Sándor Márai: To Believe in the Real One (HU)

Sándor Márai: Believing in the True One
Whoever seeks the true one...

The 125th anniversary of Sándor Márai’s birth offers the opportunity to freely choose from the writer’s rich literary legacy.

The central theme of this selection is the writer’s sense of vocation and his creed. In the diary excerpts used, Sándor Márai sets forth a moral and artistic standard, according to which compromise is unworthy of the literary mission. “You are Hungarian, you are European, and you are a writer; you cannot serve any class, because you must serve the cause of humanity. There is only one class whose spokesman you may be, the class of the suffering; only one party to which you have the right to swear allegiance, the party of reason and compassion.”

“I was born a writer” – confesses Márai, a writer who feels responsible for the souls of people. Yet he is driven by a constant urge to escape. He flees from the profession assigned to him, flees from his marriages, gets entangled in adventures and escapes them as well; for him, permanent homelessness becomes an almost natural state. In his view, solitude – both creative and personal – is a fundamental condition of artistic fulfillment. Without sacrifice, there is no mission. “I can only create man if I remain apart from men... this solitude is not pride, but the final, ultimate humility” – he writes in his diary.

Although he parted ways with journalism, Márai spoke out openly against World War II, outlining all its horrors. He judged war criminals harshly: “We wanted to educate, but the cudgel was gleefully and mockingly brought down upon the heads of the educators... such people must by all means be forced to disappear from the world...”, yet at the same time he remained profoundly humane: “There is no need for revenge or retribution. Personal accountability before the law is more than enough...”

For the writer, the search for the true one was not an illusory artistic pose, but the daily practice of his way of life. He strove for perfection, for the attainment of the true one in his social relations, his literary vocation, and his personal life, and he firmly believed: “the true one always exists somewhere.”

Performed by: Ágnes Lőrincz and Sándor Tatai
 Compiled by: Sándor Tatai
 Directed by: Viola Török
 Set and costumes: Tímea Takács
 Lighting and sound: Róbert Incze

Tickets can be purchased at the Spectrum Theatre box office (open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.) and also before the performance.
 Reservations: 0744-301.875