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Miklós Radnóti

On 5th May 1909, Miklós Radnóti was born in Budapest to Jewish parents. Following a brief chapter working in his uncle’s textile business, Radnóti switched his focus to literature where he was employed by a number of small magazines in Budapest.  Inspired by the work of the Czech and Hungarian avant-gardes, Radnóti’s early poetry was largely influenced by avant-garde techniques.

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DID YOU KNOW…?

As applied to art, avant-garde means art that is innovatory, introducing or exploring new forms or subject matter.

MIKlos radnoti

MIKlos radnoti

Between 1930–1935, Radnóti examined Hungarian and French literature at the University of Szeged. Whilst studying, Radnóti moulded friendships with many of Budapest’s most prestigious interwar artists and intellectuals. 

As the political atmosphere in Hungary shifted to a more threatening climate, Radnóti changed beliefs to Catholicism. However, during the Second World War, Radnóti was drafted into forced labour because of his Jewish heritage. Despite this, he continued to write poems, essays, fiction and African folk poetry.

In May 1944, Radnóti was drafted into a final term of forced labour where he worked in the copper mines in Yugoslavia. As Soviet troops pushed forward, Radnóti and his fellow prisoners were force-marched in retreat. En route, Radnóti collapsed as a result of exhaustion from the effects of hunger and torture. He was shot and his body was dumped into a mass grave. Upon exhumation of the grave a year later, a notebook holding his final poems was discovered. Radnóti’s collected poetry, including his final poems, was published as Tajtékos ég (1946; translated into English as Clouded Sky, 1986). 

Radnóti’s work is considered to be one of the most important poetic witnesses to the Holocaust and his work has been translated extensivley. Below is an extract from one of his final poems: A Letter to My Wife, the full poem and further information on the life of Radnoti can be found on the Poetry Foundation website here.

Jealous interrogations: tell me; speak.
Do you still love me? Will you on that peak
of my past youth become my future wife?
- But now I fall awake to real life
and know that’s what you are: wife, friend of years,
- just far away. Beyond three wild frontiers.
And Fall comes. Will it also leave with me?
Kisses are sharper in the memory.