Gróh Gáspár’s analytical thinking is deeply rooted in Hungarian reality. As a literary historian and critic, one of his main characteristics is his ability to see historical precedents in the present. Born in Budapest in 1953, Gróh’s childhood and early school years were spent in the close presence of the Rákosi era (1949–1956) – a period marked by show trials and political repression – and the memory of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution was naturally ever-present in his family. Several branches of his family were connected to the detached regions of historical Hungary (the parts of Hungary lost after World War I). As a result, history was an inherent part of their daily lives. One of the defining moments of his childhood was his encounter with nature: until applying to university, Gróh Gáspár had been preparing to study biology rather than the humanities. An episode from the so-called ‘Kádár consolidation’ period is characteristic not only of him but also of his time. During a reading class, the teacher asked what the poet – Sándor Petőfi – did by the Tisza river. “He listened to the silence,” the ten-year-old Gróh Gáspár replied. “You cannot listen to silence,” the teacher retorted, but this misdirection still led the young student to pay attention to the silence of poets and works. While reading, he felt that “there is a more easily accessible, materially layered aspect to the works in their abstraction: their historicity, because every artist emerges from their own time, reaching beyond time.” And because it is possible to discuss this historicity, Gróh Gáspár found the most important version of his thinking about literature in researching what history is in literature – and what literature is in history.
He pursued his studies at the Kossuth Lajos University of Debrecen [now: University of Debrecen] from 1972, majoring in Hungarian Language and Literature and History in 1977, and then earned a university doctoral degree in 1984. The oeuvre of Dezső Szabó, a tabued author of the intellectual life between the two World Wars, became the focus of his professional interest in the seventies (and this became the topic of his thesis and dissertation) because he felt that without it, the intellectual processes of the first half of the century were almost impossible to interpret. Gróh Gáspár’s first writing appeared in print in 1973, but his choice of topics – his challenges to the question of national identity, and within that, his turn toward authors referred to as ‘beyond the border’ – did not meet the official expectations of the time, and therefore he published relatively little until the change of regime. “During the time of the one-party state, I barely came into contact with the literary world,” the literary historian says, reflecting on his beginnings. “I was certain that the regime would fall sooner rather than later, and until then, I did not want to adapt. To what? To no censorship, to no expectations. Then my time arrived. At least, I thought so…”
His literary historical publications became regular from 1988, within a few months, more of his writings appeared than in the preceding fifteen years, and these critiques, reviews, feature articles, and essays also garnered serious recognition. But it soon became clear: Gróh Gáspár did not fit the expectations of the newer times either. In the social divisiveness of the 1990s, when literary life also split in two, and reviews appeared as declarations of friendly loyalty or as hostile polemics, the role, function, and legitimacy of criticism became increasingly questioned.The situation, coupled with his commitment to the political changes, led him to the public sector. He thought this undertaking would be a few years’ detour, but it turned into a quarter of a century. However, even during the years spent in public service, he practiced his profession, invoking those intellectual predecessors who considered Hungarian culture a natural part of their identity. In this way, his oeuvre could be fulfilled as both a literary historian and a critic.
His main workplaces included the Országos Széchényi Könyvtár (National Széchényi Library), where he worked as a librarian and research fellow from 1977 to 1983, and Múzsák Közművelődési Kiadó (a public education publisher), where he was an editor between 1983 and 1989. From the autumn of 1989, he was the copy editor and head of the criticism section at Magyar Napló. In 1993, he served as the head of the media group in the press office of the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) parliamentary group, and later as the head of the culture and domestic policy sections at Heti Magyarország (1994–1996). He was a chief government advisor in the Prime Minister's Office (1998–2002) and held the position of department head in the Office of the President of Hungary, later becoming the head of the former presidential office, followed by Director of the Directorate of Social Relations (2012–2017). He was a section editor at Magyar Szemle from 1996 and served as its editor-in-chief from 2018 to 2023. Among his non-full-time appointments, his expert work at the Országos Rádió és Televízió Testület (National Radio and Television Board, ORTT) and his regular lecture series at Pázmány Péter Catholic University on the literature of the separated Hungarian territories were prominent.
He is a regular participant in book presentations and lectures both within and beyond the borders of Hungary [for example, an Ady evening with Sándor Lukács, and later with Erzsébet Tóth in Királyhelmec (Kráľovský Chlmec); he gave an introductory lecture on Ágnes Nemes Nagy as part of a poetry programme by Mária Torma in Bodajk at the Csillagpont Reformed Youth Camp; he spoke about Dezső Szabó’s faith in God at the Reformed Camp in Szárszó; he lectured on the populist writers in Orosháza; he was a participant in the change of regime conference in Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca), etc.]. He was the interviewer in István Szilágyi’s portrait film and is the author of numerous studies in anthologies and conference publications. In 2023, he was elected a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Arts. He is a curator of the Literary Section of the National Cultural Fund. He is a regular speaker at the conferences of the Hungarian Academy of Arts [on Sándor Csoóri, János Kodolányi, László Németh, Dezső Szabó, criticism, cross-border art, Miklós Mészöly; he was a presenter and organiser of the Mesterek a magasban – Illyés Gyuláról (lit. Masters in the heights – Gyula Illyés) consultation, as well as the Lajos Grendel conference]. As the curator of the Miklós Mészöly (2021) and Gyula Illyés (2023) ‘fence exhibitions’ [an outdoor exhibition in which the exhibited objects are placed on a fence] of the Hungarian Academy of Arts, he wrote the texts for the panels and selected the images.
Critiques – “Let Them Say Something Important About Their Subject”
“I never thought of myself as a critic. When I came into contact with books or works, I was a reader, viewer, or listener. If, for some reason, I had to write about what I read, saw, or heard—then I wrote. As a reader, viewer, or listener. Others called these texts critiques, and because I didn't want to argue with them, I accepted that these texts qualified as critiques (in some cases, a review). However, I did not consider myself a critic, an officially accepted practitioner of a genre, despite all this. Perhaps because, reading similar articles, I became less and less sure what criticism was. [...] The definition of the genre was not important, but rather that they say something important about their subject,” Gróh Gáspár summarises his position in the pages of Magyar Művészet. But he doesn’t stop here. Characteristically of his way of thinking, he broadens the horizon, weighing his observations from a communal perspective as well, and paraphrasing the famous saying of Áron Tamási, he states: “we are in the world so that home may be within us. And what does the reception of the world consist of? Partly of selection, and partly of action, since every living thing adds something to the great whole—making it more complete, improving it—thus, our very existence is critical in nature.”
He provides an example of his critical attitude and his representation of the culture of fair debate in his critique of the memoir-novel, A világító részletek (lit. Illuminating Details). The essay, originally published in installments in the late 2018/early 2019 issues of Magyar Szemle, is a tribute to the work of Péter Nádas and at the same time a strong critique of his assessment of the past. With 124 pages, its sheer length makes it a defining piece in his volume Irodalmi hullámlovaglás – Ragyogástól féknyúzig (lit. Literary Surfing – From Brilliance to Fake News). Gróh Gáspár is convinced that “what Nádas writes is very good literature,” and therefore he believes that “we can only debate what is debatable in his work with the respect owed to exceptional performance.” And so he does, pointing out the connections between Nádas’s view of history and interpretation of the past and the atavistic elements of communist distortion of the past. In his view, the writer knows an exceptionally great deal about how the rewriting of the past was part of the Communist Party’s existence, yet he still cannot break away from the totalitarian system’s false historical narrative: he does not even dispute his family’s self-justifying legendarium, even though he has personal experiences with the methodology of this distortion. Nevertheless, Nádas is worth reading as a national writer, states Gróh Gáspár, and it is precisely because of the appreciation owed to his exceptional intellect that he feels it is his duty to read him critically.
While the dynamism of Hungarian literary life has long been provided by the clash between communal and individual perspectives, it is striking that Gróh Gáspár views the relationship between the individual and the community not as a contradiction according to the reflexes of two-polar thinking, but as a collaboration. That is, he has no intention whatsoever of playing the nation off against its constituent members. For him, the continuation of historical heritage and communal commitment is a deeply individual choice. He believes that the active relationship with the world is, by nature, simultaneously acceptance and a critical stance. This is the background he relies on, and from which he takes his departure, when giving an account of his critical work. Although he writes it about Zsigmond Móricz, it comes across as a self-confession that history has intrigued him since his school days, “as the temporal extension of passionately researched reality.” This is why he turns to the past with the same attention as he does to his present: beyond the events and their background, he is interested in the spiritual reality of the person living within history.
He quickly recognised that behind the 20th-century Hungarian political systems stood not just the Treaty of Trianon: their ideologies were fundamentally shaped in connection with the situation following the Hungarian Soviet Republic of 1919 – which was compulsorily referred to as ‘glorious’ during the one-party state. As the descendant of a civil-intellectual family, and also as the child of (painter) artists, he was familiar with the command to keep silent, but not the command to suppress the truth. All this rather helped him pay attention to those authors who authentically reconstructed Hungarian reality. While the cultural policy of the party-state was loudly proclaiming the slogan “to utterly abolish the past,” Gróh Gáspár had already allied himself with those whose “knowledge of history is not abstract knowledge concerning a closed sequence of events, but an emotionally rich personal relationship.” Following the works of the populist writers (including the most open-minded Europeans) and the Hungarian authors abroad, he became convinced that the past of something or someone is a precedent that only has meaning through its continuation, through its consequences.
His readings provide him with the experience of recognition, and he is particularly influenced by Endre Ady, Gyula Illyés, Attila József, László Németh, István Bibó, László Cs. Szabó, and from the later period, Sándor Csoóri. When it comes to the knowledge of reality, Zsigmond Móricz is the great example, as the image of Hungary with its geography and social stratification emerges from his writings, and the flesh-and-blood reality fills the spaces. Gróh Gáspár notes, “It is hardly necessary to explain what this reality-knowing sobriety meant for the awakening of a youth afflicted by the Treaty of Trianon and the Great Depression, stirred by Endre Ady and Dezső Szabó, and then handed over to the intellectual ‘fog-eaters’ who prophesied Italian and German intellectual models in Hungarian.”
The explanation, in fact, can be found in the sociographies between the two World Wars: in the pariahs of the abandoned, deeply fallen villages, in the arrogance of the landlords, in the great estate system, and in the souls deformed by misery and the derailed lives. Just as today’s answers must be sought in the nervous system of the nation, which was traumatised multiple times between 1914 and 1991. The current physical and mental state of Hungarians bears witness to the difficulties rooted in the recent past that must be processed. Why is the national consciousness neurotic? Because Hungarians have been anxious for centuries: due to the fear of annihilation, of national demise – Gróh Gáspár elaborates in his volume Neurotikus nemzettudat? (lit. Neurotic National Consciousness?). And while he records the changes of recent decades – the advance of globalisation and the decline of the national paradigm – he urges adaptation to the demands of the age alongside the preservation of the values of the past. He directs the reader’s attention to the oeuvre of Miklós Mészöly, the central question of which is the redefinition and renewal of traditions. Mészöly believed that “there is no therapy without a substantive reform of national consciousness.” Gróh’s critical writings also warn of personal responsibility: it is time to view the national destiny issues as transgenerational traumas (including post-traumatic stress spanning generations).
Examples and Role Models – Mesterek a magasban (lit. Masters in the Heights)
In his thinking about public life and national strategy, Gróh Gáspár strives to record those moments when the humiliated person looks up, when the neglected suddenly becomes visible, whether it is the history of the 1919 revolutions, the assessment of the Revolution of 1956, or the fateful turn of 1989. He follows the example of Gyula Illyés, who went right up to the limit of what could be published in the 1970s to warn about the dangers of the politics of historical falsification and suppression. “Confronted with the fate of refugees driven from their homeland, huddled in the railway carriages on the sidings, he was stunned by the weight and scope of the Trianon tragedy,” the literary historian Gróh Gáspár recalls Illyés’s profound emotion. – “For not only the carriages providing shelter, but also the shattered Hungary was stranded on the dead-end tracks.” The nature of the feeling of profound emotion at the sight of the carriage dwellers is dual: social and national solidarity meet in it. In the Hungarians beyond the borders, the fate of the abandoned people and the isolated nation simultaneously became visible. Thus, while it was deemed appropriate to remain silent about the Hungarians across the border under the Kádár–Aczél diktat which was called ‘public consensus’, those living in the separated territories, by virtue of their national and social vulnerability, carried in their fate the potential to symbolically unite the ideologically fragmented country. It was precisely this that politics denied, rendered invisible, and unheard. However, the consequences could not be denied: a generation grew up – without a past.
Gróh Gáspár shares his thoughts on his vision for the future in the pages of Nagyvilág, Magyar Szemle, Kortárs, and Hitel, among others. Following their publication by Kortárs Kiadó (Kortárs Publisher House) and Magyar Szemle Könyvek, his studies, essays, and notes have appeared in book form year after year since the 2010s, published by Nap Kiadó (Nap Publisher House). According to the characterisation by Imre Monostori, Gróh “follows his subjects, themes, and the distinguished personalities working on these themes with fine empathy, good editorial ideas, and original power of discovery, using fresh phrasing: it is apparent from his sentences, in an ongoing and cohesive manner, that he has an original ability to blend scholarly, social science, and artistic perspectives in a healthy way, and – within this – to vividly present the state of politics and the confused convulsions of history.”
In A magyarság rendeltetéséről – Művelődéstörténeti tanulmányok (lit. On the Destiny of the Hungarians – Studies in Cultural History) (2013), the author convincingly argues that his masters – Zsigmond Móricz, Gyula Illyés, László Németh, and Béla Bartók – not only contributed significantly, but with their works continue to support the spiritual unity of the separated Hungarian communities, the detached generations, and the nation, which at times seems to be separated from itself.
Reflecting on Hungarian history and the possibilities available to those living here, Gróh Gáspár emphasises individual responsibility, while also noting that he generally discovers generational patterns in his own choices. In his work A kultúra iránytűje – Kritikák (lit. The Compass of Culture – Critiques) (2015), he selects from the book production of the recent past, while in the volume Szemben a felejtéssel – Esszék, kritikák (lit. Facing Forgetting – Essays, Critiques) (2017), he praises the work of contemporary literary critics, including Mátyás Domokos, András Görömbei, Károly Alexa, László Szörényi, Béla Márkus, and Géza Vasy. The volume Neurotikus nemzettudat? – Esszék, tanulmányok a magyar kultúrából (lit. Neurotic National Consciousness? – Essays, Studies from Hungarian Culture) (2018) outlines the relationship between Mihály Babits and the journal Magyar Szemle, as well as the multifaceted work of Gyula Kodolányi, who re-established the journal in 1992 and directed it for a quarter of a century. Alongside his peers, Gróh Gáspár participates in the rediscovery of the oeuvres of László Németh and Gyula Illyés. His work is also proof that by thinking together with members of his generation, he can give greater emphasis to those communal goals that were already discernible in the life's work of his intellectual predecessors.
“We could perhaps say that the one is our master whose gaze we unconsciously feel upon us while writing […]. Thus, Gyula Illyés, who was born 120 years ago on 2 November 1902, became such a master for me, whose strict gaze I still feel upon me, even though he never read a single line of mine,” Gróh Gáspár wrote on the occasion of the round anniversary. Analysing his motivations, he adds that although he lived the first half of his life in the Kádár era, in essence, he still spent his everyday life in ‘family time’ and within his narrower environment – as is commonly said today: in a bubble. “I could even say: I lived in the Illyés era, after all, I was his contemporary for three decades. And of course, that of László Nagy, János Pilinszky, Sándor Weöres and others too. So many masters who shaped me together.” Yet, Gróh considers Illyés to be the most comprehensive, most universally minded creator of 20th-century Hungarian literature and intellectual life, one who gave hope to his readers – to the nation – in an age that offered little hope. He also gave hope to those who remember. “You could say: this is a personal matter,” the literary historian Gróh confirms in the volume Mesterek a magasban (lit. Masters on High), “but it is not only that: those for whom Gyula Illyés was a master or a compass flocked in their multitudes to become his disciples and followers for the very same reason. Because they saw in him not only a great poet and writer, but also the distinguished master of wise patriotism.”
An example of just how profoundly this is a ‘personal matter’ is Gyula Illyés’s theory that Hungarian literature is only a few handshakes long: Illyés knew József Madarász, Madarász knew Sándor Petőfi, Petőfi knew Mihály Vörösmarty, and Vörösmarty knew Ferenc Kazinczy… Just think – Gróh Gáspár connects with his master – that the elderly Madarász passed the grasp of Petőfi on to the hand of the young Illyés, and Móricz met with Görgey and could receive a direct, firsthand account of 1848–49. “There are those who still preserve Móricz’s handshake today, and fifty years from now, there will be those who can pass on Illyés’s grasp in such a way that it contains a speck of Petőfi’s message. Two intermediaries – two centuries.”
The power of culture actually lies in the fact that, through personal (initiation) experiences, it reinforces belonging to the wider community, to the nation. This personal nature also represents the work’s embeddedness in reality, which grants the artwork its credibility. This is why communal principle, a strong social and national commitment, and the referentiality of the artwork feature with such emphasis in Gróh Gáspár’s choice of themes. From contemporary literature, the oeuvre of István Szilágyi is particularly important to Gróh Gáspár. As the title of his study on Katlanváros – Szemérmes kitárulkozás (lit. Katlanváros – Modest Disclosure) – shows, he is admittedly biased when reading the works of the author of Kő hull apadó kútba (lit. Stone Falls into a Shrinking Well), Agancsbozót (lit. Antler Thicket), and Hollóidő (lit. Raven Time). One reason for his bias is that Szilágyi instinctively preserved the humility and admiration of natural man – his conception of nature was implicitly sacred. This is visible in his great novels and short stories, in the way that “wasted lives are somehow still present. Not only does the vivid ghost of the grandfather, who fell out of the urban-family order, affect daily life, but also the phantom of the father, who was declared dead after disappearing.” István Szilágyi’s writings, expressed with unique, sometimes reduced linguistic means, and sometimes with poetic imagery, are heart-wrenchingly personal. Gróh Gáspár analyses individual pieces of the oeuvre with understanding and sensitivity – his studies on Szilágyi, published in volumes and journals, could become parts of a future monograph. István Szilágyi's writings, expressed with unique, sometimes reduced linguistic means, and sometimes with poetic imagery, are heart-wrenchingly personal. Gróh Gáspár analyses individual pieces of the oeuvre with understanding and sensitivity – his studies on Szilágyi, published in volumes and journals, could become parts of a future monograph.
Perspectives
Hungary had just lost two-thirds of its territory when László Németh reached the threshold of adulthood. From then on, the question never left him: how could a shattered nation living in a fragmented country be restored? Németh László’s answer was: only by mobilising spiritual forces. The focus of his thought was culture, convinced that “nations become noticeable and noteworthy through the culture they create; its quality determines their fate and survival.” In the eyes of the single-party state, this concept was treated as an act of sedition following the 1956 Revolution, when the authorities considered the national mindset to be the main threat. It called its fight internationalism, while driven by a single goal: breaking the national sentiment that unified Hungarian aspirations for freedom – at any cost. As a literary historian, Gróh Gáspár is essentially providing reparation to numerous oeuvres that were previously silenced, stigmatised, or otherwise appropriated and ‘written off’ by cultural policy. He makes visible what was always there, merely obscured by the veil of ideology. Through his critical activity, the values obscured by the stereotypes covering the authors’ performance emerge: world-creating thought, linguistic power, and soul portrayal that sees into the depths. Within his field of vision, the populist writers of the interwar period and the Hungarian authors beyond the border coexist with the Westerners, representatives of Hungarian urbanity – Mihály Babits and the prose language innovator Miklós Mészöly – and other contemporaries, such as Sándor Csoóri, Lajos Grendel, or Gáspár Nagy.
He examines the diverse phenomena of life not in isolation, but as part of a whole. According to László Sturm’s formulation: “He sees the path of his heroes and characters clearly, as he monitors their movements on an accurate map. Few of our contemporaries have mapped out Hungarian literature and culture in such detail, in such a multi-faceted and realistic way. He is familiar with the literary tradition, just as he is with the ideological, cultural, and even the political-public sphere. He is able to demonstrate how these are interconnected within a work or an oeuvre, how they shape each other, and how they evolve into one another. Last but not least: this map not only helps with orientation and marking the direction, but also faithfully tracks the rises and falls in level.” Therefore, Gróh Gáspár’s working method is characterised by a comprehensive, organic approach; ultimately, he is interested in the human being created in the image of God, who as such is the exact counterpart of all fellow humans, while being unique in their life path and choices, which is why they have a story that can be told. And it quickly becomes clear from these stories that the individual never stands alone: their inherited destiny and mentality manifest in their membership of a community and their social expressions – literary historian Gróh Gáspár examining cultural attachments focuses particularly on these points of contact. In his perspective, we find kinship with Attila József’s poem, Eszmélet (lit. Consciousness): “Just like split firewood stacked together, / the universe embraces all, / so that each object holds the other / confined by pressures mutual, / all things ordained, reciprocal.” It is these determinations that Gróh Gáspár dissects with great attention in his works.
In addition to his rich factual knowledge and analytical tone, his style is characterised by irony and self-irony as rhetorical devices; he often employs linguistic humour in his essays, and especially in his feature articles and notes, such as in the volume Két bagoly (lit. Two Owls). The breadth of his interests is shown by his intellectual excursions – into the oeuvres of Liszt, Bartók, or Kodály – during which he explores the parallels between the development of music and literature. But he does not even shy away from such ventures as the connection between hunting and literature! His worldview is characterised by his observation, made while delighting in the photographs of Zsigmond Széchenyi: the Count’s books “did not create an appetite for hunting, but for a closer connection to nature, and thereby to a fuller human existence.” According to a contemporary anecdote, a photographer colleague asked Széchenyi what kind of camera he used to take his lion photograph. It turned out to be a very simple box camera. The question arose: how is it possible to take such a photograph with such a machine? The answer was profoundly characteristic: “It’s very simple: you have to go close.” Just as the writer who hunts focuses his lens on the spaces of everyday life, Gróh Gáspár, in his works, also provides a glimpse into vanished eras and lost cultures. He steps closer, connects with the past, and becomes the spokesperson for communities. By presenting the antecedents of the ideas in our society, he introduces the reader to Hungarian public thought.
[2024]