Fraternity-Testvériség, 1956 (34. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1956-11-01 / 11. szám
FRATERNITY 15 III Dániel Berzsenyi lived a useful life on the “desert island” of his country estate; but as to the fate of his country (leaders too often steered a false course, too much blood being shed on Hungarian battlefields), he must have been constantly haunted by its tragic aspects. His hours of leisure were devoted to the study of ancient and recent foreign literatures, yet the cultivation of his land was not neglected. He had his difficulties and misfortunes. The Napoleonic wars led to inflation in Hungary; floods destroyed his house; there were unproductive years. He loved hunting, fishing, riding, consistent with the principle of a “gentleman’s recreation”; on the other hand, according to some literary historians, he lived the life of a “simple peasant”.z Berzsenyi was primarily interested in the “non quis, sed quid” standard of evaluation — that is to say, in what was said and done rather than in who said or did it. Although he could not be accused of “sedition”, he could not be called “aulical” either, notwithstanding his ode written to the King on the eve of his visit to the town of Keszthely. The Emperor of Austria, Francis II, who reigned then, was know in Hungary as Francis I, the Apostolic King. The poem stresses the monarch’s relationship to the people. To the core of his being Berzsenyi was a Magyar, profoundly conscious of his country’s grief. Planting the seeds of faith, he also planted the seeds of anxiety in the soul of those who were either complacent or indifferent to the lot of the nation and to the obligations of their own existence. Berzsenyi was more than a teacher of an historically tried and socially tired nation, more than a man of letters who stressed the doctrine that literature should promote virtue and elevate sentiments. He was a poet whose ethical sensibility permeates all his works, whose imagination sought no clever justification for its expression, and who, when successful in the realization of his poetic task, proved that in creative writing the heart of the matter is the feeling for words with a horizon that transcends the flight of fancy and reaches out for the ultimate pattern of human destiny. 7 Antal Szerb, “Magyar irodalomtörténet”, Budapest, 1946, p. 237. HUNGARY’S COURAGE A Letter to the New York Herald Tribune Once in a thousand years the people of some nation rise to such a height of valor and courage that forever after they are an inspiration to the world. As the men, women and children of Hungary die one by one in the streets, fighting to the last against the armed might of Russia, let us hope their example brings needed courage to the free world that, armed to the teeth, now stands by sniveling and whining, not even daring to drop food to these heroic people. Brooklyn, Nov. 12, 1956. G. Sumner Small
