“So my mother is right once again:

the cold of God has thinned us out,

and there will be no one left to light a candle on the graves.

I'm not going to argue with her about this.”

(Isten hidege megfogyasztott minket; lit. The Cold of God Has Thinned Us Out)

Attila Sántha is an independent poet, literary scholar, and thinker. From the outset he has pursued a distinctive path, one that he continues to monitor and adjust to this day. Even in his earliest, experimental texts, in both literary writing and theory, he sought renewal and freshness. He experienced the regime change of the post-socialist period deeply and personally, and it had a profoundly unsettling effect on him. As a university student, he came to recognise that the old modes of discourse could no longer be sustained, while the new directions emerging in Hungary did not satisfy his intellectual expectations. For this reason, together with his peers, he formulated the Transzközép literary manifesto, which he then attempted to realise both in theory and in practice. In this text, an attempt at interpretation, I will focus primarily on his works, as I consider biography in his case to be of lesser importance when viewed through the lens of the oeuvre itself. The works speak in his stead.

Münchhausen báró csodálatos versei (lit. Baron Münchhausen’s Wonderful Poems) (Erdélyi Híradó-Előretolt Helyőrség, Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvár) 1995)

Already from the title, and from the volume as a whole, it may be inferred that the fabulous figure of Münchhausen is of particular importance to Sántha, as it embodies poetry’s capacity to embellish reality and imagination (falsehood?). He is keen to declare this intention at once, already in the title itself. As both a practising poet and a theorist, the decision to place the Baron on the cover appears highly conscious, since many of the major themes of the oeuvre to date emerge repeatedly throughout the volume. (Viewed in retrospect, this interpretative advantage is already available to us.) This volume may be regarded as the concrete projection of the Transzközép manifesto, or ars poetica, published at the same time (by him/them, the Előretolt Helyőrség [lit. Outpost] literary community). A more extended discussion of what is meant by ‘transzközép’ literature would be required separately, particularly in relation to Írások könyve (lit. Book of Writings). Alongside the obvious influences, the poet’s visible and invisible masters are also present, figures who recur in one form or another in later volumes as well. These include Attila József, Domokos Szilágyi, Géza Szőcs, Nietzsche, Jenő Rejtő, whom I will also return to in connection with Book of Writings, Edward Lear, Christian Morgenstern, and others. It should be added that this list of names alone is already highly revealing with regard to the poet’s modes of thinking and influence.

Gott ist tot, Gott ist tot
and instead of the long-awaited celebration
an elephant copulated with Pluto
bright little globes circling their heads
pluphants began to fly about
and people devoured
one another’s nerves

but the poor messenger did not see this
he gave up his soul in joy
(since then tenants still see him
they complain the tap will not close
and the limeses keep dripping)

(Démoszthenész és a szituáció, lit. Demosthenes and the Situation)

Even from this it is evident how consciously the direct assumption of otherness (or provocation?) operates within Attila Sántha’s literary works. Viewed retrospectively across the oeuvre, traces of the neo-avant-garde also seem to be present in the intellectual disposition of his writing, beyond the postmodern and the post-Hungarian... Put more simply, what emerges most strongly is a duality characterised by the simultaneous presence of emotion and intellect, what Éva Cs. Gyimesi describes in the blurb as “a mixture of rawness and devotion”. The conscious embrace of this duality is highly characteristic of the entire body of work to date, generating a form of productive tension that continually operates within the texts themselves. This can also be illustrated by one of my favourite poems from that period, which shows that humour is likewise a crucial element of Attila Sántha’s early poetry. (A separate study could be devoted to the play of repetition and rhyme, but this is perhaps already evident from the quotation itself):

The tree sat down in the pub,
sat down to drink in the pub, the tree.
It just keeps drinking its wine, and drinking,
thinking at length,
almost writes its letter.
“Come on then, pen and paper here!”
the tree cried out cheerfully,
but really, to whom could a tree
write a letter
these days?

(A fa, lit. The Tree)

Az ír úr (lit. The Irish Gentleman) (Erdélyi Híradó, Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvár), 1999)

There is a back-cover text intended as an interpretative aid to the volume’s title. It reverses a familiar basic slogan [a wordplay: “az úr ír”/“the gentleman writes”, “az ír úr”/“the Irish gentleman”] thereby rendering the intention ambiguous, which immediately generates a peculiar sense of disquiet in the reader. It appears, in effect, as a declaration. Not to mention the cover itself... Beyond the body of the volume, following the table of contents, an epitaph appears, which will resurface later. It is worth quoting. It is a surprising poem, through its intentionality, its excessive self-irony, and its occasionally slightly irritating rhymes (with the exception of the line that reflects a desire for love, concealed modestly and with brilliant ingenuity.)

He was a poet, he could not see beyond himself,

at most what he gave came from his seed.

He admits it, he did not even write well,

so he does not ask for a grave at Farkasrét.

He scattered before swine, into the mud,

what he inherited from his forebears at a reduced rate.

He would have liked it if someone, just one, had loved him for long,

and had not been washed away by the next day,

as the lovely Szeret washes away its banks among the Csángós.

If he ever dressed up for a Sunday,

his beloved moved out precisely that day.

He no longer longs for laurel,

he wrote rhymes like where to, coral?

At most what he gave came from himself,

he could not see beyond his own seed.

(Sír(ra)felirat, lit.Inscription for a Grave)

Further archetypal figures appear in succession, figures that will return repeatedly over a long period of time. These include Árti Székely’s deliberately ‘spoilt’ love poems, marked by a register reminiscent of Parti Nagy or the l’art pour l’art company, through which Sántha addresses the arbiters of literary authority, among them György C. Kálmán, Béla Pomogáts, and Árpád Göncz; the Székely Máris cycle, which will later re-emerge in the form of children’s poems as well, in 2019; and the Kemal and Amal cycle, which will likewise expand into a separate volume, in 2004. However one turns it, these figures are in fact all Sántha alter egos: Árti Székely, Máris, Kemál and Amál. Already at this stage, Professor István Fried, in his characteristic rigour, devoted a substantial study to this second volume, with an outlook both forward and backward, engaging separately and at length in polemics with both the title of the book and the title of the quoted poem. As he writes: “What is certain is that in the case of Attila Sántha it is not merely a bolder choice of subject matter, nor solely a less programmatic poetic discourse, that has changed in comparison with the first volume, but rather that his orientation has become broader, his inclination towards experimentation more wide-ranging, and his mode of presentation more liberated. At the same time, this poetry, for it is poetry after all, draws attention above all through its orientation, its searching, its propositions, and not least through its desire to be different, at times its very insistence on that desire.”

Kemál és Amál (lit. Kemal and Amal) (Ulpius-ház, Bp., 2004)

The material of the first two volumes is re-edited and rethought, assembled not in chronological order but thematically. It should be added, and this is crucial, that in its outward appearance the volume also sought to conform to the label of popular literature attached to it, in an openly provocative manner. Through this gesture it stands out markedly from the oeuvre as a whole, both in content and in form. New poems are also inserted among the earlier ones, for example four pieces drawn from the following volume Razglednicák (lit. Postcards), which point in quite different directions. It is possible that the prospect of publication and presence in Hungary prompted this rethinking of the earlier works as a kind of summation, since within this structure the earlier texts and the trajectories of the cycles appear differently. This volume contains the much-cited and by now almost obligatory, profanely phrased recommendation by János Dénes Orbán, frequently quoted in connection with Sántha’s books: “If someone reads one Sántha text, they say: this man is an idiot. If they read five, they say: this man is taking the piss. If they read them all, they say: this man is taking the piss, but how brilliantly!” The publisher’s wittily provocative blurb also appears on the back cover: “What is this book? Perhaps a poetry volume that is BRUTAL for the prudish, a QUESTION for the hesitant, a LESSON for the tender-hearted, a SLAP for the elite, a CHALLENGE for the critic, a WINK for the perceptive, a SCANDAL for the tabloids, an ENCHANTMENT for the free. The question is what it will mean to you.” Following the already cited, likewise strongly provocative epitaph, Inscription for a Grave, the volume presents the almost unexpectedly traditionally styled three-star (***) ars poetica, placed as a counterweight and a point of balance. In doing so, it reassures the reader, should they have become entirely uncertain, that poetry does indeed have meaning. This is a very concrete message and, fortunately, one that cannot be misunderstood. Compared to the closures of earlier volumes, this represents a fundamentally more refined ending, an emphatic, almost confessional assumption of a clear intellectual stance. It is as if something had changed in the author by the time the volume reaches its conclusion:

Rather later than sooner, you come to realise that there are things more important than poetry. A lovemaking that turns out well, waking up in each other’s arms in the morning, sharing anecdotes over a cup of wine in the evening, arguing about literature until dawn, a football match, an ecstatic rock concert, one or two unspeakable, intangible, mystical moments… And yet poetry, this parody of our own striving towards God, helps us not to despair, helps us to laugh gently at this world, which would be absurd if it did not nevertheless have some mysterious purpose. It helps us sometimes to be secretly moved, to see beauty in the ugly and the ugly in the beautiful, and helps us to love the whole world as it is. You come to realise that poetry is that sacred superfluity, at once playing and laughing through tears, which undeniably has meaning. Undeniably, it has meaning.

Írások könyve (az élet apró dolgairól) (lit. Book of Writings (on the little things of life)) (Erdélyi Híradó Publishing House – Előretolt Helyőrség Szépirodalmi Páholy [lit. Outpost Literary Lodge], Cluj Napoca (Kolozsvár), 2010)

At the centre of the book are essays and studies devoted to ‘transzközép’ literature, its supplements, rethinking, and expansion. Several of the texts included in the volume nuance the original ars poetica’s conceptions (“Transzközép literature ‘conserves nothing’, yet introduces nothing new either, is ‘not liberal at all’, but not totalitarian, ‘does not work for progress, but not against it either’, ‘does not plug its ears to the future-singing sirens of the market’, yet does not become intoxicated by them. Transzközép stands in the middle, in the balance of extremes, and remains human.”) The volume then presents, in successive order, further supplements and clarifications (“By grounding the literary system in more realistic presuppositions, transzközép restores the lost self-confidence of those participating in the literary system. As a result, literature no longer sets itself unattainable goals, no longer seeks to be a representation of a reality independent of human beings, no longer tempts the absolute that is independent of humanity, and yet does not fall into complete purposelessness. Literary action has a stake, and this stake can indeed be won. This corresponds with the conception of empirical, constructivist literary scholarship, according to which ‘the literary scholar does the same as before, only in a better mood, frowning less, believing more in themselves, though not out of arrogance’. Transzközép offers the possibility of participation. Since it does not conceal its own fallible, non-divine nature, it merely says: if you wish, come with us. ‘If you wish, accept our rules of the game, for only then will you understand us.’ In return, it offers personal models that are no less valid than a reality independent of human beings. And one further point: it calls upon the participants of the literary system to take themselves seriously, since play is only play if it is undertaken seriously. Let us be serious, even though we know that our subject is not serious, which does not mean that our subject is frivolous. Transzközép is an experiment aimed at the creation of a ‘better’ literature.”) In a logically consistent continuation of the transzközép theme, Attila Sántha also edited into this volume substantial essays on popular literature, followed by his major study on Jenő Rejtő, likewise supplemented with additional reflections. At the time, this was an exceptionally bold and no less surprising move for both literary scholars and the broader reading public. By now, Rejtő has increasingly become an accepted and canonised author, due in part to the work of Attila Sántha himself. It may also be noted, however, that Rejtő was already a favourite author of Béla Hamvas, to such an extent that the style and language of Karneval (Carnival) closely echoed that of Rejtő. In his study, Sántha articulates with clarity why Jenő Rejtő was of such importance to him, precisely because of the exemplary nature of the oeuvre as a whole:

For a long time, the professional community did not really approve of scholars engaging with the works of Jenő Rejtő. Today this is no longer entirely the case. Since more democratic currents have begun to circulate within literary studies, such engagement has become possible, and why not. Nevertheless, Rejtő is still not examined in any substantial way, and he remains an unknown figure, a white spot, in our literary historiography, to refer to the title of one of his novels, A fehér folt (lit. The White Spot). In this essay, I attempt to reduce precisely this debt of Hungarian literary criticism, whether a minor or a major one, it remains to be decided, by examining the novels by Jenő Rejtő signed as P. Howard.

This task appears at once rewarding and problematic. Rewarding, because, as the sales statistics of Rejtő’s works demonstrate, we are dealing with one of the most widely read Hungarian authors, and thus, at least in theory, approaching a matter of public interest; problematic, because the critical analysis of Rejtő’s novels is virtually nonexistent. The situation is further complicated by the fact that the theoretical questions raised by these works are themselves the subject of ongoing debate, and until quite recently they were treated as marginal issues within literary studies. (Rejtő Jenő, a remekíró, lit. Jenő Rejtő, the Master Writer)

Even so, it remained a matter of great importance for someone to clarify these issues, despite the fact that generations had grown up reading Rejtő’s novels, much as they had grown up with Indian adventure novels and films. Yet the works published under the name P. Howard could be read only as pulp fiction, not as serious literature, and then only with a degree of embarrassment and in private. This undignified situation is addressed by Attila Sántha in several substantial studies, in which he also rehabilitates Rejtő’s name through careful argumentation grounded in professional literary analysis.

This is followed in the volume by book reviews devoted primarily to the works of Transylvanian authors, presenting the author as a rigorous and incisive critical judge. Yet he occasionally allows himself moments of tenderness, for example in his brilliant short essay on Károly Kós, which he will later include again in his next literary volume. The manner in which he selected the individual Transylvanian authors and their works is highly characteristic of Attila Sántha’s approach. Each of the book reviews and critical notices is engaging in its own right, making clear why he considered it important to write about these works. When read consecutively, they are also convincingly coherent, even though it remains unclear whether the subjects were chosen in response to commissions or out of personal interest.

The diaries and diary-like reflections at the end of the volume loosely reconnect with the more distinctive voice of the opening sections. At the same time, through their markedly more personal content, they allow a deeper and more extensive insight into Attila Sántha’s thinking and value system on a practical level. In this way, theory and practice once again meet in a fortunate duality across the volume as a whole. In this non-literary book, the uncompromising, rigorously hard honesty familiar from his literary works is clearly perceptible, not through literary devices, but through lucid and carefully structured lines of thought.

Razglednicák (lit. Postcards) (Erdélyi Híradó Publishing House – Előretolt Helyőrség Szépirodalmi Páholy [lit. Outpost Literary Lodge], Cluj Napoca (Kolozsvár), 2013)

The title is misleading, as it evokes Radnóti, yet this is not a matter of rewritings. Rather, it appears that Attila Sántha’s own family stories begin with this cycle, rendered lyrically and in the first person singular. We may ask ourselves whom this somewhat enigmatically written cycle actually concerns. The second part of the volume employs a more narrative structure, which will later grow into the volume Ágtól ágig (lit. From Branch to Branch). It is evident that this turn arose from his stage of life, as he began to take an interest in the past and in his immediate family history, a thematic focus not previously characteristic of his poems or volumes. While reading, one senses that he himself is moving through unfamiliar and exciting terrain, enjoying the possibility of a more personal mode of address. Here, once again, we encounter the beautiful transitional text between the two cycles, which both stands out slightly and yet does not. This text relates to Károly Kós. It is a highly subjective confession, and its resonance with regard to the author himself is far from cheerful, even though it ostensibly speaks of something else entirely: “It may also be that everything that happened then appears so beautiful today only through the fog of beautifying distance, and that it was never about anything other than the normality of everyday life. Who could say now? Károly Kós looks out from the book cover, living the most beautiful life one can imagine, on his face the knowledge of happiness and the calm of knowing that he achieved nothing, neither a Kalotaszeg Republic nor an independent Transylvania, yet he built this and that and did what he could. Perhaps one day I too will know happiness, perhaps one day it will be that, in one way or another, whoever is born will reach safe harbour.” (Kós Károly legszebb élete lit. The Most Beautiful Life of Károly Kós)

Fodor úr, a boldog óriás (lit. Mr. Fodor, the Happy Giant) (A monograph on Sándor Fodor) (Zelegor, Târgu Secuiesc (Kézdivásárhely),, 2018)

Attila Sántha is always capable of surprising the reader, and, as we have seen and will continue to see, he also knows how to intensify that effect. Who would have thought that he would devote an entire monographic volume to the Transylvanian author Sándor Fodor, complete with family history, literary history, a precise bibliography, and photographs, given that Fodor would seem at first glance to lie entirely outside Sántha’s previously delineated field of radical and popular interests, representing a markedly different, far more traditional literary outlook and having practised a very different kind of literature throughout his life. This is so even though the stories of Csipike, the little dwarf were also well known in Hungary... Sántha Attila nevertheless does not focus solely on these tales. Instead, he highlights what he considers the most important works of the oeuvre and explains in detail why certain prose texts by Sándor Fodor proved revelatory for him, among them A feltámadás elmarad (lit. The Resurrection Is Cancelled), Bimbi tábornok (lit. General Bimbi), and A Fekete-erdő (lit. The Black Forest). It is possible that Sántha Attila also drew inspiration from Fodor’s texts for his own return to childhood and to his ancestors. “Fodor is, after all, the one who always longs to return to an age or a place where one can be at home, where a humane and meaningful life can be lived. In his finest works he creates precisely this ideal space, continually reconnecting it to the places of his childhood. […] To be a little foreign everywhere and yet to create a homeland, to belong to a community and still remain a newcomer, this is a fundamental experience of his works, a significant part of which revolve around the topos of coming home, of arrival.” Sántha writes this about Sándor Fodor, yet it can also be read as holding up a mirror to himself. Seen in this light, it becomes easier to understand why Attila Sántha chose precisely this somewhat forgotten author as the subject of a major monograph.

Hogyan menjünk radinába a lerhez? (lit. How Do We Go for a Radina to the Ler? [a collection of Székely stories, with Székely words used in the title]) (with illustrations by István Csillag, Előretolt Helyőrség Íróakadémia [lit. Outpost Literary Academy], Budapest, 2019)

This children’s book, or book of tales, written for pre-teens and adolescents, is composed of both earlier and newly written texts. It consists of playful, bawdy, and humorous stories, primarily in verse, which take the notion of playful instruction very seriously, both linguistically and visually. Freely interspersed with Székely expressions, it places a particular kind of excitement and challenge before the reader, as some elements can be understood without footnotes, while others cannot at all. In Transylvania, Székely children may still grasp this language without explanatory notes, for example in a typical poem title such as Iszkiri a guruzsmás berbécs elől. If not, the text assists them nonetheless, bringing Székely modes of thought and humour closer in a fairy-tale manner. This playful attitude is already evident in the way the volume is opened, as it begins at the back, upside down. (On the very first page there is a humorous drawing, with the following text above and below it: “Don’t wait until they are stabbed!” and “Read living Székely writers!”) At the same time, the book does not spare, patronise, or treat young readers as foolish. The first poem, 1945 tavaszán (lit. In the Spring of 1945), and the final one, Isten hidege megfogyasztott minket (lit. The Cold of God Has Thinned Us Out), are extremely serious and profoundly beautiful texts, both of which also appear in his most adult volume to date, Ágtól ágig (lit. From Branch to Branch, 2021). This indicates that Sántha takes children and young readers just as seriously. (As a practising father of several children, he evidently has direct insight into this field.) Balancing all these layers, and in keeping with the dual perspective characteristic of Attila Sántha, the volume also incorporates material from a much earlier book, The Irish Gentleman (1999), including the Árti Székely cycle with, for example, the letters written to György C. Kálmán and his peers. (I doubt that any contemporary adolescent, however well educated, would recognise the addressees, yet I find this aspect particularly amusing nonetheless.) The Máris poems, together with the enigmatic title poem of the original volume, also reappear here, likewise drawn from the earlier book. Illustrated by István Csillag, and without omitting explicitly erotic references, which naturally recur throughout the text itself, they become fully viable works of youth literature. Perhaps this will also be recognised as such by both Transylvanian and non-Transylvanian young readers... Not to mention the exceptionally witty tales included at the end of the volume.

Ágtól ágig (lit. From Branch to Branch) (Előretolt Helyőrség Íróakadémia [lit. Outpost Literary Academy], Bp., 2021)

His most unsettling work to date, regarded by critics as his finest, recounts the history of his family, allowing the reader unusually close access to his ancestors, across a distance of seven generations. At the same time, it relates these stories in a spare manner, maintaining a certain distance, and does so in verse form. Both the external appearance and the internal content of the volume express this duality. Archaic photographs of the figures appear, beautifully laid out, resulting in a true work of book-making. With an image list, notes, and an appendix, structured as one might expect of a scholarly publication, the volume accords due weight and seriousness to these narratives. As to his intention with this book, he also speaks about it in his inaugural lecture at the academy, with surprising frankness, addressing the notion of home, which he has always sought in literature, while at the same time alluding to his subsequent work, the series of Székely dictionaries:

“Yes, a sense of home. I can hardly think of a more warming feeling than this; it is what I seek in my poems and in all forms of my writing. Since literary language, standard Hungarian, is a fiction based on consensus, assembled from many dialects by trimming away their differences, it is important to me to feel at home in language, which can only mean my own dialect, Székely. Tamási is quite right in saying, and as we have seen above this also follows from one of the five Socratic maxims as a defining feature of a well-spirited life, that one must be at home somewhere in the world, and Kányádi is right as well when he says that ‘the most orphaned are those who do not even have their dead’. I wanted to be at home, so I moved back home. I wanted to be at home, so I wrote my volume From Branch to Branch, which contains family stories heard from my mother and from others.”

He expresses the same idea more poetically in the title poem of the volume:

Then he told the children,
who followed him in a pack,
learning berries and herbs along the way,
why it was that he survived Siberia.
He heard in his dream that Mári was calling him,
his father, his long-dead grandmother,
and a host of old people he had never even known.
You see, my sons, one day
you too will be called home,
and then you must come, you must come.

Székely szótár (lit. Székely Dictionary) (Zelegor Publishing House, Târgu Secuiesc (Kézdivásárhely), 2004, 2009), Bühnagy székely szótár (lit. ‘Bühnagy’ Székely Dictionary) (with photos by Gyula Ádám and István Fodor, Előretolt Helyőrség Íróakadémia (lit. Outpost Literary Academy), Bp., 2018), Székely szótár küssebb s nagyobbacska gyermekeknek és cinkáknak (lit. Székely Dictionary for Smaller and Bigger Children and Young Girls) (with illustrations by István Csillag, Előretolt Helyőrség Íróakadémia, Bp., 2019)

To be at home within a small world, within a microcosm. To feel at ease, and to recognise what one’s task is. To set about writing, creating the Székely dictionary. To assemble something that takes such a long time, to believe in it, to trust that it will come together, that it will matter to others as well. Perhaps the author conceived it as a kind of twenty-first-century mirror, since, as he notes in the preface, he began the process of collecting material precisely in the year 2000. I cannot help but think of Milorad Pavić’s Dictionary of the Khazars, which functions as a novel. And although Attila Sántha likewise declares that individual entries can be read as narratives, his work extends far beyond literary content. It has become a serious scholarly undertaking, a work of systematic collection. In time, three different volumes appeared: a more traditional, strictly dictionary-like work; a dreamlike album volume, beautifully illustrated with photographs by Gyula Ádám and István Fodor; and a further, highly engaging children’s book, once again with the now emblematic drawings of István Csillag. The intention is very similar in all three cases, and the underlying concept and textual material are the same, yet the three volumes differ entirely in genre. At the same time, we know well that a dictionary can never truly be completed. Still, this triple orientation is reassuring, as is the fact that all three versions appeared in print. Online, one can always add this or that, but in print one must let go of nearly twenty years of work. This clearly requires a measure of Székely stubbornness, perseverance, and conscious resolve, alongside the necessary instinctiveness. (And, of course, a good deal of luck or goodwill was also needed for all this to be realised in such a refined physical form.) Sántha himself speaks with complete clarity about his intention in the preface to the album-like volume:

Where do we come from, and who are we, the Székelys, why and in what ways do we differ from the rest of the Hungarian people?

This question is posed by almost every Székely, or person of Székely origin, either to themselves or to their immediate surroundings, most often when, outside the Székely linguistic area, they are treated as curiosities because of their vocabulary and intonation. It was perhaps for this reason that I began collecting Székely words nearly two decades ago.

In essence, I did nothing more than compile a list of those elements of the Székely lexicon that differ from standard Hungarian usage. Perhaps in this way it would be possible to come closer to an answer to the question, and to do so in such a manner that both researcher and reader might savour the raisins of this dialect with a gleam of curiosity in their eyes.

I also intended my book to fulfil an explicit professional function, and to be of practical use. This Székely word list may also contribute to enabling specialists in related disciplines, through their research, to bring some order into the thicket of origin myths and scholarly hypotheses, and to come closer to clarifying the question of where we come from and who we are, as Székelys… For this reason, the volume has something of a hybrid character, since alongside the dialectal collection it also contains an etymological component. With my proposed derivations, I seek merely to encourage the emergence of a form of professional debate concerning the origins of the elements of the Székely linguistic corpus.

Appendix

Particular attention should be given to Attila Sántha’s academic inaugural lecture, A fejlődés ellenében. A vízcsepp (lit. Against Progress. The Water Drop), in which he summarises and distils all that he has developed so far, both intellectually and through experience, in relation to literature and its interpretation. It is a clear, intelligent, emotionally resonant, and incisive text, the finest example of the author’s non-literary yet richly written, essayistic work. Its examples are at once familiar and surprising, bearing witness to an exceptionally wide-ranging intellectual orientation. This is not merely a matter of extensive reading, but of the thoughtful assimilation and interweaving of ideas. In other words, he possesses a distinctive conception and vision of the world and its workings, and above all of poetry and literature. At this point, the wisest course is to quote the closing passage of his inaugural lecture, in which he articulates his concept of literature grounded in communal spirit:

“It is also possible that by now I desire nothing else than, consciously, as one who has already rebelled enough, to take my place among my ancestors, who lived, died, suffered, and rejoiced. For the water drop does not feel at ease in a state of vapour, but rather when it condenses, joins many of its companions to form a stream, and children play within it. To take one’s place among the ancestors, so that children may splash in the waters of tradition.”

One further point is also worth mentioning. More recently, Sántha has begun to publish his research on historical topics as well, a development that, when viewed in retrospect, should not in fact surprise us in the least.

[2024]

Attila Sántha

Selection of works