Szegedy-Maszák, Mihály2020-09-112020-09-112015-07-01Studia Litteraria, Évf. 54 szám 3-4 (2015): Az első világháború emlékezete , 5–46.0562-2867https://hdl.handle.net/2437/295943Since most of the leading Hungarian writers of the early twentieth century refused to participate in World War I, the most interesting Hungarian document is Noirmoutier (The Black Monastery) by the Transsylvanian Aladár Kuncz (1886–1931), published shorty before the death of its author. When the war was declared, he was in Brittany. Kuncz and some of his compatriots were interned, and his book is a narrative of captivity. Despite his sufferings, he never lost his great admiration for French culture. Among the German authors who fought in the war, Ernst Jünger (1895–1998), the author of Stahlgewittern (Storm of Steel, 1920), one of the most imaginative prose works about the war, expressed his unqualified respect for the ”enemy”. It is a difficult question to what extent the horror of the trench led some writers to political extremes. Henry Barbusse (1873–1935) became a Communist, whereas Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) and Pierre Drieu la Rochelle (1893–1945) decided to support the pro-German régime during World War II. A somewhat comparable disillusion was expressed by Ford Madox Ford (1873–1939) in his novel tetralogy Parade’s End (1924–28). The conclusion is inescapable: Europe committed suicide in1914, as the Hungarian poet and novelist Dezső Kosztolányi (1885–1936) declared when the war broke out.Since most of the leading Hungarian writers of the early twentieth century refused to participate in World War I, the most interesting Hungarian document is Noirmoutier (The Black Monastery) by the Transsylvanian Aladár Kuncz (1886–1931), published shorty before the death of its author. When the war was declared, he was in Brittany. Kuncz and some of his compatriots were interned, and his book is a narrative of captivity. Despite his sufferings, he never lost his great admiration for French culture. Among the German authors who fought in the war, Ernst Jünger (1895–1998), the author of Stahlgewittern (Storm of Steel, 1920), one of the most imaginative prose works about the war, expressed his unqualified respect for the ”enemy”. It is a difficult question to what extent the horror of the trench led some writers to political extremes. Henry Barbusse (1873–1935) became a Communist, whereas Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961) and Pierre Drieu la Rochelle (1893–1945) decided to support the pro-German régime during World War II. A somewhat comparable disillusion was expressed by Ford Madox Ford (1873–1939) in his novel tetralogy Parade’s End (1924–28). The conclusion is inescapable: Europe committed suicide in1914, as the Hungarian poet and novelist Dezső Kosztolányi (1885–1936) declared when the war broke out.application/pdffolyóiratcikkOpen AccessStudia Litterariahttps://doi.org/10.37415/studia/2015/54/4164Studia Litteraria3-454Stud.litt.2063-1049