Category: 1956

Let me start by formally offering my sympathy and esteem to the generation of writers who form the bulk of contributors to this volume. As a novelist whose greatest problem has been deciding exactly when to get out of bed in the morning, I have enormous admiration for those who

Why a collection of prose and poetry by Hungarian writers in English translation about the Revolution of 1956? By now, almost three decades after the fall of Communism, the meaning of 1956 is surely a relatively settled matter, however vigorously it may have been falsified for decades by the Kádár

The 1956 Revolution, the most glorious chapter of twentieth-century Hungarian history despite its quick and brutal crushing, is regarded worldwide as unequivocally beautiful, valuable, and exemplary. It is an event about which most people in Western countries have heard at least something. An English-language anthology of Hungarian poems and prose

Extra Hungariam non est vita, si est vita, non est ita – stated a Hungarian scholar three hundred and fifty years ago in a Latin dissertation. The much-quoted sentence has been interpreted in more than one way. Ardent patriots maintain that outside Hungary there is no life whatsoever, just as there is no life (perhaps) on Mars. Others would translate these words differently: “All right, there is no life outside Hungary, but if there is some kind of life there, it is

AN EXEGESIS OF POLITICAL PRISONS IN ROMANIA The labour camps known as the “Gulag”, which continue to stand as an eternal memento of human suffering, were intended by the powers of the day as a venue for humiliating and, ultimately, physically annihilating political prisoners. In effect, no information about these

István Örkény A HYMN TO BUDAPEST Fohász Budapestért Budapest, my glorious city, forgive me, your errant son, who was born here, yet knew you not, who loved you but denigrated you so. How could I have thought of you that you are no more than any city, and merely one

May I begin by thanking you for inviting me to speak on this occasion. My credentials for doing so are slight. I am neither Hungarian, nor a poet, nor a novelist, nor a writer of imaginative and creative works, but a journalist and cold-blooded political analyst. So my only justification for being here is that I believe this book to be

Even my vulcanised fibre suitcase was nervous as I got off the 61 tram and set off up the incline of Himfy Street. I had been more confident four years before in Tapolca in my first year in grammar school; now I was a freshman at university, standing in the unfamiliar gates of Eötvös College among strange room- and classmates. I put down

When word came that they had been shot into a heap outside the Parliament building, in a bottomless moment – as if I myself were dying – I saw his life until then before me as a single, swirling image: he was twenty years old – or still is, if

MALÉTER1 I saw you once, a lanky man,step outside Parliament, look round bewildered,and get in the car.Little did you knowit was your ride to lengthy execution,you gaunt insubordinate,who joined the tatteredand the mortifiedto lead themin this downtrodden landwhere only hangmenearn serene retirement.Even if you didhave a hunch– hailing from the pack