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: 32-2-17
TITLE:             The Hungarian Poet Illyes
BY:                Gyula Borbandi
DATE:              1962-11-8
COUNTRY:           Hungary
ORIGINAL SUBJECT:  Hungarian Desk
THEMATIC SUBJECTS: Hungary--1956-1965, Hungary--Literature, Personalities

--- Begin ---

Bitte doppelseiting!

X+250 CURT - THE HUNGARIAN POET ILLYES F-104

Munich, November 8, 1962 (Hungarian Desk - Gyula Borbandi)
-- Gyula Illyes, perhaps the greatest living Hungarian poet,
recently celebrated his 60th birthday. This famous poet, novelist,
playwright and editor belongs among the most interesting
personalities of contemporary Hungary.

He was born on 2 November 1902, at Racegres, a little
village in the western part of Hungary. His parents were farm
laborers, and Illyes spent his childhood on a large estate. He
was able to attend high school, where he took great interest in
literature. Upon graduating from high school, he went to Budapest
and joined the literary circles of the Hungarian capital. Later
on, he was forced to leave Hungary because of political reasons
and spent several years in France, where he was an intimate friend
of many French writers, such as Rene Crevel, Tristan Tzara, André
Breton, Cocteau, "Eluard, Aragon, Marcel Sauvage, etc.. This stay
gave him the impetus to write his book "Hunok Parizsban" ("The
Huns in Paris"), which was not published until 1945. He returned
to Hungary in 1926. "On his return to Hungary, toward the end of
the 20 s, he made an immediate impression with his poems, which
blended the national and popular traditions with a new, individual
rhythm. According to Mihaly Babits, one of the greatest Hungarian
poets and critics, Illyes poetry represented the intrusion into
Hungarian literature of the spiritual trends of the hitherto
despised and outcast masses; this meant a revolution, as the
intrusion and acceptance of new classes is always tantamount to a
revolution. " (Uj Latohatar", the Hungarian bi-monthly in its special
issue devoted to Gyula Illyes' birthday.)

Illyes became a close collaborator of Mihaly Babits,
assisted him in editing the leading literary review "Nyugat" ("West"),
and, in this magazine, he had his poems and prose works published,
including his second book, a brilliant biographical work on Sandor
Petofi, the great Hungarian poet of the 19th century and hero of
the Hungarian war of liberation of 1848/49. Illyes first book
appeared in 1934. It was the diary of his journey to Russia, where
he was invited to attend the Soviet Writers Congress. Besides
attending the Congress, he made an extensive journey throughout the
Soviet Union.

In the mid-thirties, Illyes became one of the leading
personalities of the populist literary and political movement. His
book "A pusztak nepe" ("People of the Puszta"), which appeared in

(MORE) (PTO)

[Page 2]

X+250 CURT (1) THE HUNGARIAN POET ILLYES F-105

1937, was a masterpiece of the populist school of writing and of
the village-explorer books. It gave a true picture of the life
led by the poorest Hungarian peasants. It caused a literary and
political sensation, was translated into German ("Pusztavolk")
and also into French.

Illyes took part in the political movement of the populist
writers, too. He belonged to the leading personalities of the "March
Front" -- founded in 1937 -- whose aim was the democratization of
Hungary, the fight against fascism, the improvement of the
situation of the landless peasants. When the National Peasant Party
was founded -- in 1939 -- Illyes immediately joined it. During
the war, he succeeded Mihaly Babits as editor of "Nyugat" and later,
when "Nyugat" ceased to appear, Illyes became the editor-in-chief
of "Magyar Csillag", the successor to "Nyugat". At that time he
edited a French Anthology in Hungarian translation, which was a
great literary success. The subject of his book "Kora Tavasz"
("Early Spring") is the 1918 democratic revolution and the Communist
coup détat in 1919. It draws a picture of the Hungarian village
and peasant life during those stormy months and has many
autobiographical aspects. From 1943 on he did not have anything
published and lived mostly at his birthplace and in Tihany, on
Lake Balaton.

After the war, he again appeared in Budapest, became one
of the political leaders of the National Peasant Party, and later
a member of parliament, but did not become involved in day-to-day
politics. He had many poems and articles published. As
editor-in-chief of the populist review "Valasz" ("Answer"), he organized
the populist writers and the young poets, novelists, essayists,
who sympathized with populist ideas. On his post-war journey
to France, he wrote a very interesting diary, which appeared in the 
magazine "Valasz". He collected his new poems into a book entitled
"Rend a romokban" ("Order Among the Ruins"). His collected poems
were later also published in a two-volume edition. In the first
years after World War II, he fought for the rehabilitation of
countless writers and poets, including Laszlo Nemeth, Lorinc Szabo
and Janos Kodolanyi. His authority in the literary field made it
possible for him to help many writers whose non-Gommunist
orientation was well-known in the whole country.

In 1949, Illyes had to suspend publication of the review
"Valasz", which had gained great political popularity due to the
analytical essays of Istvan Bibo, one of the best political thinkers
of Hungary, who was during the October events a member of Imre
Nagy's revolutionary cabinet. Illyes retired, didn't take part
in official literary life, but remained in the foreground, serving
as window dressing for the Communist regime. This position enabled

(MORE)

[Page 3]

X+250 (2) THE HUNGARIAN POET ILLYES

F106

him to help those writers who were not allowed to write or have
their works published.

In those years, Illyes wrote some fine historical plays,
for instance, "Ozorai pelda" ("The Example of Ozora"), a dramatized
version of his poem, "The Hussards of Ozora"; then "Two Men" on
Petofi and the Polish General Bern, "Dozsa" on the peasant war
of 1514, and "Faklyalang" ("Torchflame") on the Hungarian freedom
fight of 1848/49.

In 1950 he wrote the famous poem "One Sentence on
Tyranny" which was circulated secretly in Hungary after it was
written.(x) This poem was published only on 2 November 1956--
during the Hungarian revolution -- in the "Irodalmi Ujsag"(Literary
Gazette), the. only issue of this paper to appear during the glorious
October days.

Illyes didn't take part in the literary debates prior to
the 1956 revolution, but was always a spiritual inspirer of the
young generation and of the fight for intellectual freedom and
creative liberty. During the revolution, he became member of
the leading board of the National Peasant Party, which he renamed
the Petofi Party.
After the revolution, he ceased writing, and was several
times questioned by the police. He underwent a treatment in the
Clinic for Nervous Diseases in Budapest, pretending that he
suffered from nervous exhaustion. He again began to have his
works published in the spring of 1960, after Dery and other writers
were released from prison. Since then, he has published those of
his poems written during the last few years under the title "Uj
versek" ("New Poems",1961) and a volume of short stories and
other writings "Ebed a kastelyban" ("Luncheon in the Castle", 1962).
His latest work is a play titled "A kegyenc" ("The Favorite"), which
deals with the relationship between a Roman tyrant and his
subjects.

------------------------------

(x) See appendix attached for text in English translation.

(MORE) (PTO)

[Page 4]

X+250 CURT (3) THE HUNGARIAN POET ILLYES F107

ONE SENTENCE ON TYRANNY

Gyula Illyes

Where,there's tyranny,
there's tyranny,
not only in the gun-barrel,
not only in the prison-cell,

not only in the torture-room
not only in the nights.
in the voice of the shouting guard;
there 's tyranny

not only in the speech of the
prosecutor, pouring like dark smoke,
in the Confessions,
in the wall-tapping of prisoners,

not only in the judge's passionless
sentence: "Guilty!"
there's tyranny
not only in the martially

(MORE)

[Page 5]

X+250 CURT (4) THE HUNGARIAN POET ILLYES F-108

curt "Attention!" and
"Fire!" and in the drum rolls,
and in the way the corpse
is thrust into a hole,

not only in the secretly
half-opened door,
in fearfully
whispered news,
in the finger, dropping
in front of the lips, cautioning "Hush!"

there is tyranny
not only in the facial expression
firmly set like iron bars,
and in the stillborn
tormented cry of pain within these bars,

in the shower
of silent tears
adding to this silence,
in a glazed eyeball,

there's tyranny
not only cheers
of men upstanding
who cry "Hurrah!", and sing

where there's tyranny
there's tyranny
not only in the tirelessly
clapping palms,

in orchestras, operas,
in the braggart statues of tyrants
just as mendaciously loud,
in colors, in picture galleries,

in each embracing frame,
even in the painters' brush,
not only in the sound of the car
gliding softly in the night

(MORE) (PTO)

[Page 6]

X+250 CURT (5) THE HUNGARIAN POET ILLYES F-109

and in the way
it stops at the doorway;

where there's tyranny, it's there
in actual presence
in everything,
in the way not even your God was in olden times;

there's tyranny
in the nursery schools,
in paternal advice,
in the mother's smile,

in the way a child
replies to a stranger;

not only in the barbed wire,
not only in the booksellers' stands,
more than barbed wire
in the hypnotic slogans;

it is there
in the goodbye kiss,
in the way the wife says:
"When will you be home, dear?"

in the "how are you?"s
repeated so automatically in the street,
in the loosening of the grip
to give a nonchalant handshake,

in the way suddenly
your lover's face becomes frozen,
because tyranny is there
in the amorous trysts,

not only in the questioning,
it is there in the declaration of love,
in the sweet drunkenness of words,
like a fly in the wine,

(MORE)

[Page 7]

X+50 CURT (6) THE HUNGARIAN POET ILLYES F-110

for not even in your dreams
are you alone,
it is there in the bridal bed,
and before it, in the dawning desire,

because you only believe beautiful, what
once has already belonged to the tyrant;
you have slept with him
when you thought were making love to another;

in plate and in glass,
it is there, in your nose, your mouth,
in coldness' and dimness,
out of doors and in your room,
as if the windows were open
and the stink of corruption flooded in,
as if in the house
there was a smell of leaking gas;
if you talk to yourself,
it is tyranny that questions you,
even in your imagination
you are not free of it,

above you the Milky Way's different too:
frontier zone where the light seeps,
minefield; and the star is a spy-hole;

the crowded heavenly tent
is a single forced-labor camp
for tyranny speaks
out of fever, out of the song or bell,
out of the priest in the confessional
from the sermon,
church, parliament, torture-chamber
are all only a stage;

you open and close your eyes,
only this looks at you;
like an illness,
it accompanies you like memory,

in the trains wheels you can hear it,
you're prisoner, you're prisoner,
that's what it repeats;
on a mountain or beside the ocean
this is what you breathe;

(MORE) (PTO)

[Page 8]

X+250 CURT (7) THE HUNGARIAN POET ILLYES F-111

the lightening fleshes flushes
it is this
that's present in every unexpected
noise and light,
in the missing heart-beat;

in tranquillity,
in the boredom of the sheckless,
in the whisper of the rain,
in the "bars that reach the sky,
falling of the snow
white like the prison-wall;
it looks at you,
out of your dogs eyes,

and because it's there in every ambition
it is in your tomorrow,
in your thought,
in every one of your gestures;
like river in its bed
you follow it and you create it;
you spy out of this circle?
it looks at you from the mirror,

it watches you, you would run in vain,
you re prisoner, and warder of the
same time;
into the tang of your tobacco,
into the fabric of your clothes,

it seeps in, etches like acid
down to your marrow
you would like to look but you see
only what it creates like magic in front of you

you would like to think yet no idea
but it comes into your mind,
and already there is a circle of fire
a forest-fire made out of matchsticks
because when you dropped one,
you didn't crush it;
and thus it guards you now,
in the factory in the field, in the home,

(MORE)

[Page 9]

X+250 CURT (8) THE HUNGARIAN POET ILLYES F-112

and you no longer feel the meaning of life,
what is meat and bread,
what it is to love, to desire,
with wide open arms,

thus the slave himself
forges and bears his own shackles;
when you eat you nourish it,
you beget your child for it;

where there's tyranny
everyone is a link of a chain;
it stinks and pours out of you,
you are tyranny yourself;

like Moles in the sunshine,
we walk dark
we fidget in our chamber
as if it were the Sahara;

because where there's tyranny
all is in vain
even the song, however faithful,
whatever the work to achieve,

for it stands,
in advance at your grave,
it tells you who you have
been even your dust serves tyranny.

(1950)

BHAIS

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