breadline of the unemployed.
79

general advantage - for peace, instead of war planned against the
Soviet Union and now also the People's Democracies; for democracy,
instead of the fascism developed in some and advocated in every capitalist
country; for social progress, stopped in many. and hindered in every
capitalist country.
The "Munkas" became the educator, organizer, and political leader
of the Hungarian-Canadians in the hungry thirties; to its call close to
100 Hungarian-Canadians went with
other ' hundreds of Canadians in international
aid to democratic Spain against
domestic and foreign fascist aggression
and western imperialist non-intervention,
and for "the cause of humanity"
many Hungarian-Canadians give their
lives there. (J6zsef Csernyi, Regina;
Sandor Csizmer, East Coulee; Csodur
Mihiily, Port Colborne; Janos Ferencz,
Taber; Imre Filkohezi, Drumheller;
Andras Gilisn, Driftwood; Gabor [onei,
Hamilton; jiinos K6re, Toronto; Mihiily
Michna, Montreal; Adam Pretz, Delhi;
Janos Regvecs, Toronto, Imre Recz,
Delhi, and others.) The "Munkas" at
the time of Munich, took up the slogan
of the patriotic underground in Hungary,
that, "To defend Prague means to
defend Budepest, too", when the Horthy
regime, in accord with Hitler and Mussolini,
helped to make Czechoslovakia
capitulate without fighting.
All western, including Canadian imperialist
intrigues to turn the Hitlerite
80
Gabor Jenel, member of the Hamilton
Kossuth branch of the
IMBF, died on the battle field 10
Spain in 1987.
war - even with "poor little Finnish
democracy" of Mannerheim - against the Soviet Union, were revealed
in the "Munkas", It sympathized with the betrayed and trumpled upon
peoples of Europe, Ethipia and China. It hailed the defenders of Warsaw
and the resistance fighters throughout Europe. The world anti­
Hitlerite alliance created by the "unexpected" power of the Soviet
Union, was saluted by the "Munkas".
It stimulated the war effort abroad and in Canada; asked for a
European Second Front by the West; helped to develop outside Hungary
the Hungarian movement "For a free and independent Hungary", and
kindled the Hungarian-Canadian relief movement to Hungary after
the liberation of Hungary by the Soviet Army. Istvan Szoke, present
editor-chairman of the "Munkas" staff since 1937, was the co-leader

The statue of Sandor Petofi, leader of Revolution ill 1848, "greets" from
Pest side of Danube the Liberation monument of 1945, erected on top of Gellert
Mountain on Buda side of Danube. ' .
81

with Rev. Dr. Ambro Czako (Hungarian United Church in Toronto) ot
the "For a free and independent Hungary" movement in Canada before
the Liberation; he was co-chairman with Rev. Karoly Steinmetz (First
Hungarian Presbyterian Church of Toronto) of the aid-movement after
Liberation. Until 1947, in this aid movement, every cultural, benefit,
social and church organization of Hungarian-Canadians participated
with a comradeship and unity never before achieved.
The present manager of the "Munkas" is Sandor Medgyesi, fulfilling
that job since 1937. Andras Durovecz, an editor since 1946, just
headed a visiting group to Hungary.
One of the editors of the "Munkas" in the later 30's and early 40's,
Julius Nyerki now is with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hungary.
While employed in Hamilton, during the first, "phony" part of the war,
Nyerki was interned with other left-wing leaders. During internment,
a foot infection, aggravated by the cold, resulted in his release and his
foot was amputated. Several democratic people from among Hungarian
sailors who escaped to Canada from Horthyite death ships, also were
political internees for some time. Another former editor of the "Munkas"
in the middle 30's, Adam Roy Schaeffer, - after military service
during the war - became a leader of the United Electrical, Radio and
Machine Workers' Union in Welland and the Niagara Peninsula, but a
serious accident in the Page-Hersey pipe mills last fall knocked him out
of regular activity for the time being.
Sandor Vass of Toronto, for many
years linotypist of the "Munkas"
and a leader of the youth, was killed
as German prisoner of war in Austria,
after he was parachuted into Hungary
for special service during World
War II. Istvan Mate of Fort William was
crushed to death while being trained for
special service in England. Andras Durovecz,
one of the present editors of the
"Munkas" and former organizer in Saskatchewan;
Mihaly Turk, former leader
of the clubs and now a leader of state
farm in Hungary; Istvan Markos, a former
member of the editorial staff of the
"Munkas" and now the manager of the
Literature Association; and some others
- all were sent into Hungary on special
service against hitlerism during the war.
Ferenc Spirnyek. and [ozse! Blasko, [r.,
both of Toronto, and some other Hungarian-Canadian
youth were killed in the
war against fascism.
sandor Vass
82

Zsuzsa Kossuth was
worthy of her brother,
Lajos Kossuth, leader of
the VVar of Independence
1848-49. She was the organizer
of military hospitals
and director of
health. After capitulation
she was arrested twice
and finally evicted from
Hungary. She died in New
York on June 29, 1954 . .
Woman's Magazine, "A NO"
While the "Children's Corner" and "Youth Corner" of the "Munkas"
in last couple of years have grown to a full Youth Page; and
while the "Uttbrb", official publication of the Kossuth Society, IMBF,
appea rs periodically as an insert in the "Munkas", it was increasingly
felt, that a separate woman's publication was needed to satisfy the
special interests in this field. Therefore, since 1940, "A No" a. monthly
woman's magazine is being published in association with the "Munkas",
In this situation, while there is much need to improvement in regard
to all progressive Hungarian-Canadian publications, at the same
time they offer wide possibilities to widen and strengthen the service in
the best interests of the Hungarian-Canadians and in the cause of Canada
and its people as a whole:
Over a Dozen Skeletons
The quarter century history of the "Munkas", the anniversary of
the founding which was celebrated this year, is strewn with the skeleton
s of more than a dozen reactionary-fascist Hungarian-Canadian
83

newspapers and periodicals which have disappeared.
The "Kanadai Magyar Neplap", and the "Kanadai Magyarsag" in
the West were united by the Horthyite "Defence Office of Hungarian
Emigrants" in 1924 at Winnipeg to create the "Kanadai Magyar Ujsag"
which was directed largely at western farmers, business people
and unorganized workers. Soon, it had to be bought and subsidized by
the Horthyite government.
Since 1931, its editor has been Gusztiiv Nemes, a, former Horthyite
guards officer of the murderous 1919-20 counterrevolution, who until
1939 was paid by the Horthyite vice-consulate in Winnipeg. Since then,
the method of subsidization is not clear.
The "Kanadai Magyar Hirlap" was founded in WeIland, but moved
to Toronto where it ceased publication in 1929. Its demise was reported
in the first issue of the "Munkas",
Other papers that have ceased publication are: "Kanadai Magyar
Nepszeve" in 1930 in Hamilton; "Hirad6" in 1937 in Toronto; "Magyarsag"
in Hamilton and later Toronto; "Kis U jsag" in WeIland; "Kanadai
Dohenyvidek" in Delhi in 1939-40; the "Egyetertes' in Montreal;
"Otthon" in Saskatoon; "Vilegosseg" in Toronto; "Figyelii" in Hamilton
and "T'erogeto" in Toronto.
»Grat ulAlu nk. gratllh\lunk 10" gratlll:.\lunk epl­
UUnknck, tArnogatolnknak! - ~,. hood foJtogassa
l\ tehetetlen dUh. cg)'e a proofs"! a .Iupunk
h a derek kanadal mag)'arsdg He-lulu)' hlt\,{u"v
el1erllwg~t. az Idegen esoldban h1\zudozo. rugal·
maz.6 h »ljes z lgeUic keneeeleket, babanyeczeket,
nemeseket, "ag)' akAr a nadAu)'l-palikat Is! ••. .,
84
A cartoon by Avrom on the success of the Munklis 25th Jubilee
campaign.

In addition to some stillborn efforts, lately the disappearance from
pu blicat ion have included the Toronto "Sporthirlap" and the Montreal
"Eszak i Fetty", both edited by former DP's.
Two reactionary dailies, a few weeklies and some periodicals now
come from the United States, while in Canada, retrogressive and outright
fascist war propaganda is conducted by the old Winnipeg "Ujsag"
and the newer "Kanadai Magyarsag" weekly in Toronto and "U] Magyar
Hirlap" weekly in Montreal, both edited by former DP's.
The Entry pf the Third Immigration
With the end of the war in 1945, with the development of the cold
w ar and with its application to Hungary, with the influx of thousands
of former DP's, and deserters from people's Hungary, the problems of
the Hungarian-Canadians and especially of those who are progressive,
became more acute. At the same time, the Canadian government began
its collaboration with United States imperialism and permitted United
States interference and even occupation and sale of Canadian natural
re sources, so that the wartime and postwar prosperity for a time being
created some false illusions even within the progressive movement.
The cold war and differences about bringing Hungarian DP's from
wes t er n Europe, dissolved the unity among Hungarian-Canadians that
ex isted during the "aid-movement" to Hungary. The plans concerning
repatriation to Hungary that ran high in Canada, immediately
after the liberation of Hungary by the Soviet Army, were discouraged
by at least three factors: the tensions of the international situation,
creat ed by the United States and other western imperialists, ended the
opport unit ies for any mass migration; economic dificulties in war-ruined
Hunga ry and the sharpening class struggle for socialist transformation,
induced a wait-and-see attitude in many Hungarian-Canadians; and
many of the second generation, often married to non-Hungarians and
the third generation were unwilling to leave Canada for what they
considered an uncertain future. The older generation realized that the
problems were more complicated than they had thought.
These are some of the reasons why only about a thousand Hunga
r ian-Ca nadians have returned to Hungary since the war and istead
of the many thousands who spoke of going, only a few have returned
to Czechoslovakia, Rumania, and before the Tito debacle to Yugoslavia.
The immigration of former DP's and deserters from Hungary added
new problems in Canada. Many were merely seeking economic fantasies
they had been promised before their arrival, but others were acting
under the instructions of terrorist-fascist commanders who came with
them from Hitlerized Hungary, and DP camps, or later deserted from
liberat ed Hungary. This latter group of former DP's, still organized in
milit ar y discipline under their old, or new commanders, infiltrated the
ch urch and social organizations under petty-bourgeois leadership,
,85

Over 8,000 Munkli.s supporters were listening to the greetings by Dr. Emil
W,eil, minister of the Hungarian Legation in Washington, at the annual
MunkAs picnic in the Kossuth Park, Hamilton, on June 15, 1952.
throughout Canada. Their successes in this infiltration made their leaders
over-confident, so that they dared to begin attacks on the progressive
movement in Canada.
Against Our Traditions
The A.B.N. (Ant i-Bolshevist Bloc of Nations) made its debut in
New York on May 4, 1952. It was supported by the infamous Senator
McCarthy and like persons and President Eisenhower's Connecticut
booster, ex-Governor John Davis Lodge, sent a message of encouragement
to their anti-democratic efforts. In Canada, it has the support of
many Liberal and Conservative leaders, and "inspired" by the A.B.N.,
international bandits of Hungarian origin organized special attacks
against the Hungarian-Canadian progressive movement, its meetings
and individuals.
On October 1, 1950, arsonists broke into the Hungarian Home of
the Brantford branch of the I.M.B.F. and attempted to set fire to the
building in seven places. A sprinkler system alone saved the building.
Reports to the city and provincial police brought no results in any
arrests. This happened 10 months after the formation of the "Canadian­
Hungarian Anti-Bolshevist League", which has its headquarters in
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Brantford.
On Saturday, June 14th, 1952, on the weekly program of the
" Le a gue" over radio station, CKPC, Brantford, comment ator Frank
Ba banyecz of Delhi, Ont., called for an attack on Dr. Emil Weil, at that
ti me minister of the Hungarian legation in Washington who was to
spea k next day at the annual picnic of the " Munkas" in Kossuth Park
near Hamilton. Babanyecz openly asked former DP's to attend the picnic
and call Dr. Wei! to account for Cardinal Mindszenty and other
"victimr.." .
That same night, two members of the picnic committee, acting as
watchmen at Kossuth Park, were beaten and left bleeding by six hoodlum
s. Next day, when Dr. Wei! spoke, some 75 former DP's ar r ived in
a specia l bus and cars, began to demonstrate, but the 3,000 disciplined
suppor ter s of the "Munkas" made their plans abortive.
Less than a month later, just before midnight, the buildings at
Ko ssuth Park, a large pavilion for dancing and a kitchen, were completely
destroyed by iii-e. No arrest s have been made by the local or
provinc ial police.
After the kitchen and large dance pavilon was burnt down in
Kossuth Park, Hamilton.
Counter-Action Developed
However, these excesses, changed the attitude of Hungarian-Canadians
generally toward the former DP's and their Hitlerite-Horthyite
87

leaders. During the 30 years that Hungarians have lived together in
the larger cities in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada, despite differences
concerning religious and political trends, never has there been an act ot
violence. Discussions and friendship alone resolved discords. The Hungarian-Canadian
communities were astounded by the facts of these new
bandits who caused the first difficulties in the church and social organizations
into which they had infiltrated with some help from within.
Members and popular leaders resented the frequent arrogance of the
intruders who often challanged long-time leadership.
But the Hitlerite-Horthyite, McCarthy-inspired leaders, the "commanders"
among the former DP's went further, to establish a so-called
"Canadian Hungarian National Federation", later changed to "Canadian
Hungarian Federation". This was done with the aid of some of the
older reactionary leaders in the Hungarian organizations who, during
some 30 years, had made many unsuccessful attempts at creating a
national top organ of Hungarian reaction for their own selfish purposes.
From the very beginning, much of the membership of the church
and social organizations, even though some leaders joined, avoided the
Federation. After the terrorist actions of the newly-arrived, fascistminded
immigrants, the Federation disintegrated, and in many places,
the former DP's, were relieved of office in other organizations.
Now, the impact of conditions in Canada has changed the thinking
of many of the recent immigrants and they are making honest efforts
to integrate themselves into Canadian life, often in the cultural field.
This effort, however, is not always made by the worthier immigrants,
nor by those with the best intentions toward Canadian democracy.
This later trend is examplified by the "Hungarian Helikon" of Toronto
constituted by a group of would-he-intellectual newcomers. This
"Helikon" already twice invited Tibor Eckhardt from the U.S. to lecture
on democracy. This notorious "democrat" is a member of the selected
"National Commission" supported as a government-in-exile by the State
Department. Eckhardt's career started with the blody counterrevolution
of Horthy in 1919, he served in many crimes of that regime, he helped
to reactionize the leadership of the Small-Holders Party and as its
leader supported the introduction of the Hitlerite anti-Semitic laws in
Hungary. In 1940, he was sent to the U.S., as Rudolph Hess was to
England, to help to make Hitler's dream come true in trying to turn
the Western powers to attack the Soviet Union. Such stooges are sponsored
by the so-called Helikon.
In addition to the "Canadian-Hungarian Anti-Bolshevist League",
some others are organized, like the "Canadian Group" of the "Hungarian
Veterans' Association" with headquarters in Munich, Germany.
Their "arch-groupleader" in Canada until lately was General Eugene
Tiimiiry, Toronto, . a former member of the Hungarian Hitlerite army.
On November 28, 1951, in his first public recruiting speech, he. said that
88

A drawing by Avrom (Tin6di his penname in the Munkas), leading
Canadian working class cartoonist, on the role of Tibor Eckhardt.
"three Hungarian divisions" are being organized in Canada. Their
paper, "Kanadai Magy"arsag", (Canadia n-Hungarian) under the editorship
of LaszlO Kenesei, Toronto, a former Hitlerite officer, on June 28,
1952, quoted Dobroslav ]avdjevic's speech at Niagara Falls, in which
this fascist lieutenant of the executed General Mihajlovich, boasted that
he " had kiIIed 30,000 Red partisans." To this, Kenesei commented:
"From the bottom of our hearts we congratulate you, Mr. ]evdjevic and
wish that God may bless your good habits here on the soil of Canada.
Som e day it may be needed."
The leader of the "Hungarian Veterans' Association" in Germany
is Ma jor-General Zak6, a war criminal sought by the government of
the Hungarian People's Republic; formerly he was head of Department
II of the general staff of the Szalasi fascist Arrow-Cross army and his
staff ca pt ain was MiklOs Korponay. This Korponay who now lives in
Toronto, is secretary of the "Hungarian Aid Committee" formed in Toronto
in 1952.
There are many Hungarian newcomers who seek integration into
Canadian life to the advantage of Canada as well as themselves, but
there a re also mercenaries whose motives in any Canadian association
are inimical to the interest of Canada.
The majority of the newcomers, however, are former workers and
after their first years in Canada the trend to associate themselves and
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their interests with the Canadian working people is growing
stronger. Many of them - realizing more and more, that they have
been forced from trap to trap by their fascist leaders - as have many
of the older generations of the earlier immigration, would like to repatriate
to Hungary; the understanding is growing among them, that
the possibility to freely choose their permanent home and be able to
find satisfaction depends on the creation of a peaceful and prosperous
world.
Caught in the blind man's buff of war
They died and they didn't know what for
For God and country the gangsters swore
None of my brothers are blindfolded now
All my brothers are beautiful.
FOR PEACE, INDEPENDENCE
The effects of the cold war, including in Canada, the effects of recently
imported reaction, are becoming weaker in the test of life. The
exposing and enlightening teaching of the progressive movement, as in
the "Munkas" and the first shocks of a developing economic crisis, are
destroying the "North American prosperity forever" illusion.
The Hungarian-Canadians, again, are beginning to find their common
interest among themselves, as well as among the Canadian people
as a whole - and with all the peoples of the world.
Together with all Canadians, the Hungarian-Canadians, of all three
immigrations, largely are beginning to realize that their first and most
important duty is toward themselves and everything and everybody
they love in Canada, now.
For the good life, they see that they must help to ease international
tensions, insure peace, regain Canadian independence, restore the United
Nations Organization to its original mission of peace and negotiated
democratic communication within the world community; to abandon
NATO, SEATO and the like. To achieve this, the Hungarian-Canadians
must all unite with Canadian peace forces in the greatest united front
in history - the world peace movement.
The Hungarian-Canadians, all of them, as an integral part of the
Canadian people, have been depressed by the threat of war, they detest
the threat of economic crisis. But by averting war, the possibility of'
restoring a world market is offered Canadians; fighting for peace make
possible immense markets now oiieted for Canadian farm and industrial
products; and makes possible new employment. This rich prospect can
90

Part of the large delegation of the Kossuth Society that attended Canadian
Peace Congress held in Toronto in 1950.
91

e widened by de/ending and enlarging democracy in Canada so that its
profuse resources may further be developed and so that its trade with
all the countries of the world may be increased to make Canada ever
greater and its people happier.
This means that Hungarian-Canadians while furthering peace and
democracy at home and abroad, must associate themselves with all
Canadian patriots to honour Canadian sovereignty and secure the supremacy
0/ its parliament.
Before the Hungarian-Canadians are some basic and specific tasks:
to work for a united and independent trade union movement in
Canada; to work for strong and democratic farm organizations; to
92
Ford workers in Windsor voted 96.6 percent for strike action
in balloting shown above and walked out Oct. 10, 1954. "We
licked them in 1945, and we're going to do it in 1954", said
they.

support all progressive measures at the municipal, provincial and federal
levels; to strengthen their own progressive mass organizations, the
Kossuth Society, the LM.B.F.; to develop the planned English-speaking
branches parallel to the older ones; to correctly direct the progressive
cultural activities to stimulate the joy in life and progress of all Hungarian-Canadians;
to integrate further through exchanges and joint
programs, the progressive Hungarian cultural contributions with the
democratic stream of Canadian national culture, etc.
To these aims, together with political leadership, we dedicate the
25 year old K. M. Munkas.
The 70-year history of Hungarian-Canadians should be an InSpiration
to achieve these objectives. .
The evil plans of Count Esterhazy and his sponsors did not prevail.
They were defeated by the common traditions and interests of the
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Hungarian immigrants and the Canadian people. People of Hungari
ancestry have helped to create and build Canada; they have foug
many battles for democracy and progress, for the friendship of
two Canadian nations and the many national groups in Canada; the
have fought and given their lives for the brotherhood of the peoples 8Jl'l
nations of the world.
Hungarian-Canadians will continue in their progressive role on t
basis of Canadian democracy and independence, on the basic princi
94

peeceiul co-existence of different social systems.
On a world scale, after the defeat of U.S. aggression in Korea, the
eneva agreement established peace in Indo-China and opened the way
~o consolidate Asian peace by giving China its rightful place in the
UNO; the resounding defeat of the EDC by the national assembly of
France has opened the way to establish European collective security,
t o bring about democratic German unity and give Hungary and other
"'Count ries their rightful place in the UNO so that it will be able to ful­
:l!ill its original role for peace and international co-operation.
In Canada, the working class, over a million of it in trade unions, is
moving into the leadership of the country; a "rebellion rides the ocean"
- a rising Canadian patriotism against U.S. imp-erialist enroachments
and their apologists. The fight against developing economic crisis is
fusing with the fight for peace, Canadian independence, democracy and
national culture. A national democratic front of all patriots is
steadily developing around the demand of an exclusively Canadian St.
Lawrence Seaway; an all-inclusive upsurge of Canadian national feelings
aroused high and wide by the marvelous achievement of Marilyn
BeIl in her 40-miles swimi across Lake Ontario, against the anti-Canadian,
pro-Yankee blockade of the CNE commission, is showing the
boundless possibilities that the Canadian people can and mill achieve
for the good of Canada and her people and in co-operation with all
peace-loving peoples - including the people of the U.S., and the peoples
of all the Americas - for all the peoples of the world.
With determined will to contribute our full share to this historic
struggle for peace, for an independent, bountiful and free Canada and
for a free morld, we Hungarian-Canadians meaningfully and resolutely
join with all Canadian patriots in singing:
o Canada! Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts, we see thee rise,
The true North strong and free;
And stand on guard, 0 Canada,
We stand on guard for thee.
o Canada! Glorious and free!
o Canada, we stand on guard for thee,
o Canada! We stand on guard for thee.
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