Name Gaspar Heltai Role Writer | ||
 | ||
Died 1574, Cluj-Napoca, Romania Similar People Sebestyen Tinodi Lantos, Dezso Kosztolanyi, Peter Nadas, Sandor Brody, Adam Bodor | ||
Gáspár Heltai (born: Kaspar Helth) (c. 1490–1574) was a Transylvanian Saxon writer and printer. His name possibly derives from the village Heltau (Hungarian: Nagydisznód, today Cisnădie, Romania). Despite being a German native speaker he published many books in Hungarian from his print-shop.
Contents
Career
He studied at Wittenberg University and he established the first print shop in Kolozsvár (now Cluj-Napoca, Romania). He also founded a public bath, a paper mill and the first brewery in the town. He was at the same time a pastor, translator, printer, publisher, writer and businessman. He is considered the first religious reformer of Kolozsvár. He was a great spirit of Hungarian Unitarian Reformation. Together with a group of scholars he produced an almost complete translation of the New Testament into Hungarian. His work marked the first buds of a secular literature in Hungary.
Bonfini translation
Heltai's most voluminous work is his reworking and translation of Antonio Bonfini's Rerum Hungaricum Decades ("Ten Volumes of Hungarian Matters"), which Heltai published in 1575 as Chronica az magyaroknak dolgairól ("Chronicle of the Hungarians’ Past Deeds"). The work was printed in Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca).
