“HE WAS A WITNESS AND PARTICIPANT OF THE BEST HUNGARIAN ERA”

Abstract

Ede Margalits, a gymnasium professor and renown writer of history, was one of those scientists from the Bácska region who had won himself reputation in the scientific circles of the country. He started his carrier as a teacher of literature in Baja and then in Zombor, where he engaged in public duties on County level. In 1891 he was appointed headmaster of the Croatian boarding school in Budapest to become professor of Croatian language and literature at the university in 1895. It was then that the History Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences entrusted him to give an abridged presentation of Croatian works published during the 1850–1899 half century. The result of this were the two substantial volumes of Croatian Historic Repertory published in 1900 and 1902. During World War I he was able to publish the first volume of the Serbian Historic Repertory; however, the second volume was never published. Having been born in Zagreb and inspired by his fellow writers in Zombor, György Radics and Pál Dömötör, he turned his interest towards the South Slav historic songs. While still a professor at the Slavic Department in Budapest, he presented his readers with the translation of The Death of Smail Aga Chengich, “a poetic short story”, by Ivan Mažuranić (1896). In the same year he wrote a study under the title Prince Mark (Márk királyfi) about 14th and 15th century South Slav folk ballads, and published a comprehensive study on South Slav folk ballads in the journal Katholikus Szemle; in 1899 he published his translation of the Battle of Kosovo (A rigómezei ütközet). In 1914, when he retired, he went back to live in Zombor where he died, almost forgotten, in 1940.