Barbaricvm

There are two geographical regions in Károly Jung's poetry. The world beyond the limes, otherwise known as the land of barbarians, and Eastern Europe, or more precisely, East-Central Europe. If that was the world beyond the limes, this here is the world "beyond reason." For Károly Jung, the nostalgic geography beyond the limes is not a source of comfort or a refuge. On the contrary: it is the equivalent of today's vulnerabilities, a memory burdened with troubles. What appears at first glance to be a spectacle, a cultural history, is all a deeply lived experience of existence; the terrifying grimace of existence for a poet who has already lost Latin clarity. Occurring realities, political scandals, revolutions and counter-revolutions, sacrificed and immolated lives, losers posing as victors, lurking murderers, silent victims march in closed ranks in Károly Jung's imagination, and the poet constantly runs into the wall of incomprehension, because everything that happens, and has happened recently, is truly meaningless, a madness elevated to the rank of history. Among our more recent poets, perhaps no one else has attempted to intervene in the state of affairs with similar intensity. Károly Jung was able to do this precisely because, as an educated poet, he can also formulate poetry as a warning. Károly Jung's volume of poetry articulated new values and at the same time a novel poetic perspective for our poetry.