WAR, GENERAL FEELING, WAY OF LIFE

Abstract

Géza Csáth wrote or entered notes into his diary from 1897 to 1919, the year of his death. The full text of his diaries was made available through the last volume of the Series of Diaries published in 2017. The study also outlines the complex network of diary publication. The latest volume of the diaries Sötét örvénybe süllyedek (Swallowed by a Dark Vortex) documented the “micro story” of the years of the First World War, the context of which entries, until now unpublished in book-form, written in 1917–1918 and in 1919 deserve a particular attention. The former two years were the last years of the war, the latter the last year of Csáth’s life, and so the journal entries for the years between 1917 and 1919 offer a specific ending-narrative to the reader.