BOOKS
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willful oblivion of the iniquities going on next door. I1lyes depicts the
horrors of both genocide and apathy in terms of the disintegration of lan–
guage; the discourses of history, diplomacy, politics, whatever the cir–
cumstances seem to call for, devolve into
quack-quack-quack
and
twaddle-twiddle.
The gibberish itself is ultimately replaced by the totally
dehumanized scratching of the record that overtakes the end of the poem.
While blatant brutalities against Hungarians have ebbed in the past
decade, as recently as
1987
a Resolution of the U.S. Congress noted that
the "government of the Socialist Republic of Romania and its regional
and local authorities pursue a policy of denationalization toward the
Hungarians and people of other nationalities in Transylvania by mea–
sures approximating ethnocide." These measures included the elimina–
tion of Hungarian schools; the prohibition of public use of the
Hungarian language; restrictions on the publication of Hungarian
books and jou rna Is; the desecra tion of H unga ria n cemeteries, ch urches,
and synagogues; and discrimination against Hungarians in employment,
education, housing, and so on. One of the few barbarities well publi–
cized in the United States was Ceausescu's Village Razing Plan of
1989,
which, while never completed, sought to bulldoze thirteen thousand vil–
lages in the interests of "territorial systematization" and
to
make way
for agro-industrial complexes.
Against this background of ethnic oppression, the poets represented
in
I Remaill: Voices of the HUllgarian Poets from Transylvania
practice
their craft. Translated and edited by an expatriot Transylvanian and an
ex patriot Hungarian, this bilingual volume is cause for celebration.
Without aiel from the hermetic, mostly academic poetry cabal or the
corporate book publishing industry,
J
Remain
is the miraculous product
of two poetry lovers' selfless efforts: Paul Sohar, a chemist who has
maintained a lifelong devotion to literary pursuits, and his sister-in-law,
Gyiingyvcr Hark6, a teacher of writing. The manuscript was printed
and published in Transylvania.
The ten poets represented in the collection are all well established in
Central Europe but relatively unknown in this country. As a group, they
revive a collective passion for signification, for voicing the unvoicable,
for identifying the particulars of their experience as members of an eth–
nic minority. Just how seriously these poets take their craft is exempli–
fied in Aladar LiszlMfy's "The Voice":
Through the ghost-sharp starry nights streaks
a voice over the stagnant gold of whisperings,
touching each and all: show me the poets you read,
