The story of a diagram-film that was never made
The unfulfilled dream of a self-made economic journalist from the 1930s.
I’ve wanted to write the following story for a long time. I recently decided to give it a try after watching again a clip from the World of Plenty from 1943 by Paul Rotha and the Isotype Institution.
The story of the Hungarian water management official and self-made economic journalist Dénes Marosi Nagy is both mysterious and entertaining—insofar as an unfulfilled dream can be entertaining.
The diagram appears
Marosi Nagy’s name first appears in the December 3, 1924 issue of the newspaper Budapesti Hírlap, immediately in connection with a diagram on which the rest of the story is based. The brief review concerns the third issue of a now unobtainable series of booklets titled Analízis by Dénes Nagy (as he was then known). From it, we learn that the issue analyzes the relationship between money and the circulation of goods, as well as the capitalist state system, while the flow of money is illustrated by a hand-drawn graph.
The next news item in which Dénes Nagy’s name appears is a parliamentary report in the February 11, 1927, issue of Az Újság. The article’s anonymous author writes:
“In the ruling party’s corridor, many people gazed at Mr. Dénes Nagy’s budget graph. All sorts of lines ran around on a huge sheet of white cardboard in red, blue, green, black, and other colors. This interesting experiment was modelled on the human circulatory system. The Ministry of Finance represented the heart, from which money flows out like arteries to various sectors of the economy; then the veins take over and transport the money back in the form of income to all of our hearts—the Ministry of Finance. It’s a sort of vicious circle, but it reflects real life, and even an elementary school child can learn from it what the much-discussed public finances are”.
The diagram so captivated Az Újság that nine days later it devoted two columns to it—more precisely, to the diagram’s design and description (Újság 1927/41: 11). The author of the article expresses the view that
“it would be beneficial if our schools taught young people the basics of economics in such a visual format. There would be ample opportunity for teachers to explain to the younger generation the role played in the life of the state by the National Bank, the ministries, state-owned enterprises, and banks, so that children would better understand what credit is—a concept they can hardly imagine or retain in their minds without visual aids.”
A diagram-mural lost forever
We jump forward another two years, and the Nemzeti Újság reports on yet another milestone in the career of the official now known as Dénes Marosi-Nagy (the far more prominent sociologist and economist Dénes Nagy had, in the meantime, adopted the name Kislégi).
The single-column report published on February 10, 1929, reveals a real treat: one wall of the small conference room at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the so-called “Baross Hall,” or Small Boardroom is adorned with a four-meter-wide and three-meter-high (!) graph by Dénes Marosi Nagy. From the description, we learn that this “graph” is a grandiose adaptation of the diagram previously known. The reporter writes: “The graph, which fills the entire wall of the room, is almost staggering with its dazzlingly complex network, colorful veins, flows symbolizing the country’s economic circulation, and an immeasurable mass of data. The author of the image spent a year not only drawing the image but also editing it, compiling it, collecting the data, and organizing it into a system, even though a single year is barely sufficient for the technical production of the drawing alone.” The article also promises that the newspaper’s pictorial supplement will publish a photograph of the diagram, but so far it has not been possible to locate this photograph.
The Economic Order
In 1930, Marosi Nagy privately published his proposal for an economic film in both French and English, for which he later registered a copyright on two separate occasions and in English, French and German languages (Corvina 1930/45: 233, KÉ 1931/33: 563, 1931/52: 942) At this point, it was not yet clear that Marosi Nagy was thinking in terms of synergies and that the patent registration was the first manifestation of a much more ambitious plan.
In 1932, Marosi Nagy’s book A gazdasági rend (The Economic Order) summarizing ideas that had been maturing for nearly a decade, was published by the prestigious Pallas publishing house. The book contains thirty, mostly coloured diagrams and flowcharts illustrating the flow of money and goods across various eras and political systems. The diagrams are beautifully drawn; most are more or less understandable, while others are extremely complex, illegible, or nonsensical. Particularly interesting are the figures that depict the economy using flowcharts that truly resemble blood circulation.
The book was received positively by the contemporary press, which highlighted the novelty of his argumentation using diagrams. The field of economics, however, neglected Marosi Nagy’s book; there is not a single trace of references to the work or reviews of it in journals, perhaps precisely because Marosi Nagy was considered a complete outsider.
The threads come together
In November 1934, a brief article in the Magyar Hírlap first revealed that the earlier film project and the book had converged. The newspaper writes that
“Dénes Marosi Nagy presented his book and the massive drawings prepared for the film adaptation to the leading figures of Hungarian economic and political life and took them to Rome as well, where the director of the League of Nations’ film institute in Rome gave a very favorable opinion of the author’s plan. Mussolini also viewed the graphics”.
The same news appeared in numerous other versions in the domestic press over the following weeks. Other bits of information can also be gleaned from these promotional news items, which were evidently initiated by Maros Nagy. The educational institution in question was reportedly the Instituto L’Unione Cinematografica Educativa (LUCE), which still exists today and which at the time was specifically engaged in the production of fascist propaganda films. Its president was Luciano de Feo. Marosi Nagy even hinted that, contrary to the earlier version, not only was the film project well-received, but an agreement had also been reached with LUCE to produce animated films in the near future. We can also learn from the news that Archduke Joseph and the governor (for some reason, nowhere is it specified that this is Miklós Horthy) are said to be enthusiastic supporters of the film project.
According to another account, Mussolini had even read(!) the film proposal, and LUCE would have covered the entire cost of production provided they received “the moral approval of the Hungarian state.” The report, likely dictated by Marosi Nagy, laments that this request had been pending with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for months, yet Marosi Nagy had still failed to secure the recommendation.
After this, news about the film suddenly stops for a long time and is never heard of again until 1945. It is unclear what became of the film project. The Italian press of the time is unaware of this story. Since the entire history is presumably known only from a single source, Marosi Nagy, the information that has surfaced should be treated with caution, especially since it has appeared in multiple versions from the outset.
It is also conceivable that Marosi Nagy, having already patented his film project in 1931, was unable to find financial support for it in Hungary for a long time, and therefore sought to attract the attention of potential domestic patrons by throwing in the name of a true heavyweight—and at that time, there was only one bigger name in Europe than Mussolini’s. We do not know for certain. However, Marosi Nagy was not considered an important figure even among economic writers, and economic literature has not cited his articles or later books either then or since.
Finally, in 1945, after World War II, he made another attempt to bring his film project to fruition. The newspaper Budai Polgár published a brief interview with him about the film. He attributed the failure of his earlier film project to the fascist regime, but concluded the interview by noting that he had already approached the United Nations with the film project, and that the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs was looking into it. After that, Marosi Nagy and his film disappears from the Hungarian press for good.
The diagrams are stunning! And thank you for a marvelous article. What a shame that the field of economics didn't discover Nagy's work sooner. Modelling practice could perhaps have benefitted from such depictions of flows and behaviours.