Tamás, Gáspár Miklós: A szem és a kéz – Bevezetés a politikába. [The Eye and the Hand – Introduction to Politics.]

Tamás, Gáspár Miklós: A szem és a kéz – Bevezetés a politikába. [The Eye and the Hand – Introduction to Politics.]

Budapest, 1983. AB Független. [6] 5-73 p. First edition. Samizdat.
In publisher’s illustrated wrappers. The silkscreen design on cover is by László Rajk. Printed in 1200 copies. Small stain on the cover, nice condition inside. A copy dedicated to János György Szilágyi, a Hungarian ancient researcher and art historian. Samizdat edition of Gáspár Miklós Tamás’ political philosophical book on common good. The most special Hungarian samizdat publication.

Tamás (b. 1948) emigrated from Romania to Hungary in 1978 for political reasons. He taught at University of Budapest until 1982 when he was dismissed again because of political reasons. He could only publish abroad or underground, as samizdat publication, like this edition, which is his first book issued in Hungary.

“A szem és a kéz” was translated into French and published in Genève in 1985 under the title ‘L’Oeil et la main”.

Samizdat editions, mostly political pamphlets, appeared in Hungary in the 1970s in the poor form of carbon copies of typescripts. Later in the 80s the so-called Democratic Opposition in Hungary established semi-underground publishings, like “AB Független” to publish not merely political literature but also literature that was banned by the Communist politics.