Born under the communist regime but having inhaled freedom in a family with strong faith in democracy makes it hard for me to comprehend the extreme aggression of a group that considers itself more equal than the equals of a sovereign nation. I was raised with the hope and the promise of civic, ethical and social progress. The current images of the violent attack carried out by Russia on Ukraine do not make any sense to me and I am torn between anger, doubt, worry, fear, determination and a thousand other thoughts and feelings I cannot even identify. It took time to realise that the mistakes of the past could happen again in 2022. Unity must yet again overthrow the tyrant that the lack of unity has failed to limit. This has already cost too many lives on all sides.
We started this magazine for the love of culture, fine craftsmanship and the arts – things that should bring us a more human future. As it stands, this is more important today than ever.
As individuals, we do what we can to ease the pain of the people in Ukraine. As Loupiosity, we will work even harder to strengthen and celebrate what should bring us together: humanism.
Gyula Illyés (1902-1983, Hungarian poet and novelist, a leading literary figure in Hungary during the 20th century) captured the pervasive deterioration and inescapability of the autocratic systems vividly in the 1950 poem, ‘One Sentence on Tyranny’. It was published during the 1956 Revolution of Hungary, which it came to epitomise. Unfortunately, it is as valid today as it was 70 years ago.
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If you would like to support Ukraine, please find here a crowdsourced information platform about legitimate non-profit organisations and other ways to help.
Photo credits: Claire de Héderváry, “One Sentence on Tyranny, a Poem by Gyula Illyés”, 1956. HU OSA 398-0-1-8313; Records of the UN Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary: UN Documents; Open Society Archives at Central European University, Budapest.
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