1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Csiky, Gregor

CSIKY, GREGOR (1842–1891), Hungarian dramatist, was born on the 8th of December 1842 at Pankota, in the county of Arad. He studied Roman Catholic theology at Pest and Vienna, and was professor in the Priests’ College at Temesvár from 1870 to 1878. In the latter year, however, he joined the Evangelical Church, and took up literature. Beginning with novels and works on ecclesiastical history, which met with some recognition, he ultimately devoted himself to writing for the stage. Here his success was immediate. In his Az ellenállhatatlan (“L’Irrésistible”), which obtained a prize from the Hungarian Academy, he showed the distinctive features of his talent—directness, freshness, realistic vigour, and highly individual style. In rapid succession he enriched Magyar literature with realistic genre-pictures, such as A Proletárok (“Proletariate”), Buborckok (“Bubbles”), Két szerelem (“Two Loves”), A szégyenlös (“The Bashful”), Athalia, &c., in all of which he seized on one or another feature or type of modern life, dramatizing it with unusual intensity, qualified by chaste and well-balanced diction. Of the latter, his classical studies may, no doubt, be taken as the inspiration, and his translation of Sophocles and Plautus will long rank with the most successful of Magyar translations of the ancient classics. Among the best known of his novels are Arnold, Az Atlasz család (“The Atlas Family”). He died at Budapest on the 19th of November 1891.