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
Carpenter is insinuating, but not a piece of canvassing; the socialistic ideas stand out only to such an extent that they give the basic tone of the whole. As in all of his work, Sinclair wishes to impress with unusualness, particularity and the interest of the story." 4 6 Whilst Soma Braun saw the Christ-figure in the son of the carpenter, György Szántó found Sinclair's hero to be deeply human: he symbolizes the man who is seeking and fighting for justice. 47 In this progressive, modern, human interpretation of the Christ-figure Fritz Rosenfeld went furthest in his essay in Munkáskórus where he stated that the Christ-figure of the novel was representative ;of the proletarian revolutionary. 4 8 13. The Millennium (1924) was published in the translation of Soma Braun in Népszava in serial form. 4 9 The Népszava Publishing House printed the novel in the same year in book form. It was published again in 1946 under the editorship of Nova Publishing House. In 1928 two short reviews were made of Sinclair's book. Könyvek Világa called it the "novel of bankruptcy ". In the opinion of Literatura, from this book of Sinclair is missing the anger, the embitteredness of the social reformer the critical vigour, and all that determines and characterizes the novelist's whole literary career. 5 0 14. Two performances in Hungarian are known of Sinclair's drama Singing Jailbirds , one in Hungary and one in America. The Budapest performance in 1928, directed by Ödön Palasovszky, was produced during the so-called Zig-Zag evenings at the Academy of Music. The venture was mainly successful because of its brave, progressive tone and innovative stage-craft. 5 1 Sinclair's drama was performed in New York on the 27th April 1930, by the amateur group Előre Műkedvelő Kör, a group established with the claim of making known to Hungarian workers in America the outstanding works of Hungarian and world literature. Singing Jailbirds , performed by the Hungarian workers theatre group in New York, and translated by Martin Stone into Hungarian, served an agitatory aim and may be said to be the intellectual product of the proletarian culture of that era. 15. Mammonart (1925) appeared quite late in Hungary in 1937 in shortened form, edited by Epocha Publishing House under the translation of Sándor Benamy. A second complete edition was published in 1944, also by Epocha. The publication of the book in Hungarian received an important appreciative greeting in the national periodicals. In 1937 six reviews evaluated Sinclair's book. In the opinion of Népszava "in this literary history outstanding personalities of world literature and great cultural events appear in a surprisingly interesting, bravely critical new light". 5 2 Korunk calls Sinclair's "masterful analyses" to be an indictment, an amazing work "in which Sinclair classifies with a sure hand; his conclusions are always precise and irrefutable". 5 3 The Független Újság maintained it to be propagandist writing "which nevertheless relates his own personal literary experiences and statements with an honest sincerity, without a great number of factual data". 5 4 Könyvszemle repeated the famous precept of Sinclair, that art is propaganda, "propaganda of money and moral, ethical, aesthetic values", and that with this brave precept and peculiar assessment Sinclair accomplished a whole series of iconoclasms and buildings of prestige. In Nyugat Lajos Nagy denied the 424
