Balázs Eszter: Art in action. Lajos Kassák's Avant-Garde Journals from A Tett to Dokumentum, 1915-1927 - The avant-garde and its journals 3. (Budapest, 2017)

Merse Pál Szeredi: Kassákism - MA in Vienna (1920-1925)

MA IN VIENNA - THE EXISTENTIAL BACKGROUND

In exile, Kassák lived in abject poverty, sharing a rented room in the outer district of Hietzing with his life companion, Jolán Simon, and his foster daughters. This milieu was captured by Etel Nagy, Jolán Simon’s older daughter, in her amateur photographs taken in 1925. [Fig. 3] The small flat on the first floor of Amalienstraße 26 also served as MA’s editorial offices, although Kassák carried out most of the editorial work in the Café Schloss, next to Schönbrunn Palace, or in the Colosseum coffee house, next to the University of Vienna.1 The costs of everyday life and sustaining MA were covered in part by the honoraria Kassák received for his articles in the most wide-spread Viennese Hungarian daily, the Bécsi Magyar Újság [Viennese Hungarian Daily] and a weekly for Jewish culture, Diogenes, but Jolán Simon provided most of their subsistence by distributing MA in Vienna and doing various temporary jobs.1 2 "More than once, Kassák filched from dear Jolán Simon's pockets or purse, or, when absolutely necessary, bullied [the money for printing] out of her - recalled József Nádass. - I witnessed the unhappy family’s quarrels many times, when this self-sacrificing, great lady [...] complained and argued in her defence: we have to pay the rent, and there’s nothing for lunch tomorrow! But Kassák didn't give an inch, instead he pilfered two more 10 Schilling coins, or one more 20 Schilling note from his wife’s well-concealed, secret funds for the family’s daily outgoings”.3 In terms of MA's primary readership, Kassák could count on the forward-looking Hungarian communities living in the cities of Austro-Hungarian Empire successor states; his journal was banned in Hungary. A few copies however, under the pseudonyms Kortárs [Contemporary] and 365, were smuggled into Budapest on a boat by Jolán Simon, and later the Communist writer Aladár Tamás.

1 József Nádass, Nehéz leltár [Difficult inventory], voi. I., Szépirodalmi, Budapest, 1963,337., 365.

2 Ferenc Csapiár, Kassákné Simon Jolán, Kassák Múzeum, Budapest, 2003,5-6.

3 József Nádass, Arcképvázlat Kassák Lajosról [Portrait sketch of Lajos Kassák], in Ilona Illés— Ernő Taxner (eds.), Kortársak Kassák Lajosról [Contemporaries on Lajos Kassák], Petőfi Irodalmi Múzeum, Budapest, 1976,21.

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