The Burning of the World: A Memoir of 1914 (22 page)

9
.   The highest mountain range in the Carpathian Mountains, and the natural border between Galicia and Slovakia (then part of the Kingdom of Hungary).

10
. Now Prešov, in Slovakia.

11
. Now Košice, in Slovakia.

12
. In eastern Hungary.

13
. “What is natural is not dirty.” From the Roman writer Servius’s commentaries on Virgil’s
Georgics
; perhaps a bookish reference to Jóska’s peasant background.

14
. BZM uses a contemporary expression which translates literally as “coffeehouse Conrads,” after Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, chief of the general staff of the Austro-Hungarian armed forces until 1917.

15
. Endre Ady (1877–1919), prominent and controversial Hungarian poet and journalist, associated from 1908 with the reformist literary journal
Nyugat
(West). Ady attracted a devoted circle of followers; many conservatives regarded him as a self-indulgent egotist and betrayer of his homeland.

16
. József Egry (1883–1951); Hungarian artist; a modernist. BZM calls him “Egri” (a familiar Hungarian surname), but this appears to be a misspelling.

17
. 1880–1941; Hungarian sculptor.

18
. Probably Péter Gémes-Gindert (1876–1923), Hungarian sculptor.

19
. An important artists’ colony in Pest which flourished in the 1890s and continued during the early decades of the twentieth century.

20
. Gyula Benczúr (1844–1920); Hungarian painter and pedagogue. An influential traditionalist.

21
. József Mányai (1875–?); Hungarian painter.

22
. 1874–1950; Hungarian painter.

23
. 1884–?; Hungarian painter.

24
. “How are you?” in Slovak.

25
. A traditional Slovak spirit distilled from juniper berries.

26
. This is not standard Slovak, but may be a dialect survival from Old Slavic, meaning, literally, “(of) the high-born lady.” The English equivalent might be “your ladyship.”

HOME AGAIN

1
.   1889–1948; Hungarian graphic artist and caricaturist.

2
.   1882–1937; Hungarian poet and journalist.

THE HOSPITAL

1
.   Possibly a version of the popular song “
Jaj, de szépen muzsikálnak
” (Oh, how beautifully they play), of which at least two gramophone recordings were on sale at the time.

2
.   1884–1950; Hungarian graphic artist, architect, and stage designer.

3
.   “Traumatic neurosis” was a controversial diagnosis described by the German neurologist Hermann Oppenheim (1858–1919), who attributed post-traumatic nervous symptoms to supposed physical changes in the brain caused by fright. The theory was discredited after 1918. BZM’s symptoms would now be regarded as classic indicators of post-traumatic stress disorder.

4
.   The First Battle of the Masurian Lakes ended on September 15, 1914 with the defeat of the Russian First Army in East Prussia. If BZM’s recollection of this as the occasion for the celebrations is accurate, they seem to have been at least a week after the event: he cannot have entered the hospital before about September 18.

5
.   The opening line of the elegiac poem
Mohács
by the Hungarian dramatist Károly Kisfaludy (1788–1830). The poem’s subject is the disastrous Battle of Mohács of 1526, at which the Ottoman Turks defeated the Hungarians, bringing an end to Hungary’s independence for four centuries. The second line of the poem apostrophizes the battle as the “graveyard of our nation’s greatness.”

LEAVE

1
.   Count István Tisza (1861–1918) was prime minister of Hungary (for the second time) from 1913 to 1917. “Pista” is the familiar abbreviation of “István.”

2
.   BZM taught at the Budapest School of Applied Arts, where he was principal from 1935 to 1946.

3
.   1876–1925; Hungarian actress.

4
.   Lajos Ágotai (1861–?).

5
.   A line from the “outlaw’s song,” of which BZM sings the first verse in chapter 2.

6
.   A colossal monument to the 1813 Battle of Leipzig, completed in 1913.

7
.   A popular and sentimental
opéra comique
by Ambroise Thomas, first performed in 1866.

8
.   Count István Széchenyi (1791–1860); a leading liberal politician, theorist, and writer, he was an influential advocate of the modernization of Hungarian society.

9
.   1885–1972; Hungarian sculptor.

10
. 1812–1905. The Chain Bridge opened in 1849.

11
. BZM occupied an apartment in this building (no longer standing), during the 1920s. It took its name from the sixteenth-century tomb of Gül Baba, poet and companion of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, which then stood in its grounds.

12
. 1870–1932; Hungarian painter.

13
. Ferenc Márton (1884–1940); Hungarian painter and sculptor.

14
. 1883–1914; Hungarian sculptor. He was killed in battle on October 2, 1914 in the Uzsok Pass in the Carpathians.

15
. István Lipót Gách (1880–1962); Hungarian sculptor and painter. He was taken prisoner by the Russians and held (in Tashkent) until 1920.

16
. A village approximately 120 kilometers northeast of Budapest, close to the modern-day border between Hungary and Slovakia, now incorporated into the town of Ózd. BZM’s uncle, Béla Zombory, was the Roman Catholic prebendary there from 1912.

SAJÓVÁRKONY

1
.   BZM was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant on November 4, 1914.

2
.   Now Lovran, Croatia. Situated on the western coast of the Kvarner Bay in the northern Adriatic, the town was a fashionable resort in the years before World War I, when it was territorially part of Austria.

3
.   A historic city in what is now northern Hungary.

LOVRANA

1
.   BZM visited the fashionable Sicilian resort in 1912.

2
.   The Italian name of the mountain range that rises behind the western coast of the Istrian Peninsula.

3
.   Arnold Böcklin (1827–1901); Swiss painter. The allusion is to a self-portrait in which the artist is accompanied by the figure of Death playing a violin; and probably to
Villa by the Sea
(of which Böcklin painted several versions), depicting waves breaking onto a rocky Mediterranean shore.

4
.   Now Opatija; a resort about six kilometers north of Lovrana on the Istrian coast.

5
.   Now Moravice, Croatia; from here, the Budapest-Fiume railway line ascends steeply up to the Karst plateau, for which a mountain engine would be required.

6
.   The highest point on the line is, in fact, the Sleme tunnel, at 879 meters. Lič, where the sea comes into sight, is at 811 meters.

7
.   1858–1899; Italian painter, celebrated in his day for visionary depictions of pastoral life in the high Alps.

8
.   Now Mošćenička, Croatia; a hill town about six kilometers south of Lovrana on the Istrian coast.

9
.   The Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy dated from 1882, but Italy’s enthusiasm for it waned; she did not enter the war in 1914, but started secret negotiations with Britain, France, and Russia to switch sides in exchange for a promise of territorial gains at Austria’s expense. Agreement was reached on April 26, 1915 and Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary on May 23, 1915.

10
. 1911–1912. Italy invaded and seized the Ottoman Turkish provinces of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica (modern-day Libya) in a costly and inept war.

11
. This was a widely held view in Austria-Hungary at the time. Events, of course, proved otherwise. The fighting on the Italian front from May 1915 to November 1918 was bitter, largely static, and bloody even by the standards of World War I.

12
. “Earthquake. Hopefully, it’s over.”

13
. A massive earthquake on December 28, 1908, flattened the Sicilian city of Messina and triggered an enormous tsunami. Over 120,000 died.

14
. 1881–1945. The piece that Voit describes may be Bartók’s String Quartet No. 1 in A minor, completed in 1909.

15
. When it opened in 1883, the oil refinery at Fiume was the largest and most advanced installation of its kind in Europe. Financed by the Rothschilds in Vienna, it processed crude oil from the Baku oilfields in Russia (later, from neutral Romania) and supplied Austro-Hungary with petroleum products.

16
. The first Hungarian production of Pietro Mascagni’s one-act opera was conducted by Gustav Mahler, then resident conductor at the Budapest Opera, in 1890, six months after its Italian premiere. Ervin’s choice is curiously appropriate: the action of the opera takes place at Easter in the main square of a Sicilian village, to which the young Turiddu has just returned from military service.

17
. “Behind the rider sits dark Care.” The source is Horace’s
Odes
. BZM may have known the bronze relief of the subject by the British sculptor Alfred Gilbert.

18
. Literally, “may [he/it] live!”; used in Croatian as a toast (“cheers!”) or an exclamation of approbation (“hurrah!”). The guide replies with the Hungarian
Éljen!
, which has the same literal meaning, but is used only in the latter sense.

19
. A drawing by Voit entitled
Chopin Sonata
depicts a scene uncannily like the one described here. It was published in 1909.

20
. “See you next winter. It’s lovely here at Christmas, too.”

21
. The Battle of the Marne (September 5–12, 1914) ended with the retreat of German forces to the river Aisne, some sixty-five kilometers to the north, where they dug in. Germany’s strategy of a quick victory in the West was in ruins; four years of trench warfare ensued.

EPILOGUE

1
.   A city on the river Danube, now on the Hungarian-Slovak border; a major railway junction in 1914.