Dve Reštavrácie z 19. storočia: Ján Kalinčiak a Ignác Nagy

Abstract

Elections were a stable part of Hungarian political culture even before the eventful year of 1848. As such they were reflected in individual national literatures written in Hungary – especially in the Hungarian and Slovak ones. The novel by Ján Kalinčiak (1822 – 1871) Reštavrácia ([County elections], 1860) was thus not the only literary text that portrayed these events. In 1842, the popular Hungarian playwright Ignác Nagy (1810 – 1854) published a comedy under the same title. The novel by Ján Kalinčiak, despite the fact that it was published later, is much less political in its nature than Nagy’s play which in the context of county elections addressed such issues as the emancipation of women, the rights of Jews and the elimination of the political monopoly and tax advantages enjoyed by the gentry. Kalinčiak was primarily concerned with portraying a familial dispute between two gentry families in a fictitious county in northern Hungary. The dispute was resolved harmoniously and the national issues were addressed only marginally. Nevertheless, the novel and the play still have a lot in common. Besides the described social environment and the character of the main plot, these concern the frequent use of Latin expressions and dated language in general, the relatively realistic description of the events, frequent humorous motives, and the fact that the ending bears features of biedermeier style.