Szegedy-Maszak, Mihaly

Literary historian

He was born in 1943 in Budapest. He completed his studies at the Eötvös Lóránd University (ELTE) in Budapest and at Cambridge University. In 1967 he obtained a doctor's degree. He worked as a research fellow at the Institute of Literature of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA) until 1981 since when he has been teaching at ELTE. He has spent long periods researching abroad; from 1991 he was professor at the Indiana University (USA). Since 1994 he has been head of the Comparative Literature Department of ELTE. In 1993 he became a corresponding member of MTA and has been a member of the Academia Europaea (London) since 1995. He has been deputy president of the International Association for the Study of Magyars since 1996 and of the International Association of Comparative Literature since 1997. In 1998 he became a full member of MTA and in 2002 the president of the Literature Committee of MTA. In 1997 he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Hungarian Republic, Commander Cross, and in 2003 the Széchenyi award. His initial field of study was the history of Hungarian lyric poetry, he then focussed on theoretical studies mainly in the field of 19^th and 20^th century English, French and Hungarian literature, translation and the comparative study of the various forms of art (literature, music, fine arts and cinema)

National Literature and World Literature in the 21^st Century