Tuesday Obituary: Victor Barna and Iranian Telecommunications

I have lost contact with my family.

by Sahar Tavakoli.

Defensive action: Victor Barna has died, aged 60. Born August 24, 1911 in Budapest in then Austria-Hungary, he died on February 27, 1972 in Lima, Peru.

He made his name in table tennis. Born Győző Braun, Barna adopted his new identity in his late teens, aiming to obscure his Jewish heritage and the prejudice that shadowed Jewish players in the ostensibly apolitical world of European sport. He won his first World Table Tennis Championship singles title under the name Barna in Berlin in 1930. Over the course of his career he claimed four more of the same as well as sixteen golds for team, doubles, and mixed doubles play. 

His style was rapid, defensive, and disciplined, relying as much on careful study of his opponent’s patterns as on the precision of his own returns. His signature stroke was the heavy chop—a shot struck from behind the table as the ball makes its downward descent. Forced in the first instance to match his speed, Barna’s chop unsettled an opponent's gameplay. The backhand move both slows the ball and resets its spin. Hit as though spinning, a return on a chop is likely to hit the net. Hit with the force required in a speed game, the ball will sail long. At the 1949 English Open, Barna would face an opponent whose unpredictability at the table unravelled the logic of his game, a young American by the name of Marty Reisman. Against Reisman’s unpredictable, showman style, Barna’s measured defence faltered. The match remains a turning point in the sport; the moment when a sort of rules-based orthodoxy shifted to improvisation and spectacle.

Earlier this year, Iranian authorities cut public access to internet and phone services. The blackout came in response to nationwide demonstrations, driven by frustration with a deteriorating economy and the strain of prolonged financial insecurity. The origins of Iran’s economic crisis are, like most facts of history, complex. The effects of forty-seven years of US-led economic sanctions ought not be discounted. Nor should more recent pressures, such as Israel’s Twelve Day War on Iran 2025, or Iran’s costly involvement with regional allies such as Hezbollah and, until recently, shamefully, the Assad government in Syria. Even so, many of those who took to the streets in December and January protested not these external pressures themselves but the state’s failure to manage their consequences—a failure that many attribute to corruption, financial mismanagement, and a pattern of flawed policy decisions. As internet and phone access disappeared, Iranians at home and abroad lost contact with one another. Asked during that time whether I had friends or family in the country, I would answer that my aunts, uncles, and cousins live in Khoy, Tabriz, and Tehran. More often, though, I wanted to say that my family was scattered across the entire nation—that it numbered ninety million.

Two weeks after authorities cut the internet, they restored service. I learned of its return through a message from one of my uncles, sent via Instagram. It was a video, a recording of Barna and Reisman’s 1949 match, followed by a sequence of texts. First: How are you? The internet connection is poor. Then: The technique you can see here is that of world champion, Vicktor Barna. Of course, this was about seventy years ago!!! In the days after the blackout lifted, many spoke cautiously, unsure of whether messages were being read and what risk their words might carry for themselves or their loved ones. My uncle—my amu or father’s brother—was not being cryptic; he just loves table tennis. Sending two selfies of himself at a local table tennis hall he added that he hoped things would get better soon, Insha’allah, such that he might get back to his practice schedule. 

Barna’s loss in 1949, though unsettling for the sport, did little to disturb his reputation as a master of the game. He continued competing until 1952, after which he shifted from tournament play to brand representation. He became a spokesman for Dunlop Sports and the namesake of the Dunlop Barna, a hardbat that replaced the company’s softer Stiga-Fliesberg model. It was while travelling through Peru on behalf of the brand that Barna suffered a fatal heart attack. Fifty-four years and one day later, the United States and Israel began bombing Iranian military infrastructure, energy systems, world heritage sites, hospitals, and elementary schools. 

I have lost contact with my family.