371. Oszkár Jászi (1875-1957), politician.

... Autograph letter to Zsigmond Móricz, addressed as „Kedves jó Barátom” (My dear friend.)
Written from hospital, the letter is of exceptional interest. It begins with praise for the addressee: “Today the banner of Ady is in your hand, and I thank you for not wrapping it up before the howls of fools and cowards.” With not the slightest sign of self-criticism, or perhaps as a defence, he continues: “We can proudly assume the October revolution. It was then that we laid the foundations of the New Hungary... This is the true path of development.” He accepts no responsibility for later events either, writing with a logical leap: “Nor should those few blush who believed in communism with honest idealism. After long study, I know it to be an impossibility – especially with the mad Russian method. But you, the poet, could not have known this...” He then reflects on the future of the Hungarian nation, seeing salvation in the elevation of the peasantry. Towards the end he again heaps praise on Móricz, sometimes in terms surprising from his pen (such as “the true racial Hungarian soul”). The closing remark (“the Hungarian intelligentsia has once more – who knows how many times! – so dishonourably prostituted itself”) was presumably not meant to refer to left-wing utopian intellectuals like himself.
4 written page(s). 
Dated: Vienna, 7 January 1920.
 
Starting price: 100 000,-