Távolsági szonettjárat
Long-Distance Sonnet Service

Summary/Abstract: Béla Markó’s first book of poems published in Hungary, Mindenki autóbusza, appeared in 1989 in the József Attila Circle of Young Writers’ series of booklets published by Magvető. The new volume marked a classicist turn in Markó’s poetry with its choice of the sonnet, a symbol of inner freedom preserved in a closed space. In the book, the avant-garde prose poem Rövid, korszerűtlen kiáltvány is followed by Költők koszorúja. The 14 poems and the master sonnet are portraits of 14 classics of Hungarian literature from Janus Pannonius to Miklós Radnóti. During the dictatorship, Romanian authors were not allowed to publish their writings abroad without permission, but Markó sent his poems to Miklós Csapody for more than ten years, who arranged for their publication. This “philological memoir” by the editor of the book, based on the poet’s letters and the documents of the József Attila Circle, recalls the story of the book's birth, the struggles of the new generation of poets of the time and the situation of Hungarians in Transylvania in the 1980s until the end of the dictatorship.

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