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© Hartwig Klappert
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László Végel
Serbia and Montenegro
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László Végel was born in
Srbobran, in Yugoslavia's Vojvodina, in 1941, as a member of the
Hungarian minority. He studied in nearby Novi Sad and in Belgrade and
later worked as a journalist, among other things as editor of the daily
newspaper »Magyar Szó« and as co-editor of the likewise Hungarian
monthly paper »Ui Symposion«. He wrote many plays and scripts, as a
playwright for Novi Sad's television station as well as for Subotica's
people's theatre. Apart from this he also wrote novels and essays, some
of which were published in Serbo-Croatian first and in the original
Hungarian version later.
In 1967 Végel's epic début, »Egy makro
emlékiratai« (t: The great remembrance scriptures), appeared, followed
a quarter of a century later by the sequels »Ŕttüntetések« (1984; t:
Overviews) and »Eckhart gyűrűje« (1989; t: Eckhart's ring). They were
published as a set entitled »Újvidéki trilógia« (1993; t: Novi Sad
trilogy) and are considered his masterpiece. The themes of homelessness
and exclusion are already present and assume an increasingly large role
within Végel's work, in which the multi-ethnic city of Novi Sad stands
for a cultural diversity that was initially expected, later enforced,
and eventually lost after the break of the Balkan War. As he writes in
an essay in 2002, his self-characterisation as a »homeless local
patriot« – a phrase coined in his collection of essays »Peremvidéki
élet« (1993; t: Life in the margins) – lost its applicability as his
sense of allegiance to both the country or the society disappeared in
the face of the rising nationalism that led to the war, and the
precarious position of minorities which turned completely hopeless.
»War seizes the homeland of all those who are not born into this or
that national history, into this or that community. Whoever was ejected
and banned from this great collective narrative has therefore preserved
his intellect and his independence, and alone still possesses
individuality. For that he pays a high price: He loses his homeland.«
From
1994 until its closure in 2001 Végel led the office of the Soros
Foundation in Novi Sad. He organised events such as the third »Balkan
Roundtable«, at which cultural representatives from Hungary, Germany,
Slovakia, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro discussed the »Problems of
Border Identity and the Phenomenology of Small, Local Cultures«.
To
date two of Végel's stories have been published in German (in the
anthology »Draußen das Lamm, drinnen der Wolf«, 1985, and in the
journal »Neue Literatur«). In addition, he has published several
essays, notably in »Sinn und Form«. He has received the Tibor Déry
Prize, the Gold Medal of the President of the Hungarian Republic, and
the Milán Füst Prize for his work. In 2005 he was awarded the Officer's
Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary. Végel was a
guest at the Heinrich Böll House until February 2006 and currently
holds a scholarship awarded by the German Academic Exchange Service in
Berlin.
© internationales literaturfestival berlin
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
»Kümmre dich nicht um die Welt...« in:
Draußen das Lamm, drinnen der Wolf
LCB-Editionen
Berlin, 1985
Ábrahám kése
Forum Könyvkiadó
Újvidé, 1988
Újvidéki trilógia
Jelenkor
Pécs, 1993
Peremvidéki élet
Forum Könyvkiadó
Újvidé, 2000
Exterritórium
Jelenkor
Pécs, 2000
Aufsätze in:
Sinn und Form
3/1995
5,6/1996
1,2/2002
9/2003
Aufbau-Verlag
Berlin |
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