Magyar Hírek, 1983 (36. évfolyam, 1-26. szám)
1983-10-15 / 21. szám
NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF HUNGARIAN SPORT The People's Stadium is thirty years old. The People’s Stadium of Budapest , venue of such noted sport ing events as the famous Hungary vs. England game, when the Hungarians won 7:1 in the presence of 102.000 spectators, or world records run by Iharos on three different occasions, became famous all over the world in the course of its three decades. Since then the People’s Stadium has been modernized, standing room was eliminated, which increased the comfort of spectators, though capacity was reduced, and the flood-lighting equipment as well as the score boards were renewed. The latest development was the construction of the Budapest Sports Hall, which is the venue now not only of sports events of note, but also of concerts and other cultural events. Hungarian sportsmen are preparing for Los Angeles. Preparations for the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympic Games are in full swing in all the sports figuring there, although the final strength of the Hungarian team has been not yet decided. Much depends on whether the soccer players, and the women’s basketball and volleyball teams will qualify. The Hungarian contingent is expected to number between 200 — 300, who will travel in possibly four groups. “We shall pay attention to every detail to make sure we do as well as possible,” said György Sziics- Gáspár, Secretary of the Hungarian Olympic Committee, “we will bear in mind the likely weather conditions when designing the uniforms, expecting great heat during the day, but coolish weather in the evening. All of the competitors will be given ample time to become acclimatized. The diet is planned by experts, but this time we will not take a cook with us, since the culinary habits of California are similar to those of Hungary. Putting it briefly we shall endeavour to provide all of the conditions, but things will depend mainly —and naturally—on the form of the competitors.” Success of young weight-lifters in Cairo. At the Junior Weight-lifting World Championships the Hungarian juniors evoked the old days of successful Hungarian weightlifting. Andor Szanyi and János Bökfi won gold medals and in the unofficial competition between nations Hungary, with 109 points obtained fourth place. Silver medals won in pentathlon. The Hungarian pentathlonists once again proved their class at the World Championships held at Warendorf, West Germany, where Tamás Szombathelyi finished second with 5423 points behind the Soviet athlete, Starostin (5506 points), and the Hungarian team also won the silver medal with a total of 15987 points behind the Soviet Union (16014 points). “I am satisfied with the performance of the team,” said the captain, Dr. Ferenc Török, “and the strength of the boys is made evident by the fact that they fought what amounted to a separate battle with the Soviet team on the last day. Nevertheless, it upsets me a little that we won silvers at five world events in succession, and this time we were really near to the gold. We hope they’ll do even better in Los Angeles.” How now — in fencing? Italy was successful at the fencing world championships of Vienna. The Italian team once again won the Grand Prix of Nations after a long time, with a score of 107 points, and proved its present leading role in fencing. West Germany also achieved good results, and secured second position with 84 points. The first medals won by Bulgarian fencers aroused interest, as did the new stars of the GDR and Cuba. Unfortunately the Hungarians, who for generations were top fencers, finished far back in the field. It had never before happened that Hungarian fencers won only one silver and one bronze medal at a fencing world championship, that more Hungarian fencers were eliminated during the early rounds than got through to the finals. In a statement given after the tournament, Győző Kulcsár, the team captain, announced that the methods of preparation, and the training methods in the clubs will be revised. Kulcsár’s opinion is that there aro too many “satisfied” coaches, and even more competitors similarly inclined. Therefore there is need for tougher preparation, and greater staying power. “We take the unexpected failure as a memento, said Győző Kulcsár, “we put our trust in young fencers. The seven newcomers at the world championship promise a revival of Hungarian fencing.” AN ASSAULT ON THE LANGUAGE BARRIER “Hungary, with a population of about ten million, has produced, and continues to produce, a galaxy of gifted persons quite disproportionate to its size”, C. P. Snow remarked. And yet, he complained, “the Englishspeaking world seems abnormally remote from the Hungarian reality. This is at least in part because we are so ignorant of Hungarian literature . . . and it is our loss.” He thought one reason for this is the Hungarian language, which is “not accessible to English speakers”. Every effort to bridge the gap by breaking through the language barrier is therefore welcome. One of the latest attempts was made in Toronto, Canada, where Exile Editions brought out a collection of fifteen Hungarian Short Stories, “a modest but important step in fostering better understanding between the two cultures (of Canada and Hungary),” as Paul Varnai, who edited the book says in his afterword. These stories, in the words of Naim Kattan, who contributed a concise introduction, “speak of history, of death and sensuality, with a seriousness that would be unbearable if it were not tempered with genuine humour”. They are by outstanding writers who have emerged since the Second World War. The most senior among them is Tibor Déry (1894 — 1977), one of the major Hungarian writers in this century, and the youngest is Péter Dobai, bom in 1944. The stories here collected give news of everyday life in Hungary, indicating, as Kattan observes, the diversity and wealth of Hungarian literature. The spectrum of subjects is wide indeed, ranging, in time, from the immediate postwar weeks “You Must Like Théophile Gautier” by György G. Kardos to István Örkény’s “Requiem” about the tragic early 1950s and György Moldova’s satirical “The Sixth Book of Moses” which describes the heavy hand of literary bureaucracy. In form, they extend from Miklós Mészöly’s allegorical tale of mice which is really about the relationship between man and the forces that govern him to the erotically tinged writings of Emil Kolozsvári Grandpierre and István Csurka and Déry’s story about the artlessness and cruelty of children. One misses a few names, though; female writers in particular, e. g. Boris Palotai’s delightful stories with an ironic turn, or, at the other end of the emotional scale, Erzsébet Galgóczi, whose writings deal with some harsh aspects of society, mostly of the rural scene, or István Gall’s compellingly tough stories about his experience as a frontier guard during the personality cult era. However, one can’t have everything. This volume of Hungarian short stories makes delightful reading as it is. All of the stories are admirably translated. (There are minor mistakes, like the constant—and unwarranted — use of the word “woman” instead of saying “she” in Kamondy’s “The Student and the Woman” — a Hungaricistn, as Hungarian has no gender forms for the pronoun in the third person singular. In a fiction context “he” and “she” are rendered, in Hungarian, by “the man” and “the woman” or “the boy” and “the girl”. However, such flaws are few and far between and none is considerable enough to mar the quality of the works translated.) All those involved in bringing out this volume deserve credit for their effort: we in Hungary owe them a debt of gratitude for this successful assault on the language barrier. ISTVÁN FARKAS Paul Varnai THE PURPORT OF FUTILITY Rehearsals of the popular operetta are proceeding in earnest at the country theatre, when Horkai, the director switches to rehearsing an artistically more demanding, but less likely to be successful play with his company, with a baffling turn. Miklós Szurdi relates the background and consequences of this decision. It is a distressingly difficult task to switch from rehearsals of the operetta Dreimäderlhaus based on Schubert’s melodies to scenes of the new Hungarian drama, Jacobins, since only one short night is available to the young, ambitious director in the film to get the latter play ready for the stage. The reason for changing the programme was the news that the playwright had risen from his sick bed, and would come next day to see the rehearsal of Jacobins, in the belief that rehearsals had been going on for a long time. While abed in hospital, the playwright had no inkling of the power struggle that had raged in the background about his play, which eventually prevented the production, in spite of the fight put up by Horkai, who recognized the value of the 1951 play, which had been buried in the depths of a drawer right until then. Horkai decides to keep up appearances, for he is incapable of telling the writer the truth, that his play would never be staged. He gathers his sleepy company for an extraordinary rehearsal late at night. Having become indifferent in the treadmill of provincial life his actors understand only after some difficulties that the sole aim of their improbable attempt is to set the sick playwright’s mind at rest, to lengthen his life perhaps by a few weeks, that there never will be a first night. The charitable fraud so convinces the playwright, who came straight from hospital, that he prolongues his stay in the town for a few days. Thus the actors continue with the rehearsals. Grumbling at first, the actors begin to appreciate the taste of the drama and infected by the enthusiasm of the director they fully empathize with roles that will not see the light of day.A sobering voice destroys the dramatic moment of downfall and transfiguration: what is this all for, if there will be no performance anyway. After this the already fickle illusory equilibrium, maintained with gnashing teeth, is upset. Having been driven to the last reserves of their strength, the exhausted company demands that the director tell the playwright the whole truth. It turns out, however, that the playwright suspected the bluff, the reason he entered into the spirit of the game was that he wished to spend his last days at least among human beings. After moments of emotion, his death is followed by the customary work the next day. The Jacobins change back again to performing Dreimäderlhaus, and everything goes on as usual. But . the few days of “theatre within a theatre” were more than a passing intermezzo. One way or another the ghost of the real drama left its mark on all their lives. FERENC MARKOVICS 31
