Hungary, 1897–1943 Kerényi was born in
Temesvár, Kingdom of Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now Timișoara, Romania), to Hungarian parents of partly German origin. His father's family was of
Swabian peasant descent. His mother was Karolina Halász. Kerényi learnt German as a foreign language at school, and later chose it as his language for scientific work. He identified himself with the city of
Arad, where he attended secondary school, because of its liberal spirits as the city of the
13 martyrs of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848/49. He moved on to study classical philology at the
University of Budapest where he mostly appreciated the teaching of the Latinist Géza Némethy as well as of the Indo-Germanist Josef Schmidt. After graduation, he travelled extensively in the Mediterranean region and spent time as a visiting student at the Universities of
Greifswald,
Berlin and
Heidelberg, learning from the professors of antiquity and classical philology:
Eduard Norden,
Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff and
Franz Boll. In 1919, Kerényi earned his doctorate in Budapest with a dissertation on
Plato and Longinus, Investigations in Classical Literary and Aesthetic History. Subsequently, he taught Greek and Latin in a secondary school. He earned his postdoctoral lecture qualification (
habilitation) in 1927, and was asked in 1934 to become a professor of classical philology and ancient history
(Griechische und Lateinische Philologie und Alte Geschichte) at the
University of Pécs. In Budapest, he continued to lecture as
private docent on the history of religions, classical literature and mythology. These were weekly events that were attended by many intellectuals because of their liberal connotations. After Hungary experienced a
strong move to the political right in 1940, the University system was reformed, submitting itself to political pressure. Professors who did not subordinate themselves were concentrated at the
University of Szeged. Correspondingly, Kerényi was sent there in 1941 against his will, to teach
classical antiquity. The liberal, pro-western prime minister
Miklós Kállay attempted in 1943 to reverse the Nazi-friendly politics of the prior years. He started to send liberal scientists who had already made themselves a name to Western Europe, to show that a liberal, anti-fascist Hungary also existed. As part of this push, the foreign ministry offered Kerényi the opportunity to spend a year in Switzerland with diplomatic status. He accepted on condition that he would stay in
Ticino, on the shore of
Lago Maggiore, instead of the capital Bern. When the Germans
entered Hungary in 1944 and installed a right-wing government, Kerényi returned his passport. Like many other Hungarians at the time residing in Switzerland with diplomatic status, he thereby became overnight a stateless, political refugee.
Switzerland, 1943–1973 Since 1941, Károly Kerényi was lecturing at the
Eranos-conferences in
Ascona (Switzerland), to which he had been invited by
Carl Gustav Jung. This regular contact with the Swiss psychologist had originally established the connection to Switzerland, which ultimately led to the permanent emigration to the Italian-speaking
canton of Ticino. During 1946/47 Kerényi lectured on Hungarian language and literature at the
University of Basel. In 1947, he travelled to Hungary to give his inauguration speech at the
Hungarian Academy of Sciences, with the intent of contributing to the democratic development of Hungary. However, due to warnings of the imminent communist overthrow under
Mátyás Rákosi, Kerényi immediately left Budapest again. During the following Stalinist dictatorship, he was discredited and banned by the political propaganda under
György Lukács, the leading communist ideologist. His academic title was withdrawn and only as late as 1989 it was reinstated post mortem. In Switzerland, between 1945 and 1968, the substantial body of his work was written and published. Despite the fact that he was considered an academic outsider, it was during that time that he developed his largest influence as one of the latest representatives of the great tradition of humanistic scholars of antiquity. Over the course of two decades, from 1934 to 1955, Kerényi maintained an active correspondence with the German writer
Thomas Mann on many topics, including mythology, religion, humanism and psychology. Since his emigration, Kerényi additionally held positions as visiting professor at several universities, including
Bonn (1955/56),
Oslo and
Rome (1960),
Zurich (1961) and
Genoa (1964). Between 1960 and 1971, he held annual lectures at conferences of the institute of philosophy of the
University of Rome. From 1948 until 1966, Kerényi was co-founder and research director at the C. G. Jung Institute in
Küsnacht, near Zurich, where he held lectures on mythology until 1962. During these years, he lived near the
Monte Verità in Ascona. In 1962, he received Swiss citizenship. Károly Kerényi died on 14 April 1973 in
Kilchberg/Zurich and he is buried in the cemetery of Ascona. His second wife, Magda Kerényi, dedicated her subsequent life to the maintenance and promotion of Kerényi's legacy. Since her death in 2004, all documentation of Kerényi's life (photos, correspondence, manuscripts, etc.) that had not been destroyed in Budapest during the war, are archived and accessible at the
German Archive for Literature in
Marbach (near Stuttgart). His comprehensive library and the estate of Magda Kerényi are at the University of Pécs, where a street has also been named after him. == Scientific work and philosophical body of thought ==