Szőcs Péter Levente (szerk.): Complexul Memorial Ady Endre. Ghid (Satu Mare, 2020)
Paris
college of Zalău. My first poem was published as a student at Zalău at the local journal. At Debrecen I was half jurist and halfjournahst, in the style of Csokonai. Buti managed to escape finally, and I started to work as a full time journalist at a daily paper in Oradea. Shortly after, I became the editor of Nagyváradi Napló. I wrote a lot, but only few poems, due to defiance, self-distrust and because I believed that being a poet is whimsy and comic. Though I scorned the capital city, Budapest, the provincial life distressed and dispirited me. I have nurtured fantastic plans: to get in London, maybe in Sankt-Petersburg, or Moscow, but over the most desired was Paris.” Ady Endre: Autobiography. Dekameron, I, Érdekes Újság, September 1913. PARIS “I was journalist, writing editorials and I will surely die or begin a very academic life if someone doesn’t come for me. But there was a woman, brought to me by one of my poems, she took my hand and did not let me go until Paris. Then she overwhelmed me with her desires and her sterile selfsatisfaction. Five years have passed since then, almost six, and ever since I have been writing and struggling, I sometimes get confused but I soon start it all over again: so I exist. I had no teachers, I needed no teachers, because I just lived and I felt life flowing in my veins. I felt it, I desired it, and because of this huge thirst of life I am now examined by physicians, with disbelief?’Ady Endre: Autobiography. Nyugat, 1st of June 1909. “Fate and some quite strange, but pleasant coincidence helped me to arrive in Paris in 1904,. To my great satisfaction, I managed to avoid Budapest. In Paris I got noticed better than in Oradea, and I got an offer from the old Budapesti Napló edited by, Vészi József and Kabos Endre. This was meant to be, my literary ambitions had to be acknowledged firstly in Paris, by some tragic Frenchmen. Still, besides my occupations, this city has taught me nothing.” Ady Endre: Autobiography. Decameron, I, Az Érdekes Újság, September 1913. ADY ENDRE TO HIS MOTHER Paris, 10 January 1907 “My dear mother, I replied to the letter you and Lajos had sent me. I think Lajos already told you about my reply. Have you received, mother, the photograph I sent you? As for myself, my health and general condition are acceptable. I think I will manage to stay for a few months in Paris, and that means that I wont have to return to the hateful Budapest before May. Even if the 23
