A QUICK MORNING INTERVIEW

– Hello. It’s been quite a while since we last talked.

– Hello. I’m at your disposal.

– I was surprised to discover online—while browsing through the events of the Hungarian election campaign—that the leader of a party preparing to take power is posing in front of a poster made 37 years ago. The very same poster that became famous during the 1989–90 regime change. You designed that poster, and the winning party, the Hungarian Democratic Forum, owes no small part of its victory in the first free election to it. Were you aware of this?

– Yes. I was surprised to see it too.

– If you were surprised, then obviously the party leader isn’t using the poster with your knowledge—let alone your permission.

– That’s correct.

– Then I suppose all this must have happened with the permission of the MDF, the party from the 1990 transition.

– I doubt that, since that party no longer exists. The MDF dissolved a long time ago.

– I see. Let me ask you one more thing: do you think it’s possible to change a political system twice using the same poster?

– I’m not aware of anything like that ever happening before.

– In any case, it’s odd that a party which, according to polls, enjoys strong support is unable to come up with its own poster. Certainly not one as iconic as yours.

– Maybe it’s not that strange after all—considering that the party’s logo is plagiarized as well.

– That’s true. One would expect a new party—one that didn’t even exist two years ago, and is trying to appeal to young people—to come up with a fresh, new, modern visual identity. The fact that they don’t have their own distinct visual style—could that suggest they don’t have a distinct cultural or even political identity either?

– There’s some logic in your question, I’ll admit—but drawing that conclusion from a reused poster and a dusted-off graphic emblem is a bit of a stretch, don’t you think?

– I admit it is, but I’ll take the risk. Mainly because I’d like to finally provoke your opinion.

– We’ll soon see how far they get with this retro image. The outcome will be instructive for me as well—far beyond the current political issue.

– Thank you for the conversation. Have a nice day.

– You too. Goodbye.

 

 Klick here for more!

 

THE CHESS IN THE PANEL

Panel is a new magazine of fiction, poetry, non-fiction and the arts, currently being produced in Central and Eastern Europe and originally written in English or translated into English.  Panel Magazine began to incubate in Budapest, where the core of its editorial staff and many of its contributors live. The magazine has 3 issues per year. I quote the following sentences from the new issue:

Istvan Orosz's novel Chess on The Island has not yet been translated into English, though it's available in Russian, and soon in Slovakian and Italian. The novel, which is  neither purely  documentary,  nor entirely fiction, takes place on the island of Capri, where future key members of the Bolshevik party and, later, the revolution, met to play chess. Here, Panel publishes an exclusive translation of one chapter of this novel, with a follow-up interview with Istvan Orosz.

The interview was made by Masha Kamenetskaya, the excerpt from the novel Chess on the Island was translated by Patrick Mullowney. Thanks for them. Please click here to read the new issue of the Panel. (The photo below was produced at the presentation of the new issue of Panel magazine at Massolit Books & Café in Budapest.)