COURAGE

povezovanje zbirk

Svatopluk Karásek is an evangelical pastor and signatory of Charter 77. He studied at the Comenius Evangelical Theological Faculty from 1964–1968. He then worked for three years as a pastor until 1971, when the state withdrew its permission to allow him to continue in his spiritual service. From 1972–1976 he worked as the caretaker at Houska Castle. In 1976 he was arrested and sentenced to eight months in prison in a trial along with the underground music group The Plastic People of the Universe. As a signatory of Charter 77, Karásek could not return to his original profession and worked mostly as a window cleaner. The turning point in his life came in 1980 when he was forced into exile. He settled in Switzerland, where he served again as a pastor from 1981. Since 1997 he has lived permanently in the Czech Republic, working as a clergyman. He was a member of parliament from 2002–2006 and the Government Commissioner for Human Rights from 2004–2006.

Karásek was also involved in musical and literary activities. His musical career began in the 1970s. His lyrics were published in samizdat volumes as well as in exile. Since 1989, his lyrics have been published officially. His literary works include the sermons Boží trouba (2000) and Tři kázání o Jonášovi (2007). Karásek’s musical and other works were influenced by his professional focus – his attempts to update the gospel and make the Biblical messages more relevant to today’s lifestyles. Karásek is connected to the underground through his provocative and sarcastic style, as well as naturalistic clarity.

István Kemény (1925–2008) was a Hungarian sociologist. In 1944 he participated in the resistance against the Germans. In 1947–1948 he was a co-worker at the Teleki Pál Scientific Institute. Between 1948 and 1957, he was taught at a high school. In 1955–1956 he searched the poor children and their families in the schools of Angyalföld (Budapest), he made lectures twice about his experiences in the Petőfi Circle. Under the Revolution of 1956, he was an active member of the Revolutionary Committee of the Intelligentsia. In 1957 he sentenced to four years of imprisonment for participating the 1956 Revolution. Kemény was released from prison in 1959. He worked at the Economical and Juridical Published, then at the National Széchényi Library, and in 1963 he joined to a research project conducted by the Central Statistical Office on the question of “social stratification.” From 1969 to 1971 he worked at the Sociological Institute of the Academy. In his researches, Kemény analyzed the poor, the Gypsy population and the management of state farms which were taboo subject under socialism. Kemény lost his job in 1971, but organized seminars in private places, and continued his researches incognito. In 1977 he emigrated to Paris. He taught at the Maison des Sciences de l’ Homme (1978–1981) and at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (1983–1990). He edited the Hungarian Booklets and from 1980 to 1990 he was an outer co-worker of Radio Free Europe. He returned to Hungary in 1990.

Szilárd Keresztes (1932) is a Hungarian Greek Catholic priest and retired diocesan bishop of Hajdúdorog. He led the Hungarian Greek Catholic Church for almost 20 years. From 1950 to 1955, he studied at the Greek Catholic Seminarium of Nyíregyháza. He became a priest in 1955. In 1957, he got a theological Ph.D. at the Theological Academy. From 1957 to 1960, he was an organizer priest in Kispest, and between 1960 and 1970 Keresztes was a deacon and cantor in Nyíregyháza. From 1961 to 1975, he was a theological teacher at the Theological Academy of Nyíregyháza. Between 1966 and 1969, he was a fellow at the Papal Hungarian Institute in Rome, where he got a license in the Faculty of Eastern Ecclesiastical Studies in the Papal Eastern Institute. In 1967, he became an agent of the State Security forces. He submitted reports under the codenames   “Nyíri” and “Keleti.” He became a cathedral canon in 1970. In 1971–1976, Keresztes was an administrator parson in Nyíregyháza. From 1975 to 1988, he was a suffragan bishop of Hajdúdorog, and in 1987–1988 he served as the rector of the Papal Hungarian Institute. From 1988 to 2007, he was the diocesan bishop of Hajdúdorog.

Imre Kertész (1929–2016), Hungarian Nobel Prize-winning writer and translator

Imre Kertész was born in Budapest in late 1929. As an assimilated Hungarian Jew, in June 1944 at the age of fourteen he was deported to Auschwitz and from there to Buchenwald, where he was liberated in 1945. On his return to Hungary, he worked for a Budapest newspaper, Világosság, but he was dismissed in 1951 when it adopted the Communist Party line. After doing two years of military service, he began supporting himself as an independent writer and translator of works by German-language authors, such as Nietzsche, Hofmannsthal, Schnitzler, Freud, Roth, Wittgenstein, and Canetti, who all had a significant influence on his writing.

Kertész's first novel, Sorstalanság (Eng. Fateless, 1992; see WLT 67:4, p. 863), a work based on his experiences in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, was published in 1975. “When I am thinking about a new novel, I always think of Auschwitz,” Kertész said. This does not mean, however, that Sorstalanság is autobiographical in any simple sense. Kertész himself said that he used the form of the autobiographical novel, but that his novel is not autobiography. Sorstalanság was initially rejected for publication. When published eventually in 1975, it was received with compact silence. Kertész has written about this experience in A kudarc (1988; Fiasco). This novel is normally regarded as the second volume in a trilogy which begins with Sorstalanság and concludes with Kaddis a meg nem született gyermekért (1990; Eng. Kaddish for a Child Not Born, 1997; see WLT 74:1, p. 205), a title which refers to the Jewish prayer for the dead. In Kaddis a meg nem született gyermekért, György Köves, the protagonist of Sorstalanság and A kudarc, reappears. His Kaddish is said for the child he refuses to have in a world that permitted the existence of Auschwitz. Other prose works by Kertész include A nyomkereső (1977; The Pathfinder) and Az angol lobogó (1991; The English Flag; see WLT 67:2, p. 412).

Gályanapló (Galley diary; see WLT 67:2, p. 412), a diary in fictional form which covers the years between 1961 and 1991, was published in 1992. Valaki más: A változás krónikája (1997; I - Another: Chronicle of a Metamorphosis), continues this inner monologue in the form of notes made during in 1991–95. After the political upheavals of 1989, Kertész was able to make more public appearances. His lectures and essays have been collected in A holocaust mint kultúra (1993; The Holocaust as Culture), A gondolatnyi csend, amíg kivegzőoztag újratölt (1998; Moments of Silence While the Execution Squad Reloads), and A száműzött nyelv (2001; The Exiled Language).

After 1989, Kertész’s works were published in translation in several languages, including German, Spanish, French, English, Czech, Russian, Swedish, and Hebrew. His books were received as a shocking revelation by both critics and the public. This series of international successes eventually paved the way to Stockholm in 2002, where he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature by the Royal Swedish Academy.