To Mr György Galántai

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Dear Mr Galántai:

When I set down to write this letter, I automatically addressed you as Dear Gyuri [nickname for György] like I had back in 1971, when the Sun was shining.
Now I do not have the right to address you like that. I admit that such a friendly phrase has no validity coming from an ethically discredited and morally defunct person who I became.
So I decided to use an alternative form of address...
Each day of the last twenty years were spent in the same way: filled with self-accusation, doubt, pangs of conscience, self-doubt, self-scrutiny and shame. No geographical distance can help or alleviate this. The future will only bring more of the same.

****

This letter is late in coming. I should have written it years ago.

I was unable to look the past in the eye. So why am I writing now?

To ask for forgiveness.

To ask for forgiveness from all those who my actions brought hardship, abuse of privacy, marginalisation and interference. Feel free to add whatever I left out. I beg your forgiveness for all the things I committed. The responsibility is solely mine. I do not intend to deflect responsibility onto anyone else. I take personal responsibility for it all. All I did is my burden. I am aware that it is difficult – perhaps impossible – to make sense of my asking you to forgive. A person who is morally amortised is not to be believed. (Perhaps they will even doubt that I mean to say sorry.) But let this letter be at least a form of clearly expressing my reflections upon the past and my intentions. I want to ask you and others to forgive me. I am very sorry for what happened in the past, and I am apologising to everybody who my actions affected and harmed in any way.

****

30 years ago I believed that what I was trying to do could help us to find a way to each other, to reach a détente. I was hoping that analysing my actions, sharing, discussing and bringing arguments could in some way build a bridge between us, and reduce antagonism and tension. I hoped that opponents could gradually approach each other, in the long term. (?) That the extremum can be prevented and the conflict muted. I can see now that viewed from the present, this approach of mine was naïve and/or mistaken. Some will simply call it a mere illusion. (?)

****

Sometimes people follow ideas that they themselves do not fully understand. There were years when I felt it my duty to follow the above path. There was much I did not understand.

****

I never meant any harm to anyone. Especially not in the artistic and literary milieu that I was so passionate about at the beginning – you might remember still. My ambition turned back on itself, it became blunt. I must admit that what I thought to be a positive ambition got twisted, lost track and was distorted into an absurdity. I see that. Sometimes a man’s life in its entirety turns back on itself, becomes devalued and twisted. The Sun is setting. Those who ever talked with me know that I was never after having power – I never had any power, I was never a person of gravity. What I am trying to attempt here is: to promote understanding, to dissolve opposition – to no avail.

****

The writer of a recent letter used the phrase (in reference to me) ‘shitty character'.

I deserve it. It is fitting. This is how I also see myself at the closure of an embittered and limited life. My letter ends here (I think it is already too long). But the self-blame and self-reflection do not.

Regards,

Guszti [nickname for Gusztáv]