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Cécile Tormay
Cécile Tormay in Napkelet lexikon
Born	8 October 1876  Budapest
Died	2 April 1937  (aged 60)
Partner(s)	Lajosné Ambrózy Migazzi

Cécile Tormay (8 October 1876 in Budapest – 2 April 1937 in Mátraháza) was a Hungarian writer, intellectual, right-wing political activist, literary translator, and social theorist.

Both her parents were of German origin. Her maternal great-grandfather, József Spiegel (Tüköry de Algyest), was a building contractor, helped István Széchenyi build the Chain Bridge. Her fraternal grandfather, Károly Krenmüller (Tormay), took part in the 1848-49 revolution as an army major. The Tormay family received nobility in the late 19th century. Her father, Béla Tormay, was widely recognized as an expert on agriculture, was a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and a State Secretary. Her mother was Hermin Barkassy. Cécile was a private student, she studied literary works in German, Italian, French and Latin. She translated the Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi into Hungarian.

Bujdosó könyv

Bujdosó könyv was her most widely read book. She had begun expressing her political views, and opposed the Béla Kun regime in 1919. She published Bujdosó könyv, (1923) (An Outlaw's Diary, 1923). The title translates literally as The Proscribed Book and is about the events of the 1918–1919 revolution, protesting against the subsequent communist government and regretting the division of the Kingdom of Hungary. This book is cited as evidence of Tomay's anti-semitism as she claims that "The demon of the revolution is not an individual, not a party, but a race among the races. The Jews are the last people of the Ancient East who survived among the newer peoples of shorter history."

She was a great admirer of Mussolini. In 1932, on the tenth anniversary of the March on Rome, she met the Italian dictator, presenting him the good wishes of her Hungarian women's league in a speech in Italian.

She is known for two novels (People of the Rocks (Emberek a kövek között), 1911; The Old House (A Régi ház), 1914) and five short stories. Her most famous work, "An outlaw's diary", is a first hand account of the terror committed by communists during the short-lived Hungarian Communist Republic in 1919. She was nominated for Nobel Prize in Literature twice: in 1936 and in 1937.

In 1936 she became a member of the International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation.

Revival as a far-right figure

From the 1990s Tomay has been revived by political groups such as Jobbik, who share her far-right and anti-semitic views. Gábor Vona praised her in speech made in November 2009.

References

1. Tomay, Cécile (1923). An Outlaw's Diary (PDF). London: Philip Alan & Co. p. 59.
2. ^ Lázár, György (14 February 2019). "Antisemitism of the Orbán regime - Cécile Tormay's statue and plaques". Hungarian Free Press. Hungarian Free Press. Retrieved 15 February 2021.
3. Hungarian translation of the speech of Cécile Tormay in Rome
4. "The Nomination Database for the Nobel Prize in Literature, 1901–1950".
5. "Nomination Database". www.nobelprize.org. Retrieved 2017-04-19.
6. "Cécile de Tormay". www.lonsea.de. League of Nations Search Engine. Retrieved 15 February 2021.
7. "Vona: "Tormay Cécile szelleme bennünk él tovább!"". Jobbik. Jobbik. Retrieved 15 February 2021.

Sources

• An outlaw's diary (1923)
• Budapest wants to name a street after the antisemitic writer (in German, cites Tormay in English)
• Jewish federation asks Budapest mayor to withdraw renaming of street after alleged anti-Semite

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• Articles needing sections from February 2021
• 1876 births
• 1937 deaths
• Antisemitism in Hungary
• Hungarian-German people
• Hungarian women novelists
• Writers from Budapest
• 20th-century Hungarian novelists
• Hungarian people of the Hungarian–Romanian War
• 20th-century Hungarian women writers