On The Destruction of the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center (Poem, translated by Jascha Kessler)
By Ottó Orbán
The Hungarian poet most receptive of his generation to American poetry responds to September 11, 2001.
Terrorism and Human Rights
By Lord Russell-Johnston
The author is President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and addressed the Central European University in Budapest on the oits 10thccasion of its 10th anniversary in October of last Autumn. He is concerned not simply with the response of the United States and its coalition to the Taliban, but with the wider implications of responding to "terrorism" with "concerted action to remove the grievances upon which it feeds" while safeguarding the human rights on which democracy is founded.
Celestial Harmonies (Excerpts from the novel)
By Péter Esterházy
Péter Esterházy's latest novel was received with critical praise on its publication in 2000, has already been translated into French and German and will appear in English later this year. A chronicle of an historic family, an autobiography, a novel, this rich and intricate book is the novel that he has been threatening to write for years. We here publish some extracts.
Nation and State in Modern Hungarian History
By Ignác Romsics
Author of the acclaimed Hungary in the Twentieth Century, Professor Romsics here addresses the nexus of nation, nationality and state as it appears from the outset in Hungarian history and political thinking.
Federation was mooted even the 1848 revolution and its aftermath, which brought heightened self-awareness among the minorities living in the Kingdom. Secession was on the agenda even before the First World War and its peace settlement, which distorted Hungarian politics up to the end of the Second World War. A new approach, based on "proleterian internationalism", was taken by the post-war Communist states in the bloc. Professor Romsics also covers the politics articulated after the fall of communism.
Czeslaw Milosz's "Antigone" and the 1956 Revolution
By George Gömöri
György Gömöri introduces a famous poem by the great Polish poet, describing its significance in terms of the writer's life and oeuvre.
The poem itself is also published here in a translation by Richard Burns and György Gömöri.
The Hungarian Barbizon: István Réti and the Nagybánya Painters
By György Szűcs
The Nagybánya Artists Colony (Excerpts)
By István Réti
These two articles focus on the immensely influential artists colony which formed itself in Nagybánya (now in Romania) at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The colony flourished up to the First World War and was still of significance afterwards.
György Szűcs's article traces the history of Nagybánya and how its founding generation (which included István Réti) introduced plein air naturalism and describes the second generation's adoption of French Fauvisme in the context of ideologically driven reception. He details the chronology of István Réti's memoir of Nagybánya and examines the painters' responses to contemporary work in Paris.
We also publish excerpts from Réti's own account, outlining the beginnings in 1896, the inspirational location itself and, even, the master patisseur Gyula Gyöngyössy, who turned his premises into a permanent exhibition space for the painters.
These two articles are accompanied by colour plates.
"Hungarian Roots, English Traditions"
George Szirtes on Becoming an English Poet
In interview with András Gerevich
George Szirtes is also acknowledged as one of the best translators of Hungarian poetry and fiction into English. In this interview he describes how he re-explored his Hungarian identity, rediscovered the Hungarian language and its literature, many years after arriving in England at the age of eight in 1956.
Writing Unwritten Stories
By Miklós Győrffy
Ádám Bodor: A börtön szaga. Válaszok Balla Zsófia kérdéseire (The Stench of Prison: Responses to Questions by Zsófia Balla). Budapest, Magvető, 2001, 223 pp.
We feature here Miklós Győrffy's review of an autobiographical work by Ádám Bodor the great original of contemporary Hungarian fiction. And astonishing it is too, involving a prison term for participation in a subversive organisation in the early fifties, studies at a Theological College (the only place of higher education he could get a place in), retreats into a hermit existence in the High Carpathians for months at a time - a biography that his fiction has been preparing us for many years.
Excerpts will be published in three consecutive issues of HQ.
Kádár's Shadow
By Tibor Hajdu
Tibor Huszár: Kádár János politikai életrajza. 1. kötet 1912-1956. (The Political Biography of János Kádár. Vol. 1. 1912-1956) Budapest, Szabad Tér Kiadó - Kossuth Kiadó, 2001 , 406 pp. * László Varga (ed.) Kádár János bírái előtt. Egyszer fent, egyszer lent 1949-1956. (János Kádár Before His Judges. Ups and Downs. 1949-1956) Budapest, Osiris - Budapest Főváros Levéltára (The Municipal Archive of Budapest), 2001 , 728 pp.
Kádár had "the greatest authority in the country, until 1989, held more power than any constitutional monarch in the twentieth century" begins the historian Tibor Hajdu a review of two new and complementary books concerned with the veteran leader of the Hungarian Communist Party. The first is written by a sociologist who is well versed in psychology and his book deals with its subject before he came to power, the second deals with Kádár's trials at the hands of the Party and with his own manoeuvring. Both books are based on extensive research and on material that has recently come to light.
Bon Appétit!
By Éva Várhegyi
Pénzügyminiszterek reggelire. Békesi Lászlóval, Bokros Lajossal, Kupa Mihállyal, Medgyessy Péterrel, Rabár Ferenccel, Szabó Ivánnal Rádai Eszter beszélget. (Ministers of Finance for Breakfast. Eszter Rádai speaks with...] Helikon, Beszélő 2001) pp. 299.
A fascinating set of interviews with six politicians he filled the post of finance minister between the late eighties to 1998, this covering the period immediately before and after the transition to a parliamentary democracy and a free market. The interviewer's forte is in asking awkward questions (and getting responses to them) and in digging out the confluence between personalities and policies.
Pianists and Executioners: The 11th Liszt Piano Competition
By Alan Walker
Alan Walker is the author of the three-volume definitive biography of Liszt and has served on the juries of the last three Liszt Piano Competitions. Here he reflects on the 2001 event, describing its set-up, the jurors, the pianists, the sound and the prizes. He itcloses with the portrait of Liszt suspended above the stage: "his faraway gaze symbolised his rapt attention to everything he was hearing, and was marvelling at what the young were now able to do both with, and to, his music."
