The cultural journal Korunk (Our Age) has been published in Cluj-Napoca since 1926, and is currently in its third series. These three series represent three distinct eras in the magazine’s history; each closely connected to the political and historical development of Transylvania as a cultural region.
The First Korunk
The first editor of Korunk, László Dienes, launched the journal in February 1926 as, in the words of the publication’s self-definition printed inside the issue, a “Monthly Review of Worldviews.” Dienes edited three of the fifteen volumes of the first Korunk alone and another two and a half jointly with Gábor Gaál. The journal was founded with the support of the Hungarian émigré community in the West, above all that, of Lajos Hatvany.
In the aftermath of the revolutions of 1918–1919, representatives of the bourgeois left-wing émigré circles settled in Romania and neighbouring countries sought to preserve and popularize Hungarian leftist ideas through the magazine. They worked under difficult financial circumstances but with great enthusiasm. In the autumn of 1919, Dienes settled in Romania as a political émigré together with his friend, György Bölöni. In January 1921, they jointly launched the daily newspaper Bukaresti Hírlap, for which Dienes wrote his first articles in Romania.
At the same time as founding Korunk, Dienes also participated in establishing the Society for Social Sciences, whose aim was to conduct sociological research into Romanian social reality and to disseminate knowledge of the social sciences. As Béla Pomogáts writes about the journal, “The intellectual strategy of Korunk resulted in a pluralistic worldview and editorial policy; the newly launched journal had to give voice to the various shades and movements of the political left, if it wished to contribute to the reorganization of these forces.”1
Pomogáts characterizes the journal as marked by a “polemical polyphony” in all the fields it covered, which inevitably led to an eclectic editorial practice: it sought to provide a platform for all those who worked to preserve the left-wing traditions of Hungarian culture and who opposed conservative restoration and the political right – bourgeois radicals, Octoberists, social democrats, and communists alike. Among the contributors published in the journal were Lajos Hatvany, Lajos Kassák, Zoltán Fábry, Tibor Déry, Aladár Komlós, Viktor Aradi, Jenő Szentimrei, and Ervin Sinkó.
In the opening editorial of the first issue, the founder launched the journal with the following words: “The entire world around us has become problematic. […] The review launched with the present issue considers it its principal task, here in this somewhat remote place from the West, within the modest possibilities of its influence, to awaken people to those great problems whose solution is indispensable for the arrival of a calm and constructive future, and to contribute materials that may help thinking and questioning people – cut off from direct contact with the great intellectual currents of the West – to clarify within themselves those painful questions from which no honest person may withdraw. […] Unity of worldview will nevertheless not be absent from this review. But this unity will not be external, rather internal.”2
Dienes created one of the most influential and valuable workshops of Hungarian and East Central European left-wing intellectual life. After one year, Keleti Újság wrote about the magazine: “After one year, László Dienes may say with a clear conscience that he understood what we need here today. […] The great success of Korunk can be attributed to the fortunate intuition that told its editor that, whatever people may say and whatever appearances may suggest, Transylvania truly does need a European worldview – it needs Europe. Dienes attempted to create an organ that conveys the atmosphere of Europe to the Transylvanian Hungarian audience, cut off from expensive Western books and periodicals.”3
Dienes remained in Romania until 1928. Following an incident in which students beat him bloody in the street, he fled to Berlin with his wife, university chemistry professor Irén Götz, and their children. (According to the scholarly literature, the attack was motivated by Dienes’s worldview; newer research suggests the students’ grievance may actually have been directed at his wife for being overly strict, with Dienes merely present at the scene. The truth, however, remains uncertain.) Although Dienes’s name continued to appear as co-editor of Korunk until August 1931, he moved to Moscow that year, where he worked as a language pedagogue and bibliographer until 1945. After 1945, he lived in Hungary, serving as director of the Szabó Ervin Metropolitan Library and as a university professor until his death.
The other major editor of the first series, Gábor Gaál, was likewise not born in Transylvania. He too arrived in Cluj as a political émigré from Budapest via Vienna in the autumn of 1926. After arriving in Transylvania, he worked as a freelance contributor for the daily newspapers Keleti Újság, Új Kelet, and Ellenzék, while his articles and reviews also appeared in Erdélyi Helikon and Pásztortűz.
Gaál joined Korunk in 1928 and, as noted above, his name appeared alongside Dienes’s on the cover from January 1929 until September 1931. In reality, however, he had already been editing the journal since the end of 1928, following Dienes’s departure for Berlin. As studies devoted to him pointed out, his life had become inseparably intertwined with that of Korunk until its closure in September 1940.
Gaál’s period as sole editor coincided with the era of Stalinist dictatorship and sectarianism, which profoundly affected left-wing movements throughout East Central Europe. The Korunk edited by Gaál also followed the sectarian, dogmatic, one-sided Bolshevik cultural policy subordinated to Moscow’s will. This “impatient and aggressive” cultural policy, to quote Pomogáts, had softened only in the second half of the 1930s, when, under the influence of the newly initiated “popular front policy”, Korunk began to strive for cooperation and recognition of all left-wing and progressive values.4
Pomogáts, in the first volume of his literary history of Transylvanian Hungarian literature, praises Gaál’s achievement in organizing Transylvanian Hungarian left-wing writers and thinkers into a coherent intellectual camp. His work extended to much of the scattered Hungarian left-wing intelligentsia, while also paying close attention to Romanian literature and giving space to progressive world literature. Among Gaál’s merits, Pomogáts also notes that he secured the financial means for publication through nearly superhuman effort, relying on networks of supporters throughout Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia, while also repeatedly averting the constant threat of prohibition.
Nevertheless, Pomogáts argues that Gaál’s insistence on rationality sometimes led to serious critical errors: “This virtue of reason, upheld under all circumstances, caused Gábor Gaál’s occasional grave critical mistakes: the security of rationality was coupled in him with doctrinaire rigidity. This made him unable, even hostile, to understand those tendencies in Transylvanian Hungarian literature that rejected class principles, including the Erdélyi Helikon movement and its writers, and more generally, prevented him from adequately recognizing the genuine values of contemporary Hungarian literature and culture.”5
Between February 1926 and September 1940, László Dienes and Gábor Gaál – though following different paths – unquestionably created a defining intellectual forum of their age. As an outstanding workshop of the left, the journal enjoyed considerable popularity, reaching print runs of one thousand to twelve hundred copies at its height, a significant circulation at the time. The editorial models they represented have continued to serve as examples for later Korunk editors, and their influence undeniably shaped the subsequent eras of the journal. The editors of both the second series launched in 1957, and the third series begun in 1990 returned to these traditions while developing their editorial concepts.
The Second Korunk
The relaunch of Korunk became possible in 1957 as a consequence of the political opening that occurred throughout the Soviet bloc countries. The first issue – published at the urging of the authorities – appeared on February 21, 1957, under the editorship of Ernő Gáll, seventeen years after the magazine had been banned.
The traditional masthead and orange cover evoked the earlier Korunk, as though the publication was simply continuing from the point where it had ceased in the autumn of 1940. The newly formed editorial staff did not understand why the authorities suddenly considered the journal’s publication such an urgent matter: pressure had been exerted on the staff to launch the periodical already in January 1957.
It later emerged that far more copies of the first issue had been printed than the 3,000 intended for the Romanian market. The surplus copies were sent to Hungary, where writers were on strike, and the magazine thus appeared on Hungarian newsstands as a strikebreaking publication. Consequently, the authors and editors were viewed rather negatively by their colleagues there.
At this point, it became clear to the editorial board just how subordinate and vulnerable they were to political power, which from then on, sought increasingly to interfere in the editorial process and to infiltrate the magazine’s published content.
In accordance with the expectations of the era, the journal openly continued the intellectual legacy of Gábor Gaál, as Edgar Balogh stated in his introductory essay Az új humanizmus őrhelyén (At the Outpost of the New Humanism): “In our ideological stance, in socialist humanism, we wish to remain faithful disciples of Gábor Gaál, the former editor of our journal.”6
Beginning with the 1963 and 1964 volumes, strict supervision relaxed somewhat, making it possible to publish several thematic issues devoted to medicine, world literature, theatre, and the then fashionable discipline of sociology. From the second half of the 1960s onward, the editorial board placed increasing emphasis on thematic editing: Transylvanian readers were introduced to the latest developments in modern scientific and cultural thought through contributions by prominent foreign, Romanian, and Romanian Hungarian figures from academic, cultural, and public life. The editors of the new series hoped that the reforms already underway would continue despite developments in Hungary. According to the Romanian Hungarian Literary Lexicon: “The contributors experimented with two approaches – debating and intersecting with one another: one tendency anticipated the ‘liberalization’ of socialism and sought, through economic, sociological, and political writings, to raise critical doubts concerning the bureaucratism of the party line; the other attempted to mobilize the intellectual energies of Hungarian language cultivation, folklore, historical consciousness, and minority protection by reviving ‘popular democratic’ traditions. Party supervision, however, restricted both tendencies through censorship and through mandatory material forced upon the journal, eventually crushing them under the terror of a homogenizing nationalist dictatorship.”7
Beginning in the 1970s, through the permanent events and publications organized around the journal, Korunk evolved into an institution that served – and played a leading role in – deepening and maintaining the cultural life, dissemination of knowledge, intellectual formation, and minority self-awareness of the Hungarian community in Romania. Through its various events, the journal succeeded in drawing into its circle of contributors representatives of different scholarly disciplines who otherwise, lacking literary talent for writing down their ideas, would never have appeared in the pages of the journal. During the 1970s and 1980s, Korunk played a major role in the popularization of science within Transylvanian Hungarian society, and in this regard particular credit belongs to Zoltán Veress, whose name repeatedly appeared among the editors of the annual volumes.
After 1984, however, dark times returned to magazine editing. The pressure of the Ceausescu dictatorship intensified, and Korunk was no longer able to fulfil the important gap-filling role it had undertaken within Transylvanian Hungarian cultural and scientific life. By the mid-1980s, the institutions and events organized around the journal – such as the Korunk Gallery and the Korunk Mornings lecture series – were shut down. As a result, the staff could focus only on the journal’s internal editorial tasks, and even those under strict supervision. The publication of materials related to Hungarian minority self-knowledge in Transylvania was no longer permitted. Vacant positions were left unfilled, and the number of so-called “mandatory materials” imposed upon the journal was increased. Because of intensified censorship, issues often appeared only after long delays. Ernő Gáll was forced into early retirement, and during the tenure of the newly appointed editor-in-chief, Győző Rácz, the journal’s intellectual spirit gradually deteriorated. Until the end of 1989, the magazine functioned in a near-lifeless state.
The Third Korunk
The third series of Korunk was launched in January 1990 under the editorship of Lajos Kántor. The publication returned to the Dienes model, something clearly evident from the programmatic editorial that opened the new series.8
In his essay, Kántor briefly outlines the characteristics of the previous two series of Korunk, highlighting from each period those elements that could still be considered relevant at the beginning of 1990. In doing so, he explicitly embraces and continues the traditions of the Dienes model. He takes stock of both the merits and the failings of the previous series and emphasizes that he does not wish to edit a mere successor publication, but rather an innovative and original journal freed from provincialism. He seeks to revive the journal’s capacity for dialogue, believing that constructive debate and communication among the finest representatives of various scholarly and intellectual fields are what can move the publication forward and make it truly contemporary.
At the same time, Korunk retained its original name. Unlike Utunk, which became Helikon, or Igaz Szó, which became Látó, the idea of renaming the journal never even arose within the editorial office. As Kántor put it, however, preserving the name also meant “fighting a battle on two fronts.” In order for the journal to regain credibility, it had to confront its own recent past. On the one hand, this required a partial restructuring of the editorial staff due to a necessary change in mentality. On the other hand, the journal itself had to undertake self-examination concerning the direction it intended to follow, and how it would deal with the left-wing (communist) label attached to its name in public consciousness. (The editorial board later addressed issues of leftism and historical reckoning in dedicated thematic issues as well.) The path outlined by Lajos Kántor in this founding editorial was later continued by Imre József Balázs from 2008 onward and by Gyöngy Kovács Kiss beginning in 2013.
In its third series, Korunk seeks to be neither left-wing nor right-wing, but simply a quality-oriented publication that invites contributors on the basis of professional expertise rather than political affiliation. In the anniversary issue published for the journal’s 90th anniversary, Gyöngy Kovács Kiss wrote: “In its current series, Korunk has continued and still intends to remain an intellectual forum and a mediator of scholarly achievements, while also defining itself as a publication that, while preserving its traditional profile, on the one hand combines Transylvanian identity with Europeanism – through the analysis of both global and local issues – and on the other hand, is capable of serving as a bridge between segments of Transylvanian and universal Hungarian intellectual life.”9
In the centennial anniversary issue, she further described the journal as: “A quality-oriented and quality-centred periodical that invites its contributors not on the basis of ideology or political affiliation, but according to professional competence and expertise, to use today’s fashionable terminology. As a specifically minority review and a national minority institution, through its historical, philosophical, sociological, political-scientific, ethnographic, literary-historical and theoretical, as well as creative literary writings, the journal continues to serve both Hungarian and European intellectual life.”10 This view is reinforced in the anniversary issue by editor Lóránd Rigán, who emphasizes that: “The journal does not offer a unified worldview, but rather viewpoints gathered from many different directions, from which readers may construct their own worldview.”11
From the very beginning, the new series of the journal has explored current issues of cultural, public, and scholarly life through thematic issues, assuming a role in the dissemination of knowledge and giving voice not only to leading representatives of Transylvanian Hungarian and Carpathian Basin scholarship, but also to Hungarian intellectuals from Western Europe and overseas. At the same time – continuing the traditions outlined above – the journal also performs functions extending beyond editorial work itself. Since 2007, it has organized a free university lecture series under the name Korunk Academy, and it maintains an art gallery known as the Korunk Studio Gallery. Alongside the journal operates the Komp-Press Publishing House, which publishes volumes largely connected to the journal’s themes and intellectual orientation, primarily in Hungarian, though it has also produced anthologies in Romanian, English, and German. Furthermore, since 2004, the journal has annually awarded the Key of Korunk prize to a contributor, collaborator, or supporter “who plays a significant role in the perspective-broadening and consciousness-shaping work of Korunk, and who through their writings, projects, or other activities greatly contributes to facilitating the work and securing the future of the journal and its institutional network.”12
Today, one hundred years after its founding, Korunk remains a distinctive presence in both Transylvanian Hungarian and broader Hungarian-language journalism. By reading its thematic issues, one may confidently say that the reader encounters a carefully edited, forward-looking journal characterized by scholarly rigor and broad intellectual horizons.
The February 2026 anniversary issue, edited for the centennial celebration, offers a highly representative selection from a century of Korunk publications. The issue was compiled by the journal’s current editor-in-chief, Gyöngy Kovács Kiss, and deputy editor-in-chief, Imre József Balázs.
The volume opens with greetings and reflections by the journal’s present editors. Gyöngy Kovács Kiss summarizes the history of the publication,13 emphasizing that from the very beginning, its contributors have come from several different countries. She reviews the achievements of the various series of the journal, though naturally refrains from evaluating the current, third series, considering it wiser to leave such judgment to posterity. As she writes: “According to the editorial intentions of the past thirty years, however, the journal has continued, clearly and consistently, to serve broad intellectual orientation and Europeanism, as a distinctive minority review and national minority institution.”14
In his personal and subjective essay enriched with editorial and newsroom recollections, Imre József Balázs highlights Korunk’s role in shaping culture. In his view, the history of twentieth- and twenty-first-century Hungarian literature could not be written without the texts published in the journal. These include: “Lajos Kassák’s programmatic essays, Attila József’s critique of Kassák and his poems, Tibor Déry’s prose and reflections on poetic theory, György Faludy’s adaptations of Heine and Villon, the first version of Gizella Hervay’s poem Falls, and Géza Szőcs’s 1973 essays on Sándor Weöres and Béla Hamvas, which caused a minor cultural scandal.”15 At the same time, he points out that Korunk is “not merely a journal, but an intellectual workshop that also contributes to the circulation of culture and scholarship through organizing events, educational programs, responsive online presence, publishing books, tours across the Carpathian Basin, and events held in schools.”16
Editor Péter Cseke – a contributor to the journal since the beginning of the third series – in his essay, interwoven with personal recollections, writes about the editorial “horizon of values” of Lajos Kántor, the defining editor-in-chief of the post-1990 period. (Kántor had worked for the journal since 1959, first as literary editor and later as head of the arts section; after the political transition he led the journal for nearly twenty years.) Quoting Kántor on the values editors should uphold, Cseke summarizes: “The doubt imperatively necessary to avoid mistakes, constant self-examination, and the right to criticism coming from outside” must never be abandoned by an editor.17
In another deeply personal and subjective essay, Gábor Győrffy recalls his own experiences connected to Korunk. As he explains, he had known the journal since childhood, though at first, it remained merely an abstract concept to him. From the 2000s onward, however, it gradually grew closer to him until it imperceptibly became part of his own personal history.18
Editor Lóránd Rigán, in his essay A köztes tér jelentései (The Meanings of the Intermediate Space)19, emphasizes that communicability is the true test of culture’s relevance. “Korunk is important to me precisely because, even in this environment of crisis, it preserves that intermediate position which neither retreats into scientific hermeticism, nor follows the flattening superficiality of mass culture.”20
In the anniversary issue, the editorial greetings are followed by a particularly interesting compilation. Imre József Balázs reached out to recipients of the Key of Korunk award from recent years21 – authors and collaborators who had played a role in broadening the journal’s intellectual horizons. He asked them when they first came into contact with Korunk, what impressions they had of the journal’s editorial concept, what suggestions they might offer for its future, and how they viewed the role of a cultural journal in contemporary society. The responses are highly varied, and several provide unique and subjective additions to the history of the journal. In their assessments, the respondents generally emphasize Korunk’s openness to the world, professionalism, and ideological independence.
A few selected quotations
“I do not believe that in today’s Hungarian world(s) a cultural journal can have any real ‘social role’ when even the few thousand genuine intellectuals, scholars, writers, and artists have no role whatsoever in shaping society’s orientation, mentality, or education. Yet Korunk remains the intellectual luxury of this intelligentsia, the ‘capillary of public intellect.’” (Miklós Csapody, literary historian)22
“It is not a provincial minority journal, but a nationwide ‘cosmopolitan’ review that – almost uniquely today – represents and integrates the entirety of Hungarian-language scholarly and intellectual life. Great thanks are due to the editors, who, free of party-political bias (something nowadays as rare as a white crow), provide a forum for all Hungarian writers, above all for scholars throughout this broad Hungarian homeland.” (Gábor Gyáni, historian)23
“The journal consistently and gracefully realizes its editorial concept, its editors providing reliable work issue after issue while presenting the broad spectrum of Hungarian-language literature and culture. Korunk’s interests are not narrowed by generation, political program, or worldview.” (Ferenc Hörcher, philosopher and aesthetician)24
“Korunk is the longest continuously published cultural journal in the Carpathian Basin. This alone is a remarkable achievement, since, transcending political changes, it stands as proof of the continuity of Hungarian culture. Moreover, it testifies not only to Romanian Hungarian culture, but to the continuity of Hungarian culture across borders and continents.” (Ignác Romsics, historian)25
“Korunk manages to serve the interests of the entire Hungarian nation without losing sight of its Transylvanian identity; indeed, it visibly strives to affirm this specifically Transylvanian character. This is an important program.” (Béla Markó, poet)26
Following these greetings and appreciations, the anniversary issue presents selections from the most outstanding writings published during the past century. Most of these works have since become indispensable components of Hungarian literature, scholarship, and culture – famous and frequently cited texts. The selection – beginning with László Dienes’s introductory editorial and concluding with Virgil Pop’s article on Miklós Bánffy published in November of the previous year – is extraordinarily representative, thanks to the editorial work of Gyöngy Kovács Kiss and Imre József Balázs, while the list of contributors is equally illustrious. Within the limits of this essay, it is impossible to provide a complete roll call, but among the authors included in the February 2026 issue are: Lajos Kassák, Attila József, Tibor Déry, Miklós Radnóti, György Faludy, Áron Tamási, Domokos Szilágyi, Sándor Kányádi, György Bretter, Károly Kós, Gyula Illyés, Tibor Bálint, István Szilágyi, Mircea Dinescu, Ferenc Fejtő, Otto von Habsburg, Jean-François Lyotard, Elemér Hankiss, John Lukacs, Mircea Cărtărescu, and Péter Esterházy.
Thus, throughout all three of its series, Korunk has sought – while adapting to changing times – to preserve the goals envisioned by its founder a century ago. Naturally, throughout this long period, social, political, and economic realities (and the list could continue indefinitely) have often restricted polyphony, dialogue, and constructive debate. In certain periods, engagement with the broader world of culture and scholarship became increasingly difficult, while in its third series, the journal also had to confront the left-wing associations attached to its name. Nevertheless – as the centennial anniversary issue clearly demonstrates – the journal remains a distinctive and colourful presence within both Transylvanian Hungarian and broader Hungarian-language journalism. In terms of its structure, thematic composition, contributors, treatment of subjects, organizational force, self-reflection, capacity for renewal, commitment to tradition, and ability to reinterpret those traditions in a modern way, it is unique and incomparable to any other similar publication on the media landscape of the Carpathian Basin.
Endnotes
[1] Pomogáts, 2008, 277.
[2] Dienes, 2026, 43.
[3] Önkénytelen értékmérés. Keleti Újság 9. 01. 1927., cited by Kovács, In: Dienes, 1977. 49.
[4] Pomogáts, 2008, 279.
[6] Balogh,1977, 499–506.
[8] Kántor, 1990, 1. 3–8.
[9] Kovács Kiss, 2016, 6.
[11] Balázs, 2026, 23.
[13] Kovács Kiss, 2026, 5–10.
[15] Balázs, 2026, 10.
[17] Cseke, 2026, 19.
[18] Győrffy, 2026, 20–21.
[21] Balázs, 2026, 26.