Az értekezés tárgya Székely János írói munkássága. Székely János életműve az egyetemes magyar irodalom egyik kevéssé feltárt és kevéssé ismert kincsesbányája, annak ellenére, hogy a maga korában az író az erdélyi magyar irodalom egyik legismertebb alakja volt. Magyarországon azonban inkább csak a hetvenes évek végétől vált ismertté, leginkább a példázat érvényű, kora társadalmának is aktuális mondanivalókat hordozó történelmi drámái (Caligula helytartója, Protestánsok stb.) révén, holott addigra, mire a hazai, majd az erdélyi színházak elkezdték játszani darabjait, már egy jelentős, lezárt költői pálya, egy öntörvényű prózavilág, kitűnő regények (Soó Péter bánata, Az árnyék), novelláskötet és esszékötetek (A nyugati hadtest, Egy rögeszme genezise, A mítosz értelme) álltak a háta mögött. És még csak ezután, a nyolcvanas években írta meg A másik torony című, a romániai fasiszta diktatúrának is „emlékművet” állító, modern formabontó regényt, a kisebbségi magyarság tragikus perspektíváit színpadra álmodó Mórok című történelmi esszének nevezett drámát és élete utolsó éveiben a teljes világképét, létértelmezését összefoglaló, a magyar irodalomban páratlan filozofikus esszékönyvet, A valódi világot. A rendkívül gazdag, szerteágazó, minden műnemben jelentőset produkáló életmű teljességének felmérésére és értékelésére tesz kísérletet a disszertáció.

The theme of my thesis is Székely János's literary career. Székely János's life's work is a thesaurus of Hungarian literature that is not fully investigated in detail in spite of the fact, that in his own age the writer was one of the most prominent characters of Hungarian literature. He became widely known only in the 1970's in Hungary with the publication of his parabolic, historical plays (Caligula's Proconsul, Protestants etc.) involving topics of current concern. Although by the time Hungarian and Transylvanian theatres started to perform his plays, he had already finished a significant poetical career, an autononous set of prose works, excellent novels (Soó Péter's Misery, The Shadow), a collection of short stories and three volumes of essays (The Western Corps, The Genesis of an Idea, The Meaning of the Myth). It was only in the 1980’s, after completing all the works listed above, that he wrote a modern, form-breaking novel entitled The Other Tower and erected a “memorial” to the Romanian fascist dictatorship with it. In The Saracen, a play designated as a historical essay, he deals with the tragic perspectives of Hungarian minority and in the last years of life he grasped a complete world concept and interpretation of existence in a philosophical book of essays entitled The Real World, that is unique in Hungarian literature. My thesis attempts at appraising and assessing this remarkably rich and complex literary career that gave significant works of art to every genre. I will put emphasis on the organic and homogeneous nature of Székely János’s life-work, but for several reasons (good organization, systematization, the need for different poetical categories etc.) I will study the genres one by one and analyse his essays, poems, plays and prose in individual chapters. While going into details analysing individual writings, I am going to prove the interdependence of the works and the plasticity, penetrativeness of boundaries between genres by keeping on referring to other writings. At the same time, I also intend to present the process of development in Székely János’s literary career from the beginning till the end of it. Through analyzing the collections of essays, I intend to devote a whole chapter to demonstrate the special features of Székely’s aesthetic views, his unique world concept and interpretation of life that determines the poetical character and structure of his works. By sometimes challenging, sometimes applying the contemporary reception I practically reinterpret and revaluate the writings. For instance, I attach more importance to his prose within his life-work than those evaluating it beforehand. In the first chapter I am going to examine the reception of his works separately and put my own questions while analyzing different statements and evaluations. I draw attention to the fact that although contemporary or even later criticism praised the writer and his works to the skies (for example Lengyel Balázs: “Székely János is the writer of not only Hungarians beyond the frontiers, the so called minority, but of our century, the second half of our century. Somewhere between Camus and Orwell. One of the greatest artists of our age.”), only a few critics undertook the task of a conclusive and through analysis. In the final chapter I am going to sum up the main points of the analyses, the results of the studies of different genres, point at the significance of Székely’s life’s work and assign a place to it in Transylvanian and Hungarian literature. Székely János’s literary ambition was never satisfied with putting into words the actual social and political issues of his age. He did not long for people’s appreciation or for the admiration of those dealing with contemporary cultural policy. He wanted not less than: “Expressing, putting into words the world, yes.” The world that he wished to view and explain as an integral whole, while, from the late 1960’s on, he had to face the crisis of artistic attitudes, inherited from Romanticism, but renewed by classical modernity, counterposing at least the totality of aesthetic quality with the lost totality of existence and the world. Although varied nature in respect of genres, his life-work is an integral whole and has significance beyond the regional and political determinations. His best writings, in spite of being personal in nature, express human beings’ conditions in the twentieth century being deprived of any transcendent support. At the same time, these writings outline the vital questions of his age on a universal level transforming them to the level of the most general human existence. It adds to the significance of his life’s work that he, sometimes openly, sometimes obliquely, denied and contradicted the world of dictatorship and represented real art and humanity with his dedication to eternal values and ideas. By doing so, Székely did not only carry on traditions and worked as a link with the predecessors, but with his fight for authorial freedom, he also served as an example for the following generations.