Mór Jókai


Móric Jókay de Ásva, outside Hungary also known as Maurus Jokai or Mauritius Jókai, was a Hungarian nobleman, novelist, dramatist and revolutionary. He was active participant and a leading personality in the outbreak of Hungarian Liberal Revolution of 1848 in Pest. Jókai's romantic novels became very popular among the elite of Victorian era England; he was often compared to Dickens in the 19th century British press. One of his most famous fans and admirers was Queen Victoria herself.

Early life

He was born in Komárom, in the Kingdom of Hungary. His father, József Jókai de Ásva, was a member of the Ásva branch of the ancient Jókay noble family; his mother was also noblewoman Mária Pulay. The boy was timid and delicate, and was therefore educated at home until the age of ten, when he was sent to Pozsony. He then completed his education at the Calvinist college at Pápa, where he first met Sándor Petőfi, Sándor Kozma, and several other young men who subsequently became famous.
After his father's death when Jókai was 12, his family had meant him to follow the law, his father's profession. The young Jókai, always singularly assiduous, plodded conscientiously through the usual curriculum at Kecskemét and Pest, and succeeded in winning his first case as a full-fledged lawyer.

Career

The drudgery of a lawyer's office was uncongenial to the ardently poetical Jókai. Encouraged by the encomia pronounced by the Hungarian Academy on his first play, Zsidó fiú, he moved to Pest in 1845 with a manuscript novel in his pocket. There, he was introduced by Petőfi to the literary society of the Hungarian capital, and the same year his first notable novel Hétköznapok, appeared, first in the columns of the , and subsequently, in 1846, in book form. Hétköznapok was instantly recognized by all the leading critics as a work of original genius, and in the following year Jókai was appointed the editor of Életképek, then the leading Hungarian literary journal, and gathered round himself a circle of young Hungarian writers.
He married the great tragic actress, Judit Benke de Laborfalva, on 29 August 1848. On the outbreak of the revolution of 1848, the young editor enthusiastically adopted the nationalist cause. He was a moderate Liberal, opposed to all excesses; but, swayed by the nationalist victories of April and May 1849, he supported Kossuth's decision to depose the Habsburg dynasty. He was present at the surrender at Világos in August, 1849. He intended to commit suicide to avoid imprisonment, but was spared by the arrival of his wife, with whom he made a difficult journey on foot through Russian lines to Pest.
For the next fourteen years, Jókai lived the life of a political suspect. Yet this was perhaps the most glorious period of his existence, for during it he devoted himself to the rehabilitation of the Magyar language, composing in it no fewer than thirty novels, besides innumerable volumes of tales, essays, criticism and faceti. This was the period of such masterpieces as Erdély aranykora, with its sequel Török világ Magyarországon, Egy magyar nábob, with its sequel Kárpáthy Zoltán, Janicsárok végnapjai, and Szomorú napok.
On the re-establishment of the Hungarian constitution by the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, Jókai took an active part in politics. As a constant supporter of the Tisza administration, not only in parliament, where he sat continuously for more than twenty years, but also as the editor of the government organ, Hon, founded by him in 1863, he became a power in the state, and, though he never took office himself, frequently extricated the government from difficult places. In 1897 the king appointed him a member of the upper house. In 1899 he created a country-wide scandal by contracting a marriage with Bella Nagy, a young actress.
Jókai died in Budapest on 5 May 1904, his first wife having died on 20 November 1886. Both were buried at the Kerepesi Cemetery.

His writings

Jókai was extremely prolific. He devoted most of his time to literature, and his productiveness after 1870 was stupendous, amounting to some hundreds of volumes. Among the finest of his later works may be mentioned Az arany ember, the most popular A kőszívű ember fiai, the heroic chronicle of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, and A tengerszemű hölgy, the latter of which won the Academy's prize in 1890. He was also an amateur chess player.
His Jövő század regénye is accounted an important early work of Science Fiction though the term did not yet exist at the time. In spite of its romantic trappings, this monumental two-volume novel includes some acute observations and almost prophetic visions, such as the prediction of a revolution in Russia and the establishment of a totalitarian state there, or the arrival of aviation. Because it could be read as a satirical allegory on Leninism and Stalinism in the Soviet Union, the book was banned in Hungary in the decades of the Stalinist Era.

Collected editions

The greatest collections of his works:
Other English Editions :
Source : http://www.globusz.com/ebooks/HunShort/00000012.htm
Source : Lóránt Czigány: A magyar irodalom fogadtatása a viktoriánus Angliában 1830-1914
Source : http://www.gutenberg.org

Selected filmography

Three stamps were issued by Hungary in his honor, all on 1 February 1925.

Citations