Miklós  Hernádi died (1944-2020)


He was known as a writer, author of artistic works and sociologist. He came from a special family: his father was Lajos Heimlich, famous pianist, the godparents were Miklós Radnóti and Fanni Gyarmati.
After childhood that he spent in straitened circumstances in Újlipótváros, he went to Eötvös University and graduated in English. He was the aspirant of Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1977-1980), then he worked for Gondolat Book Publisher as an editor of social sciences. He became the doctor of sociology at Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1982. He was the editor of some remarkable journals such as És, Valóság (1969-1973), Szombat (1989-1992),  Kommentár (1992), Magyar Tudomány (1998-2001).
His work was quite diversified both by genre and theme. He wrote novels, short stories, articles and essays (studies). One of his famous and popular works was Közhelyszótár (published in 1975). The second volume of the dictionary was published in 1985. They contained phrasings and figures of speech of the age by the examples of press, sports, politics, jokes and gage-pieces  (shown in cabaret).

Another significant work of his oeuvre in the field of linguistics is titled as  Futószalag és kultúra: esszé az amerikai kulturális életről; an American cultural dictionary is also included. 
He wrote about the conditions of comic strips in 1975.
His life work covers not only work in the field of linguistics but in the field of sociology as well. He payed special attention to family sociology and the conditions of the Jews. Within family sociology he dealt mainly with marriages and divorces in Hungary, including the conditions of divorced men. He was "marked as human rights activist" because he analysed fathers' conditions who did not want to abandon their children but they had to do that after divorce, and they were dispossessed of almost everything; some of his works (Felesleges apák, Családbomlás az ezredfordulón) focused on this issue.
He also payed great attention to the conditions of the Jews, showing the possibilities of Jewish-Hungarian coexistence, extraordinary Jewish jokes and the lives of writers and artists of Jewish origin and identity.

He had a great role in familiarising professionals and the public in Hungary with the works of Randolph L. Braham, the world-famous American historian and political scientist, born in Romania.  Hernádi wrote a review about one of Braham's works (on the issue of Holocaust in Hungary) and he also had active participation in editing some volumes of essays written in honour of Randolph L. Braham.

As a demonstration of the versatility of his interest, he wrote about phenomenology, Erving Goffman and family reconstruction of the turn of the century as well as about life-world in one of his volumes of essays (Kisbetűs történelem). Another volume included his analysis of the celebration habits of Hungarian society (Ünneplő társadalom).
One of his most important works of fiction is the novel  Otto; it is about the life and extraordinary death of Otto Weininger; it was translated into German, too.

We live on with his memory.
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