ABSTRACT
This chapter follows the migration of poet József Erdélyi from the rural countryside to the capital and his path from agrarian populism to fascism. The chapter explores his upbringing in rural poverty and his double, Romanian–Hungarian, ethnicity against the backdrop of the era's class prejudices and ethnic normativity. The latter, the chapter argues, were driving forces in his desire to be seen as “fully Hungarian” and a prospective “national poet.” Focusing on his unlikely rise from the rural poor and his alienation in an unfamiliar Budapest, the chapter illustrates how the era's antisemitism shaped his views. At the same time, analyzing his autobiography, the chapter explains how early experiences of rural patriarchy transformed into dreams of a fascist-agrarian society. His poem The Blood of Eszter Sólymosi (1937) announced his turn to fascism and soon became an anthem for anti-Jewish radicals. The chapter shows how Erdélyi's poem transformed folk traditions of remembering Eszter Sólymosi into an iconic figure of fascist memory.
