PPKE Repository of Dissertations (Pázmány Péter Catholic Univ.)

Sólyom Borbála

Hungarian

Az adócsalás és az adóelkerülés elleni harc az Európai Unióban az általános forgalmi adózás területén különös tekintettel az Európai Bíróság joggyakorlatára

Csábi Domonkos

Babits Mihály 1925-1927

Haász Gabriella

ABSTRACT OF PHD THESIS 
Gabriella Haász  
 
Mihály Babits and the San Remo award 
Supervisor: Prof. emer. Dr. Sipos Lajos CSc. habil. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Pázmány Péter Catholic University 
Faculty of Humanities 
PhD School for Literatures 
2013 
  
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Choice of subject and the objective of the thesis 
On the 30th of March 1940 Mihály Babits received the 
‘Foreign Author’ category San Remo award for the year 
1938 for his Hungarian translation of the Divine Comedy 
in a pompous setting, in the city of San Remo. Even 
though this prize – that included 50 000 Liras – was 
among the very few acknowledgments that Hungarian 
literature received from abroad, no comprehensive study 
has been carried out in the subject. This is partly due to 
the San Remo award’s very short existence and partly to 
the fact that already at the time confusing and often 
contradictory information was published about the event 
in the Hungarian media. Literary historians have not paid 
much attention to this biographical fact either. The 
published Babits monographs do mention the award, but 
none of them discusses in merit what kind of award the 
San Remo award actually was. 
In this dissertation I provide a historic overview of the 
San Remo awards as well as a list of the ‘Foreign Author’ 
category winners along with the Italian and Hungarian 
press reception that followed the victory of Babits. This is 
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how – from the perspective of the awarders and the 
awardees – this paper explores the real value of this prize, 
and it attempts to clarify umpteen, so far obscure issues. 
No reassuring answer has been provided so far as to the 
nature of this award, whether it was a private, national, 
regional, state-specific or international award and besides 
the other categories, what role the ‘Foreign Author’ 
category played. It is also unknown how contestants 
could apply for the award and how Babits could win the 
prize for 1938 in 1940 with a translation that had been 
completed for over a decade, not to mention that fact that 
he never applied for it! 
Babits’ San Remo award is a historic novelty that 
provides an authentic insight into the Italo-Hungarian 
cultural relations at the time, and a behind the scenes look 
into the art policy and awarding system of the Mussolini 
era. 
 
Sources and Methodology 
The dissertation publishes the findings of a study 
completed in San Remo, Imperia, Genoa, Rome and 
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Budapest, and it also attempts to provide a summary of 
the studies previously published in the topic. It is the 
continuation of a Master’s thesis I successfully defended 
at the Faculty of Humanities in the Pázmány Péter 
Catholic University in the summer of 2005. The research 
work commenced the same year. I first travelled to San 
Remo, then to Genoa. My work was impeded and almost 
no relevant materials could be found on site since local 
people are eager to erase the last remaining memories of 
Fascism. The sole Italian researcher of the subject, art 
historian Daniela Lauria from Imperia provided me with 
vast amounts of data regarding the awards’ overall 
history, which proved to be an immense help. Afterwards 
I focussed on the history and the other awardees of the 
‘Foreign Author’ category. In 2006 and 2012 I travelled 
to Rome where I explored the relevant documents in the 
Central Archives and in the archives of the Accademia 
dei Lincei in Rome. Unfortunately the outbreak of World 
War II practically wiped the award away, and this is 
reflected in the scarcity of available documents. In 
summer 2013 I got access to the archives of Imperia that 
provided further useful details. The study of Babits’ 
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reception in Italy between the two world wars based on 
Hungarian and international literary pieces, newspaper 
articles, studies published there and the author’s Italian 
correspondence constituted another important path in my 
research. The final chapter of the dissertation is dedicated 
to the Hungarian press coverage that the prize awarded to 
Babits generated. 
 
Accomplishments of the PhD thesis 
 
In the early 1930s, the fascist Mussolini government 
set a condition for the renewal of the San Remo City 
Casino’s gambling licence; namely, the owners were to 
spend a certain percentage of the profits on promoting 
tourism and cultural life in the region. The agreement 
stipulated the formation of the Permanent Committee for 
the San Remo Literature and Art Prizes (Comitato 
Permanente Per I Premi San Remo), entrusted with the 
supervision of the organised fine art, music and literature 
events. Several members of the Committee were 
government officials. The ministerial decree on the 
gambling licence renewal came into force on 4 January 
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1928 and it was valid for 15 years. The agreement signed 
in 1933 between the public limited company operating 
the Casino and the city of San Remo specified that a 
certain part of the 13 million Lira concession fee paid by 
the casino operator had to be used for the cultural 
development of the region and for the organisation of 
programs that would attract tourists from Italy and abroad 
alike (such as sailing and car racing contests, concerts, 
etc.). Section 13 of the agreement made provisions for the 
establishment of the San Remo Literature and Art prizes 
in the following categories: literature, painting, sculpting, 
music and foreign author. Applicants in the latter 
category – in which Babits won – originally should have 
submitted their application in the topic of the Italian 
Riviera. The unhidden agenda behind the creation of 
these prizes was to raise awareness in the Italian and 
international press and to attract visitors through the 
exhibitions, galas and other accompanying events. The 
agreement also stipulated that the award-giving 
ceremonies should take place every other year, 
alternating with the year of the Venice Biennale since 
many of the organisers contributed to both events. 
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Altogether three award-giving ceremonies were held: in 
January 1937, on 2 March 1938, and on 31 March 1940. 
The professional background for the prizes was provided 
by the Mussolini-founded Royal Academy of Italy that 
delegated the members of the different juries. These 
juries, however, were entrusted only with the task of 
putting forward recommendations, the final decisions 
were made by the Permanent Committee of the San Remo 
Literature and Art Prizes that could overrule the juries’ 
recommendations, generating immense tension and press 
debates between the Academy members that could last 
for a whole year. This power play was particularly visible 
in the Foreign Author category, where foreign policy 
interests dominated the artistic ones. During the prize’s 
short life several Hungarian authors submitted their 
application (or someone else did on their behalf). The 
archives contain information about Cécile Tormay’s 
travel journal The City of Flowers, the Home of Sirens, 
János Mester’s Education in Italy in the 19th century, and 
Terka Lux’s historical novel Naples and Buda, but it is 
plausible that other Hungarian authors also participated in 
the contest. It wasn’t Mihály Babits to apply for the San 
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Remo call for competition, therefore the news of winning 
the award caught him by surprise. His victory was thanks 
to Antonio Widmar who recommended the Hungarian 
poet and writer in a private correspondence to Arturo 
Marpicati, a former colleague of his from Rijeka. At the 
time Widmar was a jury member of the Foreign Author 
category. Babits won the prize in 1938 for translating the 
Divine Comedy into Hungary. The award-giving 
ceremony in 1940 became a mighty celebration of fascist 
culture. The 35 winners received their prizes from the 
Duke of Bergamo, following which the Minister of 
Popular Culture Alessandro Pavolini delivered a speech. 
In his talk he referred to Babits as “one of the vibrant 
stars shining on the sky of European literature”. Italy was 
obviously making an effort to reconcile Romania and 
Hungary, since the 1939 winner of the category, the 
Romanian Italianist Alexandru Marcu received his prize 
for the same accomplishment – the translation of the 
Divine Comedy into his native Romanian – also in 1940. 
Babits’ award received large media coverage, he was 
criticised also by the right and the left for accepting the 
fascist acknowledgment.  
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Publications 
 
1. Babits Mihály San Remo-díja, Új Dunatáj, 2006. 
szeptember, 54-60. 
 
2. Recepciótörténeti párhuzamok: József Attila 
befogadásának első időszaka és Babits San Remo-díja, 
In= Véges végtelen: Isten-élmény és Isten hiány a XX. 
századi magyar költészetben (szerk. FINTA Gábor, 
SIPOS Lajos), Budapest, Akadémiai, 2006. 
 
3. Babits Mihály recepciója Olaszországban és a San 
Remo-díj, Bp. Argumentum, 2014 (before publishing) 
 
 


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