The Canadian-American Review of Hungarian Studies - Vol. 4 ... - EPA

garian is generally known by the educated public in Canada and abroad.What is much less known is the fact that his activities in connection withthings Hungarian transcended the realm of poetry and literature andhad political as well as social significance. His non-literary contributionto the Magyar cause has not been the highly visible variety. WhereasSeton-Watson's and Steed's pro-Czech efforts helped in the creation ofCzechoslovakia, no such cataclysmic events resulted from Kirkconnell'swork on behalf of Hungarians. But this should not detract from thesignificance of his work. Since his accomplishments cannot be appreciatedwithout an understanding of the general Canadian context and thedevelopment of the Hungarian community in Canada, it is to thesethemes we must turn.A YoungNationThe Canada of Kirkconnell's early years was a young, developingnation, characterized above all by a growing spirit of nationalism.Although Canada was bi-national, French and English having coexistedhere for many generations, Canadian nationalism was not onethat transcended ethnic and cultural differences. In fact, it may be saidthat two distinct nationalisms existed in Canada at the time, one amongEnglish-speaking Canadians, and a different one among French-speakingCanadians. This left no room for Canadians whose background wasneither English nor French. One prominent English-Canadian, PrincipalGeorge M. Grant of Queen's University, remarked at the time that"in order to be Canadian an inhabitant of the country had to be'British';" 1 while the chief spokesman for French Canada at the time,Henri Bourassa, complained that it was never the intention of thefounders of Canadian Confederation to turn this "partly French andpartly English country" into a land of refuge for the "scum of allnations." 2 The "British" nationalism of English-speaking Canadians,the "bicultural" national vision of Bourassa and his followers, and theQuebec-centered parochialism of other French-Canadians left littleroom for the masses of immigrants that were arriving to Canada fromcentral and eastern Europe.But the immigrants kept coming. Over-population, economic problems,and social pressures forced them to leave their native lands andseek new opportunities in what was the last great frontier of agriculturalsettlement in the New World: the Canadian prairies. Foresighted statesmenin Ottawa, such as Clifford Sifton, Minister of the Interior from1896 to 1905, welcomed east and central European agriculturalists as