Sándor Szathmári
Encyclopedia
Szathmári Sándor was a Hungarian writer, mechanical engineer, Esperantist
, one of the leading figures in Esperanto
literature.
. His father – also called Sándor – studied law, later became a state official, and, besides his work, wrote lawbooks, in his leisure played the violin
and painted. His father, the first intellectual in the family, and his ancestors spelled the family name with a y (Szathmáry).
Szathmári's grandfather was a woodworker, who in his time gave 100 forints for the founding of a local music school.
Szathmári's mother (Losonczy-Szíjjártó Margit) came from a pharmacist family in the city of Szeghalom
, where she was the sole daughter of the family and lived well. She bore 11 children, of whom only seven grew to adulthood.
, Szombathely
, Alsókubin
, Sepsiszentgyörgy
, Lugos).
, measles
, chickenpox
, whooping cough, diphtheria
, sinusitis
.
On the death of his two older brothers, he became the eldest child (the fourth sibling died later), who often had to take care of the younger ones. That task quite exhausted him and when the five-month-old little brother John died of meningitis
, he went into shock. „The weeping suddenly weakened and finally stopped. After a few minutes pause I heard my father's voice: When will we bury this child?” For a long time after that he was unable to sleep peacefully.
Happily, those in charge of the examinations to be repeated let him through. This conduct, which he never forgot for the rest of his life, greatly affected him. He called such people
'muscle-fools'.
He was also very capable in other natural sciences such as physics and chemistry. He had a good imagination, liked to experiment and wanted to become an engineer.
He graduated in Lugos (now Lugoj, Romania
) and in 1915 enrolled in the mechanical engineering program at the Technical University of Budapest (Hungary), but found that very boring and thought-limiting. During his studies – under wartime conditions – he never had enough money, and was continually hungry. He took a break from his studies during 1919-1921 and returned to Lugos. In the beginning he wanted to leave Budapest only provisionally because of the communist rule, but an opportunity to teach students at home developed.
The Romanian government (Lugos belonged to Romania after the Treaty of Trianon
) made life increasingly difficult for the Hungarians and Hungarian officials. In 1921, Szathmári's father has to choose whether to continue serving the Romanian government or to travel to Hungary. The father stayed with the six children and undertook a humiliating process: he became a Romanian official, which cost him the sympathy of his acquaintances, the local Hungarians. Although he aimed to save his family from misery, the Romanian government retired him and forgot to pay his pension.
Because of his family's misery, his siblings did not get an opportunity to study at a college or university and even Szathmári himself had frequently to interrupt his studies to help his family. He began working in 1920 in the Ruskica marble mine as a technician. There he noticed that the mine was tricking the workers by paying a single banknote to three workers. The workers had to travel – out of their own money and time – to the bank to get change there. He protested, and received his salary precisely, but did not dare further to make waves.
Although the Hungarian army six times found him unsuitable for recruitment, the Romanian army required him to enlist first time around. He decided to return to Hungary and finish his studies. In the spring of 1921 he returned and was approved for a tuition waver. He completed his studies after five years in 1926. During the period 1921-1922 he lived in misery, was continually hungry, and often homeless or living in unheated mass accommodations.
In 1923 he worked in Gyula as an office worker and lived with relatives (earlier he took gravely ill and was hospitalized). In July 1923 his father died. He lived in actual student
housing between 1924 and 1926. Later he studied next to his work in the Gschwindt plant, andafterwards in the Martin-and-Sigray plant. Starting in 1924 he worked at MÁVAG
, railway machinery plant, and began his true professional life.
Egyesülete (SZEFHE, Association of Students of the Sikuly University and Institutions of Higher Learning), where he became acquainted with the movements of the Habsburgellenes Liga (Anti-Habsburg League) and the Association of Bartha Miklós (BARTHA Miklós Társaság)
When Charles IV
wanted to retake the Hungarian throne in 1921, the young people took up arms at the call of the Association of Students of the Sikuly University and Institutions of Higher Learning and awaited battle at Kelenföld
, but without adequate ammunition. Against the modern German machine gun Szathmari riceived not one cartrage.
In a bookshop in Lugos he espied an Esperanto grammar and bought it. In fact, learning it began only in 1919, when he returned to Lugos, where he organized the Széchenyi Circle (pron. Se’tsenyi), which was the basis of the Free Organization of Christian-socialist Students. With his friends in the circle he went about learning Zamenhof
's language (Esperanto), but without a teacher that was not very successful. He became a speaker of the language starting in 1935, when he participated in the a workers' culture course in Budapest, taught by the famous Esperantist poet Emeriko Baranyai, who helped Szathmári find his way to SAT
, of which he remained a member until died at Budapest
in 1974.
, but did not attend churches, which was the result of the non-attentive behaviour of his father. When the family lived in Szombathely, his father wanted to enrol him in the Roman Catholic School, because it was the closest. But the school was one-denominational and did not want to admit the youth, since he was not Roman Catholic. „Well, how about if we baptise him Catholic? – asked my father.” The instructors were surprised, but were glad that a new lamb had come to the flock. Even the bishop nodded assent, but the baptism did not occur, still he was allowed to study in the elementary school. (Szathmari remained reformed for life, and when he was buried, the services were even led by a reformed pastor.)
When the family moved to Alsókubin, the Lutheran pastor explained that up till then he had learned only error, and that fortunately he could become acquainted with the true religion Although he left the church, his faith in Jesus remained, whose teachings he valued highly.
Beginning in 1935 he worked in collaboration with the Hungarian Communist Party
, but in 1948 he became disillusioned and left communism.
stories, but until 1917 did not take an interest in literature, although his literature teacher in high school was VAJTHÓ László, who got many students interested in literature. The young Szathmáry thought writing novels a bore, for him thinking up machines was more interesting.
In 1917 he became acquainted with the works of Frigyes Karinthy
(pron. kArinti frItyes), whom he later came to adore. Influenced by Karinthy, he began working in the period 1919-1921 on a mathematics textbook and put on paper his first small attempts at belles lettres (The Serious Person (A komoly ember ~a kOmoy Ember) evinces a satirical view of someone who speaks of pacifist convictions, but who in the end hits someone else).
In the period 1930-1934 he worked on a trilogy of novels, but when that was ready, he no longer recoginzed his work, so it remained unpublished. During 1931-32 he wrote the past (Látván nem látnak ~ Seeing one sees not), in the summer and autumn of 1932 the future (Hiába ~In Vain), and in the spring of 1935 the present (Kazohinia). The first part of the trilogy was called „Látván nem látnak” ~Seeing one sees not, which was a pale attempt with excessive characterization. The second part of the trilogy (1932), called Hiába ~In Vain, takes place in the future socialist Hungary of 2080.
In 1935 he began writing his magnum opus, Kazohinia
(Gulliver utazása Kazohiniában, Budapest 1941; Kazohinia Budapest 1957, 1972). The edition of (1946?) contains the parts left out earlier due to military censorship, and new details were added. He even modified the 1957 edition. This work he dedicated – as the travels of modern Gulliver – to Frigyes Karinthy. The interesting aspect of the genre is that it combines satire and utopia.
Between the years 1937 kaj 1942, Szathmari was the managing president of the Hungarian Esperanto-Society.
In addition to the novel Vojaĝo al Kazohinio, which was originally written in 1935, and before the appearance of the Esperanto original, which was published three times in Hungarian translation, there also appeared in book form Szathmári's short story collection Maŝinmondo ~MachineWorld (J. Régulo, 1964), Tréfán kívül, a translation into Hungarian of the Esperanto novel Kredu min, sinjorino!
~Believe me, Mamm by Cezaro Rossetti
(1957) and the Esperanto translation of a Hungarian children's book Cxu ankau vi scias? ~Do you Know it Too?.
Szathmári is represented in the short story anthpology 33 Rakontoj ~33 Stories (J. Régulo, 1964) with one short story.
More short stories by Szathmári appeared in the reviews Norda Prismo, La Nica Literatura Revuo, Belarto, Monda Kulturo and Hungara Vivo. He contributed with articles about the Esperanto movement and about literary themes to Sennacieca Revuo, La Praktiko, Sennaciulo, Hungara Vivo, and Monda Kulturo, among others. Szathmari did not write abundantly, but he, despite his stylistic deficiencies (which some have emphasized), managed to push himself forward as one of the most serious contributors to Esperanto proze, perhaps the only prose writer in the International Language with a creative format worthy of attention outside the Esperanto movement. Regularly dealing with an imaginary not too distant future of humanity, Szathmári's works flail human society, without idiological reserve and without any perceptible specificity as to time and place.
Tamkó read Szathmári's trilogy only in 1936, when he returned from Paris.
Esperanto
is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto , the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887...
, one of the leading figures in Esperanto
Esperanto
is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto , the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887...
literature.
Family background
Szathmári was born in GyulaGyula, Hungary
Gyula is a city in Békés county in south-eastern Hungary. It lies close to the border with Romania, on the river Fehér-Körös.-History:The first recorded reference to Gyula was in a document dated 1313 which mentions a monastery called Gyulamonostor . By 1332 the settlement around the monastery was...
. His father – also called Sándor – studied law, later became a state official, and, besides his work, wrote lawbooks, in his leisure played the violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
and painted. His father, the first intellectual in the family, and his ancestors spelled the family name with a y (Szathmáry).
Szathmári's grandfather was a woodworker, who in his time gave 100 forints for the founding of a local music school.
Szathmári's mother (Losonczy-Szíjjártó Margit) came from a pharmacist family in the city of Szeghalom
Szeghalom
Szeghalom is a town in Békés county, in southeastern Hungary. It is located at around .Szeghalom's football club is in the regional 1 league.It has a stadium with capicities over 500 people.-External links:*...
, where she was the sole daughter of the family and lived well. She bore 11 children, of whom only seven grew to adulthood.
Early life
Since the father was an official of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the family had to move often (places they lived during the early years included: GyulaGyula, Hungary
Gyula is a city in Békés county in south-eastern Hungary. It lies close to the border with Romania, on the river Fehér-Körös.-History:The first recorded reference to Gyula was in a document dated 1313 which mentions a monastery called Gyulamonostor . By 1332 the settlement around the monastery was...
, Szombathely
Szombathely
Szombathely is the 10th largest city in Hungary. It is the administrative centre of Vas county in the west of the country, located near the border with Austria...
, Alsókubin
Dolný Kubín
Dolný Kubín is a town in northern Slovakia in the Žilina Region. It is the historical capital of the Orava region.-Geography:Dolný Kubín lies at an altitude of above sea level and covers an area of ....
, Sepsiszentgyörgy
Sfântu Gheorghe
Sfântu Gheorghe is the capital city of Covasna County, Romania. Located in the central part of the country and in the historical region of Transylvania, it lies on the Olt River in a valley between the Baraolt Mountains and Bodoc Mountains...
, Lugos).
Illnesses and bodily passivity
The young Szathmári was sickly with a weak body and a sensitive nervious system up through his fifteenth year, He hated wrestling, wild games and punching. The youth suffered almost continually from angina; he was also tormented with other diseases like typhusTyphus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
, measles
Measles
Measles, also known as rubeola or morbilli, is an infection of the respiratory system caused by a virus, specifically a paramyxovirus of the genus Morbillivirus. Morbilliviruses, like other paramyxoviruses, are enveloped, single-stranded, negative-sense RNA viruses...
, chickenpox
Chickenpox
Chickenpox or chicken pox is a highly contagious illness caused by primary infection with varicella zoster virus . It usually starts with vesicular skin rash mainly on the body and head rather than at the periphery and becomes itchy, raw pockmarks, which mostly heal without scarring...
, whooping cough, diphtheria
Diphtheria
Diphtheria is an upper respiratory tract illness caused by Corynebacterium diphtheriae, a facultative anaerobic, Gram-positive bacterium. It is characterized by sore throat, low fever, and an adherent membrane on the tonsils, pharynx, and/or nasal cavity...
, sinusitis
Sinusitis
Sinusitis is inflammation of the paranasal sinuses, which may be due to infection, allergy, or autoimmune issues. Most cases are due to a viral infection and resolve over the course of 10 days...
.
Szathmari and his family
According to a fragment of an unpublished biography (manuscript: Hogy is volt hát? ~So how did it happen?): his grandfather wanted to train and educate him in patriotism and nationalism, but was unsuccessful. „..my grandfather told me the anecdote in which the gypsy asked to be shown the enemy before a battle, because he wanted to make peace with them. At that time I thought the anecdote true, and considered the gypsys more advanced, being they were only ones able to think right.”On the death of his two older brothers, he became the eldest child (the fourth sibling died later), who often had to take care of the younger ones. That task quite exhausted him and when the five-month-old little brother John died of meningitis
Meningitis
Meningitis is inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, known collectively as the meninges. The inflammation may be caused by infection with viruses, bacteria, or other microorganisms, and less commonly by certain drugs...
, he went into shock. „The weeping suddenly weakened and finally stopped. After a few minutes pause I heard my father's voice: When will we bury this child?” For a long time after that he was unable to sleep peacefully.
School, studies
Attending the first class in elementary school he did all the exercises in his mathematics text in one week, without knowing the formulas. He was very apt, once smarter than his teacher, which led to his teacher giving him a failing grade to make him repeat the school year.Happily, those in charge of the examinations to be repeated let him through. This conduct, which he never forgot for the rest of his life, greatly affected him. He called such people
'muscle-fools'.
He was also very capable in other natural sciences such as physics and chemistry. He had a good imagination, liked to experiment and wanted to become an engineer.
He graduated in Lugos (now Lugoj, Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
) and in 1915 enrolled in the mechanical engineering program at the Technical University of Budapest (Hungary), but found that very boring and thought-limiting. During his studies – under wartime conditions – he never had enough money, and was continually hungry. He took a break from his studies during 1919-1921 and returned to Lugos. In the beginning he wanted to leave Budapest only provisionally because of the communist rule, but an opportunity to teach students at home developed.
The Romanian government (Lugos belonged to Romania after the Treaty of Trianon
Treaty of Trianon
The Treaty of Trianon was the peace agreement signed in 1920, at the end of World War I, between the Allies of World War I and Hungary . The treaty greatly redefined and reduced Hungary's borders. From its borders before World War I, it lost 72% of its territory, which was reduced from to...
) made life increasingly difficult for the Hungarians and Hungarian officials. In 1921, Szathmári's father has to choose whether to continue serving the Romanian government or to travel to Hungary. The father stayed with the six children and undertook a humiliating process: he became a Romanian official, which cost him the sympathy of his acquaintances, the local Hungarians. Although he aimed to save his family from misery, the Romanian government retired him and forgot to pay his pension.
Because of his family's misery, his siblings did not get an opportunity to study at a college or university and even Szathmári himself had frequently to interrupt his studies to help his family. He began working in 1920 in the Ruskica marble mine as a technician. There he noticed that the mine was tricking the workers by paying a single banknote to three workers. The workers had to travel – out of their own money and time – to the bank to get change there. He protested, and received his salary precisely, but did not dare further to make waves.
Although the Hungarian army six times found him unsuitable for recruitment, the Romanian army required him to enlist first time around. He decided to return to Hungary and finish his studies. In the spring of 1921 he returned and was approved for a tuition waver. He completed his studies after five years in 1926. During the period 1921-1922 he lived in misery, was continually hungry, and often homeless or living in unheated mass accommodations.
In 1923 he worked in Gyula as an office worker and lived with relatives (earlier he took gravely ill and was hospitalized). In July 1923 his father died. He lived in actual student
housing between 1924 and 1926. Later he studied next to his work in the Gschwindt plant, andafterwards in the Martin-and-Sigray plant. Starting in 1924 he worked at MÁVAG
MÁVAG
MÁVAG was a Hungarian rail vehicle producer. MÁVAG was the property of the Kingdom of Hungary. After the World War II MÁVAG was nationalized, and "Királyi" was removed from its name.The company employed thousands of workers. The buildings were in the VIII...
, railway machinery plant, and began his true professional life.
Politics while a student
During his studies, he participated in the association Székely Egyetemi és Foiskolai HallgatókEgyesülete (SZEFHE, Association of Students of the Sikuly University and Institutions of Higher Learning), where he became acquainted with the movements of the Habsburgellenes Liga (Anti-Habsburg League) and the Association of Bartha Miklós (BARTHA Miklós Társaság)
When Charles IV
Karl I of Austria
Charles I of Austria or Charles IV of Hungary was the last ruler of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was the last Emperor of Austria, the last King of Hungary, the last King of Bohemia and Croatia and the last King of Galicia and Lodomeria and the last monarch of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine...
wanted to retake the Hungarian throne in 1921, the young people took up arms at the call of the Association of Students of the Sikuly University and Institutions of Higher Learning and awaited battle at Kelenföld
Kelenföld
Kelenföld is a neighborhood in Budapest, Hungary. It belongs to Újbuda, and located in the southern part of Buda. The large Kelenföld housing estate was built between 1967 and 1983 from pre-fabricated concrete blocks. The older streets around Bocskai út were mainly built in the first half of the...
, but without adequate ammunition. Against the modern German machine gun Szathmari riceived not one cartrage.
Professional life
From 1924 to 1957 he worked as an engineer at the Hungarian State Wagonworks (Hungarian acronym: MÁVAG) in the Hungarian ministry of heavy industry and in the project bureau.Esperanto
In the empire the family most often worked among minorities (Slovaks in Alsókubin; Romanians and Germans in Lugos). So the young Szathmari was struck early with the problem of interethnic communication (some Slovaks, for example, laughed at him, when he didn't understand them at the border of a stream). He then felt himself already an Esperantist in spirit, since he began wishing for a language that would bind the ethnic groups together.In a bookshop in Lugos he espied an Esperanto grammar and bought it. In fact, learning it began only in 1919, when he returned to Lugos, where he organized the Széchenyi Circle (pron. Se’tsenyi), which was the basis of the Free Organization of Christian-socialist Students. With his friends in the circle he went about learning Zamenhof
Zamenhof
Zamenhof is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:* Rozalia Zamenhof, née Sofer , mother of Ludwik* Romana Zamenhof , a Jewish Polish female Esperantist and pharmaceutist...
's language (Esperanto), but without a teacher that was not very successful. He became a speaker of the language starting in 1935, when he participated in the a workers' culture course in Budapest, taught by the famous Esperantist poet Emeriko Baranyai, who helped Szathmári find his way to SAT
Sennacieca Asocio Tutmonda
Sennacieca Asocio Tutmonda is an independent worldwide cultural Esperanto association of a general left-wing orientation. Its headquarters are in Paris. According to Jacques Schram, chairman of the Executive Committee, the membership totalled 881 in 2003...
, of which he remained a member until died at Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
in 1974.
Other ideologies
Szathmári became acquainted with Christian-socialist ideas in 1918. He believed in JesusJesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
, but did not attend churches, which was the result of the non-attentive behaviour of his father. When the family lived in Szombathely, his father wanted to enrol him in the Roman Catholic School, because it was the closest. But the school was one-denominational and did not want to admit the youth, since he was not Roman Catholic. „Well, how about if we baptise him Catholic? – asked my father.” The instructors were surprised, but were glad that a new lamb had come to the flock. Even the bishop nodded assent, but the baptism did not occur, still he was allowed to study in the elementary school. (Szathmari remained reformed for life, and when he was buried, the services were even led by a reformed pastor.)
When the family moved to Alsókubin, the Lutheran pastor explained that up till then he had learned only error, and that fortunately he could become acquainted with the true religion Although he left the church, his faith in Jesus remained, whose teachings he valued highly.
Politics after his studies
In the middle of the 1920s he discovered the ideas of Szabó Dezso (sAbo’ dejo’) and spent a bit of time on the idiological right. Because he was the chief secretary of the Anti-Habsburg League, his landlord evicted him. He was managing director during 1932-1933 of the BARTHA Miklós Association.Beginning in 1935 he worked in collaboration with the Hungarian Communist Party
Hungarian Communist Party
The Communist Party of Hungary , renamed Hungarian Communist Party in 1945, was founded on November 24, 1918, and was in power in Hungary briefly from March to August 1919 under Béla Kun and the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The communist government was overthrown by the Romanian Army and driven...
, but in 1948 he became disillusioned and left communism.
Szathmari and literature
At an early age he very much liked BibleBible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
stories, but until 1917 did not take an interest in literature, although his literature teacher in high school was VAJTHÓ László, who got many students interested in literature. The young Szathmáry thought writing novels a bore, for him thinking up machines was more interesting.
In 1917 he became acquainted with the works of Frigyes Karinthy
Frigyes Karinthy
Frigyes Karinthy was a Hungarian author, playwright, poet, journalist, and translator. He was the first proponent of the six degrees of separation concept, in his 1929 short story, Chains . Karinthy remains one of the most popular Hungarian writers...
(pron. kArinti frItyes), whom he later came to adore. Influenced by Karinthy, he began working in the period 1919-1921 on a mathematics textbook and put on paper his first small attempts at belles lettres (The Serious Person (A komoly ember ~a kOmoy Ember) evinces a satirical view of someone who speaks of pacifist convictions, but who in the end hits someone else).
In the period 1930-1934 he worked on a trilogy of novels, but when that was ready, he no longer recoginzed his work, so it remained unpublished. During 1931-32 he wrote the past (Látván nem látnak ~ Seeing one sees not), in the summer and autumn of 1932 the future (Hiába ~In Vain), and in the spring of 1935 the present (Kazohinia). The first part of the trilogy was called „Látván nem látnak” ~Seeing one sees not, which was a pale attempt with excessive characterization. The second part of the trilogy (1932), called Hiába ~In Vain, takes place in the future socialist Hungary of 2080.
In 1935 he began writing his magnum opus, Kazohinia
Kazohinia
Kazohinia is a novel written in Hungarian and in Esperanto by Sándor Szathmári . It appeared first in Hungarian and was published in Esperanto by SAT in 1958, and was republished in that language without change in 1998...
(Gulliver utazása Kazohiniában, Budapest 1941; Kazohinia Budapest 1957, 1972). The edition of (1946?) contains the parts left out earlier due to military censorship, and new details were added. He even modified the 1957 edition. This work he dedicated – as the travels of modern Gulliver – to Frigyes Karinthy. The interesting aspect of the genre is that it combines satire and utopia.
Works in Esperanto
The international Esperanto movement became acquainted with his name only in 1958, after the appearance of his novel Kazohinia in Esperanto (Vojaĝo al Kazohinio). However, he himself said that his first article in Esperanto appeared in 1934 in Sennaciulo (The Nationless).Between the years 1937 kaj 1942, Szathmari was the managing president of the Hungarian Esperanto-Society.
In addition to the novel Vojaĝo al Kazohinio, which was originally written in 1935, and before the appearance of the Esperanto original, which was published three times in Hungarian translation, there also appeared in book form Szathmári's short story collection Maŝinmondo ~MachineWorld (J. Régulo, 1964), Tréfán kívül, a translation into Hungarian of the Esperanto novel Kredu min, sinjorino!
Kredu min, sinjorino!
Kredu min, sinjorino! is the title of a novel originally written in Esperanto by Cezaro Rossetti. It is listed in William Auld's Basic Esperanto Reading List and was published for the first time in 1950, the same year in which Rossetti died....
~Believe me, Mamm by Cezaro Rossetti
Cezaro Rossetti
Cezaro Rossetti was a Scottish Esperanto writer.Of Italian-Swiss derivation, he was born in Glasgow and lived in Britain. Together with his younger brother, Reto Rossetti, he learned Esperanto in 1928...
(1957) and the Esperanto translation of a Hungarian children's book Cxu ankau vi scias? ~Do you Know it Too?.
Szathmári is represented in the short story anthpology 33 Rakontoj ~33 Stories (J. Régulo, 1964) with one short story.
More short stories by Szathmári appeared in the reviews Norda Prismo, La Nica Literatura Revuo, Belarto, Monda Kulturo and Hungara Vivo. He contributed with articles about the Esperanto movement and about literary themes to Sennacieca Revuo, La Praktiko, Sennaciulo, Hungara Vivo, and Monda Kulturo, among others. Szathmari did not write abundantly, but he, despite his stylistic deficiencies (which some have emphasized), managed to push himself forward as one of the most serious contributors to Esperanto proze, perhaps the only prose writer in the International Language with a creative format worthy of attention outside the Esperanto movement. Regularly dealing with an imaginary not too distant future of humanity, Szathmári's works flail human society, without idiological reserve and without any perceptible specificity as to time and place.
The matter of Tamkó Sirató Károly
In 1924, in his new lodgings he met a youth, with whom he became friends and later enemies. His roommate at school was Tamkó Sirató Károly, then still Tamkó Károly, who was studying law and who later became an emenence in Hungarian avantgarde poetry. He started a lawsuit in 1958 against Szathmári, claiming that he too collaborated in the writing of Kazohinia. Szathmári won the lawsuit. (Although Kazohinia appeared in 1941, 1946, Tamkó started the lawsuit only after the third edition (1957)). The novel Hiába ("In Vain") could be proven to be in the same style as that of the winner, but the presentation of the (anti-communist) novel in 1958 would have put him in danger of prison.Tamkó read Szathmári's trilogy only in 1936, when he returned from Paris.
In Esperanto
- Vojago al Kazohinio (SAT, 1958) ~KazohiniaKazohiniaKazohinia is a novel written in Hungarian and in Esperanto by Sándor Szathmári . It appeared first in Hungarian and was published in Esperanto by SAT in 1958, and was republished in that language without change in 1998...
- Masinmondo kaj aliaj noveloj (1964) ~MachineWorld and other Stories
- Kain kaj Abel (eld. 1977) ~Cain and Able
- Perfekta civitano (La Laguna, 1964) (1988) ~A Perfect Citizen (a full short story collection with bibliography)
- Satirical stories:
-
-
- Perfekta civitano (1956) ~A Perfect Citizen
- Pythagoras (1957?)
- Logos (1961)
- La fluidumo de la ciovido (1962)
- Honorigo (1963)
- Liriko (1964)
- Genezo (1965)
- Enciclopeditis (1966)
- Budapesta ekzameno (1968)
- Kain kaj Abel (1968)
- Tria prego de Pygmalion (1969) ~Pygmalion's Third Prayer
- La falsa auguro (1970) ~The False Proficy
- La guarbo (1970)
- Kuracistaj historioj (1972) ~Physician's stories
- La barbaro (1972) ~The Barbarian
- Superstico (1972?) ~Superstition
-
In Hungarian
- M. Fehér asszony, fekete férfi (Budapest, 1936)
- Halálsikoly az áradatban (Budapest, 1937)
- Gépvilág és más fantasztikus történetek (Budapest, 1972)
- Hiába (Budapest, 1991)
Translations (into Hungarian)
- Kredu min, Sinjorino, de Cezaro Rosetti ~Believe me, Mamm by Cezaro Rosettiro