Géza Csáth

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Géza Csáth in 1915
Géza Csáth, bronze bust in Subotica .

Géza Csáth , born as József Brenner , (born  February 13, 1887 in Szabadka , then Austria-Hungary , now Serbia ; †  September 11, 1919 in Kelebija , then Kingdom of Yugoslavia , now Serbia), was a Hungarian writer , playwright , music critic and Psychiatrist who came from a wealthy middle-class family. He was the cousin of the Hungarian writer Dezső Kosztolányi .

Csáth published his literary work in Hungarian . The main work includes his diaries, short stories and stories. Although Csáth's literary oeuvre is little known outside of Hungary, he is considered to be one of the most important representatives of modern literature in Hungary in the 20th century. His literary aesthetic, which broke the taboos of its time and expressed radical psychological abysses, has influenced numerous Hungarian writers. Most of his writings were published posthumously .

Csáth's work was forgotten after his early death and was judged and suppressed as "decadent" by Stalinist cultural policy in Hungary after the Second World War. Only after the Hungarian uprising in 1956 was it gradually rehabilitated and included in the canon. Some of his most important works were first published as translations in German between 1989 and 1999.

life and work

Even in his childhood and youth, Géza Csáth was considered artistically gifted and versatile. He painted, played the violin and piano and turned to writing very early. At the age of 14, in 1901, he published his first music reviews in a regional newspaper. Csáth graduated from his native Szabadka and then began studying medicine in Budapest , which he graduated as a neurologist in 1910 . Géza Csáth had already written articles for feature pages and magazines during his studies . He was one of the first to recognize the value of the works of the Hungarian composers Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály .

After completing his studies, he was an assistant doctor at Professor Moravcsik's psychiatry and mental hospital in Budapest. Csáth was particularly interested in the effects of drugs, both from a medical perspective and in terms of artistic creativity. Out of this interest he injected himself with morphine for the first time in April 1910 and soon became addicted. He then changed his position and worked as a spa doctor. He also found time to write.

In 1909, at the age of 21, Csáth published his first volume of short stories, and an essay on opium appeared a year later . In addition, he wrote feature sections and music reviews, composed and wrote plays. In 1911 two pieces by Csáth were performed in Budapest, the music of which he had also composed. In the same year Csáth's medical work "On the psychological mechanism of mental illnesses" appeared. In 1912 his study on Giacomo Puccini was translated into German and published.

Most of his short stories were written in the period before the First World War, they address physical or psychological aggression, violence and taboos such as fratricide , matricide, rape or the seduction of underage girls. The radical form of the narrative perspective was also new : Csáth presented these disturbing acts in the first person singular, with deep insights into the psyche of the disturbed perpetrator. His collected novels were first published in Hungary in 1994 under the title Mesék, amelyek rosszul végződnek, ( Eng . "Fairy tales that end badly").

In 1913, to the amazement of his friends and relatives, Géza Csáth married Olga Jónás. From 1914 he took part in the First World War as a military doctor. During this time his drug addiction worsened, so that in 1917 he was discharged seriously ill. He then tried to practice as a country doctor in various villages in southern Hungary. But his addiction increased and now dominated his life. Csáth is said to have often developed paranoid states that affected his private relationships. In 1919 he was treated in a mental hospital in a provincial hospital, but from which he fled. On July 22, 1919, he shot his wife Olga; his suicide was prevented. He was admitted to the Szabadka hospital, but managed to escape again. Csáth wanted to go back to Budapest, to the Moravcsik psychiatric clinic, but he was picked up by Serbian soldiers on the demarcation line between Hungary and Serbia. He took poison in the scuffle and is said to have died in the ditch. His grave in Szabadka, today's Subotica in Serbia, no longer exists because no one paid for it.

The Hungarian literary scholar László F. Földényi describes the work of Géza Csáth as an insider tip, which forms a counterpoint to the literary mainstream in Hungary at the beginning of the 20th century. Csásth's life can be traced especially through his novellas: "From melancholy and aestheticism the path leads to aggression, lust for murder and madness" . Földényi sums up the person Géza Csáth: "Life has forced him to ceaselessly follow a path that is exclusively his, but is still not acceptable to him."

Works

  • A varázsló kertje. ("The Magician's Garden.") Stories, 1908.
  • Az albíróék és egyéb elbeszélések. ("The Vice Judge's People.") Stories, 1909.
  • Hamvazószerda. ("Ash Wednesday.") Drama , 1911.
  • A Janika. ("Janika.") Drama, 1911.
  • Elmebetegségek psychikus mechanizmusa. ("On the psychological mechanism of mental illness.") 1911.
  • Zeneszerző portrék. ("Composer portraits.") 1911.
  • Délutáni álom. (“Afternoon Dream.”) Stories, 1911.
  • Schmith mézeskalácsos. "The Lebküchler Schmith." Stories, 1912.
  • Muzsikusok. ("Musicians.") Stories, 1913.
  • Mesék, amelyek rosszul végződnek. ("Fairy tales that end badly.") Novellas, 1994.
  • A muzsika mesekertje. ("The fairy tale garden of music.") Collected writings on music, 2000.
  • Mihály Szajbély (ed.), Géza Csáth: Egy elmebeteg nő naplója , Budapest: Magvető, 1978. Contains the reprint: The psychological mechanism of mental illnesses. (1912), a contemporary review by Sándor Ferenczi , a study by the editor and a treatise by the psychiatrist Béla Buda. (hu) (Note from Paul Harmat, p. 55f).

German broadcasts

  • About Puccini: a study. Translated from the Hungarian by Heinrich Horvát, Harmonia, Budapest 1912
  • Matricide: Novellas. Translated from the Hungarian by Hans Skirecki. Brinkmann and Bose, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-922660-42-8
  • Diary 1912-13. Translated from the Hungarian by Hans Skirecki. Brinkmann and Bose, Berlin 1990, ISBN 978-3-922660-44-6
  • Stories. Translated from the Hungarian by Hans Skirecki and with an afterword by László F. Földényi. Brinkmann and Bose, Berlin 1999, ISBN 978-3-922660-74-3

literature

  • László F. Földényi : Afterword to Géza Csáth. In: Géza Csáth: Stories. Translated from the Hungarian by Hans Skirecki. Brinkmann and Bose, Berlin 1999, pp. 123-143
  • László F. Földényi: "A life lived in the mirror of death." Essay on Géza Csáth.
  • Paul Harmat: Freud, Ferenczi and the Hungarian Psychoanalysis , Edition Diskord, Tübingen 1988, pp. 52–60 ISBN 3-89295-530-1
  • Mihály Szajbély: Csáth Géza , Budapest: Gondolat, 1989 (hu)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Hans Skirecki: Follow-up. In: Géza Csáth: Muttermord: Novellen , Brinkmann and Bose, Berlin 1989, p. 172 f.
  2. ↑ a b c d László F. Földényi: Melancholy and murder. The stories of the morphinist Géza Csáth . Neue Zürcher Zeitung , July 27, 2000
  3. ^ A b László F. Földényi: Epilogue to Géza Csáth. In: Géza Csáth: Stories. Translated from the Hungarian by Hans Skirecki and with an afterword by László F. Földényi. Brinkmann and Bose, Berlin 1999, pp. 123-143
  4. ^ László F. Földényi: Epilogue to Géza Csáth. In: Géza Csáth: Stories. Translated from the Hungarian by Hans Skirecki and with an afterword by László F. Földényi. Brinkmann and Bose, Berlin 1999, p. 137.
personal data
SURNAME Csáth, Géza
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Brenner, József (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hungarian writer and prose writer
DATE OF BIRTH February 13, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Szabadka , Kingdom of Hungary
DATE OF DEATH September 11, 1919
Place of death Kelebia , Kingdom of Yugoslavia