Oldal 49 [49]
KÁLMÁN NÁDASDY AND GÉZA PÁRTOS: FREE WIND, 1950
While the review in Szabad Nép, the daily newspaper of the Party, repeated
the adjective "American" four times to incite hatred against "imperialist
colonizers”, weapons were not said to be American in the Operetta Theatre and
no reference was made to the United States, according to the promptbook.!5®
Dialogues did not make it clear that “war materials disguised as tropical fruits
were being delivered to the oppressors of a people fighting for freedom against
colonial submission.” In fact, the port city where the plot took place was
not named in the production, yet several reviews mentioned Trieste. The city,
which was freed by Yugoslav partisans five years earlier and annexed to Italy
in 1954, was divided into zones, controlled by British and American as well as
Yugoslav forces, and was claimed by Tito and his people. When we consider
that the government of the unnamed country where Free Wind takes place
makes common cause with “Chesterfields”, we recognize that by naming it
Trieste, the press helped spectators associate it with Tito’s Yugoslavia, mocked
as “the chained dog of imperialists” at the time.’®° In other words, the press
tried to arouse hatred against a neighbor, who had just been declared an
enemy and expelled from Cominform a few months earlier, while Hungary
had become “front country for war preparation against Yugoslavia”. Just a
few weeks after the Hungarian Working People’s Party published its booklet,
The Tasks of Our Fight for Peace (for an event focusing on The Principles of
Fighting for Peace between 18-25 June, 1950), criticism paradoxically launched
cold war propaganda when it called Free Wind a “mirror of an age” in which
“international solidarity acted with huge, anti-war protests against those who
incited a new world war.” Or when a critic roughly stated that “the subject
of the play is as topical as possible: [...] resistance, defense and counterattack
of the peace front." Reviewers subordinated the description of the aesthetic
character of the play to this propaganda, when they detailed the particular
“operetta realism” of Free Wind, its “living and real” characters instead of
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“The hit, the Free Wind Song” was considered in Népszava “as the combative message of
free peoples defending their peace and giving voice to proletarian solidarity. [...] It becomes
a vivid symbol of freedom”. Jemnitz: Szabad szél, 4.
Fogarasi: Szabad szél, 484. — According to the promptbook Marké, a partisan in the past,
now wanted for incendiary behavior, only said that “ships carry weapons to suppress the
15!
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freedom of a small people. To kill partisans with them, workers and peasants like you.”
Szabad szél, Promptbook, Typed manuscript, 75. Location: Budapest Operetta Theatre.
This association was helped by the Hungarian version of Free Wind, in which the main
character is called Dusán/Márkó (Stefan/Janko in the original), and Gregor Stankovich’s
name is changed to George Stan. It was certainly György Hámos who grounded all in the
libretto that made it possible for the press to incite hatred against Yugoslavia.
Gyarmati: A Rákosi-korszak, 155.
Fogarasi: Szabad szél, 484.
Jemnitz: Szabad szél, 4.
Cf. "The realism that this operetta strives for in its story and music does not mean the same
style as the realism of dramatic theatre, comedy or opera. We are talking about operetta
realism, which is similar to a fairy tale.” Szekely, Szövetsegi vita, 1-2. - György Sebestyen
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