It is a natural, even fortunate, circumstance in life if one encounters, preferably at an early age, creators and bodies of work that beneficially shape one’s development, guiding what to prioritise, how to orient oneself, and ultimately, what one may become. It is exceptionally rare, however, when such encounters leave a decisive imprint on one’s own creative path, shaping a trajectory that appears almost fated in the formation of a sovereign author’s literary and critical judgment.
Lajos Szakolczay, literary historian, critic, art writer, editor, and more, was born in Zala County, in Nagykanizsa. His first encounter with ‘Hungarian literature’ came through the Transylvanian journal Igaz Szó, and subsequently through other periodicals. Today, at the age of seventy-five, he reads and browses more than forty literary and art journals each month. Igaz Szó set him on a path that began with an evening spent among the leading figures of Hungarian literature in Transylvania, initiating his ‘conquest’ of knowledge: the exploration of the “hidden golden treasures of Transylvanian literature”, and later, a broader journey, mostly beyond national borders. It was at this point that he first recognised a sense of fraternal community and committed himself for life to Hungarian culture beyond the borders, where communities were labelled both as minorities and by nationality: to traverse the Carpathian Basin, to seek out both established and emerging literary and cultural achievements. Behind this commitment lay a clear purpose: to preserve these values, to enrich them through engagement with contemporary achievements, and to make them known and respected within the domestic milieu. This guiding principle would underpin all Szakolczay’s subsequent endeavours, though not without trials and struggles. He devoted his talent, his time, and his entire life to this pursuit. Through what seems almost a fortuitous encounter, he came under the influence of the most revered Károly Kós [architect, writer, ethnologist, 1883-1977], whose aesthetic vision and ethical-human stance became a model of life and creative practice for Szakolczay, guiding him as a North Star: “That is ours for which we fight!”
It was during this period that Szakolczay began engaging with Hungarian-language literature produced beyond Hungary’s borders. Specifically, this was in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a time when the fragmentation of Hungarian literature across territories was largely accepted as a matter of course, and the divisions, isolation, and separateness of these literary spheres were treated almost as natural phenomena – a situation that Gyula Illyés [poet, 1883-1977] famously termed the “five-shafted flute.” Little information was available on Hungarian literature in Romania, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Transcarpathia; periodicals rarely published works by ‘foreign’ Hungarian authors, while Hungarian publishing houses often neglected them entirely. The fifth shaft – the Hungarian literature of the West – was barely acknowledged. Within this context, Szakolczay belonged to a small group of scholars who devoted special attention to Hungarian literature beyond the borders: although each ‘shaft’ had its own voice, there was no question that all were integral to Hungarian literature.
His first book immediately provoked lively responses. Today, the preface to A Dunának, Oltnak (lit. To the Danube, to the Olt) reads as an uncontroversial assertion; at the time, it elicited surprise and even indignation: the Hungarian literature and culture of the West and of émigré communities were equally part of the universal corpus of Hungarian literature and culture, just as much as those within Hungary itself.
As Babits [Mihály Babits, poet, 1883-1941] wrote, “In art, traditions are hardly dispensable, for the essence of art itself rests upon moments resembling traditions.” Yet attachment to tradition and culture is always accompanied by the freedom to depart from it: it is through this process that we build anew. Although Szakolczay is our contemporary, his oeuvre is largely rooted in memory, and thereby in tradition – the very kernel of his writing and linguistic artistry.
"Memory cannot be buried!" – he declares in one of his works. Through his writings and his presence in the literary and artistic public sphere, he disseminates knowledge and preserves it; even more, he shares his experience of art and his ideal of culture as an inherited tradition throughout his life.
When Zoltán Bertha notes in his academic recommendation that “With missionary-like devotion and dedication, Lajos Szakolczay maps out the achievements of Hungarian culture in the homeland, in the detached regions (Transylvania, Upper Hungary, the Southern Territories, Transcarpathia), among minority communities, and within the emigration and diasporas, as well as in Western (European and overseas) Hungarian cultural circles”, he points to a true peregrinus, a wayfarer, who is always on the move to bring home what belongs to it – so that we may know it, and it may become a tradition of our spirit.
His interest, and the sense of mission that arose from it, was simultaneously self-generated and shaped by circumstance: amid conditions of dispersion and fragmentation, he chose his path, guided by the examples that lay before him. He undertook a task that few of his contemporaries as literary historians or critics did – perhaps even one of the first to do so: he treated as a unified whole that which appeared scattered, demonstrating and revealing its cohesion, since these works and creators were of one essence, stemming from the same root.
His oeuvre is diverse yet constitutes a single journey: always engaging with the present through the completion of his tasks. He was guided by a dual impulse – the protection of values and the determination to transmit them – book by book, exhibition hall by exhibition hall, theatre by theatre. He saw his life’s work precisely in this: representing, exhibiting, preserving, and passing on the creations and achievements of Hungarian culture dispersed throughout the world.
He could, like many in his early years, have become a poet himself. That he did not, despite the artistic quality of his prose and his careful shaping of sentences, is explained by the exhaustion of his time in ceaseless reading, traveling, and disseminating the achievements of others. “Of my seventy-five years, fifty were spent in wandering. I did not even dare to say, not even to myself, that I was preparing to be a writer; all I could say was: a journalist,” he notes in one of his writings. The three pillars of his professional life are travel, arrival, and ceaseless reading and preparation, culminating in that for which all this exists: writing. He wrote extensively and on diverse topics; his professional bibliography is scarcely enumerable.
His youthful athleticism as a middle-distance runner illuminates much and symbolically echoes throughout his life and work. His focus is not merely on literary or artistic phenomena in Hungary or the wider world, but primarily on the intermediate regions, on developments in Hungarian art beyond the national borders. What gave him the faith, the enthusiasm, and the strength to pursue his path in this way? He drew inspiration from examples and role models. The guiding figures that first illuminated the way for him include Károly Kós, whose call “We must build!” resonated profoundly, alongside many others: Áron Tamási and András Sütő, László Cs. Szabó and György Faludy, Imre Mikó, Zoltán Jékely, István Kormos, Domokos Szilágyi, Géza Páskándi, György Harag, and the younger friend Gáspár Nagy. Through his life, his work, and the words he inherited and embraced, Lajos Szakolczay does nothing other than build a cultural cathedral from past and present. Perhaps he knew his goal, but more likely, his goal knew him – and it drew and carried him along, beyond all borders.
His critical and essayistic voice is characterized by a distinctive loftiness and solemnity, which at times swells into pathos. In his case, however, pathos is not merely the expression of emotional and intellectual engagement, the recognition of shared fate, the undertaking of solidarity, or a linguistic-stylistic device for identification. More importantly, it serves as a means to reveal “the full nakedness of human existence.” The essayist, the scholar, the critic identifies with a mode of discourse that functions as a tool through which he may reach some measure of truth – universal yet encompassing the private and personal.
Not infrequently, his writings carry a marked partiality: a profound reverence for values deemed absolute, sometimes intensified, sometimes nuanced or counterbalanced by his philosophical and intellectual-historical commitments, by a worldview that prioritizes intellectual and spiritual currents, that attends to universal connections, or simply by the persuasive force inherited from cultural history – the personal credibility of his reasoning, which permeates his work as a key element.
His sentences sometimes unfold in baroque expansiveness, curling and densely organized; at other times they lightly meander around the core of a thought, revealing new insights with each sentence. His prose – whether in essays, studies, or critical commentary – is characteristically poetized, endowed with a distinctive style and a poetically inspired depth. All the while, the readability and enjoyment of his writings remain intact, though the ornate and flavourful, genealogically rooted use of the Hungarian language often presents a challenge. This style signals nothing more than that his carefully cultivated language reflects his national identity.
His writings convey a value system that has long existed and has been given to the community, one whose content can be traced in a variety of artistic and cultural expressions yet is not always immediately apparent. Perhaps for this reason, he enriches the inherited tradition, drawing attention to what in contemporary works exhibits comparable quality, thoughtfulness, and intellectual spirit. He points to content that is simultaneously contemporary and timeless, with the national character as its banner.
His oeuvre and editorial work rest upon the same conceptual foundation: the interdependence and symbiosis of culture and nation, of nation and culture. In his view, neither can exist without the other; the absence of one annihilates the other.
Accordingly, his writings consistently seek traces of national character in individual works and entire oeuvres. He has revealed these traits in the works of prominent creators such as Sándor Csoóri, István Ágh, János Oláh, József Utassy, and Gáspár Nagy, among many others. His attention also extends to the oeuvres of ‘lesser masters,’ evaluating them according to their significance, while often discerning in them elements that became foundational for the greater figures – such as Margit Szécsi, István Bella, or Attila Gérecz.
He is a prolific creator, one who rarely seeks out the subjects of his writings; rather, they find him – drawn to him by the shared recognition of value. When he does choose a subject – whether for a deeply analytical study, a lighter and freer essay, or a critique formed under the rigor of judgment – he focuses on what he considers inherently valuable, something he can convey with conviction and transmit to others. Among his works, he is perhaps most proud of the book Erdélyi ősz (lit. Transylvanian Autumn), (Napkút Kiadó, 2006), which casts a broad view over multiple generations of creative work: his own and that of his predecessors. In this volume, his analytical, interpretive, and value-revealing gaze traces back to Károly Kós, Jenő Dsida, and Áron Tamási, arriving through them at his contemporaries – poets and writers whom he regards as the most outstanding: István Szilágyi, Aladár Lászlóffy, András Sütő, János Székely, and Géza Páskándi. At the same time, the writings in this volume provide a kind of summation of Lajos Szakolczay’s origins and convictions as a literary historian and critic, as it stands as his most significant work in revealing and transmitting values, in finding the personal significance of inherited cultural treasures. This major volume, drawing from earlier works, assembles a thematic selection focused primarily on Transylvanian creators – whose works have always held a special weight in his writing, as the title explicitly suggests: a panorama of oeuvres.
To date, he has published nineteen books, including literary, theatrical, and visual arts studies, criticisms, and essays; he has even written a crime-parody entitled Comberdő (lit. Forest of Thighs), and at times has advanced to the level of the novelist himself. As an editor and friend, he has frequently inspired the creation of poetry and occasionally prose, which has often appeared in the journal Kortárs. For instance, between 1990 and 1992, the essay-novel Szakolczayval az aluljáróban (lit. With Szaklonczay in the Underpass) by László Kolozsvári Papp was published, providing a witty, slightly distorted close-up of the transitional period following regime change.
As an editor, his primary focus has been on poets, for poetry is his deepest passion, though he has also sought to support prose writers regardless of their generational affiliation.
A significant portion of his oeuvre consists of critical work, which he unusually regards as a service, seeing his aim in revealing, preserving, and transmitting values.
His work and writing method, rare today, are marked by exceptional preparation. His boundless curiosity and enthusiasm span multiple dimensions and resist rigid categorizations, reflecting both his extraordinary stamina and his exceptional readiness. The creation of his writings is always preceded by meticulous and attentive groundwork. He reads literary works multiple times, takes notes, and only once he has fully absorbed the material does he begin to shape his thoughts into a study, essay, or critical observation. The same care applies to his theatrical and opera criticism, which, beyond their initial daily or monthly publication, appeared in book form in Kötél homokból (lit. Rope from Sand). He often attends multiple performances of a play – for example, at the Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca, Romania) premiere of Csongor és Tünde (Csongor and Tünde), he compared the staged text to the original as a philologist. It mattered not whether he had to travel to Kassa (Košice, Slovakia), Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca, Romania), Újvidék (Novi Sad, Serbia), or Komárom (Komárno, Slovakia).
Lajos Szakolczay represents the rare type of literary historian and art critic who is of a peregrine nature, for whom it is essential to be present where art and culture are created, where they are happening. Both as an editor and a critic, he strives to maintain a comprehensive view of all that occurs across the different artistic fields and within the sphere of Hungarian culture and the arts.
He has always sought a comprehensive perspective, a vision of unity, so that, based on this knowledge, he could make more assured and valid judgements about the individual or the particular, whose connections are nevertheless organic to the universal Hungarian artistic tradition. His life and oeuvre are devoted to acquiring this knowledge and transmitting its values, giving the impression that they belong not merely to a single individual, but simultaneously to many. Perhaps it is precisely from this that his writings, alongside their disciplinary-critical approach, are consistently able to elevate their subject to a higher vantage point – a feat he could not achieve without the firm support of his exceptionally extensive knowledge and cultural experience. His work demonstrates that, across differing genres – be it scholarly literary history, analytical studies, passionately digressive essays, or sharply perceptive theatre criticism – it is possible to produce rigorous, high-quality writing that conveys values, in a language that remains enjoyable while respecting the traditions of Hungarian.
He rarely confines himself, or is content, with the strict boundaries of a single genre. Thus, his criticism often expands into essays or develops into studies, while simultaneously sketching a portrait of the subject he targets. His orientation is multi-directional yet coherent. It is as if he is always speaking of the same thing, even when delving into a poetry collection or exploring the intricacies of a theatrical performance or an opera, or when indicating the entryway into a visual artist’s world. His writings, across nearly all genres, are frequently suffused with a lyrical voice, as if he were writing poetry: extended, richly imaged, and the product of a poetic maturation of personal experience.
He is a passionate individual, both as a literary historian and critic. Devoted and committed, he is a master of his field, particularly receptive to those writers, poets, visual artists, and works of art whose guiding principle is an “ethos as a lantern,” and who, from time to time, are able to renew national consciousness – from Bálint Balassi to Gáspár Nagy.
The central aim of his extensive, wide-ranging literary activity has always been to ensure that the finest values of Hungarian literature and the arts beyond the borders, and of cultural history more broadly, become part of the universal or pan-Hungarian culture and collective consciousness.
In producing his writings, he relies not merely on his feelings but also on his extraordinarily broad erudition and awareness, and on all that he has understood of the world as mediated in privileged ways by the arts. The foundation of his culture and the substance of his aesthetic experience are constituted by the works he has encountered over a career spanning nearly five decades, both as an appreciator of art and as its critic.
His thinking on the aesthetic bears a close affinity to John Dewey’s conception, according to which “aesthetic experience is always more than aesthetic.” For him, artistic expression is not merely an illusion or a fictive imitation of reality; rather, it forms part of life itself as an act of real efficacy, carrying ethical implications, constructive and sustaining in intent, cultivating and fostering a sense of belonging.
An exceptional, arguably unique, example of this – simultaneously a professional and personal tribute, an expression of deep esteem – are the ten one-off ‘codices’ he created over the course of his long career for celebrating prominent, jubilant artists (such as Sándor Csoóri, Pál Deim, Győző Határ, Dezső Korniss, Gáspár Nagy, András Sütő, and Mihály Schéner), each containing poems as well as graphic and photographic material.
Lajos Szakolczay is unquestionably a devotee of the arts, and it is upon this foundation that his coherent worldview is constructed; hence he can forge a close unity between his passion and the way he contemplates it. For him, the arts do not merely organise his intellectual activity; they permeate his senses and emotions, driving the entirety of his life as a consuming passion. As a literary historian, art writer, and critic, across all fields, he is guided by a singular intent: “the impulse to speak with clarity” – and in this, he shares a communion with those about whom he writes.
Gyula Illyés remarks that “Hungarian literature is like a five-shafted flute – disunited.” For Szakolczay, it has been a life’s mission – perhaps self-assumed – to labour towards harmonising these voices and making them known. His oeuvre is therefore not merely an echo of these disparate flutes. His person and his work together constitute the bridge itself: a crossing between the regions of Hungarian culture, whose values are universally part of the Hungarian heritage, and, as they were in the past, may, in the creator’s hope, continue to be in the present and into the future.
[2020]