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» The Day of Hungarian Culture - Celebrating Antal Szerb
Friday, 22 January 2010 7pm
Hungarian Cultural Centre
22 January is the anniversary of the birth of the Hungarian national anthem, written by poet Ferenc Kölcsey in 1823. The Hungarian Cultural Centre will celebrate the date with a special evening commemorating the life and works of the world famous Hungarian writer Antal Szerb. The evening will consist of the documentary Journey by Moonlight (A Literary Journey with Antal Szerb) directed by Sándor Novobáczky and Pálbeing Erdőss shown followed by a conversation with Len Rix and Nicholas Lezard about translating Antal Szerb.
Antal Szerb was born in 1901 into a cultivated Budapest family of Jewish descent. Graduating in Hungarian, German and English, he rapidly established himself as an outstanding scholar, publishing books on drama and poetry, studies of Ibsen and Blake, and histories of English, Hungarian, and World Literature. His first novel, the satirical-philosophical The Pendragon Legend, 1934, was set in London and Wales. His acknowledged masterpiece, Journey by Moonlight, appeared in 1937. The Queen’s Necklace - that was recently published by Pushkin Press in the translation by Len Rix - was composed amidst the wreckage of war and was instantly banned back in its day. Today The Queen’s Necklace is widely read in Hungary and was very well received by the British audiences and the literally critics alike.
Holocaust Memorial Day (27 January) is a national event in the United Kingdom dedicated to the remembrance of the victims of The Holocaust. The chosen date is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp in 1945. The Hungarian Cultural Centre invited Susan Pollack, Holocaust survivor to talk about her life.
Susan Pollack a British survivor of the deportations from Hungary to Belsen in 1944 said: “The Jews and other groups murdered by the Nazis suffered exclusion long before the Germans came. We speak about our experience with the aim of creating a better society that is more tolerant, inclusive. I’m interested in using Holocaust Memorial Day to educate the minds of all people.”
Recollecting her arrival as a refugee in England, she added. "I found enormous acceptance, helpfulness, tolerance and genuine goodness.".
The Hungarian Cultural Centre commemorates the Holocaust by presenting paintings by Dezső Váli, the renowned Hungarian artist, who had been awarded the Munkácsy-award in 1986.
Between 1984 and 1987 Dezső Váli painted several pictures of Jewish graveyards and he also published (This Cairn is Witness Today), an interesting book of Jewish Cemetery Photographs in Hungary in 1993. The vast majority of this 149 page book contains Black and White photograph. His photographs will be exhibited at the HCC between 25 January and 1 February.
