Alexander Berko

* Losonc, 1918. Feb. 13. – † Ukraine, 1943. ? / poet, publicist, translator ; ; He wrote poems as a student. His first writings were published in the local newspapers of Losonc (Indulás, Losonci Hírlap, Magyar Híradó). He was initiated as a poet by Korunk, where he sent his poems at the encouragement of László Sándor. From 1936, the Prague Magyar Hírlap and the Hungarian Newspaper in Poznań also published his poems regularly, and at the end of August 1938, he became closely associated with the Hungarian Nap in Ostrava. This joining was considered a great courage in the fall of 1938, as many of his colleagues had already left the communist party newspaper by then. In September 1938, the twenty-year-old poet was already the head of the literary column of the Hungarian Nap, and until the newspaper was closed down, on October 1939. Until 13, a relatively large number of his political articles and criticisms were published in it. After the Vienna decision, he moved to Budapest, where he worked as an external collaborator of Népszava for a while, and his writings were also published in Korunk and the Independent Newspaper of Kolozsvár. In September 1940, he was called up for labor service, and after the attack on the Soviet Union, he was taken to the Eastern Front, and he never returned. ; – His first poems are mainly love poems and reflect resigned moods, but in the poem I am a Voice, written in 1937, he refuses his “self-expressive” lyrics. As the war approached, motifs of Christian mythology appeared more and more frequently in his poems (Conversation with a roadside crucifix – in memory of Ossietzky, Song at the foot of the Tátra, etc.). During the rise of fascism, the role of symbols and allegories in his lyrics gradually increased. He often evokes childish purity, which he contrasts with the corruption of the “adult world” (Sanyika, Hintáló, Rosszaság). From 1940 onwards, the number of B. poems decreased, although the poet even sent some poems from the front to Népszava, the Népszava calendar and the Jewish yearbook. His poems, conceived in the shadow of death, also testify to the constant enrichment of his lyrics, and testify that the World War deprived Hungarian literature of a poet with a growing horizon. As a translator, B. translated several works by the best representatives of Czech socialist lyrics (Petr Bezruè, Vítìzslav Nezval, František Halas, Josef Hora) into Hungarian. ; ; Works: In the Devil's Cloak, v., Losonc 1940, You Are Not Yourself, v., Bp. 1964. ; ; Literature: László Sándor: This is not a legend, K 1939, 717–718., k. a. (Aladár Komlós): In the Devil's Cloak, Múlt és Jövő 1941, 32., László Sándor: In the Devil's Cloak, Láthatár 1941, 116., Sándor Csanda: B. S. = B. S.: You Are Not Yourself, 149–163., nő: Első nemzedék, Po.–Bp. 1968., Zoltán Fónod: Message, Bp. 1993, Po. 2002. ;

V. E.