Somorjai József szerk.: Komárom – Esztergom Megyei Múzeumok Közleményei 4. (Tata, 1991)

A Babits Mihály halálának 50. évfordulójára rendezett tudományos emlékülés anyaga - Kelevéz Ágnes: Az Angyalos könyvtől a Beszélgető füzetekig

betrachtet werden kann. Babits wurde in seinem Esztergomer Heim von den hervorragendsten Schriftstellern, Kritikern, Wissenschaftlern, bildenden Künstlern des geistigen Lebens seiner Zeit aufgesucht. Das Sommerheim auf dem Előhegy war ein Zentrum der ungarischen Literatur und Gesellschaftswissenschaft der Zwischenkriegszeit. Von 1934 an kämpfte er gegen seine Kehlkopfkrankheit. Die Geschwulst wurde ihm am 10. Februar 1938 aus der Kehle entfernt. Der an Kehlkopfkrebs leidende Dichter verbrachte die Sommer auch des weiteren in seinem kleinen Häuschen auf dem Előhegy. Den Worten Radnótis nach war er "nur Haut, Knochen und Schmerz", als er im Frühjahr 1941 nach Esztergom zog. Auch krank arbeite er, übersetzte er. Zwei Tage vor seinem Tode wurde er nach Budapest, ins Szieszta-Sanatorium gebracht, wo er am 4. August starb. "Dead Prophet on the Mountain" Péter Pifkó Mihály Babits, the outstanding personality of the 20th century Hungarian literature, was tenderly attached to Esztergom. The town and the poet became engaged in 1924. In this year Babits bought a small peasant-cottage /one room and kitchen/ and a small patch of land on the Előhegy /Foremountain/ of Esztergom. At the begining of 1920 he gave dr Zoltán Nagy, a lawyer who was also a good poet of the literary magazine Nyugat, the honorarium of one of his literary works. Zoltán Nagy preserved the sum from inflation and invested it very well. The cottage built on the hillside and overlooking the Danube, offering a slendid panaorama, was extended and made prettier with great care by the Babits. There were planted fruit trees, there was built a trellis and soon they succeeded in making a beautiful neat garden on a terrain where not long ago there was only barrennes, wild shrub and weed. Babits wrote nearly 50 poems in Esztergom. Jónás könyve, considered the poet's human and artistic testament was also written there. In his home from Esztergom Babits was visited by the most outstanding writers, critics, scientists and artists of the period. The country cottage from Előhegy became one of the centres of the Hungarian literatur and social sciences between the two World Wars. From 1934 Babits suffered of a laryngeal disease. On february 10,1938 he was operated on for a laryngeal tumor. The poet suffering of laryngeal cancer was still spending the summers in the small country cottage from Előhegy. Quoting Radnóti he was: "only bones and skin and pain" when he moved to Esztergom in the spring of 1941. Although ill, he still worked, translated. Two days before his death he was taken to Budapest to the Siesta Sanatorium, where he died on August 4. 30