OSA / Guide / RIP / 1956 / RFE/RL Background Reports : Subjects | Browse | Search

The text below might contain errors as it was reproduced by OCR software from the digitized originals,
also available as Scanned original in PDF.

BOX-FOLDER-REPORT: 31-1-170
TITLE:             Gyula Illyes Speaks Again
BY:                GRU
DATE:              1960-7-20
COUNTRY:           Hungary
ORIGINAL SUBJECT:  Hungarian Unit
THEMATIC SUBJECTS: Hungary--1956-1965, Hungary--Literature, Personalities

--- Begin ---

"E" DISTRIBUTION – 495	20 JULY 1960

RFE EVALUATION AND ANALYSIS DEPARTMENT

Background Report
(Hungarian Research)
GRU

GYULA ILLYES SPEAKS AGAIN

Gyula Illes´ s first positive reponse to the regime´ s many
overtures since 1956 appears in the July 1960 issue of Kortars.
Illyes´ s silence since revolution has, in turn, puzzled and infuriated
Hungary´ s literary administrators. No lesser persons than Radar and
deputy Premier Kallai have repeatedly made Illyes target of their
attacks, although behind the official abuse it has never been
difficult to detect a grudging admiration for the doyen of the nation´ s
literary life. A populist and socialist by sentiment, Illyes always
refused to allow himself to be too visibly tied to a regime he had
castigated in his famous "One sentence on Tyranny", although he would,
along with other non-Communist intellectuals, add his name to such
obligatory regime documents as peace - circulars and international
protests of various kinds.

For all the (possibly intentious)obscurity of the language
in which his article is couched, Illyes has now come out of his shell
and produced the pearl so much coveted by the Government.

It will be remembered that on 28.1.1958 Radar made a point
of publicly reminding Illyes that the Party had taken special steps
to improve the lot of the people of the village in which Illyes was
born. Here, he intimated, was something right up the street of a populist
writer´ s field of interest - would Illyes stop sulking in his
literary corner, praise the living and stop mourning the dead? Illyes would
not; in fact, until Dery´ s release, evasions were the best the
Government and the press could get from him. A sprinkling of poems - all
strictly non-committal - have been published by him since April, but
it is only now that he braced himself to his task publishing exactly,
or almost exactly, what ICadar had asked him to do: a praise of
socialist construction in his native village, Racegeres. 32 villagers had
been given new homes: 32 homes are the subject of Illyes´ s
commendations. The praise and the poems attached to it are, to be sure, hedged

[page 2]

HUNGARIAN BACKGROUND REPORT, 20 July 1960, 

round with reservations, but praise they are none the less, what
with such statements as "at that time (i.e. in the 1930s) the
bread was hidden behind locked doors from the starving children;
today each cuts as much as he wants: then people were beaten,
today a hand is held out to them.." For one who has carved his name
into the story of Hungarian revolution with his strictures on
oppression this marks the end (or is it the beginning?) of a
tortuous new road.

That poetry is a means for the realization of a loftier,
materialist task" that for posterity verse is worthless unless it
assumes the functions of a practical and productive 
"workshop"-such sentiments come dangerously close to the requirements of
socialist realism.

For Stalin, writers were the engineers of the human soul;
one can but wonder at the bitterness of the reappraisal that must
have preceded Illyes´ s decision to proclaim, by implication at
least, the rightness of that proposition. That a price has here
been paid for goods that are, as yet, not fully visible, is a guess
that can be safely hazarded. Whether the results will justify this
lowering of Illyes´ s high moral position - this is a question to
which only developments in the coming months will give the answer.

Follow: excerpts from article and from two poems.

[page 3]

HUNGARIAN BACKGROUND REPORT, 20 July 1960, 

KORTARS July 1960

Gyula ILYES: THE RACEGRES NOTEBOOK

...During the past 15 years the evening out of social
levels has been one of the most encouraging things in the
development of the life of our farmers.

During the past decades our people has gone through
immensetrials. We suffered great losses: hundreds of
thousands of people died young, homes were ransacked,
innocent persons executed and imprisoned; blood and tears...
What would I have to say if I added to the description of
life/the old farmsteads one on life there today? Then
bread was hidden behind locked doors from the starving
children; today each cuts as much as he wants; then people
were often beaten; today a hand is held out to them...

In early spring 1960 the pantries of Racegres are so
obviously full that it would have been unnecessary (and
a journalistic tactlessness)for me to look around there...
Everyone has a pair of shoes and a change of underwear...

The inhabitants of Racegres eat and dress adequately.
Bath-tubs do not exist as yet, but in many of those 
Diamond-shaped houses room has been left for them. There is no
water supply either. An even greater shortcoming and a
continuous topic for conversation is the, lack of
electricity. It would have to be brought in a from a distance
of only five to six kilometer. The local shop is also
primitive. There are no drink shops where people could
talk over a glass of beer. People only have a chance to
drink when the enthusiastic chairman of the cooperative
obtains a load and distributes it after work in one of
the small and dim rooms of the former castle. There is
no theater or cinema in Racegres. And a good many other
things are also missing. I do not wish to put them down
in writing because they will be obtained without a
writer’s intervention. But these shortcomings do not
threaten the existence of a nation. This is the basic
difference between the shortcomings of the past and those of the present..

Together with the old buildings of the farmstead,
naturally my house of birth too was pulled down, to the last

[page 4]

HUNGARIAN BACKGROUN REPORT, 20 July 1960, 

stone of its foundation... I am far from regretting the
disappearance of those tumble-down old walls. I
sincerely rejoice that the stupid material has "been put to
new use. It is a good feeling for me to know that the
"bricks of my native house are in the walls of good houses
at a distance of half a kilometer and I am particularly
glad that I do not know in which house these bricks were
walled in. I believe that this is the way in which I too,
have to construct new things from elements of the past.

[page 5]

HUNGARIAN BACKGROUND REPORT, 20 July 1960, 

Gyula ILLYES: IE POETE ENGAGÉ

Full translation of a poem.

"Let the poet be an expression of useful purpose" -
L.Szabo

At Racegers the writer is a respected person;
a kind of appeal judge, they say.

When all words fail "The poem", they say, "the Muse
may still help us", urging the writer to speak.

At Racegers they have respect for poetry;
poetry, they hope, will conjure up electricity in the
village.

They expect great things from the poet and so keen is
their expectation that they will even show respect for
philology.

"We have written a dozen letters in this matter", they
complain to the poet, "but if you, too, could add your
voice to ours, Gyula..."

Verse or prose, harsh or smooth, or even a full-scale
tragedy; anything will do.

Then we want a new road, and above all, electricity.
For three years now we have been promised to get these
things by the country authorities.

The whole country has them;
we alone are left out in the cold.

Let the poet be an expression of useful purpose..."
I look at my former schoolmates.

"It is a small thing for you to write about our troubles",
they say, "but for us it may mean everything.

They are not worried about form or meter, as long as
the verse gets them what they want.

"Sixty timber props would do the trick", one says, "and
what would we not have", a girl exclaims, "even a movie!"

[page 6]

HUNGARIAN BACKGROUND REPORT, 20 July 1960, 

"Could you put all this into verse?", they say, "so
that our voice is heard up in Szekszard?"

"Let the poet be an expression of useful purpose."
Now, I think, the moment has arrived:

Glory, rewards, laurels - I have long known what they
mean! Verse is useless unless it is grounded in earth;
Unless it lets down roots and produces
fruit -- Let it, then produce it.

From: Evening

I would hate and throw to the wind
all my vain writings
were I not stilled "by the thought
that, like some revolutionary invention
that comes to full use only in later time,
my verses, too, will become live energy,
to produce efficiently
like a well run workshop.

End.

  OSA / Guide / RIP / 1956 / RFE/RL Background Reports : Subjects | Browse | Search