Budapešťská rýha v dráze Richarda Messera (Meszlénye)

It seems most likely that Richard Messer (born in 1881 in Pančevo, died in 1962 in Prague) came to Budapest in 1900; in any case, at the end of that year he had his surname officially changed to Meszlény. This is how he subsequently signed his — apparently somewhat sporadic — contributions to Budapest-based Hungarian-language journals and newspapers: the prose piece “Egy boldog pár” (Happy Couple) was published in the review Otthon (Home, 1901); a series of critical sketches were printed in the journal A Színház (Theatre, 1904); a couple of texts appeared in the review Művészet (Art, 1905, 1908) and since 1908 he also wrote occasional pieces for the daily Pester Lloyd. After all, as “Meszlény” he graduated in philological studies from the University of Budapest (continuing in Grenoble, Heidelberg and Cluj-Napoca) and it is also how he signed his final, doctoral thesis about Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg (Gerstenberg költészete. Irodalomtörténeti tanulmány, 1908). The present study traces precisely these roots of Messerʼs philological and artistic-critical habit.