Magyar Hírek, 1985 (38. évfolyam, 2-26. szám)

1985-03-15 / 6. szám

other, each answers and strengthens the other two.

In this respect Petőfi stands out, a complete contrast. From his very first utterance he preached confidence, an end to despair, faith that destiny would take turn for the better, or at least the possibility of such a turn. None the less, he too saw the future clearly, in all its wretched desolation. No Hungarian poet—not Berzsenyi, not Kölcsey, all the way to Endre Ady—has ever pounded the nation so hard as he:

God, send to this helot people Thine Earth’s most beastly tyrant!

But although this voice rose to his lips again and again, he bit it off, choked it back. The reason was certainly not some kind of schoolmasterish discretion. Petőfi was a son of the people. In contrast to his predecessors, who addressed themselves to the nobility and the nobility’s concerns, he spoke, as he himself said, not to the ruling class but to “the people who wear the guba and the szűr" the heavy coats characteristic of shepherds, herdsmen and the like. And to them, he felt, he could only speak words of encouragement and hope.

That he did so is not explained only by the fact that most of his sensitive years were spent among these simple people. Rather, it is because he remained always with and among them, even when in his rise to prominence he stood out from their midst

There is no more depressing spectacle for the observer of history than that process, repeated incessantly over the centuries, which one might call the spiritual rape of the socially oppressed. It is tragic, the number of talented men who are choked off in society’s depths. From humanity’s point of view, it is equally tragic that those talented men who do manage, somehow, to climb from the depths abandon the lower world and straight away deny it, without so much as a backward glance or the least sign of recognition that their fate was once shared with others. One must cross centuries and many miles to find an exception. Even then, what one finds is almost always the dilemma of dividedness, a fatal tragedy.

Petőfi is just that kind of brilliant exception. He emerged from the people and, a shining example even now, he returned to them.

The reason lies in his education. He wandered from school to school, never finishing his studies; yet, in this avid dashing about from one end of the country to the other, he mastered the essentials—certainly from books, but also from direct experience. The essence of his being self-taught was that even when young, he learned to view his homeland with European eyes. He may, it is true, bump along in a wagon beside the common folk, but interpally no judge speaks from a higher tribunal. As in his descriptive verse he looks down from the heights, so with the same sharp eye he surveys all the phenomena of contemporary society.

Petőfi believed in the future of the Hungarian people because he believed in the future of his ideals. And these ideals promised equal freedom both to the downtrodden of society and to oppressed nations.

And this is the origin of his revolutionary stand.

SÁNDOR PETŐFI

THE POETS OF THE 19th CENTURY

(A XIX. század költői)

Let no one with a languid finger dare to sweep the strings today!

The lyre that’s lifted up is ready to get a great work under way.

If you can sing of nothing better than your own joy or broken heart, the world can do without your singing: keep out, where you can have no part!

We wander in the wilderness like Moses and his ancient folk, following the fiery pillar God had sent to guide his flock.

In our days God has ordered poets to be the fiery pillars and so to lead the wandering people into Canaan’s promised land.

Onward then, let every poet

lake men through the flames and flood!

A curse on anyone who scatters the people’s flag into the mud, a curse on anyone who lingers in laziness or cowardice resting in the shade while others work and siveat, aim and miss!

False are the prophets still abounding who preach out of pure hate and fear that this is where we can stop wandering because the promised land is here.

It is the worst, the worst of falsehoods as millions witness easily in mere existence, hopeless, wretched, hungry and thirsty at midday.

When all men lift the horn of plenty

in one happy equality,

when all men have an equal station

at the table of justice, and see

the spiritual light break shining

through the windows of every house;

then we can say, no more wandering,

Canaan is here, let us rejoice!

And till then? Till then is no resting, till then the struggle has no end.

It may be life is unrewarding for every fighting drop we spend, but then death comes with gentle kisses to close our eyes, and softly lowers our bodies deep into the earth with pillows of silk and cords of flowers.

Pest, January, 1847.

TRANSLATED BY EDWIN MORGAN

The desk of the poet

CHRONICLE

The Budapest Spring Festival

Almost three thousand festivals are held yearly throughout the world. The Budapest Festival is the earliest in the calendar, starting about the time this paper reaches our readers. It takes place between 22nd and 31st March and covers many arts, at numerous venues, the number of which increased by two this year: the renovated Opera House and the new Congress Centre built close to the Hotel Novotel, that boasts first class acoustic and staging facilities. The opening event of the Festival will be a concert by the Budapest Festival Orchestra. Highlights of the musical programme will include conducting by Antal Doráti’s, György Cziffra’s piano recital, a new production of Fidelio at the Opera House, an international competition of composers, and the jazz-forum. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Leo Weiner, the composer and music teacher, former students scattered throughout the world will assemble in Budapest.

Interballet ’85 will feature the dancers of the Paris Opera, soloists of the Cuban national ballet, the ballet companies of Aterbalett of Italy, the Komische Opera of Vienna, the Contemporary Ballet Theatre of Leningrad, of the Győr Ballet, and of the Budapest Opera House.

The programme of the Festival will also include folk dance, Hungarian State Folk Ensemble performances, the 3rd national meeting of folk-dance groups as well as numerous first nights and exhibitions. Works by Pierre Vágó, the noted French architect of Hungarian birth, will be exhibited at the Vigadó Gallery.

Half a million hectares of nature-protection areas.

Under the direction of the National Office for the Protection of Environment and Nature, a long-term programme of assessing and analysing natural features needing, and worthy of, protection in Hungary has been proceeding for the past ten years. Most of the work has been completed and the process of destruction of natural features was brought to an end, and agricultural production is going on with attention to the preservation of these on an area of almost half a million acres. Further areas were proclaimed protected in 1984. New protected districts were created in the Zemplén hills, and in the neighbourhood of Keszthely, forests were placed under protection in County Somogy and along the river Tisza. A further 30,000 hectares will be proclaimed protected this year—including the Eastern part of the Mátra hills. No industrial projects or holiday homes will be built in that district, and no roads will cut through it. Forestry and game will be the limit of economic activity. The Little Hortobágy will also become a protected district; the grassy “puszta" will not be ploughed up, but used only for grazing. According to plan the protected areas will cover 600,000 hectares by 1990.

Report from the Budapest ‘labour market’

According to a recently released report, the Budapest labour market continued to be characterized by a large number of vacant positions: manual workers looking for a job can pick and choose from about 10-15 positions offered, and white collar workers in search of employment are also two or three times outnumbered by vacant positions. Although the major characteristics of the labour situation have not changed, there are some positive tendencies. The labour demand of enterprises has abated slightly, due partly to increased labour mobility within the enterprises. In-house transfers and re-groupings became more frequent, and allotting various tasks to workers in the interest of more efficient labour management is becoming more frequent.

International honour for a Hungarian engineer.

The International Medical Technical Federation bestowed life-membership on Dr. Zoltán Katona, engineer in charge of the Budapest Semmelweis Medical University. Oivind Lorentsen, President of the Federation handed over the diploma to the Hungarian engineer in Budapest at the headquarters of the Federation of Technical and Scientific Associations. Praising Zoltán Katona’s work Oivind Lorentsen emphasised that his activities over a number of years have furthered the progress of medical technology and the participation of engineers in medicine, as a result of which technical equipment and instruments are more efficiently used.

29