Supplements to Documents of Bishop Ottokár Prohászka’s Public Activity

Abstract

Bishop Ottokár Prohászka (1858–1927) was one of the most important public figures of the interwar Hungary. He became not only an important politician, but he got a special position of the spiritual founders of the new ‘Horthy regime’ from 1919 autumn. After his death of 1927, Antal Schütz published Prohászka’s speeches and articles in a monumental, 25 volumes series. Schütz did not collect every text, that’s why a new monograph was published in 2019 with 150 unpublished articles, speeches and interviews of the bishop. This short article includes two new more articles from the contemporary text.First is an interview given by Prohászka to a daily in November 1919. Prohászka wanted to give a complex social and political program for the Hungarian nation after crisis times caused by the World War I and the subsequent events: attempt for a democratic republic and the communist dictatorship of 1919. Prohászka as a representative of the ‘Christian Nationalist’ ideology strongly condemned the Liberalism and wanted to rebuild a new phenomenon of nation on the foundations of the countryside religious society. He hoped a new land reform could be the most important element of the building of a new and successful Hungary.The second text is a religious contemplation for the 1920 Christ-mas. Prohászka repeated his thesis about the role of the peasantry in the successful future of the Hungarian state. Christmas times gave a good opportunity for proclaiming a political message for the New Year. In this case Prohászka wrote about the new hope about the stabilization about the state. He wanted to make a cooperative movement among the peasantry and condemned the liberal market economy which is not available for the Hungarian circumstances according to him. Prohászka hoped the development of the Hungarian countryside including modernized school and health care system.