Tamási Áron

Vitéz lélek

National Theatre Budapest

The play was written in October 1940, immediately after the reattaching of Northern Transylvania to Hungary. It first premiered on the 25th of January 1941, in the National Theatre. The drama is based on the short story Hymn with a Donkey by the same author.
The “serious play” is essentially different from the short story. Not only because the author changed the name of the main character, but also because in the play, written during the Second World War, the original donkey-symbol has a completely different meaning. In the short story, WWI veteran  Gábor Demeter must learn that there's no going back to where he came from, while Péter Balla's story is one of returning and restarting. It is a story of how the “ancient order” recieves the man returning home from war. In its own age, the message of Tamási's play, encouraging people to start rebuilding instead of fighting further, was not received very well by his contemporaries. Its stance seemed naive at the time, but history demonstrated very quickly that the real tragedy of the 20th century is none other than the demise of “little worlds”, the disappearance of traditional communities – enough just to think of the destruction of villages by Ceauşescu.
In this play, Tamási doesn't use Szekler dialect anymore. It is not a bittersweet folk tale, but a real drama of Hungarian spirit. In its dialogues, it shows the dynamics that, after all, keeps together communities that speak the same language – as in the past, so we hope in the future.