Elek Benedek was a Hungarian

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

 journalist and writer, known as "the great folk-tale teller".

Biography

Born in Kisbacon, Transylvania

Transylvania

Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...

 (today Băţanii Mici

Batani

Băţani is a commune in Covasna County, Transylvania, Romania. It lies in the Székely Land, an ethno-cultural region in eastern Transylvania.- Component villages :The commune, with its center at Băţanii Mari, is composed of five villages:-Demographics:...

, Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

), he studied in Székelyudvarhely

Odorheiu Secuiesc

Odorheiu Secuiesc is the second-largest city in Harghita County, Transylvania, Romania. In its short form, it is also known as Odorhei in Romanian and Udvarhely in Hungarian...

 and later in Budapest

Budapest

Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...

. He went as a student with Job Sebesi to collect folklore elements. The result was a collection of Transylvanian tales, which was met with so much positive critiqeu, that the young Elek Benedek cut short his studies. He worked at first as a journalist for Budapest Hírlap ("Budapest Newspaper") and for other newspapers.

He was a member of Parliament between 1887 and 1892. In his speeches he engaged in youth literature, folk poetry, folk language and public education.

In 1889 he started, together with Lajos Pósa

Lajos Pósa

Lajos Pósa was a Hungarian writer and poet. He created and edited a children's literary journal....

, the first Hungarian literary magazine for youth, Az Én Újságom ("My Magazine"). He was the editor of Jó Pajtás ("Good Fellow") with Zsigmond Sebők. He also edited a series of books for youth, called Kis Könyvtár ("Small Library"); this later appeared as Benedek Elek Kis Könyvtára ("Small Library of Benedek Elek"). In 1900 he joined the Kisfaludy Group, a group of famous Hungarian writers and poets. He also wrote poems, dramas, novels and historical fiction books, but the most famous were his fairy tales.

In 1885 the Székely Tündérország ("Transylvanian Hungarians' Neverland"), which contains the first original fairy tales from tha authors, appeared. Six years later, in 1891, the Székely mesemondó ("Transylvanian Hungarian Storyteller") appeared. Benedek's biggest challenge was the Magyar mese- és mondavilág ("World of Hungarian Tales and Legends"), which appeared in 5 volumes between 1894 and 1896. This book was dedicated to the Hungarian Millenia.

Next to the original stories he made translations too. For example, he translated many tales from Grimm's Fairy Tales

Grimm's Fairy Tales

Children's and Household Tales is a collection of German origin fairy tales first published in 1812 by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, the Brothers Grimm. The collection is commonly known today as Grimms' Fairy Tales .-Composition:...

 and Arabian Nights to Hungarian

Hungarian language

Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....

.

After the Treaty of Trianon

Treaty of Trianon

The Treaty of Trianon was the peace agreement signed in 1920, at the end of World War I, between the Allies of World War I and Hungary . The treaty greatly redefined and reduced Hungary's borders. From its borders before World War I, it lost 72% of its territory, which was reduced from to...

(which transferred sovereignty over Transylvania to Romania) he went back to his native village, where he edited the youth magazine Cimbora ("Friend") until he died.

Sources

• West Hungarian University homepage
• Homepage of Bardócz Orsolya, the great-granddaughter of the author