József Eötvös

Biography

The Baron József Eötvös de Vásárosnamény was born in the Hungarian aristocratic family Eötvös de Vásárosnamény. His father was the Baron Ignác Eötvös de Vásárosnamény (1786–1851), lord of the bedchamber, vice-chancellor of the Kingdom of Hungary, and his mother was the Baroness Anne von der Lilien (1786–1858).

He received an excellent education and also spent many years in western Europe, assimilating the new ideas both literary and political, and making the acquaintance of the leaders of the

Eötvös disseminated his progressive ideas in the columns of the Pesti Hírlap, as well as in his novels The Village Notary (1844–1846) – one of the classics of Hungarian literature – Hungary in 1514, and the comedy Long live Equality!. The February Hungarian Revolution of 1848 was the complete triumph of Eötvös's ideas, and he held the portfolio of public worship and instruction in the first Hungarian ministry. Eötvös, Ferenc Deák and István Széchenyi represented the pacific, moderating influence in the council of ministers, but when the premier, Lajos Batthyány, resigned, Eötvös retired for a time to Munich during the War of Independence. Yet he continued to serve the cause in his influential writings, for example Influence of the Ruling Ideas of the 19th century on the State (Pest, 1851–1854, German editions at Vienna and Leipzig the same year).^[1]

On his return home, in 1851, he abstained

Eötvös occupies a prominent place in Hungarian literature. The best of his verses are to be found in his ballads, but he is better known for his novels. When he published The Carthusians, written on the occasion of the floods at Pest in 1838, the Hungarian novel was still in its infancy, being chiefly represented by the historico-epics of Jsikh. Eötvös first modernized it, giving prominence in his pages to current social problems and political aspirations. The famous Village Notary came still nearer to actual life, while Hungary in 1514 is especially interesting because it attributes the great national catastrophe of the Battle of Mohács to the blind selfishness of the Hungarian nobility and the intense sufferings of the people under them. The best edition of Eötvös collected works is that of 1891, in 17 volumes. Comparatively few of his writings have been translated, but there is a good English version (London, 1850) and numerous German versions of The Village Notary, while The Emancipation of the Jews has been translated into Italian and German (Pest, 1841– 1842), and a German translation of Hungary in 1514, under the title of Der Bauernkrieg in Ungarn was published at Pest in 1850.

Family

• Loránd Eötvös
• Actor and playwright Leo Ditrichstein was a grandson. Eotvos's name is sometimes spelled Joseph von Etooes.^[2][1]

References

Attribution

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Bain, Robert Nisbet (1911). "Eötvös, József, Baron". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 9 (11th ed.). p. 665.; Endnotes:
  • A. Ban, Life and Art of Baron Joseph Eotvos (Hung.) (Budapest, 1902);
  • Zoltan Ferenczi Baron Joseph Eotvos (Hung.) (Budapest, 1903), the best biography
  • M. Berkovics, Baron Joseph Eotvos and the French Literature (Hung.) (Budapest, 1904)

External links

• Works by József Eötvös at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about József Eötvös at Internet Archive
• Works by József Eötvös at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)