'Arthur Koestler' (
September 5,
1905,
Budapest –
March 3,
1983,
London) was a
Hungarian polymath who became a naturalized
British subject. He wrote
journalism,
novels,
social philosophy, and books on
scientific subjects. In 1931, he joined the
Communist Party of Germany, but left the party seven years later, after emigrating to the United Kingdom. By the late
1940s, he was one of the most recognized and outspoken British
anti-communists, and he remained politically active through the 1950s. He wrote several popular books, including ''Arrow in the Blue'' (the first volume of his autobiography), ''The Yogi and the Commissar'' (a collection of essays, many dealing with Communism), ''
The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe'', ''The Act of Creation'', and ''The Thirteenth Tribe'' (a new theory on the origins of
Eastern European
Jews). Koestler's
Magnum opus, the novel ''
Darkness at Noon'' about the
Soviet 1930s purges, ranks with
George Orwell's ''
Nineteen Eighty-Four'' as a fictional treatment of
Stalinism. He also wrote ''
Encyclopædia Britannica'' articles.
Life
He was born 'Kösztler Artúr' (
Hungarian names have the
surname first) in
Budapest,
Austria-Hungary, to a
German-speaking Hungarian family of
Ashkenazi Jewish descent. His father, Henrik, was a prosperous start-up
industrialist and
inventor. His great business success was a "health" soap, which substituted conventional soaps based on animal fats (scarce during the WWI). Henrik's mineral soaps were thought to have health qualities thanks to their weak radioactivity, which in those times was considered curative. When Artur was 14, his family moved to
Vienna. It was at this age which he had a "mystical experience", which perhaps gave rise to his later interest in the paranormal
[1]
Koestler studied science and
psychology at the
University of Vienna, where he became President of a
Zionist student fraternity. A month before he was due to finish his studies, he burnt his matriculation book and did not take his final examinations but made "
aliyah" to Israel (then a British Mandate). From 1926 to 1929 he lived in the
British Mandate of Palestine, firstly in a ''
kibbutz'' in the Jezreel Valley ("Heftzibah"), and later in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, where he almost starved. He left Palestine for Paris as a correspondent to the
Ullstein group of German newspapers. A year later he became science editor for Ullstein based in Berlin; a highlight of that post was membership in a 1931
Zeppelin expedition to the
North Pole.
He joined the
Communist Party of Germany in 1931, but left it after the Stalinist show-trials of 1938. During this period he traveled extensively in the Soviet Union and climbed
Mount Ararat in
Turkey. In
Turkmenistan, he met the
Black American writer
Langston Hughes.
In his memoir ''
The Invisible Writing'', Koestler recalls that during the summer of 1935 he "wrote about half of a satirical novel called ''
The Good Soldier Schweik Goes to War Again....''. It had been commissioned by
Willy Münzenberg [the
Comintern's chief
propagandist in the
West] ... but was vetoed by the
Party on the grounds of the book's 'pacifist errors' ..." (p. 283).
Soon after the outbreak of
World War II, the
French authorities detained him for several months as a resident alien in
Vernet Internment Camp [2] in the foothills of the
Pyrenees mountains. Upon his release, he joined the
French Foreign Legion. He eventually escaped to
England via
Morocco and
Portugal. In England, he served in the
British Army as a member of the
British Pioneer Corps, 1941-42, then worked for the
BBC. He became a
British subject in 1945, and returned to France after the war, where he rubbed shoulders with the set gravitating around
Jean-Paul Sartre and
Simone de Beauvoir (one of the characters in de Beauvoir's novel ''
The Mandarins'' is believed to be based on Koestler).
Koestler returned to
London and spent the rest of his life writing and lecturing. In June 1950, Koestler attended and delivered the keynote address at a conference of
anti-Communist intellectuals in
Berlin that led to the founding of the
Congress for Cultural Freedom. He was made a Commander in the
Order of the British Empire in the 1970s.
In 1983, suffering from
Parkinson's disease and
leukemia, Koestler committed joint
suicide with his third wife, Cynthia, by taking an overdose of drugs. He had long been an advocate of voluntary
euthanasia, and in 1981 had become vice president of EXIT (now the United Kingdom's Voluntary Euthanasia Society). His will endowed the chair of
parapsychology at the
University of Edinburgh in
Scotland.
Speaking out against Nazi atrocities during World War II
During the
Second World War, Koestler continually spoke out against the atrocities of the
Nazi regime in
Germany — his Central European
Jewish family background made him particularly involved in a way that many British and
United States politicians were not. He had also witnessed personally, the growth of
extremist tendencies in the region.
Koestler and a minority of writers and public figures believed that if they sufficiently described the horrors being committed in Europe in news media and public meetings, it would spur the West to action. Despite their efforts, these protests often fell on deaf ears. Capturing their frustration, Koestler described these people as the "screamers". In 1944, he wrote:
Despite these frustrations, Koestler and the "screamers" continued their campaign until the late stages of the war.
Multilingualism
In addition to his mother tongue
German, and the
Hungarian of his homeland, Koestler became fluent in
English, and
French, and knew some
Hebrew and
Russian. His biographer
David Cesarani claims there is some evidence that Koestler may have picked up some
Yiddish from his grandfather. Koestler's multilingualism was principally due to his having resided, worked, or studied in
Hungary,
Austria,
Germany,
Palestine (pre-1948
Israel), the
Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and
France, all by 40 years of age.
Though he wrote the bulk of his later work in English, Koestler wrote his best-known novels in three different languages: ''
The Gladiators'' in Hungarian, ''
Darkness at Noon'' in German (although the original is now lost), and ''
Arrival and Departure'' in English. His journalism was written in German, Hebrew, French and English, and he even produced the first Hebrew language
crossword puzzles and wrote the sketches for the first Hebrew cabaret ("HaMatateh").
Women
Koestler was married to Dorothy Asher (1935–50), Mamaine Paget (1950–52), and Cynthia Jefferies (1965–83). He also had a very short fling with the French writer
Simone de Beauvoir.
Cesarani claimed that Koestler beat and raped several women, including film director
Jill Craigie. The resulting protests led to the removal of a bust of Koestler from public display at the
University of Edinburgh.
Questions have also been raised by his
suicide pact with his last spouse. Although he was
terminally ill at the time, she was apparently healthy, leading some to claim he persuaded her to take her own life.
Mixed legacy
Just as ''
Darkness at Noon'' was selling well during the
Cold War of the 1940s and '50s, Koestler announced his retirement from politics. Much of what he wrote thereafter revealed a multidisciplinary thinker whose work anticipated a number of trends by many years. He was among the first to experiment with
LSD (in a laboratory). He also wrote about
Japanese and
Indian mysticism in ''
The Lotus and the Robot'' (1960).
This originality resulted in an uneven set of ideas and conclusions. Topics covered by his works include creativity (''Insight and Outlook, Act of Creation'') and the history of science (''The Sleepwalkers''). Some of his other pursuits, such as his interest in the
paranormal, his support for
euthanasia, his theory of the origin of
Ashkenazi Jews like himself, and his disagreement with
Darwinism, are more controversial.
Politics
Koestler was involved in a number of political causes during his life, from
Zionism and
communism to
anti-communism, voluntary
euthanasia, and campaigns against
capital punishment, particularly
hanging. He was also an early advocate of
nuclear disarmament. In 1943 he met
Jan Karski.
Journalism
Until the bestseller status of ''Darkness at Noon'' made him financially comfortable, Koestler often earned his living as a journalist and foreign correspondent, trading on his ability to write quickly in several languages, and to acquire with facility a working knowledge of a new language. He wrote for a variety of newspapers, including ''
Vossische Zeitung'' (science editor) and ''B.Z. am Mittag'' (foreign editor) in the 1920s. In the early 1930s, he worked for the Ullstein publishing group in
Berlin and did freelance writing for the French press.
While covering the
Spanish Civil War, in 1937, he was captured and held for several months by the
Falangists in
Málaga, until the
British Foreign Office negotiated his release. His ''
Spanish Testament'' records these experiences, which he soon transformed into his classic prison novel ''
Darkness at Noon''. After his release from Spanish detention, Koestler worked for the ''News Chronicle'', then edited ''
Die Zukunft'' with
Willi Münzenberg, an anti-Nazi, anti-Stalinist German language paper based in
Paris, founded in 1938. During and after World War II, he wrote for a number of English and American papers, including ''
The Sunday Telegraph'', on various subjects. He was a frequent contributor to
Encounter, one of the most influential periodicals of the Cold War period.
Paranormal and scientific interests
During the last 30 years of his life, Koestler wrote extensively on science and scientific practice. The
post-modernist scepticism colouring much of this writing tended to alienate most of the scientific community. A case in point is his 1971 book ''The Case of the Midwife Toad'' about the biologist
Paul Kammerer, who claimed to find experimental support for
Lamarckian inheritance.
Koestler's trilogy culminating with ''
The Ghost in the Machine'' and later '' bridges concepts of
reductionism and
holism with his
systemic theory of Open Hierarchical Systems.
Holons in a
Holarchy have the dual tendency of integration and development and out of balance they tend to a pathology. He included his concept of Bisociation that became a profound basis for other's work on creativity and
James Papez/
Paul McLean's ''Schizophysiology'' to explain the often irrational behaviour of humans as part of Open Hierarchical Systems.
Mysticism and a fascination with the
paranormal imbued much of his later work, and greatly influenced his personal life. For some years following his death a Koestler Society in London promoted investigation of these and related subjects. He left a substantial part of his estate to establish the Koestler Parapsychology Unit at the
University of Edinburgh dedicated to the study of paranormal phenomena. His ''
The Roots of Coincidence'' makes an overview of the scientific research around
telepathy and
psychokinesis and compares it with the advances in quantum physics at that time. It mentions yet another line of unconventional research by Paul Kammerer, the theory of coincidence or
synchronicity. He also presents critically the related writings of
Carl Jung. More controversial were Koestler's studies of
levitation and
telepathy. Koestler had joined the
SPR in 1950, but perhaps did not publicise this interest for fear of ridicule
[3].
Judaism
Although a lifelong atheist, Koestler's ancestry was Jewish. His biographer
David Cesarani claimed that Koestler deliberately disowned his Jewish ancestry.
When Koestler resided in Palestine during the 1920s, he lived on a
kibbutz. This experience provided background for his novel ''Thieves in the Night''.
He supported the statehood of Israel, but remarked that the
Balfour Declaration of 1917 amounted to "one nation solemnly promising to a second nation the country of a third." He believed that
Israel would never be destroyed short of a second
Shoah. However, he opposed a diaspora Jewish culture: In an interview published in the ''London Jewish Chronicle'' around the time of Israel's founding, Koestler maintained that all Jews should either migrate to Israel or else assimilate completely into their local cultures. As for Jewish culture in Israel, Koestler proposed that Israel drop the
Hebrew alphabet for the
Roman.
Koestler's book ''
The Thirteenth Tribe'' (1976) advanced the controversial thesis that
Ashkenazi Jews are not descended from the Israelites of antiquity, but from the
Khazars, a
Turkic people in the
Caucasus who converted to
Judaism in the 8th century and were later forced to move westwards into present-day
Russia,
Ukraine and
Poland. Koestler stated that part of his intent in writing ''The Thirteenth Tribe'' was to defuse
anti-Semitism by undermining the identification of European Jews with Biblical Jews, with the hope of rendering anti-Semitic epithets such as "Christ killer" inapplicable. Ironically, Koestler's thesis that Ashkenazi Jews are not Semitic has become an important claim of many anti-Semitic groups.
Recent genetic research studies have contradicted the main thesis of ''The Thirteenth Tribe''. For example, a 2000 study of
haplotypes by Hammer ''et al'' indicates that the
Y chromosomes of most Ashkenazi and
Sephardic Jews are of Middle Eastern origin, containing mutations that are also common among
Palestinians and other Middle Eastern peoples, yet are uncommon in the general European population. These results strongly suggest that most male ancestors of the Ashkenazi Jews can be traced primarily to the Middle East.
[1] A second study (2006) by Behar ''et al'', based on
haplotype analysis of
mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), also indicates that about 40% of the current Ashkenazi population is descended matrilineally from just four women. These four "founder lineages" were "likely from a
Hebrew/
Levantine mtDNA pool" originating in the Near East in the first and second centuries CE.
[2]
Hallucinogens
In November, 1960, Koestler participated in
Timothy Leary's early experiments with
psilocybin at Harvard. According to fellow participant
Charles Olson, Koestler was distressed by the effects of the drug and isolated himself in an unfurnished bedroom in the Cambridge house Leary used for his project. Koestler again experimented with psilocybin at the
University of Michigan at
Ann Arbor, comparing this trip to
Walt Disney's ''
Fantasia''.
In ''Return Trip to Nirvana'', published in the ''Sunday Telegraph'' in 1967, Koestler wrote about the drug culture and his own experiences with hallucinogens. The article also challenged the defence of drugs in
Aldous Huxley's ''
The Doors of Perception'':
I profoundly admire Aldous Huxley, both for his philosophy and uncompromising sincerity. But I disagree with his advocacy of "the chemical opening of doors into the Other World", and with his belief that drugs can procure "what Catholic theologians call a gratuitous grace". Chemically induced hallucinations, delusions and raptures may be frightening or wonderfully gratifying; in either case they are in the nature of confidence tricks played on one's own nervous system.
Cultural influence
In his younger days, the singer
Sting was an avid reader of Koestler. His band of the time,
The Police, were to name one of their albums ''
Ghost in the Machine'' after one of Koestler's books. Their album ''
Synchronicity'' was also inspired by Koestler's ''
The Roots of Coincidence'', which discusses
Carl Jung's
theory of the same name. Koestler knew little about the burgeoning
New Wave (music) scene, and is alleged to have said:
Koestler's will also left money for the
The Koestler Trust, which helps prison inmates to express themselves creatively, as a means to rehabilitation. The trust continues to exhibit work by prisoners on a regular basis.
Trivia
The
cyberpunk manga and
anime series ''
Ghost in the Shell'' was also inspired by Koestler's ''The Ghost in the Machine''.
Inspector Finch can also be seen reading a copy of ''
The Roots of Coincidence'' in the
graphic novel ''
V for Vendetta''. Koestler is referenced several times in the work.
In the 2002 film ''
Red Dragon'', ''The Act of Creation'' is one of the books seized from
Hannibal Lecter's cell.
Bibliography
A comprehensive introduction to Koestler's writing and thought is this 1980 anthology of passages from many of his books, described as "A selection from 50 years of his writings, chosen and with new commentary by the author":
★ 1980. ''
Bricks to Babel''. Random House, ISBN 0-394-51897-7
Autobiography
★ 1952. ''
Arrow In The Blue: The First Volume Of An Autobiography, 1905-31'', 2005 reprint, ISBN 0-09-949067-6
★ 1954. ''
The Invisible Writing: The Second Volume Of An Autobiography, 1932-40'', 1984 reprint, ISBN 0-8128-6218-X
★ 1937. ''
Spanish Testament''.
★ 1941. ''
Scum of the Earth''.
★ 1984. ''
Stranger on the Square''.
The books ''The Lotus and the Robot'', ''The God that Failed'', and ''Von weissen Nächten und roten Tagen'', as well as his numerous essays, all contain autobiographical information.
Biographies
★ Atkins, J., 1956. ''Arthur Koestler''.
★ Buckard, Christian G., 2004. ''Arthur Koestler: Ein extremes Leben 1905-1983''. ISBN 3-406-52177-0.
★
David Cesarani, 1998. ''Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind''. ISBN 0-684-86720-6.
★ Hamilton, Iain, 1982. ''Koestler: A Biography''. ISBN 0-02-547660-2.
★ Koestler, Mamaine, 1985. ''Living with Koestler''. ISBN 0-297-78531-1 or ISBN 0-312-49029-1.
★ Levene, M., 1984. ''Arthur Koestler''. ISBN 0-8044-6412-X.
★ Mikes, George, 1983. ''Arthur Koestler: The Story of a Friendship''. ISBN 0-233-97612-4.
★ Pearson, S. A., 1978. ''Arthur Koestler''. ISBN 0-8057-6699-5.
Langston Hughes's autobiography also documents their meeting in
Turkestan during the
Soviet era.
Books by Koestler (excluding autobiography)
★ 1934. ''Von weissen Nächten und roten Tagen''. Very difficult to find. In his ''The Invisible Writing'', Koestler calls the book ''Red Days and White Nights'', or, more usually, ''Red Days''. Of the five foreign language editions − Russian, German, Ukrainian, Georgian, Armenian − which were intended, only the German version was eventually published, "thoroughly expurgated", in
Kharkov, Ukrainian S.S.R., U.S.S.R.
★ 1935. ''The Good Soldier Schweik Goes to War Again....'' Unfinished and unpublished.
★ 1937. ''L'Espagne ensanglantée''.
★ 1939. ''
The Gladiators'', 1967 reprint, ISBN 0-02-565320-2. A novel on the revolt of
Spartacus.
★ 1940. ''
Darkness at Noon'', ISBN 0-09-942491-6
★ 1942. ''
Dialogue with Death''. Abridgement of ''Spanish Testament''.
★ 1943. ''
Arrival and Departure'', novel. 1990 reprint, ISBN 0-14-018119-9
★ 1945. ''
The Yogi and the Commissar and other essays''.
★ 1945. ''
Twilight Bar''. Drama.
★ 1946. ''
Thieves in the Night''.
★ 1949. ''The Challenge of our Time''.
★ 1949. ''
Promise and Fulfilment: Palestine 1917-1949''.
★ 1949. ''
Insight and Outlook''.
★ 1951. ''
The Age of Longing''.
★ 1955. ''
The Trail of the Dinosaur and other essays''.
★ 1956. ''
Reflections on Hanging''.
★ 1959. ''
The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe''. ISBN 0-14-019246-8 An account of changing scientific paradigms.
★ 1960. ''The Watershed: A Biography of Johannes Kepler''. (excerpted from ''The Sleepwalkers''.) ISBN 0-385-09576-7
★ 1960. ''
Lotus and the Robot'', ISBN 0-09-059891-1. Koestler's journey to India and Japan, and his assessment of East and West.
★ 1961. ''Control of the Mind''.
★ 1961. ''Hanged by the Neck''. Reuses some material from ''Reflections on Hanging''.
★ 1963. ''
Suicide of a Nation''.
★ 1964. ''
The Act of Creation''.
★ 1967. ''
The Ghost in the Machine''. Penguin reprint 1990: ISBN 0-14-019192-5.
★ 1968. ''
Drinkers of Infinity: Essays 1955-1967''.
★ 1970. ''The Age of Longing'', ISBN 0-09-104520-7.
★ 1971. ''
The Case of the Midwife Toad'', ISBN 0-394-71823-2. An account of
Paul Kammerer's research on
Lamarckian evolution and what he called "serial coincidences".
★ 1972. ''
The Roots of Coincidence'', ISBN 0-394-71934-4. Sequel to ''The Case of the Midwife Toad''.
★ 1972. ''
The Call Girls: A Tragicomedy with a Prologue and Epilogue''. A novel about scholars making a living on the international seminar-conference circuit.
★ 1973. ''The Lion and the Ostrich''.
★ 1974. ''
The Heel of Achilles: Essays 1968-1973'', ISBN 0-394-49596-9.
★ 1976. ''
The Thirteenth Tribe: The Khazar Empire and Its Heritage'', ISBN 0-394-40284-7.
★ 1976. ''Astride the Two Cultures: Arthur Koestler at 70'', ISBN 0-394-40063-1.
★ 1977. ''Twentieth Century Views: A Collection of Critical Essays'', ISBN 0-13-049213-2.
★ 1978. '', ISBN 0-394-50052-0. Sequel to ''The Ghost in the Machine''
★ 1981. ''
Kaleidoscope''. Essays from ''Drinkers of Infinity'' and ''The Heel of Achilles'', plus later pieces and stories.
Writings as a contributor
★
''The Encyclopoedia [sic] of Sexual Knowledge'' (1934) (In his ''The Invisible Writing'', Koestler uses the
ligature, spelling the word "Encyclopœdia".)
★ ''Foreign Correspondent'' (1939)
★ ''
The Practice of Sex'' (1940)
★ ''
The God That Failed'' (1950) (collection of testimonies by ex-Communists)
★ ''
Attila, the Poet'' (1954) (Encounter ; ; 1954.2 (5)). On loan at the UCL library of the School of Slavonic & Eastern European Studies.
★
UCL library online
★ ''Beyond Reductionism: The Alpbach Symposium. New Perspectives in the Life Sciences'' (co-editor with J.R. Smythies, 1969), ISBN 0-8070-1535-0
★ ''
The Challenge of Chance: A Mass Experiment in Telepathy and Its Unexpected Outcome'' (1973)
★ ''
The Concept of Creativity in Science and Art'' (1976)
★ ''Life After Death'', (co-editor, 1976)
★ ''Humour and Wit. I'':
Encyclopædia Britannica. 15th ed. vol. 9.(1983)
★
★
humour - Encyclopædia Britannica(by Arthur Koestler)
Notes
1. Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations share a common pool of Y-chromosome biallelic haplotypes, , M. F., Hammer, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2000
2. The Matrilineal Ancestry of Ashkenazi Jewry: Portrait of a Recent Founder Event, , Doron M., Behar, The American Journal of Human Genetics, 2006
External links
★
The Koestler Trust
★
2007 ''City Journal'' article on Koestler
★
Koestler Parapsychology Unit - Koestler and his third spouse left a large sum of money for research into parapsychology: this funded, amongst other things, the Koestler Parapsychology Unit at Edinburgh University
★
Hungarian site on Koestler
★
Arthur Koestler Project
★
Koestler's Legacy - ''Fortean Times'' article on the centenary of Koestler's birth
★
Online biography
★
- ''General Properties of Koestler's Open hierarchical Systems''
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