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

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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
the best possible settlers who would in time create prosperous farms outof the prairie wilderness.The appearance in the Canadian West of large groups of strangelydressed people with stranger names, speaking unintelligible languagesand following alien traditions, alarmed many English Canadians, justas their influx alarmed Bourassa. Was Western Canada destined to bedominated by people incapable of adjusting to Canadian traditions anddeveloping loyalty to Canadian institutions and government? Suchfears, expressions of nativistic antagonisms towards the immigrants,were rampant in the Canadian West. The First World War, a conflictwhich raised human emotions to unprecedented heights, served toreinforce these hatreds, especially toward immigrants who came fromthe lands of the Central Powers. During the war, these newcomers weredesignated as "enemy aliens". Because Austria-Hungary was one of theprincipal Central Powers, Hungarian-Canadians fell into this category.The hatreds caused by the war were still not forgotten when Canadaplunged into one of the worst crises of its domestic history, the GreatDepression. Starting in 1929, the crash caused unparalleled hardshipsfor most Canadians. During the worst years of the economic crisis oneout of every four adults was unemployed. Thousands of worried menwended their way through the country, going from factory to factory,mine to mine, seeking non-existent jobs. Prairie farmers were also badlyhurt. The price of farm products hit all time lows. In 1932, wheat soldfor only 32 cents a bushel, its lowest price in centuries. 3 The drop in farmincome was aggravated by a series of natural disasters. For many years,severe drought plagued the southern portions of Alberta and Saskatchewan,causing not only near-total crop failures, but also and moreimportantly, soil erosion. The drought, the soil erosion and othernatural calamities such as grasshoppers caused nine successive years ofalmost total crop failures in some areas of the prairies. 4 The chronic andnation-wide unemployment, the collapse of the West's farm economy,resulted in a bitter competition for jobs and all means of income, astruggle in which newcomers often ended up as losers.The Depression was hardly over when the Second World War began.The emotional strain of the conflict rekindled some of the prejudicesbuilt up during the First World War. Hungary again found herself in thecamp at war with Canada. Nevertheless, during this war the lot ofHungarian-Canadians was better than it had been during 1914 18. TheSecond World War was followed by the Cold War. Fortunately, thedomestic situation, while not free from economic recessions accompaniedby unemployment, brought much greater economic security for
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Page 11 and 12: than a decade later they were follo
Page 13 and 14: Sociologists have yet to explain sa
Page 15: fifteen minutes, and spent the rest
Page 18 and 19: from the "Canadian poetry" of Icela
Page 20 and 21: garian community of Western Canada,
Page 22 and 23: lowed translations from other, more
Page 24 and 25: which took place in the pages of th
Page 27 and 28: from teaching in 1968, Kirkconnell
Page 29 and 30: Magyar poets and writers to the rea
Page 31 and 32: tive of his helpful attitude and un
Page 33: 33. Kirkconnell, A Slice of Canada,
Page 36 and 37: The groaning of the slaves on Egypt
Page 38 and 39: ecause most such lines are imbedded
Page 40 and 41: ;Two spheres contend with one anoth
Page 42 and 43: matched it to this feeble hurdy-gur
Page 44 and 45: NOTES1. The only full-length study
Page 46 and 47: terest in Hungarian literature, has
Page 48 and 49: limitations of Bowring and others:
Page 50 and 51: Jones' Five Hungarian WritersJ 4 Su
Page 53 and 54: REVIEW ARTICLEHungarian Poetry in E
Page 55 and 56: ooks written in English. A table of
Page 57 and 58: passive, or into noun phrases in En
Page 59 and 60:
REVIEW ARTICLEHungarian Religious P
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magas és a mély magánhangzójú
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SPECIAL SECTIONToldiAn Epic Poem (1
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CANTO ONE"He lifted, with one hand,
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"Who should be squire of this whole
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What meant this hubbub in a widow's
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"Lad, here's your share! Don't say
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The heavy stone flies on: where wil
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The homes of moorhen, plover, gull
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Perhaps I'll shed my blood, some no
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CANTO FIVENicholas went wandering a
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Her tongue was like a coulter in th
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Rosemary pots mourned on its window
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Such were her words. No more would
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As if a nest of hornets rose to sti
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Upon an isle, by a Czech's hand the
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REVIEW ARTICLEQuo Vadis Transylvani
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Hungarians in Rumania in terms of t
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down by serious shortcomings in bot
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alanced presentation of the Vienna
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talent enables Wass to depict the s
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Carpathian Federation, and printed
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Now and then, however, this rule de
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temper such an indictment by recogn
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OUR CONTRIBUTORS (continued from pa
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TO THOSE WISHING TO SUBMIT MANUSCRI
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