Podcast — Episode 21
Modernity and History in Hungarian Poetry: A Conversation with Zsuzsanna Ozsváth
Our guest on this episode is Zsuzsanna Ozsváth, whose book of translations, The Golden Goblet: Selected Poems of Goethe (with Frederick Turner), is available from Deep Vellum Publishing.
Part One:
Invasions, and the formation of Hungarian national consciousness, from the Tatars to the Revolution of 1848 (2:00) — The multiethnic culture of Hungary after World War I (6:45) — preparing Light within the Shade: 800 Years of Hungarian Poetry (10:00) — The story of Hungarian poet Miklós Radnóti (11:30) — Translating the greatest modern Hungarian poets — Radnóti, Attila József— and Goethe (13:30) — Reading the poem “Foamy Sky” (18:00) — Radnóti’s awareness of his imminent death (21:30)
Part Two:
The book of poems, written on postcards, found in Radnóti’s coat pocket after his death (0:30) — A reading of the “Razglednicas” (4:00) — The special position, and sense of fate, borne by poets in Hungary as “speakers of the nation” (9:15) — Introducing the great Hungarian poet Attila József (12:00) — Reading “With a Pure Heart” (16:00) — When the Danube Ran Red: recalling a cultured childhood in Budapest (18:00) — The war from a child’s point of view (19:30)