2009. február 7., szombat

Paul Wolfowitz

Paul Dundes Wolfowitz (born December 22, 1943) is a former United States Ambassador to Indonesia, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, and President of the World Bank. He is currently a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, working on issues of international economic development, Africa and public-private partnerships,[2] and chairman of the US-Taiwan Business Council.[3] As Deputy Secretary of Defense, he was "a major architect of President Bush's Iraq policy and ... its most hawkish advocate."After serving two years, he resigned as president of the World Bank Group "ending a protracted and tumultuous battle over his stewardship, sparked by a promotion he arranged for his companion."

The second child of Jacob "Jack" Wolfowitz (1910–1981) and Lillian Dundes, Paul Wolfowitz "was born in Brooklyn, New York, into a Polish Jewish immigrant family, and grew up mainly in Ithaca, New York, where his father was a professor of statistical theory at Cornell University."[10][11] "In addition to being prolific in research" and "very well read," according to Shelemyahu Zacks, Jacob Wolfowitz "fought at the time for the liberation of Soviet Jewry. He was a friend and strong supporter of the state of Israel, AIPAC member and had many friends and admirers there."[12] Strongly influenced by his father, according to Eric Schmitt, Paul Wolfowitz became "a soft-spoken former aspiring-mathematician-turned-policymaker ... [whose] world views ... were forged by family history and in the halls of academia rather than in the jungles of Vietnam or the corridors of Congress ... [His father] ... escaped Poland after World War I. The rest of his father's family perished in the Holocaust."[13] (Here Eric Schmitt is mistaken as Jacob Wolfowitz simply emigrated.)

As a boy, Wolfowitz devoured books about the Holocaust and Hiroshima—what he calls 'the polar horrors'".[4] Speaking of the influence of the Holocaust on his views, Wolfowitz said:

"That sense of what happened in Europe in World War II has shaped a lot of my views ... It's a very bad thing when people exterminate other people, and people persecute minorities. It doesn't mean you can prevent every such incident in the world, but it's also a mistake to dismiss that sort of concern as merely humanitarian and not related to real interest."[13]

Before first moving to Ithaca, in the fall of 1952 for his father's new post, the Wolfowitzes lived in Manhattan: "I was born in Brooklyn but we grew up in Manhattan, one block down on Morningside Drive ... from the President of Columbia who for part of that time was Dwight Eisenhower."[14][15] After teaching for a year at Cornell, his father took a year long sabbatical and was accompanied by his family, spending half the time at UCLA, and half at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 1957, Paul Wolfowitz lived in Israel, while his father was a visiting professor at the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion IIT), in Haifa.[12][5]

Wolfowitz took classes at Cornell University while still a student at Ithaca High School.[16] In the mid-1960s, while they were both undergraduate students at Cornell, he met Clare Selgin, who later became an anthropologist. They married in 1968, had three children, lived in Chevy Chase, Maryland, separated in 1999, and, according to some sources, became legally separated in 2001 and divorced in 2002.[10][11][5][17][18]

In late 1999, Wolfowitz began dating Shaha Ali Riza. Their relationship led to controversy later, during his presidency of the World Bank Group.[5][19]

Wolfowitz speaks five languages in addition to English; "Wolfowitz taught himself Arabic in the 1980s, when he was working at the State Department," and "He also speaks French, German, Hebrew, and Indonesian."

Cornell University

Wolfowitz entered Cornell University in 1961, on full scholarship. He was a member of the Telluride Association, a non-profit organization founded in 1910.[11] He lived in the Telluride House through academic year 1962 to 1963, while philosophy professor Allan Bloom served as a faculty mentor living in the house.[11] Schmitt observes that Wolfowitz first "became a protégé of the political philosopher Allan Bloom, and then of Albert Wohlstetter, the father of hard-line conservative strategic thinking at the University of Chicago."[13] In August 1963, "when he was nineteen, he and his mother attended the civil-rights march on Washington organized by Martin Luther King, Jr. and others".[5][11]

Though he "majored in mathematics and chemistry ... he was profoundly moved by John Hersey's Hiroshima and shifted his focus toward politics. 'One of the things that ultimately led me to leave mathematics and go into political science was thinking I could prevent nuclear war,' he said."[13]

Wolfowitz graduated in 1965 with a Bachelor's degree degree in mathematics and chemistry. Against his father's wishes, Wolfowitz decided to go to graduate school to study politics.[11]


University of Chicago

Following his graduation from Cornell, Wolfowitz attended the University of Chicago in order to study under Leo Strauss. He completed his PhD dissertation under Albert Wohlstetter. In the summer of 1969, Wohlstetter arranged for his students Wolfowitz, Wilson, and Richard Perle to join the Committee to Maintain a Prudent Defense Policy which was set up by Cold War architects Paul Nitze and Dean Acheson.

From 1970 to 1972, Wolfowitz taught in the Department of Political Science at Yale University, where one of his students was I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.[20]

In 1972, Wolfowitz earned a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago, writing his doctoral dissertation on "nuclear proliferation in the Middle East".

In the 1970s Wolfowitz served as an aide to Democratic Senator Henry M. Jackson, who influenced several neoconservatives, including Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. Jackson "was the quintessential 'Cold War liberal.' He was an outspoken and influential advocate of increased military spending and a hard line against the Soviet Union, while supporting social welfare programs, civil rights, and the labor movement."[22]

In 1972 U.S. President Richard Nixon, under pressure from Senator Jackson, dismissed the head of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) and replaced him with Fred Ikle. Ikle brought in a new team including Wolfowitz. Wolfowitz wrote research papers and drafted testimony, as he had previously done at the Committee to Maintain a Prudent Defense Policy. He traveled with Ikle to strategic arms limitations talks in Paris and other European cities. He helped dissuade South Korea from reprocessing plutonium that could be diverted into a clandestine weapons program.

Under President Gerald Ford, the American intelligence agencies had come under attack over their annually published National Intelligence Estimate. According to Mann: "The underlying issue was whether the C.I.A. and other agencies were underestimating the threat from the Soviet Union, either by intentionally tailoring intelligence to support Kissinger's policy of détente or by simply failing to give enough weight to darker interpretations of Soviet intentions." In an attempt to counter these claims, the newly appointed Director of Central Intelligence, George H.W. Bush authorized the formation of a committee of anti-Communist experts, headed by Richard Pipes, to reassess the raw data. Richard Pipes picked Wolfowitz, to serve on this committee, which came to be known as Team B: "'Richard Perle recommended him,' Pipes says of Wolfowitz today [2003, as quoted by Tanenhaus]. 'I'd never heard of him.'"[23]

The team's report, delivered in 1976 and quickly leaked to the press, stated that "All the evidence points to an undeviating Soviet commitment to what is euphemistically called the 'worldwide triumph of socialism,' but in fact connotes global Soviet hegemony," highlighting a number of key areas where they believed the government's intelligence analysts had got it wrong. According to Jack Davis, Wolfowitz observed later:

The B-Team demonstrated that it was possible to construct a sharply different view of Soviet motivation from the consensus view of the [intelligence] analysts and one that provided a much closer fit to the Soviets' observed behavior (and also provided a much better forecast of subsequent behavior up to and through the invasion of Afghanistan). The formal presentation of the competing views in a session out at [CIA headquarters in] Langley also made clear that the enormous experience and expertise of the B-Team as a group were formidable.[24]

The work of Team B, the accuracy of its conclusions, and its effects on U.S. military policies remain controversial.

In 1977, during the administration of U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Wolfowitz moved to The Pentagon. He was employed as U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Regional Programs for the U.S. Defense Department, under then U.S. Secretary of Defense Harold Brown.

In early 1980, Wolfowitz resigned from the Pentagon and went to work as a visiting professor at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University. According to the Washington Post; "He said it was not he who changed his political philosophy so much as the Democratic Party, which abandoned the hard-headed internationalism of Harry Truman, Kennedy and Jackson."

In 1980, following the election of U.S. President Ronald Reagan, the newly appointed U.S. National Security Advisor Richard V. Allen put together the administration's foreign policy advisory team. Allen initially rejected Wolfowitz’s appointment but following discussions, instigated by former colleague John Lehman, Allen offered Wolfowitz the position of Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. State Department.

President Reagan’s foreign policy was heavily influenced by the Kirkpatrick Doctrine, as outlined in a 1979 article in Commentary by Jeanne Kirkpatrick entitled "Dictatorships and Double Standards".

Although most governments in the world are, as they always have been, autocracies of one kind or another, no idea hold greater sway in the mind of educated Americans than the belief that it is possible to democratize governments, anytime, anywhere, under any circumstances.... (But) decades, if not centuries, are normally required for people to acquire the necessary disciplines and habits.

Wolfowitz broke from this official line by denouncing Saddam Hussein of Iraq at a time when Donald Rumsfeld was offering the dictator support in his conflict with Iran. James Mann points out: "quite a few neo-conservatives, like Wolfowitz, believed strongly in democratic ideals; they had taken from the philosopher Leo Strauss the notion that there is a moral duty to oppose a leader who is a 'tyrant.'" Other areas where Wolfowitz disagreed with the administration was in his opposition to attempts to open up dialogue with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and to the sale of Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft to Saudi Arabia. "In both instances," according to Mann, "Wolfowitz demonstrated himself to be one of the strongest supporters of Israel in the Reagan administration."

Mann stresses: "It was on China that Wolfowitz launched his boldest challenge to the established order." After Nixon and Kissinger had gone to China in the early 70s, U.S. policy was to make concessions to China as an essential Cold War ally. The Chinese were now pushing for the U.S. to end arms sales to Taiwan, and Wolfowitz used the Chinese incentive as an opportunity to undermine Kissinger's foreign policy toward China. Instead, Wolfowitz advocated a unilateralist policy, claiming that the U.S. did not need China’s assistance but that the Chinese needed the U.S. to protect them against the far-more-likely prospect of a Soviet invasion of the Chinese mainland. Wolfowitz soon came into conflict with U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig, who had been Kissinger’s assistant at the time of the visits to China. On March 30, 1982, The New York Times predicted that "Paul D. Wolfowitz, the director of policy planning ... will be replaced," because "Mr. Haig found Mr. Wolfowitz too theoretical." Instead, on June 25, 1982, George Schultz replaced Haig as U.S. Secretary of State, and Wolfowitz was promoted.

President of the World Bank

In March 2005, Wolfowitz was nominated to be president of the World Bank by U.S. President George W. Bush.[48] Criticism of his nomination appeared in the media.[49] Nobel Laureate in Economics and former chief economist for the World Bank Joseph Stiglitz said: "'The World Bank will once again become a hate figure. This could bring street protests and violence across the developing world.'"[50] In a speech at the U.N. Economic and Social Council, economist Jeffrey Sachs also opposed Wolfowitz: "It's time for other candidates to come forward that have experience in development. This is a position on which hundreds of millions of people depend for their lives ... Let's have a proper leadership of professionalism."

In the U.S. there was some praise for the nomination. An editorial in The Wall Street Journal states: "Mr. Wolfowitz is willing to speak the truth to power ... he saw earlier than most, and spoke publicly about, the need for dictators to plan democratic transitions. It is the world's dictators who are the chief causes of world poverty. If anyone can stand up to the Robert Mugabes of the world, it must be the man who stood up to Saddam Hussein."[52]

He was confirmed and became president on June 1, 2005. He soon attended the 31st G8 summit to discuss issues of global climate change and the economic development in Africa. When this meeting was interrupted by the July 7, 2005 London bombings, Wolfowitz was present with other world leaders at the press conference given by British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Several of Wolfowitz's initial appointments at the Bank proved controversial, including two US nationals (Robin Cleveland and Kevin Kellems) formerly with the Bush administration, whom he appointed as close advisors with $250,000 tax-free contracts.[53] Another appointee, Juan José Daboub was criticized by his colleagues and others for attempts to change policies on family planning and climate change towards a conservative line."[54][55]

Wolfowitz gave special emphasis to two particular issues. Identifying Sub-Saharan Africa as the region most challenged to improve living standards, he traveled widely in the region. He also made clear his focus on fighting corruption. Several aspects of the latter program raised controversy. Overturning the names produced by a formal search process, he appointed a figure linked to the US Republican party to head the Bank's internal watchdog. Member countries worried that Wolfowitz's willingness to suspend lending to countries on grounds of corruption was vulnerable to selective application in line with US foreign policy interests. In a debate on the proposed Governance and Anti-Corruption Strategy at the Bank's 2006 Annual Meetings, shareholders directed Wolfowitz to undertake extensive consultations and revise the strategy to show how objective measures of corruption would be incorporated into decisions and how the shareholders' representatives on the Bank's Board would play a key role. Following the consultations and revisions, the Board approved a revised strategy in spring 2007.

Wolfowitz's leadership of the World Bank Group

Beginning early in 2007, Fox News published on its website a series of investigative stories on the World Bank, based in part on leaks to Fox of internal bank documents.[71]

On April 11, 2007, Reuters and Al Kamen, in his column in The Washington Post, reported that Wolfowitz and the World Bank board had hired the Williams & Connolly law firm to oversee an investigation into the leaking of internal bank documents to Fox News.[72][73] Those reports cite an internal memo to the bank staff later posted on the internet, dated April 9, 2007, in which the World Bank's general counsel, Ana Palacio, states that the Bank's legal staff was scrutinizing two articles by investigative reporter Richard Behar published on the website of Fox News on January 31 and March 27, 2007.[74] A day after the second report published by Behar, on March 28, 2007, Kamen had disclosed that "Bank records obtained by the Government Accountability Project" documented pay raises in excess of Bank policies given to Shaha Riza[75]

On April 12, 2007 the London Financial Times reported that, in a 2005 memorandum, Wolfowitz had personally directed the Bank's human resources chief to offer Riza a large pay rise and promotion, according to two anonymous sources who told the Financial Times that they had seen the memo.[76] The memo was part of a package of 102 pages of documents publicly released by the bank on April 14, 2007.[76]

On April 14, 2007, after reviewing the 102-page document package, the Financial Times concluded that it was "a potentially fatal blow" to Wolfowitz.[76] In contrast, Fox News concluded that the new documents might offer Wolfowitz a "new lifeline" in the scandal, because the Bank's ethics committee had launched a review of the Riza compensation case in early 2006 and concluded that it did not warrant any further attention by the committee.[77]

Media speculations about Wolfowitz quitting his position as president of the World Bank intensified on April 19, 2007 after his failure to attend a high-profile meeting.[78] The controversy about Wolfowitz's girlfriend Shaha Riza led to disruption at the World Bank when some employees wore blue ribbons "in a display of defiance against his leadership."[79]

World Bank Group's board of executive directors and staffers complained also that Wolfowitz was imposing Bush Administration policies to eliminate family planning from World Bank programs. According to Nicole Gaouette, in her report published in the Los Angeles Times on April 19, 2007, Juan José Daboub—the managing director whom Wolfowitz had appointed who has also been criticized for overly-conservative policies concerning climate change[55] and "a Roman Catholic with ties to a conservative Salvadoran political party"—repeatedly deleted references to family planning from World Bank proposals.[54]

On May 14, 2007 the World Bank committee investigating the alleged ethics violations reported (in part):

  • "Mr. Wolfowitz's contract requiring that he adhere to the Code of Conduct for board officials and that he avoid any conflict of interest, real or apparent, were violated";
  • "The salary increase Ms. Riza received at Mr. Wolfowitz's direction was in excess of the range established by Rule 6.01";
  • "The ad hoc group concludes that in actuality, Mr Wolfowitz from the outset cast himself in opposition to the established rules of the institution"; and
  • "He did not accept the bank's policy on conflict of interest, so he sought to negotiate for himself a resolution different from that which would have applied to the staff he was selected to head."[80]

Wolfowitz appeared before the World Bank Group's board of executive directors to respond on Tuesday, May 15, 2007, and, the following day, on Wednesday, May 16, in another board meeting, its executive directors would "consider the report and make a statement later in the week." Adams speculates that "With Mr Wolfowitz so far refusing to step down, the board may need to take radical action to break the stalemate. Members have discussed a range of options, including sacking Mr Wolfowitz, issuing a vote of no confidence or reprimanding him. Some board members argue that a vote of no confidence would make it impossible for him to stay in the job."[81] If the World Bank's board of directors "votes him out," according to Michael Hirsh, in the May 21, 2007 issue of Newsweek, he would be "the first president dismissed in [its] 62-year history ..."[82] By mid-afternoon, Wednesday, May 16, 2007, The New York Times, reported that "after six weeks of fighting efforts to oust him as president ... Wolfowitz began today to negotiate the terms of his possible resignation, in return for the bank dropping or softening the charge that he had engaged in misconduct ..."[83] After recent expressions from the Bush administration that it "fully" supported Wolfowitz as World Bank president and its urging a "fair hearing" for him, President Bush expressed "regret" at Wolfowitz's impending resignation.[84]

On May 17, 2007, in a statement published on its website, the World Bank Group's board of Executive Directors announced that Paul Wolfowitz would resign as World Bank Group president at the end of June 2007; their statement is followed by a statement from Wolfowitz about his tenure as president and his hopes for the World Bank's future success.

Paul Dundes Wolfowitz (1943. december 22. – ), Jacob Wolfowitz matematikus fia, korábban G.W.Bush politikai tanácsadója és az Egyesült Államok védelmiminiszter-helyettese Donald Rumsfeld alatt. Wolfowitz volt a Világbank tizedik elnöke.

Apja Jacob Wolfowitz matematikus volt, aki 1920-ban követte az 1914-ben Lengyelország orosz részéről kivándorolt édesapját. Anyja Lillian Dundes. Számos rokonát a holokauszt során Lengyelországban megölték.

Leo Strauss és Albert Wohlstetter által befolyásolva Wolfowitz neokonzervatívnak számít, aki vehemensen Izrael támogatását, és – az amerikai érdekeltségek biztosítása érdekében – az erős katonai jelenlétet vallja.

Matematika és kémia tanulmányait 1965-ben a Cornell Egyetemen zárta le. A Chicago Egyetemen politikatudományokat tanult.

Wolfowitz folyamatosan váltott a politika és a tanítás területei között. Már 19661967-ben kormányzati alkalmazott volt. 1970 és 1973 között a Yale Egyetemen tanított, ebben az időben az amerikai szociáldemokratákhoz (SDUSA), akik az Amerikai Szocialista Párt (SPA) jobboldali szárnyából tevődtek össze, állt közel. 1973-tól négy éven keresztül a Fegyverzetellenőrző és Lefegyverzési Ügynökségnél szolgált, ahol a Szovjetunióval való tárgyalásokon vett részt, és a nukleáris fegyverek elterjedésének megakadályozása témán dolgozott. Disszertációja is erről szólt: Nukleáris fegyverek elterjedése a Közel-Keleten: a nukleáris vízsótalanítás (?) politikája és gazdasága[forrás?]. A téziseiből kiderül, hogy Wolfowitz az atomfegyverek ellen egy izraeli kontrollt képzelt el, mivel az arab országok szintén az atommal való felfegyverkezésben látták a jövőjüket.

2005. március 31-én a Világbank Végrehajtótanácsa, amelyben 184 tagország 24 elnökkel van képviselve, egyhangúlag választotta Paul Wolfowitzot elnökké. Nem volt ellenjelölt. 2005 márciusában jelölte őt a posztra az amerikai elnök. Régóta köztudott volt G. W. Bush kívánsága, miszerint Wolfowitz kerülne a Világbank élére. James David Wolfensohnt követte a hivatalban, aki a tízéves hivatali idő lejárta után 2005. június 1-jén leköszönt posztjáról.

Hagyományosan az USA – mint legnagyobb résztulajdonos – jelöli a Világbank elnökét, miközben a Nemzetközi Valutaalap (IMF) üzletvezetői igazgatóját a szabályok szerint az európaiak nevezik meg.

Wolfowitz jelölése az USA-ban, viszont különösen Európában jelentős kételkedéseket váltott ki. Attól tartottak, hogy Wolfowitz a Világbankot az amerikai érdekek előtérbe helyezésével, a szegényebb országok kárára fogja kormányozni, továbbá Wolfowitz nem rendelkezett megfelelő tapasztalattal a nemzetközi fejlesztéspolitika terén sem. Wolfowitznak sikerült a kételyeket hamar szétoszlatni, amikor Brüsszelben európai fejlesztési politikusokkal ismertette programját – újdonság az intézmény történetében. Hangsúlyozta, hogy nem fog semmilyen konkrét forgatókönyv alapján dolgozni, hanem a Világbankot minden tag értelmében kívánja vezetni.

Wolfowitz elismerte, hogy „hibázott”[1], amikor 2005-ben élettársának és egyben alkalmazottjának Shaha Ali Rizanak jelentős béremelést, illetve pozíció emelkedést biztosított. A Világbank Elnöksége utalásainak következtében Wolfowitz 2007. június 30-án hagyta el a hivatalt.

2009. január 25., vasárnap

Eugène Ionesco

Eugène Ionesco, born Eugen Ionescu (November 26, 1909March 28, 1994), was a Romanian and French playwright and dramatist, one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd. Beyond ridiculing the most banal situations, Ionesco's plays depict in a tangible way the solitude and insignificance of human existence.
He spent most of his childhood in France, and, while there, had an experience he claimed affected his perception of the world more significantly than any other. As Deborah B. Gaensbauer describes in Eugene Ionesco Revisited, "Walking in summer sunshine in a white-washed provincial village under an intense blue sky, [Ionesco] was profoundly altered by the light."[3] He was struck very suddenly with a feeling of intense luminosity, the feeling of floating off the ground and an overwhelming feeling of well-being. When he "floated" back to the ground and the "light" left him, he saw that the real world in comparison was full of decay, corruption and meaningless repetitive action. This also coincided with the revelation that death takes everyone in the end.[4]Much of his later work, reflecting this new perception, demonstrates a disgust for the tangible world, a distrust of communication, and the subtle sense that a better world lies just beyond our reach. Echoes of this experience can also be seen in references and themes in many of his important works: characters pining for an unattainable "city of lights" (The Killer, The Chairs) or perceiving a world beyond (A Stroll in the Air); characters granted the ability to fly (A Stroll in the Air, Amédée); the banality of the world which often leads to depression (the Bérenger character); ecstatic revelations of beauty within a pessimistic framework (Amédée, The Chairs, the Bérenger character); and the inevitability of death (Exit the King).
He returned to Romania with his father in 1925 after his parents divorced. There he attended Saint Sava National College, after which he studied French Literature at the University of Bucharest from 1928 to 1933 and qualified as a teacher of French. While there he met Emil Cioran and Mircea Eliade, and the three became lifelong friends.
In 1936 Ionesco married Rodica Burileanu. Together they had one daughter for whom he wrote a number of unconventional children's stories. He and his family returned to France in 1938 for him to complete his Doctoral Thesis. Caught by the outbreak of World War II in 1939, he remained there, living in Marseille during the war before moving with his family to Paris after its liberation in 1944.
Ionesco was made a member of the Académie française in 1970 [2]. He also received numerous awards including Tours Festival Prize for film, 1959; Prix Italia, 1963; Society of Authors Theatre Prize, 1966; Grand Prix National for theatre, 1969; Monaco Grand Prix, 1969; Austrian State Prize for European Literature, 1970; Jerusalem Prize, 1973; and honorary Doctoral Degrees from New York University and the Universities of Leuven, Warwick and Tel Aviv. Eugène Ionesco died at age 84 on March 29, 1994 and is buried in the Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris. Although Ionesco wrote almost entirely in French, he is one of Romania's most honored artists.
Though best known as a playwright, plays were not his first chosen medium. He started writing poetry and criticism, publishing in several Romanian journals. Two early writings of note are Nu, a book criticizing many other writers including prominent Romanian poets, and Hugoliade, or, The grotesque and tragic life of Victor Hugo a satirical biography mocking Victor Hugo's status as a great figure in French literature. The Hugoliade includes exaggerated retellings of the most scandalous episodes in Hugo's life and contains prototypes for many of Ionesco's later themes: the ridiculous authoritarian character, the false worship of language.Like Samuel Beckett, Ionesco came to the theatre late: he did not write his first play until 1948 (La Cantatrice chauve, first performed in 1950 with the English title The Bald Soprano). At the age of 40 he decided to learn English using the Assimil method, conscientiously copying whole sentences in order to memorize them. Re-reading them, he began to feel that he was not learning English, rather he was discovering some astonishing truths such as the fact that there are seven days in a week, that the ceiling is up and the floor is down; things which he already knew, but which suddenly struck him as being as stupefying as they were indisputably true[citation needed].
This feeling only intensified with the introduction in later lessons of the characters known as "Mr. and Mrs. Smith". To his astonishment, Mrs. Smith informed her husband that they had several children, that they lived in the vicinity of London, that their name was Smith, that Mr. Smith was a clerk, that they had a servant, Mary, who was English like themselves. What was remarkable about Mrs. Smith, he thought, was her eminently methodical procedure in her quest for truth. For Ionesco, the clichés and truisms of the conversation primer disintegrated into wild caricature and parody with language itself disintegrating into disjointed fragments of words. Ionesco set about translating this experience into a play, La Cantatrice Chauve, which was performed for the first time in 1950 under the direction of Nicolas Bataille. It was far from a success and went unnoticed until a few established writers and critics, among them Jean Anouilh and Raymond Queneau, championed the play.
Ionesco's earliest works, and his most innovative, were one-act nonsense plays: La Cantatrice chauve (1950), La Leçon translated as The Lesson (1951), Les Chaises translated as The Chairs (1952), and Jacques ou la soumission translated as Jack, or The Submission (1955). These absurdist sketches, to which he gave such descriptions as "anti-play" (anti-pièce in French) express modern feelings of alienation and the impossibility and futility of communication with surreal comic force, parodying the conformism of the bourgeoisie and conventional theatrical forms. In them Ionesco rejects a conventional story-line as their basis, instead taking their dramatic structure from accelerating rhythms and/or cyclical repetitions. He disregards psychology and coherent dialogue, thereby depicting a dehumanized world with mechanical, puppet-like characters who speak in non-sequiturs. Language becomes rarefied, with words and material objects gaining a life of their own, increasingly overwhelming the characters and creating a sense of menace.
With Tueur sans gages translated as The Killer (1959; his second full-length play, the first being Amédée, ou Comment s'en débarrasser in 1954), Ionesco began to explore more sustained dramatic situations featuring more humanized characters. Notably this includes Bérenger, a central character in a number of Ionesco's plays, the last of which is Le Piéton de l'air translated as A Stroll in the Air.
Bérenger is a semi-autobiographical figure expressing Ionesco's wonderment and anguish at the strangeness of reality. He is comically naïve, engaging the audience's sympathy. In The Killer he encounters death in the figure of a serial killer. In Rhinocéros he watches his friends turning into rhinoceri one by one until he alone stands unchanged against this tide of conformism. It is in this play that Ionesco most forcefully expresses his horror of ideological conformism, inspired by the rise of the fascist Iron Guard in Romania in the 1930s. Le Roi se meurt translated as Exit the King (1962) shows him as King Bérenger 1st, an everyman figure who struggles to come to terms with his own death.
Ionesco's later work has generally received less attention. This includes La Soif et la faim translated as Hunger and Thirst (1966), Jeux de massacre (1971), Macbett (1972, a free adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth) and Ce formidable bordel (1973).
Apart from the libretto for the opera Maximilien Kolbe (music by Dominique Probst) which has been performed in five countries, filmed for television and recorded for release on CD, Ionesco did not write for the stage after Voyage chez les morts in 1981. However, La Cantatrice chauve is still playing at the Théâtre de la Huchette today, having moved there in 1952.
Like Shaw and Brecht, Ionesco also contributed to the theatre with his theoretical writings (Wellwarth, 33). Ionesco wrote mainly in attempts to correct critics who he felt misunderstood his work and therefore wrongly influenced his audience. In doing so, Ionesco articulated ways in which he thought contemporary theatre should be reformed (Wellwarth, 33). Notes and Counter Notes is a collection of Ionesco's writings, including musings on why he chose to write for the theatre and direct responses to his contemporary critics.
In the first section, titled "Experience of the Theatre", Ionesco claimed to have hated going to the theatre as a child because it gave him "no pleasure or feeling of participation" (Ionesco, 15). He wrote that the problem with realistic theatre is that it is less interesting than theatre that invokes an "imaginative truth", which he found to be much more interesting and freeing than the "narrow" truth presented by strict realism (Ionesco, 15). He claimed that "drama that relies on simple effects is not necessarily drama simplified" (Ionesco, 28). Notes and Counter Notes also reprints a heated war of words between Ionesco and Kenneth Tynan based on Ionesco's above stated beliefs and Ionesco's hatred for Brecht and Brechtian theatre.
Ionesco is often considered a writer of the Theatre of the Absurd. This is a label originally given to him by Martin Esslin in his book of the same name, placing Ionesco alongside such contemporary writers as Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, and Arthur Adamov. Esslin called them "absurd" based on Albert Camus' concept of the absurd, claiming that Beckett and Ionesco better captured the meaninglessness of existence in their plays than in work by Camus or Sartre. Because of this loose association, Ionesco is often mislabeled an existentialist. Ionesco claimed in Notes and Counter Notes that he was not an existentialist and often criticized existentialist figurehead Jean-Paul Sartre. Although Ionesco knew Beckett and honored his work, the French group of playwrights was far from an organized movement.
Ionesco claimed instead an affinity for ’Pataphysics and its creator Alfred Jarry. He was also a great admirer of the Dadaists and Surrealists, especially his fellow countryman Tristan Tzara. Ionesco became friends with the founder of Surrealism, André Breton, whom he revered. In Present Past, Past Present, Ionesco wrote, "Breton taught us to destroy the walls of the real that separate us from reality, to participate in being so as to live as if it were the first day of creation, a day that would every day be the first day of new creations." [5] Raymond Queneau, a former associate of Breton and a champion of Ionesco's work, was a member of the Collège de ’Pataphysique and a founder of Oulipo, two groups with which Ionesco was associated.
Eugène Ionesco (1909. november 26., Slatina, Románia1994. március 29., Párizs) román-francia származású francia író, az abszurd dráma és az abszurd színház egyik megteremtője. A Patafizikai Társaság egyik tagja.
1909. november 26-án látta meg a napvilágot az Olt megyei Slatina városában, Romániában. Apja román, míg anyja francia zsidó volt, így gyermekkorának jelentős részét Franciaországban tölthette, de a szülei válása után, 1925-ben visszatért apjával Romániába. A bukaresti egyetemen szerzett francia nyelvtanári diplomát 1933-ban, diplomamunkáját a francia irodalomról írta. Az egyetemen ismerkedett meg és lett életreszóló barátja Emil Cioran és Mircea Eliade.
1936-ban nősült meg, házasságából egy lánya született. 1938-ban családjával visszatért Franciaországba, hogy anyagot gyűjthessen a doktori cím megszerzéséhez szükséges munkájához. A II. világháború ezen gyűjtőmunka közben érte őket, ezért úgy döntöttek, hogy maradnak, Marseille-ben telepedtek le. Párizs 1944-es felszabadítása után nem sokkal azonban a tengerpartról a francia fővárosba költöztek. 1948-ban egy angol nyelvkönyv példamondatainak tanulmányozása közben döbbent rá a kispolgári lét abszurditására. Első abszurd darabját A kopasz énekesnő-t is ebben az évben írta, mely 1950-ben került színpadra, megteremtve ezzel az abszurd színház világát, ugyanis a darab színpadi rendezése is a könyvből áradó abszurditást tükrözte. (Egész addigi és azt követő életében is ódzkodott a „rendes” színházaktól). 1967-ben látogatást tett Izraelben, ezután tudomásul vette a félzsidó származását firtató pletykákat és híreszteléseket.
1970-ben az Académie française (Francia Akadémia) rendes tagjává választotta[1]. 1994. március 29-én, életének 84. évében érte a halál.
Mivel szinte kizárólag francia nyelven írt, joggal tekintik – félig román származása ellenére – francia írónak. Romániában ma az egyik legnagyobb tiszteletnek örvendő szerző.
Még életében díszdoktora lett a New York-i, a leuveni, a warwicki és a tel avivi egyetemnek, illetve számos díjat is kapott, közülük a legismertebbek:
a Tours Fesztivál filmdíja, 1959
Prix Italia, 1963
az íróközösség színházdíja, 1966
nemzeti nagydíj a színházért, 1969
monacói fődíj, 1969
osztrák állami kitüntetés az európai irodalomért tett szolgálatai elismeréséül, (1970)
Jeruzsálem-díj, 1973

2009. január 24., szombat

Friedensreich Hundertwasser

Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser, born Friedrich Stowasser, (December 15, 1928 – February 19, 2000) was an Austrian painter, architect and sculptor. Born in Vienna, he became one of the best-known contemporary Austrian artists, although controversial, by the end of the 20th century.
Hundertwasser's original and unruly artistic vision expressed itself in pictorial art, environmentalism, philosophy, and design of facades, postage stamps, flags, and clothing (among other areas). The common themes in his work utilised bright colours, organic forms, a reconciliation of humans with nature, and a strong individualism, rejecting straight lines. He remains sui generis, although his architectural work is comparable to Antoni Gaudí in its biomorphic forms and use of tile. He was inspired by the works of Egon Schiele from an early date, and his style was often compared to that of Gustav Klimt. He was fascinated with spirals, and called straight lines "the devil's tools". He called his theory of art "transautomatism", based on Surrealist automatism, but focusing on the experience of the viewer, rather than the artist.
His adopted surname is based on the translation of Sto (the [Slavic] word for "one hundred") into German. The name Friedensreich has a double meaning as "Peaceland" or "Peacerich" (in the sense of "peaceful"). The other names he chose for himself, Regentag and Dunkelbunt, translate to "Rainy day" and "Darkly multicoloured". His name Friedensreich Hundertwasser means, "Peace-Kingdom Hundred-Water". Although Hundertwasser first achieved notoriety for his boldly-coloured paintings, he is more widely renowned today for his revolutionary architectural designs, which incorporate natural features of the landscape, and use of irregular forms in his building design. Hundertwasserhaus, a low-income apartment block in Vienna, features undulating floors ("an uneven floor is a melody to the feet"), a roof covered with earth and grass, and large trees growing from inside the rooms, with limbs extending from windows. He took no payment for the design of Hundertwasserhaus, declaring that it was worth it, to "prevent something ugly from going up in its place".

He felt that standard architecture could not be called art, and declared that the design of any building should be influenced by the aesthetics of its eventual tenants. Hundertwasser was also known for his performance art, in which he would, for instance, appear in public in the nude promoting an ecologically friendly flush-less toilet.
On July 4, 1958 he read his celebrated and controversial Verschimmelungs-Manifest, the so-called Mould Manifesto against rationalism in architecture, in the abbey of Seckau. "A person in a rented apartment must be able to lean out of his window and scrape off the masonry within arm's reach. And he must be allowed to take a long brush and paint everything outside within arm's reach. So that it will be visible from afar to everyone in the street that someone lives there who is different from the imprisoned, enslaved, standardised man who lives next door."
In 1972 he published the manifesto Your window right — your tree duty: planting trees in an urban environments was to become obligatory: "If man walks in nature's midst, then he is nature's guest and must learn to behave as a well-brought-up guest."

His work has been used for flags, stamps, coins, posters, schools, churches, a public toilet in Kawakawa in his adopted home of New Zealand, and apartment buildings. His most famous flag is the Koru Flag; he has also designed stamps for the Cape Verde islands and for the United Nations post administration in Geneva on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In 1999 he started his last project named Die Grüne Zitadelle von Magdeburg. Although he never finished this work completely, the building was put up a few years later in Magdeburg, a town in central Germany, and finally opened on October 3, 2005.
An art gallery featuring his work will be established in a council building in Whangarei, New Zealand, and will bring to fruition his 1993 plans for improving the building.[1]
Hundertwasser considered New Zealand as his official home, and no matter where he went in the world, his watch was always set to New Zealand time. That finally became the place he was buried after his death at sea on the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 in 2000.
Some Hundertwasser buildings:
Markthalle, Altenrhein, Switzerland
District Heating Plant Spittelau, Vienna, Austria
Hundertwasser House, Vienna, Austria
Hundertwasserhaus Waldspirale, Darmstadt, Germany
KunstHausWien, Vienna, Austria
Kindergarten Heddernheim, Frankfurt
Motorway Restaurant, Bad Fischau-Brunn, Austria
Hot Springs Village, Bad Blumau, Styria, Austria
Hundertwasserkirche, Baernbach, Styria, Austria
Wohnen unterm Regenturm, Plochingen, Germany
Quixote Winery, Napa Valley, (USA), 1992-1999 (his only building in the US)
Maishima Incineration Plant, Osaka (Japan), 1997-2000
Public toilet, Kawakawa (New Zealand), 1999
Hundertwasser "environmental railway station", Uelzen (Germany), 1999-2001
Die Grüne Zitadelle von Magdeburg, Magdeburg, Germany, 2003-2005
Ronald Mcdonald Kinder Vallei,Valkenburg, Holland
Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser (eredetileg Friedrich Stowasser) (Bécs, 1928. december 15.Új-Zéland közelében, 2000. február 19.)
Osztrák építész, festő és filozófus. „Sto” cseh nyelven azt jelenti: „száz”, ezt németesítette művésznevében, melynek jelentése „száz víz”. A Friedensreich jelentése béketeli, Regentag: esős nap (egyébként saját hajójának a neve is, amelyen lakott), Dunkelbunt: sötéttarka.
Építészete az organikus építészethez tartozik, melyet leginkább Antonio Gaudíéhoz lehet kötni. Jelentős filozófiai hitvallás van építészete mögött, mellyel az embert vissza akarja részben téríteni a természethez. Nagy hatással volt rá a bécsi szecesszió építészete is.
1948-1949 között tanulmányokat folytatott a bécsi Művészeti Akadémián, nevét ekkoriban változtatja meg.
1949-ben Olaszországba utazott.
1950-ben rövid időt Párizsban töltött.
1951-ben ellátogatott Marokkóba és Tunéziába.
1967-től nagy példányszámban keltek el grafikái és plakátjai.
1981-ben professzori kinevezésben részesült Bécsben (Akademie der bildenden Künste).
1991-ben Bécsben megnyílt a Hundertwassermuseum.
2000-ben, 72 éves korában, Új-Zéland közelében, szívroham következtében hunyt el a Queen Elizabeth II nevű hajón. Több levélbélyeget készített a Zöldfoki-szigeteknek, az ENSZ postahivatala (New York, Genf és Bécs) részére, az Emberi Jogok Egyetemes Nyilatkozatának 35. évfordulója alkalmából (1983), Liechtensteinnek (1993 és 2000), Luxemburgnak (1995), Franciaországnak (Európa Tanács szolgálati bélyeg, 1994) és Ausztriának (osztrák modern művészet témakör, 1975). Az Osztrák Posta további Hundertwasser-motívumokat használt fel az Európa-sorozatban (1987, modern építészet kategóriába bekerült a Hundertwasser-ház), valamint 2000-ben bekövetkezett halálát követően.
Épületei
Hundertwasserhaus (Bécs, Ausztria), 1983-1986
Rosenthal Selb (gyárépület, Németország), 1980-1982
Rupertinum Salzburg (Zungenbart), 1980-1987
Mierka Getreidesilo (Krems), 1982-1983
St.Barbara templom (Bärnbach), 1987-1988
Skanzen, Roiten, 1987-1988
Textilgyár Rueff Muntlix, 1988
Gyermekmegörző Frankfurt-Heddernheim (D), 1988-1995
Távfütő Wien/Spittelau, 1988-1997
Autópálypihenő-étterem Bad Fischau, 1989-1990
KunstHausWien, 1989-1991
Village beim Hundertwasser-KrawinaHaus Wien, 1990-1991
„In den Wiesen” Bad Soden am Taunus (D), 1990-1993
„Wohnen unterm Regenturm” Plochingen am Neckar (D), 1991-1994
Countdown 21st Century Monument for TBS Tokyo (J), 1992
Fontaines Zwettl, 1992-1994
Pavillon beim DDSG Ponton Wien, 1992-1994
Quixote Winery Napa Valley (USA), 1992-1999
SpiralflussTrinkbrunnen I Linz, 1993-1994
Hôpital (Oncologie) Graz, 1993-1994
Thermendorf Blumau, 1993-1997
SpiralflussTrinkbrunnen II Tel Aviv (IL), 1994-1996
Kid's Plaza Ōsaka (J), 1996-1997
Martin-Luther-Gymnasium Wittenberg (D), 1997-1999
Maishima Incineration Plant Ōsaka (J), 1997-2000
Darmstadt Waldspirale
Waldspirale Darmstadt (D), 1998-2000
Piac Altenrhein (CH), 1998-2001
Nyilvános WC Kawakawa (NZ), 1999
Környezetbarát pályaudvar, Hundertwasser Uelzen (D), 1999-2001
Maishima Sludge Center Ōsaka (J), 2000- -építés alatt
Grüne Zitadelle Magdeburg (D), 2004-2005
Ronald McDonald Hundertwasserhaus Essen/Grugapark (D), 2005

2009. január 18., vasárnap

Theodor Herzl

Theodor Herzl (Hebrew: בנימין זאב הרצל‎ (Binyamin Ze'ev Herzl)) (May 2, 1860–July 3, 1904) was a Hungarian Jewish journalist who was the father of modern political Zionism.
Herzl was born in Pest, the Kingdom of Hungary (today the eastern half of Budapest, then a separate city) to a Jewish family originally from Zemun, the Kingdom of Hungary (today in Serbia). When Theodor was 18 his family moved to Vienna, Austria-Hungary. There, he studied law, but he devoted himself almost exclusively to journalism and literature, working as a correspondent for the Neue Freie Presse in Paris, occasionally making special trips to London and Istanbul. Later, he became literary editor of Neue Freie Presse,and wrote several comedies and dramas for the Viennese stage.
As a young man, Herzl was engaged in a Burschenschaft association, which strove for German unity under the motto Ehre, Freiheit, Vaterland ("Honor, Freedom, Fatherland"), and his early work did not focus on Jewish life. His work was of the feuilleton order, descriptive rather than political.
As the Paris correspondent for Neue Freie Presse, Herzl followed the Dreyfus Affair, a notorious anti-Semitic incident in France in which a French Jewish army captain was falsely convicted of spying for Germany. He witnessed mass rallies in Paris following the Dreyfus trial where many chanted "Death to the Jews!" Herzl came to reject his early ideas regarding Jewish emancipation and assimilation, and to believe that the Jews must remove themselves from Europe and create their own state.[1]
In June, 1895, he wrote in his diary: "In Paris, as I have said, I achieved a freer attitude toward anti-Semitism... Above all, I recognized the emptiness and futility of trying to 'combat' anti-Semitism." In Der Judenstaat he writes:
"The Jewish question persists wherever Jews live in appreciable numbers. Wherever it does not exist, it is brought in together with Jewish immigrants. We are naturally drawn into those places where we are not persecuted, and our appearance there gives rise to persecution. This is the case, and will inevitably be so, everywhere, even in highly civilised countries—see, for instance, France—so long as the Jewish question is not solved on the political level. The unfortunate Jews are now carrying the seeds of anti-Semitism into England; they have already introduced it into America."[2]
From April, 1896, when the English translation of his Der Judenstaat (The State of the Jews) appeared, Herzl became the leading spokesman for Zionism.
Herzl complemented his writing with practical work to promote Zionism on the international stage. He visited Istanbul in April, 1896, and was hailed at Sofia, Bulgaria, by a Jewish delegation. In London, the Maccabees group received him coldly, but he was granted the mandate of leadership from the Zionists of the East End of London. Within six months this mandate had been approved throughout Zionist Jewry, and Herzl traveled constantly to draw attention to his cause. His supporters, at first few in number, worked night and day, inspired by Herzl's example.
In June 1896, he met for the first time with the Sultan of Turkey, but the Sultan refused to cede Palestine to Zionists, saying, "if one day the Islamic State falls apart then you can have Palestine for free, but as long as I am alive I would rather have my flesh be cut up than cut out Palestine from the Muslim land."[3]
In 1897, at considerable personal expense, he founded Die Welt of Vienna, Austria-Hungary and planned the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland. He was elected president (a position he held until his death in 1904), and in 1898 he began a series of diplomatic initiatives intended to build support for a Jewish country. He was received by the German emperor on several occasions, was again granted an audience by the Ottoman emperor in Jerusalem, and attended The Hague Peace Conference, enjoying a warm reception by many other statesmen.
In 1902–03 Herzl was invited to give evidence before the British Royal Commission on Alien Immigration. The appearance brought him into close contact with members of the British government, particularly with Joseph Chamberlain, then secretary of state for the colonies, through whom he negotiated with the Egyptian government for a charter for the settlement of the Jews in Al 'Arish, in the Sinai Peninsula, adjoining southern Palestine.
On the failure of that scheme, which took him to Cairo, he received, through L. J. Greenberg, an offer (August 1903) on the part of the British government to facilitate a large Jewish settlement, with autonomous government and under British suzerainty, in British East Africa. At the same time, the Zionist movement being threatened by the Russian government, he visited St. Petersburg and was received by Sergei Witte, then finance minister, and Viacheslav Plehve, minister of the interior, the latter of whom placed on record the attitude of his government toward the Zionist movement. On that occasion Herzl submitted proposals for the amelioration of the Jewish position in Russia. He published the Russian statement, and brought the British offer, commonly known as the "Uganda Project," before the Sixth Zionist Congress (Basel, August 1903), carrying the majority (295:178, 98 abstentions) with him on the question of investigating this offer, after the Russian delegation stormed out.
In 1905, after investigation, the Congress decided to decline the British offer and firmly committed itself to a Jewish homeland in the historic Land of Israel.
Herzl did not live to see the rejection of the Uganda plan; he died in Edlach, Lower Austria in 1904 of heart failure at age 44. His will stipulated that he should have the poorest-class funeral without speeches or flowers and he added, "I wish to be buried in the vault beside my father, and to lie there till the Jewish people shall take my remains to Palestine".[4] In 1949 his remains were moved from Vienna to be reburied on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.
Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State, 1896) written in German, was the book that announced the advent of Zionism to the world. It is a pamphlet-length political program.
His last literary work, Altneuland (in Eng. The Old New Land), is a novel devoted to Zionism. The author occupied his free time for three years in writing what he believed might be accomplished by 1923. It is less a novel, though the form is that of romance, than a serious forecasting of what could be done within one generation. The keynotes of the story are the love for Zion, the insistence upon the fact that the changes in life suggested are not utopian, but are to be brought about simply by grouping all the best efforts and ideals of every race and nation; and each such effort is quoted and referred to in such a manner as to show that Altneuland, though blossoming through the skill of the Jew, will in reality be the product of the benevolent efforts of all the members of the human family.
Herzl envisioned a Jewish state which combined both a modern Jewish culture with the best of the European heritage. Thus a Palace of Peace would be built in Jerusalem, arbitrating international disputes—but at the same time the Temple would be rebuilt, but on modern principles. He did not envision the Jewish inhabitants of the state being religious, but there is much respect for religion in the public sphere. Many languages are spoken—Hebrew is not the main tongue. Proponents of a Jewish cultural rebirth, such as Ahad Ha'am were critical of Altneuland.
In Altneuland Herzl did not foresee any conflict between Jews and Arabs. The one Arab character in Altneuland, Reshid Bey, who is one of the leaders of the "New Society", is very grateful to his Jewish neighbors for improving the economic condition of Palestine and sees no cause for conflict. All non-Jews have equal rights, and an attempt by a fanatical rabbi to disenfranchise the non-Jewish citizens of their rights fails in the election which is the center of the main political plot of the novel.
Altneuland was written primarily for the world, not for the Zionists. Herzl wanted to win over non-Jewish opinion for Zionism.[5] In his diary he wrote that land in Palestine was to be gently expropriated from the Palestinian Arabs and they were to be worked across the border "unbemerkt" (surreptitiously), e.g. by refusing them employment.[5] Herzl's draft of a charter for a Jewish-Ottoman Land Company (JOLC) gave the JOLC the right to obtain land in Palestine by giving its owners comparable land elsewhere in the Ottoman empire. According to Walid Khalidi this indicates Herzl's "bland assumption of the transfer of the Palestinian to make way for the immigrant colonist."[6]
The name of Tel Aviv is the title given to the Hebrew translation of Altneuland by the translator, Nahum Sokolov. This name, which comes from Ezekiel 3:15, means tell—an ancient mound formed when a town is built on its own debris for thousands of years—of spring. The name was later applied to the new town built outside of Jaffa, which went on to become the second-largest city in Israel. Nearby is Herzlia, named in honor of Herzl.
Herzl's grandfathers, both of whom he knew, were more closely related to traditional Judaism than his parents, yet two of his paternal grandfather's brothers and his maternal grandmother's brother exemplify complete estrangement and rejection of Judaism on the one hand, and utter loyalty and devotion to Judaism and Eretz Israel. Herzl's paternal grandfather Simon Loeb Herzl, reportedly attended the Sephardic Zionist Rabbi Judah Alkalai's synagogue in Semlin, Serbia, and the two frequently visited. Grandfather Simon Loeb Herzl "had his hands on" one of the first copies of Alkalay's 1857 work prescribing the "return of the Jews to the Holy Land and renewed glory of Jerusalem." Contemporary scholars conclude that Herzl's own implementation of modem Zionism was undoubtedly influenced by that relationship.[7] Herzl’s grandparents' graves in Semlin can still be visited.[8] Alkalai himself, was witness to the rebirth of Serbia from Ottoman rule in the early and mid 19th century, and was inspired by the Serbian uprising and subsequent re-creation of Serbia.
Jacob Herzl (1835-1902), Theodor's father, was a highly successful businessman. Herzl's mother, Jeanette (née Diamant) was a handsome and wise woman. She took pride in her son, but did not have a successful relationship with her daughter-in-law. Herzl had one sister, Pauline, a year older than he was, who died suddenly on February 7, 1878 of typhus.[9] Theodor lived with his family in a house next to the Dohány Street Synagogue (formerly known as Tabakgasse Synagogue) located in Belváros, the inner city of the historical old town of Pest, in the eastern section of Budapest[10][11]. The remains of Herzl's parents and sister were re-buried on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.
In 1889 he married Julie Naschauer, daughter of a wealthy Jewish businessman in Vienna. The marriage was unhappy, although three children were born to it. Herzl had a strong attachment to his mother, who was unable to get along with his wife. These difficulties were increased by the political activities of his later years, in which his wife took little interest.[12]
All three children died tragically.
Pauline suffered from mental illness and drug addiction. She died in 1930 at the age of 40, apparently of a morphine overdose. Hans, a converted Catholic, committed suicide (gunshot) the day of sister Pauline's funeral.[13] He was 39. In 2006 the remains of Pauline and Hans were moved from Bordeaux, France, and placed alongside their father.,[14] .[15]
The youngest daughter, Trude Margarethe, (officially Margarethe, 1893-1943) married Richard Neumann. He lost his fortune in the economic depression. He was burdened by the steep costs of hospitalizing Trude, who was mentally ill, and was finding it difficult to raise the money required to send his son Stephan, 14, to a boarding school in London. After spending many years in hospitals, Trude was taken by the Nazis to Theresienstadt where she died. Her body was burned.[13]
Trude's son (Herzl's only grandchild), Stephan Theodor Neumann (1918-1946) was sent to England, 1937-1938, for his safety, as rabid Austrian anti-Semitism grew. In England, he read extensively about his grandfather. Stephan became an ardent Zionist. He was the only immediate descendant of Herzl to be a Zionist. Anglicizing his name to Stephen Norman, during WWII, Norman enlisted in the British Army rising to the rank of Captain in the Royal Artillery. In late 1945 and early 1946, he took the opportunity to visit the British Mandate of Palestine "to see what my grandfather had started." He wrote in his diary extensively about his trip. What impressed him the most was that there was a "look of freedom" in the faces of the children, not like the sallow look of those from the concentration camps of Europe. He wrote upon leaving Palestine, "My visit to Palestine is over... It is said that to go away is to die a little. And I know that when I went away from Erez Israel, I died a little. But sure, then, to return is somehow to be reborn. And I will return."
Once discharged from the military in Britain, he took a minor position with a British Economic and Scientific mission in Washington, D.C. in Autumn 1946, where he learned that his family had been exterminated. He became deeply depressed over the fate of his family and the seemingly eternal suffering of the Jews, continuing with the survivors of the Holocaust languishing in European displaced persons camps. Unable to endure the suffering any further, he jumped from the Massachusetts Avenue Bridge in Washington, D.C. to his death. Norman was buried by the Jewish Agency in Washington, D.C. His tombstone reads simply, 'Stephen Theodore Norman, Captain Royal Artillery British Army, Grandson of Theodore Herzl, April 21, 1918 - November 26, 1946'.[16] Norman was the only member of Herzl's family to have been to Palestine. He loved the land and the people. A major Zionist effort is underway to return the last descendant and only Zionist in Herzl's family to be reburied with his family on Mt. Herzl on December 5, 2007.
Herzl Tivadar Pesten született egy Dohány utcai házban. Itt ma a Zsidó Múzeum és a nagy zsinagóga egyik fő épületszárnya van. A múzeum falán emléktábla őrzi, hogy itt született a Zsidó Állam megálmodója.
A politikus és író, a Zsidó Állam megálmodója, a cionista politika atyja, a Cionista Világszervezet megalapítója neológ zsidó légkörben nevelkedett. Középiskolai tanulmányait a Budapesti Evangélikus Gimnáziumban fejezte be.
1878-ban családjával Bécsbe költözött, ahol az egyetemen jogot és irodalmat tanult. 1884-ben szerzett jogi doktorátust. 1891-ben a Neue Freie Presse c. bécsi lap párizsi tudósítója lett.

Párizsban érte az igazi nagy megrázkódtatás: ő tudósította lapját a Dreyfus-ügyről és megtapasztalta a per kapcsán erőteljesen megnyilvánuló antiszemitizmust.
Az első cionista kongresszust, amely 1897-ben volt, Herzl Tivadar szervezte és ez később elnökévé választotta. Ezt a tisztséget haláláig viselte. Útjának elején kudarcok érték, amikor megpróbálta rávenni a leggazdagabb zsidókat, hogy támogassák a cionista elképzelések megvalósítását. A siker akkor következett be, amikor a kelet-európai zsidó tömegek felé fordult, akik igent mondtak kezdeményezésére és elfogadták őt vezetőnek.
Apja mellé temették Döblingben, de földi maradványait – végakaratának megfelelően – 1950-ben Izraelbe vitték és Jeruzsálemben temették el.
Herzl és Heltai Jenő unokatestvérek voltak.
PageRank Kereső optimalizálás
 
PageRank Kereső optimalizálás