György (George) Konrád

György (George) Konrád (born April 2, 1933) is a Hungarian novelist and essayist, known as an advocate of individual freedom.

Life[link]

Konrad was born in Berettyóújfalu, near Debrecen into an affluent Jewish family. He graduated in 1951 from the Madách Secondary School in Budapest, entered the Lenin Institute and eventually studied literature, sociology and psychology at the Eötvös Loránd University. In 1956 he participated in the Hungarian Uprising against the Soviet occupation, but did not kill anybody, although he had a gun. In fact, in light of his later attitude towards 56-veterans his honesty about his alleged democratic values been questioned.

Career from the 1970s[link]

Due to oppositional activities he was warned by the public prosecutor and was later fired from his work. In 1977 he received a DAAD- scholarship ^[1] which enabled him to stay in West Berlin along with Iván Szelényi. After writing The Intellectual on the Road to Class Power with Szelényi,^[2] he hid the manuscript at his brother in law Ernő Sándor.^[3] Konrád was arrested in 10/22 1974. After this incident communist leading party ideologist György Aczél personally asked Konrád not to emigrate. In a letter to Aczél, Konrád made a few terms for his staying.^[4] This letter was also published in the Hungarian daily newspaper Magyar Nemzet and was also used as evidence in the Konrád vs Lovas slander trial, where Konrád sought retribution on the publicist István Lovas who have presented Konráds doubtful past in 2003. During this trial the Supreme Court of Budapest stated:

"Based on the verification procedure and the evidences it can be stated that the accuser after his arrest in October 1974 announced that the wanted manuscripts can be found at his brother-in-law's apartment. He then showed up on his apartment together with the representatives of the authority and the accuser asked Ernő Sándor to give the writings to the police. It can be assumed that the name of the person hiding the wanted manuscripts was given up by Konrád. This behavior is called in the everyday life denounce. This is further supported by the accusers own words given in an interview in 168 óra (Hungarian newspaper), where he said: "I’ve done a moral mistake".

During his dissident years he stayed a lot in Western Europe and in USA (among others in New York City, San Francisco and Paris). In 1987 and 1988 he taught world literature in Colorado Collage in Colorado Springs. His oppositional status was criticized several times. None of Konráds books were banned and he could travel to west more often than non political Hungarians. László Kolozsvári Papp had these memories in 1998 in the newspaper “Kortárs” about the dissident years of Konrád and his friends:

“…these boys in the 80s were great oppositionals in that sense, that with a passport issued by comrade Aczél they could rest in West Berlin, USA and Switzerland from the agony of this oppositional struggle; the greatest Hungarian writer – and somewhat informant – György Konrád, the shaper of German culture in the new age - the right man in the right place – after some opposition with his aczél-passport re-appeared in the West, and his first steps led him to Radio Free Europe, and we listened with our little pounding hearts, what we were, what we should be, and few of us thought about it – among them I – what a great guy this Konrád is, when he undertakes everything that is needed to be an oppositional here at home, so he with his “aczélic” passport just step out into the worldly plains, and there tell it to the aczélic system! He is a Hero!, I said to myself, and I just kept on sitting in my nook like the Hungarian writer that is not the greatest.”

In 1988 he was the founder member of the Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ), his name was on the ballots in the following elections of 1990. In July 2009 after Attila Retkes was elected for president of SZDSZ he left the party with several founding members.^[5]

In 1990 he was elected president of International PEN serving until 1993, and in 1997 he was the first non-German to become president of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin.^[6]

He has published a number of essays on politics, literature and sociology, as well as fiction. One of Konrád's most significant novels is The Case Worker, a bleak portrait of human suffering in modern urban industrial society, written from the perspective of a social services functionary. A Feast in the Garden and The Stone Dial are the first two parts of a semi autobiographical fictional trilogy.

In 1985 he received the Prix européen de l'essai Charles Veillon for Antipolitik. Mitteleuropäische Meditationen.

In 2001 he received the Charlemagne Award of the city of Aachen.^[7]

In 2003 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Novi Sad.^[8]

In 2007 Konrád won the National Jewish Book Award in the Biography, Autobiography & Memoir category, for A Guest in my Own Country: A Hungarian Life.^[9]

He was a founder of the Hungarian liberal party the SZDSZ^[10] but left the party in 2009.^[11] He was a friend to the Polish intellectualist - writer Stanisław Lem and politician Władysław Bartoszewski. http://mno.hu/migr_1834/konrad-gyorgy-onsajnalata-a-radioban-423827

Partial list of works[link]

Fiction[link]

• The Case Worker
• The City Builder
• The Loser
• A Feast in the Garden
• The Stone Dial

Non-fiction[link]

• The Intellectual on the Road to Class Power (1978), with Iván Szelényi
• Antipolitics
• The Melancholy of Rebirth (1995)
• The Invisible Voice: Meditations on Jewish Themes
• A Guest in My Own Country: A Hungarian Life (2003)

Articles[link]

• “The Intelligentsia and Social Structure”. Telos^[12] 38 (Winter 1978-79). New York: Telos Press.

References[link]

1. ^ DAAD - wandel durch austausch - change by exchange
2. ^ http://www.yale.edu/sociology/faculty/pages/szelenyi/
3. ^ http://mno.hu/migr_1834/konrad-gyorgy-onsajnalata-a-radioban-423827
4. ^ http://mno.hu/migr_1834/konrad-gyorgy-onsajnalata-a-radioban-423827
5. ^ http://index.hu/belfold/hirek/2009/07/13/konrad_gyorgy_kilepett_az_szdsz-bol/
6. ^ DAAD - wandel durch austausch - change by exchange
7. ^ Charlemagne Prize 2001
8. ^ UNS.ac.rs
9. ^ Jewishbookcouncil.org
10. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/1990/05/20/magazine/politics-at-the-club-tomaj.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
11. ^ http://www.politics.hu/20090714/famous-liberals-desert-szdsz-as-partys-woes-mount/
12. ^ Telospress.com

External links[link]

• Homepage
• "Chance Wanderings," an essay by Konrad on the 'revolutions' of 1989
• A biographical essay, written in English