Hungarian | Hungary | Short Fiction
April, 2019My major concern, when I sat down to translate this story, was whether the weight of the post-Soviet bloc and Hungarian history would carry over to an American audience--whether readers would get lost in the many significant dates that are mentioned. At the start of the story, we are told “it was November 16th, 1989, and God could once again step behind the Iron Curtain.” What’s helpful for an American reader to know is that by November 1989, Hungary was well into reforming from a communist state into a democratic republic, with opposition parties already established and with free elections not far on the horizon. Later, we learn that 1947 was the last year God had stepped foot inside a Hungarian pub, which was also the year the Soviets had officially gained governmental power by manipulating the political landscape and holding the last “free elections” the country would see for the next forty-three years. Finally, when the bartender asks God, who clearly looks out of place in the small-town pub, whether he’s a 56-er, he’s referring to the 200,000 Hungarians who fled Hungary after the 1956 Revolution against the Soviet Union, which lasted twelve days, saw the death of nearly three thousand Hungarians during the revolt and the execution of 299 after the Soviets regained power.
What I learned in the process of translating this story is that while knowing the historical significance behind these dates brings with it a richer reading of the work, it is actually the emotional truths that Ferenc Czinki conveys through his characters that make this story so resonant. Czinki makes it easy for readers to empathize with a people who have been forgotten, even by their own God, and readers likewise understand why God feels forgotten, too. Everyone is a stranger to one another here until God meets Somebody, and it is this shared sense of being forgotten that allows them a moment of connection.
The summer I discovered this story, Ferenc Czinki drove me around Inota. The old factory is still running; he pointed out the massive, cylindrical chimneys in the distance. We retraced God’s footsteps into the pub and drank a local Hungarian light beer with the few men who were there that lazy summer afternoon. I can attest to the fact that that countryside still feels rather forgotten, but in this story, as in much of his work, Czinki gives voice to this place and its people.
- Timea Balogh
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