185 - [MANUSCRIPT - HUNGARIAN AVANT-GARDE] BODZASY, István. Szittyák. No. 26, September 3, 1917.

[MANUSCRIPT - HUNGARIAN AVANT-GARDE] BODZASY, István. Szittyák. No. 26, September 3, 1917. An exceptional manuscript of this underground journal produced at the Austro-Hungarian officers’ camp in Urumqi. Large quarto, paperback; sturdy cardboard covers with original purple-filled cover, fabric-backed adhesive spine; large watercolor drawing mounted on the front cover. 32 handwritten pages, 19 original compositions in graphite, watercolor, or ink, including 10 large headpieces. Cover is worn (significant paper loss on the purple cover) and reinforced with makeshift scraps of paper (at the bottom of the front cover, as well as reinforcing the seams along the central margins of the pages); minor stains from handling. This handwritten journal, one of the rarest of its kind, constitutes an exceptional historical, political, and artistic record. Created by a group of Austro-Hungarian officers held captive at the Urum camp, in the heart of Tsarist Russia, this Issue 26 survived the turmoil of the Russian Civil War only to ultimately fall victim to Bolshevik censorship. Located in the Vyatka Governorate, the camp housed a micro-society of Austro-Hungarian officers. Protected by the Hague Convention, these officers were exempt from labor and received a regular salary. These conditions allowed them to purchase art supplies and fund a clandestine cultural life (classes, theater, workshops). The title chosen for the magazine, *Szittyák* (*The Scythians*), refers to the myth of the Magyar people’s nomadic origins, affirming a choice deeply rooted in identity and defiance in the face of their Russian captors. A weapon of psychological warfare against the “barbed-wire malaise,” the magazine established itself as a bastion of aesthetic modernity, entirely calligraphed by Sándor Calderoni, a descendant of a famous dynasty of opticians and art dealers in Budapest. The issue notably features early writings by Imre Gyomai (1894–1962). Captured in Siberia at the age of 23, he settled in Montmartre after the war and became a leading figure in the Parisian literary avant-garde, later serving as secretary and official press officer for the France-Hungary Association following the Liberation. His contributions—a geopolitical essay on the sacrifices of war and two contemplative Symbolist poems—serve as the direct foundations for his future work on uprooting. The journal opens with an epic poem by Pál Ferencz, the editor-in-chief, and continues with “Gondok - Gondolatok,” an introspective essay by Lieutenant Kálmán Miklóssy on the anguish of confinement. The issue concludes with messages from the editorial board, including a programmatic text by Béla Bartha (B. B.), the group’s theorist, in which he sets forth an uncompromising literary charter modeled on the standards of the famous journal *Nyugat*. Rejecting plagiarism and advocating creative boldness, Bartha formulates his famous modernist motto: “What matters is style.” All 19 in-text illustrations and the cover drawing are attributed to the Impressionist and Symbolist painter István Bódzásy (1887–after 1923). Trained at the renowned Nagybánya School, then in Munich and Paris, he was captured on the Russian front in 1914 and spent his captivity at the Urumqi camp. Upon his return to Hungary in 1919, his paintings of war and captivity captivated the great poet Gyula Juhász, who introduced him to the literary avant-garde; Bódzásy went on to illustrate their journals before going into permanent exile in Germany in 1923. The Viennese Secession and Art Nouveau styles set the decorative, dramatic, and dreamlike tone of the book. It bursts forth right from the cover with the large watercolor of a nude nymph bound to a stylized tree, and unfolds throughout the book through sumptuous allegorical compositions: a frieze of intertwined nude bodies, a banner of horsemen in front of a fortified castle, nymphs flanked by lyre players, and a reclining female nude in the Art Nouveau style. The banner illustrating Imre Gyomai’s poignant lament on exile also fits into this ornamental and theatrical graphic style, as well as the powerful two-tone political drawing of the Russian imperial eagle clutching a nude figure, which opens the geopolitical essay also by Imre Gyomai. This ornamental dreamlike quality is interwoven with the plein air realism inherited from the Nagybánya School. The artist produced three graphite drawings of great technical precision, such as the faithful panoramic view of the town of Urjum and its Orthodox cathedral for Gyomai’s poem “Vasárnap” by Gyomai, or the portrait of a pensive comrade illustrating Miklóssy’s philosophical essay. Finally, breaking away from this melancholy, a purely humorous and satirical style takes hold in the camp’s local chronicle (“Krónika”). Adopting a lively, caricature-like style,