Emil Lengyel

Emil Lengyel , originally Émile Lengyel, (born April 26, 1895 in Budapest , † February 12, 1985 in New York City , New York) was a Hungarian-American journalist.

Life and activity

Emil Lengyel was a son of Kaufmanny Joseph Lengyel († 1897) and his wife Johanna, nee Adam. From 1901 to 1913 he attended elementary school and then a grammar school in Budapest. He then began studying law at the city's royal university.

From 1915 Lengyel took part in the First World War with the Imperial and Royal Army. In June 1916 he was taken prisoner by the Russians during the Brusilov offensive . He was taken to a POW camp in Totzkoe, Siberia , where he stayed until 1917. During this time he devoted himself to self-study in English, French and German. Due to the poor hygienic conditions in the camp and the harsh living conditions (in the year before his admission, 80% of the prisoners in the camp had died, but in 1916 the conditions had improved comparatively much) he fell ill repeatedly with malaria and was attacked by lice several times. In addition, his hair turned white during this time. At the end of 1917, due to his health, he was repatriated as part of a prisoner exchange via Finland, Swede and Norway.

From 1918 Lengyel continued his studies at the Budapest University. He completed it with a law doctorate. He then worked as a translator in the office of the Hungarian postal administration. After a short time he switched to the staff of the Budapest afternoon newspaper Magyar Hirlap , and then went to Vienna for another newspaper.

From 1920 to 1921 Lengyel worked as an editor for the newspaper Ungarische Rundschau in Vienna. He then went to the United States as a correspondent for various European newspapers, where he arrived on December 6, 1921. His original assignment had actually only been to report on the Washington disarmament conference. Since he liked life in the States, Lengyel decided to settle there permanently and from then on reported from the country as a permanent correspondent for various Central European newspapers. In 1927 he was naturalized there.

From the late 1920s Lengyel traveled regularly to Europe as a special correspondent for the New York Times , from where he supplied his newspaper for fourteen years with articles on political and social events, conditions and developments on the continent, as well as book reviews and features. He met with various leading politicians as well as with outstanding figures from the scientific and cultural life of the continent such as Albert Einstein and Thomas Mann .

Lengyel also began publishing non-fiction books in the early 1930s. The main subjects of his works were studies of political conditions in Europe, Turkey, the Middle East and - in later years - the Indian subcontinent on the one hand, as well as biographies of outstanding political figures of the 20th century such as B. Mahatma Gandhi , Cemal Pascha and Jawaharlal Nehru on the other hand. As early as 1932 Lengyel also presented one of the earliest biographies about Adolf Hitler. In addition to the New York Times, he also contributed articles to newspapers such as the Toronto Star , The Nation , and The Saturday Review . As a translator, he translated the works of German writers from the Weimar period into English.

Lengyel was the Adjunct Professor of History and Economics at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute from 1935 to 1942. Since 1939 he has taught as a staff lecturerer at New York University (1939-1943), in 1939 he received the rank of Assistant Professor (1939-1947), in 1947 that of Associate Professor (1947-1951), before becoming a full Professor of 1951 History was ordered (1951–1960). Since 1960 he has held the status of Professor Emeritus at this institution. In January 1941 he had also been appointed lecturer for the subject of education at the New York University School of Education.

The National Socialist police officers classified Lengyel as an enemy of the state: In the spring of 1940 the Reich Main Security Office - which mistakenly suspected him to be in Great Britain - placed him on the special wanted list GB , a list of people who would be killed in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British island by the Wehrmacht from the occupation troops following special commandos of the SS should move into the country, should be located and arrested with special priority.

Since 1960 Lengyel has been Professor of History at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Rutherford , New Jersey. From 1963 to 1972 he also held the post of Chairman of the Social Sciences Department there, 1972 adjunct Professor history.

Lengyel was also a member of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the American Historical Association, the American-European Friendship Association (from 1956 to 1962 he was president of the same), the American Association for Middle East Studies, and the American Association of University Professors , the PEN Club, the Overseas Press Club, the Columbia University Seminars on Pre-Industrial Area, and the Mongolian Society.

family

Lengyel had been married to Livia Delej since July 17, 1938, with whom he had a son, Peter.

Fonts

As an author :

• Cattle Car Express. A Prisoner of War in Siberia , 1931.
• The Cauldron Boils , Dial Press, 1932
• Hitler , New York, Dial, 1932.
• The New Deal in Europe , New York 1934.
• Millions of Dictators , 1936.
• The Danube , 1940.
• Turkey , New York 1940.
• Dakar: The Outpost of the Two Hemispheres , Garden City Publishing Co, New York 1943.
• Siberia , Random House, New York 1943. (Revised version published in 1947 as Secret Siberia )
• America's Role in World Affairs , Harper, 1946.
• Americans from Hungary , Philadelphia 1948.
• World Without End. The Middle East , 1953.
• Egypt's Role in World Affairs , 1957.
• 1,000 Years of Hungary , John Day, New York 1958.
• Changing Middle East , John Day, New York 1960.
• They Called Him Ataturk , John Day, New York 1962.
• Krishna Menon , Walker & Co., 1962.
• The Soviet Union. The Land and Ist Peiple , 1962
• Form Prison to Power , 1964.
• The Land and People of Hungary, Lippincott , 1965, revised edition,
• The Subcontinent of India. An Introduction to the History, Geography, Culturepolitic and Contemporary Life of Idia, Parkistan and Ceylon , 1965.
• Mahatma Gandhi. The Great Soul , 1966.
• Jawaharlal Nehru. The Brahman from Kashmir , 1968.
• Lajos Kossuth, Hungary's Great Patriot 1969.
• Asoka the Great, India's Royal Missionary , F. Watts, 1969.
• Nationalism, the Last Stage of Communism , 1969.
• First Book of Turkey , F. Watts, 1970.
• Ignace Paderewski: Musician and Statesman , Watts, 1970.
• Iran , 1972.
• Pakistan: A First Book , F. Watts, 1971.
• Pakistan , 1972.

As a translator :

• Georg M. Karst: The Beast of the Earth , New York 1942.

literature

• Current Biography Yearbook , Vol. 3, 1942, pp. 503-505.
• Contemporary Authors: First revision , Volumes 9-12.

Web links

• Literature by and about Emil Lengyel in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ entry to Lengydel on the special wanted list GB (play on the site of the Imperial War Museum in London). .