A Hungarian Tragedy: 100 Years since the Demise of Géza Csáth

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
Géza Csáth (1887-1919) and his cousin Dezső Kosztolányi were unusually close in the turn-of-the last century, in the then-Hungarian city of Szabadka, today Суботица/Subotica in Serbia. He lived the tragedy of WW I and Trianon, when Szabadka became Serbian territory. While attempting to cross the border on his way to Budapest, Csáth, detained by Serbian soldiers, committed suicide in their presence. A Hungarian writer as well as an amazingly accomplished polymath, creative artist, playwright, musician, music critic, and neurologist-physician, his chosen occupation, however, was medical doctor of psychiatry. Nonetheless, he showed evidence of being a psychopath still early in his creative writings and later in his medical practice. The film Opium: Diary of a Madwoman (Hungary, 2007, Director: János Szász) is loosely based on his life. A Renaissance man but crushed to death when addiction took hold, was he unable to use his mind to protect himself? Was Csáth bipolar? Is this the root of his madness and drug addiction? Or were external circumstances to blame? Does the character of Csáth metamorphose from the villain of melodrama to the victim of tragedy? Csáth eloquently describes in his short story “Opium” that the exchange of old values for new is the heart of any tragedy. In this paper, the presenter, while exploring Csáth’s relationship with Kosztolányi, proposes that the era of the demise of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, while tragic for many, was a Promethean time of creativity, during which the lives of Csáth, Kosztolányi, and their contemporaries are symbolic of loss and despair.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
James V. Pavlish is an adjunct professor of Spanish language and literature at John Carroll University in Cleveland, OH. He holds a BS in Linguistics from Georgetown University, an MA in Spanish from Cleveland State University, and of Master’s in Theology from St. Mary Graduate School of Theology (OH). He has presented several papers on the works of Dezső Kosztolányi. He has also read papers on comparative literature at numerous national as well as international venues, the two most recent being at the Crossing Borders Conference in Vasto, Italy (2017), and at the AHEA conference at Cleveland State University (2018).