CSÉ ÜBER E. – VORLESUNGEN VON LÁSZLÓ CS. SZABÓ ÜBER ERASMUS 1946/47

In 1946–1947, the Hungarian essayist and poet László Cs. Szabó held lectures on Erasmus at the Department of Cultural History of the Hungarian College of Fine Arts. “Reactionary” even in name, the department had been newly established (we could say it was established specifically for him). Not only is his experience of the world war clearly present in each line of his lectures, written with a great deal of erudition and psychological insight, but it seems as though he had had presentiments of the times that were to come: his texts were imbued with admonition (taking advice from friends, two years later he did not return to Hungary from a scholarship in Italy, and he subsequently emigrated to the UK, where he took a job at the BBC). Of all of Erasmus’s biographers, Cs. Szabó mentions Huizinga alone; his influence on him is clear. He paused several times to read out quotations from Huizinga’s book. The Dutch thinker’s influence also shows in the structure and the emphasis on certain subjects. The part on history of effect as well as the one on Erasmus’s iconography was probably inspired by Huizinga’s book. Nevertheless, Huizinga’s effect is not in the details. If Huizinga distinguished The Small Erasmus and The Great Erasmus, then it is even more true of Cs. Szabó.