The last maecenas before the court: The trial of Lajos Hatvany

Abstract

The study examines the limiting restrictions of freedom of press and speech in Hungary during the interwar period through a legal proceeding against Lajos Hatvany (1880-1961) left-wing writer and journalist. In 1921, the concept of defamation of Hungarian nation was introduced into criminal law, which punished the use of the term defamatory against the Hungarian state or the Hungarian nation or government with imprisonment. On this basis, Lajos Hatvany, who fled the Soviet Republic to Vienna and wrote articles criticizing the Horthy regime in the 1920s, was prosecuted. The trial ended in 1928, in which the prison sentence, originally 7 years, was reduced to one and a half years in prison. Hatvany was released by amnesty in 1930 and emigrated to France in 1938.