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Hungarian Poetry from Transylvania translated by Paul Sohar

A Brief Historical Note

by Csaba Polony

To most westerners, Transylvania is known through Brian Stoker's late 19th century novel, Dracula, and its many 20th century Hollywood adaptations, as the land of vampires. As is often the case, life and historical reality have very little or nothing to do with Hollywood-generated spectacles. Rather, the region has a unique cultural and ethnic heritage with a long and often tragic historical legacy which--apart from a few folk tales and recent attempts to exploit the "Dracula" image for the hard-currency tourist trade--has nothing to do with vampires. So to acquaint readers unfamiliar with Transylvania, I just want to give a very brief, necessarily inadequate, sketch of the region's complex history.

The earliest records show the Transylvania region as being part of Dacia, a colony of the Roman Empire established at the north-east frontiers of the Empire through the conquests (101-106 AD) of the Emperor Trajan. Under pressure from mostly Germanic tribes, Rome abandoned the province in 271 AD. The area was subsequently overrun by successive waves of invaders, the Ostrogoths, Huns, Avars, Bulgarians, etc., and finally by the Hungarians in the late 9th century.

During the medieval period, Transylvania was a semi-autonomous duchy of the Kingdom of Hungary, ruled by Hungarian princes and nobles in allegiance to the King of Hungary. Besides Romanians and Hungarians, the "ethnic mix" was further flavored by the arrival, at the invitation of the King of Hungary, of Saxon (German) settlers (13th century), who established autonomous German cultural urban communities. Large numbers of Gypsies and Jews also came to live in Transylvania during this period. With the expansion of the Ottoman Turks north of the Balkans in the 16th century, the Hungarian Kingdom was torn into three parts: the northwest areas (roughly the western edge of Transdunabia and Slovakia) was ruled as "Royal Hungary" by the Austrian Habsburgs; parts of Transdunabia and the central plains, including the capital city of Buda, were controlled by the Ottoman Turks; whereas Transylvania became a semi-independent state ruled by Hungarian princes who balanced on a tenuous tightrope between the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires. The rulers of Transylvania saw themselves as the legitimate heirs to the old national Hungarian Kingdom, which they sought to re-establish. After the Ottomans were driven out of Hungary by the end of the 17th century, Transylvania again became an autonomous province of Hungary ruled by Hungarian princes appointed by the Habsburgs, and was incorporated as an integral part of Hungary after the 1867 compromise, which reorganized the Austrian Empire as the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy.

Up until the modern era, Transylvania was a very ethnically and culturally mixed region in which the different groups, by and large, lived together without conflict. Conflict that periodically broke out were uprisings of the downtrodden serfs (regardless of ethnicity) against their noble masters. It is also important to mention the religious make-up of the region. The period of Transylvania's semi-independence (16th to late 17th centuries) coincided with the Protestent Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation. The Hungarian nobility, as a response to the Catholic Habsburgs, embraced Protestantism in large numbers. More radical sects, such as Unitarianism, also were born at that time in Transylvania. Meanwhile, the Romanian serfs professed the Byzantine Greek Orthodox faith, as they had been converted to Christianity during the period of Byzantine rule. Romanians, however, never had an official political role in the province, as the Diet was composed of representatives of the three "official nations": Hungarians, Saxons and Szelkers (an "ethnographically distinct" Hungarian-speaking group who were given a measure of feudal autonomy as frontier guards of the eastern borders.)

The rise of 19th century nationalism, however, significantly fanned ethnic antagonisms. National consciousness was awakened and Romanians began to demand their rights. Also, after the 1867 Compromise, the Hungarian state's drive for rapid industrialization was accompanied by a policy of building a more centralized state, a tactic of which was to promote assimilation by declaring Hungarian as the official language of the country. This naturally created much hostility on the part of national minorities.

After WWI, in keeping with promises made by the Entente to Romania concerning Transylvania if the latter joined the Entente's war effort, Translyvania was detached from Hungary and annexed by Romania and ratified by the Treaty of Trianon in 1920. As a result some two million Hungarians became minorities and were subjected to discrimination and repression. The issue of Transylvania was the cause of bitter animosity between Hungary and Romania during the inter-war years, and in applying the classical "divide and conquer" tactic Nazi Germany, "arbitrated" (dictated would be more accurate) a division of the region in 1940, with the northern part going to Hungary and the southern to Romania. There ensued forced mutual expulsions (on occasion accompanied by atrocities) of populations on both sides, which only further fanned mutual antagonisms and hatred. After WWII, the Paris Treaty of 1947 returned all of Transylvania to Romania.

During the period of communist rule, the "national question" was declared "solved" and any mention of ethnic grievances were dubbed "chauvanistic" and "counter-revolutionary." The repression of minority rights became particularly acute during the Ceausescu dictatorship (1965-1989). The Helsinki Watch report, published in 1993, summarized the situation as follows:

Under Ceausescu, all Romanian citizens suffered from repression and gross violations of human rights. However, minority groups suffered, not only from the government's generally repressive policies, but also from a specific campaign of forced assimilation. Due to its size and strong sense of ethnic identity, the Hungarian minority in Romania was a specific target of this policy.

The report then goes on to quote from its early report in 1989:

... the Hungarian minority has been a particular victim of "homogenization." It has also been victimized because unlike the German minority,[1] Hungarians have resisted the "solution" of emigration. They have strong ties to Transylvania... For years, ethnic Hungarians have claimed that the Ceausescu regime has singled them out for especially harsh treatment. They point to increasing limitations on the use of the Hungarian language and threats to the existence of Hungarian schools, churches, theaters, books and broadcasting, the cumulative effect of which is robbing them of their cultural identity.[2]

For a brief moment, the bloody revolution of 1989 which deposed and executed Ceausescu, united the majority of the citizens of Romania and hopes were high that a more open and harmonious society might become possible. Unfortunately, growing nationalistic sentiment and anti-minority hostility quickly dissipated the initial euphoria, and clashes between Hungarians and Romanians broke out in March of 1990.

Fortunately, the Hungarians (both the Hungarian government and the minority in Romania) showed admirable restraint and the situation did not deteriorate further, as it did in the former Yugoslavia. A treaty was signed in the mid-90s by which both governments recognized the given borders, and in 1996 a new government was elected in Romania which included ethnic Hungarians. However, that government lost the elections in 2000 and the vote revealed a sharp rise in support for xenophobic and anti-minority politics: some 35% of the vote going to far-right nationalist parties. So serious tensions remain. As the translator of these poems wrote to us: "The officially sanctioned persecution by the police state has been replaced by informal, random acts of hate. But at least it's not Bosnia. There's still hope for peaceful coexistence; one of the poets [Géza Szöcs - ed.] in my anthology is a member of the Romanian parliament. These poets do not enjoy the luxury of alienation and turning away from society, their survival is inextricably linked to the survival of their community and identity." We are pleased to present a selection of Mr. Sohar's translations of poetry that is virtually unknown in the west, as is likewise the plight of the people whose voice these poets articulate. As he wrote in his Translator's Note to his bilingual edition of ten Hungarian transylvanian poets, I remain: "...these voices are not blaring propaganda for some kind of nationalistic program; each one remains an individual and personal confession of faith--and doubt. The mission thrust upon them by the persecution was accepted reluctantly and is presented as part of the human condition, just another aspect of life."[3]

Notes:

1. Under an agreement between the West German government and Romania in the 1980's, West Germany paid several thousand marks to the Romanian government for every ethnic German that would leave Romania. The result was a mass migration of ethnic Germans, which, for all practical purposes, eliminated in a few years a unique culture that had existed for some 800 years. - (editer's footnote)

2. Helsinki Watch, Struggling for Ethnic Identity, Ethnic Hungarians in Post-Ceausescu Romania, Human Rights Watch, New York, 1993, pp. 9-10.

3. Sohar, Paul, trans.; I remain (Maradok), Voices of the Hungarian Poets of Transylvania; Pro-Print, Miercurea Ciuc, Romania, 1997.p.5.

Sándor Kányádi

Sándor Kányádi, born in 1929, has been a leading Hungarian poet of Transylvania
for many decades. He has published many books of his poetry, translations as well as
childrenšs verse, and was a recipient of the Herder Prize. He lives in Kolozsvár (Cluj).

 

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For My Birthday*

Today I, too, am 32.

And how many more to go?
only the densely dark math
of the night may know.

God hovers between being and nothingness
but in rubber balls he must exist.
The rubber truncheonšs restless sleep
invokes my picture from the mist:

the rubber truncheon is at rest
and so is social consciousness:
no more alienation for today.

The spirit essence of this poem
shines in perfect rhymes.
Moral eclipse often slips past us
at nocturnal times.

In your eyes, dear, the grass is
overshadowed by a tree:
your sight is governed by the grass
and fear's geometry.

The solar eclipse on a dark
parachute slips down in the park.
But there arises
in the math books
another kind of space,
with wider perspectives
and kinder expletives,
without martyrs and
dotted by all spring days.

Seven years ago I said:
I DON'T WANT MY LETTERS CENSORED BY THE GUARD
AND THE PRISON WALL TO BE SO THICK AND HARD
BUT I DO WANT A BREACH BETWEEN THE EVENTS OF LIFE
WHERE A HAND CAN SLIP THROUGH WITH A KNIFE.




*(allusion to a poem with the same title written by Attila Jozsef (1904-36) on his 32nd birthday. - Ed.)

 

 

The Rebels' Supper

On the table hawk paté, water-lily sauté and cake,
lichen torte and a light moss-wine and artichoke.

But the dining room is empty. That's when
a rebel starts to rise on your spine with a cherry-
cutting bird inside his chest.

And on the table the scientific bread's on fire, and in the attic
wild geese and wild gander gaggle. In the dried-up plumbing
a coo-coo bird mumbles, and if you turn on the faucet
snow-yellow grass and coo-coo bones flow out of it.

Oh you, you rebel! Over your head are clacking
steel-flavored apricots.

Indoors it's the howl of spiders
and the wild-boar poppy stuck in the hourglass!
watch it, watch it, the head coo-coo screams!

and outdoors the rebel's sprinting spring-style:

in the city people are squatting around the cast-iron stallion.
Tar seeps from their eye-sockets turned toward the fire,
and the whole city echoes the rolling of torn-off
statue heads carried by the river stream.

THE REBELS GO HOME AND TAKE THE CARBINES OUT OF THE
CREASE-CASE, WIPE THEM OFF, SHINE AND ASSEMBLE THEM; THEY WASH
THEMSELVES WITH GRASS, EAT THEIR SUPPERS, COCK THEIR
HANDGRENADES AND GET MOVING.

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Géza Szöcs was born in Marosvásárhely (tirgu Mures) in 1953. He is a writer, editor, recipient of many literary awards and an activist on behalf of the Hungarian minority. Because of government harassment, he emigrated to Switzerland in 1986. In 1990 he returned to Translyvania, was elected Senator and also served as the General-Secretary of the Hungarian Democratic Alliance of Romania (RMDSZ). Since 1992 he has been the president of the Transylvanian News Agency.

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István Ferenczes

Csángo*-Hungarians of Transylvania (Erdély) On hoar-frosty dew a raven serenade into an empty glass a snowfall comes to raid We're sifting down quietly as those who've seen life go bust-- daughters of the wind and the sons of the dust There's nothing Erdély's abused and aborted cradle can grow in the nothingness of frozen embryonic flow The moon embroiders you on a hard slice of black bread over a whole grape leaf our withered country will spread

Should our God in his dream at last encounter us on waking up he'll forget our prayers and all the fuss Our prayers are old frescoes now covered up by skin sand thins out our mother tongue into something Byzantine We are raped by summer winter fall and spring our song birds perish in the sky even as they sing The Carpathian basin's scraped-out fevered womb can throb with fear for nothing but our drunken shadow's doom

* The Csángo, a distinct Szekler ethnic group, live in eastern Transylvania, the Gyimes valley, as well as in Moldavia, Romania, where they migrated in the middle ages. Their folk music and dances preserve the most archaic forms of Hungarian folk culture.(-ed.)

 

Boarded-Up Windows

The cottages with boarded-up windows stand in waist-high ragweed
and crumple into themselves faint from the smell of the bleeding hay
in spite of the wet compresses wrapped on their foreheads by ossified moss
and lichen. The wind taps out an October litany on the slats of the
dismantled fence, on the xylophone of advent in the runaway yard,
and it's hard to tell whether it's god's blind eye or the devil's hand
squinting from behind dust-and-grime-shackled glass panes at
the overgrown paths where the skunk cabbage trips over dried-out lianas,
and dusk falls flat on its face--
And will never end. A lair of moths, under the mulberry-spotted eaves
where rancid tranquility sleeps...
Oh, lost points of the horizon, a boarded-up cottage stands before you
like a man with plastered eyes in the wilderness--
has no idea which way to turn, no one to guide him...
Oh, you doors without latches, collection boxes of muteness,
the cracks of the heaving corner-beams go unanswered...
Oh, you sightless windows, you'll never watch those departing,
dried-up begonia branches behind you like shriveled-up optic
nerves--
they can no longer even look inside or feel the pain.

---

István Ferenczes, born in 1941, has lived all his life in Transylvania. He lives in Miercurea-Ciuc (Csikszereda) where he publishes SzekelyfUold, a Hungarian cultural magazine. He has published several volumes of poetry. His style ranges from traditional to experimental.

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Tímea Tamás

Angelus

Something effervescent whisks by
as if wine-vapor wafted through the air
and twilight, fog-laden by angel's breath,
tries to spread her wings beneath the stunted sky
while stuck in the saturated air

only to descend drunken into the mud
in a delirious night of endless depths
when "a cabbage-leaf sweats and sighs"
blood drains from the head and limbs
and a snail rests peacefully in a puddle of wine

that's when you know I can slowly lift my head
and faintly hear something effervescent whisk by
tulips hover in wine vapor
on the table angel's wings lie

- translated by Csaba Polony

Shrapnel

I
who's with you in the street
of frightened foreign rays where
a storm can steal you from me and
a bloom cansmother your sweet face

born so translucent but last night
she has ripened blood-red by today
and let her blushing cheeks
caress from you a special ray

II
now when the world is ready to clear
the rainbow by wiggling under it
now when luscious verdure shoots up
all around us in a wild orgy
when the tropics push their way into our street
I take off shivering for some place
any place inland where
I may not be overtaken
by the fragrance of freedom
the breeze of freedom
for I cannot live without it
nor when overpowered by it

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Tímea Tamás was born in 1962 in Zetela, Transylvania. She studied Philosopy of History at the Babes Bolyai University in Koloszvár (Cluj). She's been a teacher, writer and editor. She has livid in Toronto, Canada, but moved back to Transylvania in the fall of 2000.

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Zyllah Zala

 

My Orpheus

... it's I who have to go looking for my
orpheus in the underworld,
and he doesn't turn back to me
when I come upon him

whether he stands at the bar
singing silently
to the ice-cubes in his tumbler,
or sends clouds of burnt-out songs
with his restless lips,
I recognize the proud muscles
on the scapula and the ears tuned
to larks and laurel leaves;

when I see him standing
in a downtown art gallery
he's not looking at the objets d'art,
his gaze cuts a window to the street
but if I were to wave to him from outside
he'd no longer be there;

he doesn't answer when I follow him out
to the subway platform or to the waterfront,
he stops at the edge, his buns
like a pair of bowling balls ready to roll
or rest there for eternity,
he might as well be made of marble,

but maybe he hears me and that's why
he doesn't jump,
or else we're both dead already,
shades among imitation immortals,
shadows cast by a legend
we do not remember any more...

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Zyllah Zala was born in 1967, studied in Transylvania and Hungary, worked as a teacher and contributed to mostly underground publications. She lived briefly in Brooklyn, NY, but after the tragic death of her husband she moved back to Transylvania to look after her ailing mother.

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