György Konrád

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The native form of this personal name is Konrád György. This article uses the Western name order.

György (George) Konrád

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

Life

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.

Career from the 1970s

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. He wrote The Intellectual on the Road to Class Power with Szelényi.^[2]

After writing The Intellectual on the Road to Class Power with Szelényi,^[3] he hid the manuscript at his brother in law Ernő Sándor.^[4] Konrád was arrested in 10/22 1974. Konrád was set free the same day, the charges were dropped after issuing Konrád a warning.

A report of the secret police department III/III-4-a made on February 3, 1975 states that agent Foktői (László Rigó, vice-principal of Theater 25.) contacted Sándor on December 9 who told him that Konrád met with György Aczél the director of the cultural life of Hungary in the communist era. Aczél told Konrád that they should not leave Hungary instead he should state their conditions required for them to stay. Konrád asked for passports and his works to be published. His letter to Aczél was published in 2003 in a Hungarian daily newspaper Magyar Nemzet and later used as an evidence in a lawsuit he started against journalist István Lovas which Konrád lost. The Supreme Court's verdict said the following:

”Based on the argumentation and the hereby presented evidence it can be concluded that the claimant (György Konrád) in October 1974, after his arrest reported to the authorities that the wanted manuscript was to be found in Ernő Sándors residence, where the claimant urged Ernő Sándor to hand over the manuscript after which it was confiscated. (...)From this the conclusion can be made, that the name of the manuscripts keeper was revealed to the authorities by György Konrád, so by current standards this act qualifies him as a “snitcher”." ^[5] This is further supported by the claimants own statements in the Hungarian newspaper 168 hours, he himsels said: “I’ve made a moral wrong”.

After the 3 years traveling ban had passed Konrád wrote a letter to János Kádár communist leader of Hungary for a passport which he was given and unlike most Hungarians he was let to travel to western countries. Despite these facts he is mistakenly claimed as a dissident in western countries.

In 1987 and 1988 he taught world literature in Colorado College in Colorado Springs.

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.^[6]

In 1990 he was elected president of PEN International, the worldwide association of writers and oldest human rights organisation, serving until 1993. In 1997 he was the first non-German to become president of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin.^[7]

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.^[8]

In 2003 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Novi Sad.^[9]

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.^[10]

He was a founder of the Hungarian liberal party the SZDSZ^[11] but left the party in 2009.^[12] 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

Fiction

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

Non-fiction

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

“The Intelligentsia and Social Structure”. Telos^[13] 38 (Winter 1978-79). New York: Telos Press.

References

External links

Non-profit organization positions
Preceded by Per Wästberg	International President of PEN International 1990–1993	Succeeded by Ronald Harwood

v t e Hungarian literature

Early sources	Funeral Sermon and Prayer Old Hungarian Lamentations of Mary Gesta Hungarorum Gesta Hunnorum et Hungarorum Chronicon Pictum	Endre Ady

15th – 17th century	Bálint Balassi Péter Bornemisza Albert Gergei István Gyöngyösi Gáspár Heltai János Sylvester Sebestyén Tinódi Lantos Janus Pannonius Péter Pázmány János Rimay Miklós Zrínyi

18th – 19th century	Zoltán Ambrus János Arany József Bajza János Batsányi Elek Benedek Dániel Berzsenyi Miklós Bethlen Sándor Bródy Gergely Csiky Mihály Csokonai Vitéz József Eötvös Mihály Fazekas János Garay Géza Gárdonyi Ignotus Mór Jókai József Kármán József Katona Ferenc Kazinczy Zsigmond Kemény Károly Kisfaludy Sándor Kisfaludy Ferenc Kölcsey Imre Madách Kelemen Mikes Kálmán Mikszáth Sándor Petőfi István Széchenyi Ede Szigligeti Mihály Tompa János Vajda Mihály Vörösmarty

20th century	Endre Ady Lajos Áprily Mihály Babits Béla Balázs Miklós Bánffy Géza Csáth Tibor Déry György Faludy István Fekete Miksa Fenyő Jolán Földes Milán Füst Andor Endre Gelléri Géza Gyóni Béla Hamvas Jenő Heltai Ferenc Herczeg Gyula Illyés Éva Janikovszky Attila József Gyula Juhász Margit Kaffka László Kálnoky Ferenc Karinthy Frigyes Karinthy Lajos Kassák Géza Képes János Kodolányi Károly Kós Dezső Kosztolányi Gyula Krúdy Ervin Lázár Menyhért Lengyel Iván Mándy Sándor Márai Ferenc Molnár Ferenc Móra Zsigmond Móricz Gáspár Nagy Lajos Nagy László Nagy Ágnes Nemes Nagy László Németh József Nyírő Géza Ottlik István Örkény Géza Páskándi János Pilinszky Miklós Radnóti Jenő Rejtő Sándor Reményik Sándor Sík István Sinka András Sütő Dezső Szabó Lőrinc Szabó Magda Szabó Sándor Szathmári Mária Szepes Antal Szerb Domokos Szilágyi Áron Tamási Józsi Jenő Tersánszky Árpád Tóth István Tömörkény Albert Wass Sándor Weöres Lajos Zilahy Péter Zsoldos

Contemporary	Tamás Cseh Sándor Csoóri István Csukás Péter Esterházy Ágnes Gergely Márton Gerlóczy Gábor Görgey Anna Jókai Ferenc Juhász Sándor Kányádi Márton Karinthy Ákos Kertész Imre Kertész György Konrád László Krasznahorkai Endre Kukorelly Péter Lengyel László L. Lőrincz Béla Markó György Moldova Péter Müller Péter Nádas Ádám Nádasdy Gábor Nógrádi Imre Oravecz Zsolt Őz Lajos Parti Nagy Zsuzsa Rácz Zsuzsa Rakovszky András Réz Pál Salamon Richárd Salinger György Spiró Károly Szakonyi Dezső Tandori Miklós Vámos

Category:Hungarian writers

v t e Recipients of the Charlemagne Prize

1950–1969	1950 Richard Nikolaus Graf Coudenhove-Kalergi 1951 Hendrik Brugmans 1952 Alcide de Gasperi 1953 Jean Monnet 1954 Konrad Adenauer 1955 1956 Sir Winston S. Churchill 1957 Paul Henri Spaak 1958 Robert Schuman 1959 George C. Marshall 1960 Joseph Bech 1961 Walter Hallstein 1962 1963 Edward Heath 1964 Antonio Segni 1965 1966 Jens Otto Krag 1967 Joseph Luns 1968 1969 European Commission

1970–1989	1970 François Seydoux de Clausonne 1971 1972 Roy Jenkins 1973 Don Salvador de Madariaga 1974 1975 1976 Leo Tindemans 1977 Walter Scheel 1978 Konstantinos Karamanlis 1979 Emilio Colombo 1980 1981 Simone Veil 1982 King Juan Carlos I 1983 1984 1985 1986 People of Luxembourg 1987 Henry Kissinger 1988 François Mitterrand / Helmut Kohl 1989 Brother Roger

1990–2009	1990 Gyula Horn 1991 Václav Havel 1992 Jacques Delors 1993 Felipe González Márquez 1994 Gro Harlem Brundtland 1995 Franz Vranitzky 1996 Queen Beatrix 1997 Roman Herzog 1998 Bronisław Geremek 1999 Tony Blair 2000 Bill Clinton 2001 György Konrád 2002 Euro 2003 Valéry Giscard d'Estaing 2004 Pat Cox / Pope John Paul II¹ 2005 Carlo Azeglio Ciampi 2006 Jean-Claude Juncker 2007 Javier Solana 2008 Angela Merkel 2009 Andrea Riccardi

2010–2029	2010 Donald Tusk 2011 Jean-Claude Trichet 2012 Wolfgang Schäuble 2013 Dalia Grybauskaitė

¹ Received extraordinary prize.

Authority control	WorldCat VIAF: 108363082 LCCN: n79061203 ISNI: 0000 0001 2032 5564 GND: 118997254 SUDOC: 026952300 BNF: cb119099622 NKC: jn19990210345

Persondata
Name	Konrad, Gyorgy
Alternative names
Short description	Hungarian novelist
Date of birth	April 2, 1933
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death

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