Talk:Orsinian Tales
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I can't tell what's meant by "singular". (The original text was "an unspecified, but singular, country", but the country is specified as Orsinia.) Maybe that needs clarification.
Also, I'd be interested in understanding the evidence that Hungary is the inspiration for Orsinia, especially the working-class characters. Got a source, or can you give me an idea here?
(Oops, forgot to log in.)
By "singular" I was trying to get at the idea that only one country is represented in the book. I guess the language didn't work. As far as proof that it's Hungary, check out "A Week in the Country" (Frogmore: Granada, 1978: 108-128) which mentions the date being 1962 when the young men try to flee to the West. Note the paragraph:
- 115
- So when a blonde girl came into his room where he lay weak and content, he looked at her from that sunwashed barren April plain with trust and welcome, it being irrelevant to this moment that his grandfather had died in a deportation train and his father had been shot along with fourty-two other men on the plain outside town in the reprisals of 1956.
There were only three areas where repression to that extent existed inside Eastern Europe in 1956. One was in the Ukraine where a military action was taken against a general strike, no deportation trains were used. One was in Poland where paramilitary action was taken against a general strike, no large scale executions took place, no deportation trains were used. Only in Hungary after 4 November 1956 did mass executions and deportations take place. Le Guin set the tale in 1962, about the last of the martial law actions against Hungarians fleeing West (or South). In 1963 the Kadar Government announced a general amnesty. It can't be about Czechoslovakia (1968).
"The Fountains" reeks of Hungarian intellectual emigre (as a result of 1956). Most of the names are homophones of Hungarian ones. "The Barrow"'s arianism mirrors the conversion of the Magyars. The continuation of feudal relations into the mid-1930s mirrors Hungarian history especially. The relatively late industrialisation (1920) indicated in "Conversations at Night."
Most importantly, see "The Road East" with the para
- 69
- The month on the calendar over the bar was October 1956. Maler... finished his beer. "In Budapest, on Wednesday," the man next to him repeated quietly to his neighbour in plasterer's overalls, "on Wednesday."
Of course, on a Wednesday in Budapest during October 1956 the barricades went up. The tale continues with stories of the revolution. Krasnoy, of course, being a major regional centre still looks to its capital city, ie, Budapest.
I hope this explains my assertion. --User:Fifelfoo
- Thanks, that's very interesting! And it caused me to spend some enjoyable time with Orsinian Tales and Malafrena last night.
The most convincing evidence you give, imho, is that the reprisals mentioned in "A Week in the Country" were inspired by events in Hungary.
What tells you that "The Fountains" is inspired by Hungarian emigres as distinct from emigres from any Warsaw Pact country?
In my very limited knowledge of Hungarian, I didn't see any homophones with Hungarian names. Some names were similar--Matiyas and Matyas--while others were conspicuously different--Givan and Janos, Stefan and Istvan. I'd be interested in an example or two.
What you say about "The Barrow" and about the late survival of feudalism is also very interesting!
Nothing struck me as strange about the level of industrialization in "Conversations at Night". My impression from things I've heard, though I don't have any facts, is that you could have found similar low technology in poor areas of major Western cities at that time.
Your interpretation of the mention of Budapest in "The Road East" is quite different from mine. Since Krasnoy is definitely the capital of the country, not of some region, I think that's evidence that Orsinia is not Hungary. The Orsinians are following events in Hungary much as they followed events in France in 1830 in Malafrena, and probably as Poles, Ukrainians, and Hungarians followed each other's news in 1956.
Of course there are other major differences. "The Lady of Moge" is set in 1640 or so, and there's no mention of the Turks--except in connection with Hungary. Malafrena shows Orsinia as an independent monarchy until 1815. And the language is decipherable to outsiders and undoubtedly Indo-European (probably Romance, I think, with some Germanic and maybe Slavic influence).
I'm not suggesting a change, though--you obviously know more about Eastern European culture and history than I do, so if you think the resemblances to Hungary are particularly strong, I believe you. I'm just enjoying discussing this.
I would like to suggest changing "Eastern European" to "Central European", though. The phrase is used in "A Week in the Country" and "An die Musik", and there's an article to link to.
