Az Egri Ho Si Minh Tanárképző Főiskola Tud. Közleményei. 1984. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 17)

I. TANULMÁNYOK A TÁRSADALOMTUDOMÁNYOK KÖRÉBŐL - Lehel Vadon: The Reception of Upton Sinclair's Works in Hungary

to be published in Hungarian newspapers and periodicals. During this period not a single review of Sylvia was published. 8. The long short-story The Convict (1912— 1913) was published in serial form in Népszava, in 1913, translated by Dezső Schöner.

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2 Prior to the publication of The Convict, Népszava printed a report of an interview with Upton Sinclair made by the London socialist party newspaper Labour Leader, from which the Népszava readers came to know that their newspaper had published the short-story immediately after its original serialization in the Manchester Labour Leader.

2* So far, this lesser known work of Upton Sinclair has never been published in the United States in any form. Literature on Sinclair only mentions the English publication of this work.

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4 Its only translation has been into Hungarian. After the serialized edition in Népszava it appeared on two more occasions in Hungary in book form. 9. Kiwj Coal (1917) is one of the most translated of Sinclair's work. The Hungarian version was translated by Pál Bodó and László Sas, and published in 1920 by Kultura Publishing House. No critiques or reviews have appeared in Hungary dealing only with this novel. However, there are some critical remarks in different articles appreciating the career of Upton Sinclair, which give us valuable data concerning the evaluation of King Coal by his contemporaries. For József Reményi King Coal is a "sociological document, but not a literary work of art. It is the mirror reflection of the inferno of American capitalism, but real life, composed art, psychological reliability can hardly be discerned in this work."

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5 Reményi comments that the faults in the novel depend from Sinclair's lack of characterization his exlusive creation of typical figures. In contrast, György Szántó considers that it is exactly this creation of types and precise documentation that is his strength, and for this reason referred to King Coal as a "gargantuanly constructed" work. The novel is "the grandiose cross-section of American plutocratic society

: the characters created are many, but each is sharply and adroitly defined; they are the limelighted projections of the peculiarities of their class, specie and of themselves. His novels are X-ray films, sometimes with a microscopic strength of sight, sometimes massive cooperating strength of the creative artist, but always exciting, never allowing our interest to let up."

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6 In the judgement of Géza Hegedűs, King Coal is a "very adventurous novel, complete with romantic colour". The unrealistic basic situation of the novel incensed the critics, and many of the readers criticized the romantic plot of the novel in the name of realism. On the other hand, the devotees of romanticism held Sinclair to be too naturalistic.

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7 10. Soon after Jimmie Higgins (1919) had been written, it became one of the best-known and most important works of anti-war socialist literature all over the world. It was translated into 29 different languages,

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8 and in 1928 a film was made of it in the Soviet Union.

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9 In Hungary there were two translations and three editions of Jimmie Higgins. It was dramatized by János Macza, and the three-act play was performed by the Kassa Proletkult theatre group twice in Kassa: once on the 29 March 1923 on the occasion of the remembrance of the revolutions in 1848, 1871 and 1919; and once on the 4 September 1926, on the occasion of the XII International Youth Workers' Day.

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