HUNGARIAN STUDIES 16. No. 2. Nemzetközi Magyar Filológiai Társaság. Akadémiai Kiadó Budapest [2002]

Samuel J. Wilson: Kossuth, Clausewitz and the Hero's Journey

SAMUEL J. WILSON too is a tragic hero because, in spite of his Herculean efforts, his journey must end in failure. Many authors write about the tragic hero. Aristotle, however, is still the "major authority on tragedy." For Aristotle, in order to be a tragic hero the individual must have a major flaw. Usually the flaw is hubris, or excessive pride.3 Kossuth's pride is evident in his failure to compromise on an independent Hungary. His travels in Britain and America and his life as an exile reveal that he would never be willing to accept that his cause, his raison d'état had ended. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán referred to Kossuth's failure on Mon­day, 11 February 2002 in a speech on European Security at Tufts Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Orbán told his audience that 150 years ago the governor of Massachusetts welcomed Kossuth to Boston and said, "The moment is near when we will welcome Hungary to the family of republican, constitutional, sover­eign states." Orbán remarked that "this moment took 138 years to arrive."4 Kossuth's tragedy goes beyond his own quixotic behavior. As István Deák states, "Kossuth was a child of his age: a liberal and nationalist for whom the two ideolo­gies were not incompatible."5 Unfortunately for Kossuth, his ideas were incom­patible in an age of growing imperialism and empire. He was attempting an im­possible task: the creation of a nation-state without the assistance of a Great Power. Moreover, such powers were all empires involved in either the expansion or main­tenance of their empires, and were not interested in an independent Hungary or a republic unless it served their purposes. Initially it may seem unfair to consider Kossuth, an international hero, and a champion of freedom and liberty, along with poets and mythological figures. Such figures, however, are more emblematic of the hero. The British poet Siegfried Sassoon continued his journey far beyond the trenches of World War I. He, along with such literary men as Robert Graves, Max Plowman, Cecil Lewis, and Edmund Blunden, were all involved in the Battle of the Somme in 1916. Their literary legacies are a testament of their journeys, which did not cease with the end of hostilities. This generation produced "most of the novels and poems and plays that constitute Western literature" in the twentieth century.6 For this generation the "romance of war died on the Western Front."7 Whereas the romantic spirit allowed poets and artists to stretch the limits of creative expression, it was disas­trous for statesmen.8 Kossuth is different in that he is a hero who refuses to com­plete his journey. His journey is as tragic as Byron and Wilfred Owen, both of whom die before their journeys are completed. Inevitably, Kossuth's failure was a result of his "inability to face the world as it was instead of as it might have been."9 According to Vogler, "The pattern of the Hero's Journey is universal, occur­ring in every culture, in every time. It is as infinitely varied as the human race itself and yet its basic form remains constant ... The ideas embedded in mythol-

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