| Miklós Radnóti, born a century ago. |
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If everything around you is shattered, write on the sky! Miklós Radnóti, born a century ago.  BUDAPEST The exhibition is on display from April 22, 2009 in the Petőfi Museum of Literature.There are only a few Hungarian artists for whom life and poetry are so fundamentally intertwined. The tragic circumstances of his birth follow him all throughout his life, and motifs of guilt and rightful suffering appear, with ever increasing presence, in his poems. His ancestry gives his fate a sense of historical tragedy. The exhibit features his letters of correspondence, family photographs, the hand-written sketches of his first poems, report cards from school, registration books from university, his teachers’ observations of him, the lines written to the love of his life – his wife, the original excerpts from the notebook from Bor… From the letter of sociologist Sandor Szalai: after so much doubt and fear we started to have faith again, the power of his poems was whispering that Miklós had to be living, that he is alive and coming back. We heard conflicting news, and we awaited him again. Then, after months, I came across a newspaper, called New Life, and an impersonal command stood out: All the relatives of the forced laborers killed in Abda, come forward! The name of Miklós Radnóti was 12th on the list. That line ended all our hopes.  Miklós Radnóti In the village of Abda, probably more than 60 forced laborers, murdered by Hungarian nationalists, were exhumed. Most likely (based on the postcards from the camps found with them, which were likely addressed to them), these laborers came back from Bor, and stayed on in Abda as invalids, where, before the impending liberation, members of the Hungarian armed forces murdered them. From the mass graves of Abda, he was transferred to the cemetery of Gyor, in a wooden casket. In that wooden casket were the remains of the broken body of one of our greatest, clearest poets, with his last poems, guarding his last message. We lost him: forever lost for our generation, and for coming generations of Hungarians. Today we realize what his work means for our poetry and for our whole culture. It would do good if ever more people knew. To know what his writing means, the purity, preserved until the day of his death; a radiant ideal for the entire nation’s moral and social heritage. We lost him, all of us, we who stayed alive. There’s a sense of blame, and for some it’s self-blame. Did I do everything I could for him? The clearer we ask ourselves this question, and the more unforgivingly and truthfully we answer, the less we will let the cowardice of society, lies, and fascism triumph! He bequeathed this lesson to us. A hard, barely tolerable gift, but only the cowardly would forsake it. What does the notebook from Bor teach us? What does the little pamphlet teach us? Pure love for a country. When almost everything was denied him by his native land, when he was cast aside as a prey, he still clung to the seemingly unreachable images of his country and home, while awake and in his dreams, too. This country seduced him, the calm nights of times past, Fanni, and this country with all its torments, every last one of its ruthless and beautiful treasures. The country is all that remained for him: the Hungarian language, his last refuge and source of courage. Only this poetic language remained for him to portray his loyalty and affection. Days before his death he writes and tells us that he cannot truly know what this country meant for others, but we know what it meant for him on his way to school, this revered country, and today we know what it meant to him on his way to his grave… A more poignant, chaste, and true love of country we can hardly know. Bookmark us: 
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