Born August 4, 1884 in Szeged
Died May 17, 1949 in Budapest

• Poet, short-story writer, novelist, dramatist, film aesthetician.
• Original name: Herbert Bauer.
• Knew Géza Laczkó, Dezso Szabó, and Zoltán Kodály.
• Participated in literary activities of Communist writers.
• Awarded Kossuth Prize for past contributions to literature.
• His poems, short stories, and dramas show movement from symbolism to realism. Poems written during emigration are concerned with struggles of Hungarians and longings of exiled Hungarians for home, often with intonations of folk song; those composed during World War II are often considered to be the most lasting. Writings on aesthetics and theory of motion pictures significant. Béla Bartók used his A kékszakállú herceg vára as operatic libretto.
• Álmodó ifjúság and Hét mese have been translated into German; Csodálatosságok könyve into Slovakian; Az igazi égszinkék into Czech, English, German, Russian, and Slovakian; and some of his poems into French, German, and Russian.

related Hungarian works: Bartók, Laczkó and Kodály
related English works: Bartók and Kodály
source: Hungarian Authors: A Bibliographical Handbook by Albert Tezla
see also: Hungarian Literature: An Introductory Bibliography by Albert Tezla

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A LÁTHATÓ EMBER - A FILM SZELLEME
BALÁZS BÉLA
A könyv nélkülözhetetlen szakkönyv a film- és médiaoktatásban, de haszonnal forgathatják azok is, akik szeretnének a filmmuvészet problémáival behatóbban megismerkedni. Balázs Bélának, a magyar és a nemzetközi filmesztétika egyik atyjának két klasszikus muve, A látható ember és A film szelleme máig érvényes gondolatokat fogalmazott meg az írások keletkezése idején még születoben lévo filmmuvészetrol. A korai filmmuvészet tapasztalataiból kiindulva Balázs Béla felismerte az arc és a közelkép, a történet dramaturgiája, a vágás szerepének fontosságát a film muvészi lehetoségeinek kihasználásában, s ez mind a mai napig sok tanulsággal szolgálhat a modern és a kortárs filmek elemzéséhez és megértéséhez.


HALÁLESZTÉTIKA
BALÁZS BÉLA


IL LIBRO DELLE MERAVIGLIE
BALÁZS BÉLA


TÁNCJÁTÉKOK
BALÁZS BÉLA
Irodalom- és tánctörténeti kuriózum a kötet, amely Balázs Béla részben kéziratban maradt, részben színpadi életre kelt táncjáték-librettóit elso alkalommal adja egybegyujtve közre.

Bela Balazs: The Man and the Artist
by Joseph Zsuffa
Bela Balazs has been known chiefly for writing the first systematic treatise on film aesthetics. As this comprehensive and definitive biography reveals, however, he was also an important creative force, who conducted dialogues or collaborated with many masters of the new art--from Alexander Korda to G. W. Pabst, from Sergei Eisenstein to Leni Riefenstahl. Jewish by descent, Hungarian poet, German writer, and international cineast, Balazs was an artist, a revolutionary, and a humanist--a key European cultural figure.

Joseph Zsuffa's biography, based on more than two decades of research, traces the vast social upheavals of Balazs's lifetime--from the romantic years of the Austro-Hungarian fin de siècle to World War I, revolution, and political exile; from the turbulence of Weimar Germany to Hitler's Reich, Stalin's Soviet Union, and World War II's remaking of Europe. Through his art and his criticism, Balazs was both a chronicler of his times and an inspirational force for many famous contemporaries. Those he inspired or who praised the various facets of his kaleidoscopic talent included Zoltan Kodaly, Bela Bartok, Gyorgy Lukacs, Ernst Krenek, Thomas Mann, Robert Musil, and Stefan Zweig.

While Zsuffa conveys the immense variety and power of Balazs's work, he also gives full treatment to Balazs's personal life that reads like a suspenseful novel. Until recently, Balazs has been more acknowledged than understood, more cited than read. This superb biography, based on impeccable scholarship, gives Balazs, who was truly a modern Renaissance man, his due at last.