A "Gloomy Sunday", in Budapest & <snip>
[..] I don't remember when I first read about it, but I must already have been on Budapest's Castle Hill several times when I did. The
Hungarian song "Szomoru Vasarnap" (or "Gloomy Sunday") came in stories before I ever got to hear the tune.
The first story concerned the prestigious restaurant near the Fisherman's Bastion, where tout Budapest came to drink and dance in the 19thirties (probably where the Hilton is now). Noblemen and beautiful women danced under the lights in the late evening as the orchestra played. But one song no gypsy band was allowed to play anymore: "Gloomy Sunday". The thing was - the song was so sad, so evocative of immediate despair, that every time the band played that song, a young nobleman would, in a grand gesture of weltschmerz, jump off the cliffs of Castle Hill. And it was getting out of hand.
I do remember retelling that story at a Debrecen University Hungarian language course. And a fellow student immediately chipped in with an anecdote of her own. Apparently, she said, Hungarian Army command, in late 1943 or 1944, sent out an order to all troops. At no point in time, the order read, was it allowed for any unit to ask musicians to play "Gloomy Sunday". Too many majors and colonels were spontaneously driven to suicide, shooting themselves as the tune died off, and this was starting to have a detrimental impact on the already exacerbating military situation.
All nonsense, tales from cuckoo-land? Think again. Hungarians may be genetically or culturally inclined to suicide (the country having led the world suicide statistics for decades until, it seems, a few years ago), but when American musicians came to translate the song into English, the BBC and other major radio networks quickly banned it, too, "deem[ing] it too depressing for the airwaves", as this
excellent tiny little website, devoted all to "Gloomy Sunday", notes.
The site features the lyrics of the English song, made famous by Billy Holiday and others, but also those of the original Hungarian version, in its native language and in translation. There were different versions, even, of that one, as the poet László Jávor penned new lyrics and, later, a third stanza was added in order to take the sharpest edges off of the original's impact - in vain, it should be noted.
There's also a fascinating (though wholly apocriphical)
essay about the song's history. It is noted how even an instrumental version turned out to do no less harm, and how - of course - the author of the original killed himself, too - after the girl he had been so broken-hearted about when he wrote the song, committed suicide
herself, the words "Gloomy Sunday" scribbled on a note next to her.
Another essay the website copies from elsewhere notes the debates about how come the famed/notorious record
suicide rates of Hungarians. This has been discussed in all seriousness by academics too. (I remember reading an in-depth article for my studies but I can't find it back). Interesting is that the rate actually went down during the worst years of Stalinism, only to rise up again when terror was replaced by overwhelming ennui,
peaking in 1983. "Since the beginning of the official registration, Hungary has been the country with the highest suicide rates in Europe (it not in the World)", this
International Academy For Suicide Research paper reminds us, but in post-communist times, it's been overtaken by Russia, Byelorus and all three Baltic states, as well as (according to 2000 WHO data) the Ukraine. Actually, Z. Rihmer of the Hungarian National Institute for Psychiatry and Neurology
writes here that the rate's actually gone
down by 30% since 1984, even though "other former Communist countries showed either no substantial change or a marked increase in their suicide rates".
To end with anecdotes again: the problem truly has appeared throughout the ages. Budapest's famous Chain Bridge was constructed in 1849 under the supervision of Scottish engineer Adam Clark. But one historical anecdote I was told by a teacher, once, focused on his Hungarian assistant. He was a perfectionist, as any look at the bridge will show you. On the day of the opening, he made the last rounds to check if everything was in working order. It was then that he discovered that the lions proudly guarding the bridge - had no tongues. (It's true - go look for yourself). He froze in terror at the discovery - and threw himself off of his bridge.
Then again, according to the
Rough Guide Hungary, "for one woman in Kaposvar, the final straw was when Bobby died in the Dallas series".
