When last year I was interviewed by Radio Kossuth about Ferenc Békássy, one of the questions concerned the chances of finding any still unknown manuscripts by the young Anglo-Hungarian poet who died at the age of 22 in the First World War. At the time I said I thought this
There is pushing and shoving now at the railed gatesof Non-Being – the young mass-murderersare queuing up for their reward in heaven.Because they too in the end were blown apart,the question remains: can they be reassembledby the demons of the Prophet disguised as angelsor will their bodies go into orbitsomewhere
Simon Hall, 1956. The World in Revolt, Faber & Faber, London, 2016 1956 was a year of change, tumult and rebellion all around the world. So many events were compressed into just twelve calendar months that looking back on 1956 it seems that it was a time of global revolt.
When in the Michaelmas Term of 1911–12 Ferenc Békássy began his studies at King’s College, Cambridge, he was not long in earning the attention of John Maynard Keynes, a Fellow of the College. Keynes was bisexual, before World War I heavily engaging in homosexual affairs, for many years a lover
Roger Moorhouse, The Devils’ Alliance. Hitler’s Pact with Stalin 1939–1941* Historians investigating the causes of World War II seldom return to the treaty that made the beginning of hostilities possible: to the German–Soviet pact of 23 August 1939. This so-called “non-aggression” agreement sometimes referred to as the “Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact” was
One steps clear of the others, stands in a block of silence, still. The prison garb, the convict’s scalp blink like an old film-reel. Fearful to be a self alone: the pores are visible, with everything around so huge and everything so small. And that was it. As for the
LORCA, ON A DAWN ROAD Walking the road from Viznar toAlfacar you come to the Well ofTears,as in Moorish times the Fuente Grande was called –it is not far from Granada,but close to the waters of Lethe. To this spotthe firing squad at sunrise took its prisoners.Federico, to no advantage,
Jenő Dsida was born in 1907 in Szatmárnémeti (today Satu Mare in Romania). He began writing in his early youth and his first poems were published in the children’s magazine Cimbora (“My Pal”) edited by Elek Benedek. His first book of poetry Leselkedő magány (“Lurking Solitude”) was published in 1928 – by that time
Ferenc Békássy belongs to that small but distinct group of people who before the First World War were “at home” in two languages: Hungarian and English. In fact he wrote poetry in both and could have gone on to write even better poems had he not fallen in 1915 during
My interest in the English language goes back to 1947 when at the age of thirteen my mother sent me to Sárospatak to learn the tongue of Shakespeare. This was an excellent Calvinist grammar school (gimnázium) in North-East Hungary with a long-standing tradition of teaching English (quite a few of
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