Máté Zalka

Zalka during Spanish Civil War

Béla Frankl (April 23, 1896 – June 11, 1937), known as Máté Zalka, was a Hungarian writer, soldier and revolutionary. He fought in the Royal Hungarian Army during the First World War and was captured by the Imperial Russian Army. Subsequently, he came under the influence of Bolshevism and fought during the Russian Civil War. After participating in various other conflicts for the Soviet Union, he was killed in the Spanish Civil War.

Biography

Early life

Born in Tunyogmatolcs, Austria-Hungary to a family of Hungarian Jews, he attended Polgári Iskola, a high school, in Mátészalka, which was later renamed in his honor. The name was again changed after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Hungary in World War I

When he was 18, Zalka lied about his age to volunteer in the Hungarian Army. An Officer of Hussars, Zalka fought in Italy, which later became the subject of his novel Doberdó. He fought on the Russian front in 1917 and ended up in a Russian prisoner of war camp, where he was influenced by Bolshevism.

Russian Civil War

In February 1918, during the Russian Civil War, Zalka formed an international group of Red Guards in Khabarovsk which consisted mainly of Hungarian ex-prisoners and participated in the punitive action against the White formations in Siberia. At the end of World War I, Zalka chose to stay in Russia instead of returning to Hungary. Zalka met his Russian future wife Vera. They had one daughter, who later died due to complications from the Chernobyl Disaster.

GPU operational activities

In 1920, Zalka fought against Poland in the Battle of Kyiv. From 1921 to 1923, he was commander of a regiment of cavalry of the VCK GPU, the Soviet Communist Party Secret Service that fought in Crimea and Ukraine, and was involved in the elimination of forces of Nestor Makhno and other atamans of Ukraine. Because these atamans were widely supported by their local people, many of the actions resulted in punitive operations against civilians. At some point, he fought in the Turkish War of Independence under the assumed name of Lukács Tábornok (General Lukács).

While he was a prisoner of war camp, he organized the prisoners´ theatre. He was director of the "Theatre of Revolution" (now called "Mayakovsky Theatre") in Moscow (1925–1928).

Spanish Civil War

In 1936, Zalka moved to Spain. In November he joined the International Brigades to fight in the Spanish Civil War. Under the assumed name of Pál Lukács and the rank of General, he initially commanded the XII International Brigade and later, the 45th Division. In 1937, he was killed near Huesca when his car was hit by artillery fire. Zalka is mentioned in a number of works of Hemingway.

His remains were originally buried in the south of Spain. However, decades after his death, Zalka's nephew (who also fought in the Spanish Civil war) was invited by the Spanish royal family to a ceremony celebrating the end of the civil war. At this point, he was able to carry Zalka's remains to Hungary where they were buried in the Kerepesi Cemetery in Budapest along with other high-ranking Hungarian military officers.

References

See also: Frankl