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A Century of Hungarian Emigration, 1850-1950

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2019

John Kosa
John Kosa*
Affiliation:
Le Moyne College
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Extract

The Mass Emigration of people from the various European states was not a haphazard chapter of history. Emigration represented a natural outcome of those social problems which beset many European countries for long periods. Grave social problems determined those ultimate motives which prompted large masses to leave behind the well-known boundaries of their native land to try their luck in a strange country. In the case of Hungary, too, the social and economic background makes emigration comprehensible. Such a background explains that strange turn of social history which suddenly transformed Hungary from a country of immigration into a country of emigration.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , December 1957 , pp. 501 - 514
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1957

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References

1 The Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (London, R. Phillips, 1803), II, 121-2Google Scholar.

2 The best summary of the immigration was given by Gyula Szekfü in his Magyar törtenet, (Hungarian History), 3rd ed., Vol. IV (Budapest, 1936). See further Konrad Schüne mann, Österreichs Bevölkerungspolitik unter Maria Theresia (Berlin, Deutsche Rundschau, 1935); Németh, István, Les colonies franQaises de Hongrie (Szeged, 1936)Google Scholar; John Kosa, “La minorité allemande de Hongrie,” Nouvelle Revue de Hongrie (1939).

3 Cf. Kovács, Aloys, The Development of the Population of Hungary (Budapest, 1920)Google Scholar.

4 Kosa, John, Die ungarische Kolonisationsfrage (Budapest, 1939)Google Scholar; Kerék, Mihály, A magyar földkérdés (The Agrarian Problem of Hungary) (Budapest, 1939)Google Scholar; István Szabó, Tanulmányok a magyar parasztság történetébol (Studies in the History of the Hungarian Peasantry) (Budapest, 1948); Gyula Merei, Magyar mezögazdaság és agrártársadalom(Hungarian Agriculture and Rural Society) (Budapest, 1948).

5 Ráth, Zoltán, A földbirtokos osztály hitelszükseglete (The Problem of Financing in the Landholding Class) (Budapest, 1892)Google Scholar; Földes, Béla, Városaink és a városi lakóssag életviszonyai (The Present State of Our Cities and Urban Population) (Budapest, 1884)Google Scholar.

6 Jánossy, Dénes A., The Kossuth Emigration in America (Budapest, 1940 Google Scholar); Stephen Taba, “Hungarian Pioneers in America,” and John Kosa, “Early Emigrants,” both Hungarian Quarterly (1941); Whitridge, Arnold, Men in Crisis (New York, Scribner, 1949)Google Scholar; Frances L. Reinhold, “Exiles and Refugees in American History,” Annals, American Academy of Political and Social Science (May, 1939), p. 203.

7 The migration between Hungary and the other parts of the Habsburg Empire was Political and Social Science (May, 1939), No. 203.

8 It seems that an emigration permit remained a legal prerequisite all the time and that Law No. 38 of 1881 did not enact any innovation in this respect but only regulated an already existing administrative procedure.

9 Andrew A. Marchbin, “Early Emigration from Hungary to Canada,” Slavonic and East European Review No. 13 (July, 1934), pp. 137-8.

10 Laws No. 4 of 1903 and No. 2 of 1909.

11 Owing to such a selection, the Hungarian population of America showed a more “leftist” political attitude than that of the poor class in Hungary.

12 Joseph K. Balogh, An Analysis of Cultural Organizations of Hungarian-Americans in Pittsburgh and Alleghany County (Ph.D. thesis, University of Pittsburgh, 1945), pp. 19, 23.

13 The census of 1911 found 10,500 Hungarian-born persons in Canada.

14 Lórant Hegediis, A magyarok kivándorldsa Amerikába (Hungarian Emigration to America) (Budapest, 1899); Gusztáv Thirring, A magyarországi kivándorlás es a külföldi magyarság (Emigration from Hungary and the Hungarians Abroad) (Budapest, 1904); A kivándorlás. A Magyar Gyáriparosok Országos Szövetsége által tartott országos ankét tárgyalásai (Emigration— The Proceedings of the Panel Discussion Sponsored by the Hungarian Manufacturers Association) (Budapest, 1907); Andor Löherer, Az amerikai kivándorlás és visszavándorlás (Emigration to America and Remigration) (Budapest, 1908); Bertalan Nemenyi, A magyar nép állapota és az amerikai kivándorlds, (The State of the Hungarian People and the Emigration to America) (Budapest, 1911); Imre Kovács, A nema forradalom (The Silent Revolution) (Budapest, 1936), and Kivándorlás (Emigration) (Budapest, 1937). See further Steiner, E. A., On the Trail of the Immigrant (New York, Revell, 1906)Google Scholar; Cook, H. F., The Magyars of Cleveland (Cleveland, Citizens’ Bureau, 1919)Google Scholar; Sonders, David A., The Magyars in America (New York, H. Doran Co., 1922)Google Scholar; Park, Robert E. and Miller, Herbert A., Old World Traits Transplanted (New York, Harper, 1921)Google Scholar; Park, Robert E., The Immigrant Press and Its Control (New York, Harper, 1922)Google Scholar; Beynon, Erdmann D., “Migrations of Hungarian Peasants,” Geographical Review, No. 27 (1937)Google Scholar; Kalassay, Louis A., The Educational and Religious History of the Hungarian Reformed Church in the United States (Ph.D. thesis, University of Pittsburgh, 1939)Google Scholar; Lengyel, Emil, Americans from Hungary (Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1948)Google Scholar; Brown, Francis R. and Roucek, Joseph S., One America (New York, Prentice Hall, 1948)Google Scholar.

15 Révai Lekszikon, Vol. XX, “Kivándorlás.“

16 From Rumania, novelist Áron Tamási migrated to the United States, but, displeased, he soon returned to Hungary. His American experiences are commemorated in his novel Ábel Amerikában (Abel in America).

17 Remenyi, Joseph, “The Hungarians,” in Henry P. Fairchild (ed.), Immigrant Backgrounds (New York, Wiley, 1927)Google Scholar; Gombos, Zoltan (ed.), Hungarians in America (Cleveland, Szabadság, 1941)Google Scholar; Kulischer, Eugene M., Europe on the Move (New York, Columbia University Press, 1948)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; John Kosa, “Hungarian Society in the Time of the Regency,” Journal of Central European Affairs, No. 16 (October, 1956).

18 Schermerhorn, R. A., These Our People (Boston, Heath, 1949), p. 331 Google Scholar; Erdmann D. Beynon, “Social Mobility and Social Distance Among Hungarian Immigrants in Detroit,” American Journal of Sociology No. 41 (January, 1936); Handlin, Oscar, The American People in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1954), p. 171.Google Scholar

19 Concerning Canada see Paizs, Ödön, Magyar ok Kanadaban (Hungarians in Canada) (Budapest, 1928)Google Scholar; Ruzsa, Jenö, A kanadai magyarság története (History of the Hungarians in Canada) (Toronto, 1940)Google Scholar; Nagy, Ivan, “Hungarians in Canada,” Journal de la Societe Hongroise de Statistique No. 15 (1937)Google Scholar; Bernolak, I., Boyd, A. R., et al., Immigrants in Canada (Montreal, 1955)Google Scholar; John Kosa, “Hungarian Immigrants in North America: Their Residential Mobility and Ecology,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science No. 22 (August, 1956). Concerning France see the novels of Földes, Jolán, The Street of the Fishing Cat (New York, Farrar and Rinehart, 1937)Google Scholar, and Illyes, Gyula, Hunok Parizsban (The Huns in Paris) (Budapest, 1946)Google Scholar.

20 Schachtman, Joseph B., European Population Transfers (New York, Oxford University Press, 1946)Google Scholar; Davie, Maurice and Koenig, Samuel, The Refugees Are Now Americans (Public Affairs Pamphlet, New York, 1946)Google Scholar; Heberle, Rudolf and Hall, Dudley S., New Americans (Baton Rouge, D.P. Commission, 1951)Google Scholar; Kent, D. P., The Refugee Intellectual (New York, Columbia University Press, 1953)Google Scholar; Vernant, Jacques, The Refugee in the Post-war World (London, Allan and Unwin, 1953)Google Scholar; Murphy, H. B. M., Flight and Resettlement (Paris, Unesco, 1955)Google Scholar.

21 Because of several changes in her borders, Hungary included between 1938 and 1944 a considerable number of national minorities again.

22 As the term was used in Hungary, the “middle class” corresponded to the American upper-middle class.

23 Estimate of Prof. Julius Rezler (St. Francis College) in an unpublished paper on the Hungarian refugees.

24 Data collected by the author while working as statistical assistant with the IRO, Resettlement Office, Salzburg, Austria.

25 For information regarding the postwar migration, the author is indebted to Prof. Stephen Borsody (Chatham College), Mr. Imre Kovacs (Free Europe, Inc.) and Mr. Robert Major (New York City).