Black Humor and the White Terror

283 Pages·2023·18.871 MB·English

by  Béla Bodó

Black Humor and
the White Terror
This book examines political humor as a reaction to the lost war, the post-
war chaos, and antisemitic violence in Hungary between 1918 and 1922.
While there is an increased body of literature on Jewish humor as a form
of resistance and a means of resilience during the Holocaust, only a handful
of studies have addressed Jewish humor as a reaction to physical attacks and
increased discrimination in Europe during and after the First World War.
The majority of studies have approached the issue of Jewish humor from an
anthropological, cultural, or linguistic perspective; they have been interested
in the humor of lower- or lower-middle-class Jews in the East European
shtetles before 1914.
On the other hand, this study follows a historical and political approach
to the same topic and focuses on the reaction of urban, middle-class, and
culturally assimilated Jews to recent events: to the disintegration of the Dual
Monarchy, the collapse of law and order, increased violence, the reversal of
Jewish emancipation and the rise of new and more pernicious antisemitic
prejudices. The study sees humor not only as a form of entertainment and
jokes as literature and a product of popular culture, but also as a heuristic
device to understand the world and make sense of recent changes, as well as
a means to defend one’s social position, individual and group identity, strike
back at the enemy, and last but not least, to gain the support and change the
hearts and minds of non-Jews and neutral bystanders.
Unlike previous scholarly works on Jewish resistance during the Holo-
caust, this study sees Budapest Jewish humor after WWI as a joint adventure:
as a product of urban and Hungarian culture, in which Jewish not only played
an important role but also cofounded. Finally, the book addressed the issue of
continuity in Hungarian history, the “twisted road to Auschwitz”: whether
urban Jewish humor, as a form of escapism, helped to desensitize the future
victims of the Holocaust to the approaching danger, or it continued to play
the same defensive and positive role in the interwar period, as it had done in
the immediate aftermath of the Great War.
Béla Bodó is a Professor of Eastern European History at the University of
Bonn, Germany. He is the author of The White Terror: Antisemitic and Political
Violence in Hungary, 1919–1921 (Routledge, 2019) and Tiszazug: Social History
of a Murder Epidemic (Columbia University Press, 2002).
Routledge Histories of Central and Eastern Europe
The nations of Central and Eastern Europe experienced a time of momentous
change in the period following the Second World War. The vast majority
were subject to Communism and central planning while events such as the
Hungarian uprising and Prague Spring stood out as key watershed moments
against a distinct social, cultural and political backcloth. With the fall of the
Berlin Wall, German reunification and the break-up of the Soviet Union,
changes from the 1990s onwards have also been momentous with countries
adjusting to various capitalist realities. The volumes in this series will help
shine a light on the experiences of this key geopolitical zone with many les-
sons to be learned for the future.
The Mentality of Partisans of the Polish Anti-Communist
Underground 1944–1956
Mariusz Mazur
Biopolitics in Central and Eastern Europe in the 20th Century
Fearing for the Nation
Edited by Barbara Klich-Kluczewska, Joachim von Puttkamer and Immo Rebitschek
The Intellectual Foundations of Modern Ukraine
The Nineteenth Century
Andriy Zayarnyuk and Ostap Sereda
Black Humor and the White Terror
Béla Bodó
The Anthems of East-Central Europe
Reflections on the History of a National Symbol
Csaba G. Kiss
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.
com/Routledge-Histories-of-Central-and-Eastern-Europe/book-series/
CEE

Black Humor and
the White Terror
Béla Bodó
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Béla Bodó
The right of Béla Bodó to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-032-12401-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-12403-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-22438-9 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003224389
Typeset in Bembo
by codeMantra
Contents
List of illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Preface xiii
1 War-Time Humor 1
2 Jewish Black Humor 57
3 Antidefamation Humor 99
4 The Love Affair with the Nobility 168
5 Finding Humor in Factional Tension 199
Epilogue 229
Bibliography 235
Index 247

Illustrations
Cartoons:
2.1 Logic 64
2.2 Future plans 65
2.3 Business before everything 66
2.4 Question of word order 71
2.5 Hotel Britannia 72
2.6 His ration 84
2.7 True Honesty 87
2.8 Practical Israelite 88
2.9 A Viennese joke 89
3.1 Herkulsz-Abelesz 105
3.2 Duel 106
3.3 In Hell: Haynau to Szamuely 131
3.4 Mistake 149
4.1 In the Flea Theater 177
4.2 On Sunday 178
4.3 Introduction 179
4.4 The Next Morning 180
4.5 Close Attention 181
4.6 Mihály Magyar and the Jewish Question 191
4.7 The good villagers 192
5.1 Religion and income 206
5.2 After a long time 210
5.3 Comfortable religion 213
5.4 Because of them, we have antisemitism 220
5.5 On the shores of Lake Balaton 221
5.6 The pious renegade 222