Oldal 107 [107]
104
Anssi Halmesvirta
ing and quarrelling (Jalava 1876b: 217-224). Against this “weakness” in character,
Jalava’s romantic, unrealistic toleration advised: to love oneself did not mean that
one should hate the Others. His main dilemma with the Hungarian brothers boiled
down to this contradiction: the Hungarians, with whom he had initially identified
himself so closely, turned out to be as “oppressive” toward the Other as the enemy
of the fennomen—the Swedish speakers in Finland. How to love a brother who had
been blinded by his selflove to the point that he could not see the value of Others in
contributing to the civilization of mankind? And had not they just (in 1868) enacted
a law that should have given them rights of representation? Perhaps they would learn
that they could not afford to remain living in such a dream of superiority?! Jalava
did not express this lament in his travel book but in his private correspondence (Ja¬
lava 1948: 164). He did not dare to criticize Hungarians openly and even hesitated
to have his travel book translated, as he knew that Hungarian nationality policy
was a point of noli me tangere for them (Tervonen 1995: 28). Nevertheless, Jalava
had his own axe to grind: Hungarian patriotic fervor could arouse the slumbering
fennoman spirit to action against the svecomen in Finland. The warning message was
that it should not be carried to the extremes encountered in Hungary.
When encountering the Hungarians on the spot, less charming features came
to the fore. Jalava paid special attention to countryside and peasant representa¬
tives of Hungarianness, a theme surely interesting to Finnish readers. In spite of
the fact that the status of the peasant had after the Revolution of 1848-1849 and
the 1867 compromise improved, he still was not the hard-working and persever¬
ing, backwoods-ideal-type Finnish peasant Paavo from Saarijarvi, the hero of the
Swedish-Finnish national poet, J. L. Runeberg (Jalava 1876b: 144). His Hungarian
brother was “lazy and careless,” working only for subsistence because the soil was so
fertile that it gave good yield almost by itself. No work was done on the fields dur¬
ing the winter; no manure was used. After a day’s work, country-folk gathered in
the kocsma (pub), where they could chat about daily politics and drink spirits and
wine. Jalava’s illustration of a country-type was rather a stereotyped representation
of a local guardsman than a picture of a real peasant (see ill. 29).
Both such a state of Hungarian country-folk and the former image of the nobil¬
ity confirmed Jalava’s conclusion to the effect that the Hungarian countryside was
in stagnation, the remnants of the feudal past obstructing the modern processes of
development, that is, the agricultural reform and popular enlightenment so dear to
fennomen, who were eager to civilize the Finnish peasant. In contrast to Hungarian
inactivity, Jalava ascribed “patience and diligence’—mental forces of progress—not
only to “hard-working” Germans but also to the “detested, selfish and cunning
Jews,” who were effectively assimilating to the Hungarians (Jalava 1883:10). To
> In Hungary, Jalava’s book was found to be “the best and irritatingly truthful” about Hungary, and
in Finland it was regarded as very timely because information on Hungary, “the other civilized nation
among Ugric peoples,” was so scarce (Hunfalvy 1877a; Godenhjelm 1877).