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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 15: œ “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! © 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 160 = a 162 16 ús 164 + A7 +
