KÁROLY KISFALUDY (1847)

Romantic dramatist, the first Hungarian playwright to achieve considerable popular success.

Károly had an errant youth in which he left school at 16 to become a soldier and fought in the Napoleonic Wars.

In 1811 while leading a precarious existence as a painter in Vienna he tried his hand at a historical drama, A tatárok Magyarországon (The Tartars in Hungary). The play remained unknown until eight years later when it was performed by a repertory company in a provincial town; they repeated their performance in Pest, making Kisfaludy famous overnight.

Among Kisfaludy´s most important works are the tragedy Iréne (1820) and the comedy A kérök (1817, The Suitors).

He stepped into the literary leadership left vacant by Ferenc Kazinczy´s gradual withdrawal from his active career and in 1822, he began to publish his literary almanac Aurora which became the chief literary vehicle of the coming generation of Hungarian Romantics: József Bajza, Mihály Vörösmarty, Ferenc Kölcsey.