Lajos Kassák (March 21, 1887 – July 22, 1967) was a Hungarian poet, novelist, painter, essayist, editor, theoretician of the avant-garde, and translator.
Self-taught, he became a writer within the socialist movement and published journals important to the radical intellectual culture of Budapest in the early 1900s. Although he cannot be fully identified with any single avant-garde movement, he adopted elements of expressionism, futurism and dadaism. He has been described as a well-acclaimed artistic virtuoso whose strong achievements and socially committed activities interlaced with a consistent artistic vibrancy. He set the pace for the development of the avant-garde artistic wing in Hungary. Kassák is also considered to be a pioneer of a number of new developments in the Hungarian avant-garde and modernist art scene.
It has been said that Kassák's legacy was stunted and unrecognized for a long while because his political and artistic activities were shrouded by the government of the Iron Curtain and by the activities of others. He started out not as an artist but as a locksmith and then moved on to become a political activist, writer, editor and painter. Kassák's artistic and political involvement actively started in the 1910s after he left off working as a locksmith. In 1920, due to the attack of the Hungarian government against intellectuals like Lajos Kassák which intensified following the collapse of the Republic of Councils in Hungary, he escaped into exile in Vienna. Paradoxically, this attack on Kassák's intellectual activism led to a flourishing literary lifestyle which included exhibitions, readings, culturally-spirited events and the journal editing enterprises that were soon to be transported back to Hungary where an underground trend of social campaigning was budding. After spending six years in exile, Kassák returned to Hungary and engaged in more literary activities including the founding of the Munka Circle and journal which lasted for almost ten years in a row and also stirred revivalism of a collectivised artistic avant-garde movement that were bonded by socio-politically oriented practices of artistry.
The government of the era strongly antagonised most of the movements and publications set up by Kassák upon his return to Hungary, but most of them managed to thrive in spite of this. For one, although the Munka group was banned, it only yielded to an eventual dissolution due to internal strife and conflicts. To say that Kassák was extremely anti-political would not be completely correct as Kassák, during his lifetime, acted as the chairman of the Arts Council during which time he edited a number of progressive journals like Alkotás and subsequently became a member of the Parliament of the Social Democratic Party in connection to which he edited a literary journal. His participation in these political spheres affected his reception and treatment as a writer after the journals were discontinued after the Communist regime was installed after the Second World War. For the second time, Kassák was forced to retire into a solitary form of habitation in his Bekásmegyer home. It was not until 1956 that Kassák's reputation as a writer became established although it can be said, at the time, there was yet to be holistic regard for his intellectual and artistic legacies.
Kassák mostly engaged in multimodality using different media forms that were both textual, aural, linguistic, spatial, and visual resources in order to articulate his socially-oriented messages. He wrote novels, painted extensively, supported the budding socio-photographic form of artistry in Hungary and worked with music in a defining way with his partner Jolán Simon heading a speaking choir which performed regularly at Munka Circle gatherings. Even more, Kassák delved into film production as well as dance. He is credited for integrating Russian artistry into the rather exclusive Hungarian art setting. The reception of Kassák's works has changed in contemporary times with several reprints of his books and an acknowledgement of other facets that makes him the artist that he was during his lifetime. In recognition of all his politically enthused and artistically significant efforts, Kassák was awarded a state medal on his 80th birthday in 1967. He died on July 22 of the same year and was a tributary honour by his colleagues, friends and supporters.
Early life and education Kassák was born in Érsekújvár, Austria-Hungary (present-day Nové Zámky, Slovakia). His father was an apothecary assistant and his mother a laundress. Although his parents wanted him to attend higher education, Kassák decided to quit his studies and started work as a locksmith assistant, gaining a letter of indenture as an apprentice. His sister was Erzsi Újvári who went on to marry Sándor Barta. After leaving grammar school in 1900, Kassák took part in an apprenticeship for four years and then moved to Budapest to work as a factory worker. As he worked in Angyalföld and Újpest, he participated in political struggles related to trade unions from 1904 to 1908. After partaking actively in the organization of strikes, rallies, protests and even joining the Hungarian Social Democratic Party, Kassák was fired from his job and totally blacklisted. Before then, one of his poems had already gotten published by the Weekly Újpest and he had gotten to meet Jolán Simon who would later be his wife. Through self-education on the prevalent sociopolitical anomalies of his time, Kassák became even more determined to engage in vibrant activism. Due to his hostile situation he found himself in, Kassák journeyed to Paris on foot and illicitly entered the country after getting ejected from Belgium and Germany. In Paris, Kassák found himself visiting several museums, writing leisurely and living the life of a wanderer. Upon coming back to Budapest in 1910, Kassák started participating in political-literary causes and also getting his poems and short stories published by newspaper houses, modernist literary press and socialist publications. From 1915, Kassák started to engage in the journal publication of A Tett by gathering together writers and artists of like-minded passion like him. These intellectuals moved from being mere commenters of the war to being critics with anti-war outlooks.
Career In 1904 Kassák moved to Budapest, where he worked in a factory on the outskirts of the city. He participated in the labour union movement and organized several strikes. In 1905 he was fired several times for organizing strikes.
In 1907 he left for Paris – on foot and without any money; the city was attracting artists and intellectuals from throughout eastern Europe. He was expelled to Hungary in 1910. The experiences of this journey were later covered in his autobiography entitled Egy ember élete (A Man's Life).
Despite his lack of formal education and inadequate writing skills, Kassák fought fiercely to publish his works. His first poem was published in 1908, and his first collections of short stories in 1912, titled Életsiratás. In 1915 he published his first collection of poems, Éposz Wagner maszkjában (Epic in the Mask of Wagner). That same year, he launched his first journal, entitled A Tett (The Action), which was soon censored and banned for being "pacifist". He was part of the intellectual movement that included the group of painters known as The Eight whose work he supported in his journals. He started Ma (Today) in Budapest and later published it from Vienna.
During the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919, he became a member of the special Writers Directorate. After fierce debates with the republic's leader, Béla Kun, he distanced himself from Bolshevism whilst always remaining a leftist. He never distinguished between being a socially responsible individual and an artist: his art was part of his self-definition as a "socialist man". György Lukács criticized Kassák for wanting to be the "official court poet of communism" yet simultaneously denying any affiliation to the communists during the onset of the White Terror.Georg Lukács, Record of a Life (London: Verso, 1983), p. 62. After the fall of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, Kassák emigrated to Vienna. There he continued publishing his second journal, MA ("Today" but also "Magyar Aktivizmus"= Hungarian Activism]). He also published an anthology, Buch neuer Künstler, a project in which László Moholy-Nagy was to help him by gathering material for him from Berlin.
However, in May 1922 Béla Uitz and Aladár Komját published the first issue of Egység, a rival journal, critical of Kassak.
In 1926, Kassák returned to Hungary. He continued editing and publishing journals such as Munka (Work) (1927–1938) and Dokumentum (Document) (1927), both of which were independent leftist avant-garde journals.
His autobiography, Egy ember élete (A Man's Life) was published in sections periodically in the Hungarian literary journal, Nyugat, between 1923 and 1937. After he published it as a book, he was prosecuted because of its chapters concerning the Hungarian Soviet Republic.
He regularly published in leftist newspapers. From 1945 to 1947, he edited the journal Kortárs (Contemporary), which closed when it was banned. In 1947 he returned to political duties, as the communists had taken over the Hungarian government. He was appointed as the head of the Social Democratic Party's Art Commission. In 1948 he became an MP. A year later he had to change seats in the Parliament, and later he had to resign, and finally retire because of the change of the political climate.
In 1953, Kassák criticised the Party's cultural politics and was expelled from the party. Because of this, he was not allowed to publish for years, until 1956, when he was elected to be a chair in the Writers Association, an influential organization of the era. From 1957 he became practically muted by the cultural censorship of the Party, and for the rest of his life was not allowed to travel, exhibit and publish. However, even in his silence, he influenced a large number of artist both in Hungary and internationally. He died in Budapest on July 22, 1967.
Work
Kassák is considered to be the main father figure of literary Hungarian Avant-garde, and one of the first poet/writer/artists from a working-class background. His views on historical avant-garde movements influenced the region's perception and artistic production. His journals Ma ("Today") and the Tett ("The Deed") were widely followed. He was heavily influenced by the international constructivist movement and issued several manifestos: Képarchitektúra ("Image Architecture", 1922), Vissza a kaptafához ("Back to the Basics", 1923), and A konstruktivizmusról ("On Constructivism", 1922).
As he is associated with more than one style or movement, most art historians refer him as an "Activist", a special label issued to express the socially engaged style of his artistic production. Functionality and social effectivity were the main characteristics of his works, which have to be implemented by the modern being in order to create a world of social equality.
His works include concrete poetry, billboards, design, novels, and paintings, and were influenced by Expressionism, Dadaism, Futurism, Surrealism and Constructivist tendencies.
A Tett