Fraternity-Testvériség, 1956 (34. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1956-06-01 / 6. szám
6 FRATERNITY SUCH ARE HUNGARIANS* By Endre Ady** God Almighty never gave us Somebody to love, to save us, No, never. We rarely loved e’en those for whom We side by side did fight the doom Long ago. And somehow something was amiss: The evils of our soul — a dress Patched and stained. We stored the great indifferently For friend as well for enemy: We had to! Alike in life deceived we were, Well, well, but that is our affair, ’Tis well so. Remarks * This poem was taken from the recently published anthology written by Egon Kunz under the title “Hungarian Poetry.” This valuable book may be ordered from Julia Kemeny, 1736 East 22nd St., Cleveland 14, O. ** ADY, Endre (Andrew) was born on November 22, 1877, at Ér- mindszent, Hungary. Consequently interrupting his law studies, he first edited political papers. His first volume of poems appeared in 1904. He went to Paris and thereafter continued his restless life between France and Hungary. In 1906 another volume was published by him under the title “New Poems,” and he became the most controversial figure of the Hungarian spiritual life. He was the leading contributor of the revolutionary periodical “Nyugat.” — Ady has grown up on the Petőfi heritage but very soon under the influence of Nietzsche superman theory and the French decadents he developed his special Magyar ideology, racial, fateful and pessimistic, nowadays referred to as “Tragic Hungarianhood.” During the last years of his life, both his fatal illness and the unavoidably approaching war engulfed him in pain and horror, and his late poems are witnesses of the double catastrophe. He died on January 27, 1919.
