Calvin Synod Herald, 1998 (98. évfolyam, 1-6. szám)

1998-01-01 / 1. szám

CALVIN SYNOD HERALD

Mirriam Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature, published in 1995 in Springfield, Massachusetts, is a world of literature. It contains an impressive array of Hungarian writers. We are reprinting a portion of its essay on Sándor Petőfi in our present issue.

Petőfi, Sándor (b. Jan. 1, 1823, Kiskoros, Hungary; d. probably 1856, Siberia) One of the greatest Hungarian poets and a revolutionary who symbolized the Hungarian desire for freedom.

Petofi’s first poem was published in 1842. After years of vicissitudes, in 1844 he became an assistant editor of the literary periodical Pesti Divatlap. His first volume of poetry, Versek, appeared in the same year and made him famous at once, though the tone of his poems scandalized many.

Petőfi played a leading role in the literary life of the period preceding the outbreak of the Hungarian revolution of 1848. A fervent partisan of the French Revolution, he castigated the social conditions of his country, attacking the privileges of the nobles and the monarchy. His poems glowed with political passion, and one of them, “Talpra magyar” (“Rise, Hungarians”), written on the eve of the revolution, became its anthem. During the revolution he became the aide-de-camp of the General Jozef Bern, then head of the Transylvanian army. Petőfi disappeared during the Battle of Segesvár, on July 31, 1849. Though for many years his death at Segesvár had been assumed, in the late 1980s Soviet investigators found archives which revealed that he was on of some 1,800 Hungarian prisoners of war who were marched to Siberia. IT is believed that he died of tuberculosis in 1856.

Petofi’s poetry is characterized by realism, humor and descriptive power and is imbued with a peculiar vigor. He introduced a direct, unpretentious style and a clear, unornamented construction adapted from national folk songs. This simplicity was the more arresting as it was used to reveal subtle emotions and political or philosophical ideas. Of his epic poems the Janos vitéz (1845), an entrancing fairy tale, the most popular. Petofi’s popularity has never diminished in Hungary.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Soviet investigators made a legend of the historic truth. Petőfi did indeed die as an heroic martyr on the battlefield in fulfillment of his most dramatic poem, “Egy gondolat bant engemet”.- 5 -AMERIKAI MAGYAR REFORMÁTUSOK LAPJA

A SENTENCE ON TYRANNY

The theme chosen the Reformed World Convention: “Break the Chains on Injustice" (Isaih 56;6)

Where there’s tyranny there’s tyranny; not only in the gun-barrel, not only in the prison cell,

not only in the torture rooms, not only in the nights, in the voice of the shouting guard; there’s tyranny,

not only in the speech of the prosecutor, pouring like dark smoke, in the confessions, in the wall-tappings of prisoners,

not only in the judge's passionless sentence: “guilty!" there’s tyranny not only in the martial

curt’s “Attention!" and “Fire!" and in the drum rolls, and in the way the corpse is thrust into a hole,

not only in the secretly half-opened door, in fearfully whispered news,

in the finger, dropping

in front of the lips, cautioning “Hush";

there is tyranny

not only in the facial expression

firmly set like iron bars,

and in the stillborn

tormented cry of pain within these

bars,

in the shower of silent tears adding to this silence in a glazed eyeball;

there is tyranny

not only in the cheers

of men upstanding

who cry “Hurrah!" and sing;

where there’s tyranny there’s tyranny not only in the tirelessly clapping palms,

in orchestras in operas in the braggart statues of tyrants just as mendaciously loud, in colours, in picture galleries,

in each embracing frame, even in the painters’ brush, not only in the sound of the car gliding softly in the night

and in the way it stops at the doorway;

where there’s tyranny, it’s there in actual presence

in everything,

in the way not even your God was in old times;

there's tyranny in the nursery school, in paternal advice in the mother’s smile,

not only in the barbed wire, not only in the booksellers’ stand, more than barbed wire in the hypnotic slogans;

it is there

in the good-bye kiss, in the way the wife says:

“when will you be home, dear?"

in the “how are you's"?

repeated so automatically in the street,

in the loosing of the grip

to give a nonchalant handshake,

in the way suddenly your lover’s face becomes frozen, because tyranny is there in the amorous trysts,

not only in the questioning, it is there in the declaration of love, in the sweet drunkenness of words, like a fly in the wine;

for not even in your dreams are you alone, it is there in the bridal bed, and before in the dawning desire,

like a river in its bed you follow it and you create it; you spy out of this circle? it looks at you from the mirror,

where there’s tyranny everyone is a link in the chain: it stinks and pours out of you, you are tyranny yourself;

like moles in the sunshine, we walk in the dark, we fidget in our chamber as if it were the Sahara;

because where there’s tyranny all is in vain,

even the song, however faithful, whatever the work you achieve,

for its stands

in advance at your grave

and it tells you who you have been,

even your dust serves tyranny.

□JU