In Defense of the Freedom of the Arts and Sciences: An Unknown Bartók Letter from 1933

Abstract Bartók's protests against the violent actions of ultra-nationalist sentiment interfering with matters of art, tolerated and even fueled by the governments of the early 1930s are known from the composer's biographies, even if some of these important documents have not yet been included in the composer's list of writings. Less known are Bartók's views about the rampant antisemitism and inhuman laws introduced by governments of the 1930s against their Jewish citizens. His statements and actions for the sake of the persecuted mostly come from his private correspondence. The present article gives an overview of these documents complementing it with a previously unknown letter of Bartók, written on behalf of the German ethnomusicologist, Robert Lachmann, who lost his livelihood in Berlin after the restrictive laws introduced in Germany in 1933. The road to Bartók's decision to his ultimate protest against the Nazi-allied Hungarian government, to leave the country, is also traced in his correspondence.