Dénesi Tamás (szerk.): Collectanea Sancti Martini - A Pannonhalmi Főapátság Gyűjteményeinek Értesítője 8. (Pannonhalma, 2020)
I. Közlemények
88 Gereben Ferenc: Egy bencés regényhős paradigmaváltása Veres Péter (1973), Az ország útján, in Veres Péter válogatott művei, Budapest, 603– 877. Ferenc Gereben The paradigm shift of a Benedictine hero of a novel Glosses on the role-models in István Sőtér’s novel entitled Fellegjárás (Wild-goose chase) Among other original documents, the author publishes a letter, which he got from one of his Benedictine teachers of Pannonhalma in 1977. The letter commemorates a novel (Fellegjárás by István Sőtér), whose plot takes place in Eötvös József Collegium, the élite institution of Hungarian teacher training at university level in Budapest in the 1930s. The Benedictine teacher – as a lay student – was also a mem ber of the Collegium, and in his letter, he reveals who were the real models of the novel’s individual characters. He unveils himself as well: it comes to light that one of the most problematic and most turbulent character of the novel is modelled upon himself together with a friend of his, who – in the plot of the novel – struggles to no avail to find his identity and vocation. In addition to the publication of the sourcedocument, the research discloses that after the dramatic tribulations of the Second World War the two friends’ walks of life part: one of them (Géza Cziráki) enters a monastery and becomes a successful Benedictine monk and teacher, and the other one (Zoltán Rákosi) takes up the fight against both dictatorships (of the Hungarian Nazis and Communists) and after the collapse of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 takes flight to Italy. Two quite extreme lots of teachers, both are genuine and full of devotion, both are known by restricted groups of people only, and both are complete novels in themselves. And the portraits of the other characters between the two extremes: a continually fading tableau of the generation of intellectuals in a historic era full of tragedies. In their lives and deaths, in their scholarly and educational successes and failures, in their moral victories and falls, one can recognize all the painful agony of Hungary’s 20th century history short of ecstasy.
