Magyar Hírek, 1985 (38. évfolyam, 2-26. szám)
1985-03-15 / 6. szám
ABOUT THIS ISSUE March lives in the Hungarian historical mind as the month of national revival, of a period that changed the course of history at the centre of which stand the figures of Lajos Kossuth and Sándor Petőfi. The month of spring, of the revival of nature recalls March of 1848 to Hungarians. The youth of Hungary gathers under the national tricolor around the Petőfi statue on the Danube bank to celebrate the Ides of March year after year, and under the broad stairs of the National Museum, where the Nemzeti Dal (National Song) and the “Twelve Points” of the Demands of the Nation were first recited, which signalled the start of the Pest revolution which prompted the diet of Pozsony and the Emperor in Vienna to promptly accept the longdelayed constitutional reforms. The events of March 1848 were results of a long process: that of a quarter of a century long period started by Count István Széchenyi and recorded in the history of the nation as the Reform Age. Széchenyi strove for the economic and cultural advance of the country by way of gradual reforms. Kossuth preferred the political fight: he fought as leader of the opposition for the bourgeois transformation of the country with articles in Pesti Hírlap, the first modern Hungarian daily he founded, as well as in the diet. His party demanded representative parliament, responsible government, the liberation of serfs and the abolition of the tax exemption of the nobility. When the diet of Pozsony voted in favour of the March acts and the king sanctioned them, Kossuth became minister of finance in the new Batthyány government, later the leader of the armed struggle of the nation, head of the National Defence Committee and after the parliamentary resolution that dethroned the Habsburgs the Governor of the country. A number of articles deals with Kossuth, Petőfi and the events of 1848 in the Hungarian section of this issue. I hope Hungarian Scene will offer a true reading experience too by including Sándor Petőfi’s philosophical poem “Poets of the 19th Century” in the translation of the Scottish poet, Edwin Morgan, and a part of Gyula Illyés’s commemoration written for the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the death of Petőfi. * Magyar Hírek published a report on the bridges of Budapest in the previous issue (in Hungarian), recalling the destruction of the Second World War, which did not spare any of them, and in remembrance of the reconstruction, that rebuilt all of them. A new and important work was recently added to the Hungarian Opera repertory: Attila Bozay composed a new opera in nine years, based on Mihály Vörösmarty’s dramatic poem Csongor and Tünde. Vörösmarty's work is one of the highest peaks of the Hungarian poetical language. The composer therefore had to cope with the difficult task of bringing out Vörösmarty’s prosody. The critics praise Bozay for the masterly way in which he carried out his task, saying that his music surged in highly arched melodies, yet it also succeeded in producing a peculiar, grotesque scherzo-tune in a number of scenes. The performance was directed by András Mikó, and conducted by András Mihály. Magda Kalmár, István Gáti, András Molnár and Etelka Csavlek sang the leading roles. In the Hungarian part of this issue a report is included on young Hungarians from foreign lands who attend the Miklós Jurisits Secondary School of Kőszeg. There is a story in the Hungarian section about a new statue erected in a country township: that of Aba Sámuel, who briefly occupied the throne of Hungary during the succession struggles that followed the death of Saint Stephen. His short, stormy rule ended with a lost battle after which Aba Sámuel in full flight, was killed. He is no “positive hero” in the Hungarian history, yet in a part of Northern Hungary, which was the home district of the Aba clan, and where several place-names still recall this fact, the memory of Aba Sámuel still seems to live on. This memory is so lively that Miklós Szabó, an executive of a co-operative farm at Abasár commissioned a sculptor to make a statue of Aba Sámuel and paid for it out of his own savings. The statue was erected in the township. And since the Mátra district, where all this took place, is a noted wine-producing region, and within that the township of Abasár and its environs is a place where particularly fine and noted wines are grown and made, the unveiling of the statue was very likely celebrated in the right manner. ZOLTÁN HALÁSZ The presence of Petőfi GYULA ILLYÉS Part of Gyula lllyés’s address at the Budapest Petőfi celebrations on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the poet’s birth, in 1972. Petőfi belongs to two kinds of reader. One is the man who reads poetry ignorant of the fact that he is reading verse; the other the man who, so to speak, has read all the poetry in the world. In other words, those who enjoy his works as they do a folk song, the author’s name hardly entering their minds; and those who, astounded, discover in the folksong-like artlessness of his work the stamp of a mind of Shakespearean dimensions. How his genius came into the world one cannot explain; nor is it necessary to consider here the way in which his genius worked. Let me begin with a seemingly modest observation. Petőfi has always had disgruntled readers, and no doubt he has them still. In the past there have been those who resisted the gentle flow of the lyrics, and others who insulated themselves against the too violent rush of the political poetry. But to one thing even the disgruntled grant their assent: the descriptive verses are each and every one a masterful achievement, not only by Hungarian, but by world standards as well. It is agreed that in this genre, even at the beginning of his career, Petőfi created such works as raise him to the rank of one of those giants of poetry who can be counted on one’s fingers. He is, indeed, one of those giants. The assertion was made decades ago, that in his landscape and descriptive poetry Petőfi showed himself a predecessor of European realism on the level of Gogol, and even Flaubert. His method of animating a scene is the most fastidious, and at the same time the most successful. He looks down from a great height, so high that one seems to see both the Danube and the Tisza, but with an eagle’s eye, surveying the whole but taking in minute details with the fidelity of a microscope. The well with its long sweep; the roadside inn, its windows papered over with pages from an almanac; the hired hand on the threshold of the stable, cutting his tobacco: all these are observed from a great distance, yet they appear only a hand’s breadth away. He compares with the great writers of his time also in this, that he does not stop with mere description, but goes on to become a pioneer on the road toward contemporary realism. Looking back, he judges things as they are; looking ahead, he draws the implied conclusion. His sharp eye glances into the future and brings within reach what must be done. Surpassing many Western writers, Petőfi believed in action, which to him made perfect sense. As if obsessed, he demanded that men interfere, that they alter the course of fate. And thus, in the revolution’s darkest hour, he became the poet of hope. The lamp which Petőfi took from his predecessors as his poetic inheritance was not without soot. Nor did it burn steadily. Often the flame would flutter and die; often it was blown out, so that one wondered how it would ever rise again. Hungarian poetry—that poetry, one might say, which best expresses national sentiments—has always predicted ill-fortune. It did so even in the flowering of the Reform Period (the eighteen thirties and forties), and with reason: from the very beginning Hungarian poetry has struggled with the question of ethnic survival. From generation to generation the anxiety grows, culminating in the nineteenth century trinity of Berzsenyi, Kölcsey and Vörösmarty. All three spoke in the same anxious voice, and although they wrote independently of one an-28
