Komárom - Komárno [antikvár]

PREFACErn his famous novel "The Danube" Claudio Magris says that Komárom is a treasury of Hungarian symbols. One meets here, as he says, national illusionism, rebellious Hungarian spirit, national self-deception, folkloristic patriotic grief, national self-accusation and national self-praise. He verifies the above with Jókai's romantic heroes, the peers described as demigods, the wolves and victims of the bourgeois world and the star-gazers sickened by the money and the vanities of the world, fleeing to soUtude, though called to achieve more.Magris, as an admirer of and a great authority on Europe, sees some kind of essence of the Central-European existence together with its drawbacks, contradictions and its untold questions calling for calming answers. In the above mentioned cultural-historical guide-book there are witty, subjective and now and again extremely ironic analyses of the philosophy and history of the Danube and Central Europe. "Woefully Hungarian" is the title of the chapter dealing with Komárom. The fact that the author was born in Trieste, a typical European border town, can serve as a reason but not an explanation. Alas, history, the great director, devised a play for us. In that play he cast the Danube, this vital, for ever travelling and transporting river, in the role of a separator. The Danube should play the border, and as a border the Danube should act the leading character in the life of Komárom and its citizens. The town itself should find a role or even could decide to remain a simple extra. Only one thing was important: the town should respect the cast.Since the casting, however, it has become obvious: it is vital to rewrite certain instructions so as to perform the play in a fair, painless and sometimes enjoyable way. It is not a neglible fact that the hfe of sixty thousand human beings is at stake. We have to reword the instructions here every day, every minute with a view to our daily life. It is of great importance that the Danube shall not play the leading role as the border. Though real objects, obstacles mark it clearly, the border is nothing more than a fictional line, not part of the reality. We may pretend that it is real. Life, however, flatly contradicts our efforts. A hailstorm is a hailstorm on this side and on the other side, trees burst into bloom in the same way on both sides. If we accept this, it is easy to see that the border can by no means be the protagonist. The leading role belongs to the people who want to know and understand the other. The people who know that the end is always the beginning of something new. People have realised that the Danube is essentially not a border, by no means at Komárom. The Danube is fundamentally the vast region where it flows and the barely comprehensible time which it bears in itself.The book the reader is holding wiU enrich the treasury of Komárom symbols most probably. In addition to the fact that it will serve as a guide for visitors and as a source for those who intent to get acquainted with Komárom. This book is the symbol of mutual intentions resulting in this pubUcation. Even the fact that the book was born can also be considered as a symbol.The team of authors and editors set no lesser aim than to prove: Komárom is an ambitious town with a cultural face worthy of attention. In its history Komárom, without exception, had the strength to rise, to begin to start and to rebuild itself after many catastrophes and disasters.Attila Mudrák, a talented, young artist-photographer from Esztergom, strives to depict that spiritual greatness in the photographs. He does not intend to show all or everything in a fine set at all means. SusceptibUity to details guides him. Resulting from