Twenty-one of Nyugat's contributors are buried in the cemetery - a vast expanse of green near Budapest's Keleti Station. Among them are Endre Ady, Mihály Babits, Frigyes Karinthy, Dezső Kosztolányi, Gyula Krúdy, Zsigmond Móricz, Lőrinc Szabó, Antal Szerb, Lajos Nagy, Miklós Radnóti, Aladár Schöpflin and the journal's founder and editor-in-chief Ignotus.
Visitors to the cemetery can find the contributors' graves on an interactive map at www.nemzetisirkert.hu that shows where almost 600 famous Hungarians are buried. The website also suggests walks through the cemetery.
The website, launched last June, won the Homepage of the Year award in 2007.
Nyugat was founded by the poet and critic Ignotus, the political and economic journalist Miksa Fenyő and the critic Ernő Osvát. The first issue was published on January 1, 1908, with the financial support of Lajos Hatvany. Among the contents of the issue, which had a print run of just a few hundred copies, was a study by Endre Ady. The aim of the journal was to elevate Hungarian literature to the same level as Western literature. The journal also backed progressive politics and culture.
Nyugat published Hungary's youngest writers as well established authors. Among the older generation appearing in its pages were Endre Ady, Mihály Babits, Dezső Kosztolányi, Árpád Tóth, Frigyes Karinthy, Margit Kaffka, Zsigmond Móricz and Géza Csáth. The generation appearing in the 1920s included Lőrinc Szabó, László Németh, Áron Tamási and Endre Andor Gelléri. The youngest generation to be published in Nyugat boasted names such as Miklós Radnóti, Sándor Weöres, István Vas and Antal Szerb.
In 1929, Osvát committed suicide and Ignotus resigned as editor. The journal's financing dried up. Zsigmond Móricz rescued the paper with a cash injection and became its editor. Mihály Babits and Oszkár Gellért were appointed deputy editors. Because of differences over the direction of the journal, Móricz left in 1933, leaving the top editorial post to Babits.
The journal folded up after Babits's death in August 1941.
Photo: Máté Nándorfi (MTI)
