Bartók Béla, ifj.: Chronicles of Béla Bartók's Life (Budapest, 2021)
Foreword
CHRONICLES OF BÉLA BARTOK'S LIFE for example, keep on declaring that Béla Bartok didn’t travel to the United States for a temporary, extended visit but would have wanted to leave his country forever - or, as another example, they show Béla Bartok as one who would have had all sorts of love adventures during his marriages - or they introduce him on one occasion as a “participating” communist of the 1919 Hungarian Soviet Republic, then at another time as an artist who by giving concerts in Italy was serving fascism, then another time again as an anti-fascist “partisan” ... and I could go on enumerating the falsely scientific and mendacious manifestations which in many cases contradict even themselves. It is exactly these slanders that make the present publication of the full content of a work such as this, based on important historical facts, timely and necessary. There were countless pieces of information - already in his possession - that my Godfather couldn’t include in the publication of his book The Chronicles of my Fathers Life under the circumstances of the system called “socialist” then reigning. Already after the printing, he was ready, should the opportunity arise, to prepare the complete work, supplemented with these and the letters and data found in the meantime, and publish it both in Hungarian and English. Unfortunately, due to his death 4 years after the 1989-90 political changes he no longer had the opportunity to do so in his lifetime. However, he entrusted me with the data he had arranged for publication, so on the basis of this, as well as of correspondence and other data collected in the decades since his death, my Wife and I were able to compile the complete work my Godfather had in mind: The Chronicles of Béla Bartoks Life. Meanwhile, the truncated work entitled The Chronicles of my Fathers Life, published in 1981, had a second edition in 2006 (House of Traditions - Helikon Publishing House). In that edition, those who prepared it, if not in large numbers but in some places, made corrections and a small number of additions which of course we also took into account. An important source was Péter Bartok ’s book: My Father (Bartok Records 2002), in which most 8
