Front page of the daily newspaper Képes Pesti Hírlap

This image shows the front page of the September 6, 1936 edition of the daily newspaper Képes Pesti Hírlap (Illustrated Daily Journal of Pest), one of the Hungarian newspapers that often reported on the Spanish war. 

Hungarians reacted to the events in Spain according to their political sympathies. The working class was enthusiastic about the Spanish workers’ confrontation with the rebels, whom they called fascist, and they expressed their support for the Spanish left’s cause through propaganda or fundraising, but the Hungarian government immediately banned all such activities. In the right-wing Hungary of Miklós Horthy, the influence of the far right was growing stronger by 1936, so naturally the Hungarian government showed no sympathy for the leftist Republican government. 

Horthy’s government, which took a non-interventionist stance and forbade Hungarians from participating in the Spanish Civil War on either side, was aware that several leftist volunteers had left without permission. The Ministry of the Interior was responsible for reporting to the government if Hungarian communists and workers were planning to go to Spain to join the “Spanish Red Army”. Their departure had to be prevented and suspects arrested. Any who managed to enter Spain illegally would be monitored on their return and arrested if there was sufficient evidence. These Hungarians were all described in official government reports as communists, Bolsheviks, and reds, and were considered dangerous to Hungarian domestic politics. Despite the ban, in Budapest and in the countryside, groups of the National Youth Committee (an organisation of young left-wing workers, peasants and intellectuals) often organized lectures on the heroic resistance of the Spanish people and also tried to support, at least in words and with small amounts of money, the Hungarian volunteers who went to Spain. 

The oldest Hungarian daily, the social-democratic Népszava (People’s Word), which still exists today, had a correspondent in Spain who filed reports and interviews from the scene. It also published appeals for international donations. The Hungarian government, however, was unhappy with the tone of Népszava’s coverage of events in Spain and forced the editorial staff to be less favourable toward the Republic, to include reports and communiqués issued by the Burgos government among its sources, and to use the term “nationalists” rather than “rebels”. Although the newspaper had to comply to avoid being banned, the sympathy of its articles for the Republican side was clear. In contrast, pro-government, right-wing newspapers described the Hungarians who arrived in Spain as adventurers, good-for-nothings, vagabonds, driven by high wages or the desire for glory.