György Konrád

György Konrád (undated photo)

György Konrád (2013)

György Konrád [ ˈɟørɟ ˈkonraːd ] (born April 2, 1933 in Debrecen , Hungary ; † September 13, 2019 in Budapest ) was a Hungarian writer and essayist .

As an essayist, Konrád campaigned for a peaceful and federal Central Europe during the Cold War ; As a writer, he repeatedly dealt with National Socialism , the Hungarian uprising of 1956 and his family history.

From 1997 to 2003 he was President of the Berlin Academy of the Arts and was considered one of the most famous Hungarian writers, whose work has been translated many times.

Life

György Konrád was born in 1933 into a Jewish family in Debrecen, Eastern Hungary and grew up in the nearby town of Berettyóújfalu . In 1944 he narrowly escaped deportation to the Auschwitz concentration camp by the Eichmann Command and its Hungarian helpers. He and his siblings fled to relatives in Budapest and lived there in an apartment under the protection of the Swiss Vice Consul Carl Lutz . His parents were deported on May 15, 1944 and survived the forced labor. He described the events of those years in his novels Homecoming and Happiness .

Konrád studied literature, sociology and psychology at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest until the Hungarian uprising in 1956. From 1959 to 1965 he worked as a youth protection inspector for the guardianship authority of a Budapest district; at the same time he published his first essays. In 1965 the Budapest Institute and Planning Office hired him as a sociologist for urban development.

He published his debut novel The Visitor in 1969. Since the success of the first work, he concentrated on literary work. In his essays, he pleaded for a peaceful Central Europe that should overcome the borders between East and West . Alongside Václav Havel , Adam Michnik and Pavel Kohout , he was one of the most important voices of the dissidents before 1989. Because he was not allowed to publish between 1978 and 1988, he traveled through Western Europe, America and Australia. The publication ban was lifted in 1989.

From 1990 to 1993 he was president of the international writers' association PEN. From 1997 to 2003 he was president of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin-Brandenburg . He published regularly in the Hungarian German-language newspaper Pester Lloyd, founded in 1854 .

His statements on current political issues were controversial; He rejected the NATO mission in the former Yugoslavia, while in 2003 he spoke out in favor of the Iraq war . The cultural policy of Viktor Orbán's government since 2010 met with contradictions, and he, along with other Jewish writers in Hungary, found himself exposed to anti-Semitic hostility, which the government did not oppose in his view. Konrád was of the opinion with Ágnes Heller that the right-wing extremist Jobbik party should not be excluded from a “technical coalition”, since this far-right party posed no threat to Hungarian society.

Konrád died in September 2019 at the age of 86 after a long and serious illness in his home in Budapest. His estate is in the literary archive of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin.

Fonts

For translation into German

Konrád's works were mainly translated into German by Hans-Henning Paetzke and Mario Szenessy . The novel Kerti mulatság (The Garden Festival) was translated into German by Paetzke on the basis of two forerunner typescripts unpublished in Hungarian before it was published in Hungarian. In terms of content, Das Geisterfest and Melinda and Dragoman thus largely correspond to the garden festival . A German broadcast of the final version of the garden festival is still pending.

Novels

• A látogató , 1969 (German: The visitor , translated by Mario Szenessy , Luchterhand, Darmstadt / Neuwied 1969, ISBN 3-472-86333-1 , (new edition) Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1999, ISBN 3-518-41084-9 ).
• A városalapító , 1977 (German: The City Founder , translated by Mario Szenessy, List, Munich 1975 (in Hungary 1977), ISBN 3-471-77938-8 ).
• A cinkos , 1982 (Eng. The Accomplice , translated by Hans-Henning Paetzke , Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1980, ISBN 3-518-03446-4 ).
• unpublished Typescript (German Ghost Festival , translated by Hans-Henning Paetzke, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1986, ISBN 3-518-03092-2 )
• Kerti mulatság , 1987 (no translation into German available).
• Hazatérés (German homecoming , translated by Hans-Henning Paetzke, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1988, ISBN 3-518-22281-3 ).
• Melinda és Drágoman (unpublished typescript), (German Melinda and Dragoman , translated by Hans-Henning Paetzke, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1991, ISBN 3-518-40417-2 ).
• Kőóra , 1994 (German stone clock , translated by Hans-Henning Paetzke, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1996, ISBN 3-518-40767-8 ).
• Hagyaték , 1998 (German: the estate , translated by Hans-Henning Paetzke, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1999, ISBN 3-518-41085-7 ).
• Elutazás és hazatérés , 2001 (German luck , translated by Hans-Henning Paetzke, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 2003, ISBN 3-518-41445-3 ).
• Fenn a hegyen napfogyatkozáskor , 2003 (German solar eclipse on the mountain , translated by Hans-Henning Paetzke, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 2005, ISBN 3-518-41684-7 ).
• Kakasok bánata , 2005 (German. The book Kalligaro , translated by Hans-Henning Paetzke, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 2007, ISBN 3-518-41883-1 (autobiography).).

Essay volumes

• with Iván Szelényi: Az értelmiség útja az osztályhatalomhoz , 1978 (German: Intelligence on the way to class power , translated by Hans-Henning Paetzke , Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1978, ISBN 3-518-09112-3 ).
• Antipolitika , 1986 (German Antipolitics. Central European Meditations , translated by Hans-Henning Paetzke, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1985, ISBN 3-518-11293-7 ).
• (German mood report , translated by Hans-Henning Paetzke, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1988, ISBN 3-518-11394-1 ).
• Az újjászületés melankóliája , 1991 (German: The Melancholy of Rebirth , translated by Hans-Henning Paetzke, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1992, ISBN 3-518-11720-3 ).
• (German identity and hysteria , Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1995, ISBN 3-518-11921-4 ).
• (German. Before the gates of the Reich , Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1997, ISBN 3-518-12015-8 ).
• A láthatatlan hang , 1997 (German: The Invisible Voice , translated by Hans-Henning Paetzke, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1998, ISBN 3-518-41013-X ).
• (German. The expansion of Central Europe and Eastern Europe at the end of the 20th century , Picus, Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-85452-370-X ).
• (German. The third look. Considerations of an anti-political , Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 2001, ISBN 3-518-12233-9 ).
• Inga (German: Das Pendel . Essay diary. Translated by Hans-Henning Paetzke, Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-518-42252-6 ).
• Zsidókról , 2010 (German about Jews , translated by Hans-Henning Paetzke, Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-633-54260-4 )
• Európa és a nemzetállamok (German Europe and the nation states , translated by Hans-Henning Paetzke, Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-518-42371-4 ).

Film adaptations

• 1970: The Eruption (Kitöres)
• 1982: The visitor (De smaak van water)

Awards and honors

• 1982–1984: DAAD scholarship holder in Berlin and fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
• 1983: Herder Prize , Vienna
• 1985: European Essay Prize from the Charles Veillon Foundation
• 1986: Prize of the Scandinavian Association of Peace Researchers and Southwest Radio Prize for literary researchers
• 1988: Honorary doctorate from the University of Antwerp
• 1989: Wilhelm Heinse Medal of the Academy of Sciences and Literature , Mainz and Maecenas Prize , Budapest
• 1990: Manès Sperber Prize , Vienna and Kossuth Prize , Budapest
• 1991: Admission to the Academy of Arts (Berlin)
• 1991: Peace Prize of the German Book Trade , Frankfurt am Main
• 1998: Lubiesa Prize for Poetry, Montenegro
• 2001: International Charlemagne Prize of the City of Aachen as "Bridge Builders for Justice and Reconciliation in Europe"
• 2003: Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 2003: Commander with the Star of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary
• 2007: Franz Werfel Human Rights Prize
• 2014: Buber Rosenzweig Medal

literature

• Hans-Peter Burmeister (Ed.): György Konrád, a voice from Central Europe. Evangelical Academy, Loccum 1996, ISBN 3-8172-5894-1 .

Web links

Commons : György Konrád  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about György Konrád in the catalog of the German National Library
• György Konrád's homepage (Hungarian, German, French and English)
• Biography of György Konrád (Charlemagne Prize 2001)
• Stephen Tree: A Hungarian hero. In: Tagesspiegel from April 1, 2013.
• Stephen Tree: "I wanted to be an engineer once." Conversation. In: Jüdische Allgemeine from April 2, 2013. Online at juedische-allgemeine.de.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Konrád György szerint össze lehet fogni a Jobbikkal . In: MNO.hu . December 6, 2017 ( mno.hu [accessed February 12, 2018]).
2. ^ Hungarian author György Konrád dead. In: Deutsche Welle , September 13, 2019.
3. ↑ Press release of the Academy of the Arts: https://www.adk.de/de/news/index.htm?we_objectID=60291
4. ↑ Joseph Croitoru : Against the arbitrary rule. , faz.net, April 2, 2013, accessed April 2, 2013
5. ↑ György Konrád's membership entry at the Academy of Sciences and Literature Mainz , accessed on October 16, 2017
6. ^ The laureate 1991: György Konrád: Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. Retrieved September 13, 2019 .