Rodion Markovits

Rodion Markovits, portrait of Sándor Muhi

Rodion Markovits (born Jakab Markovits , born July 15, 1884 in Kisgérce , Austria-Hungary , † August 27, 1948 in Timișoara , Romania ) was a Hungarian-Jewish writer and journalist. He achieved international recognition with his novel Siberian Garrison (Hungarian original title: Szibériai Garnizon ), which documents his experiences during the First World War and the Russian Civil War . Regionally he was known for his involvement in the political and cultural press of Transylvania , as well as for his inclination towards left ideologies, which, however, diminished within the last decades of his life.

Life

Early life

Markovits was born in Kisgérce and spent his childhood in the nearest town of Szatmárnémeti ( Satu Mare ), where he first attended the Catholic school and later the Kölcsey Ferenc grammar school. After finishing school, he studied law at the Eötvös-Loránd University in Budapest, but was already active as a writer and journalist at that time, published in newspapers on the left-wing political spectrum such as Fidibusz , Népszava , Független , Ifjiú Erők , Korbács and Szatmár és Vidéke .

Siberian garrison

Markovits' novel Siberian Garrison describes his life from the outbreak of the First World War until the early 1920s.

During the First World War in 1915 he was drafted into the 12th Infantry Regiment of the Royal Hungarian Army. He was captured by the Russian military on the Eastern Front in 1916 during the Brusilov Offensive . In the Siberian prison camp Krasnaya Retschka he founded the newspaper Szibériai Újság for Hungarian prisoners of war. In the course of the events of the October Revolution they were de facto free and after the outbreak of the Russian Civil War they managed to travel west by train; When they arrived at Samara , however, they were sent back to Siberia, while some of the Hungarian prisoners of war joined the Red Guard . Back in Siberia, Markovits experienced brutal living conditions in a camp near Krasnoyarsk , from which he later broke out with the rest of the prisoners. Freed again, he joined the Red Army , where he became a political officer and, due to his involvement in coal transport, was given the right to be taken home.

In Romania

After the experiences in Russia, Markovits returned to the now Romanian Transylvania. He opened a law firm in Satu Mare, continued to work for the local Hungarian press ( Szamos , Keleti Újság ) and published a collection of short stories in 1925 under the title Ismét találkoztam Balthazárral (I met Balthazar again). In the course of 1927 he published his novel Szibériai Garnizon as a serial in the newspaper Keleti Újság ; In 1928 the novel was published in two volumes, and the writer Lajos Hatvany also did the German translation of the novel. By 1933 the novel had been translated into 12 languages ​​and read worldwide, which earned it international fame in the interwar period.

In 1931 Markovits got a job as editor of the newspaper Temesvári Hírlap and moved to Timișoara. During this time his commitment to communism weakened. In the next few years he published other works; the novels Aranyvonat and Sánta Farsang , and the collection of short stories Reb Ancsli és más avasi zsidókról szóló széphistóriák . The Second World War, survived Markovits in banatischen Timişoara while Hungary won control of his home region, the northern Transylvania. In 1944 he became an activist for the Hungarian People's Union (Magyar Népi Szövetség), a partner of the Romanian Communist Party . He also published in Hungarian newspapers in Romania and Hungary and gave readings of his more recent works.

On August 27, 1948, Markovits died unexpectedly in his sleep and was buried in the Timișoara Jewish cemetery.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Biographical article on Markovits Rodion. MonitorPress ( http://www.monitorpress.eu ), a project of the Hungary-Romania Cross-Border Co-operation Program 2007-2013 supported by the European Union. ( http://www.huro-cbc.eu/ ), archived from the original on April 25, 2012 ; Retrieved April 25, 2012 . 
2. ↑ Markovits Rodion: Siberian Garrison .