Nyugat
Encyclopedia
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
literary journal in the first half of the 20th century. Writers and poets from that era are referred to as "1st/2nd/3rd generation of the NYUGAT".
It was founded in 1908 and initially edited by Ignotus (Hugo Veigelsberg), Ernő Osvát
Erno Osvát
Ernő Osvát was a Hungarian writer, editor.His first article was published 1897 in the a Hungarian newspaper called Esti Újság. He was an editor of Nyugat, the most important Hungarian literary magazine of the 20th century.He committed suicide in 1929....
, and Miksa Fenyő
Miksa Fenyo
Miksa Fenyő was a Hungarian writer and intellectual, served as a Member of Parliament in the early 1930s, and was appointed Minister of Trade and Commerce under the short-lived government cabinet of Prime Minister János Hadik in 1918.He was also mentor and friend to Hungary's second most...
. It was receptive and inspired by the styles and philosophies then current in Western Europe, including naturalism
Naturalism (philosophy)
Naturalism commonly refers to the philosophical viewpoint that the natural universe and its natural laws and forces operate in the universe, and that nothing exists beyond the natural universe or, if it does, it does not affect the natural universe that we know...
, Symbolism
Symbolism (arts)
Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style had its beginnings with the publication Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire...
, and impressionism
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
. Nyugat published both poetry and prose writing.
The first generation included the poets Endre Ady
Endre Ady
Endre Ady was a Hungarian poet.-Biography:Ady was born in Érmindszent, Szilágy county . He belonged to an impoverished Calvinist noble family...
, Árpád Tóth
Árpád Tóth
Árpád Tóth was a Hungarian poet and translator.Tóth went to Gymnasium in Debrecen and then studied German and Hungarian at the University of Budapest. In 1907, he poems began to appear in the papers A Hét and Vasárnapi Újság and after 1908 in Nyugat...
, Mihály Babits
Mihály Babits
Mihály Babits was a Hungarian poet, writer and translator.- Biography :...
, Dezső Kosztolányi
Dezso Kosztolányi
-Biography:Kosztolányi was born in Szabadka, Austro-Hungarian monarchy in 1885, the town belongs today to Serbia. The city serves as a model for the fictional town of Sárszeg, in which he set his novella Skylark as well as The Golden Kite....
, Gyula Juhász
Gyula Juhász
Gyula Juhász was a Hungarian poet, who was awarded the Baumgarten Prize.His first poems were published in in 1899. Between 1902 and 1906 he was a student of the University of Budapest, where he met Mihály Babits and Dezső Kosztolányi....
, Géza Gyóni
Géza Gyóni
Géza Gyóni was a Hungarian poet under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He died in a Tsarist prisoner of war camp during the First World War.-Early life:...
and the novelists Gyula Krúdy
Gyula Krúdy
Gyula Krúdy was a Hungarian writer and journalist.-Biography:Gyula Krúdy was born in Nyíregyháza, Hungary. His father was a lawyer and his mother was a maid working for the Krúdy family. His parents did not marry until Gyula was 17 years old.In his teens, Krúdy published newspaper pieces and began...
and Zsigmond Móricz
Zsigmond Móricz
Zsigmond Móricz was a major Hungarian novelist and Social Realist. He was among the earliest significant literary figures writing in Hungarian.- Early life and education :...
.
During World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, Nyugat, challenged by leftist literary circles, became frustrated and depressed about the war.
The second generation of NYUGAT writers in the twenties - such as Lőrinc Szabó
Lorinc Szabó
Lőrinc Szabó de Gáborján was a Hungarian poet and literary translator.-Biography:He was born in Miskolc as the son of an engine driver, Lőrinc Szabó sr., and Ilona Panyiczky. The family moved to Balassagyarmat when he was 3 years old. He attended school in Balassagyarmat and Debrecen. He studied...
, József Fodor and György Sárközi - displayed post-expressionist
Post-expressionism
Post-expressionism is a term coined by the German art critic Franz Roh to describe a variety of movements in the post-war art world which were influenced by expressionism but defined themselves through rejecting its aesthetic...
tendencies. Poets of this generation included Attila József
Attila József
Attila József was one of the most important and well-known Hungarian poets of the 20th century.-Biography:The son of Áron József, a soap factory worker of Romanian origin from Bánát, and Hungarian peasant girl Borbála Pőcze, he was born in Ferencváros, a poor district of Budapest. He had two elder...
, Gyula Illyés
Gyula Illyés
Gyula Illyés was a Hungarian poet and novelist. He was one of the so called népi writers, named so because they aimed to show – propelled by strong sociological interest and left-wing convictions – the disadvantageous conditions of their native land.-Early life:He was born...
, Miklós Radnóti
Miklós Radnóti
Miklós Radnóti, birth name Miklós Glatter was a Hungarian poet who died in The Holocaust.-Personality and early life:...
and József Erdélyi. Prose writer Sándor Márai
Sándor Márai
Sándor Márai was a Hungarian writer and journalist.-Biography:...
wrote family sagas and about social change. László Németh
László Németh
László Németh was a Hungarian dentist, writer, dramatist and essayist. He was born in Nagybánya the son of József Németh and Vilma Gaál . Over the Christmas of 1925, he married Ella Démusz , the daughter of János Démusz, a keeper of a public house. Between 1926 and 1944 they had six daughters, but...
and Tibor Déry
Tibor Dery
Tibor Déry was a Hungarian writer. In his early years he was a supporter of communism, but after being excluded from the ranks of the Hungarian Communist Party in 1953 he started writing satire on the communist regime in Hungary.Georg Lukács praised Dery as being 'the greatest depicter of human...
were also important novelists of this era.
The third generation in the thirties is sometimes referred to as the "essayist" generation and included Antal Szerb
Antal Szerb
Antal Szerb was a noted Hungarian scholar and writer. He is recognized as one of the major Hungarian literary personalities of the 20th century.-Life and work:...
, László Szabó
László Szabó
László Szabó may refer to:* László Szabó Hungarian sprint canoer* László Szabó , Hungarian chess grandmaster* László Szabó , Hungarian fencing master* László Szabó...
, and Gábor Halász as well as the poets Sándor Weöres
Sándor Weöres
Sándor Weöres was a Hungarian poet and author.Born in Szombathely, Weöres was brought up in the nearby village of Csönge. His first poems appeared when he was nineteen, being published in the influential journal Nyugat through the acceptance of its editor, the poet Mihály Babits...
, István Vas, Jenő Dsida, Zoltán Zelk, Gábor Devecseri, György Rónay, Zoltán Jékely and László Kálnoky
László Kálnoky
László Kálnoky was a Hungarian poet and literary translator.He belonged to the third generation of Nyugat...
.
The NYUGAT periodical, the first Hungarian language periodical to discuss philosophers such as Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, had a significant impact upon scientists and intellectuals who became well known outside Hungary.