Cultural Studies paper by Kádár, Judit
An Exceptional Case of Women’s Self-Advocacy in Interwar Hungary: Cécile Tormay (Accepted)
Type of Abstract (select):Abstract (max. 250 words):
The career path of the novelist, pamphlet writer and political leader Cécile Tormay (1875-1937) is an exceptional case of women’s self-advocacy in Hungary after World War I. Despite being unmarried, she was able to ascend to the highest social circles in the conservative Horthy Era (1920-1944) that pursued a restrictive policy on women's participation in public life. On the one hand, her ascendancy might be attributable to her alertness: she almost instantly joined to the counter-revolutionary conspiracy of the former ruling elite that tried to regain power following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the outbreak of the democratic revolution in 1918. On the other hand, her successful move to the top was probably due to her shrewdness in editing of her both famous and infamous memoir, the strongly anti-Semitic Bujdosó könyv (1920-21) [‘The Hiding Book’, in English translation: An Outlaw’s Diary, 1923]. The cleverly propagandizing memoir that was published when modern propaganda was just emerging supported the old political elite in getting their power back effectively, and in return for Tormay’s services, they helped the writer become a person of eminence who was called Grand Dame of Hungarian Irredentism (‘a Magyar Irredenta Nagyasszonya’) in contemporaneous government-controlled media. Based on the analysis of her memoir, this essay will explain what behaviors and (editing) practices helped her succeed.
Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Judit Kádár, Ph.D., habil. associate professor at the English Department of Eötvös Loránd University, Savaria Campus in Szombathely. Her main field of research is nineteenth and twentieth century Hungarian women writers. She has published an anthology of twentieth century Hungarian women poets (Térdig születésben, halálban), a collection of critical essays (Royal Flush), and a monograph on pre-World War II Hungarian women writers (Engedelmes lázadók). Her latest book,Az Új Idők az első világháború alatt, 1914-1918, was published in 2018.