Introduction to Jenő Dsida’s Poems
Introduction to Jenő Dsida’s Poems

Summary/Abstract: Jenő Dsida was born in 1907 in Szatmárnémeti (today Satu Mare in Romania). He began writing in his early youth and his first poems were published in the children’s magazine Cimbora (“My Pal”) edited by Elek Benedek. His first book of poetry Leselkedő magány (“Lurking Solitude”) was published in 1928 – by that time Dsida was a student of Law at Kolozsvár (today Cluj–Napoca in Romania). He did not finish his legal studies but took up journalism, becoming the technical editor of Keleti újság, a Hungarian-language daily published at Kolozsvár. At the same time his poems were published in Transylvanian literary magazines such as Pásztortűz and the much-vaunted Erdélyi Helikon. Although with the collection Nagycsütörtök (“Maundy Thursday”) Dsida made his name as one of the best Hungarian poets in Transylvania, it was his posthumous book of poetry Angyalok citeráján (“On the Zither of Angels”) which confirmed his place amongst the true masters of the Hungarian language. He died very young, at the age of 31 – we commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of his death this year.

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