Dialoghi e scontri fra due mediatori culturali

Le lettere di Antonio Widmar a Ignác Balla e a Stefano Pirandello. La pubblicazione di un romanzo ungherese in Italia

Abstract

This essay will deal with the cultural transmission between Hungary and Italy towards the end of the 1920s, focusing on two protagonists who were prominent cultural intermediaries: Antonio Widmar from Fiume, who lived in Hungary at that time, and the Hungarian Ignác Balla, who by contrast lived in Italy. Included in this essay is Widmar's letter addressed to Stefano Pirandello in the autumn of 1926, as Pirandello's representative for Hungary with the proposal that the author's company, on tour in Fiume, continue their journey to Budapest. Widmar's other letters were written to Balla and discuss the publication of an important novel
by the well-known author Dezső Kosztolányi, "The Bloody Poet", later republished as "Nero, The Bloodthirsty Poet" (Néro, a véres költő) both translated by Antonio Widmar. The story began in 1928, when Kosztolányi turned to Ignác Balla first personally, then in a letter, asking him for help with a possible Italian edition of his novel in Widmar's translation, describing him as a "dear friend". Balla did everything he could to satisfy Kosztolányi's wish and eventually managed to find a willing publisher. However, Widmar kept putting off revising his translation until the contract expired. The novel was released only 4 years later in 1933 at another publishing house (Genio) with the support of Widmar, without the collaboration of Balla.