Kálmán Kalocsay

Who was Kálmán Kalocsay?

Kálmán Kalocsay, in Hungarian name order Kalocsay Kálmán is one of the foremost figures in the history of Esperanto literature. He left a rich legacy to the language and culture of Esperanto in his original poetry and his translations of literary works from his native Hungarian and other languages of Europe.

A surgeon by profession, Kalocsay published his first collection of original poems in 1921, Mondo kaj Koro. During the 1920s and 1930s, he was the editor of the literary magazine Literatura Mondo, which became home to an influential group of authors who came to be collectively known as the Budapest School.

In 1932, using the pseudonym Peter Peneter, Kalocsay released a book of erotic verse entitled Sekretaj Sonetoj; perhaps more prosaic but no less remembered was his Plena Gramatiko de Esperanto, co-written with Gaston Waringhien in 1935.