Károly Kerényi

Károly (Carl, Karl) Kerényi ( hu, Kerényi Károly, ; 19 January 1897 – 14 April 1973) was a Hungarian scholar in classical philology and one of the founders of modern studies of Greek mythology.

Life

Hungary, 1897–1943

Károly Kerényi was born in Temesvár, Austria-Hungary (now Timișoara, Romania) to Hungarian parents of German origin. His father’s family was of Swabian peasant descent. 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. 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.

After graduation, Kerényi 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. 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.

After Hungary experienced a strong move to the political right in 1940, the University system was reformed, submitting itself to political pressure. Professors who didn’t subordinate themselves were concentrated at the University of Szeged. 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

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