Sexuality as a destructive force in Polish and Hungarian naturalist fiction : based on a few examples

Autor podpisany: László Kálmán Nagy.

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, efforts to reform Hungarian prose were spearheaded by short fiction writers, including István Petelei (1852–1910), Elek Gozsdu (1849–1919), Sándor Bródy (1863–1924), Géza Gárdonyi (1863–1922), István Tömörkény (1866–1917), Zoltán Thury (1870–1906), Zoltán Ambrus (1861–1932) and Dániel Papp (1865–1900). Also deserving special attention among key representatives of naturalism and symbolism are Gyula Krúdy (1878–1933), a contemporary of Bolesław Leśmian, and Sándor Hunyady (1890–1942), the son of Sándor Bródy from an extramarital affair. On the one hand, the above-mentioned authors must be credited as successful reformers of Hungarian prose who had broken with the formulaic trend of folk-oriented national literature. On the other, it must be acknowledged that they failed to produce fiction of such global appeal as the Nobel-prize winner Stanisław Władysław Reymont and Stefan Żeromski among their Polish counterparts. However, they still do not deserve to be completely ignored beyond the borders of Hungary. In the present paper, I focus on the short stories of Bródy and Hunyady, and investigate how they construe sexuality, a popular theme of naturalist authors. Hungarian naturalist writers broke radically with the canon of the sentimental and romantic depiction of love. Their works highlight biologism as a destructive force which often leads to personal tragedy. At the same time, compared to their Western and Polish contemporaries, Hungarian naturalist authors were highly restrained, even prudish, in their treatment of sexuality. They shied away from presenting love scenes in true naturalist fashion, which also spared them from scandals. As a result, however, the narration is arguably too weak or subdued to support the tragic finales (adultery, murder, suicide), and the tragedies are lacking in motivation.