The New Hungarian Quarterly, 1986 (27. évfolyam, 102. szám)

Lengyel Balázs: Wounded by Existence: László Kálnoky

WOUNDED BY EXISTENCE LÁSZLÓ KÁLNOKY, 1912-1985 by BALÁZS LENGYEL S o László Kálnoky too has gone over to the other shore, to the domain of Nothingness, against which he had fought all his life. Hungarian poetry has suffered an enormous loss with the deaths recently in rapid succession of some outstanding poets who had once belonged to the same group. There remain only a few among those who stood the test of the most difficult times in the fullest possible solidarity, the Stalinist years in which the very continuity of Hungarian literature was in jeopardy. Literary history has already recorded that they took a similar stand and their careers thus ran a parallel course: instead of committing to paper what was ex­pected, prescribed, dictated for them, by turning to translation they helped bring about a splendid blossoming of literary translation in Hungary, if at all, they wrote for the drawer showing their writings only to each other. By and large, two generations of poets were united by outside pressure in this solidarity and chose silence as their common destiny. The first of these was the third Nyugat generation, named after the prestigious monthly which appeared between 1908 and 1941 and was decisive in the shaping of Hun­garian literature in this century. While they began their career in the thirties, the fourth generation made their appearance in the forties and also grouped around the monthly Új Hold which appeared between 1946 and 1948 and was edited by the present writer. Of this latter generation, the name of János Pilinszky, who also died recently, might be familiar to the foreign read­er interested in Hungarian poetry. Kálnoky, who started late, belonged to the third Nyugat generation. When his first volume, árnyak kertje (The garden of shadows) was published in 1939, most poets of his generation—Weöres, Jékely, Vas, and Radnóti—had already at least three volumes behind them. If on this excep­tional and sorrowful occasion I am allowed to recall personal memories of him, I should add that I only read his first volume after our friendship had

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