Kiss, József
KISS, JÓZSEF
KISS, JÓZSEF (1843–1921), Hungarian poet. Kiss, one of Hungary's greatest literary figures, was born in Mezőcsát. His father was a shopkeeper, his mother the daughter of a Lithuanian cantor. The boy was sent first to the yeshivah of Miskolc and later to other Hungarian yeshivot, but he ran away. When he was 19 his mother died and his father failed in business, and he was compelled to become an itinerant melammed (Hebrew tutor). For three years he wandered through the Hungarian provinces – an experience on which he was later to draw for material about Magyar and Jewish peasant life. In 1867 Kiss tried unsuccessfully to persuade the Pest Jewish community to sponsor the publication of his first collection of verse. He, therefore, had it published privately, under the title Zsidó dalok ("Jewish Poems," 1868), but it was a failure. He then worked as a proofreader in a printing firm. In 1870 he became editor of the magazine Képes világ ("Picture World"), but it ceased publication in 1873. Under the pseudonym "Rudolf Szentesi" he then wrote a series of eight popular detective novels inspired by the works of Eugène Sue and entitled Budapesti rejtelmek ("Secrets of Budapest," 1874). From 1875 to 1876 he was an editor of Zsidó Évkönyv, Hungarian Jewish Yearbook.
Kiss first made an impact as a poet in 1875, when a public performance of his ballad Simon Judit ("Judith Simeon") was given good reviews by Ferenc Toldy and other Hungarian critics. This recognition, however, did nothing to alleviate his financial plight and he accordingly left Budapest for Temesvár, where he became secretary to the Jewish community (1876–82). After his arrival there another volume of his poetry was published, and as a result he was elected a member of the distinguished Petőfi literary society in 1877. By 1882 he had become a celebrity. His Ünnepnapok ("Holy Days," 1888) was commissioned by the Pest Jewish community, but repudiated by it because of its unacceptable religious views. He had a job for some time in an insurance company but in 1890, with the backing of some friends, launched a successful literary journal, A Hét ("The Week"). As its editor he gained a reputation as the leading figure in Hungarian literature. He reached the pinnacle of his fame with the publication of a bibliophile edition of his collected poems, and on his 70th birthday was honored with election to the exclusive Kisfaludy literary society.
József Kiss's early poems followed the tradition of 19th-century Hungarian verse, although their heroes were Jews on the road to assimilation rather than Hungarian nobles and peasants. The first professing Jew to achieve fame as a Hungarian writer, he broke new ground with poems about social change, moral degeneration, and the breakdown of traditional Jewish family life (Szép Batoné, 1877; Simon Judit, 1875; Jehovah, 1884). In other poems he describes the cruelty of economic life in the city: Mese a varrógépről ("Song of the Sewing Machine," 1884), and De Profundis (1876). The theme of antisemitism recurs in all his poems. During *Tisza-Eszlar and other blood libels he wrote Az ár ellen ("Against the Tide," 1882) and the pogroms in Russia occasioned Uj Ahasvér ("The New Ahasuerus," 1875) and Odessza (1905). In all these works he expressed a love for the Jew which has no equal among Hungarian Jewish poets. Echoes of the 1905 Russian Revolution and the idea of world revolution found their way into his poems Knyaz Potemkin (1906) and Tüzek ("Flames"). He commemorated his Lithuanian grandfather in the poem Legendáka nagyapámról ("Legends of My Grandfather," 1888). His later poems are "pearls" of Hungarian lyrics, examples of which are Ó mért oly későn ("Why So Late") and Borongás ("Brooding"). Important collections of his verse include Kiss József összes költeményei ("Collected Poems of Joseph Kiss," 1930), Levelek hullása ("When the Leaves Fall," 1908), Esteledik, Alkonyodik ("Nightfall, Twilight," 1920). English translations of his poems appear in W.N. Loew's Modern Magyar Lyrics (1926).
bibliography:
M. Rubinyi, Kiss József (Hung., 1926); A. Roth, Judem im ungarischen Kulturleben in der zweiten Haelfte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Die ersten bedeutenden juedischen Dichter in der ungarischen Literatur (1934), 15–21; Kiss József és kerek asztala (1934); S. Scheiber, Zsidó néprajzi adatok Kiss József műveiben (1948); Magyar Irodalmi Lexikon, 1 (1963), 645–48; A. Komlós, in: imit, 54 (1932), 49–73.
[Baruch Yaron]