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

Géza Hegedűs referred to the Lanny Budd series as a historical report novel of the world, which was the completion of the persistent documentcollecting and -publishing of Sinclair's career. Its factual contents are of authoritative value. "As a literary work it remains below the level of not only his best and most artistic writing, but his passionate and witty novels of exposure as well. His viewpont is more confused and contradictory than any of his previous writings

; there is in this cycle all the mist which obscures the historical truth of our age from the eyes of the American petit-bourgeoisie."

82 Most conspicuous in this novel is that Sinclair does not look to be implacable oppositionist. The old "muckraker" could not see the new muck. László Országh voiced a similar opinion in his History of American Literature

: "The passionate, attacking energy and satirical voice characteristic of his earlier novels is in opposition to this cycle of Sinclair's old age, which was written with the simple technique of a bestseller and which accepts the important elements of the American way of life."

8

3 The Hungarian critical reception and publication of the volumes of the world-famous Lanny Budd series depended on the great changes occurring in Hungarian political life. The first novel of the cycle, entitled World's End, was the greatest ever Hungarian bestseller. Within a short one-and-a-half years Renaissance Publishing House edited it six times, and there was another shortened, illustrated version as well. Renaissance threw it into the market at the beginning of March 1944, at the last moment; from the 19th March 1944, the beginning of the German invasion of Hungary until the liberation of the country in 1945 no volumes of the cycle could appear in Hungary, because they judged and did harm to Fascist Germany. In the years after the liberation another six of the Lanny Budd novels were published in Hungary

: Between Two Worlds (1941) in 1948, Dragon's Teeth (1942) in 1946, Wide Is the Gate (1943) in 1947, Presidential Agent (1944) in 1947, Dragon Harvest (1945) in 1948, A World to Win (1946) in 1949. The last volume of the series to be published in Hungary was A World to Win. From the May of 1949 Hungarian criticism, wearing the signs of sematism and dogmatism, attacked Sinclair with strong and false accusations. During the years of the Cold War Period none of Sinclair's books could be published here, and so the remaining volumes of Sinclair's Lanny Budd were unable to be published either. But after 1956, the volumes of the Lanny Budd series could once more make their way to the library shelves of Hungary. 429