page_title: Endre Ady
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Endre Ady / Biography
caption_attribution_description: English: Building of the former EMKE cafe in Nagyvárad (now Oradea, Romania), the favorite place of the Hungarian poet Endre Ady. Magyar: Az egykori EMKE kávézó épülete Nagyváradon ma. Ady kedvenc helye, itt alapították meg a Holnap Irodalmi Társaságot.
context_page_description: Endre Ady was a turn-of-the-century Hungarian poet and journalist. Regarded by many as the greatest Hungarian poet of the 20th century, he was noted for his steadfast belief in social progress and development and for his poetry's exploration of fundamental questions of the modern European experience: love, temporality, faith, individuality, and patriotism.
context_section_description: Ady was born in Érmindszent, Szilágy County (part of Austria-Hungary at the time; now a village in Satu Mare County, Romania, called Adyfalva in Hungarian and Ady Endre in Romanian). He belonged to an impoverished Calvinist noble family. Endre was the second of three children. The eldest, a girl named Ilona, died at an early age. The author and poet Mariska Ady (1888-1977) was a niece of Endre Ady.
  Between 1892-1896, Ady attended the Calvinist College in Zilah (today Zalău, Romania). On 22 March 1896, he published his first poem in the Zilah newspaper Szilágy.
  He later studied law at the Reformed College in Debrecen. After dropping out, he became a journalist. He published his first poems in a volume called Versek (Poems) in 1899. He soon grew tired of Debrecen (the town later became a symbol of backwardness in his poetry) and moved to Nagyvárad (today Oradea, Romania), a city with a rich cultural life. In articles written in 1902 for the local newspaper Nagyváradi Napló, Ady paid close attention to the social features of his time. "Wesselényi and a poor peasant! Perhaps unwittingly, master Fadrusz has carved a satire", he wrote, referring to the unveiling of the Wesselényi Monument.
  Working as a journalist and spending time with like-minded people broadened his horizons. He published a new collection of poems in 1903, but remained relatively unknown. The turning point came in August 1903 when he met Adél Brüll (Mrs Diósy), a rich, married Jewish woman who was living in Paris at the time but was visiting her home in Nagyvárad. Léda (as he called her in his poems) became his muse; his love for her and their visit to Paris, helped him to develop his talent. He visited Paris seven times between 1904 and 1911. When he returned after his first visit (which lasted for a year), he moved to Budapest and began work for the newspaper Budapesti Napló (Budapest Journal), where he published more than 500 articles and plenrí of poems. 
  Being interested in politics, Ady became a member of the radical group Huszadik Század (Twentieth Century, or possibly Twentieth Brigade). In 1906 he published his third book of poetry, Új versek (New Poems), which is a landmark in literature and marks the birth of modern Hungarian poetry. His fourth collection, Vér és arany (Blood and Gold), brought him real success and critical acclaim.
  In 1906 Ady decided to leave the country and went to Paris again. In 1907, he had to quit his job at Budapesti Napló.
  In 1908, the first issue of a new periodical called Nyugat (The West) published a poem and an essay by him. He worked for this periodical for the rest of his life; from 1912 he was one of the editors. Also in 1908 in Nagyvárad, he was one of the founders of a literary circle called A Holnap (Tomorrow). The group published an anthology of poems of Ady and others including Mihály Babits, Gyula Juhász and Béla Balázs. The poems of this anthology met with disapproval and incomprehension. Many people attacked the anthology for containing erotic poems. In addition, Ady was criticized for his unpatriotic feelings in a poem in which he emphasized the contrast between the rich cultural life he longed for and the cruel realities of the Hungarian peasant world.
  Ady disliked his name being linked with other poets, who he thought were jumping on his bandwagon. He wrote a short story, "The duk-duk affair", in which he mocked those who were following the trend he was setting.
  Ady was an editor and leading figure of Nyugat (West), an important Hungarian literary journal. He also wrote political articles for other journals criticizing the political situation of the time. He did not like the nationalism of the leading parties, but also criticized the anti-nationalism of the social democrats; he knew how far Hungary was behind the more developed countries, but clearly saw the faults of Western countries too.
  From 1909 he often needed sanitarium treatment for his health, which was undermined by syphilis. The political situation became critical: the workers were protesting against the government, and Ady saw a revolution ap
caption: Building of the former EMKE cafe, favorite place of Ady. Here was founded the literary circle called "A Holnap" (Tomorrow)
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D40", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Ver.1.11", "Image DateTime": "2013:02:07 17:02:44", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "216", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "300", "Thumbnail YResolution": "300", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "31932", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9055", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/125", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Unidentified", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "400", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2013:02:07 17:02:44", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2013:02:07 17:02:44", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "37/10", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "20", "EXIF SubSecTime": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "00", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3008", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2000", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "31794", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 2, 1, 1, 0]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "30", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}