Déry, Tibor (1894–1977)
Writer. Déry joined the communist party in 1919 and became a member of the board of writers during the Hungarian Soviet Republic. After the communist dictatorship had fallen, he emigrated to Vienna and then in 1924 to Paris. He returned to Hungary from Italy in 1926. A succession of his works appeared after 1945 and he was an editor of the journal Csillag. However, the second volume of his novel Felelet Response) was officially criticized for ostensibly erroneous portrayal of the working class and promoting remnants of bourgeois moral values. He came out in 1954 in favour of the reform efforts of Imre Nagy. He spoke for wider publicity and criticized those directing official cultural policy, during a June 27, 1956 debate on the press and information, held by the Petőfi Circle, which led to his expulsion from the Hungarian Workers’ Party (MDP). He was elected onto the presiding committee of the Writers’ Union at its general meeting in September 1956, and he represented the Union on the Revolutionary Committee of the Hungarian Intelligentsia after the outbreak of the Revolution. He was also a member of the Revolutionary Council of the Hungarian Intelligentsia during the period of resistance. Déry was arrested in April 1957 and sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment. He was freed under an amnesty in 1960, but remained unable to publish until 1962. Later he became one of the leading writers of the › Kádár period.
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