Károly Kisfaludy (5 February 1788 – 21 November 1830) was a Hungarian dramatist and artist, brother of Sándor Kisfaludy. He was the founder of the national drama.

Early life

The youngest of eight children, his mother died in childbirth, and he had a troubled relationship with his father. Kisfaludy began writing poems and songs while in the army from 1804 to 1811. He saw active service in the

Napoleonic Wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...

in Italy, Serbia and Bavaria. After his return in 1810 he courted a girl named Katalin Heppler, but did not marry. His resignation from the army alienated his father, and he took refuge at his sister Teréz's house in

Vas County Vas (, ; ; or ; ) is an administrative county (Counties of Hungary, comitatus or ''vármegye'') of Hungary. It was also one of the counties of the former Kingdom of Hungary. It is part of the Centrope Project. Geography Vas County lies in weste ...

Education

He studied art, travelling to Vienna in 1812 and Italy in 1815, but had no luck with either writing or painting until April and June 1819, when his tragedies ''A tatárok Magyarországon'' ("The Tatars in Hungary") and ''Ilka, vagy Nándorfehérvár bevétele'' ("Ilka, or the Capture of Belgrade") were a great success. He followed them up immediately with other dramas he had written: ''Stibor vajda'' ("The Voivode Stiber") and ''A kérők'' ("The Suitors"), in September, and ''A pártütők'' ("The Insurgents") in November; and the next year wrote three more.Stanley Hochman. ''McGraw-Hill encyclopedia of world drama.'' McGraw-Hill, 1984. His plays were translated into German, and performed in Vienna.

Personal life

In 1822, he founded the periodical ''

Aurora An aurora ( aurorae or auroras), also commonly known as the northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly observed in high-latitude regions (around the Arc ...

'', for which he was awarded the Marczibányi Prize in 1826, the same year that his father reinstated him in his will. He fell in love with a woman named Nina Löffler, but because she was Jewish he could not marry her. He wrote prolifically for ''Aurora'' until his death from

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

in 1830. The Kisfaludy Society was created in his honour in 1836. He is remembered for his plays and epigrams, and for poems like his elegy ''Mohács'' (1824), on the subject of the battle of 1526. His life was fictionalised by

Mór Jókai Móricz Jókay of Ásva (18 February 1825 – 5 May 1904), known as Mór Jókai, was a Hungarian novelist, dramatist and revolutionary. Outside of Hungary, he was also known as Maurice Jókai or Maurus Jókai or Mauritius Jókai. He was a le ...

in ''Eppur si muove'' (1872).

References

External links

*Some o
Kisfaludy's paintings
This provides a much longer account of Kisfaludy's life and works. {{DEFAULTSORT:Kisfaludy, Karoly 1788 births 1830 deaths People from Tét 19th-century Hungarian writers Hungarian dramatists and playwrights Burials at Kerepesi Cemetery 19th-century deaths from tuberculosis Tuberculosis deaths in the Austrian Empire Hungarian magazine founders Dramatists and playwrights from the Austrian Empire