Önmagunknak lenni a köztességben? Karátson Endre: Otthonok I-II.
Being Ourself in the In-Betweenness: André Karátson’s Homes I–II.

Cultural identity, historical trauma and life writing in central european exiled intellectuals´ autobiographies

Summary/Abstract: The study researches interconnections between cultural identity and historical traumas in autobiographical works. The research work, the beginning of which the previous issue of Hungarológiai Közlemények has already published a paper, continued with the analysis of the two volume life writing of Otthonok (Homes), by Endre Karátson, a 1956 emigree to France with a successful university career as a professor of comparative literature, who in the meantime created his literary oeuvre in Hungarian. Karátson’s work fits both into the tradition of Hungarian memoire literature which brings to the fore social situation and historical context, and into personal life stories as an individualistic genre which depicts and records existential challenges of selfcreation. The study discovers in a unique formula the experience describing living both in a foreign country or in one’s home country, similar to that found in Márai’s work. When interpreting the autobiography, the study of Karátson’s way of holding onto, promoting and moulding the cultural awareness which he had brought with him from Hungary plays an important role, and so does the unveiling of how the value structure and behaviour patterns of the recipient French culture and society blended in through his intim personal relationships with his self-awareness.

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