Robert Zend, Hungarian-Canadian writer (1929-1985): selected poems in English & Esperanto (2)

Another post about my recording / Denove pri mia deklamo:

Robert Zend, Hungarian-Canadian writer (1929-1985): selected poems in English with Esperanto translations by Ralph Dumain

My recording with a detailed breakdown of contents is now announced on the Zend site / Mia sonregistraĵo kun detala enhavlisto estas anoncita ĉe la retejo de Zend:

The Robert Zend Website - Listen

A link to my recording can also be found on the Esperanto page / Retligo al mia sonregistraĵo troveblas ankaŭ jene:

Zend in Esperanto - The Robert Zend Website

Robert Zend, Hungarian-Canadian writer (1929-1985): selected poems in English & Esperanto

Following upon the details of my podcast / Sekve de la detaligo de mia podkasto pri Zend...

• Robert Zend (1929-1985): my podcast (3)

... I have recorded and uploaded to Soundcloud recordings my recording of Zend's poems featured in my podcast along with my Esperanto translations... /

Jen sonregistraĵo (ĉe Soundcloud) en kiu mi deklamas la precipajn poemojn kaj kvazaŭpoemojn kiujn mi utiligis en mia podkasto, ĉi-okaze ne nur en la angla sed kun miaj tradukoj en Esperanto:

Robert Zend, Hungarian-Canadian writer (1929-1985): selected poems in English with Esperanto translations by Ralph Dumain.
Recorded 12-13 August 2017. 32 min.

00:00: English introduction
01:46: Esperanto introduction / enkonduko

IDENTITY / IDENTECO:
03:58: (On identity), October 1, 1980, in Beyond Labels
04:48: (Pri identeco) 05:23: In transit, October 30, 1970, in Beyond Labels
06:02: Transire
06:44: Fused personality, October 20, 1981, in Beyond Labels
11:02: Kunfandita personeco

SOURCES & INSPIRATIONS / FONTOJ & INSPIROJ:
17:08: Sign (for Ferenc Karinthy), in From Zero to One
18:27: Signo (por Ferenc Karinthy)

MYTH & RELIGION / MITO & RELIGIO
20:04: Office Memo, in From Zero to One
21:05: Oficeja Memorando
22:06: God Dead?, January 13, 1967, in Beyond Labels
23:00: Dio mortinta?
24:08: 5980 A.D., in Stellar #6: Science-Fiction Stories
25:14: 5980 A.D. [en Esperanto]

METAPHYSICS /METAFIZIKO:
26:44: A Love Letter, February 7, 1963, in Beyond Labels
27:59: Amletero
29:28: About Souls, April 17, 1969, in Beyond Labels
29:57: Pri animoj
30:34: Enigma, January 10, 1967, in Beyond Labels
31:08: Enigmo

LINKS / RETLIGOJ:

• Robert Zend (Hungarian-Canadian writer, 1929-1985): Dedications, Works, Links
• Robert Zend en Esperanto
• 05/26/17 Robert Zend: Between Budapest & Toronto, Between Zero & One, Between Dream & Reality (Podcast)
• The Robert Zend Website

Frigyes Karinthy & Imre Madách (1)

I will write a version of this post in Esperanto, but as I am attempting to promote Karinthy in both English and Esperanto, I will begin with English. Actually, my last post was in Esperanto; this one specifically addresses the linkage between Karinthy and Madách, the latter's work concerned being The Tragedy of Man. It is not by chance that writers inspired by Karinthy were inspired also by Madách: examples are the Hungarian Esperantist writer Sándor Szathmári and the Hungarian-Canadian writer Robert Zend, both of whom referred to Karinthy as their "spiritual father."

Karinthy himself was invested in Madách, but the relevant works have not been translated into English or Esperanto. Hence I must cite the original Hungarian sources, and perhaps someone will take an interest in translating the relevant texts. I cannot read Hungarian, so I cannot address the content directly.

First, there is Karinthy's rewriting of the Tragedy. Here is a bibliographic reference:

Azemberke tragédiája Madách Imrike után Istenkéről, Ádámkáról és Luci Ferkóról. A versikéket írta Karinthy Frigyes. [Acsonkán fennmaradt kézirat kiegészítő részeit írta Karinthy Ferenc] Budapest: Új Idők, 1946. 42 pp.

The actual text can be found here: AZ EMBERKE TRAGÉDIÁJA ....

... and is embedded here:

MADÁCH IMRE

• TIZENHATODIK SZÍN
• AZ EMBERKE TRAGÉDIÁJA

       ... in Így írtok ti (válogatás) [The way you write: selections].

The poem was recently illustrated by a Hungarian cartoonist, still in Hungarian but with a brief English introduction:

Karinthy Frigyes: The Tragedy of Little Man (Comic) by Antonia Nyilasi

This comedy, The tragedy of little man was written by Karinthy Frigyes following Madách Imre's dramatic poem The tradegy of the Man. Story about God and creation of the world, Adam and Eve, and the falling angel Lucifer. Lucifer guides Adam and Eve through the ages from the ancient age through today and the future while looking for the sense of Life.

Frigyes's son Ferenc, also an important writer, filled in the gaps in Frigyes's manuscript.

Karinthy wrote about Madách on several occasions. So far I have found these also; there may be more:

This one is from Nyugat (1923): Karinthy Frigyes: Madách. I.

I found three references in ....

Szavak pergőtüzében válogatta és a szöveget gondozta UNGVÁRI TAMÁS...

... specifically:

• A HAJÓTÖRÖTT ÉLET RONCSAI KÖZT (1933)
• SIKER ÉS ÉRVÉNYESÜLÉS (1934)
• MIT TEGYEN AZ ÍRÓ A HÁBORÚVAL SZEMBEN? (1935)

And finally, there is:

Tragédia-átfordítások Karinthy Frigyes írásaiban (Szeged–Budapest, 2011)

"Karinthy gyermekkorától rajongója volt Madách művének, ezért válhatott belőle »[...] talán minden idők legmélyebb Madách-értője«. Tizenhárom esztendősen írta naplójába a következő feljegyzést: »Madáchot isteni ihlet szállta meg, [...] hogy olyan igazán, olyan hatalmasan tud beszélni.«"

I hope that one day we can see an account (with translations) of the Karinthy-Madách connection in English and Esperanto.

History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe

Cornis-Pope, Marcel; Neubauer, John; eds. History of the Literary Cultures of East-Central Europe: Junctures and Disjunctures in the 19th and 20th Centuries. 4 volumes. Amsterdam; Philadelphia: J. Benjamins, 2004-2010.

Esperanto is mentioned in vols. 1-3. Vol. 4 mentions Sándor Szathmári.

Vol. 1 (2004): In the article "National operas in East-Central Europe" by John Neubauer (pp. 514 -523), there is a mention of an Esperanto translation (p. 515):

As a touching gesture of compensation, an enterprising Pole published in Paris an Esperanto translation of Włodzimierz Wolski’s libretto for Stanisław Moniuszko’s opera Halka.

Bibliographic reference (p. 620):

Wolski, Włodzimierz. Halka. Esperanto trans. Antoni Grabowski. Paris: Hachette, 1912.

Vol. 2 (2006): In the article "Ashkenaz or the Jewish Cultural Presence in East-Central Europe" by Seth L. Wolitz (pp. 314-331), on the Ashkenazi linguistic panorama (p. 328):

"It was not by accident that an Ashkenazic Jew, Ludwik Lazar Zamenhof, born in Bialystok and at first a Yiddishist, invented Esperanto (hope), a synthetic language designed to serve as an international expression of peace and thus to escape the nationalist baggage weighing any national tongue. Language was thus problematized by Jews around 1900, and the chosen medium indicated an ideological, political, and cultural commitment ranging from nationalist/religious/socialist confrontations around Hebrew and Yiddish, to an accommodationist use of the dominant language of the State, and further to the invention of a new tongue with an implied federalist agenda."

In another article: "Monuments and the Literary Culture of Riga" by Irina Novikova (pp. 40-56), on Russian poet Vsevolod Cheshikhin (pp. 44-45):

"His interest in creating a universal language similar to Esperanto reflected his faith in the internationalism of poetic culture."

From Wikipedia: Pan-Slavic language:

"Neposlava (Непослава) was created by Vsevolod Evgrafovich Cheshikhin (Всеволод Евграфович Чешихин) in 1915 in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. In 1913 he created a system to construct zonal languages based on Esperanto affixes which are used with national roots and called it Nepo. Then in 1915 he created a nepo-language based on the Slavic lexicon - Neposlava ("Slavic Nepo"). He also used this system to construct other "new Esperantoes" based on Latin-Romance and Germanic languages."

Vol 3: The Making and Remaking of Literary Institutions (2007): From the "General Introduction" by John Neubauer (with Inna Peleva on Bulgaria and Mihály Szegedy-Maszák on Kölcsey and Széchenyi) (pp. 1-38), on competing Hebrew and Yiddish revivals (p. 13):

"The rivalry was unique even on a purely linguistic level, for unlike Croatian and Serbian or Czech and Slovak, Hebrew and Yiddish represented two radically different languages and cultures, both of which lived embedded in other linguistic environments (Russian, Polish etc.) that had reached already more advanced stages in their own awakening. Esperanto was invented by an Ashkenazi Jew, Ludwik Lazarus Zamenhof, as an attempt to overcome this Babel."

Vol. 4: Types and Stereotypes (2010): Introduction to section on women authors (pp. 221-227) in a discussion of dystopias mentions Sándor Szathmári (p. 226):

The most famous East-Central European dystopia R.U.R. (see Veronika Ambros's article in this volume), in which the robots kill off all but one of their makers on a remote island. Since they arenot programmed to generate successors, the robots also seem doomed to extinction, but a love affair between a male and a female robot offers some hope for species survival. The ending resembles that of Imre Madách's Az ember tragédiája (Tragedy of Man; 1862), where Adam, having surveyed the history and the projected future of mankind, wants to commit suicide and thus terminate mankind but is prevented from it by Eve's announcement that she is pregnant. Such pessimistic projections of a future surely qualify as dystopias, even if they do not involve totalitarian visions of society. Dystopic in this sense are also two Hungarian novels, Sándor Szathmári's Kazohinia (1941), one of the most important novels written in Esperanto, and Ferenc Karinthy's Epepe (1971), published in English with considerable success in 2008.