EVEN WINNETOU WAS CENSORED

’Communist morality offended’ – Reflexes of the Communist regime.

The scandal of the publication of Günter Grass’ novel The Tin Drum in a mutilated version puts a number of questions about the motivations of the censors and the survival of old reflexes. Péter Agárdi, literary historian, member of the presidium of the board of trustees of the Hungarian Radio Public Endowment, once one of the leaders directing the Communist cultural state machinery describes the operation of censorship and its rules. Péter Agárdi says he was not ’brave’ in those days and there were occasions he was mistaken but at the time of the first publication of the mutilated version he worked for the Party Centre and not for Magvető Publishers where the translation first appeared. László Szörényi, literary historian, director of the Institute of Literature said such mutilations had been frequent in the Kádár era in every case when there were passages offending ’Communist morality’ or the interests of the Soviet Union or those of neighbouring countries. He mentioned the example of Camus whose complete works appeared in 1991, published by Európa Publishing Hose, but the ’complete’ edition omitted Camus’ famous writing about 1956 entitled ’The blood of Hungarians’. Mr Szörényi said it was possible that reflexes of the Communist regime survived but he found more probable that Hungarian book publishing was operated mostly by amateurs.

Translated by Péter Szentmihályi Szabó