The Mystery of "General Lukács": How a Hungarian Writer Hid Behind Another Name

Máté Zalka (Béla Frankl, 1896–1937) was a Hungarian writer and internationalist revolutionary. Operating undercover in Spain under the name of Czechoslovak General Paul Lukács, he "would not allow himself to be called Zalka, nor would he let it slip himself: – A book I am very interested in is coming out soon… 'Doberdo.' – Who is the author? He squinted slyly: – …I've forgotten the surname," recalls TASS correspondent Ovady Hertzovich Savich (1896–1967) in his book Máté Zalka – Writer, General, Man.

Several editions of this collection (1968, 1976) can be found in the RUDN University library. Zalka's wife and daughter, military commanders and comrades, writers and cultural figures all wrote about him. And in the collection of the "Museum of Rare Books" there is also the first edition of the novel Doberdo (1937), which Máté Zalka never had the chance to hold in his hands.

Another rare book is Song of a Soldier's Leave (1936). Savva Yevseyevich Golovanivsky (1910–1989) received a copy of this same edition as a gift just minutes before Zalka's departure for Spain: "on the title page was an inscription in blue ink: 'Savva, remember your friend. Máté.' In the table of contents… one story is underlined, …and in the text, one word is marked in the same blue ink: Lukács."

Nikolai Alekseevich Ostrovsky (1904–1936) wanted to include Zalka's name in his novel Born of the Storm: "if you object in the slightest… or wish the name to be fictitious, then write to me about it. I will do as you wish…" (General Lukács, 1967). And a close friend of both Nikolai Ostrovsky and Dmitry Andreyevich Furmanov (1891–1926), a fearless leader of rebels in a Siberian concentration camp in 1917, he became the "Hungarian Lieutenant Shajno."