Magyar Hírek, 1984 (37. évfolyam, 2-26. szám)
1984-11-10 / 23. szám
PHOTO: IDA CSAPÓ POEMS Dezső Keresztury Dezső Keresztury, writer, essayist, poet and teacher celebrated his 80th birthday recently. On this occasion we are publishing two of his poems, translated by the English poet Alan Dixon. Sleepless 1 cannot sleep again, not that 1 feel the shifting front beneath atomic storms in space; it is some agitation harms my rest: from peaceful bones I hear a dull whimper, slow liquids push their way through all the forehead’s passages, the entrails’ calms, craving a pulse: it is that thing which forms to name itself the soul perhaps, the fool. and as it brims with the chaos of the world it knows explosion is its only care, a rocket dropping through the atmosphere; and never fearful that it must be burned, it wants, although uncertain, just to flare, suspecting destiny might cheat it there. Field of forces A dog all alone barks outside at the moon, through the shadowy night a slow sniffing wind, under frozen lumps the dead, rotting down, are too deep to be reached by the frost’s splitting hand; I here corpses, asleep like the living, are stretched; false is the world where they fall in their dreams; on the ghostly moonlight a tissue is etched; a spider of gold hangs from space and its beams; the far side of Earth can rejoice in the light; ■ here in reflection each thing is its shade, and meenads are stiff, dead the grove and the sprite; there in pain, pleasure, well-baing, battle is made; the outside capricious, the inside erratic; the law of this life is deadly, chaotic. They think in Dutch, but they are emotional in Hungarian The board of the Mikes Kelemen Circle in Holland—Katalin Kibédi Varga, Hedvig Csikós, Áron Kibédi Varga, Imre Csikós and Miklós Tóth—with whom I had the opportunity, in Amsterdam, to converse about the activity, history and aims of their organization did not use that expression. Only an outsider would dare to sum up thirty three years, indeed even longer, in a few words. Those, who actively participated in what’s acknowledged as one of the most important Western European centres of Hungarian culture search for the mot juste that would most accurately express what they want to say, even though this is not the first time they talk about their aims or review the course they have run, as one of them, Miklós Tóth did in his The Test of Man published in 1976 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the “Mikes Circle”. How it all started? The idea of inviting young Hungarians living in the Netherlands for an exchange of ideas that interested all of them regardless of the church they belonged to occurred to István Tüski, a student of theology at the time, and since then minister to the Hungarian Calvinists in Holland. He had two other theologians József Végh and Miklós Tóth to help him planning. The latter recalled the Magyar Élet Conferences at the Soli Deo Gloria holiday resort, Balatonszárszó, which inspired and made “obvious” the idea. And at the first getting together in Utrecht “we so enjoyed being with the others that going on already seemed simple”—wrote the historian of the Circle. The Utrecht weekends became regular, later they organized a dance group, which performed successfully even on Dutch television, and in 1953 they produced the Phalansterian scene of Imre Madách’s The Tragedy of Man. The ranks of Hungarians increased in Holland as well in 1956. “There were many students, graduates among the newcomers—they recall—, and we endeavoured to involve them in the leadership of the Circle as soon as possible.” One of them, Dezső Prágay—today a biochemist at Buffalo university—thought of starting the Education Days, which have since matured into an acknowledged centre of universal Hungarian culture, and an inspiration of similar meetings, besides deserving credit as one of the bridges between cultural life in Hungary and beyond the borders. Many Hungarian poets, writers and scholars have been their guests, among them Ferenc Juhász, Sándor Csoóri, Miklós Mészöly, Iván T. Berend, Ferenc Kosa, Miklós Szabolcsi, György Ránki, Miklós Béládi, Béla Pomogáts, Mihály Hoppál, Özséb Horányi to mention just some of them. They spun a new thread towards the literary life in Hungary in 1980. In the series Magyar Irodalmi Figyelő (Hungarian literary observer) various writers present a penpicture of one important creative artist at a time—among them many who live in Hungary: one they feel closest to themselves, and whom they consider the most talented. Those “chosen” are also given a diploma, Péter Esterházy, Péter Nádas, György Rába, Péter Hajnóczy, Ottó Tolnai are only some of the names I could mention. The subjects of the Educational Days, the regular midyears conferences would be difficult to list here, in any case, the publications of the Circle offer much information about them. Reviewing the headlines, however, an ordering principle becomes outlined, which those I talked to describe as follows: “We always place Hungarian subjects right at the centre, and always from the universal human point of view. We give free rain to all trends and opinions, but we expect high standards. The only thing that have no room for in our Circle is extremism, for that is always anti-human. The world of culture and scholarship is what matters for us, not politics. And we interpret culture broadly—they continue. Although the better part of our subjects relates to the classics, room was given also—for instance—to seismology or medicine.” “What is the origin, the source of this tolerance?” “The Dutch university thoroughly remoulded us. The freedom of the university, which reflects the tolerance of the oldest Western European democracy became our basic element. It is certain that the ‘Mikes’ could become a circle as it is today only here, in Holland.” Just as in every other Western Hungarian community the question obviously must have emerged also in the .Mikes’: if their work will be continued by the second generation? Their answer is objective, free of any illusions: “The first reaction of our children, as soon as they began to be interested in the problem of identity was that they did not want to be ‘different’. Then, as they grew older and matured, they became increasingly proud of their roots. But it does not necessarily follow that there will be someone to take over the baton from us. For Krúdy, or Mohács does not quicken their heart-beat, as they did ours. Their mentality is already more Dutch, than Hungarian, and we know of no circle like ours functioning with Dutch people. For even if we said that the ‘Mikes’ could not become what it is without the Dutch ‘climate’, environment, its functioning could not be imagined either without Hungarian ways. Our children, if they will feel the need for it, will have to find a form of preserving their roots that will be compatible with their upbringing, they being Dutch of Hungarian parentage.” ISTVÁN BALÁZS----------------------------------------------------------- \ Az embernek próbája Emlékkönyv a Hollandiai Aiik.es Kelemen Kör nállii ónak huszonötödik évfordulójára 1976 Hollandiai Mikes Kelemen Kör _______________________________ 29
