It’s winter

Sándor Kányádi, when applying the image of the cycle of nature to history and thus making understandable and supportable with the metaphor of the approaching winter that massive and irreversible destruction which took place in the past century not only in Transylvania, but in the whole of Eastern Europe, either consciously or unconsciously followed the example of those – Transylvanian and European – Humanist predecessors who, perhaps also for their own comfort, explained and represented as inevitable with the cycles of human life and nature the rise and decline of nations. The winter as a metaphor for desperate historical situations has a long tradition and is still alive in the literature of various peoples.


In Hungarian its most famous example is undoubtedly the last two stanzas of Mihály Vörösmarty’s Foreword, written “in Baracska, in the late winter of 1850-51”, which expands to cosmic proportions the tragedy of the lost war of independence of 1848-49 and the subsequent bloody retaliation. The introductory verse of the penultimate stanza, “Now it’s winter and snow and silence and death” is a well-known topos for every Hungarian even if they do not remember anything else of the poem. The particular cruelty of the poem is that while the winter metaphor implicitly includes the possibility of a nearing spring, Vörösmarty explicitly states that the spring, even if it will come, will be just a lie.

(…) Most tél van és csend és hó és halál. A föld megőszült; Nem hajszálanként, mint a boldog ember, Egyszerre őszült az meg, mint az Isten, Ki megteremtvén a világot, embert, E félig istent, félig állatot, Elborzadott a zordon mű felett És bánatában ősz lett és öreg. Majd eljön a hajfodrász, a tavasz, S az agg föld tán vendéghajat veszen, Virágok bársonyába öltözik. Üvegszemén a fagy fölengedend, S illattal elkendőzött arcain Jókedvet és ifjuságot hazud: Kérdjétek akkor ezt a vén kacért, Hová tevé boldogtalan fiait?

(…) Now it’s winter and snow and silence and death. The earth has turned white. Not hair by hair like a happy man: it turned white at once, like God who, having created the world and man, this half-god and half-animal being was horrified over the grim work and turned white and old in his sorrow. Later will come the hairdresser, the spring, and the old earth will perhaps take a wig, she will dress in the velvet of flowers the ice will thaw on her glass eyes and on her cheek camouflaged with perfumes she will lie cheerfulness and youth. Ask then this aged coquette: where has she put her unhappy children?

For our generation, if on a different poetic level, but a similar role was played by a song written by János Bródy after the state of emergency introduced on 13 December 1981 in Poland and the suppression of the Solidarity movement. The song, though at that time was broadcasted on the radio, could be first published on LP only after the change of the regime, on the album “1977-1990” performed by Zorán Sztevanovity.

János Bródy – Zorán Sztevanovity: Do not wait for May. From the album 1977-1990 (1990)

Készülj a hosszú télre, kedvesem Mert hosszú lesz a tél, én azt hiszem A szíved melegét tedd el nekem Én majd a szemed fényét őrizem Szedd össze mindazt, ami megmarad Csak lassan égesd el a vágyakat Csavard a lángot lejjebb, kedvesem A tűzre szükség lesz még, úgy hiszem Ne várd a májust, hiszen közelít a tél Ne várd a májust, kedvesem Öltözz fel jól, ha az utcára kilépsz S ha fázol, bújj az ágyba velem Szelíd legyél, derűs és hallgatag És bölcs mosollyal tűrd, ha bántanak Legyél folyó, s ha támad majd a tél Páncélod lesz kemény és hófehér Készülj a hosszú télre, kedvesem Mert hosszú lesz a tél, én azt hiszem

Get ready for the long winter, my dear, because the winter will be long, I think Keep the warmth of your heart for me and I will guard the light of your eyes Pick up everything that remains and just slowly burn up the desire turn the flame down, my dear we will still need the fire, I think Do not wait for May, for winter is nearing do not wait for May, my dear dress up well when you step out to the street and if you’re cold, get down in the bed with me Be gentle, serene and silent and put up a wise smile if you’re hurt Become a river, and when winter attacks you’ll have an armor, hard and white Get ready for the long winter, my dear, because the winter will be long, I think

Kata remembers it like this: “I do not know whether János Bródy wrote it on that occasion or not, but to me this song is clearly linked to the suppression of Solidarność. We were then twenty years old, we were looking forward to life to open to us, to be in love and to be happy. We just wanted to go to a concert of Tamás Cseh when we learned the news. Life was all of a sudden darkened and locked away by Jaruzelski’s rise to power. We were sitting with my friend in my tiny room, the former servant’s hall of a former bourgeois apartment, and talking about that now everything is over, and that we have to expect a durable repression and the hardening of the dictatorship also in Hungary. Judit told that there was only a single slice left to us from life, and it was love. I heard this song immediately after that. And the coming years in fact were about this, that in the long winter people tried to obtain from each other the fullness and spaciousness of life, which necessarily led to tragedies. So this song still today evokes the servant’s hall, and still my stomach tightens just as thirty years ago, and I recall those people whom I saw getting spoiled in those years.”


One of the finest examples of the winter metaphor, however, comes from Iran, from one of the greatest Iranian poets of the 20th century, the creator of Persian free verse, Mehdi Akhavan Sales (1928-1990), of whom we have already translated some poems. His poem Zemestân ast – It’s winter is still so important in Iran that the greatest living musicians, the repeatedly quoted Mohammad Reza Shajarian (vocals) Hossein Alizadeh (tar), Kayhan Kalhor (kamanche) and the younger Shajarian (tombak) – the Masters of Persian Music – have set it to music and perform it, and this music accompanies also Rafi Pitts’ successful and gloomy film of 2006 about the daily life in Teheran’s poor neighborhoods, which also bears the same title.


Here below, after the Persian text and English translation of the poem we also include the full concert recording of It’s winter by the Masters in Los Angeles, December 2001 (41 minutes). If you are not yet accustomed to the meditative Persian music, then listen first to the some minutes long detail of the concert illustrated with the photos of two young Iranian photographers, Ehsan Amini and Hamed Masoumi whose pictures also accompany this post. The flash video includes only the last stanza with English subtitles. We do not insert it here, just give a link to it, so you can watch it full size.

As we have written several times already, the musicality of the language and the play with the accidental assonance of words is such an integral part of Persian poetry that it is virtually impossible to translate it to any language. Therefore we only give a more or less literal translation, complemented below with the audio recordings of the poem. This time the translation is not ours, but the widely used one by Mahvash Shahegh, which in some places slightly differs from the original text, and to which we have added in gray the translation of those few verses which, for some unknown reason, were missing from her text.

زمستان است

سلامت را نمی خواهند پاسخ گفت
سرها در گریبان است

کسی سر بر نیارد کرد پاسخ گفتن و دیدار یاران را
نگه جز پیش پا را دید ، نتواند
که ره تاریک و لغزان است
وگر دست محبت سوی کسی یازی
به اکراه آورد دست از بغل بیرون
که سرما سخت سوزان است

نفس ، کز گرمگاه سینه می اید برون ، ابری شود تاریک
چو دیوار ایستد در پیش چشمانت .
نفس کاین است ، پس دیگر چه داری چشم
ز چشم دوستان دور یا نزدیک ؟

مسیحای جوانمرد من ! ای ترسای پیر پیرهن چرکین
هوا بس ناجوانمردانه سرد است … ای
دمت گرم و سرت خوش باد
سلامم را تو پاسخ گوی ، در بگشای

منم من ، میهمان هر شبت ، لولی وش مغموم
منم من ، سنگ تیپاخورده ی رنجور
منم ، دشنام پست آفرینش ، نغمه ی ناجور

نه از رومم ، نه از زنگم ، همان بیرنگ بیرنگم
بیا بگشای در ، بگشای ، دلتنگم
حریفا ! میزبانا ! میهمان سال و ماهت پشت در چون موج می لرزد
تگرگی نیست ، مرگی نیست
صدایی گر شنیدی ، صحبت سرما و دندان است

من امشب آمدستم وام بگزارم
حسابت را کنار جام بگذارم
چه می گویی که بیگه شد ، سحر شد ، بامداد آمد ؟
فریبت می دهد ، بر آسمان این سرخی بعد از سحرگه نیست
حریفا ! گوش سرما برده است این ، یادگار سیلی سرد زمستان است
و قندیل سپهر تنگ میدان ، مرده یا زنده
به تابوت ستبر ظلمت نه توی مرگ اندود ، پنهان است
حریفا ! رو چراغ باده را بفروز ، شب با روز یکسان است

سلامت را نمی خواهند پاسخ گفت
هوا دلگیر ، درها بسته ، سرها در گریبان ، دستها پنهان
نفسها ابر ، دلها خسته و غمگین
درختان اسکلتهای بلور آجین
زمین دلمرده ، سقف آسمان کوتاه
غبار آلوده مهر و ماه
زمستان است

zemestân ast

salâmat-râ nemikhâhand pâsokh goft
sarhâ dar geribân ast

kasi sar bar nayârad kard pâsokh goftan o didâr iârân-râ
negah joz pish-e pâ-râ did, natânad
ke rah târikh o laghzân ast
vagar dast-e mohabbat sui kasi yâzi
be ekrâh âvarad dast az baghal birun
ke sarmâ sakht suzân ast

nafas, kaz garmgâh sine miâyad borun, abri shavad târik
cho divâri isad dar pish-e chasmânat
nafas kinast, pas digar che dâri chasm
ze chasm-e dustân-e dur yâ nazdik?

masihâye javânmard-e man! i tarsâye pir-e pirhan cherkin
havâ bas nâjavanmardâne sar dast… ây
damat garm o sarat khosh bâd
salâmam-râ to pâsakh gui, dar bokshây

manam man, mihmân-e har shabat, luli vash-e maghmun
manam man, sang-e tipâkhorde i ranjur
manam, dushnam-e past-e âfarinesh, naghme-ye nâjur

na az rumam, na az zangam, hamân birang-e birangam
biâ bogshâ-ye dar, bogshâ-ye, dâtnagam
harifâ, mizbânâ, mihmân-e sâl o mâhat posht-e dar jun moj milarzad
tagargi nist, margi nist
sedâyi gar shanidi, sohbot-e sarmâ va dandân ast

man emshab âmadastam vâm bogzâram
hesâbat-râ kenâr-e jâm bogzâram
che miguyi ke miga shod, sahar shod, bâmdâd âmad?
faribat midahad, bar âsmân in sorkhi-ye ba‘d az sahargah nist
harifâ! gush-e sarhâ borde ast in, yâdegâr-e sili-ye sard-e zemestân ast
va ghandil-e sepehr-e tang midân, morde yâ zende
be tâbut-e setabr-e zolmat-e na tuye marg andud, penhân ast
harifâ! ro cherâgh-e bâde-râ befruz, shab bâ ruz yeksân ast

salâmat-râ nemikhâhand pâsokh goft
havâ dâgir, darhâ baste, sarhâ dar garibân, dasteha penhân
nafashâ abr, delhâ khaste va ghamgin
derakhtân eskelethâye bolur âjin
zamin delmorde, saghf âsmân kutâ
ghobâr âlude mehr o mâh
zemestân ast

It’s winter

They are not going to answer your greeting
Their heads are in their collars

Nobody is going to raise his head
To answer a question or to see a friend
The eyes cannot see beyond the feet
The road is dark and slick
If you stretch a friendly hand towards anybody
He hardly brings his hand out of his pocket
For the cold is so bitter

The breath coming out of your chest
Turns into a dark cloud
And stands like a wall in front of your eyes
While your own breath is like this
What do you expect from your distant or close friends?

My gentle Messiah, O, dirty dressed monk
The weather is so ungently cold
You be warm and happy
You answer my greeting and open the door

It is me, your nightly guest, an unhappy gypsy;
It is me, a kicked up, afflicted stone
It is me, a low insult of creation, an untuned melody.

I am neither white nor black, * I am colorless
Come and open the door, see how cheerless I am
O, my dear host, your nightly guest is shivering outside
There is no hail outside, no death;
If you hear any sound, it is the sound of cold and teeth.

I came tonight to repay the loan

to put down my bond beside your cup

What are you saying, that
It is too late, it is dawn, it is day?
That’s an illusion! What you see on the sky
Is not the redness after dawn
It is the result of the winter’s slap
On the sky’s cheeks

And the lantern of the sky, whether dead or alive,

Is covered by the thick coffin of the darkness.

O, partner go and get the wine ready
Days and nights are the same

They are not going to answer your greeting
The air is gloomy, doors are closed,
The heads are in collars, the hands are hidden,
The breaths are clouds, the people are tired and sad,
The trees are crystallized skeletons, the earth is low-spirited
The roof of the sky is low
The sun and moon are hazy
It’s winter

On this recording the poem is recited by Mahvash Shahegh, while on the following video by Mehdi Akhavan Sales himself, who was also an excellent performer.



And here you can listen to the complete concert recording of 2001:

Hossein Alizadeh - Kayhan Kalhor - Mohammad Reza Shajarian – Homayoun Shajarian: Zemestân ast (“It’s winter”). Recording of the December 2001 concert of California (41'47)

Soñando viejas luces de Hungría

That this our world is so small, to follow on the catchword of the previous post, is attested by the fact that all the three songs randomly selected as examples of history sung link up in some way the two fines terrae of Latin culture, Spain and Hungary. I have already expounded this about the first and the third song, but about the second I only discovered the same after the publication of the post.


Dusán & Zorán Sztevanovity: Volt egy tánc (There Was a Dance) (From the CD Az élet dolgai (The Things of Life), 1991) (See its text and our comments in the previous post.)

This song, Volt egy tánc (There Was a Dance) was written by Dusán Sztevanovity on the melody of the popular Take This Waltz by Leonard Cohen


Leonard Cohen, Take This Waltz (From the CD I’m Your Man, 1988)

However, the lyrics of the original song of Cohen is a free translation of a poem by Federico García Lorca. Here you can read Cohen’s text together with the English translation of Lorca’s poem, while here a comparison of the two texts. And here below the poem in the original Spanish.

Little Viennese Waltz In Vienna there are ten little girls a shoulder for death to cry on and a forest of dried pigeons. There is a fragment of tomorrow in the museum of winter frost. There is a thousand-windowed dance hall. Ay, ay, ay, ay! Take this close-mouthed waltz. Little waltz, little waltz, little waltz, of itself, of death, and of brandy that dips its tail in the sea. I love you, I love you, I love you, with the armchair and the book of death down the melancholy hallway, in the iris's dark garret, in our bed that was once the moon's bed, and in that dance the turtle dreamed of. Ay, ay, ay, ay! Take this broken-waisted waltz In Vienna there are four mirrors in which your mouth and the echoes play. There is a death for piano that paints the little boys blue. There are beggars on the roof. There are fresh garlands of tears. Aye, ay, ay, ay! Take this waltz that dies in my arms. Because I love you, I love you, my love, in the attic where children play, dreaming ancient lights of Hungary through the noise, the balmy afternoon, seeing sheep and irises of snow through the dark silence of your forehead. Ay, ay, ay ay! Take this “I will always love you” waltz. In Vienna I will dance with you in a costume with a river's head. See how the hyacinths line my banks! I will leave my mouth between your legs, my soul in photographs and lilies, and in the dark wake of your footsteps, my love, my love, I will have to leave violin and grave, the waltzing ribbons.

Pequeño vals vienés En Viena hay diez muchachas, un hombro donde solloza la muerte y un bosque de palomas disecadas. Hay un fragmento de la mañana en el museo de la escarcha. Hay un salón con mil ventanas. ¡Ay, ay, ay, ay! Toma este vals con la boca cerrada. Este vals, este vals, este vals, este vals, de sí, de muerte y de coñac que moja su cola en el mar. Te quiero, te quiero, te quiero, con la butaca y el libro muerto, por el melancólico pasillo, en el oscuro desván del lirio, en nuestra cama de la luna y en la danza que sueña la tortuga. ¡Ay, ay, ay, ay! Toma este vals de quebrada cintura. En Viena hay cuatro espejos donde juegan tu boca y los ecos. Hay una muerte para piano que pinta de azul a los muchachos. Hay mendigos por los tejados, hay frescas guirnaldas de llanto. ¡Ay, ay, ay, ay! Toma este vals que se muere en mis brazos. Porque te quiero, te quiero, amor mío, en el desván donde juegan los niños, soñando viejas luces de Hungría por los rumores de la tarde tibia, viendo ovejas y lirios de nieve por el silencio oscuro de tu frente. ¡Ay, ay, ay, ay! Toma este vals, este vals del «Te quiero siempre». En Viena bailaré contigo con un disfraz que tenga cabeza de río. ¡Mira qué orillas tengo de jacintos! Dejaré mi boca entre tus piernas, mi alma en fotografías y azucenas, y en las ondas oscuras de tu andar quiero, amor mío, amor mío, dejar, violín y sepulcro, las cintas del vals.

The great Flamenco singer Enrique Morente who had met Leonard Cohen in 1993 in Madrid dedicated to his songs and to Lorca’s poems the CD Omega of 1996 that has since become a veritable cult disk in Spain. On this he sings the Pequeño vals vienés with the melody of Cohen, but with the original text of Lorca in a fascinating Flamenco style.


Federico García Lorca: Pequeño vals vienés, performed by Enrique Morente

And to make the links between the two fines terrae even more intricate, Lorca himself mentions Hungary in his poem: Soñando viejas luces de Hungría – “Dreaming about the ancient lights of Hungary”. And indeed this is the very subject of the text written sixty years later by Dusán Sztevanovity on the melody of Cohen and on the memory of the lost generation of his parents. The circle closes.

History sung

Recently we were listening with Wang Wei along a whole night to the songs of the Spanish Transition, comparing those years with those of the change of regimes in Eastern Europe. During that night we decided that we would post for each other some songs now and then that put into words the history as it was personally experienced, and that thus became “hymns” for a generation, as they say in Spanish.

Such songs, in spite of their popularity in their own countries, are almost always unknown beyond their borders. They are never translated, and when their melody is occasionally borrowed it is always provided with a new text. Only if you take into consideration how many such songs you know and love in your own language – and hereby we ask the benevolent Reader to share with us her or his own ones – then you realize how important dimensions of the history of all the other countries remain unknown to you, even if you perhaps know the languages of some of them.

At the same time it is exactly the local notoriety of these songs that makes it difficult to write about them in one’s own language. For what could I tell about them that my compatriots do not know? If it were not for the deliberate bilinguism of our blog, we would prefer to write about them only in English, so that Wang Wei – or Pei Di – would translate them only into Spanish or Hungarian, respectively. Under the circumstances, however, we cannot but keep in mind an ideal reader who is a foreigner but nevertheless reads well Hungarian or Spanish; and consequently we also expect our benevolent Reader to keep in mind that these posts have been written for such an ideal reader and to benevolently forgive us the references to things too well known to her or him.

It is even difficult to label these posts in their original languages. In English most of such songs are called “ballads” and those who sing them “ballad singers.” In other languages there is no word for the genre, but yes for their authors-singers, like the Spanish and Italian “cantautores” and “cantautori”, or the Russian “бард”. In Hungarian, however, neither the genre nor its singers have a term of their own, although both of them exist since the medieval minstrels and the wandering chronicle-singers of the Turkish wars to János Bródy and Dusán Sztevanovity (the latter has just published in print his complete lyrics written since the '60s with the title Csak szöveg [Just texts]). Finally, while keeping “ballad” as our English label, in the Hungarian version of the blog we decided to adopt the label “énekelt versek” (“poems sung”) coined by the great performer Ferenc Sebő in the '80s which also indicates how much this genre has borrowed from written poetry, both from medieval minstrels and Renaissance chronicle-singers and from modern authors.


As this thread started from the songs of various changes of regimes, let us open our sounding gallery with the song of the Hungarian change of regime undergone by ourselves, the Happy times by Zorán Sztevanovity.

(Those who read some Hungarian, here can find a fascinating short biography of the two brothers of Serbian origin, the singer Zorán and the poet Dušán whose father, having fought as a Serbian partisan against the Nazis, suffered several years of persecution, imprisonment and tortures in the '50s as a member of the Yugoslavian embassy of Budapest for resisting to the claims of autocracy of both Tito and Stalin. One of their most famous songs, also quoted below, bears reference to these events.)

Interestingly, the experiences of the years of change in the late '80s and early '90s, bringing with themselves the interruption of so many friendships falling on the other side of the unexpectedly and irrationally outlined new ideological borders, will be also familiar to our Spanish readers, albeit not in the perspective of twenty, but rather of eighty years. We specifically call the attention of our foreign readers to such polysemic idioms like “camp” (peace camp, pioneer camp, labour camp), or “digging a pit” (“gravediggers of capitalism” and the Hungarian proverb “who digs a pit for others will fall in it himself”), as well as to such idiosyncrasies like the unspecific great purpose or the never-falling sun of glory that will also sound familiar to those heirs of the world empire of Emperor Charles V (above which the sun never fell) who have lost it through a long series of defeats.


Dusán Sztevanovity (text) and Zorán (song):
Boldog idő (Happy time) (from the CD Az élet dolgai (The things of life), 1991)

So proudly stood the camp in the very middle of the world and we had a tent of our own and her and me in it It was a tremendously bright age the Sun shone day and night and we discovered the great purpose: she me and I her. It was a great life The song was echoing on The heart was drumming for that was a beautiful, happy time no wine, no money, only me and her That was a beautiful, happy time happy time In the daytime we mostly digged pits: the beautiful future already came up to the shoulders and we were always on the top once me and then her Tell me anything, but I liked that damned past time because there was the tent in it and her and me in the tent It was a great life The song was echoing on The heart was drumming for that was a beautiful, happy time no wine, no money, only me and her That was a beautiful, happy time only me and her, happy time And then the camp suddenly collapsed in the very middle of the peace and the tent buried us under itself with me and her in it And by when we finally crept out there was no camp, only bad weather and we set out to seek for a new tent this way me and that way her In front of us there was the large horizon and I already see that this will be the beautiful happy time no problem, no money, no wine, no woman This will be the beautiful happy time no money, no woman happy time

Olyan büszkén állt a tábor Pont a világ kellős közepén És a miénk volt egy sátor Benne ő, és benne én Az egy roppant fényes kor volt Éjjel-nappal a Nap sütött És a nagy célt felfedeztük Engem ő, és én meg őt Nagy élet volt Az ének szólt A szív dobolt Mert az volt a szép boldog idő Se bor, se pénz, csak én meg ő Az volt a szép boldog idő Boldog idő Nappal főleg vermet ástunk Már vállig ért a szép jövő De mi mindig fölül voltunk Egyszer én, máskor ő Mondhatsz bármit, nekem tetszett Ez az átkos múlt idő Mert a sátor ott állt benne És benne én, s benne ő Nagy élet volt Az ének szólt A szív dobolt Mert az volt a szép boldog idő Se bor, se pénz, csak én meg ő Az volt a szép boldog idő Csak én meg ő, boldog idő Aztán összedőlt a tábor Pont a béke kellős közepén Maga alá gyűrt a sátor És benne ő, és benne én S mire lassan előbújtunk Tábor nincs, csak rossz idő Megyünk sátor után nézni Erre én és arra ő Előttünk áll A tág határ S én látom már Hogy az lesz a szép boldog idő Se gond, se pénz Se bor, se nő Az lesz a szép boldog idő Se pénz, se nő boldog idő

Two other songs serve for footnote to this one. The Volt egy tánc (There Was a Dance), written on the melody of Leonard Cohen’s “Take This Waltz” and published on the same CD – it could have not even been published earlier – sums up the history of the fifty years coming to a definitive end in 1989, through the personal history of the author’s and singer’s parents: from pre-war years, the last time when there was dance and brooch and culture in Hungary through the darkness of the fifties to the hopeless provincialism of the three decades of the so-called “Kádár era”. There’s not much to explain about this either. We call the attention of the foreign reader that the “dreadful car” is a synonyme of the idiom “fekete autó” (“black car”, e.g. “the black car came for him” = ‘he was arrested by the secret police’) that in those years put deep roots in colloquial Hungarian.


Dusán & Zorán Sztevanovity: Volt egy tánc (There Was a Dance) (From the CD Az élet dolgai (The Things of Life), 1991)

A show-white ship was sailing on the river and the boy and the girl pressed close to each other a colorful lampion was shining on the sky like the brooch on the deep blue vest And the board was filled with music, they played a slowly swinging romantic song ay, ay, ay, ay, there was a dance, a dance as beautiful as you only see in movies And the trains set off, one after the other and the boy was standing at the window and the old, hardeded soldiers in the wagon were just laughing at him: If you are a man, hide your tears – what will you do when coming to the battlefield? Ay, ay, ay, ay there was a dance, a dance and perhaps there will be a continuation one time A dance, a dance, a dance, a dance and through the flames, death and smoke a white ship is sailing And the trains came back, one after the other – some peaceful years we did merit too – and then came that dreadful car and it silently stopped in front of the house. And Mom was standing at the window and waiting for my father for years again. Ay, ay, ay, ay there was a dance, a dance perhaps there will be a continuation some time And the brooch was not enough to buy any more coal and the third winter passed away and an early morning they rang the bell three times and my father stood at the door It did not matter that we already had nothing the great pawnshop swallowed everything ay, ay, ay, ay there was a dance, a dance and perhaps there will be a continuation indeed A dance, a dance, a dance, a dance and through the prison, solitude and hope a white ship is sailing But the news and cannons were speaking again in fact, why should life be different? and we pressed all we had in two suitcases but we already did not manage to leave Now they watch the TV in silence where another world is shining and they don’t call anyone to account for the long series of stolen years Because dreams were lost for nothing like the clothes left in the pawnshop Hm, there was a dance a dance, a dance and sometimes they believed there would be a continuation

Hófehér hajó úszott a folyón S összesimult a fiú s a lány Színes lampion fénylett az égen Mint a brosstű a mélykék ruhán És a fedélzet zenével megtelt Szólt a ringató, lassú románc Aj, aj, aj, aj Volt egy tánc, volt egy tánc Ilyen szépet csak filmekben látsz És a vonatok indultak sorra És a fiú az ablakban állt És a vagonban nevettek rajta A harcedzett vén katonák Hogyha férfi vagy, rejtsd el a könnyed Mi lesz veled, ha a csatában jársz Aj, aj, aj, aj Volt egy tánc, volt egy tánc Talán egyszer még lesz folytatás Egy tánc, egy tánc, egy tánc, egy tánc És a lángon, a halálon, füstön át Úszik egy fehér hajó És a vonatok megjöttek sorra Néhány békeév nekünk is járt Aztán jött az a rettegett autó És a ház előtt halkan megállt És a mama az ablaknál állva Újra évekig apámra várt Aj, aj, aj, aj Volt egy tánc, volt egy tánc Talán egyszer még lesz folytatás És a brosstűből szénre már nem telt És a harmadik tél is lejárt És egy hajnalon csöngettek hármat És az apám az ajtóban állt Azt se bántuk, hogy nem volt már semmink Mindent elnyelt a nagy zálogház Aj, aj, aj, aj Volt egy tánc, volt egy tánc Talán mégiscsak lesz folytatás Egy tánc, egy tánc, egy tánc, egy tánc És a börtönön, magányon, reményen át Úszik egy fehér hajó De már szóltak a hírek s az ágyuk Mondd, az életük miért lenne más És mi mindent két bőröndbe gyűrtünk De már nem ment az elindulás Már csak csendesen nézik a tévét Ahol ragyog egy másik világ És ők nem kérik senkin se számon Az elrabolt évek sorát Pedig semmiért vesztek el álmok Mint a zálogban hagyott ruhák Hm, volt egy tánc Volt egy tánc, volt egy tánc S néha elhitték, lesz folytatás

And finally the same hopeless atmosphere is immortalized in another footnote song, the Vasárnap délután (Sunday Afternoon), as we have undergone it ourselves. When I look inside, I clearly see in front of me even today the stale silence and choking desperation of the empty city in a Sunday afternoon. When I tried to present this to Wang Wei as the quintessence of Eastern European existence, illustrating it precisely with the Vasárnap délután, he just laughed and cited to me the Portuguese fados speaking about the same unbearableness of Sunday. So small is this our world.


Dusán & Zorán Sztevanovity: Vasárnap délután (Sunday Afternoon) (From the CD Zorán III, 1979)

On Sunday afternoon the city dies a little bit and the shopwindows are somehow paler On Sunday afternoon a real ice cream is a real pleasure and sometimes I feel an old fragrance On Sunday afternoon, after the long and silent lunch Mom always put the nice clothes on me At the door she combed my hair and she did not pay attention to my demand to let me dress all the week like this. na - na - na - na - Sunday afternoon na - na - na - na - Sunday afternoon On Sunday afternoon the faces of the girls are a little bit nicer and the big boy promised to come home by ten The shoes are shining on the parquet floor of the dance school and a few pairs manage to perform the figure On Sunday afternoon was it that I got to know you your brother was playing chess with my father at us we were teenagers and I talked heaps of crap to you and we tried and found how good love was On Sunday afternoon perhaps anger is more silent, too and the divorced father can see his little son Relatives from the countryside pay visit to the newborns and all the flowers are bought up at the cemetery of Farkasrét. On Sunday afternoon was it that I saw you again and it all happened again as at one time You did not grew much more adult, neither I more serious and we knew beforehead how good it is to love On Sunday afternoon my time silently passes away and sometimes I feel as if you were nearing on Sunday afternoon is always too close the evening when I know you’ll never come again On Sunday afternoon the city dies a little bit and the shopwindows are somehow paler On Sunday afternoon nothing has happened since long only sometimes I feel an old fragrance

Vasárnap délután a város meghal egy kicsit És valahogy sápadtabbak a kirakatok Vasárnap délután egy igazi fagylalt jólesik És néha érzek egy régi illatot Vasárnap délután a csendes, hosszú ebéd után A mama rám adta mindig a szép ruhát Az ajtóban még megfésült és nem hallgatott rám Ha kértem, hadd járjak így egész héten át na - na - na - na - vasárnap délután, na - na - na - na - vasárnap délután Vasárnap délután a lányok arca kicsit szebb S a nagyfiú ígérte tízre hazajön A tánciskola parkettjén a cipők fényesek És néhány párnak a figura összejön Vasárnap délután volt mikor megismertelek A bátyád apámmal nálunk sakkozott Kamaszok voltunk és sok hülyeséget beszéltem neked És kipróbáltuk, a szerelem jó dolog Vasárnap délután talán a harag is csendesebb S az elvált apa láthatja kisfiát A vidéki rokonok látogatják az újszülötteket És Farkasréten is elfogy a sok virág Vasárnap délután volt mikor viszontláttalak És újra megtörtént, ahogyan egy régi napon Te sem lettél felnőttebb és én sem komolyabb És előre tudtuk, szeretni jó nagyon Vasárnap délután az időm csendesen megy el És néha úgy érzem, máris érkezel Vasárnap délután az este mindig túl közel Mikor tudom, hogy többé nem jössz el Vasárnap délután a város meghal egy kicsit És valahogy sápadtabbak a kirakatok Vasárnap délután már régen semmi sem történik Csak néha érzek egy régi illatot