Beyond and behind the Iron Curtain: Sándor Márai crossing the borders between 1946 and 1948

664646 research-article2016

JES0010.1177/0047244116664646Journal of European StudiesPapp

Beyond and behind the Iron Curtain: Sándor Márai crossing the borders between 1946 and 1948

Journal of European Studies 2016, Vol. 46(3/4) 258–280 © The Author(s) 2016 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0047244116664646 jes.sagepub.com

Judit Papp

University of Naples ‘L’Orientale’, Italy

Abstract The time Sándor Márai (1900–89) spent in Switzerland, France and Italy in the winter of 1946– 7 gave him the opportunity to observe and note the differences existing in ‘frozen, destitute Europe’ between East and West, Easterners and Westerners. The diary that Márai had already started to keep in 1943, Föld, föld!…, first published in Hungarian in 1972 in Toronto, and Európa elrablása (1947) represent interesting sources to reconstruct his experiences and thought about a Europe bisected by the Iron Curtain from the perspective of a ‘traveller venturing forth from the ruins of Eastern Europe’. In these works, he shares with us his impressions and depicts Western Europe, as represented by neutral Switzerland, France and a ‘defeated Italy’ in opposition to and in comparison with the East, represented by a ‘dismembered Hungary’. In analysing Márai’s account, the article focuses on the differences he perceived, on the way he reports them and also on how the West and Westerners viewed the East and the Easterners.

Keywords autobiographical writings, dichotomy between Easterners and Westerners, Europe, exile, Sándor Márai, modern Hungarian literature, Second World War, travelogue

Egy Európa-közelbe kalandozott nép ezer éven át keresett valakit, akihez bizalommal szólhat. És soha nem talált … Nagy királyai, erős államférfiai – Szent Istvántól Széchenyi Istvánig aztán művészei, költői – a testőröktől Tóth Árpádig – évszázadokon át keresték az utat Nyugat felé. Néha úgy tetszett, a Nyugat közel van… csak meg kell szólítani, és felel. De igazában soha nem felelt. (Márai, 2014: 477)

Corresponding author: Judit Papp, University of Naples ‘L’Orientale’, Department of Literary, Linguistics and Comparative Studies, Palazzo Santa Maria Porta Coeli, Via Duomo, 219, 80138 Naples, Italy. Email: [email protected]

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For a thousand years, a people roaming in the vicinity of Europe sought someone it could speak to in confidence. It never found anyone … Hungary’s great kings and powerful statesmen, from St Stephen to István Széchenyi – then its artists, from the Guardsmen poets to Árpád Tóth, searched for the road to the West for centuries. Sometimes the West seemed close; all one had to do was speak to it and it would answer. But in reality, it never did. (Márai, 1996: 317) Mindig nyugatra menj. És ne feledd soha, hogy keletről jöttél. Always keep West. And never forget that you came from the East. (Márai, 2004a: 7)

This article concerns the representation of Westerners and Easterners in a selection of Sándor Márai’s writings. Special attention will be paid to those works in which the Hungarian writer describes the historical and political events and his own experiences of the period between 1946 and 1948, including his travels through Switzerland, France and Italy in the winter of 1946–7, his ‘inner emigration’ and his voluntary exile in the summer of 1948. With the aid of a rich selection of quotations, I will trace and explain the differences he perceived, the way in which he wrote at different times on East and West, and the changes in his depictions of East and West and Easterners and Westerners. Before focusing on the main topic of the article, there is also a need to address the question of some of the sources, because recently, in 2013 and 2014, the Hungarian publisher Helikon has republished Márai’s memoirs Föld, föld!… (A teljes változat) (‘Land, land! … The complete version’) (Márai, 2014) and Egy polgár vallomásai (1934– 1935/1940) (‘Confessions of a bourgeois (1934–1935/1940)’) (Márai, 2013a) in its uncensored and complete version. In 2013, for the first time, Helikon also published the memoir Hallgatni akartam (‘I wanted to keep silent’) (Márai, 2013b), which is part of a recently discovered manuscript written by Márai evoking the historical events that led to the failure of the bourgeoisie and to the tragic destiny of Hungary. The same historical and political events also caused Márai’s personal tragedies: he first withdrew into an ‘inner emigration’ and then made the final decision to embark on voluntary exile. Sándor Márai is mainly known in Europe and in the world for his novels, among them the famous Embers and Conversations in Bolzano (see Márai, 2001b, 2004b, 2004c, 2007c, 2008c, 2011). However, his oeuvre spans the spectrum of literary genres from poems, plays, letters, newspaper articles, essays and novels to his autobiographical writings – memoirs, travel diaries and his complete diary. In this article, my focus will be on some of his autobiographical writings. I will dedicate the first part of this article to the description of the recent Hungarian editions, since these are now accessible to researchers. The complete collection of Márai’s autobiographical writings gives an opportunity to readers to have an important and reliable overview of the 1940s.

Sándor Márai: Egy polgár vallomásai (‘Confessions of a bourgeois’) Márai’s best-known autobiographical writing is Egy polgár vallomásai (1990). The original manuscript was completed and published in two volumes by Pantheon between 1934

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and 1935. The text was then censored by the author in 1940, and published by Révai. It contains the writer’s ‘autobiography’ from his childhood until the 1930s. One of the main reasons Márai censored his own work was because of the accusation of one of Márai’s former teachers, György Stumpf (1897–1956), a Catholic priest and advisor to the bishop, who attacked him for libel. In the original version (1934–5) Márai included a detailed description of Stumpf (vol. II, chapter III, part 8) who, when he read it, was offended by what Márai had written. Although he was already a popular author, Márai was put on trial, but lost the case and was sentenced to pay a substantial fine. However, the copies of the first edition were not destroyed. After this legal battle, Márai did not limit himself to deleting the section concerning György Stumpf. For family and political reasons – and to provide protection for his Jewish friends and acquaintances – he revised many other sections of the novel, changing and deleting names and descriptions, as well as modifying his previous wording. At the beginning of the revised edition, Márai affirms: „Egy polgár vallomásai”-nak e harmadik, átdolgozott kiadása a végleges szöveget rögzíti meg. E regényes életrajz szereplői költött alakok: csak e könyv oldalain van illetőségük és személyiségük, a valóságban nem élnek és nem éltek soha. (Márai, 1940) This third, revised edition of Confessions of a bourgeois contains the definitive text. The protagonists of this fictional biography are imaginary characters: they reside in, and have personalities only in the pages of this book, and in reality they do not exist, nor have they ever existed.1

After the editions of 1940 and 1946, the same censored version was republished in Hungary in 1990 by Helikon in association with Akadémiai Kiadó (Hungary’s oldest publishing house). This censored and revised version (Márai, 1940/1990) is the source text of numerous translations, except from the Italian one, Confessioni di un borghese (Márai, 2003b), which is based on the original, complete text, initially published in two volumes in 1934 and 1935 respectively. The recently published new uncensored Hungarian edition, Egy polgár vallomásai (1934–1935/1940) (Márai, 2013a), contains both versions, so that scholars can easily compare them and identify all the changes and deletions made by the author. In the last lines, the author expresses his will to keep silent (‘hallgatni akarok’) and creates an imaginary bridge between the published Egy polgár vallomásai (Márai, 1934– 5/1940) and a manuscript known as Egy polgár vallomásai III. The manuscript begins with the same statement but already from a retrospective position and therefore in the past tense ‘Hallgatni akartam’ (‘I wanted to keep silent’): S utolsó pillanatig, amíg a betűt leírnom engedik, tanúskodni akarok erről: hogy volt egy kor és élt néhány nemzedék, amely az értelem diadalát hirdette az ösztönök felett, s hitt a szellem ellenálló erejében, amely fékezni tudja a csorda halálvágyát … Igaz, láttam és hallottam Európát, megéltem egy kultúrát… kaphattam-e sokkal többet az élettől? Úgy, most pontot teszek, s mint aki vesztett csatából maradt meg hírmondónak, s elfújta mondókáját: emlékezni és hallgatni akarok. (Márai, 2013a, ebook)

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And until the very last moment that I’m allowed to write, I want to testify that once there was an era and generations that proclaimed the triumph of reason over instinct, and believed in the resisting power of the spirit, that can curb the wish of death of the herd … It is true, I’ve seen and heard Europe, I’ve lived in a culture … could I have received much more from life? Well, now I put an end to it, and like someone who has survived a lost battle as a messenger who has delivered the message, I want to remember and to keep silent.

Sándor Márai: A teljes Napló (‘The complete diary’) Starting in 2006, the Hungarian publishers Helikon began to issue A teljes napló series 1943–89. The first published volume of the complete diary is A teljes napló 1943–1944 (Márai, 2006a). To date the series is composed of 16 volumes and covers the period from 1943 to 1977. Originally the diary was published in six volumes covering the whole period from 1943 to 1989 and the volumes about the 1940s and 1950s were only sample selections from the original manuscripts. That was the reason for the successive, still incomplete publication of Ami a Naplóból kimaradt (‘The parts omitted from the diary’) series.

Sándor Márai: Hallgatni akartam (‘I wanted to keep silent’) The autobiographical book Hallgatni akartam (Márai, 2013b), which Márai wrote between 1949 and 1950 in Posillipo, has various connections and overlaps with the original chapters of Föld, föld!… (Márai, 2014) and was written at approximately the same period. In fact, after Egy polgár vallomásai I–II (Márai, 1934–5/1940), in 1949, during the first year of his voluntary exile in Italy, Márai also wrote the third part, Egy polgár vallomásai III, in Posillipo, but he never published it. The manuscript contains the two parts of Hallgatni akartam, first published only in 2013 (Márai, 2013b), the first chapter of the original Föld, föld!… (1949) and also a second chapter (1949), unknown until recently, that narrates the events up until 1948. In the 1960s, Márai took this manuscript, revised the first chapter, omitted the part corresponding to Hallgatni akartam and the whole original second chapter and wrote two new chapters (chapters 2 and 3). The result is the well-known Föld, föld!… (Márai, 1972; see Kovács, 2014). First manuscript (Egy polgár vallomásai III, 1949) = Hallgatni akartam + Föld, föld!… original chapter I + Föld, föld!… original chapter II. Second manuscript (Föld, föld!… = Márai, 1972) = original chapter I revised + a completely new chapter II + a completely new chapter III.

According to Tibor Mészáros, literary historian and preserver of the Márai heritage, Hallgatni akartam (Márai, 2013b) contains the first chapters of a work written by Márai, originally intended for publication under the title of Confessions of a bourgeois III (1949–50). The text was checked against the manuscript and sometimes the editor provided information on the deletions made by Márai in the manuscript. The direct

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‘continuation’ of Hallgatni akartam, more precisely its integral part, is Föld, föld!… (Márai, 2013b: 162). Hallgatni akartam also contains Márai’s thoughts concerning three Hungarian politicians: Pál Teleki (1879–1941) (2013b, chapter II/3: 105–6), a chapter on László Bárdossy (1890–1946) (chapter II/4: 127–37) and a chapter on István Bethlen (1874–1946/7) (chapter II/5: 137–53). In 1949, Márai (2008b) asserted that the manuscript was not suitable for foreign readers; he intended it for Hungarians only. Between 1949 and 1950, the publisher Thomas-Verlag refused to publish the work because of its sensitive political content. Specifically, Márai begins the narrative remembering 12 March 1938, the day of the Anschluss (the occupation and annexation of Austria by the German Third Reich), describing the event as he remembered it more than ten years later, when he was already in exile in Posillipo, and quoting parts from his own Complete Diary (Márai, 2008b). This writing gives a woeful clinical picture, but can also be considered to be a sad confession and an indictment: Délelőtt a Galéria üvegtetőzete alatt mentem, amikor egyszerre megértettem: ha van egyáltalán valamilyen mód arra, hogy a „Polgár” kézirata utat találjon a világhoz – mindegy, milyen nyelven – ki kell szakítanom a kézirat felét, a teljes első részt, tehát mindazt, amit az Anschluss napjától a március 19-i névnap estéjéig terjedő időről írtam, s nem hagyni meg a kéziratban semmi mást, csak amit az oroszok érkezésétől az elutazásig jegyeztem fel. Megértettem, hogy a világot egyszerűen nem érdekli semmi a mi sorsunkból, nem érdekli, amit Bethlenről vagy Bárdossyról, vagy a magyar polgárság és műveltség pusztulásáról mondok – éppen olyan kevéssé érdekli ez a külföldi olvasót, mintha én Sziámról olvasnám ezeket a híreket. S ezen felül, nem is adhatom most idegen nyelven közzé a magunk siralmas és szánalmas kórképének történetét. Egyszer, később, magyar nyelven, a magyar olvasóknak, igen – de semmi esetre sem külföldnek. Ezt megértettem. Hazasiettem és elvégeztem a kéziraton a műtétet. A 210 oldalból 95-öt szakítottam ki. Ami maradt, képet ad arról, mi történik a szovjetrendszeren belül az irodalommal és az írókkal. Ezért helyt tudok állni. (Márai, 2008b: 128) In the morning I was walking under the glass roof of the Galleria,2 when suddenly I realized: if there is an opportunity, any at all, for the manuscript of the ‘Bourgeois’ to find its way in the world – no matter in what language – I have to tear up half of the manuscript, the entire first part, everything I wrote in the period from the day of the Anschluss until the evening of my name-day of 18 March,3 and I have to leave in the manuscript nothing more than what I’ve recorded from the arrival of the Russians until their departure.4 I understand that the world is simply not interested in our destiny, it is not interested in what I’m recounting about Bethlen or Bárdossy or about the decay of the Hungarian bourgeoisie and culture – the foreign reader is just as little interested in it, as I would be reading reports about Siam. And in addition, now I can’t even publish in any foreign language the history of our woeful and sad clinical picture. In the future, in Hungarian and for Hungarian readers, I will publish – but never for foreigners. That was what I understood. I rushed home and completed the surgery on the manuscript. Of the 210 pages I tore out 95. The remaining part illustrates what is happening to literature and to the writers within the Soviet system. I can vouch for that.

Later in the diary he highlights again his decision not to publish parts of the manuscript, namely the first two chapters, for a foreign audience. It is clear that he wanted

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to protect his people by not publishing this ‘sad confession’, and wanted to avoid a further worsening of the reputation of Hungarians (Márai, 2008b: 211). The complete manuscript contained his historical and political analysis and personal experiences on the period from the day of the Anschluss until the arrival of the Russians, in which he seeks those responsible for the degeneration of Hungarian society. In fact, he tries to outline and examine the reasons why society did not take a stand against war crimes, against the deportation of Jews, etc. A few pages later he is still thinking about the destiny of this manuscript. If he were to publish a Hungarian edition with an emigrant publishing house, he would also exclude those Hungarians who lived abroad. Briefly, he contemplated publishing the complete manuscript in Hungarian only, if it were possible, in Hungary for Hungarian readers (Márai, 2008b: 216). A few pages later we can see him sitting at his desk working on the German translation of the manuscript when he still feels obliged to explain his decisions concerning the omissions: Két üres nap, amikor nem olvasok, nem is dolgozom: azzal foglalkozom, hogy ollóval, csirizzel „összeállítom” a külföldi kiadás számára a „Polgár vallomásai” német kéziratát. A külföldi kiadásban csak azt hagyom meg, ami az egész elszámolásból a magyarság számára nem kompromittáló. Most nem tehetek mást, ez a kötelességem. Annál inkább kötelességem lesz, hogy kérlelhetetlenül közzéadjam egy napon magyar nyelven, otthon, magyar olvasó számára mindazt, ami ebben az anyagban nem a világra, hanem a magyarságra tartozik: a magyar társadalom felelősségének terhelő adatait. (Márai, 2008b: 225) Two empty days during which I haven’t been reading or working: I’m busy with the ‘realization’ of the German manuscript of the ‘Confessions of a bourgeois’ for the foreign edition with scissors and glue. In the foreign edition I am keeping only those parts of the whole account that are not compromising to the Hungarians. Now I can’t do anything else, this is my duty. And it will be even more my duty to publish some day in Hungarian, in Hungary, for Hungarian readers, for everything that in it belongs not to the world but to Hungarians: the incriminating evidence of the responsibilities of Hungarian society.

On the one hand the whole question is between Márai and the Hungarian people (as readers) – Hungarian society of which he is obviously a part; on the other hand, implicitly it is also a question between Hungary (the ‘East’, the loser) and the West (the ‘West’, the winner). Despite his efforts, the German translation of the manuscript was rejected by the Swiss editor (the ‘West’), as the publishing house was not interested in further publications about Hungary. As a result, Márai set aside the idea of publishing the work, which would have been his farewell to the country, and decided to postpone the project until a future date: Ezek a lehetőségek. Közbül minden szabályosan alakul. A „Polgár vallomásai”-nak német kéziratát lemondó levéllel küldi vissza a zürichi Thomas-Verlag. Ez a legszemtelenebb levél, amit életemben eddig valaha is kaptam. Azt írja, nagyon jó a könyv, érdekesek a szempontjai, kitűnő a megírása, de ők már öt magyartól jelentettek meg könyvet, felesleges „egy hatodik magyar”. Itt tartunk.

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Valószínű, hogy ez a kézirat máshol sem kell majd külföldön; a világot nem érdekli semmi, ami a magyar sorsról ad hírt. Mégis, nem bánom, hogy az elmúlt év minden erőfeszítését beleépítettem ebbe a reménytelen kéziratba. Meg kellett írnom, el kellett búcsúznom az otthontól, pontosan ezzel a könyvvel. Nem tudtam tovább dolgozni, amíg ezt meg nem írtam. Magyarul talán megjelenik egyszer, külföldön vagy otthon. Ez a feladata, az értelme. (Márai, 2008b: 246–7) These are the possibilities. In the middle everything is going on as normal. Thomas-Verlag in Zürich sent back the German manuscript of ‘Confessions of a bourgeois’ with a refusal letter. This is the most impudent letter I have ever received in my life. He writes that the book is very good, its viewpoints are interesting, its style is excellent, but they have already published books from five Hungarians, a ‘sixth Hungarian’ is superfluous. This is the situation. It is probable that this manuscript will not be welcomed anywhere abroad. The world is not interested in anything that spreads news about the destiny of Hungary. Still, I do not mind that last year I invested all my efforts into this hopeless manuscript. I had to write it, I had to say good-bye to my home, precisely with this book. I was not able to continue to work until I had written it. Maybe some day it will be published in Hungarian, abroad or at home. This is its mission and its sense.

Sándor Márai: Föld, föld!… (A teljes változat) (Land, land!… (The complete version)) Originating from the editorial project mentioned above, the new Hungarian edition of Föld, föld!… (Márai, 2014) contains the first chapter in both its versions (1949 and 1972), the original second chapter written in 1949, and the new second and third chapters (1972) as well. As a result, finally the three pieces of autobiographical writing are now available in their entirety for readers and researchers, and together and in parallel with the diary provide probably a unique and reliable picture of Hungarian society from a historical, political and ethnographic point of view from the beginning of the twentieth century until 1949.

Easterners and Westerners In his autobiographical writings (diary, memoirs and essays) Márai often focuses on the opposition between East and West, but the question is not as simple as it looks at first glance. In fact, Hungary is East in respect to the western part of Europe, but it is also West when the author writes about Russia and Russians after the occupation of the country by the Red Army. This polarization is apparent in Európa elrablása (‘Europe’s abduction’) (Márai, 1947a) and also in Föld, föld!… in its 1972 edition, when he describes his experience travelling in Switzerland, France and Italy in the winter of 1946–7. A small part of Európa elrablása was also published in the Hungarian weekly Corvina, published by the Magyar Könyvkiadók és Könyvkereskedők Országos Egyesülete (National Association of Hungarian Book Publishers and Book Dealers) in 1947 under the title of Svájci jegyzetek (‘Notes from Switzerland’) (Márai, 1947b).

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As stated before, in this article I focus on Márai’s travel writings of 1946–7. I am introducing this particular topic in order to mention some of his previous works as well. Márai had already discussed the dichotomony between East and West in Egy polgár vallomásai (1934–1935/1940) (Márai, 2013a) and Napnyugati őrjárat (‘Western patrol’) (see Márai, 1936, 2003c), first published in 1936, which narrates his journey to London in 1935 (Márai, 1936). In Föld, föld!… (Márai, 2014) the dichotomy between East and West, Easterners and Westerners is closely related to his voluntary exile. During the war he also toys with the idea of suicide. In the diary, after the establishment of the yellow star houses in Budapest (16 June 1944) and the air raid on Budapest of 2–3 July 1944, there is a short annotation that informs readers that on various occasions he bought doses of morphine that could be used to administer an overdose if it became absolutely necessary (Márai, 2006a: 218). The idea of suicide and the desire for death persist in the second half of the diary written in 1943 (in particular during the period from July to the end of December). Returning to the question of the possibility of exile, he asserts: Elmenni innen, mihelyst lehet. Ha élek még, ha lesz erőm és módom, elmenni innen. Magyarul írni, odakünn is, a magyarság neveléséért dolgozni. De elmenni innen. Nem titkolom: megsértettek. (Márai, 2006a: 102) Go away from here as soon as possible. If I am alive and have the strength and the opportunity, go away. Write in Hungarian also abroad and work for the education [see Márai, 1942] of Hungarians. But go away. I do not hide it: they’ve offended me.

When he writes about his last public performance in Hungary (19 December 1943) he affirms that he has already no other choice or possibility in the country than ‘inner emigration’ (Márai, 2006a: 141). In the next volumes of The Complete Diary, we see him reflecting on and preparing for exile due to the loss of the cultural and human values of the bourgeoisie, to which he sees himself belonging, due to his disappointments and due to the loss of his intellectual role in society. He had lost many of his friends, his lifestyle, his workplace. In 1939, he lost his new-born son and with the war he lost his home and his important personal collection of books: he possessed between 5000 and 6000 books in his home in Budapest, which was destroyed by bombing. He also lost the sense of his work, and, ultimately, his native country. In The Complete Diary (vol. I, 1943–4) we also find a short annotation that refers to one of his direct, personal and tragic experiences with the members of the Hungary Arrow Cross Party: Talán eljön az idő, mikor Magyarországon is megértik, mit akartam mondani a „Röpirattal”, mely miatt a totalitárius eszmékkel kacérkodó nyilasok majdnem agyonvertek. Azt akartam mondani, hogy Magyarország is csak a minőség igényével élhet és maradhat fenn az új Európában; nincs módunk középszerűnek lenni. De mennyire fájt ez itten az érdekszövetkezeteknek, melyek oly mohón profitáltak a középszerűségből! (Márai, 2006a: 151) Perhaps a time will come when people in Hungary will also understand what I wanted to say in the ‘Pamphlet’, because of which members of the Arrow Cross flirting with totalitarian ideas

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beat me almost to death. I wanted to say that Hungary can live and can survive in the new Europe only with the claim of quality; we can’t be mediocre. But how much it hurts that interest groups have profited so greedily from this mediocrity!

Every now and then, from the pages of the diary emerges the polarization between East and West (Central Europe and Western Europe). In this period (1945), Márai still trusts in the quality of life and values of the West and he decides to try to learn English as well as he can so that he can go into exile in Western Europe taking his manuscripts with him. He is aware of the fact that Central Europe cannot be a home for him for a long time (Márai, 2006b: 75). However, sometimes he is assailed by doubts, which he tries to suppress: S mégsem szabad letelepedni itt. Minden erőmmel védekezem minden olyan berendezkedés ellen, mely állandósíthatná ezt az élethelyzetet, s végül arra kényszerítene, hogy itt maradjak, Magyarországon maradjak. Nem lekötni magam, nem rögzíteni magam, otthonnal, bútorral, foglalkozással nem horgonyozni le itt… mindenképpen szabadnak maradni, hogy az első vonattal elmehessek. S ez nem lesz könnyű. S nemcsak azért lesz nehéz, mert ez a vonat még sokára indul. Belülről sem lesz könnyű. (Márai, 2006b: 205) Yet, it is not a good idea to settle down here. I have to defend myself with all my strength against all those arrangements that could stabilize my situation and at the end would force me to stay here, to stay in Hungary. I don’t have to commit myself, to tie myself down. I don’t have to anchor myself with home, furniture, occupation … In any case I have to remain free to be able to go away on the first train. And this will not be easy. And it will be difficult not only because this train will not leave for a long time, but it will not be easy either for me.

When he returns to the topic of exile, suffering from the post-war situation and from people’s desire for revenge, he is dreaming of a society where people still preserve important values such as fairness and honesty, but in this case he is not referring to the West or to any other specific nation (Márai, 2006b: 293). Another very interesting aspect is Márai’s representation of the Russians. When the Russian occupation begins in Hungary, Márai is hopeful concerning the future of the country. The descriptions of cohabitation with the Russian soldiers are particularly noteworthy in his works, as they reveal a lot about his mood and also provide an authentic historical overview. Soon his opinion changes and it is quite illuminating reading The Complete Diary (Márai, 2006a: 361–8; Márai, 2006b: 7–65), the original first chapter of Föld, föld!… (Márai, 2014: 17–126) (which, as mentioned above, was written when he was already in exile in Posillipo in 1949) and comparing it – together with the diary – with its revised version of 1972. To have a complete view of the differences specifically between Hungarians and Russians – or rather, in terms of Easterners and Westerners – one should also expand the analysis to his novel Szabadulás (‘Liberation’) (Márai, 2000), written in just two or three months between July and September 1945 in Leányfalu, a village on the Danube about 25 km from Budapest, where he escaped with his family from the siege of the capital. The novel was published only years after the author’s death. According to Márai, the arrival of the Russians meant a kind of liberation from the terror and barbarism of Nazism, but it did not mean freedom (Márai, 2014: 28–9; 2006a: 367; 2006b: 264).

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In spite of his diary and memoirs, in fact, we do not know much about Márai’s private life. On the basis of some witnesses (family members such as his sister-in-law and friends), we know that, during his stay in Leányfalu, Márai helped some family members to escape from the Nazis. His wife Lola (Ilona Matzner) was the daughter of a wealthy Jewish merchant from Košice (a city in eastern Slovakia, in Hungarian Kassa, Márai’s birthplace). Márai also helped his sister-in-law, Jaqueline Kertészné Matzner, to find apartments: for her own safety, she had to change apartments every night. Márai also took Ágnes, Jaqueline’s daughter, to live with his own family and put her in the village school. Finally, he found them housing in Leányfalu and continued to provide protection (see Kertészné Matzner, n.d.). According to the recollections of the Hungarian politician István Hetényi, (1926–2008, Minister for Finance from 1980 to 1986), Márai took part in a kind of civil anti-German resistance movement. The politician’s father, Dr Géza Hetényi (1894–1959), was an important doctor of medicine, who saved the lives of many persecuted people. Márai, who was one of Dr Hetényi’s patients, hosted the Hetényi family in his own home, the villa of the antiquarian Gergely Rudolf in Leányfalu. Later, the Hetényi and the Márai families intermingled in other families’ homes to avoid persecution (see Voszka, 2012). After the end of the war, due to the political situation, Márai begin to experience disillusionment. So when he decided to amend the manuscripts and publish Föld, föld!… in 1972, the differences were remarkable and the changes he made also concern the descriptions of the Russians. His point of view changed notably with the passage of time and also after the failed Hungarian Revolution of 1956. After the war two superpowers emerged, and the world was divided into two blocs. So when he was working on the revision of the manuscript, he considered the events from a retrospective position, having seen the political changes between 1949 and 1972. He took into account the realities of the Cold War and the many years he spent in exile between Europe and the USA. The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 gave him new hope, but after its fall and the repression that followed, he became extremely disappointed in the Western powers. The comparison of the following two versions of a short extract illustrates the process described above, while in the original version of 1949 the polarization between East (in this case Russia) and West (Western Europe) also emerges. Márai makes lexical changes in the text, and it is rather interesting to analyse the destiny of the three partial repetitions of the original: ‘with sympathetic expectations’ became ‘with anxious interest’ completely modifying the evoked atmosphere; ‘sympathized with’ became ‘were eyeing them with uncertain expectations’ and as a result the positive feelings that come through from the original version get lost. In the original text, Márai also refers to the Western world that ‘also turned towards the Russians with sympathetic expectation’. Later Márai decided to omit this phrase. In the original the writer adopted an inclusive point of view when he listed those who had the feeling that the Russians brought about ‘liberation’ in Europe: he referred to himself, to many people and also to people in the West. In the revised version his style is impersonal and he also omits another statement concerning his own sentiments. It is not accidental that the ‘liberation’ became much more illusory, through the expression ‘a kind of liberation’. Finally, the focus on himself in the last statement, ‘That night I didn’t know it yet’, again became a completely impersonal and generic structure: ‘At the time, this was not yet widely known’.

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1949: Ebben a pillanatban, a háborúnak ebben a szakában, nemcsak én gondoltam rokonszenvező várakozással az oroszokra – egy „polgári” magyar író egy magyar falusi házban. Az angolok, a franciák, az amerikaiak is rokonszenveztek velük. Egy nagy nép minden erejével, irtózatos áldozatok árán, Sztálingrádnál megfordította a világtörténelem szekerének rúdját… és ennek a nagy erőnek egyik megtestesítőjével találkoztam ma. A nyugati világ is rokonszenvező várakozással fordult ebben az időben az oroszok felé. Mit hoznak? Számomra – és még sokak számára Nyugaton is – hozták a felszabadulást a Német imperializmus és a náci eszmekor nagy veszélyéből. Bizonyos, hogy felszabadulást hozott aznap az életembe ez a fiatal orosz. De szabadságot nem hozott, nem is hozhatott, mert az neki sincs. Ezt akkor még nem tudtam akkor éjszaka. (Márai, 2014: 28–9) At this moment, in this phase of the war, I, a ‘bourgeois’ Hungarian writer in a house in a Hungarian village, wasn’t the only person to think about the Russians with sympathetic expectations. The English, French and Americans also sympathized with them. At the cost of terrible sacrifices at Stalingrad, a great people ‘turned around the wagon shaft’ of world history with great strength, and today I’ve just met one of the embodiments of this great power. In that time the Western world also turned towards the Russians with sympathetic expectation. What are they bringing? To me – and also to many people in the West – they brought liberation from the great danger of German imperialism and the Nazi ideology. Certainly this young Russian brought into my life liberation that day. But he didn’t bring, and couldn’t bring, freedom with him because he didn’t have any. That night I didn’t know it yet. 1972: Ebben a pillanatban, a háborúnak ebben a szakában, nemcsak én gondoltam szorongó érdeklődéssel az oroszokra – egy „polgári” magyar író egy magyar falusi házban. Az angolok, a franciák, az amerikaiak is bizonytalan várakozással figyelték őket. Egy nagy nép, irtózatos áldozatok árán, Sztálingrádnál megfordította a világtörténelem szekerének rúdját… és ennek a nagy erőnek egyik megtestesítőjével találkoztam ma. Sokak számára, a nácik üldözöttjei számára, ez a fiatal orosz egyféle felszabadulást is hozott, menekülést a náci terror elől. De szabadságot nem hozhatott, mert az neki sincs. Ezt akkor még nem tudták mindenütt. (Márai, 2014: 28–9) At this moment, in this phase of the war, I wasn’t the only one to think of the Russians with anxious interest: a ‘bourgeois’ Hungarian writer in a house in a Hungarian village. The English, French and Americans were also eyeing them with uncertain expectations. At the cost of terrible sacrifices at Stalingrad, a great people ‘turned around the wagon shaft’ of world history, and I had that very day encountered an embodiment of this great power. To many, to those persecuted by the Nazis, this young Russian brought along a kind of liberation, an escape from Nazi terror. But he couldn’t bring freedom with him because he didn’t have any. At the time, this was not yet widely known.5

This was the moment when he – together with the Western world – began to try to understand the nature of this power that appeared in Europe through its military embodiment, the Red Army. Was it communism (bolshevism) or the Slavs or the East? (Márai, 2014: 24).

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The depiction of the Russians (and Ukrainians) is particularly detailed: Márai was particularly interested in their behaviour, their appearance, their thought. One of their characteristics that surprised him was their being unpredictable, and he affirms that ‘in the Russians there is something “different” that people with a Western education can’t understand’ (Márai, 2014: 44). In these pages there is a great cultural distance between Hungarians and the soldiers of the Red Army, and Hungarians appear, in comparison to the Russians, to be Westerners and developed. Márai writes about a country that ‘lived in the belief that it was “Western” and “Christian”’ (Márai, 2014: 77, in Márai, 1996: 74). The passage of time and the new possibility of travelling and visiting the western part of Europe changed Márai’s point of view. During his journey in the winter of 1946–7, between November and February, he faces the West (Geneva, Bern, Lausanne, Zürich, Lugano, Milan, Rome, Naples, Paris, Basel), and contrary to how he felt before, now considers himself an Easterner. The details of this journey are described in the original version of Föld, föld!… (Márai, 2014, II (1949)/(4): 158–66), in the new third chapter (Márai, 2014: 403–44) and in Európa elrablása (Márai, 1947a). Compared to his previous travels – described in Napnyugati őrjárat (Márai, 1936) – to Paris and then to London (1935) he felt that ‘A világ arca, tíz év alatt, megváltozott; ráncosabb, komolyabb’ (‘The face of the world, in ten years, has changed; it is more wrinkled and more serious’) (Márai, 1947a: 86) and Europe is ‘ramshackle’ (Márai, 1947a: 23). His last journey before the war was in northern Italy in a small car in August 1939, a few months after the loss of his new-born son and while he was ‘waiting for the war’. In a few weeks, he visited the lakes and Verona, among other places (cf. Márai, 2013b: 102). And again we have two different perspectives on the same events: on the one hand we have the diary written in 1946 (Márai, 2007a) in which we are informed about the circumstances and the planning and the travelogue Európa elrablása (Márai, 1947a) that Márai completed during his journey searching for the ‘intellectual Europe’ (Márai, 2008d: 40), as indicated at the end of the text: November 1946 – February 1947. On the other hand, there are his recollections from the end of the 1960s included in Föld, föld!… (Márai, 2014). In Európa elrablása (Márai, 1947a) the author delivers his feelings and impressions about the places he visited, and comparisons with his own life and home country are inevitable. He describes the political and economic aspects of the three countries (Switzerland, Italy and France). He carefully observes people’s behaviour and the social dimensions of these nations. For example, in Geneva he is impressed by the undamaged French-speaking city compared to not only French cities but also to other areas of Europe that are in ruins, and with the other parts of the world (USA and Canada included), which he sees as morally infected through participation in the war. After neutral, undamaged Switzerland where everything functioned as a system and where ‘abundance was unlikely, indecent, excessive and unequal’, the next stop on Márai’s travels is in ‘poor, defeated Italy’. After his arrival he feels ‘at home’ because he finds a ‘natural’ and familiar post-war situation. But it is Italy that makes him recognize the great ‘poverty’ of Hungary, where the worst thing, according to Márai, is hate (Márai, 2008d: 43). After visiting Italy, he continues his journey in France and during his stay in Paris he explicitly and constantly makes a distinction between East and West. He admits that he

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began smoking a pipe and his feeling is that one day he will get home to the East (Márai, 2008d: 94). Then he shares his reflections on the meaning and role of the West before and after the war and the Holocaust: Micsoda bűvöletben éltünk mi?… Nyugat, a Nyugati – lihegtük. Igen, volt egy Nyugat, amely nevelt. Még ismertem, emlékezem reá. De ez a Nyugat – a kontinensről beszélek! – milyen jogon kényszeríthet engem arra, hogy fogyatékossági érzéseim legyenek? Sem szellemi, sem morális jogcíme nincs többé erre. Tudom, a mi nagy adósságunk a világgal szemben: morális adósság … Hol az a szellemi vagy morális jogcím, amivel a Nyugat ma megkövetelheti tőlem, a keletitől, hogy hajbókoljak előtte? Tudok egy francia irodalomról, tudományról és művészetről, amely nevelte a világot, nevelt engem is. Ezért hálával tartozom. De ma? … (Márai, 2008d: 102–3) Under what a great illusion we’ve lived! … West, the Western – we gasped. Yes, there was a West that taught people. I had the chance to know it and I still remember it. But this West – I’m talking about the continent! – by what right could it force me to have feelings of disability? It has neither intellectual nor moral title to do so any more. I know that our great debt towards the world is a moral debt … Where is that intellectual or moral right with which the West today may claim from me, from the Easterner, that I should bow down before it? I know French literature, science and art, that educated the world and also educated me. For that I am grateful. But nowadays …

When he feels that even in Paris there is something missing from life and from people (see Márai, 2014: 161) and there are no answers to his questions, he decides to return in Hungary and to abandon Western civilization not only physically, but also from a metaphorical point of view, because the West is unable to create, educate and teach: Elég volt ebből, menjünk haza. Úgy értem, mind, hosszú időre. Menjünk haza Nyugatról, valóságosan és képletesen. Várjuk meg, amíg megint tanítani kezd; talán, ha pénze lesz, megint alkotni és tanítani kezd; van egyfajta ember, aki csak akkor tud alkotni, ha jómódban él… Menjünk haza Nyugatról. Keletiek vagyunk, ráérünk. (Márai, 2008d: 106) That is enough, let us go home. I mean, all of us, for a long time. Let us go home from the West, concretely and figuratively. Let us wait until the West begins to teach again. Maybe when it has money again, it will begin to create and teach again. There is a kind of person who can create only when living in prosperous conditions … Let us go home from the West. We are Easterners, we have time to wait.

In the original second chapter of Föld, föld!… he continues to describe his experience in Paris and depicts his meeting with an old friend, a bookseller, in Saint-Germain. Márai considered himself part of the community living just at the edge of Eastern Europe whose members were raising important questions after meeting the bolshevik East. However, the West gave no answers to the East: all the questions remained unanswered. Everywhere in contemporary French literature he found stubborn and

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obstinate refusals, and in the books published in France in that period Márai was unable to find anything useful, anything interpretable as an answer that he could have taken home from the journey: A nagy kérdések, melyek a bolsevista Kelettel való találkozás után mindannyiunkban, akik Európa keleti határterületén éltünk, visszhangoztak, Nyugaton ez időben válasz nélkül maradtak. Nem és nem, mondotta makacson, csökönyösen, jobb felé és bal felé az irodalom… Szerettem volna valamit hazavinni e vándorútról; valamit, ami a Nyugat válasza is a Keletnek. De ilyen választ nem olvastam a frissiben nyomtatott könyvekben. A nyugati lélek aggódott, félt, vitatkozott, vagy hevesen követelte a leszámolást – esetleg a megegyezést – a Kelettel, csak éppen nem „válaszolt”. (Márai, 2014: 163) The big questions that echoed in all of us living in the eastern border area of Europe, after meeting the bolshevik East, in the West at that time remained unanswered. No and no, said the literature stubbornly, obstinately to the right and to the left … I would have liked something to take home from this journey; something that is the West’s response to the East. But I didn’t read such a response in the recently printed books. The Western soul was concerned, it was afraid, it was arguing or it clamoured vehemently for vengeance – or maybe for the treaty – with the East, but it didn’t ‘respond’.

In the new third chapter of Föld, föld!… (Márai, 2014), however, we read a different description of the same journey. On the one hand, we need to consider again the temporal distance between the journey itself and the writing of the chapter more than ten years later. On the other hand, we should bear in mind what Márai writes about intellectual freedom in Európa elrablása (2008d: 66–7) and the possibility of writing something relevant for the public. At this point, when ‘the bonds of internal and external censorship still tie all free thought’, he is playing with the idea of writing two separate diaries in parallel: thus he would have had the possibility of writing everything truthfully in the second version. It does not matter if we have to deal with a double diary or with two separate memoirs. What is really important is that Márai provided us with so many details of this last journey before his definitive voluntary exile. Luckily, this memoir is available in an English translation as well – even if it has been revised and integrated into the new Hungarian edition and even if, sometimes, the quality of the translation could be improved. I do not intend to review the translation. However, I need to add a comment to one of the translated phrase just at the beginning of the description of the journey: ‘Számomra ez az út fagyos, didergő vesszőfutás volt. Európa, a háború befejezését követő második esztendőben, a vicsorgó bűntudat Európája volt.’ (Márai, 2014: 403) (‘For me this journey was a cold, shivery ordeal. In the second year after the war, Europe had a snarling guilty conscience’) (Márai, 1996: 252). If we want to be true to Márai’s text, then we should revise the translation as follows: ‘For me this journey was a chilly, shivery running the gauntlet.’ Unfortunately, in the existing translation the communicative power of the original is lost. What is remarkable here is that this is the first time in which, in Márai’s account, we find such a negative definition of his journey – something similar to a physical punishment. Above we have already seen to what extent Márai was impressed by the sterile abundance of Switzerland, but again, in this description he uses a much stronger image: ‘Az utast, aki a kelet-európai romok közül

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előmerészkedett, Svájcban öklendezésre késztette a hörcsög jólét.’ (Márai, 2014: 403) (‘In Switzerland, the choleric abundance induced the traveller venturing forth from the ruins of Eastern Europe to retch’) (Márai, 1996: 252). In previous works, Europe is described by Márai as ‘ramshackle’, later he depicts a ‘fringe European’ and the continent as ‘sterile, cadaverous-smelling, so to speak, “formalinized” Europe’ (Márai, 1996: 254). And, for a short passage, he bridges the divide between the different parts or blocks of Europe and its inhabitants in a common guilt: Mi kötöz ide? – gondoltam … De talán a közös bűnök emléke: a tudat, hogy mind bűnösök vagyunk, európaiak, nyugatiak és keletiek – mert itt éltünk és tűrtük, engedtük, hogy minden odajusson, ahová jutott. Ebben az eszmélésben bűntársi cinkosság is volt, minden más érzésnél, képzelgésnél valóságosabb: bűnösök vagyunk, mert európaiak vagyunk, és eltűrtük, hogy az európai ember tudatában megsemmisüljön a „humanizmus”. (Márai, 2014: 406–7) ‘What binds me here?’ – I thought … But perhaps it was the memory of collective crimes – the consciousness that we were all guilty, Europeans, Easterners and Westerners, because we lived here and tolerated, allowed everything to reach the point it did. In this realization there was also a sense of being an accomplice, more real than every other feeling and illusion; we were guilty because we were Europeans and we tolerated the destruction of ‘humanism’ in the consciousness of European man. (Márai, 1996: 255)

When he continues to share with us his impressions of Paris, it becomes much clearer why he felt disappointed in the ‘City of Light’ in search of ‘answers’ to the questions and doubts of the East: Nyugaton többet tudnak, mert régebben élnek a humanista műveltségben, mint mifelénk – ha nem is azonos szavakkal, de azonos értelemben, súgva, így biztattuk otthon magunkat. És most, amikor valaki hosszú idő és nagy megpróbáltatás után visszatér, a választ reméli. De Párizsban nem válaszolt és nem változott senki és semmi. A nagyváros mintha zsibbadt merevgörcsben élte volna túl a háborút. (Márai, 2014: 414) People in the West know more because they have lived in a culture of humanism longer than our part of the world has. If not with these very same words but with the same meaning, whispering, we thus encouraged ourselves at home. And now, when we return after a long absence and great ordeals, we hoped to receive an Answer. But in Paris no one and nothing answered or had changed. It seemed as if the great city had survived the war in a state of benumbed lockjaw. (Márai, 1996: 262)

This passage is followed by a longer reflection about the near future – the technical revolution and its unavoidable consequences. In fact it is a reconstruction of his thoughts during that winter, as at the moment of writing he was already in New York. When he finds that in France there is no evidence of moral judgement about recent historical events, he turns towards Western literature. However, literature and publishing have also changed in the meantime and ‘the book itself, so it seemed, no longer held that “place of trust” which not long ago still gave it decisive say and power. And there was something

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frightening about this.’ Márai understands that the book ‘was no longer a Message, only an informational medium, a commodity’. Books are not able to answer the real problems and thus Márai begins to think about Hungary with a certain expectation: ‘I began to suspect I wouldn’t find in the West what I came for – and perhaps it would not be fruitless for me to return to the place where people still believed in the Book’ (Márai, 1996: 268). Márai was still in Paris when the Paris Peace Treaties were signed on 10 February 1947, and he read about the details in Montparnasse. Hungary lost the Hungarianspeaking territories that historically corresponded to the northern part of the Kingdom of Hungary (Felvidék). This area also included Košice (Márai’s birthplace), which the treaty annexed to Czechoslovakia. Márai was deeply touched by the measures introduced by the treaty concerning Hungary, and that night seemed to be a turning point for him in determining his immediate future. He had to decide whether or not to return to Budapest from the West (Márai, 1996: 279). The following nine pages should be read through completely, as they fix Márai’s internal struggle about two interrelated questions ‘What awaits me at home, in Hungary?’ and ‘What awaits me in the West if I do not go back?’ (Márai, 1996: 279, 280). At this point emerges the sharp difference between East and West: ‘A Europe that Westerners construe differently from the way we did “là-bas” (as the “Westerners” often said superciliously and with condescending arrogance)’. And then a comment that is surprisingly omitted from the English translation: ‘Vidéki származék vagyok Nyugaton, mert magyar vagyok’ (‘I’m a person of rural origin, because I’m Hungarian’). And Márai continues: ‘Egyéni sorsom alakulhat tetszetősen; ez nem változtat azon, hogy örökké csak megtűrt, eltűrt, befogadott idegen leszek itt’ (‘My individual destiny could work out pleasantly, but this would not alter the fact that here I would always be only a foreigner who is merely tolerated and endured’) (Márai, 2014: 435).6 Going ahead with his reasoning, he gives an explanation of Europe’s abduction: ‘Lehet, hogy Tocqueville-nek volt igaza, aki évszázad előtt, itt, Párizsban, megjósolta, hogy Európa megsemmisül a két nagy mágnes, Oroszország és Amerika között?’ (Márai, 2014: 437) (‘Possibly Toqueville was right, when a century ago he prophesied here in Paris that Europe would come to naught between two great magnets, Russia and America’) (Márai, 1996: 282). Finally, the dramatic outburst of the author underlines his experience in the West and the immediate effect of the newspaper article on the Paris Peace Treaties. His disillusionment with the West is total. He sees contradictions and lies in all discourses, written or spoken, and in all fields concerning religion, the arts, human rights and the concept of nation: Folyamatosan, szakmányba, olajosán, hibátlanul hazudtak Európában: a sajtó, a rádió, a könyvkiadás, aztán az új közlési médiumok, mindenféle nyomtatvány, a papírszemét, amivel megtömték a nyugati ember tudatát…, mindebből gőzölgött a hazugság, mint ahogy az öngyulladás mérgező füstje gőzölög fel egy trágyadombból. Ebben a században a Nyugat hazudott önmagának és a világnak. Örökké hazudott: azt hazudta, hogy „haza”, és trombitált hozzá valamilyen recsegő ünnepélyességet; de ez is csak hazugság volt, mert az érdekszövetkezetek, melyek a hazákat birtokolták, betéti társaság lehetőségeit látták a hazában. Vallás, mondták és hazudtak, mert egy demitizált illúzió organizációs homlokzata fedte el az omladékot, ami a vallásból megmaradt. Művészet, mondták, és hazudtak, mert nem látomást követeltek a művésztől, látomást, amelynek a valóságra visszasugárzó ereje, alkotó energiája van, hanem tömegárut, kommerciális vagy politikai bóvlit, amit adni és venni lehet. Emberi

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jogokról beszéltek, és tűrték, hogy minden emberit megalázó rendszerek elhatalmasodjanak. Hazudott a Nyugat a hangos és a nyomtatott szóval; még a zenével is hazudtak, amelyből kilúgozták a melódiát és harmóniát, hisztérikus, rángatózó nyavalyatörős nyávogást tettek a helyébe. Ez a Nyugat, amelyre a háború gödrében úgy emlékeztem, mint a megmentő szamaritánusra, hazudott. Mit várhatunk, magyarok, ettől a Nyugattól, amelyet átfertőzött a hazugság? Segítséget és szolidaritást soha. Nincs más segítség számunkra, együttesen és személyesen, csak az idő. (Márai, 2014: 440) They lied in Europe easily, automatically, unctuously, impeccably – the press, the radio, the book publishers, and then the new forms of communication media, every kind of printed matter, the paper litter with which they stuffed Western man’s consciousness. Falsehoods reeked out of everything the way the noxious fumes of spontaneous combustion steam from a pile of manure. In this century, the West lied to itself and to the world. It lied perpetually: it lied that it was a ‘country’ and trumpeted some sort of raspy sentimentality along with it; but this, too, was only a falsehood, because the cliques who owned the countries saw the possibilities for limited ownership in them. It was a religion; they professed and lied because they did not demand vision from art. Vision has the power, the creative energy to reflect back on reality, not like the mass products, the commercial or political junk that can be offered and purchased. They spoke of human rights and permitted systems degrading everything humane to gain ascendancy. Westerners lied with the spoken and written word; they even lied with music from which they leached melody and harmony, replacing it with hysterical, writhing, epileptic caterwauling. This West lied, this West which I had called to mind in the pit of war as a good Samaritan. What could we Hungarians expect from this West which falsehood had so thoroughly contaminated? Never help and solidarity. There was no help for us, collectively or individually, only time. (Márai, 1996: 284–5)

Consequently, after having concluded that the West will not give help, support or solidarity to the Hungarians, he decides to return to Hungary, where he still can find something good, ‘the only significance of life’ to him, the Hungarian language (Márai, 1996: 285). With reference to this memoir, there is still another salient feature. In the diary and in Európa elrablása (1947a) Márai is succinct about the different behaviour of the various border guards, while the detailed description of them in Föld, föld!… (2014) gives him the opportunity to increase the distances between West and East and between Westerners and Easterners. He mentions four different situations, and the first and the last somehow give a frame to this part of the memoir, signalling the beginning and the end of the journey. The first description concerns the hostile behaviour of the Swiss border guard at the beginning of the journey. In the guard’s eyes every traveller coming from the East was suspicious: A svájci határőr olyan ellenséges gyanakvással nézegette a magyar útlevelet, mintha minden utas, aki onnan, túlról érkezik, kém, valutacsempész, kommunista ügynök vagy kábítószerkereskedő lenne. (Vagy, egyszerűbben, bacilusgazda… és ebben a gyanakvó feltevésben talán volt is néha valami igazság.) (Márai, 2014: 403) The Swiss border guard scrutinized our Hungarian passports with very hostile suspicion, as if every traveler coming from that region was a spy, a currency smuggler, a Communist agent or

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a drug trafficker. (Or more simply, a disease carrier, and sometimes there was some truth in this mistrustful supposition.) (Márai, 1996: 252)

In the second episode, when Márai is describing another Swiss border guard on the Swiss–Italian border, he places further emphasis on the wartime neutrality of Switzerland. This time the Swiss guard was not so hostile as the previous one: A vonat éjfél után ért az olasz határra, és időbe tellett, amíg a hivatalnokok útnak engedték. Mindenki gyanús volt akkor, minden vonat, az utasok és a poggyászok is. De a svájci határőr – mintha érezné, hogy „kimaradni” valamiből lehet hőstett is, de lehet gyalázat is – udvariasan felületes volt, amikor benézett a fülkébe. Ne röstelld, hogy kimaradtál, gondoltam, amikor a határőr behúzta az ajtót. Vannak megrázkódtatások és erőfeszítések, amelyek tovább, magasabbra juttatják az embert – a kies, bércek közé zárt Svájc, ahol mindig történelmi légszomjasságban, morális klausztrofóbiában élt a nép, nem jutott „magasabbra”, de sértetlenül megmaradt annak, ami volt. És a megmaradás végül éppen úgy hősiesség, mint a fuldokló igazságkeresés. (Márai, 2014: 410) The train reached the Italian border after midnight, and it took some time before the officials allowed it to move on. Everyone was suspect then, every train, the passengers and also the baggage. But the Swiss border guard, as if sensing that ‘staying out’ of something can be a heroic deed or a dishonorable act, was politely perfunctory when he looked into the compartment. ‘Don’t be ashamed you stayed out’, I thought when he closed the door. There are shocks and endeavours that carry humanity forward and higher – charming Switzerland locked among peaks, where people always lived in a state of historical shortness of breath and moral claustrophobia, did not become ‘higher’, but safely remained what it was. And ultimately survival is just as heroic as the suffocating search for truth. (Márai, 1996: 258)

The third episode is again eloquent and brings to light the suspicion with which Westerners looked at people coming from the East. In this portion the protagonist is a French border guard on the Italian–French border: A francia határon kevés híján lecsuktak, mert a vámőr minden avítt ruhadarabom aggályosán szedte szét, és tudni akarta, nem csempészek-e valamit – mit is? Nem tudom. Amit általában csempésznek azok, akik a Fényből a homályba utaztak. (Márai, 2014: 412) At the French border I was almost put in jail because the customs officer worriedly undid every piece of my threadbare clothing and wanted to know whether I was smuggling anything in – but what? I didn’t know. What those who travel from the Light into the darkness generally smuggle? (Márai, 1996: 260)

Finally, we see Márai again on a train on the bridge over the river Enns facing an enemy: a rigorous but polite Russian border guard. Here Márai suddenly casts off his identity as an Easterner and, in front of and in comparison to the Russian soldier, he becomes a Westerner. The Swiss and French border guards and Westerners in general looked down on the Hungarian writer and on Easterners, while this was not the case with the Russian solder and generally speaking with Russians:

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Az ennsi híd határvonalán, az orosz megszállási zóna peremén belépett a fülkébe a szovjet járőr, és az útlevelet kérte. Itt, az Európát kettéválasztó vonal küszöbén, parádésan, katonás akkurátussággal öltözött vöröskatona vizsgálta az utasokat – komoran, szigorúan, de udvariasan. Nézte az útlevelem, vizsgálta a fényképet, és jól megnézett engem is, akit a fénykép ábrázolt. Aztán – szótlanul, de udvariatlanság nélkül – visszaadta az útlevelet, kezét kucsmája pereméhez emelte, szalutált, behúzta maga után az ajtót és odébb ment. Néztem utána és arra gondoltam, hogy ez a katona ellenség. Sok irtózatosságot művelt Magyarországon, és lehet, hogy sok kegyetlenséget hoz még számunkra a jövőben is. De bizonyos: ez az orosz katona kirabol, talán megöl engem, a magyart, de nem néz le. (Mert Nyugaton, mostanában, nagyon udvariasan, de valahogy mindenki lenézett engem, a keletit.) Számára én nyugati ellenség vagyok, akit tönkretesz, de nem néz le. Ez nem volt sok úti vásárfiának, de mégis valami. (Márai, 2014: 443) At the boundary line marked by the bridge over the Enns, at the edge of the Russian occupation zone, a member of the Soviet patrol entered the compartment and asked for passports. Here, on the threshold of the line dividing Europe in two, a Red soldier dressed in parade uniform examined the passengers with military meticulousness grimly, strictly but courteously. He looked at my passport, scrutinized my photo, and eyed its subject thoroughly. Then, wordlessly but without discourtesy, he returned the passport, raised his hand to the brim of his peaked cap, saluted, closed the door behind him, and moved on. I looked after him and thought of the fact that this soldier was an enemy. He has committed many horrors in Hungary, and it was possible he would bring many cruelties down on us in Hungary in the future, too. But it was certain that this Russian soldier would rob, perhaps even kill me, the Hungarian, but he would not look down on me. (In the West recently, very politely but in some manner, everyone looked down on me, the Easterner.) To him I was a Westerner he will bring to ruin but will not look down on. This wasn’t much of a gift from a journey to the fair, but still, it was something. (Márai, 1996: 287)

At this point we should recall Márai’s writings on the Russian occupation of Hungary and the kind of respect that the different soldiers of the Red Army (the enemy), in comparison to the Westerners (usually sniffy), showed towards Márai, a foreigner, but worthy of respect as a writer. In February 1947, at the end of the journey of the winter of 1946–7, Márai decided to return to Hungary because he, a writer strictly tied to the mother tongue, wanted to live in the atmosphere of the Hungarian language and wanted to write freely in Hungarian – the concept of the ‘atmosphere of the Hungarian language’ is a recurring leitmotif in his writings. He returns to Hungary basically for the language, because he wanted to live among people with whom he shared the same language and the complicity that is possible only among native speakers, even if he could not write for newspapers and journals or for an audience. In fact, he had already decided in 1943 to resign from journalism, to keep silent and not to write for publication during the war, and he continued to write only autobiographical writings and novels. In 1945 he wrote the following about his will and the concept of silence: Megjelent e „Napló” néhány részlete kötetben; az 1943-44-es években írott jegyzetek kivonata. Testes kötet, de nem teljes. Sok minden hiányzik belőle, ami legmélyebb értelme, de nem bírja el a nyilvánosságot. Mégis közzé kellett adnom, nincs jogom hallgatni arról, ami történt, s nem

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merem vállalni annak felelősségét, hogy hallgattam, s így a magam módján is hozzájárultam ahhoz, hogy megismétlődhessék még egyszer az, ami megtörtént. (Márai, 2006b: 338–9) Some parts of this ‘Diary’, an extract of the annotations written between the years 1943 and 1944, are now published in a book. This is a thick volume, but not complete. There are many things omitted from it that correspond to its deepest sense, but that can’t be made public. Yet I had to publish it, I have no right to keep silent about what happened, and I don’t dare to take on the responsibility for my keeping silent, so in my own way, I’ve contributed to the fact that what had already happened could be repeated once more.

In 1947, facing the political situation in Hungary, he resolved to continue to keep silent – silence became an important topic in his writings – and wait for a better time. Very soon the country passed under the communist yoke, and Márai understood that he had no freedom to keep silent. He lived for a period in an atmosphere of terror and voluntary exile became just a question of months: after 18 months in Hungary, in 1948, he fled the country. In Hallgatni akartam (2013b) Márai gives a clinical picture of the country when he describes the last 18 months he spent in Hungary. He points out the vain hopes of the Hungarian people who expected support from the United States and Western Europe. But Márai, who has just visited the latter, was aware of the indifference and haughty superiority with which the West observed the destiny of the East. Slowly people understood that their hopes were in vain and an overwhelming sense of solitude overshadowed everything. An entire nation was left alone between West and East. As months went by, the communists wanted to gain full control over Hungarian literature and they sought the support of ‘bourgeois’ writers, among whom the most important was Márai. He always refused to approve the communist system, he never gave up his ‘personality’ and he never accepted political responsibilities. At this time Márai understood clearly that he had to flee the country, because he could not express his opinion, he could not continue his inner exile, he was not allowed to keep silent freely. He was convinced that even an intellectual’s mere presence meant approval of the system: silence was not considered acceptable from a moral standpoint. In Márai’s view, silence had a double meaning: one could keep silent to express disagreement and protest, but in certain cases to remain silent transforms people in accomplices, as this behaviour could be interpreted as a sign of agreement and consent. So he decided to flee the country, without compromise and without the hope of return, while he still had the strength to protest. To conclude this article, I would like to quote from Márai’s Der Wind kommt von Westen (published in 1964). This travelogue describing his journey on the east coast of the United States in 1959 was never published in Hungarian, but it has remarkable similarities to The Complete Diary (vol. XI, 1959–1960) (cf. Márai, 2012: 10–129, 141, 165, 256–7, 285, 290, 364, 366–9, 218). Ich fahre nach Westen wie dereinst in meiner Jugend. Diese Erkundungsfahrten gegen Sonnenuntergang bedeuteten zwei oder drei Jahrzehnte früher für den Europäer eine Reise nach Paris oder eine Überfahrt über den Ärmelkanal. Weiter dachte niemand, wenn er in Europa auf eine Erkundungsfahrt nach Westen ging. Heute ist San Francisco eines der letzten Reiseziele des westlichen Verkehrskreises. Dort endet der „Westen” und beginnt der „Osten”. Der

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Gemeinplatz, nach dem im Zeitalter der Düsenflugzeuge der Atlantische Ozean Europa von Amerika nur in der Weise trennt, wie der Ärmelkanal das kontinentale Europa von England scheidet – dieser Gemeinplatz ist heute fahrplanmäßige Wirklichkeit. In diesem neuen westlichen Raum reise ich jetzt. Als kulturelle Raumeinheit ist der Westen gewachsen. Er ist um einen Kontinent größer als vor dreißig Jahren. (Márai, 1964: 9) I am going to the West as once I did in my youth. These explorations towards the sunset two or three decades earlier for Europeans meant to visit Paris or to cross the English Channel. When people went on an exploratory trip to the West in Europe, nobody thought to go beyond. Today San Francisco is one of the farthest destinations of western traffic. It is there that the ‘West’ ends and the ‘East’ starts. The commonplace, according to which, in the era of the jet plane, the Atlantic Ocean divides Europe from America in the same way as the English Channel divides England from the continental Europe – this commonplace is now a regularly scheduled reality. Now I’m travelling in this new western space. The West has grown as a cultural space unit. Compared with 30 years ago it is increased by a continent.

Before 1952, when he leaves his exile in Italy and the European continent and arrives in the USA, his interpretation of the dichotomy between East and West (until that moment limited to Europe) further evolves and encompasses a ‘new’ western space, the American continent. And this opens up further possibilities for future researches concerning his writings. Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Unless indicated otherwise, the translations are my own. Galleria Umberto I in Naples. Sándor’s name-day is 18 March. The author is referring to the year 1944. In 1948 for his voluntary exile. I have slightly revised Albert Tezla’s translation (Márai, 1996: 36–7). Changes are indicated with italicized text. Slightly different from the translation provided in Márai (1996: 280).

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Márai S (2011) Portraits of a Marriage, trans. G Szirtes. New York: Knopf. Márai S (2012) A teljes Napló 1959–1960 (‘The Complete Diary 1959–1960’), ed. T Mészáros. Budapest: Helikon. Márai S (2013a) Egy polgár vallomásai (1934–1935/1940) (‘Confessions of a bourgeois (1934– 35/1940’)), uncensored version. Budapest: Helikon. Márai S (2013b) Hallgatni akartam (‘I wanted to keep silent’). Budapest: Helikon. Márai S (2014) Föld, föld!… (A teljes változat) (‘Land, land!… (The complete version)’). Budapest: Helikon. Voszka É (2012) Beszélgetések Hetényi Istvánnal (1.) (Conversations with István Hetényi (1.)). Available at: http://hetenyi-kor.blog.hu/2012/06/06/voszka_eva_beszelgetesek_hetenyi_istvannal.

Author biography Judit Papp is Lecturer in Applied Linguistics, General Translation Studies and Literary Translation Studies at the University of Naples ‘L’Orientale’. She completed her PhD in 2007. From 2008 to 2012 she held a postdoctoral research fellowship in Hungarian Language and Literature at the Department of Eastern European Studies of the University of Naples ‘L’Orientale’. Her research focuses on Hungarian literature, particularly on the writer Sándor Márai (1900–89).

Beyond and behind the Iron Curtain: Sándor Márai crossing the borders between 1946 and 1948

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