Baron János Kemény (5 September 1903, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
â€" 13 October 1971, in Târgu MureÅŸ) was a Hungarian writer, theater
director, dramatist, and founder of the Marosvécs/Brâncoveneşti
Helikon community.János Kemény's mother, the actress Ida Berenice
Mitchell (1871-1956), lost her husband, István Kemény, shortly after
János was born and could not afford to support her four children. She
therefore moved from the United States to her grandfather's house in
Transylvania, Hungary in 1904. János attended the Reformed College
(denominational high school) in Kolozsvár (today Cluj, Romania), and
then enrolled in the fall of 1921 at the College of Land Cultivation
in Vienna. He was married in 1923 to a woman of Scottish-Greek origin,
Augusta Paton, daughter of William Roger Paton, and they had six
children.In 1926, János Kemény and Aladár Kuncz organized a
literary conference of Transylvanian Hungarians at Kemény's estate in
Brâncoveneşti, Mureş (Marosvécs) County. This led to the formation
of the Helikon community, which from 1928 published the influential
Hungarian literary periodical Erdélyi Helikon. In 1930, Kemény was
awarded the Corvin Wreath by the Hungarian Government.[1]For ten years
from 1931, he headed the Hungarian Thália Theater in Kolozsvár/Cluj
and also published literary work. Then from 1945 to 1952 he was among
the founding organizers of the Székely theatre in Târgu Mureş
(Marosvásárhely). However, he was obliged to do manual work in the
communist period, before later finding a job in the library of Târgu
Mureş (Marosvásárhely) art college and working on the
Hungarian-language magazine Új Élet in the same city. A succession
of his works appeared between 1957 and his death in 1971, but he
managed to complete only one volume of a planned autobiography.
â€" 13 October 1971, in Târgu MureÅŸ) was a Hungarian writer, theater
director, dramatist, and founder of the Marosvécs/Brâncoveneşti
Helikon community.János Kemény's mother, the actress Ida Berenice
Mitchell (1871-1956), lost her husband, István Kemény, shortly after
János was born and could not afford to support her four children. She
therefore moved from the United States to her grandfather's house in
Transylvania, Hungary in 1904. János attended the Reformed College
(denominational high school) in Kolozsvár (today Cluj, Romania), and
then enrolled in the fall of 1921 at the College of Land Cultivation
in Vienna. He was married in 1923 to a woman of Scottish-Greek origin,
Augusta Paton, daughter of William Roger Paton, and they had six
children.In 1926, János Kemény and Aladár Kuncz organized a
literary conference of Transylvanian Hungarians at Kemény's estate in
Brâncoveneşti, Mureş (Marosvécs) County. This led to the formation
of the Helikon community, which from 1928 published the influential
Hungarian literary periodical Erdélyi Helikon. In 1930, Kemény was
awarded the Corvin Wreath by the Hungarian Government.[1]For ten years
from 1931, he headed the Hungarian Thália Theater in Kolozsvár/Cluj
and also published literary work. Then from 1945 to 1952 he was among
the founding organizers of the Székely theatre in Târgu Mureş
(Marosvásárhely). However, he was obliged to do manual work in the
communist period, before later finding a job in the library of Târgu
Mureş (Marosvásárhely) art college and working on the
Hungarian-language magazine Új Élet in the same city. A succession
of his works appeared between 1957 and his death in 1971, but he
managed to complete only one volume of a planned autobiography.
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