Új Idők [New Times] during World War I (1914–1918)

In the first months of the war, the entire Hungarian press, including the papers of moderate opposition, followed the government’s press policy in supporting the military actions against Serbia. Új Idők [New Times] an illustrated weekly journal, characterized before the war by a clear purpose of educating people to assimilate and/or integrate into society, from the summer of 1914 got more and more involved in propaganda, and encouraged its audience to support the Great War even at the cost of serious personal sacrifice.

Judit Kádár’s book elaborates from society, culture and literary history aspects on the issues of Új Idők edited by Ferenc Hercegh between 1914 and 1918. It enumerates the literary works published in sequels on the first pages of the journal, with focus on how they depict the war and whether the writings with non-war topics react to the real-time events taking place. Do they try to understand the problems of Hungary heading towards collapse and revolution, and look for a solution? Apart from the literary publications, Kádár’s work also studies the journal’s articles on society and natural sciences, as well as the messages from the editor, in search of war propaganda and to present what phenomena of that time’s society related to the war were of interest for the readers of Új Idők.