Károly Kerényi (, ; 19 January 1897 – 14 April 1973), also known as Karl Kerényi, Carl Kerényi, Charles Kerényi and Carlo Kerényi (aliases under which his works were sometimes published, respectively in German, English, French and Italian), was a Hungarian scholar in classical philology and one of the founders of modern studies of Greek mythology.
Life Hungary, 1897–1943 Kerényi was born in Temesvár, Kingdom of Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Timișoara, Romania), to Hungarian parents of partly German origin. His father's family was of Swabian peasant descent. His mother was Karolina Halász.
Kerényi learnt German as a foreign language at school, and later chose it as his language for scientific work. He identified himself with the city of Arad, where he attended secondary school, because of its liberal spirits as the city of the 13 martyrs of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848/49.Kerényi, K.: Tessiner Schreibtisch (Writing Desk in Ticino), 1963; pp. 148ff He moved on to study classical philology at the University of Budapest where he mostly appreciated the teaching of the Latinist Géza Némethy as well as of the Indo-Germanist Josef Schmidt.Kerényi, K.: Tessiner Schreibtisch, 1963; pp. 152f After graduation, he travelled extensively in the Mediterranean region and spent time as a visiting student at the Universities of Greifswald, Berlin and Heidelberg, learning from the professors of antiquity and classical philology: Eduard Norden, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff and Franz Boll. In 1919, Kerényi earned his doctorate in Budapest with a dissertation on Plato and Longinus, Investigations in Classical Literary and Aesthetic History.
Subsequently, he taught Greek and Latin in a secondary school. He earned his postdoctoral lecture qualification (habilitation) in 1927, and was asked in 1934 to become a professor of classical philology and ancient history (Griechische und Lateinische Philologie und Alte Geschichte) at the University of Pécs.Schlesier, R. and R. Sanchiño Martinez (eds.): Neuhumanismus und Anthropologie des Griechischen Mythos – Karl Kerényi im Europäischen Kontext des 20. Jahrhunderts (Modern Humanism and Anthropology of the Greek Mythology – Károly Kerényi in the European Context of the 20th Century), 2006; p. 203 In Budapest, he continued to lecture as private docent on the history of religions, classical literature and mythology. These were weekly events that were attended by many intellectuals because of their liberal connotations.Kerényi, K.: Tessiner Schreibtisch, 1963; p. 154
After Hungary experienced a strong move to the political right in 1940, the University system was reformed, submitting itself to political pressure. Professors who did not subordinate themselves were concentrated at the University of Szeged.Mann, T. and K. Kerényi: Gespräch in Briefen (Conversation in Letters), 1960; p. 210 Correspondingly, Kerényi was sent there in 1941 against his will, to teach classical antiquity.
The liberal, pro-western prime minister Miklós Kállay attempted in 1943 to reverse the Nazi-friendly politics of the prior years. He started to send liberal scientists who had already made themselves a name to Western Europe, to show that a liberal, anti-fascist Hungary also existed. As part of this push, the foreign ministry offered Kerényi the opportunity to spend a year in Switzerland with diplomatic status. He accepted on condition that he would stay in Ticino, on the shore of Lago Maggiore, instead of the capital Bern.
When the Germans entered Hungary in 1944 and installed a right-wing government, Kerényi returned his passport. Like many other Hungarians at the time residing in Switzerland with diplomatic status, he thereby became overnight a stateless, political refugee.
Switzerland, 1943–1973 Since 1941, Károly Kerényi was lecturing at the Eranos-conferences in Ascona (Switzerland), to which he had been invited by Carl Gustav Jung. This regular contact with the Swiss psychologist had originally established the connection to Switzerland, which ultimately led to the permanent emigration to the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino. During 1946/47 Kerényi lectured on Hungarian language and literature at the University of Basel. In 1947, he travelled to Hungary to give his inauguration speech at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, with the intent of contributing to the democratic development of Hungary. However, due to warnings of the imminent communist overthrow under Mátyás Rákosi, Kerényi immediately left Budapest again. During the following Stalinist dictatorship, he was discredited and banned by the political propaganda under György Lukács, the leading communist ideologist. His academic title was withdrawn and only as late as 1989 it was reinstated post mortem.
In Switzerland, between 1945 and 1968, the substantial body of his work was written and published. Despite the fact that he was considered an academic outsider, it was during that time that he developed his largest influence as one of the latest representatives of the great tradition of humanistic scholars of antiquity.C. Jamme in Schlesier, R. and R. Sanchiño Martinez (eds.): Neuhumanismus und Anthropologie des Griechischen Mythos – Karl Kerényi im Europäischen Kontext des 20. Jahrhunderts, 2006; p. 33 Over the course of two decades, from 1934 to 1955, Kerényi maintained an active correspondence with the German writer Thomas Mann on many topics, including mythology, religion, humanism and psychology. Since his emigration, Kerényi additionally held positions as visiting professor at several universities, including Bonn (1955/56), Oslo and Rome (1960), Zurich (1961) and Genoa (1964). Between 1960 and 1971, he held annual lectures at conferences of the institute of philosophy of the University of Rome. From 1948 until 1966, Kerényi was co-founder and research director at the C. G. Jung Institute in Küsnacht, near Zurich, where he held lectures on mythology until 1962. During these years, he lived near the Monte Verità in Ascona. In 1962, he received Swiss citizenship.
Károly Kerényi died on 14 April 1973 in Kilchberg/Zurich and he is buried in the cemetery of Ascona. His second wife, Magda Kerényi, dedicated her subsequent life to the maintenance and promotion of Kerényi's legacy. Since her death in 2004, all documentation of Kerényi's life (photos, correspondence, manuscripts, etc.) that had not been destroyed in Budapest during the war, are archived and accessible at the German Archive for Literature in Marbach (near Stuttgart). His comprehensive library and the estate of Magda Kerényi are at the University of Pécs, where a street has also been named after him.
Scientific work and philosophical body of thought
Philological foundation In early years, Károly Kerényi was mainly influenced by philosophers like Schopenhauer, Bachofen and Nietzsche, writers like Hölderlin and Rilke, and scholars like Wilhelm von Humboldt.C. Jamme in Schlesier, R. and R. Sanchiño Martinez (eds.): Neuhumanismus und Anthropologie des Griechischen Mythos – Karl Kerényi im Europäischen Kontext des 20. Jahrhunderts, 2006; pp. 33 At the time of his studies of classical philology, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff was the most influential philologist. However, for Kerényi, Erwin Rohde's line of thought on the fictional literature in antiquity was more important. This led to his first book Die griechisch-orientalische Romanliteratur in religionsgeschichtlicher Beleuchtung. Ein Versuch (The Greek-Oriental Romances in the Light of the History of Religions), with which he earned his postdoctoral qualification.
Early afterwards, in 1929, Kerényi grew weary of the official scholarly line of philology. He increasingly saw the objective of philology in critically analyzing the written record of antiquity as a representation of real life, just like archeology is dedicated to the record of antiquity through actual touch.Mann, T. and K. Kerényi: Gespräch in Briefen, 1960; p. 20 The first steps away from the official line were his early books Apollon (a collection of essays) and Die antike Religion (Religion in Antiquity).Kerényi, M.: A bibliography of C. Kerényi, 1976 Throughout his life, Kerényi explored every classical site of the entire Mediterranean. In 1929, he met Walter F. Otto in Greece for the first time, who would prove to influence him greatly. Otto inspired Kerényi to focus on the religious element of human life in antiquity as the core element, thereby combining the historical with the theological focus. This is highlighted in his works Mythologie der Griechen and Mysterien der Eleusis (Eleusis: Archetypal Image of Mother and Daughter).
Dissociation from Wilamowitz and the German idea of myth Thereafter, Károly Kerényi consciously started to distance himself from the philology taught by Wilamowitz.Mann, T. and K. Kerényi: Gespräch in Briefen, 1960; p. 102 In Kerényi's understanding, Wilamowitz's approach stood for an authoritarianism that lay beneath the emergence of National Socialism in Germany, which he could not ethically support.Graf F., in Schlesier, R. and R. Sanchiño Martinez (eds.): Neuhumanismus und Anthropologie des Griechischen Mythos – Karl Kerényi im Europäischen Kontext des 20. Jahrhunderts, 2006; p. 82 Kerényi hence developed an increasingly hostile position towards the German idea of myth, which was used as reference by Nazi-Germany.Mann, T. and K. Kerényi: Gespräch in Briefen, 1960; pp. 21 As early as 1934, he expressed his clear-sighted horror at the radicalizing developments in Germany.Mann, T. and K. Kerényi: Gespräch in Briefen, 1960; p. 59 It became a continuous objective of Kerényi to establish a liberal and human-psychological idea of myth that could not be abused for nationalistic ideology. This also influenced his position towards several of his scientific mentors.Graf F., in Neue Zürcher Zeitung: Philologe, Mythologe, Humanist – Vor hundert Jahren wurde Karl Kerényi geboren, 18/19 January 1997 With regard to Wilamowitz, this was most pronounced, but later, Kerényi also started to distance himself from those aspects in Otto's and Mann's understanding of myth that he saw reflected in German nationalism.With respect to Wilamowitz: Mann, T. and K. Kerényi: Gespräch in Briefen, 1960; pp. 59 and pp. 102. With regard to Otto: Graf F. in Schlesier, R. and R. Sanchiño Martinez (eds.): Neuhumanismus und Anthropologie des Griechischen Mythos – Karl Kerényi im Europäischen Kontext des 20. Jahrhunderts, 2006; p. 77. With regard to Mann: Edler M. in Schlesier, R. and R. Sanchiño Martinez (eds.): Neuhumanismus und Anthropologie des Griechischen Mythos – Karl Kerényi im Europäischen Kontext des 20. Jahrhunderts, 2006; p. 46
Psychological expansion of mythology