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 ANTI-SEMITISM

477

zianyi, who translated the German Judeophobe pamphlets into Magyar, and the Magyar works of Onody into German, was the chief medium between the northern and Austria southern schools. In 1880 Istoczy tried to estab- Hungary. lish a “Nichtjuden Bund” in Hungary, with statutes literally translated from those of the German antiSemitic league. The movement, however, made no progress, owing to the stalwart Liberalism of the predominant political parties, and of the national principles inherited from the Revolution. The large part played by the J ews in the struggle of 1848, and the fruitful patriotism with which they had worked for the political and economic progress of the country, had created, too, a strong claim on the gratitude of the best elements in the nation. Nevertheless, among the Ultramontane clergy, the higher aristocracy, the illpaid minor officials, and the ignorant peasantry, the seeds of a tacit anti-Semitism were latent. It was probably the aversion of the nobility from anything in the nature of a demagogic agitation which for a time prevented these seeds from germinating. The news of the uprising in Russia and the appearance of Jewish refugees on the frontier, had the effect of giving a certain prominence to the agitation of Istoczy and Onody and of exciting the rural communities, but it did not succeed in impressing the public with the pseudo-scientific doctrines of the new anti-Semitism. It was not until the agitators resorted to the Blood Accusation — that never-failing decoy of obscurantism and superstition—that Hungary took a definite place in the anti-Semitic movement. The outbreak was short and fortunately bloodless, but while it lasted its scandals shocked the whole of Europe. Dr August Rohling, Professor of Hebrew at the University of Prague, a Roman Catholic theologian of high position but dubious learning, had for some years assisted the Hungarian anti-Semites with rechauffes of Eisenmenger’s Entdecktes Judenihum (Frankfurt a/M 1700). In 1881 he made a solemn deposition before the Supreme Court accusing the Jews of being bound by their law to work the moral and physical ruin of non-Jews. He they were by law declared aliens. This was done in defiance followed this up with an offer to depose on oath that the of the Treaty of Paris of 1856 and the Convention of murder of Christians for ritual purposes was a doctrine 1858 which declared all Rumans to be equal before the secretly taught among Jews. Professor Delitzsch and law. Under the influence of this distinction the Jews other eminent Hebraists, both Christian and Jewish, became persecuted, and sanguinary riots were of frequent exposed and denounced the ignorance and malevolence of occurrence. The realization of a Jewish question led to Rohling, but were unable to stem the mischief he was legislation imposing disabilities on the Jews. In 187b causing. In April 1882 a Christian girl named Esther the Berlin Congress agreed to recognize the independence Sobymossi was missed from the Hungarian village of of Rumania on condition that all religious disabilities were Tisza Eszlar, where a small community of Jews were removed. Rumania agreed to this condition, but ulti- settled. The rumour got abroad that she had been kidmately persuaded the Powers to allow her to carry out napped and murdered by the Jews, but it remained the the emancipation of the Jews gradually. During the burden of idle gossip, and gave rise to neither judicial years which have elapsed since then, the condition of the complaint nor public disorders. At this moment the Jews has been in no way improved. Their emancipation question of the Bosnian Pacification credits was before the is as far off as ever, and their disabilities are heavier than Diet. The unpopularity of the task assumed by Austriathose of their brethren in Russia. For this state of things Hungary, under the Treaty of Berlin, which was calculated the example of the- anti-Semites in Germany, Russia, to strengthen the disaffected Croat element in the empire, Austria, and France is largely to blame, since it has justi- had reduced the Government majority to very small profied the intolerance of the Rumans. Owing, also, to the portions, and all the reactionary factions in the country fact that of late years Rumania has become a sort of were accordingly in arms. The Government was violently annexe of the Triple Alliance, it has been found impossible and unscrupulously attacked on all sides. On the 23rd to induce the signatories of the Berlin Treaty to take May there was a debate in the Diet when M. Onody, in action to compel the state to fulfil its obligations undei an incendiary harangue, told the story of the missing girl at Tisza Eszlar, and accused ministers of criminal indulthat treaty. In Austria-Hungary the anti-Semitic impulses came gence to races alien to the national spirit. In the then almost simultaneously from the North and East. Already excited state of the public mind on the Croat question, in the ’seventies the doctrinaire anti-Semitism of Berlin the manoeuvre was adroitly conceived. The Government had found an echo in Budapest. Two members of the fell into the trap, and treated the story with lofty disdain. Diet, Victor Istoczy and Geza Onody, together with a Thereupon the anti-Semites set to work on the case, and publicist named Georg Marczianyi, busied themselves m M. Joseph Bary, the magistrate at Nyiregyhasa, and a making known the doctrine of Marr in Hungary. Marc- noted anti-Semite, was induced to go to Tisza Eszlar and

Catholics, Moslems, and Buddhists, and denounced the rationalist tendency of the whole system of secular education in the empire {Neue Freie Presse, 31st January 1894). A year later, however, the tsar died, and his successor, without repealing any of the persecuting laws, let it gradually be understood that their rigorous application might be mitigated. The country was tired and exhausted by the persecution, and the tolerant hints which came from high quarters were acted upon with significant alacrity. This tolerant tendency has since been strengthened by a new^ political movement, inaugurated by Prince Oukhtomsky, the apostle of Russian Asiatic Imperialism. The Prince dreams of a future when the tsar will rule over the whole of Asia, but he realizes that this mission must be based on the most generous principles of religious toleration (Leger, Pusses et Slaves, 3me Serie, pp. 79-81). As a personal friend of the new tsar his teachings in this sense have produced considerable effect throughout Russian society, and have helped to mitigate the terrible lot of the Jews. The only other country in Europe in which a legalized anti-Semitism exists is Rumania. The conditions are very similar to those which obtain in Russia, with the important difierence that Rumania is a constitutional country, and that the Jewish persecutions are the work of the elected deputies of the nation. Like the Bourgeois Gentilhomme who wrote prose all his life without knowing it, the Rumanians practised the nationalist doctrines of the Hegelian anti-Semites unconsciously long before they were formulated in Germany. In the old days of Turkish domination the lot of the Rumanian Jews was not conspicuously unhappy. It was only when the nation began to be emancipated, and the struggle in the East assumed the form of a crusade against Islam that the Jews were persecuted. Rumanian politicians preached a nationalism limited exclusively to indigenous Christians, and they were strongly supported by all who felt the commercial competition of the Jews. Thus, although the Jews Rumania. ^ been settjeq in the land for many centuries