Magyar Hírek, 1986 (39. évfolyam, 1-26. szám)

1986-04-25 / 8. szám

ABOUT THIS ISSUE AND THE PREVIOUS ONE

László Cs. Szabó ’s bequest

The portrait gallery of the great of Hungarian technology who contributed to world-wide progress in the most varied fields, is continued in the present Hungarian section. Oneof those to be remembered was Donát Bánki, the inventor of the carburettor, a professor at the Budapest Technical University, then János Csonka, one of the developers of the modern internal combustion engine,—and József Galamb, who designed the T model Ford must obviously also be included. I should like to add yet another, who is seldom mentioned, that of Ferenc Jehl whose name I met also in Dearborn, and of all places in the workshop of Thomas Edison, which was taken there by his friend and admirer, Henry Ford from Menlo Park. Jehl was an important collaborator of Edison. Indeed Edison developed the incandescent lamp with the cooperation of Jehl.

Other Hungarian greats of engineering are György Jendrassik, who contributed much to the gas turbine, David Schwarz, whose preliminary designs for a dirigible were bought and used by Count Zeppelin for his air-ship — Dénes Mihály, the pioneer of television, and the master of colour television, long-play records and other technical achievements of fundamental importance, Peter Goldmark. Let me add Andor Rótt, responsible for tremendous achievements in modern photographic technology including films for the Polaroid colour camera. I met him in his second home, Belgium, w’here he worked for Gevaert. He had lent the gold medals he was awarded for his inventions to an exhibition, which wanteil to present the Hungarian technical achievements to the Belgian public. He called himself a Hungarian engineer even after an absence for almost forty years.

In the Hungarian section of this issue, Iván Boldizsár writes notes in a lyric vein about a journey he made recently through the hilly country of County Zala. Trees in full flower on the hills made him recall lines of poem Mihály Babits —and another journey in the old times in the same district, when he recorded the life of these villages with writer friends working on a series of books called The Discovery of Hungary. “The misery and the humiliation of the peasantry has disappeared” writes Boldizsár, "it would be more difficult to describe things today, than the situation forty years ago, even though living the old way was the more bitter. It is easier to write about wrongs, about penury, hunger, lack of prospects, humiliation, than about how all that has changed to the better.”

Z. II.

In the foggy twillight we are gingerly stepping across slippery wet leaves in Sárospatak graveyard. I am with Professor Kálmán Ujszászy, lay superintendent of the Calvinist Church District of the territory West of the river Tisza. At the bottom of his garden there is a gate which leads to the site chosen by László Cs. Szabó as his last resting place before his death in 1985. Teachers and famous former students of the town’s renowned college rest beneath the headstones. The name of László Cs. Szabó is inscribed on a freshly planed gravemarker. The writer was born in Budapest in 1905, and spent his childhood in Kolozsvár. That was the place, in which he longed to be back wherever he was. He wrote in London in 1971: “But still, if a magician asked me: where should he fly me in a magic hood, 1 would ask him to put me down right now at the bottom of Farkas utca, so that I could see the huge, plain gable of the Calvinist church.”

Yet, instead of the Házsongárd cemetery peopled by ancestors and spiritual forebears, he chose the graveyard of Sárospatak, because the genius loci accorded with his stubborn consistency, straight backbone, discerning taste.

His almost eleven thousand volume strong library as well as his journal and catalogue collections already arrived at Sárospatak last year, and are now awaiting cataloguing.

György Benke, the chief librarian of the Calvinist Church District visited the London home of the writer, when the bequest was packed.

“László Cs. Szabó hail come to visit us in Sárospatak — he said — no more than two or three times, before he

died. He gave delightful lectures, and thoroughly looked over the place where he wanted to be laid rest. He stipulated in his last will: I give all my books (to avoid misunderstanding this term includes my library, and not only the books of which 1 am the author) to the Sárospatak Collection of the Reformed Church. He bequethed his manuscripts, which constituted the minor part of his bequest, to the Budapest Petőfi Literary Museum.”

Before we look over the freshly unpacked volumes lined up on temporary shelves, let us glance once again into his confessions: “Eversince my childhood I have been collecting almost as a lunatic: I can’t throw away even Christmas cards, or duplicates of books, but I have neither inclination nor time to put them in proper order, and the store rooms of my home now look as if they had been turned upside down by at least ten raids. It happens that I borrow a book which I am sure I have somewhere under my roof, but this way I can lay my hands on it faster.”

This collecting passion followed the writer right through his life. He lost his first, nine thousand volume, library in 1949, when he went into voluntary exile. His friends recalled that that valuable collection grew so close to his heart that he vowed never again to own more than three hundred volumes. When his wife mentioned that he did not keep his pledge, he already owned more than two thousand volumes.

György Benke went on talking about the London home of the uniter.

“His home was completely occupied by books. The large library on

the ground floor became filled in the course of years, and later the books overflowed to the living and bed rooms as well as the passages upstairs. Those parts of the wall which were not covered by bookshelves displayed prints of Hungarian and Transylvanian interest. His books plastically showed the wide range of his interests: Volumes of classical studies alternated with others on modern art. His collection of international catalogues supplemented with the Sárospatak collection will be of unique value in Hungary. His Shakespeare and Dickens collections are considerable even at the first glance. Innumerable books inscribed by friend to him evidence his Hungarian connections, but the library shows that he kept up with the work of those as well, who did not belong to his circle of friends.

This vast material of books, together with a few personal belongings will form the László Cs. Szabó Library at Sárospatak.

When he was invited to come home for a visit he first sent his writings, then he came himself with increasing frequency. After four works of his [Alkalom (opportunity), 1982; Közel s távol (Near and Far), 1983; Őrzők (Guards), 1985; Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1985) his Shakespeare volume is nearing publication. The spiritual bequest of László Cs. Szabó is slowly becoming public property.

SÁNDOR LINTNER

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