Oldal 419 [419]
ESZTER TARJÁNYI
"In that case, have Mihály Farkas hanged on one pillar and yourself on the
other. It won’t cost much, the dear man will be surprised, and the people will be
deliriously happy.” With that he grabbed his hat and walked out.
Whether this exchange really took place or not I cannot say. But that it was on
everyone’s lips and that every Hungarian was glad to hear it is as sure as I stand
here."
Considering the style, this version reflects a more substantial transformation
of the basic story, although formally Mikszáths does so more adeguately.
Esterházys actual text is more strongly connected to Béla Tóths, even
preserving the same form in the last paragraph not closely linked to the plot,
which refers back to oral tradition gaining authenticity from it. Justas Mikszath
adjusts the names to the period of his narrative, so does Esterhazy, finding
equivalent characters from the beginning of the 1950s with the prevailing
cult of Rakosi. However, as with Béla Toth, the answering character is given
a name here. Francis Joseph corresponds to Matyas Rakosi (1903-1971), the
communist leader bearing the greatest responsibility for the Stalinist Soviet
policy of oppression in the 1950s. The writer, Tibor Déry (1894-1977) can
be paralleled by Jozsef Edtvés, while Augusz and Protmann are analogous to
Ernö Gerö (1898-1980), who controlled the area of science as Rakosi’s right
hand. Kálmán Mikszáth also tried to imitate the way people communicated
in the 17“ and 18" centuries (“Rhenus forints”, “planum”) but this is not so
distinctive. Esterhazy’s version is more courageous, as it features the party
apparatchik’s parodistically trite clichés (“imperialist subversion”) and
Russian-style language (“Da”) of the 1950s as well as hearkening back to older,
more particular language (“keszködött” compared to "készült" in Bela Töth’s
variant — both of which mean “prepare” in Hungarian). When compared to
the original anecdote in The Hungarian Treasury of Anecdotes, Esterhazy’s
adaptation evidently loses any reference to reality, for the reader knowing the
earlier version can not regard it as authentic but rather as a fictional anecdote
based on a factual anecdote — just as in Mikszath’s story. Readers, however,
who are unaware of the narrative that was originally linked to the 1850s tend
to read it as a factual anecdote. For them the only warning sign might be the
presence of anachronism in the style. Factual anecdotes tend to be related ina
neutral style, without such a specific use of language. Yet here the narrator and
his stylistic invention reflect two historical periods simultaneously, with their
different styles of locution being accentuated. The historical interpretation in
Esterhazy’s text creates an associative connection between absolutist forms
of government in two different periods, the 1850s and the 1950s, which is
A Péter Esterházy: A Little Hungarian Pornography, translated by Judith Sollosy, Evanston,
Illinois, Northwest University Press, 1995, 56-57.
* 418 +