Károly Molter - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Károly Molter 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...

novelist, dramatist, literary critic, journalist and academic. He spent most of his life in the region of 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...

, being successively a national of Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...

and 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...

Biography

Born in Óverbász (Vrbas)

Vrbas (town)

Vrbas is a city and municipality located in Serbia at , in the South Bačka District in the province of Vojvodina. In 2002 the city had a total population of 25,887, while the municipality had 45,839.-Name:...

, Vojvodina

Vojvodina

Vojvodina, officially called Autonomous Province of Vojvodina is an autonomous province of Serbia. Its capital and largest city is Novi Sad...

region, Molter was from an ethnic German

Ethnic German

Ethnic Germans historically also ), also collectively referred to as the German diaspora, refers to people who are of German ethnicity. Many are not born in Europe or in the modern-day state of Germany or hold German citizenship...

(Danube Swabian

Danube Swabians

The Danube Swabians is a collective term for the German-speaking population who lived in the former Kingdom of Hungary, especially alongside the Danube River valley. Because of different developments within the territory settled, the Danube Swabians cannot be seen as a unified people...

) family, but adopted 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....

as his language. He studied at the College of Kecskemét

Kecskemét

Kecskemét is a city in the central part of Hungary. It is the 8th largest city of the country, and the county seat of Bács-Kiskun.Kecskemét lies halfway between the capital Budapest and the country's third-largest city, Szeged, 86 kilometres from both of them and almost equal distance from the two...

, and then at the University of Budapest Faculty of Philosophy in Letter (the Hungarian-German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

section).

In 1913, he moved to Transylvania, settling down in Marosvásárhely (Târgu Mureş). Between 1913 and 1945, he was a teacher in the Bolyai Gymnasium, a Reformed Church

Reformed Church in Romania

The Reformed Church in Romania is the organization of the Calvinist church in Romania. The majority of its followers are of Hungarian ethnicity and Hungarian is the main church language...

college in the city. In the interwar period

Interwar period

Interwar period can refer to any period between two wars. The Interbellum is understood to be the period between the end of the Great War or First World War and the beginning of the Second World War in Europe....

, after the union of Transylvania with Romania

Union of Transylvania with Romania

Union of Transylvania with Romania was declared on by the assembly of the delegates of ethnic Romanians held in Alba Iulia.The national holiday of Romania, the Great Union Day occurring on December 1, commemorates this event...

, he became a member of the Erdélyi Helikon group in Marosvécs (Brâncoveneşti)

Brâncovenesti, Mures

Brâncovenești is a commune in Mureș County, Romania.The commune is composed of five villages: Brâncovenești, Idicel, Idicel-Pădure, Săcalu de Pădure and Vălenii de Mureș....

, as well as sitting on the editorial staff of Zord Idő magazine. In 1937, he published one of his most successful works, the novel Tibold Márton, which depicted a Swabian family in the process of adopting Hungarian culture

Culture of Hungary

The culture of Hungary has a distinctive style of its own in Hungary, diverse and varied, starting from the capital city of Budapest on the Danube, to the Great Plain bordering Ukraine. Hungary was formerly one half of Austria-Hungary. Hungary has a rich folk tradition, for example: embroideries,...

, as well as the problems faced by ethnic minorities in their relation to the majority.

After 1945, Molter was employed by the Bolyai faculty

Babes-Bolyai University

The Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca is an university in Romania. With almost 50,000 students, the university offers 105 specialisations, of which there are 105 in Romanian, 67 in Hungarian, 17 in German, and 5 in English...

in Cluj

Cluj-Napoca

Cluj-Napoca , commonly known as Cluj, is the fourth most populous city in Romania and the seat of Cluj County in the northwestern part of the country. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest , Budapest and Belgrade...

, were he lectured in German language and literature

German literature

German literature comprises those literary texts written in the German language. This includes literature written in Germany, Austria, the German part of Switzerland, and to a lesser extent works of the German diaspora. German literature of the modern period is mostly in Standard German, but there...

. Retiring in 1950, he moved back to Târgu Mureş, and died there 31 years later.

Works

F. m. Melánia R. T. (1929)
Tibold Márton (1937)
Bolond kisváros ("Foolish Little Town", 1942)
Reformáció és magyar műveltség ("Reformation and the Hungarian Culture", 1944)
Harci mosolyok ("Martial Smiles", 1956; short stories)
Iparkodj kisfiam! ("Struggle, My Little Son!", 1964)
Szellemi belháború ("The Intellectual Interwar", 1968)
Komor korunk derűje ("The Brightness in Our Somber Times", 1971; anecdotes)
Örökmozgó ("Perpetual Motion", 1974; plays)
Buborékharc ("Bubble War", 1980; essays)

Biography

Works

Further reading