He was born in a small Transylvanian village, Érmindszent, today Romania. He worked as a journalist in Debrecen and later in Nagyvárad. It was in Nagyvárad that he met his great love, the wife of Ödön Diósi, called Léda in his poems, who came to Hungary as a visitor from Paris. At that time Ady worked for journals in Budapest. As the Paris correspondent he spent a considerable time in the French capital, his sphere of influence reached European proportions. His political radicalism, critical affection for anything Hungarian and the fact that he reformed Hungarian lyric poetry elevated him to the rank of a modern classic. He worked for the famous Hungarian literary journal of the 20th century, Nyugat, for some time he was even its nominal editor.
Throughout his whole life he had financial difficulties, he had no place of his own, he lived in hotels both in Budapest and in Paris. In April 1914 he met Berta Boncza, named Csinszka in his poems, whom he married in 1915. This flat was Csinszka’s inheritance, they moved in here in November 1917. Ady was forty years old. At the beginning the warm, friendly home had a positive influence on him but later the war and his deteriorating health made him suffer more and more.
His zest for work abated and he was confined most of the time to his walnut bed. From his past habits only his voracious newspaper reading and the drinking of light wines remained. The harmonious atmosphere of the home could no longer cope with his illness, nor could it soothe his frayed nerves. In the second week of January 1919 his condition became critical and he had to be taken to a sanatorium. It was there that he died, on January the 17th. He was buried two days later. In front of the Hungarian National Museum thousands paid their respect to the man who made his mark on Hungarian cultural life in the early part of the 20th century.
We have restored the three rooms of the flat to what they were like in the time the Adys lived there, furnishing them with the old furniture.
Main Works
New Poems (1906)
Pale People and Stories (1907)
Blood and Gold (1907)
On Elijah’s Chariot (1909)
From the Poems of All Secrets (1910)
And So It May Happen (1910)
I’d Love to Be Loved (1910)
The Fleeing Life (1912)
Who Saw Me? (1914)
Heading the Dead (1918)
With my old man's wrinkled hand,
with my old man's squinting eyes,
let me hold your lovely hand,
let me guard your lovely eyes.
Worlds have tumbled, through their fall
like a wild beast chased by fright
I came, and I on you did call
scared, I wait with you inside.
With my old man's wrinkled hand,
with my old man's squinting eyes,
let me hold your lovely hand,
let me guard your lovely eyes.
I do not know why, how long
can I thus remain for you -
but I hold your lovely hand
and I guard your lovely eyes.
I Guard Your Eyes (trans. Adam Makkai)
Cím
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