Ikon és intertextus

In the oeuvre of Szilárd Borbély a complex system of references relates his works to the lyrical and publicist writings of János Pilinszky. Whereas Borbély’s poetry cites some canonical texts of Piliszky often in a „blasphemous” reversal, his essays and interviews keep a polemic dialogue with the Catholic poet by using theological arguments. The debate, which primarily concerns the Christian interpretation of the Holocaust, shows a shift of pivotal importance. Although Pilinszky wrote about the Holocaust as the „abyss of history”, he, however, maintained the unchanged validity of a Christological interpretation. Borbély on the contrary, highlights the antagonistic conflict between the doctrinal tradition of Christianity and the experience of history. Although he did not strive to build a new system of thought, his utterances create an original constellation of poetical, theological, historical and social scientific reflection. His attitude is not only a more radical one than that of Pilinszky, but coincides with recent theological interpretations, in which the memory of Auschwitz proves to be inseparable from the recognition of incapability of the explanatory framework of classical theodicy.