helen Keller’s letter to Cluj

(1903)

Helen Keller in Far countries….
Professor Boros, of the University of Kolozsvar, Transylvania, wrote a letter asking for permission to translate Miss Helen Keller’s “Story of My Life” into magyar…
In those days, not only did books have forwards, but letters did to.  Professor Boros had Dr Edward Everett Hale provide one.

The publishers, Doubleday, Page and Co, received the following from Dr Edward Everett Hale:

“Professor Boros says: – ‘I had a copy of one of the year books of Miss Keller’s school containing a most touching account of her marvelous life, and I wished to make a public lecture on it, but did not find it quite sufficient for the purpose. If I could get this book, I could do some good service for our very young and yet very poor institute of the blind, which is connected with an older one of the deaf and dumb in Kolozsvar.” You see, they think they are behind us in such things in Hungary. If you like, you may repeat what Baron Orban, one of these Transylvania gentlemen, said to me in 1873: He said it in Latin, ‘Do you know what we were doing in the eighteenth century, when Western Europe was surpassing us in her achievements of the higher civilization?’ And then in English he said, ‘We were keeping the Turk off your back.’ This is exactly true, and it is to me interesting that the people who kept the Turk off our back in 1680 should now be studying our benevolent institutions in the hope of improving their own.”

(1905)

It seems George Boros got his permission.  Two years later, it was widely reported that Professor George Boros of Kolozsvar had translated Helen Keller’s “Story of My Life” into Magyar. “is read with deep interest all over Hungary.”

Then Professor George Boros gave a lecture Miss Keller’s teacher, Mrs. Macy.  Among the large Audience were some blind students, and they “sent their greetings” to Miss Keller (perhaps via George Boros).  Perhaps there was no return address on the letters which they sent to Miss Keller.

After reading about the lecture, the popularity of the translation, and the greetings, this was Helen Keller’s reply.

“I am so glad you liked my book. I am always pleased when people tell me that my story has interested them. The world I live in is so {…} different from yours {…} We read the same books, travel the same highways, smell the same flowers; but how differently!

“My ideas are grounded on experiences which you, who see and hear, do not have, and ideas make the world we live in. I am interested in all that I hear about Hungary. You have indeed faced the severest tests, and have shown splendid courage in your struggle for independence. You are the frontier of Western Europe against the southwest, and you deserve independence among the nations you have helped to defend. But, after all, the subject nation finds her highest freedom in the arts of peace. That state knows no bondage which mounts the bight heights of civilization.

“I received a touching letter from the blind students at the Kolozsvar institution. Will you please convey to them my loving greeting?

“There is a very strong bond between us who cannot see. We, like Hungary, are held captive from without; but we find our vision in our hearts.”

• The independent. [volume] (Lincoln, Neb.), 06 July 1905. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88086144/1905-07-06/ed-1/seq-11/>