Evening star., 1935-03-24
BY RANDOLPH LEIGH.
Special Dispatch to The Star.

Special Dispatch to The Star.
HUDAPEST-Paradoxical Hun
- gary! 1t has not a foot Of
seacoast, yet is ruled by an
- admiral. It's constitution pro-
vides that it shall be a mon
archy and that its King shall be a
Catholic, yet it has no intention of
toleratlng a King, and its Regent
admiral Horthy) is Calvinist. 1t
is in such desperate straits econom-
ically that it would seem to be an
ideal seedbed for communism. yet
(having had that malady once) its
people are the most violently anti
Communist to be found anywhere.
This is the last and least Of the
punished" nations. and the most out
spokenly resentful and determined to
throw off it's chains The press, the
stage, the people clamor necessarily
for restoration of its territory two
thirds OF which was taken away and
for the preservation of its nationality.
Last night at the opera, for in
stance, I witnessed the premiere OF
the ballet The Dance of the Com
muists." the music for which was by
Leo Weiner. who won, in 1888, the
international musical composition
prize offered by the Elizabeth Sprague
Coolidge Musical Foundation. in
Washington. The Regent and other
leaders were present. and the house
was janmed.
Hungarians See a Mission.
The greed, the goatishneSs. the
chaos of a civilization turned upside
down were portrayed solely by music
and pantomime. 1t was the first time
that had seen the stage used in just
that way, and it shook me up con-
siderably. 1t also worked powerfully
upon the audience.
Hungarians take themselves and
their mission very seriously. Further
more, they think that theirs Is q
mission Of immense importance to
European civilization. They think OF
themselves as the battered shield
which Europe has for centuries held
up against the menace of the Orient.
Two centuries ago, they say, that
menace was the Turk. Today they
call it the Slav and bolshevism.
OF course, true to the heroic mold
they exaggerate their part in history
The real stemming of the Turkish tide
was by the Germans at Vienna, and
the largest-scale counter-offensive to
Slavic bolshevism was that shortly
after the World War by the Franco
Polish army, and more recently by
the theology and firm front of Hitler
lied Germany.
Nevertheless, the Hungarians, hav-
ing been overrun, or rather taken over
by Communists, rose against them and
put them down. That was in 1920.
and since then they have been vigor-
ously anti-Slavic and very conserva-
tive. They have developed a feverish
nationalism, surrounded as they are
by Slavic enemies and weakened by
the pressure of French policy.
Three Treaties Cast Shadows.
1t is hard to say which neighbor
they dislike most-Rumania, Yugo-
slavia or CzechoSlovakia. They have
been despoiled in the interest oi
each Of these, and even in the
interest of Austria, which was given q
small bit of formerly Hungarian terri
tory in the Trianon treaty. CentraI
Europe lives (or struggles not to die p
under the shadow of three treaties
that of Versailles, of st. German and
of the Trisnon, disposing of Germany
Austria and Hungary in turn. The
object of the first was rather simple
namely. to punish Germany, forcs
restitution from her and render her
impotent as a world power. The object
of the second was to dispose of Austria
and give the entente some additional
strength by creating new nations and
forces in opposition to her. There
must have been some similar object in
the arrangement for Hungary. although
it is in many ways the most severe
and whimsical of the three.
The result of these three 4reaties in
one direction. that Of languages. Il