Tanulmányok I.

A collection of essays written in the early 20th century. The volume gathers reflective studies and portraits, chiefly of Hungarian political leaders and the national character. Its opening centers on Count István Tisza, examining his career, convictions, and the fierce loyalties and hatreds he inspired. Overall it reads as sharp historical and moral profiles that use individual lives to probe Hungary’s fate. The opening of the collection presents a long portrait of Count István Tisza within an “Arcképek – Vezérek” section. The author sketches Tisza’s Calvinist gentry roots at Geszt, his puritan discipline and horse‑centered country life, and contrasts his uncompromising, leaderly nature with his father Tisza Kálmán’s flexible political craft. He then follows the public career: rise from 1886 MP to the 1903 premiership, the struggle to end parliamentary obstruction, the 1904 house‑rules clash and 1905 defeat, a return to power, the 1912 crackdown as House Speaker amid violence and a failed assassination, and leadership through the Balkan crisis. Using diplomatic documents, the author emphasizes that Tisza initially opposed a war on Serbia and accepted conflict only conditionally, out of duty rather than bellicosity. The narrative proceeds to his 1917 exit, brief front‑line command, his October 1918 admission that the war was lost, and his murder during the Aster Revolution, followed by a posthumous hero cult. A companion piece, “Tisza István az ember,” shifts to character: his fierce sense of “magyarság,” love of horses and folk music, austerity, vigor, loyalty and kindness, and an unsentimental, commanding masculinity the author sees as mirroring Hungary’s best traits.