Amerikai Magyar Hírlap, 2001 (13. évfolyam, 2-43. szám)
2001-03-09 / 10. szám
AMERICAN Hungarian Journaí Attila József Remembered in New York "Fészek Club", the prestigious Hungarian cultural association of New York, was remembering star-crossed poet Attila József (1905-1937). Club chairwoman Marianne Krencsey introduced poet, film director and "underground" musician Géza Rafael Rohrig who played Attila József in a recent movie, aiong with performer Edith Bánffy who had studied the craft under Adrienne Jancsó. Central themes in Józsefs poems are poverty, loneliness and suffering, and although often melancholic, they also express the author’s faith in life’s essential beauty and harmony. MEDITATIONS by Dr. Bela Bonis Pastor (562) 430-0876 First Hungarian Reformed Church, Hawthorne Ash Wednesday on Febr. 28 marked the begining of Lent during which we inventory our lives and spiritually prepare ourselves to receive the gift of grace in the resurrection of Jesus at Easter. No matter how long we have believed or to what extent we live our lives as faithful disciples, Lent reminds us of our need for the saving grace of Christ. It is a time of accepting the sins, mistakes, omissions that make us unworthy to receive God’s saving love. It is also a time to build our hope as we grow in the realization that in spite of our unworthiness God receives us still, and in Jesus Christ gives us the pure grace of eternal love and life. I suggest for our Lenten theme this year the full meaning of "Immannuel": With God as our Companion. It reminds us that we enter the sometimes painful and even disheartering period of self-examination with the assurance that we are not alone. Our hope is in God whom we know as One who walked with Adam and Eve in the garden, spoke with Abraham in the desert, met with Moses on the mountain top, guided and corrected the people of Israel through the Law and the prophets, and became our good news of life in Jesus Christ. God with-us. I urge you all to find time in your busy life to enter into a Lenten preparation for yourself. Take time to pause and reflect upon your faith - its strength and its weakness, your life - its successes and failures, your hope and your doubt, holding in your heart the reality of God’s love in Jesus Christ that sees all and loves all. It is so easy in our culture, almost required, to see only the good things in ourselves, portraying a positive image, and thinking only positive thought. Often this is helpful to keep us going in the struggles to build relationships with our spouse and kids, the competitions we have at work to get ahead, in our community image of success, and even the church to appear to have confidence in our faith. Sometimes these aspects of our life are even true. But if we do not face the darker places in our nature, the shadow side of our personality, then we can be lulled into a false sense of security. We can start to believe our own hype. Lent is a time of truth-telling as we take a frank, honest look at ourselves, even as a church and pastors. Sándor Petőfi: NATIONAL SONG Translated by: Watson Kirkconnel (1895-1977) Magyars rise your country calls you! Meet this hour whate'er befalls you! Shall we freemen be, or slaves? Choose the lot your spirit craves! -By Hungary's holy God Do we swear, Do we swear, that servile chains We'll no more bear! Slaves, alas, we long have been, Shaming our ancestral kin, They as freemen lived and died; Captive graves their bones deride. By Hungary's holy God Do we swear, Do we swear, that servile chains We'll no more bear! Vile is he who will not give Life to let his country live, Counting his poor breath a prize Dearer than his native skies! By Hungary's holy God Do we swear, Do we swear, that servile chains We'll no more bear! Swords are nobler than the fetter- Suit the free-born arm far better. Yet we've worn harsh chains and chords. Give us now our faithful swords! By Hungary's holy God Do we swear, Do we swear, that servile chains We'll no more bear! Beauty to the Magyar name Shall return, and ancient fame That these evile epochs sully We shall cleanse in battle fully. By Hungary's holy God Do we swear, Do we swear, that servile chains We'll no more bear! Where our grassy graves shall sleep, Children's children still shall keep All our names in sacred trust, Kneeling bless our silent dust. By Hungary's holy God Do we swear, Do we swear, that servile chains We'll no more bear! By the Danube (Excerpt) I sat there on the quayside by the landing, a melon rind was drifting on the flow. I delved into my fate, just understanding: the surface chatters, while it’s calm below. As if my heart had been its very source, troubled, wise was the Danube, mighty force. Like muscles at work, when lifting the axe, harvesting, welding, or digging a grave, so did the water surge, tighten, relax with every current, every breezy wave. Like Mother, dendled, told a tale, caressed, laundered the dirt of all Budapest. A drizzle started moistening the morning but didn’t care much, so it stopped again. And yet, like someone who under an awning watches the rain - I gazed into the plain: as twilight that may infinitely last, so grey was all that used to shince, the past. The Danube flowed, and like a tiny child plays on his musing, lively mother’s knee, so cradled and embraced and gently smiled each playful wave, waving hallo to me. They shuddered on the flood of past events like tombstones, tumbling graveyard monuments. Translated by Peter Zollman, in "Quest of the ’Miracle Stag’ -The Poetry of Hungary", by Adam Makkai (Ed.), Atlantis-Centaur Inc., Chicago. Hungarian-born author and journalist Arthur Koestler (1905- 1983) is the best known political refugee and prisoner of his time. His experiences as a political correspondent, Communist party member and prisoner of war are described in Scum of the Earth (1941), and they provide the background for his first novel in English, Arrival and Departure (1943). In the following excerpt, taken from his autobiography, Arrow in the Blue, Arthur Koestler discusses the life and work of his poet friend, Attila József. Though in his native Hungary Attila József is posthumously regarded as the greatest poet the nation has produced, his name is still virtually unknown in the West. He committed suicide at the age of 32; both his work and his personal fate were a terrifying symbol of our time. He was a contemporary Villon, whose life and poetry revolved around the two treacherous poles of this age, Marx and Freud, and who died a victim of both. Attila was born in 1905, the son of a day-labourer and a charwoman. His father disappeared when he was three, and until his seventh year Attila was brought up in an orphanage. He earned his living while at school as a movie usher, newsboy and night waiter; and at college as a railway porter, Danube sailor, dockworker, office cleaner and private tutor. His first poems were published in the leading Hungarian literary magazine, Nyugat (’Occident’) when he was sixteen. One yar later, in 1922, Nyugat printed his poem ’Innocent Song’ which caused a nationwide scandal, and his expulsion from the Univeristy of Szeged. ’Innocent Song’ was acclaimed as a kind of manifesto of the Central European post-war generation. Innocent Song I have no God, I have no King, my mother never wore a ring, I have no crib or funeral cover, I give no kiss, I take no lover. For three days I have chewed my thumb for want of either crust or crumb. Though I am twenty, strong and hale - my twenty years are up for sale. Should there be none who wish to buy The Devil’s free to have a try; then shall I use my commonsense and rob and kill in innocence. Till, on a rope, they hang me high, and in the blessed earth I lie - and lush and poisoned grasses start rank from my pure and simple heart. AMERIKAI PH
