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E-book Paradise from behind the Iron Curtain : Reading, translating and staging Milton in Communist Hungary

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Penilaian

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This is how László Cs. Szabó, a leading Hungarian intellectual of the mid- twentieth century,2 starts his article ‘Milton or Czuczor’. Cs. Szabó refused the request to write only of ‘Hungarian things’, but the suggestion that he should give preference to the works of Gergely Czuczor, a Hungarian lexi-cographer and minor poet of the nineteenth century, to those of Milton and ‘the Miltons’, i.e. the great authors of English and European litera-ture, gave him pause. He admits to being puzzled by the choice his corres-pondent poses between the national and the European tradition, since, as he argues, ‘the great educators, liberators, absolvers and martyrs were all great importers’ (A nagy nevel?k, felszabadítók, feloldozók és vértanúk mind nagy importálók voltak), and ‘our great intellects were all great translators; polishing the mirror of Hungarian- ness with the silvering of world literature’ (Nagy szellemeink mind nagy fordítók is; a világirodalom foncsorával fényesítették a magyarság tükrét).3 In other words, according to Cs. Szabó, there is no meaningful choice between Milton and Czuczor. Both are part of Hungarian and the wider European culture: ignoring the former in favour of the latter would only be counterproductive since it would imply an unnecessary sense of inferiority. ‘Let us keep on talking about Milton and Vörösmarty [an important nineteenth-century Hungarian poet], and when it is necessary, about Czuczor’ (Beszéljün csak változatlanul Miltonról és Vörösmartyról, s amikor kell, Czuczorról!), he concludes, countering the narrow- minded nationalist cultural agenda of his correspondent with a wide- reaching, enlightened European, yet patriotic programme.Cs. Szabó wrote this essay in 1944, the darkest and most dis-astrous year of the twentieth century for Hungary and Hungarians.4With hindsight it is impossible not to notice a certain naïveté in these remarks. Witnessing the unfolding tragedy of fascism and Nazism, sev-eral leading European (among them Hungarian) intellectuals became disillusioned about the redeeming potential of such a broadly conceived model of ‘European culture’. Thomas Mann is one of the most famous examples: up to the 1930s his professed views about Germany and German culture were, mutatis mutandis, similar to, and largely compat-ible with, Cs. Szabó’s ideas, but, as Hitler consolidated his power, and especially with the advent of World War II, he became a highly vocal critic of traditional conceptions of ‘German- ness’.5 Cs. Szabó, although an anti- fascist himself, apparently did not (or did not want to) go so far. His contention that ‘To know about European things, to know about them constantly, means knowing our own things’ (Európai dolgokról tudni, s azokról folyton tudni annyi, mint a magunk dolgát ismerni)6 reflects a belief not only in the integrity and immanent value of European human-istic culture. Significantly, it also implies that this culture serves as an antidote to the brutal present, and is an essential token of Hungarians’ own identity, regardless of any temporary or permanent political and military conflicts. If this assessment sounded overly optimistic in 1944, it is strikingly more so if we take a longer view of twentieth- century Hungarian history. Little did Cs. Szabó know that within a few years of writing his essay, Hungary (together with a handful of other countries in Eastern and Central Europe), still reeling from the horrors of World War II, would plunge into another totalitarian rabbit hole, that of ‘actually existing socialism’, forcing him into exile, and a great many of his intel-lectual peers into silence.7 Nor would he have dreamt that under this new system the humanistic idea of the European tradition he was propagating would again come under sustained attack, this time not from nation-alism, but from a new, nominally ‘Marxist- Leninist’ and internationalist cultural policy.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

902 PET p

Penerbit

London : UCL Press., 2022

Deskripsi Fisik

299 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9781787358539

Klasifikasi

902

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

-

Subjek

Miscellany of History

Info Detail Spesifik

-

Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

-

Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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