Az Egri Ho Si Minh Tanárképző Főiskola Tud. Közleményei. 1984. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 17)

I. TANULMÁNYOK A TÁRSADALOMTUDOMÁNYOK KÖRÉBŐL - Lehel Vadon: The Reception of Upton Sinclair's Works in Hungary

THE RECEPTION OF UPTON SINCLAIR'S WORKS IN HUNGARY LEHEL VADON 1. When Upton Sinclair achieved international literary fame at the age of 27 with his novel The Jungle

, he had already become a well-known writer in his homeland. His early works were not of high quality; trashy, dime-novels which he laboriously wrote for only an hourly wage in order to fend off his family's poverty. Of his early belletristic works the most important is Manassas: A Novel of the War (1904), a historical novel. It was the only early novel of Upton Sinclair published in Hungarian, translated by Pál Sándor and entitled Rabszolgák under the auspices of the Nova Publishing House in 1946. It created no literary stir. 2. It was The Jungle (1906) which made known the name of Upton Sinclair in Hungary. Just one year after The Jungle was first published in English, Károlyné Baross translated it into Hungarian, under the title A posvány published by the Pátria Corporation in 1907. This time, the attention of the reading public was directed toward this, the first Sinclair novel to be published in Hungarian, by three periodicals: Havi Könyvészet, Corvina and Az Idő.

1 Károlyné Baross also wrote an introduction to The Jungle in which she described the way Sinclair collected material for the novel in Chicago. In her opinion the importance of the novel was not its literary value, or even its exposure of what the author recognised as social wrongs, so much as its "social tendency". In 1934 the Nova Literary Institute published The Jungle in a new translation by Soma Braun. Its new title was A mocsár. Three periodicals made mention of this new publication of The Jungle. The political and social periodical A Hír produced a review of the new publication soon after its appearance, the writer of which showed his appreciation for the achievement of the translater. After reviewing the content, however, the critic's evaluation of the novel was bombastic and superficial.

2 The periodical Literatura reminded the readers that the novel had been a best-seller at the time of its first publication in English-speaking countries, and had caused a stir in the political and economic life of America.

3 In the opinion of the literary weekly Gong, The Jungle was the most important of Sinclair's works. "The book is the bible of that genre of literature of which Sinclair is the creator. "

4 Soma Braun, one of the best translators of Sinclair, included a preface to the second Hungarian publication of The Jungle. (1943) In this preface he enumerates those sections of the novel which are cruel, disillusioning, which disturb the peace of mind of the readers and which portray social antagonism. 27 417