Gyula Illyés

Gyula Illyés

GYULA ILLYÉS (1902–1983) poet and novelist. Worked and studied in Paris between 1920–1926, and became connected with the Surrealist poets and artists. Back in Hungary, in the 1930s, he was invited to work on the literary magazine Nyugat (The West) by the editor-in-chief, the famous poet and writer, Mihály Babits. Anti-Nazi, a leader of the National Peasant Party, the Communists tried to win Illyés for their cause after the Second World War in vain. His secretly written poem from 1950, “One Sentence on Tyranny”, became the emblematic work of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, but banned in Hungary until the late 1980s. Returning to publication in 1961, Illyés lived to a productive and successful old age, renewing his poetry, writing dramas, translations and essays.

RELIGION – A CHAPTER FROM RUSSIA, 1934

The gaze is struck by a church spire on practically every corner, not just downtown but in the shabbiest outskirts, where the tiny wooden houses squat low, almost submerged in the mud. High above the battered roofs, the innumerable gilded globes glisten in the sun with a purplish glint like

IN ANSWER TO HERDER AND ADY (1977)

In the year currently drawing to a close, Gottfried Herder’s noteworthy prediction has once more shaken our intellectual life, if only on the surface. As Emil Kolozsvári Grandpierre wrote in Kortárs,1 the gloomy prediction has been mentioned by many for almost two hundred years, but it is never quoted accurately.

ON SEEING THE REFORMATION MONUMENT, GENEVA

I paced the length of it – one hundred and forty-three paces from end to end. As a messenger bearing the last salute of murdered millions I passed along the line of stony faces; Calvin, Knox, Farel, Beza! and those great bull-heads, grim captains of embattled faith, all those Williams,

SUBMERGED WITH ATLANTIS – A DIARY 1956-57 – EXCERPTS

The missing 1956–57 part of the Diary of Gyula Illyés (1902–1983) was found in the attic of the family house in Buda, in April 2014, in an envelope, hidden among miscellaneous papers in a wooden box. It covers the days of the Revolution and the early days of the Soviet retaliation, from 25 October to 31 January. The loose bundle of papers seems

THE TREE THAT REACHED THE SKY – A HUNGARIAN FOLK TALE

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, far beyond the end of the world, I saddled a nag, leapt upon her back and rode into the forest. I ate well, I drank well, and I put the nag under my head for a pillow. All of a sudden

GYULA ILLYÉS: BARTÓK

BARTÓK Gyula Illyés “Harsh discord?” – Yes! They think it thuswhich brings us solace! Yes! Let the violin strings,let singing throats learn curse-clatter of splintering glasscrashing to the ground the screen of raspwedged in the teeth of buzzing saw; – let there be no peace, no gaietyin gilded, lofty far

PEOPLE OF THE PUSZTA – EXCERPT

CHAPTER TWELVE: The defencelessness of the girls. The morals of the puszta. The conquerors The daughter of one of our nearby neighbours committed suicide. Male farm servants who are weary of life normally put an end to it by hanging themselves, the women and girls by jumping into a well.

CHARON’S FERRY

A Selection of Poems by Gyula Illyés, Translated by Bruce Berlind The gardens are afloat in water, the small village a peninsula now. And the deluge increases. We’ve done what it’s possible for man to do. It’s black as pitch outside, not a star shines through. Whatever’s to be done