Story from

Germanus gyula
Rákosi Jenő
1926

The Hungarian PEN Club is founded

The Hungarian PEN Club, the Hungarian member organisation of the London-based International PEN, is founded. With the aim of 1. to promote cultural cooperation between nations, which had been disrupted by the Second World War, through literature and cultural diplomacy, in the spirit of the International PEN, founded in 1921 on the initiative of the English writer Catherine Amy Dawson Scott; and to alleviate Hungary’s cultural isolation, also partly caused by the war. With his experience in London, Gyula Germanus, a renowned Orientalist university professor, was the initiator and main organiser of Hungarian PEN. He also became its first secretary, and its president was the playwright, novelist, newspaper editor, theatre director, literary translator and academic public figure Jenő Rákosi.

Catherine Amy Dawson Scott

The 1. In 1921, the International PEN Club was founded on the initiative of the English writer Catherine Amy Dawson Scott to promote cultural cooperation, which had been disrupted by the Second World War.

1929

The continuity of Moses Rubinyi

The elderly Jenő Rákosi is replaced by an executive vice-president in the person of Mózes Rubinyi, linguist and literary historian, academic and university professor. What makes Rubinyi’s work particularly significant is that he held this post until the end of his long life in 1965. Thus, through historical shocks, the 2. Even amidst the hardships of World War II and the 1956 Hungarian uprising and freedom struggle, the Hungarian PEN Club has maintained a certain continuity in its history.

1930

The new president is a representative of the Western generation

The Hungarian literature of the time, the so-called Dezső Kosztolányi, a poet, novelist, storyteller, critic, journalist and Hungarian “Language Guard”, is one of the outstanding representatives of the Western generation and the new president of the Hungarian PEN Club. Secretary is the writer and translator Jenő Mohácsi, Imre Madách German translator of his tragedy.

1931

Human-social discord cloaked in artistic disagreement

Hungarian PEN president Dezső osztolányi travels to London. He is welcomed and toasted by John Galsworthy, then President of the International Pen. Afterwards, he will meet the notoriously Hungarian-bashing press magnate Lord Rothermere, who will present him with £2,000 to reward the authors of the year’s best Hungarian literature. Hungarian PEN will share the prize between two of the most important Hungarian novelists of the era, Zsigmond Móricz and Gyula Krúdy. In protest, several writers resign their “board” membership of the organisation. Their protests – and the attacks of Albert Berzeviczy, politician, historian of culture, former Speaker of the House and Minister of Religion and Education – force Kosztolányi to resign. Several writers are expelled from the organisation (including Ignotus, Lajos Hatvany, Krudy, Lajos Bíró, Rustem Vámbéry), leading to the resignation of 39 prominent Hungarian writers, including Mihály Babits, Milán Füst, Gyula Illyés, Frigyes Karinthy, Lajos Kassák, Sándor Márai and György Sárközi. In addition, the 10. The organisation of the World PEN Congress in Budapest in 1932 and its financial support by the state is jeopardised by this human-social feud cloaked in the cloak of artistic disagreement. Yet Kosztolányi had already arranged for the Hungarian capital to host the PEN World Congress, which was due to take place the following year.

Kosztolányi Dezső
Móricz Zsigmond
1931

International PEN 10. World Congress in Budapest

Yet it will still be held in Budapest, from 15 to 20 May, for the 10th International PEN Festival. World Congress. (The French consider it a ll. because they had already celebrated the 10th anniversary of International PEN in London in 1931, although that meeting was not a world congress). In a negotiated settlement between the government and International PEN (and especially the French PEN president Benjamin Crémieux), those who have been excluded are being taken back and those who have left are resigning. (However, Sándor Márai still does not take a seat on the congress organising committee. His letter of resignation survives). Temporarily – at the request of Jenő Heltai, Ferenc Herczeg and Dezső Kosztolányi(!) – Albert Berzeviczy, president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and former minister, takes over the presidency of the Hungarian PEN Club. He is the host of the Budapest Congress. He introduces guests at the reception for Governor Miklós Horthy.

The list of invited guests of honour, some 270 foreign delegates and participants is impressive. The best known are:

England (Chesterton, Drinkwater, Galsworthy, Masefield, Shaw, Wells; the founder of International PEN, the elderly Mrs Dawson Scott, is unable to travel to Budapest due to illness).

Austria (Roda Roda, F. Salten).

Belgium (Maeterlinck).

Czechoslovakia (K. Čapek, E. B. Lukač).

Denmark (K. Michaelis, Pontoppidan).

Finland (Koskenniemi).

France (Duhamel, Gide, J. Green, Maurois, Romain Rolland, Valéry, Jules Romains).

Netherlands (Jo van Ammers-Küller).

India (Rabindranath Tagore).

Yiddish-PEN (Warsaw) (Schalom Asch).

Germany (Th. Däubler, G. Hauptmann, A. Kerr, Ernst Toller, F. Werfel).

Norway (J. Bojer, Knut Hamsun, Sigrid Undset).

Italy (Bontempelli, Marinetti, Croce, Corrado Govoni; Pirandello signed up but cancelled).

Palestine (the Hebrew translator of Madách and Ady, Avigdor Hameiri, originally known as Albert Feuerstein-Kova in Hungarian).

Romania (O. Goga, L. Rebreanu).

Sweden (S. Lagerlöf).

The first meeting will be held on 17 May in the hall of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. President Berzeviczy conducts the meetings mostly in French, but also in English and German when the occasion arises. The delegates will speak in French, English and German. John Galsworthy, President of International PEN, opens the meeting in English (he apologises for not repeating his opening speech in French and German) and immediately commits both the organisation and the meeting to non-politics and literature as art. There can be no party and state politics here, he says. Signed by 22 writers from the US, Belgium, Canada and Austria, they address a “Sozo” to “all governments of the world”: protesting against the imprisonment of writers for political or religious reasons and the oppression of prisoners. The Romanian delegate, who was one of the first to speak, was greeted with great applause when he announced that the Hungarian chapter of Romanian PEN had been founded in Cluj (with Miklós Bánffy). UK (and International) PEN Secretary Hermond Ould reports that there are now 51 PEN organisations in 36 countries, and highlights the work of Gyula Germanus and John Knittel in Egypt.

How do we serve peace without politics? – this is the basic request of the Congress. And a source of fierce debate.

Ernst Toller (Germany) passionately points out that spirit and politics are inseparable. Well, Joyce’s Ulysses has just been banned in England, along with several other books, and Remarque’s film has just been banned in Germany. Aragon is also persecuted in France (although writers there have formed a united front in defence of Aragon). Remarque’s works cannot be published in Italy either. In Hungary, too, the translator of Octave Mirabeau was sentenced to four months and Victor Margueritte’s novel (Le compagnon – The Companion) was banned. (“What’s going on in Russia?” they shout.) Following Goethe, Toller stresses that what we do is more important than what we write.

The Italian Marinetti is truly outraging the audience. It is a different interpretation of the principle that PEN and politics should be two separate worlds. He quotes a Latin saying: ‘If you want peace, prepare for war’. Don’t talk about peace here. Protect it instead! (With a bed? – someone interjects sarcastically).

On behalf of Hungarian PEN, Gyula Illyés also speaks out against censorship, book confiscation and the press trial, for freedom of the press and freedom of thought. It proposes that all such offences should be recorded and publicised by the London PEN Centre. György Sárközi (Hungarian PEN) also supports Toller and Illyés. The intellectuals are right to oppose governments and pseudo-patriotism, he says. No one should be persecuted for their beliefs, he demands.

Jules Romains (France) also turns against Marinetti and demands a non-violent literature. Let there be neither better nor worse in literature. Anyone who deviates from it is excluded from French PEN.

Béla Zsolt (Hungarian PEN): ‘Are they talking about minority protection? The intellectuals are minorities too!” International PEN calls for a body to register and publish offences against intellectual freedom.

Karin Michaelis, a Dane: “We would not tolerate persecution of spirit workers in Denmark”.

Mihály Babits, speaking on behalf of the Hungarian PEN, gave a pensive, reflective lecture, the most memorable moment of the World Congress. What can the writer do for Peace? He is not a man of direct action. Can only write? Can’t his words show a national bias? And even if it is free of it, could it not be influenced by some other, more terrifying worldview? Can you calculate the impact of your words? The best never compromise, and writers have never been persecuted for their brave writing as they are in Europe today. The writers of “Little Hungary” never gave in to armed terror and fear: we preserved our faith in peace and the brotherhood of peoples. But they can still stifle the writer’s word. Cenzura. PEN has no better task than to protest against any curtailment of literary freedom. But can we be satisfied with mere words, with parlour pacifism? A real writer is not satisfied with just that. It depicts life (even the horrors of war) with authenticity and dispassion. But is this the best peace propaganda? Literature, which has only a slow impact, could take a great step towards peace if it would confront the dangerous conception of facts and emotions and restore the authority of reason and morality. We must inspire hope in our youth. Is selfishness and cruelty a law of nature? We must embrace the religion of Spirit and Truth. We must lead nations, not follow them. Morality and Justice. These are the two supreme judges. In the name of morality we can even criticise morality, in the name of truth we can even criticise truth. The Englishman Ernest Raymond raises the eternal question of PEN congresses: the question of language. He suggests that they should ask the League of Nations for advice: which language should be made the sole and compulsory working language of International PEN? Hungarian PEN (Frigyes Karinthy) gives the answer: the language that belongs to no one, because it is artificial. Esperanto.

Afterwards, a new “Steering Committee” is elected, consisting of the Frenchman Crémieux, the Polish Juliusz Kaden Bandrowski, the German Hans Elster and the Dutchman W. M. Westerman.

This marks the end of the 10th edition of the World PEN Congress.

But this is also the end of Albert Berzeviczy’s “honorary” presidency. The writer, poet, literary translator and literary historian Antal Radó, the eminent Dante scholar and author of a 5-volume history of Italian literature, will be the new leader of the Hungarian PEN Club. executive chairman until 1939, then chairman until 1944

1935

Visit by Thomas Mann

The Hungarian PEN Club invites Thomas Mann to visit and give a lecture in Budapest. Antal Radó is received at the railway station by theatre director and theatre manager Artúr Bárdos, accompanied by Lajos Hatvany and Dezső Kosztolányi. Attila József greets you with a memorable welcome poem.

1938

Inter arma silent musae

Munich and the Year of the Anschluss. “Inter arma silent musae”. It’s a bang in the organisational life of International and Hungarian PEN.

1944

Landing and death

The Hungarian PEN Club has suffered a major blow. On 19 March, after the Nazi invasion of Hungary, the organisation is disbanded by the authorities and the 82-year-old president Antal Radó commits suicide.

1945

First year of peace

In the autumn of the first year of peace, the Hungarian PEN Club is re-established. Jenő Heltai, writer, poet, theatre and cabaret performer, journalist, is its president. The pioneering prose writer and literary translator (who is also a radio dramatist, mathematician and bridge expert) Géza Ottlik is his secretary.

1956

Revolution

The year of the Hungarian uprising. On 4 November, Soviet troops drown the fight for freedom in blood. International PEN shares the outrage of the Western world and suspends the full membership of the Hungarian PEN Club.

1957

A former friend of Endre Ady is the new president

Hungarian PEN president Jenő Heltai dies. Endre Ady’s former friend, György Bölöni, journalist, newspaper editor, editor-in-chief and diplomat, will succeed him.

1959

International membership again

After the negotiations between President Bölöni and poet, translator and publicist Mihály András Rónai in London, the World PEN Congress in Mayno-Frankfurt reinstates the international membership of the Hungarian PEN Club.

1960

Literary historian is the new president

After the death of György Bölöni, István Sőtér, novelist, essayist, literary historian and academic, is the president of Hungarian PEN. László Kéry, literary historian, editor, critic and university professor, is its Secretary General. The poet, translator, critic and linguist György Timár is the secretary.

1961

Hungarian PEN Club launches English and French-language newspaper

The Hungarian PEN Club launches The Hungarian P.E.N. – Le P.E.N. Hongrois , a newspaper in English and French. The Hungarian P.N.N. publishes Hungarian fiction and literary criticism, as well as news from the Hungarian member organisation. Since then, for many years, the organisation has regularly awarded medals and diplomas to the most outstanding foreign translators of Hungarian fiction. Such honours have been awarded, over time, to L. Pervomaisky, L. Martinov, S. Hermlin, B. Heilig, J. Smrek, G. Krumov, Toivo Lyy, U. Albini, M. de Micheli, Eugène Guillevic, etc.

1962

New Secretary-General

Poet, translator and editor László Gereblyés is the Secretary General of the Hungarian PEN Club.

1964

International PEN "Executive Committee" meeting in Budapest

An International PEN “Executive Committee” meeting and literary round table is held in Budapest.

1969

Old-New Secretary-General

After the death of László Gereblyés, László Kéry is again Secretary General.

1970

writer, journalist and newspaper editor is the new president

The highly educated writer, journalist and newspaper editor Iván Boldizsár is the new president of the Hungarian PEN Club, a post he will hold until 1986. The poet, literary translator, critic and linguist György Timár is the Secretary General.

1982

New Secretary-General

The writer, translator, editor and publisher István Bart is the Secretary General of the Hungarian PEN Club.

1989

New presidency

The poet, writer and literary translator István Vas is the new president. Miklós Hubay is the executive president and the writer and translator Imre Szász is the new secretary general.

1990

Organising Presidency

György Konrád, writer, publicist, member of the Hungarian PEN Club, becomes President of International PEN until 1993. In the following years, several Hungarian PEN conferences will deal with the fragmented social and cultural situation in Eastern Europe after the “regime changes”. The common name for these regional conferences is “In the Jungle of Freedom”.

1994

New presidency

Iván Földeák becomes head of the secretariat of the Hungarian PEN Club.

1995

New Head of Secretariat

Iván Földeák. literary translator, writer-publicist, becomes head of the secretariat of the Hungarian PEN Club.

1999

New presidency

Zsófia Dobozy will be the new head of the Hungarian PEN Secretariat.

2001

Club afternoons

Miklós Hubay is the Honorary President of Hungarian PEN. Gábor Görgey, writer, poet and playwright is the new president. János Benyhe, translator, essayist, literary historian and publicist is the new Secretary General. The organisational life of the Hungarian PEN Club is revitalised. On the first Thursday of every month, a writer presents one or more of his or her works, or his or her entire oeuvre, at a club afternoon. This year, the Komlós Aladár Komlós Prize is awarded to the poet-translator László Lator by the Komlós Aladár Komlós Friendship Society, which is part of the Hungarian PEN Club.

2001

100th anniversary of the birth of Gyula Illyés anniversary

Zoltán Sumonyi is a writer, poet and radio editor, and Executive Vice President of the Hungarian PEN Club. The Hungarian PEN International Conference on the 100th anniversary of the birth of Gyula Illyés anniversary. The Gyula Illyés Prize is awarded to poet-translator György Timár. Hungarian PEN donates hundreds of books to Slovak PEN for the Global PEN Library in Bratislava. Mátyás Domokos, writer, editor, literary historian receives the Aladár Komlós Prize.

2003

Daddy's not going anywhere

Italian PEN is celebrating the Italian Presidency of the EU with a short story collection. The 15 Member States and the 10 candidate countries at the time want to publish a short story by a writer under 30 years old in a volume entitled Racconti senza dogana (Duty-free short stories). All short stories are in the original language and Italian translation. Hungarian PEN proposes György Szakmány, a Hungarian writer from the South of Hungary, who wrote the novel Daddy is not going anywhere . This is perhaps the best piece of writing in the published volume. This year’s recipient of the Aladár Komlós Prize is Iván Sándor, writer-essayist.

2004

National cultures and literatures in the enlarged EU

A successful international conference of the Hungarian PEN Club in Tállya, Tokaj-Hegyalja, for the 10 newly acceded EU countries. “National cultures and literatures in an enlarged EU”: this is the subject of the 24 delegates’ discussions at the Château Maillot. For the first time, Hungarian PEN awards the Kosztolányi Foundation Prize, founded by Miklós Hubay, to the foreign translators of Hungarian literature: Mária Alföldy, the Dutch translator of Géza Ottlik’s novel School on the Border , and Ana Maria Pop, who translated Magda Szabó’s novel Abigél into Romanian. István Csicsery-Rónay Csicsery-Rónay organises a Hungarian-Croatian literary conference at his estate in Zala, on behalf of the Hungarian PEN Club, with the participation of Croatian PEN President Sibila Petlevski and distinguished speakers. The Gyula Illyés Prize goes to Árpád Vígh, teacher-writer-translator-editor, and the Aladár Komlós Prize goes to György Poszler, essayist and literary historian.

2005

Hungarian PEN Bulletin

The renewal assembly confirms Gábor Görgey as president, Zoltán Sumonyi as executive vice-president and János Benyhe as secretary general. The first issue(Prose) of the new Hungarian PEN Bulletin is published in three languages (English, German, French).

2006

80th anniversary

Founded in 80. The Hungarian PEN Club is preparing to celebrate its 50th anniversary.