SOVIET CHRISTMAS TREE ORNAMENT: A ROBIN / László Trencsényi
Imre Trencsényi-Waldapfel was a member in one of the first delegations of intellectuals visiting the Soviet Union after World War II. The renowned scholar of literary and religious history, who lost many of his relatives and friends in the course of the Shoah, became a member of the Communist party after the liberation of Hungary, and remained loyal to his commitment all his life.
He brought the pressed and painted cardboard robin as part of a big pack of Christmas decorations from this trip to us, his children, at the beginning of the 1950s. These ornaments reassuringly indicated that “in the country of the Big Brother” everything was all right and traditions were respected. The same seemed to be justified by the first lines of a poem written by a Soviet children’s author widely known at that time:
„This year the Christmastide again presents
Our children with bright trees and ornaments.” (Tsukovsky)
