István Vas
Budapest, 24 September 1910 – Budapest, 16 December 1991
István Vas was born in Budapest, in Lipótváros, into an up-and-coming, bourgeois Jewish family. The novel, defining theme of his poetry is the city, which remains an important area throughout his whole life. Although there were mainly rabbis among his ancestors, his father, Pál Vas, was already a textile merchant, a company manager. He also intended his son to follow this career. In contrast with the desperate manifestations of paternal rigor, László Vajthó, his Hungarian teacher at the Dániel Berzsenyi Secondary Grammar School, and the literary circle meant the way out for the awakening István Vas.
At the end of his secondary school studies, he joined left-wing groups, Lajos Kassák himself and the Work Circle, with avant-garde enthusiasm. The young Vas István was first called as a poet at the frequently mentioned meeting in Simplon Café. It is in this milieu where he met Zoltán Zelk, his important friend for the rest of his life, and Gyula Illyés, who represented new trends with his folk poetry. In the circle, he got in touch with artists who were trying their wings. After graduating, he enrolled in the Vienna Academy of Commerce at the request of his father, but did not finish his studies - instead of school, he read, went to the library, and got to know Etel Nagy, Lajos Kassák’s daughter. This love strengthened the inhibited young man seeking his place; Etel Nagy helped him develop into a man. He supported Eti, who was preparing to become a eurythmist, in her studies and in her quest for independence. Both families looked at their relationship, which was made official by marriage in 1935, with repugnance.
His love with Eti coincided with his departure from the programme of Kassák. István Vas, who more and more regularly introduced himself as a poet, was becoming “classic”, turning to poetic traditions and set forms. In addition to the knowledge of German he had brought from home, he was learning English and French. The young man, who was fluent in several languages, started translating. Thanks to the translation of Appolinaire's works, he had the opportunity to collaborate with Miklós Radnóti, he won the poet's friendship and then felt his excruciating absence. The writer and translator Vas, who was writing with increasing enthusiasm, was forced to do an office job as an accountant at Standard Villamossági Rt. to make a living. In addition to his extremely bound, time-consuming work, he was creating poems continuously, publishing the first ones in a book entitled Autumn Destruction (Őszi rombolás), which was followed by the thin Letter on Freedom (Levél a szabadságról). An important stage in his recognition and personal confirmation is the “blessing” by Dezső Kosztolányi and then that by Mihály Babits, as well as the opportunity to publish his poetry in the West (Nyugat). The first poems of the left-wing István Vas were published on the pages of Our Age (Korunk) and Work (Munka) in Cluj-Napoca, but only for a very short time. Out of the contemporary forums, it was the West that published his poems, out of the daily papers, the Pest Diary (Pesti Napló), while in the Answer (Válasz) became his literary forum in the 1930s. Meanwhile, he was the author of the Argonauts, the accepted organ of the third generation of the West, and a member of the Árpád Tóth Society, which was operating in the apartment of the revered Anna Hajnal.
Among the shrinking possibilities, he published his third volume in 1938, entitled Fleeing Muse (Menekülő Múzsa), and was baptized in the same year and entered into a church marriage with Etel Nagy. He was fired from his job because of the Jewish laws, but he was not tormented by financial insecurity - Etel Nagy died of a brain tumour at the age of 32 (1939). The death of his wife marked a devastating, unforgettable break in the life of István Vas. In her memory, he compiled an anthology against oblivion.
He was already going through a period of labour service and hiding with Mária Kutni, his new partner, who supported him continuously with her smart, sober decisions. The exemption obtained through his first wife in 1944, was no longer enough during the German occupation. Géza Ottlik and his wife Gyöngyi Debreczeni were hiding István Vas in their apartment. Despite differences in vehemence, a strong friendship developed between Ottlik and Vas during these distressed months.
The literary life that started after the war, on the ruins of the destruction recorded in poems and diaries, soon provided István Vas with a professional job and a position as a lecturer. At Révai Publishing House and then at Szépirodalmi Publishing House, next to Endre Illés, he finally got involved in real translation, publishing work and the activity of professional workshops. However, his book Double Vortex (Kettős örvény), published at the time of the inspiring start, was still an imprint of stagnation of private life. He married Marika Kutni in 1945, but his relationship with Szántó Piroska, which started in 1940 and then returned as a hiding stream, made his marriage constantly uncertain and run aground. He had the opportunity to travel to his coveted Italy with Marika, on a Roman scholarship, in 1947. The poetic imprint of the experiences was published in a volume entitled Roman Moment (Római pillanat) in 1948.
Although he worked in publishing, including the European Publishing House, until his retirement (1971), it did not necessarily mean the unconditional recognition of his oeuvre as an author. István Vas was able to leave the Hungarian Communist Party at his own request after the lucky conclusion of the distrust proceedings, which lasted for more than two years from 1949. However, after this incident, only his translations were published for a long time. The presence of Ferenc Juhász, who became his friend during hiding, and the young people gathering around him (István Kormos, László Nagy), his settling private life with Piroska Szántó, and the collaboration with Endre Illés brought productive years: the drama entitled Tristan (Trisztán), written with Illés, his collection of translations The Songs of the Seven Seas (A hét tenger éneke), his twisting novel Lost Homes (Elveszett otthonok) were published in this period, and his highly successful musical Three Nights of a Love Affair (Egy szerelem három éjszakája) was also presented. His jubilee volume of poems Rhapsody in an Autumn Garden (Rapszódia egy őszi kertben), which was published in 1960, was a real festival. After that, books by István Vas were regularly published, including his new, elegiac, ironic Self-Portrait from the Seventies (Önarckép a hetvenes évekből) in 1975, and, lastly, We Still Have Time (Ráérünk), in 1983.
Launched in 1957, he continued his series of confessional, investigative, self-analysing novels with great vigour: Hard Love (Nehéz szerelem), Why is the vulture screeching? (Mért vijjog a saskeselyű?), Afterwards (Azután) The chapter entitled Absolution (Feloldozás), closing the great work with the Revolution of 1956, has not been completed. He failed to account for the events of 1956 and the road leading up to them in prose Poems guard the soon-to-be-blown hopes and the desire for purification.
The slow consolidation after 1956 brought professional opportunities and recognition for István Vas: He was awarded the József Attila Prize in 1961, as well as the Kossuth Prize in 1962 and 1985. They bought a plot of land with Piroska Szántó in Szentendre. After building a small stone house on it, they spent a lot of time in their lush, flowery garden from spring to autumn. Their apartment on Péter Gróza Quay and their garden in Szentendre also constituted an open intellectual oasis that welcomed a group of friends and students. István Vas's extraordinary education, intellectual radiance, consistency and the soberness of his rationality in literary life provided him with an indisputable, albeit a kind of outsider position. His commitment to conformism, his friendship with György Aczél - who had once saved his as well as Piroska Szántó’s life - kept him away from the emerging democratic aspirations.
A touching, impressive relic of his vast oeuvre, his daily enduring work, is his work diary, which he began on 1 January 1944. His daily “robot”, registered with the titles of works, the number of lines, the birth of the works, the pace of the translations and the variety of genres can be traced through the pages - it is shocking that he wrote the last entry on 16 December, the day of his death.
Through Time’s Segments
Nearly midnight. Windows open. Summertime.
Moths cover the neon bar in my room.
I stand at the window. This solitude becomes
Chronic. I feel this room contains old rooms
from here, from there. The time, the space
Of rooms criss-crossing one another’s place.
This person, and that, the lodgers, reunite
Through time’s segments. To them
I speak in several kinds of time.
Alone. Speak tot he overflowing night.
(Daniel Hoffman)
Budapest
István Vas was born in Pest and remained a Pest resident for the rest of his life. The spacious apartment in Buda did not change this ("although I live in Buda, I can still feel that I live in Pest, at least I can see Pest"), nor did the smell of roses in the summers in Szentendre. The long poem Letter of Freedom is the text that captures István Vas's recognition of his feelings for Budapest as a city. The distance from the spacious terrace of his Veronika Street apartment in Rózsadomb, which gave him the pleasure of realising and belonging there, remained a beneficial distance from his experiences of the city, which he had made his home.
Szentendre
"Coincidence led me here. I cannot say it was direct relationship or attraction," István Vas said in a conversation recorded in 1989 about his arrival in Szentendre. At a very young age, summer rowing and excursions brought István Vas to the Pilis Mountains and to Szentendre on the banks of the Danube. He spent a longer period of time in the Hertl villa in Pismány with his first wife, Etel Nagy and her family in the summer of 1937. In the hope of Eti's recovery, the idyllic, quiet holiday in Szentendre - thanks to the care of Jolán Simon and the more and more placable Lajos Kassák - became a special time for them. The following year, István Vas travelled to Drégelypalánk for the last holiday together with the Kassák family. Later, Eti's illness worsened. The young dancer died of a brain tumour in 1939. István Vas met several of the artists who visited Szentendre and painted in the town, including Jenő Barcsay and Mária Modok. He was in closer friendship with Dezső Korniss, who had previously joined the Work Circle. Korniss invited his already widowed friend to introduce him to his fiancée, Anna Szántó. In 1940, on St. Peter and Paul's Day, they rowed from Budapest to Szentendre in four with Anna Szántó and her sister Piroska. They spent an unforgettable day in one of the small houses on Pismány Hill, which was scarcely inhabited at the time. After the decisive encounter, the slowly evolving and undulating relationship eventually became marriage. They married in Szentendre, at the site of their shared memories, on 30 June 1951, and remained together for the rest of their lives. Piroska Szántó came to Szentendre a few years earlier to paint, with a relaxed company who considered Lajos Vajda their master and gathered on the Haluska homestead away from the painters of the Szentendre Artists' Colony. Szentendre, the painting of Szentendre, the varied landscape and the built environment were decisive for painter Piroska Szántó. Due to their attraction and connection to the town, they bought a plot of land here in 1956 and built a weekend house and later a small studio on it for Piroska. This holiday home and garden, far from the city, became their home from early spring to late autumn. Pista Vas wrote, while Piri Szántó painted here. On Sundays, at 5 p.m., the couple’s garden opened to welcome their friends. The planned route of Highway 11, which was to be completed by the late 1970s, endangered the couple’s creative Tusculum. Due to their personal relationship with György Aczél, the highway was eventually led in a different direction. The small garden could remain an informal meeting place for writers and poets, a lively intellectual milieu. István Vas's experience of Szentendre glows in his early spacious poems “inspired by his soul”, it sounds gently in the flaming heat of the lines about the late garden.
fine art
In his autobiographical novel Lost Homes, István Vas details his parents' apartment in Sas Street, which he always considered to be oversized and ostentatious. The twisted-column home, crowded with Persian rugs and heavy furniture, was adorned with average of paintings, yet some of them captured his imagination. His father, Pál Vas, was in contact with Henrik Tamás, who later became a gallery owner, so he obtained a picture depicting bathers, presumably painted with fresher colours, by Béla Iványi Grünwald and two gloomier paintings by Gyula Rudnay. Unfortunately, the images did not survive the war, therefore we can only attempt to reconstruct the works which were more important to Vas. We know only the title of Iványi Grünwald's picture, which is too little information for the researcher. István Vas talks more about Rudnay's paintings, as their theme captured the imagination of the young man, who was open to socialist ideas. Based on his characterization, we can establish that the picture was the same as the oil painting entitled Vagabond in the exhibition of Gyula Rudnay and János Pásztor: “a ragged tramp, stretching out on a hillside, with an extremely bitter and challenging face and pose, in an even darker tone”. The exhibition was curated by Tamás Henrik at the Ernst Museum in 1925. The comment ‘private property’ in the list of works suggests that the painting already belonged to István Vas's family at that time. The painting was a counterpart of the world of Endre Ady's poems, evoking "the end of a brownish-red Hungarian village in a storm, a kind of romantic rural landscape", similar to the landscape that Rudnay painted in many versions. Etel Nagy, István Vas’s first wife, as the daughter of Jolán Kassákné Simon, naturally joined the left-wing avant-garde Work Circle. As an activist, she helped to distribute the paper, sang in workers' glee-clubs, and performed in reciting choirs. Amid financial problems, without a solid background, in the shadow of the headstrong Lajos Kassák and the performer Jolán Simon, she built her dancing career and trained herself. Her perseverance was successful over time, and her choreographies based on contemporary music by Bartók, which adapted elements of Hungarian peasant dances, brought her recognition. She studied in Bratislava, Vienna (where she was a student of Gertrud Krauss) and Pest, and performed in the Downtown Theatre and at the Academy of Music, but her private school was banned for political reasons in 1936. Lajos Lengyel photographed Etel Nagy several times while she was dancing. His delicate, sensitive, objective images convey the devotion of both of them. When Lengyel joined the Work Circle, he began to take up photography, and his sociophotos can be found in the book Of Our Life, published by the Work Circle. In the 1920s and 1930s, the popular eurhythmics was a beloved subject for experimental photographers. It was considered to be an inspiring challenge to use the “freezing” photo to find the formal language to illustrate dance and movement. When Etel Nagy died of a brain tumour at the age of thirty-two, István Vas published a volume in memory of her, illustrated with typographies by Lajos Lengyel. In the book entitled A Hungarian Female Dancer, in addition to essays by Etel Nagy, poems and laudations by friends remembering her, a portrait by Lajos Lengyel and fifteen dance recordings bring the eurythmist to life. Tibor Déry did not write in the volume - he evoked Eti in the character of Éva Krausz in his novel The Unfinished Sentence. Inspired by the journal Document, István Vas visited the Hungarian avant-garde apostle, Lajos Kassák, who had returned from his emigration to Vienna and freed the young rhymer with his words of appreciation: “Mr. Vass, you are a poet!”. His first works were published on the pages of Work, which was started in 1928 - it was Kassák's third paper. Vas attended the meetings of the Work Circle, got acquainted with the artists of the group: with Dezső Korniss, Ernő Schubert, Sándor Trauner, Lajos Vajda, printer, typographer and photographer Lajos Lengyel - and Etel Nagy, Kassák’s stepdaughter. Dezső Korniss, who was moving away from the Work Circle and the avant-garde, remained a friend of István Vas and his love, Etel Nagy, and a returning, constant guest from Paris in the couple's changing apartments. Among the artists gathering around Kassák, István Vas appreciated Korniss the most; he loved the archaic, but at the same time modern tastes of his early paintings. At the 1930 exhibition of KÚT (WELL), it was a little portrait painted in this spirit that captured him: “It was a strange, unworldly portrait of a girl, in a highly stylized form, yet an authentically unique depiction of character in deep brown tones, yet these dark colours shone brightly. It was the most modern piece in the exhibition. Meanwhile some unidentifiable archaic desire for form was hidden in the picture, and it only increased its novelty.” Vas himself kept a picture of Eti by Korniss, in which “Eti's head was waving in the ecstasy of the Kuruc dance”. In the summer of 1940, Dezső Korniss invited István Vas to visit Szentendre on St. Peter and Paul's Day to introduce his bride, Anna Szántó. Anna Szántó and her sister, painter Piroska Szántó, were spending the summer in Szentendre. Piroska Szántó was a member of an informal painters’ colony (Anna Margit, Imre Ámos, Endre Bálint, Dezső Korniss, Éva Törzs, Júlia Vajda and Lajos Vajda), who worked together as a loose group on the Haluska farm in Pismány. Vas did not consider Lajos Vajda, who was still in the circle around Kassák, to be such a significant a talent as Piroska Szántó and her friends considered him ten years later. They already respected him as their master. His recollection of Vajda testifies his devotion, while his works from the 1940s reflect Vajda’s powerful and fascinating effect.
The Novelist
István Vas began his autobiographical novel in 1942 and wrote it with more or less intensity until his death. He described his childhood and youth in his volume Lost Homes (1957). The sequel was published under the collective title Hard Love. The Novel of Lyric was published in 1964, while The Interrupted Investigation in 1967. Why is the vulture screeching?, which incorporated János Arany’s line into its title, was published in 1981. In his novel Afterwards, he reported on the period lasting from the death of his first wife, Etel Nagy, to the liberation of Budapest in 1945. She was still alive when the book was published in 1991. In the last two years of his life, it was his great venture to get to the planned end of the stream of the novel stream, the symbolic scene of the 1956 revolution: the October sunshine was suddenly replaced by torrential rain — he had no time left to write it. The completed excerpts were published posthumously in Holmi, under the title Absolution. Vas offered an ever-changing name to define the genre of complex and embarrassingly honest prose. He wrote the story of his search for identity, the ‘novel of his lyric’, the sociology of the age by applying the traditions of memoir literature, combining the excitement of developmental and detective novels with the intellectual clarity of the essay. In addition, he moved a huge apparatus to authenticate his personal voice. He investigated passionately. He used his (poetry) diaries and work diary. He picked up books, magazine articles and critiques he once read. He reviewed his correspondence, lecturer's reports, analysed his poems and writings, and studied the memoirs published on the era. He counterbalanced his unfolding, confessional voice with a never-ending self-irony, discipline, and an objective account. The gap between the time planes of writing and the depicted period never narrowed - he did not overwrite his previous self with his subsequent judgments and experience. Although the circular editing principle he initially announced ran aground, he built up his writing by experimenting with newer and newer methods. The mediation and the novel-like quality were strengthened by the multiple passages of the main text, playing with the foreword, the afterword and the notes on the side of the page.
The Translator
”Actually, why don’t you translate?” Mihály Babits asked István Vas in 1933. The young poet, who had only read German and French until then, embarked upon learning ”commercial” English and started translating seriously. First, he tried an eight-line poem entitled An Old Song Resung by Yeats. The volume of collected poems by Guillaume Apollinaire published in 1940 included six poems in his interpretation. He had been dealing with English Baroque poetry, e.g. works by John Donne and Andrew Marvell, since 1943, but his collection entitled English Baroque Lyric could only be published in 1946. He began translating drama, including Henry VI and Richard III by Shakespeare, in the 1940s. During his forced silence, he fled to literary translation, and, in addition to his work as a proof-reader, it became his main activity and refuge. During this period, he translated Goethe, Schiller, Racine, Thackeray, Heine, and Molière. His collection of translations was published in 1955 and 1957 under the title Song of the Seven Seas. It is rarely known that the poetry of T. S. Eliot, Goethe, Villon, Keats, Cavaphis, and Nally Sachs can be read in his interpretation, but he is also credited with the Hungarian text of Franz Rákóczi II's memoirs. In theatres, for example, Tartuffe, Don Carlos and the Beggar's Opera have been performed in his translation for decades. He believed that ”good Hungarian translation that itself becomes a significant Hungarian work, and not only because it sounds beautifully and naturally in Hungarian -»as if it were written in Hungarian«, as they say - but also due to its foreignness, that it tells something that has not been told before, or could not be told in Hungarian at that time; that its after-life has an effect on living literature”. Translation was writing practice, passion and a mission for him. All his works opened up a new world: ”in order to feel really at home in the world of a foreign poet, I have to translate at least something from his work into the world of the Hungarian language and, within that, into the world of my poetry”. István Vas confessed to his professional and personal motivation for translation, his professional secrets, and his greed with which he started work, reading the poems of a poet in his essays. Moreover, he sincerely admitted that he could not give back the words of some poets in Hungarian.