Mészáros Tibor (szerk.): Once I lived, I, Sándor Márai. Patterns from a globetrotting Hungarian's life (Budapest, 2004)
Once I lived, I, Sándor Márai
write in these terms. The writer only does his duty if he creates. The Diary 1933-1944 already shows that this can only be an aim in Hungary, because something has definitively ended there. Thus he writes: "Leaving here as soon as possible. If I still live, if I am strong enough and if I have the means. To write in Hungarian, out there as well, to work for the raising of the Hungarian people." He was invited to Western Europe in 1946, during which time he was able to take a look at the "development" of the West compared to the ever shallower life to be found at home. He returned home astonished, giving rise to his 1947 book, The Pillage of Europe. He was disillusioned after his journey, because he felt that the West had seen stolen "above all its sense of vocation." His conclusion was that "l feel no homesickness for the world, because this world is not free." Nonetheless, a while later it was this vocation- deprived Western Europe that would give him a home. The ever-tightening dictatorial atmosphere in Hungary strengthened Márai’s determination to leave the country in which he could no longer create freely. On 3 June 1947 the Academy elected him a full member. It was to be a kind of final act. Newspaper articles hinted at his intentions: Sándor Márai plans a lengthy stay in Italy: he has requested a visa: he is selling his bomb-damaged library. The articles, at first speculation, eventually became true. And forty-four years of voluntary and permanent exile followed. His two final volumes to be published in Hungary were the first and second volumes of The Offended. The third volume was pulped and conscientious printers were only able to rescue a few copies. The Márais adopted a six-year-old boy called János, whom they took with them into exile - from which none of them would return. A story told about his emigration is very characteristic. When requesting his passport he was asked, "You are a left-wing, liberal writer. Now there is 95% of what you wanted, so why are you leaving?" "Because of the 5%," replied Márai. "I wanted to be a Hungarian writer at home. I wanted to write in Hungarian, in the language of the people to whom I belong. But the writer - if he resisted in his mind - guickly became a heretic in the Communist society," wrote Márai in his diary. He did not take on the burden of heresy. On 31 August 1948 he and his family left Hungary, emigrating to Switzerland. They lived modestly in their new surrounding, but he began to write again, trying to get his works published abroad. After seven weeks there they settled in Italy, near Naples. He tried to find local equivalents of his Budapest haunts, trying to grow used to the new situation. Outside of his own country Italy was the only place he could imagine his future. He planned Italy to be a permanent home. Writing to a Finnish translator, he said, 7 left Hungary with my family and for the future I will live in Italy." He started working for Radio Free Europe, giving fortnightly book reviews and political commentaries 16
