The Burning of the World

The budding young Hungarian artist Béla Zombory-Moldován was abroad on holiday when World War I broke out in August 1914. Called up by the army, he soon found himself hundreds of miles away, advancing on Russian lines—or perhaps on his own lines—and facing relentless rifle and artillery fire. Badly wounded, he returned to normal life, which now struck him as unspeakably strange. He had witnessed, he realized, the end of a way of life, of a whole world.

Published here for the first time in any language, this extraordinary reminiscence is a deeply moving addition to the literature of the terrible war that defined the shape of the twentieth century.