Hungarian literature

Introduction

      the body of written works produced in the Hungarian language.

      No written evidence remains of the earliest Hungarian literature, but through Hungarian folktales and folk songs elements have survived that can be traced back to pagan times. Also extant, although only in Latin and dating from between the 11th and 14th centuries, are shortened versions of some Hungarian legends relating the origins of the Hungarian people and episodes from the conquest of Hungary and from the Hungarian campaigns of the 10th century.

Earliest writings in Hungarian

      The earliest known written traces of the Hungarian language are mostly proper names embedded in the Latin text of legal or ecclesiastical documents. The first continuous example of the Hungarian language is the Halotti beszéd, a short funeral oration written in about 1200, moving in its simplicity. Many translations from Latin were made in the 13th and 14th centuries, but the only one that has survived, and also the oldest extant poem written in Hungarian, is a free version of a poem by Godefroy de Breteuil. It is known as Ómagyar Mária-siralom (c. 1300; “Old Hungarian Lament of the Virgin Mary”). The 14th century also produced translations of the legends of St. Margaret and St. Francis of Assisi. The Jókai codex, which contains the St. Francis legend, was written in about 1440 and is the oldest extant Hungarian codex.

      The 15th century saw the first translations from the Bible. The preachers Thomas and Valentine, followers of the Bohemian religious reformer Jan Hus, were responsible for this work, of which the prophetic books, the Psalms, and the Gospels have survived. A great part of the vocabulary, created for the purpose, is still in use. A number of sermons by the Franciscan Pelbárt Temesvári, originally written in Latin, have come down in Hungarian translations. Among other translations are the first Hungarian drama, A három körösztény leányról (c. 1520; On Three Christian Virgins), translated from the Latin original of Hrosvitha; a translation of the legend of St. Catherine of Alexandria; and a translation of the Song of Solomon.

      Hungarian literature was not entirely religious. The existence of a history of the Trojan War and of a Hungarian version of the Alexander romance can be inferred from their South Slavic translations. In the 14th century secular literature developed and literary forms were introduced from abroad.

Renaissance and Reformation

      In 1367 the first Hungarian university was founded, at Pécs. About 100 years later King Matthias I Corvinus established the first Hungarian printing press. The King became known for his library and his patronage of foreign scholars; during his reign Latin literature in Hungary reached its peak in Janus Pannonius, who had been educated in Italy.

      The 16th century brought changes. After the Battle of Mohács (1526) the Ottoman Turks occupied a large part of Hungary and the country was split into three. It is in the era of the Reformation that Hungarian national literature really began. Benedek Komjáti, Gábor Pesti, and János Sylvester, all of whom were disciples of the humanist Erasmus, translated parts of the Bible with philological accuracy. Pesti made a very readable translation of Aesop's fables and published a Latin–Hungarian dictionary. Sylvester published the first Hungarian grammar and, to show the adaptability of the vernacular to classical verse forms, wrote the first Hungarian poem in couplets. In 1541 he published a translation of the New Testament.

      The second half of the 16th century saw the beginnings of Hungarian drama. Comoedia Balassi Menyhárt árultátásáról (1569; “Comedy on the Treachery of Menyhárt Balassi”), a satire by an unknown author, was among the most interesting literary achievements of the Reformation. Péter Bornemisza, the first important Protestant writer in Hungary, gave an entrancing view of Hungarian life, teeming with fresh observations, vivid descriptions, and original comments. His volume Ördögi Kisértetekről (1578; “On the Temptations of the Devil”) offered an interesting consideration of moral and sexual problems in the 16th century. A poem of farewell, written on leaving the country, was one of the gems of early Hungarian poetry. His Tragoedia magyar nyelven (1558; “Tragedy in Hungarian”), though based on Sophocles' Electra, is a skillful adaptation of the play in the spirit of humanism.

      Perhaps the greatest single literary achievement of the Hungarian Reformation was a translation of the Bible by Gáspár Károlyi and others (1590). The translation played a role in the development of Hungarian similar to that of the Authorized Version in English.

      Up to the 16th century religious literature seems to have fared better than secular literature, in part because secular literature was not written down. The late 16th-century minstrels were more learned than their predecessors and in many cases were driven to their profession by difficult economic conditions. Perhaps the most important was Sebestyén Tinódi, by temperament more historian than poet. He described the wars against the Turks with remarkable accuracy, but his verse was monotonous. Péter Ilosvai Selymes was the author of a romance, Az híres nevezetes Toldi Miklósnak jeles cselekedetiről (1574; “The Story of the Remarkable Nicholas Toldi's Extraordinary and Brave Deeds”), which achieved great popularity in Hungary and served as a basis for a masterpiece by János Arany in the 19th century. This romance was the one original piece in the flow of the mere entertainment literature characteristic of the 16th century, the principal genre of which was the széphistória (“beautiful story”), adapted from western European originals. Perhaps the best was the História egy Árgirus nevű királyfiról (c. 1575; “The Story of the Prince Árgirus”) by Albert Gergei, from an Italian original but interwoven with Hungarian folklore.

      A great poet emerged in Bálint Balassi (Balassi, Bálint) (1554–94), who at first imitated Petrarch and various Neo-Latin poets but later displayed originality with a cycle of love poems of great beauty and emotional intensity. His songs of war, while reflecting the vicissitudes of fighting the Turk at the borders of the Christian world, celebrate nature and individual bravery in almost hymnlike tones. The poetry of his last years is imbued with a deep religious feeling; the imagery of the poems of his last creative period (the Coelie cycle of love songs as well as his religious verse) is coloured by Mannerism.

The 17th century

      In the 17th century Hungary was still divided into three parts. The first, under Turkish rule, played no part in the development of Hungarian literature. The second, under Habsburg rule, was open to Italian and German Roman Catholic influence; the third, Transylvania, was in close relationship with Dutch and English Protestant thought. The leading Protestant scholar and writer of the 17th century was János Apáczai Csere. His chief work was a Hungarian encyclopaedia in which he endeavoured to sum up the knowledge of his time. The work, published at Utrecht in 1653, marked a development in technical vocabulary.

Effects of the Counter-Reformation

      By the end of the 16th century the Counter-Reformation was gaining momentum in western Hungary. A Jesuit cardinal, Péter Pázmány, a master of Hungarian prose, was outstanding as an orator and essayist. His writing was characterized by a vigorous and clear, though far from simple, style, use of popular expressions, and solid argument. His Isteni igazságra vezérlő kalauz (1613; “Guide to Divine Truth”) was a refutation of non-Catholic religious doctrines and a masterpiece of Baroque prose.

      Under the influence of the Jesuits, many Hungarian aristocrats returned to the Catholic faith and sent their sons to the Austrian Catholic universities and to Rome. The Italian Baroque, especially the influence of Tasso and Marino, is evident in the work of Miklós Zrínyi (Zrínyi, Miklós), a great Hungarian statesman and military commander. Most of his prose work was an exposition of political and strategic ideas. His greatest literary achievement was an epic, Szigeti veszedelem (1651; “The Peril of Sziget”), in 15 cantos, on the siege in 1566 of Szigetvár, which had been defended against the Turks by Zrínyi's great-grandfather. Though the influence of classical epics is clear, the work remains profoundly original and Hungarian. Another poet of this time, István Gyöngyösi, composed long narrative poems and also many epithalamia, or nuptial poems. He was inventive and handled rhyme with ease, and his work was read widely during the 17th and 18th centuries.

Period of decline

      The period between 1700 and about 1770 was a time of decline and slow consolidation in Hungarian literature. Memoirs form what is best in the prose literature of the period. Among the most absorbing are the autobiography of the well-traveled Miklós Bethlen, a leading Transylvanian statesman, and the confessions and memoirs (written in Latin and French, respectively) of Ferenc Rákóczi II, exiled prince of Transylvania and leader of the anti-Habsburg insurrection of 1703–11. The Törökországi levelek (“Letters from Turkey”), written from 1717 to 1758 by Kelemen Mikes, a companion in exile of Rákóczi, were addressed to an imaginary aunt. In choosing the epistolary genre Mikes was inspired by French models, and his work stands out for its excellent style and wry humour. The Metamorphosis Transylvaniae of Péter Apor is a nostalgic reminiscence of Transylvania.

      The poetry of this epoch has little to offer. The poems of László Amade were informed by a Rococo taste, both in form and in content; he mainly wrote poetry of gallantry and courtship. Another poet and translator, the versatile Ferenc Faludi, took his expressions from popular language and folk songs.

      This period of literary decadence produced notable works only in the fields of history and history of literature. Some of them were written in Latin. Among historians, Mátyás Bél, György Pray, and István Katona are most important. The first historian of Hungarian literature, Dávid Czvittinger, composed the biographies of some 300 Hungarian writers. His work was continued and improved by Péter Bod, whose Magyar Athénás (1766; “Hungarian Athenaeum”) deals with more than 500 Hungarian men of letters.

The period of the Enlightenment

      The Hungarian Enlightenment was more receptive to French and English ideas than it was productive of original developments. The period between about 1772 and 1825, though immensely important in the development of the Hungarian spirit, produced few writers of the first rank.

      With the publication in 1772 of the first literary work by György Bessenyei, a translation (from the French) of Alexander Pope's Essay on Man, the new era began. All of Bessenyei's works served a didactic purpose. His drama Ágis tragédiája (1772; “The Tragedy of Agis”) was a somewhat creaking vehicle for his liberal ideas. His best work, Tariménes utazása (1802–04; “Tarimenes' Journey”), the first real novel in Hungarian, was a bitter attack on everything that was opposed to the Enlightenment. With destructive irony, Bessenyei, an officer of the Hungarian Guards, examined the shortcomings of contemporary society. His personal influence induced several of his fellow officers—for example, Sándor Báróczi and Ábrahám Barcsay—to try to convey the ideas of the Enlightenment in Hungarian to a Hungarian public.

      Spurred on by new ideas, but basically traditionalists, József Gvadányi and András Dugonics produced amusing works that were both of some literary merit and popular. Gvadányi's best work, Egy falusi nótáriusnak budai utazása (1790; “The Journey to Buda of a Village Notary”), is a defense of national and traditional values against encroaching foreign ideas. The novel Etelka (1788), by Dugonics, a sentimental love story in a historical setting, was the first Hungarian best-seller. Both Gvadányi and Dugonics used the language of the common people, and this was perhaps their greatest merit. Ádám Pálóczi Horváth left a collection of 450 poems, a treasure-house of authentic folk songs.

      The end of the 18th century was a period of experiments with poetic language. The pioneers of the use of Greek and Latin metres in Hungarian verse (to which they are eminently suited) were followed by Benedek Virág, who imbued with poetic inspiration verse forms that for his predecessors were merely formal exercises. It fell to Dániel Berzsenyi (Berzsenyi, Dániel), who published a single volume of poetry, in 1813, to show what use a great poet could make of classical metre. His ode “A Magyarokhoz” (“To the Hungarians”), his “Fohász” (“Prayer”), and his elegy “A közelitő tél” (“On the Nearing Winter”) express the transitoriness of power and of friendship.

      The ideas of the Enlightenment were not universally welcomed in Hungary. Traditionalist elements looked with distrust on any imported ideas, and the government was increasingly suspicious of a spirit of intellectual freedom, which it believed had led to the French Revolution and, in Hungary, to the Jacobin conspiracy of Martinovics, crushed in 1794. Several writers went to prison for harbouring radical views. The most talented among them, János Batsányi (Batsányi, János), secured his place in the history of Hungarian literature by his poem “A Franciaországi változásokra” (1789; “On the Changes in France”), a vigorous warning to all tyrants “to cast their watchful eyes on Paris.”

      Sentimentalism found its exponents in József Kármán and Gábor Dayka. Kármán's only work of importance, Fanni hagyományai (1794; “The Memoirs of Fanny”), is a novel of sentiment written in the form of letters and diary entries. Very much on the lines of Goethe's Werther, the work nevertheless marks an important step in the history of the Hungarian novel. Dayka, who was a poet, died too young for the full measure of his talent to be realized.

      The first important lyric poet since Bálint Balassi was Mihály Csokonai Vitéz (Csokonai Vitéz, Mihály), who continued the purely Hungarian poetical tradition. His many songs to a woman named Lilla are a happy blend of playful grace and subtle thoughts. The influence of Rousseau is very noticeable in some of his longer philosophical poems. Alexander Pope's Rape of the Lock served as a source of inspiration for Csokonai's comic epic Dorottya (1804), but Csokonai's poem is original and his context very Hungarian. The language of the poem is vigorous, even vulgar, and the plot is full of hilariously comic situations.

      The place of Sándor Kisfaludy in Hungarian literature is secured by his first work, Kesergő szerelem (1801; “Bitter Love”), a lyric cycle depending on a very thin narrative thread. Writing in an elaborate verse form of 12 lines, called the Himfy verse, which he devised himself, Kisfaludy displayed great ingenuity in finding new variations on the theme of unhappy love.

      Ferenc Kazinczy (Kazinczy, Ferenc), a mediocre poet but an influential man of letters, was the pivot of literary life for about 40 years. For his involvement in the conspiracy of Martinovics he paid with six years' imprisonment. He wanted a literature refined and limpid, neither baroque nor popular, and his interest was focused on style. He became the head of the neologi, or linguistic innovators, who tried to renew and enrich the Hungarian language so that it could express the most elaborate concepts. The success of the language reform was due, to a large extent, to Kazinczy's efforts.

The 19th century

Romanticism

      The literary revival initiated by Kazinczy continued after his death. The literary leadership of Hungary at the beginning of the 19th century was assumed by Károly Kisfaludy (Kisfaludy, Károly) when, in 1822, he founded a literary magazine, Aurora, to which all the important writers of the period contributed. He was also the first representative of Romanticism and the first playwright to achieve popular success.

      While Kisfaludy's tragedies were applauded all over the country, Bánk bán (the bán was a high Hungarian dignitary), one of Hungary's best tragedies, by József Katona, was published in 1821 but, for the time being, was overlooked. Set in the 13th century and written in vigorous prose, the play was a masterful combination of national and individual conflicts, and one of its characters, Tiborc, a poor peasant, has remained ever since a symbol of the oppressed.

      Ferenc Kölcsey (Kölcsey, Ferenc) was a deputy in the Hungarian parliament and a brilliant orator; his literary criticism was of a high standard, though unduly severe. His later poems, which were grave but vigorous in thought and expression, often dealt with national problems; his impressive “Hymnusz” (1823) became the Hungarian national anthem. After Kisfaludy's death, Mihály Vörösmarty (Vörösmarty, Mihály) became a central figure in literary life, producing writings of value in every genre. In particular he succeeded with a long epic poem Zalán futása (1825; “The Flight of Zalán”), written in a Romantic vein but expressing a concern for contemporary problems. This concern is evident also in many of his best lyric poems and even in his symbolic fairy play Csongor és Tünde (1831; “Csongor and Tünde”).

      In Hungarian literature, poetry was far ahead of drama, and the novel seemed slow in taking root. Miklós Jósika, a disciple of Sir Walter Scott, was the first successful novelist. His first and best work, the historical novel Abafi (1836), marked a turning point for the genre. József Eötvös (Eötvös, József, Báró), who after the 1848 revolution became a political theorist, produced two of the best novels in 19th-century Hungarian literature—A falu jegyzője (1845; The Village Notary), a portrait of feudal life in his own time, and Magyarország 1514-ben (1847; “Hungary in 1514”), about György Dózsa's peasants' revolt. They possessed exceptional qualities of characterization, both of individuals and of periods, and were political manifestos in support of the oppressed and against the appalling injustices that led to revolutions—of which Eötvös nevertheless disapproved.

      The folk song and ballad collections of János Erdélyi and János Kriza exerted an influence on the further development of Hungarian poetry. “Popular poetry is the only real poetry” was the opinion of Sándor Petőfi (Petőfi, Sándor), one of the greatest Hungarian poets, whose best poems rank among the masterpieces of world literature. He was an innovator and made a break with conventional subjects and poetic language. His poems are striking in immediacy of perception and directness of language and cover a vast range of subjects. The fervour of his patriotic poems inspired the revolution of 1848. Petőfi's many songs are enchanting in their simplicity, and in this genre he remained unsurpassed.

      János Arany (Arany, János) shared Petőfi's conviction of the value of popular poetry, but his approach was different, for his subjects were often taken from history and showed deep understanding of the human mind. He had the assurance of one who knew that what he wrote was the language of the people, lifted to a degree never surpassed in Hungarian. His ballads, often romantic, had vigour, conciseness, and uncommon evocative power. His great narrative poems, the Toldi trilogy (1847–79) and Buda halála (1864; The Death of King Buda), reflected eternal human problems; Arany's philosophy appeared through his characters and not in lengthy digressions and was accompanied by subtle humour.

Writers of the late 19th century

      The peaks of poetry reached by Petőfi and Arany remained inaccessible to other poets during the rest of the 19th century. Hungary, after being defeated in the war of independence of 1848–49, was ruled from Vienna until 1867. External political pressures on Austria and the willingness of Hungarian society to end passive resistance made possible the Settlement (or Compromise) of 1867, which created the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. The post-1867 industrial boom and Hungary's fast technological and commercial development produced a mood of complacency that was first broken by László Arany (son of János), whose ironic novel in verse, A délibábok hőse (1873; “The Hero of the Mirages”), is representative of the mood of disillusionment. Another poet, János Vajda, bridged the gap between the romantic populism of Petőfi and fin-de-siècle decadence: a gloomy visionary, with equal propensity for self-pity and self-aggrandizement, he was nevertheless an important innovator in the field of metaphor and poetic imagery.

      In 1837 a national theatre was established to produce works of merit, but, with few exceptions, the standard of plays was low. Ede Szigligeti, a prolific playwright, wrote entertaining comedies and created a special genre of plays, the népszinmü, that give an idealized picture of village life but also contain a measure of social criticism. Very different were the plays of Imre Madách, whose masterpiece Az ember tragédiája (1861; The Tragedy of Man) dealt with universal human problems. This poetic drama followed man's destiny from creation through stages of history into a future of a phalanstery (a Utopian commune) and the ultimate extinction of life. The play was first staged in 1883 and remains a favourite with the Hungarian public.

      The first outstanding novelist, Zsigmond Kemény (Kemény, Zsigmond, Baron), displayed, in such novels as Zord idő (1862; “Grim Times”), A rajongók (1858–59; “The Fanatics”), and Férj és nő (1852; “Husband and Wife”), a masterly skill in psychological analysis. His characters' own deeds determined their gloomy ends. Analysis often took the place of action in Kemény's novels, which were therefore difficult to read and not popular. On the other hand, Mór Jókai (Jókai, Mór) was a popular Hungarian novelist, an exceptional storyteller able to evoke any epoch and any milieu. His characters were idealized, and his descriptions tended to be brilliant rather than accurate. Among his numerous works (he published more than 200 books in his lifetime) were historical novels on problems of contemporary society. Az arany ember (1873; “That Golden Man”; Eng. trans., Timár's Two Worlds) is one of his best novels. Kálmán Mikszáth (Mikszáth, Kálmán) was also popular; he recorded with keen observation and sly humour the shortcomings of society but, although a politician and a member of parliament, was little concerned with improvement. Though the principal works of Géza Gárdonyi were published early in the 20th century, they belonged to the 19th century. Egri csillagok (1901; “The Stars of Eger”) and A láthatatlan ember (1902; “The Invisible Man”; Eng. trans., Slave of the Huns) were well constructed.

      During the 19th century, literary life in Hungary became organized to some extent: the Kisfaludy and Petőfi societies, founded in 1836 and 1876, respectively, were particularly influential, though the authority of the Hungarian Academy, founded in 1825, remained unchallenged. The principal critic of the second half of the century was Pál Gyulai. Literary criticism and the history of Hungarian literature attracted some of the best minds, including Jenő Péterfy and Frigyes Riedl.

      The last third of the 19th century in Hungary was an era of literary decline in which writers based their work on social and political ideals that were becoming sterile. The great majority of Hungarian writers came from the nobility and lived as part of the middle class; only at the end of the century did lower-middle-class writers come to the fore. The periodical A hét (“The Week”), founded in 1890 by József Kiss, became the organ of a number of gifted writers, including Zoltán Ambrus and Sándor Bródy.

The 20th century

Early years

      The year 1906, when Endre Ady (Ady, Endre) burst upon the literary scene with his Uj versek (“New Poems”), marked a turning point. In matters of style Ady was influenced by the French Symbolists, but in content he was concerned with radical political ideas. He rejuvenated the language of Hungarian poetry, introducing new themes and powerful new imagery. His rise was helped by the periodical Nyugat (“The West”), which was launched in 1908 under the editorship of Hugo Ignotus, Miksa Fenyő, and Ernő Osvát. Among poets associated with Nyugat were Mihály Babits, an excellent translator of foreign poetry who became editor in 1929; Dezső Kosztolányi, who wrote with empathy on childhood and death and whose novels and short stories established high standards in narrative prose; and Árpád Tóth and Gyula Juhász, who voiced the distress of the poor and the oppressed in society. A fifth poet, Milán Füst, wrote little, but the dramatic metaphors and sonorous language of the work he did produce made his a lasting influence. In addition to his poetry he wrote an outstanding novel, A feleségem története (1942; “The Story of My Wife”).

      The prose writers of Nyugat included Zsigmond Móricz, whose tales of provincial life portrayed peasants and gentry; Margit Kaffka, the first major woman writer in Hungary; and Gyula Krúdy, who created a nostalgic dreamworld with his stream-of-consciousness technique.

      Writers not connected with Nyugat included the versatile Ferenc Molnár, who, after a promising start as a writer of fiction, began to write cleverly constructed social comedies. A conservative-nationalist group of writers was highly influential before 1918; its principal figure was Ferenc Herczeg, an author of novels and plays. During World War I and the years of revolution that followed, two authors emerged to challenge both the old establishment and Nyugat. These were Lajos Kassák (Kassák, Lajos), the first significant poet of the Hungarian avant-garde, who also wrote a remarkable autobiography depicting working-class life at the beginning of the century; and Dezső Szabó, whose large, uneven expressionistic novel Az elsodort falu (1919; “The Village That Was Swept Away”) combined antiwar sentiment with a romantic cult of the peasantry. First embraced and then rejected by the post-1919 counterrevolution, Szabó is best remembered as a witty though venomous pamphleteer.

The interwar period

      The interwar period saw a flowering of Hungarian letters. Although the influence of Nyugat diminished, neither the populist Válasz (“The Response”) nor the left-wing Szép szó (“Fine Word”) could quite supplant it. The leading poet of the 1920s was Lőrinc Szabó, a master of poetic technique and fine observation, whereas the 1930s were dominated by Attila József, whose experience of alienation and Socialist ideas were expressed in great poetic tableaux and in poems probing the subconscious, and by Gyula Illyés, who found inspiration in the life of the peasantry. The poetry of Miklós Radnóti reached a tragic climax in the serene and polished poems he wrote in the last years of his life.

      In Hungary, as elsewhere, the novel became the principal form of literary expression. While Sándor Márai and Lajos Zilahy depicted the life of the bourgeoisie, János Kodolányi, László Németh, and Zsigmond Remenyik exposed the conflicts of the individual with society (often against a background of injustice and misery). Áron Tamási wrote beautifully stylized novels on the life of the Szeklers, an ethnic group of Transylvania. Tibor Déry, whose chief work was published only after 1945, wrote realistic novels and a challenging autobiography. The foremost essayist of the period was László Németh, whose A minőség forradalma (1940; “The Revolution of Quality”) remained a seminal influence for many years to come. Other essayists and literary historians active in this era included a particularly brilliant writer, Antal Szerb, and Gábor Halász (both died in forced labour camps in 1945) and László Cs. Szabó.

Writing after 1945

      The period since 1945, though officially designated one of “Socialist transformation,” has seen but little change in writers' traditional orientations and preoccupations. During the first decade, particularly the years 1948–53, many writers were forced into silence by the regime's attempts to introduce Socialist Realism as the only correct style and creative method. After the failure of the 1956 uprising a number of writers were imprisoned, but by the mid-1960s most efforts to enforce ideological purity in the arts were abandoned. Since then there has been comparatively little official intervention in Hungarian literature and the margin of free experimentation has grown. This allowed writers such as Géza Ottlik, Miklós Mészöly, and István Örkény to publish work that showed ways in which the technique of modern fiction could be applied in Hungary. Among the best new authors were György Konrád and Péter Esterházy. Konrád's novels A látogató (1969; The Case Worker), A városalapító (1977; The City Builder), and the unofficially published A cinkos (1982; The Loser) achieved great impact with their dense, poetically structured style and analytical probing into the world of the social caseworker, the planner of new society, and the mental institution. Esterházy's most successful novel to date, Termelési regény (kisssregény) (1979; “Production Novel (a Ssshort [sic] Novel)”), is a grotesque and refreshingly irreverent survey of Hungarian life and society.

      Among the adherents of realistic fiction, József Lengyel, who died in 1975, occupied a special place. In his stories (which could not be published until the loosening of restrictions in the early 1960s) he gave a moving testimony of human suffering in Soviet labour camps.

      The best poetry was written by Sándor Weöres (Weöres, Sándor), whose poetic span ranges from Eastern philosophy to delightful children's verses, and János Pilinszky, an Existentialist Catholic whose most memorable poems deal with the experience of what he called the “universe of camps” produced by World War II. Other noteworthy poets included the urbane László Kálnoky and István Vas, and Ferenc Juhász and László Nagy, two poets of peasant origin whose work grew out of native tradition to express universal rites and myths of mankind such as marriage, the struggle among generations for power, and cosmic destruction.

      Frontier changes since World War I have placed substantial Hungarian minorities in countries outside Hungary, especially in neighbouring Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Romania. In Romania, for example, where approximately 2,000,000 Hungarians live, the best known Hungarian writer is the playwright and novelist András Sütő. There also has been a large diaspora in the West, where, apart from Márai, the versatile modernist Győző Határ and the post-Romantic poet György Faludy have the largest following. The Munich-based cultural review Uj látóhatár (“New Horizon”) has enjoyed the longest uninterrupted existence among Hungarian periodicals inside or outside of Hungary.

Additional Reading

Albert Tezla, An Introductory Bibliography to the Study of Hungarian Literature (1964), and Hungarian Authors: A Bibliographical Handbook (1970), are annotated sources on items available from major U.S. and European book collections. Antal Szerb, Magyar irodalomtörténet, 6th ed. (1978), is an informative history, an earlier edition of which is available also in a German translation: Ungarische Literaturgeschichte, 2 vol. (1975). An exhaustive historical coverage is provided in István Sötér (ed.), A magyar irodalom története, 6 vol. (1964–66). Béla Pomogáts, Az újabb magyar irodalom, 1945–1981 (1982), is an informative critical study of 20th-century literature. In English, see D. Mervyn Jones, Five Hungarian Writers (1966), which gives a detailed analysis of the works of the writers Miklós Zrínyi, Kelemen Mikes, Mihály Vörösmarty, József Eötvös, and Sándor Petőfi. Tibor Klaniczay (ed.), A History of Hungarian Literature (1982; originally published in Hungarian, 1982), provides broad coverage. Lóránt Czigány, The Oxford History of Hungarian Literature from the Earliest Times to the Present (1984), is a comprehensive chronologically arranged work, with emphasis on the 19th and 20th centuries.Tibor Klaniczay Denis Sinor George Gömöri

* * *