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Endre Ady (1877-1919) |
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Poet, journalist, short story writer, who took the role of "the conscience of the Hungarian nation," prophesying spiritual rebirth or pessimistically the destruction of "Everything". Endre Ady is best-known for his daring works celebrating sensual love, but he also wrote religious and revolutionary poems. His expression was radical in form, language and content, mixing eroticism, politics, and biblical style and images with apocalyptic visions. oh I have lived a disgusting life, Endre Ady, descended from impoverished landed gentry, was born in the remote village of Érmindszent, Austria-Hungary (now Ady Endre, Romania). At his birth Ady had six fingers on each hand. The extra two fingers were cut off by the midwife. Later he used to show the scars, calling them his '"wizard marks." Until the age of nine Ady attended the local Calvinist school – his mother came of a long line of Calvinist ministers. He changed to a Catholic school and went then to a Catholic gymnasium at the town of Nagykároly. Partly because of his drinking habits and free associating with girls he was transferred to a Calvinist college at Zilah. During these years Ady started to write and consume alcohol
seriously. After graduating he entered a law school but abandoned his
studies for a newspaper post in Debrecen. Versek,
his first
book of poetry, appeared in 1899. From 1900 until his death Ady worked
as a journalist, drifting from one provincial paper to another. He
spent four years in Nagyvárad (now Oradea, in Romania), an important
centre of intellectual life, where he contracted syphilis. Ady called
Nagyvárad "a city with a wonderfuo air, daring, conquering". He served
on the staff of an opposition paper and his militant attitude to the
excesses of nationalism was seen in poems written during this period.
At that time, many of the intellectuals had a gentry background, but
differing from Ady, they had conservative leanings. Budapest represented for Ady an union between Jews and non-Jews; "The
Jews made Budapest for us," he said in his famous article entitled
'Korrobori,' written in 1917, but published in Nyugat in 1924. (Jewish Budapest: Monuments, Rites, History by Kinga Frojimovics, Géza Komoróczy, Viktória Pusztai, Andrea Strbi, 1999, p. 468) Még egyszer, which came out in 1903, was Ady's first
significant volume of poetry. In the same years he met Adél Brüll
(Diós), the cultured wife of a lawyer, who became "Léda" (notice
the anagram of Adél) of his poems and his muse for the next nine years.
Ady's thinking radicalized after the 1905 Revolution. With his next collection, Új versek
(1906), Ady made his breakthrough as a poet, and initiated a revolution
in Hungarian literature. At the request of Ady himself, the book was
illustrated by Sándor Nagy (1868-1950) in Art Noveau style. The painter György Leszkovszky (1891-1968) illustrated the poem 'To
Cry, To Cry, To Cry,' originally published in Vér és arany (1907). These watercolour paintings were exhibited at the National Salon in 1922. From
1904 until 1914, Ady lived in Paris with Brüll much of his time, but he
also made frequent visits to Hungary, Italy, the Riviera, and
elsewhere. Paris was
for Ady the city of light but also the city of the Commune of Paris
(1870-71) and the craddle of modern poetry, Baudelaire and Verlaine,
both of whom he translated. Looking at his home country from the West
European perspective, Ady found Hungary in its state of backwardness
equal to Russia. To support himself, Ady worked as a foreign correspondent for Budapest papers, among others for Budapesti naplón. Many of his writings dealt with fine arts. Ady admired works by Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), who had escaped to Tahiti to paint, and Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), also a hero of Hungarian artists flocking to Paris. Between the years 1908 and 1919, Ady was closely associated with the journal Nyugat(West),
which kept him in the public eye. The journal, established in 1908,
published works from some
of the best writers of the era, and took a major role in fostering the
emergence of modern Hungarian literature. In its quest for freedom, it
was extremely critical towards the political regime, which, as the
writer Ignotus (pen name of Hugó Veigelsberg) said, "attempts to
justify its intrusion into literature with the catchword that it is
protecting the inner purity of Hungarian art." ('The Social Context of a Modernist Poet: Endre Ady' by Maxwell Staley, in Fulbright Student Conference Papers, 2007/2008) Moreover, Ady was active in a society of young writers, called Holnaposok (Those of Tomorrow), which published a literary review entitled Holnap (Tomorrow). György Lukács called in 1909 in the journal Huszadik Század
(Twentieth Century) Ady's poetry the flag around which everything
"progressive" can be rallied once it comes to fighting. ('Modern Sociology and Modern Art in Early Twentieth Century Hungary' by Attila Pók, in Hungarian Studies, Volume 9, 1994, p. 68) Óh, nagyon csúnyán éltem, In Új versek, and in its successor Vér és arany, Ady found his own way of expression, deliberately shocking with piled up adjectives and repetitions. Az Illés szekerén (1908)
expressed Ady's continuous struggle with religion. God is for
the poet the Almighty who is bored with virtuosos and doesn't guide,
revenge or reward. "My skin belongs to the devil," he confesses. A
product of a Calvinist upbringing, Ady protested in 1911 against
the proposition of kneeling at prayer, arguing that Hungarian
Calvinists should not kneel even if the Protestant reformer himself had
done so. For the younger generation Ady's works provided an immediate challenge. Different generations and their literary opinions were divided and his unconventional language, adopted from symbolist, shocked the audience. He attacked the ruling class for their greed, castigated Hungary as a backward-looking country, and advocated modernity, but paradodoxically, he had an aversion for telephones and automobiles. In 'Az ős Kaján' he wrote: "My Lord, my soil is Hungarian soil, barren exploited. / Why encourage us to unmindful rapture? / What is worth of pledges in wine and blood? / What may the worth of a Hungarian be?" Among others, prime minister István Tisza, and the leading conservative journalist Jeno Rákosi were his prominent opponents. In 1912, "Léda" started an affair with another man and Ady's 'A Message of Gentle Dismissal' from 1913 became his final words to her. Feeling exhausted, Ady consulted Freud's outstanding Hungarian pupil Sándor Ferenczi, who sent him to a clinic. After recovery he started a series of affairs, and married in 1915 a young girl, Bertuka Boncza ("Csinszka" in his poems), with whom he had corresponded. However, Ady found only brief periods of happiness and respite from nervous tensions in the secluded Transylvanian home of his wife. In one poem he said, "I do not know why and how long / I am going to remain with you / but I hold your hand / and guard your eyes." You hear the hollow hoofbeats of During World War I Ady adopted a pacifist position. He protested vigorously against the war and forces of reaction. In 'Láttam rejtett törvényed' (1914), written after Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated in Sarajevo, the poet hears thunder from clouds and sees himself dead, in ice while the world is in flames. When the radicals took over the government and István Tisza, the war leader, was murdered, Ady was horrified. He suffered a stroke that affected his speech, but not writing. Ady's pacifist poems – unique at that time in Hungary – were collected in A halottak élen (1918). Ady was elected in October 1918 chairman of the Vörösmarty Academy
which was just founded. The critic Lóránt Czigány says in The Oxford History of Hungarian Literature (1984), that in the last months of his life, Ady was "more
of a living corpse than a brilliant intellect." (Ibid., p. 291) Weakened by alcoholism, Ady died of pneumonia in Budapest on January 27, in 1919. A new revolutionary government, formed in the wake of postwar upheavals, arranged a state funeral for him. Ady's final poem was 'Az utolsó hajók' (The last ships), where he leaves open his belief or unbelief in God – "you Are Not" he wrote in front of death. It has been told that just a few months earlier Ady teared up his old faithful companion, the Bible, which had deeply impressed his own language. Ady was very prolific. He wrote some 1,000 poems and published 10 volumes of poetry in 12 years, as well as short stories and countless articles. Ady's complete poems, Összes versei, were first published in 1930. Ady has remained a legendary figure in Hungarian literature. Although he founded no school he opened up new possibilities for expression. Some of the critics have claimed, that a part of Ady's poetry was essentially political journalism in verse form, requiring familiarity with the issues of the poet's time. For further reading: És megint elölről...: Ady, Kosztolányi, József Attila by Veres András (2022); Ady Endre kultúrharcai: a keszténység megtámadása Európában és a Magyar Királyságban by Ernő Raffay (2019); Ermindszent: Ady Endre szelofaluja by Katalin Benak (2007); Endre Ady: Poet of Preverbal Experiences by Fiore Mester (2000); Ady Endre, 1877-1919 by Sandor Borbely (2000); 'Ady, Endre,' in World Authors 1900-1950, Volume Two, edited by Martin Seymour-Smith and Andrew C. Kimmens (1996); Unkarin kirjallisuus, toim. Tibor Klaniczay (1986); The Oxford History of Hungarian Literature: From the Earliest Times to the Present by Lóránt Czigány (1984); A History of Hungarian Literature by Istvan Nemeskürty, et al. (1983); The Explosive Country by G.F. Cushing (1977); Ady Endrérol by György Lukács (1977); Emlékezések Ady Endréről, edited by Miklós Kovalovszky (1961-1974); Ady by Lajos Hatvany (1974); Ady Endre I-II by István Király (1972); Poems of Endre Ady, translated by A. Nyegers (1969,); Hungarian Writers and Literature by J. Reményi (1964); Ady minden titkai by Gyula Földessy (1949); Az igazi Ady by György Bölöni (1947); 'Endre Ady, Hungary's Apocalyptic Poet' by Joseph Remen, in The Slavonic and East European Review, Volume Twenty-Two, Part One, May (1944); Ady Endre by Lajos Ady (1923) - Suomeksi on julkaistu valikoimat Eliaan vaunuissa, suom. Anna-Maija Raittila (1977) ja Lensi riikinkukko (1978). Anna-Maija Raittilan lisäksi Adyn runoja ovat kääntäneet Arvo Turtiainen (Vapauden tuulet, 1952), Toivo Lyy (Unkarin lyyra, 1970), Aale Tynni (Tuhat laulujen vuotta, 1974). Teokseen Lensi riikinkukko on koottu kilpailun tuloksena useita Adyn runoja eri kääntäjiltä. Adyn runokieltä valaisee Anna-Maija Raittilan suomentamat säkeet runosta Kocsi-út az éjszakában: "Kaikki Ehjä on särkynyt, / jokainen liekki on vain loimahdus, / risana jokainen rakkaus, / kaikki Ehjä on särkynyt." Selected works:
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