At luncheon there were as guests the Count and Countess Karolyi Hunyadi and two of their sons, and the Countess Herberstein, whose husband is a general in the army.
Sunday, January 10th. I had the honor of a very interesting walk and talk with Count Apponyi this morning. Among other things he said: “I sometimes let my younger daughter (aged 12) play with the children of the peasants on the place. It gives her an understanding of life, and besides, there is no one of her own age and rank in this part of the country.” This for a Hungarian nobleman is an extremely democratic remark.
The mass in Count Albert’s private chapel was most interesting. The chapel is built into the castle as a part of it. The family assembled in a little oratory or balcony giving off the second-floor hall. From this oratory one looked down upon the service and upon the peasants crowded together below. It was glassed in so that one viewed the spectacle through windows, so to speak. These had two panes which could be opened if one desired to hear more clearly the service or sermon.
In a long conversation, Count Apponyi, in answer to my questions, made the following statements as to Hungary’s attitude in the war, which he defined as being a conflict between Orientalism and Occidentalism:
“You who live in America do not have to consider or define the differences between Occidentalism and Orientalism. You are geographically isolated from Orientalism and are so axiomatically Occidental that the issue is not yet a vital one for you. You do not have to search for concepts and definitions in this regard. The same would be true of the Chinese who are so extremely Oriental—who are so near the South Pole, so to speak—as to find thinking about the matter unnecessary. They take their Orientalism as a matter of course, as do you your Occidentalism.
“But we of Hungary who are on the geographical frontier of Occidentalism, who are, in these present centuries, Occidentalism’s contenders in the everlasting battle between East and West, and who find ourselves at death-grips with Russia, the present-day aggressive representative of Orientalism, we, I say, have need to consider such matters and to find concepts upon which to build.
“Thus I, as a Hungarian, have my definitions, my lines of demarcation between the two. My definitions of Occidentalism are four in number. Any nation which fails in one or more of them is on the Oriental side of the line. The four items are:
“(1) The distinction between spiritual and temporal power—the mutual independence of Religion and Government. The form of religion or the form of government does not and cannot decide the question. Thus in Russia the Greek Christian Church is Oriental because it makes itself one with the State and is used by the State as a club to keep the subjects of the State in political subjugation.