Magyar Hírek, 1984 (37. évfolyam, 2-26. szám)
1984-05-12 / 10. szám
ABOUT THIS ISSUE AND THE PREVIOUS ONE We remember the anniversary of a shockingly tragic event in this issue: the holocaust of Hungarian Jews. In early spring, 1944 Jews were rounded up in Hungary for deportation to the death camps. Many books and published documents recalled this orgy of inhumanity in the course of the past four decades. Here, we remember with the words of the poet, who himself also became a victim: Miklós Radnóti was driven with tens of thousands of fellow members of the Forced Labour Service in a march to death, when railways could no longer cope with these people destined for the killing. The Jews of the provinces were taken to Auschwitz, Bergen- Belsen, Mauthausen, in sealed cattle trucks. Only some of the Jews of Budapest experienced the end of the war and liberation in their own home town. Miklós Radnóti’s poem “Forced March”, printed here in the translation of Edwin Morgen recalls his own fate: not long after he wrote this poem, he was finished off with a shot in the nape of his neck on the road leading West. The poem, together with others was in a note-book found after the war in a pocket of the windcheater of a body exhumed from a mass grave, helping to identify the poet. Radnóti would be 75 now if he were alive. The previous issue without an English supplement, offered information that I should now like to pass on to English readers. This year the fourth Budapest Spring Festival has broadened into a series of cultural events worthy of international interest: music programs stood at the focus of the Festival, among them Bach’s St John’s Passion in the Matthias Church, and a concert of performing artists, beneficiaries of the György Cziffra Foundation, in the Vigadó, and the Beethoven concert of the Hungarian State Symphony Orchestra conducted by Zoltán Peskó. But there were other events of the Festival also, like the international meeting of young people at the Budapest Horticultural University, where there wrere cartoon films, clowns, funny competitions, and where young people danced the dances of many nations in the beautiful surroundings of the Villányi út arboretum to the music of the Muzsikás group. It is almost impossible to list the multitude of cultural events, which attracted more than three-quarters of a million people during the ten days of the Festival. The situation of Hungarian women was discussed from two different angles also in the previous issue. On the occasion of Kata Beke’s book on this subject, the education of girls and boys was examined, the question of how can equal rights for women be soundly underpinned in the early phases of education for life. The problem is rather controversial everywhere in the world as far as the methods are concerned, but the aim itself is obviously desirable, and I can say, that some progress has been achieved in this field in Hungary, which has beneficially influenced particularly the attitudes of the younger generation. The interview with the General Manager of Taurus Rubber Work, Dr. Ilona Tatai also informs about the situation of women, even if in a less direct form. An abbreviated version is published in English in this issue. * The “Nestor” of press publications published for English readers in Hungary, The New Hungarian Quarterly began its twenty-fifth year of publication in 1984. A series of celebrations were held at the Hungarian Embassy in London with the participation of British writers, poets, and journalists, who have taken part in the work of the journal over the past quarter of a century. After words of welcome by Ambassador Rezső Bányász, Eric Mottram, the well-known poet, discussed the work of the NHQ in popularizing Hungarian verse and prose in the English speaking world, then the editor, Iván Boldizsár, talked about the past and present of the journal, and the Budapest conference, which will prepare the European cultural forum this autumn, thus also focusing interest on Hungarian culture. Following that, a letter by Edwin Morgan, the Scottish poet, was read aloud. Morgan also took an active part in the English interpretation of the works of Hungarian poets. Then Maurice Goldsmith director of the International Science Policy Foundation, spoke about the work of the NHQ in the field of popularizing the achievements of Hungarian science. The writer of these lines was a cofounder of the NHQ twenty-five years ago, and as a deputy to Iván Boldizsár, he is still on the staff of that journal. He is in no position consequently, to offer his best wishes to the journal celebrating its jubilee—he just wants to point out on this occasion, that the work performed in the objective, realistic representation of Hungarian culture and Hungarian realities, which has always been the policy of the NHQ—as well as of Magyar Hírek —will be continued to the best of their abilities during the forthcoming years as well. Miklós Radnóti (1944-1984) Radnóti wrote his last poem on the 31st of October 1944, after a forced march of several hundred kilometers, in the immediate proximity of death, far away from the temptations of the literary life. The first line begins with the predicate: “Mellézuhantam” (I plunged beside him). Objective communication of a fact follows: “átfordult a teste . . .” (his body turned over . .) Perhaps from the impetus of the plunge of the poet; that is that the verbs expressing movements recall the final immobility of a much-suffering body, its peace beyond the last moment. The second line explains the situation, and creates metaphoric identity without needing comparison: “s feszes volt már, mint húr, ha pattan” (and it was already taut, like string, when it’s about to snap). We know from the recollections of fellow prisoners that the body that turned a roundwas that of a violinist. The image creates perfect unity between the violin, and the death of the violinist, between the destruction of the artist, and of art. The next line begins again by mere communication of a fact: “Tarkólövés” (shot in the nape). Thus we witness the end of a life; the body was thrown and turned around by the power of a bullet shot from very near by an SS issue pistol. The commentary is devoid of any emotion: “így végzed hát te is, — súgtam magamnak . . .” (You too end up like this,—I told myself) But instead of a shot, only a few German words are barked: “Der springt noch auf. . He had a week to live, a few days of torment on the road. During the last days he was taken— with the other incapable ones—on a peasant cart. The commander of the unit decided on the 8th of November 1944 that they would not take the sick any further. They had a hole dug on the side of the road, and had the incapable carried to the ditch by their mates. Those who could not even stand up were shot as they were thrown into the hole. The corpses in the mass-grave were exhumed after the war. His worn windcheater was the poet’s coffin; a small note-book was found in its pocket with the inscription in a number of languages: Poems of Miklós Radnóti, Hungarian poet. It is difficult to imagine a greater moral or psychological contrast than that between these poems and the situation and time of their writing. The time was that of the deaththroes of fascism; and the situation of the poet was that of the condemned, whom they wanted to deprive not only of life, but also of human dignity, self-respect and spirituality. They did not succeed. This is the situation in which a significant poet worthy of note turned into a great poet, who opened new vistas of poetry with the artistic expression of this contrast, an expression that sums up a whole culture. The voice of the poet and the form of his verse are as pure as the circumstances are fowl. He wrote eclogues, for instance, that is dialogues—less frequently monologues—which used to be pastorals! What a conflict of form and of content inspired by experience, what strength of spirit, intellectual and moral greatness, which is able to dissolve this in perfect unity and harmony! The dialogue of prophet and the poet confronts the tragic world of the Old Testament with the ideas of ideal or idealized Christianity, with peace and love, and the regular metre of Greek verse. The poems sum up the whole past and heritage of European culture in order to deny all—completed with the image of the reality of the poet’s existence —that wants to destroy it. He spelt out that word which a Hungarian poet was able to utter after Babits’s great work the Book of Jonah. He spoke of his individual fate as a symbol of that of millions, connecting Hungarian poetry with the deepest and most noble current of world literature in the most tragic hour of its history. His simplicity is the simplicity of last things, and of terrible prospects: a body shot in the nape of the neck lying on the frozen ground, and the firmaments above. The sheer fact that it gave an opportuniy to spell out this great lesson is in itself to the credit of Marianna D. Birnbaum’s Miklós Radnóti. A Biography of his Poetry published by the Finno—Ugrian Seminar of Munich University. The author tells of the life and verse of Radnóti in command of the literature of the subject, in Hungarian and other languages. All of Miklós Radnóti’s poems are given in English, in the translation of Emery George. CSABA SÍK 28
