Rodion Markovits

Rodion Markovits (Markovits Jakab)
Posthumous portrait of Markovits, drawing by Sándor Muhi
Born	1888 Kisgérce, Austria-Hungary (today Gherţa Mică, Romania)
Died	August 27, 1948(1948-08-27) (aged 60) Timișoara, Romania
Occupation	journalist, novelist, short story writer, activist, lawyer
Nationality	Hungarian, Romanian
Period	1920-1956
Genre	memoir, non-fiction novel, reportage
Literary movement	Modernism, Ma, Erdélyi Helikon

Rodion Markovits (Hungarian pronunciation: [ˈrodion ˈmɒrkovit͡ʃ]; or Markovitz, born Markovits Jakab [ˈjɒkɒb];^[1] 1888 – August 27, 1948) was an Austro-Hungarian-born writer, journalist and lawyer, one of the early modernist contributors to Magyar literary culture in Transylvania and Banat regions. He achieved international fame with the extended reportage Szibériai garnizon ("Siberian Garrison", 1927–8), which chronicles his own exotic experiences in World War I and the Russian Civil War. Locally, he is also known for his lifelong contribution to the political and cultural press of Transylvania. A Romanian national after 1920, Markovits divided himself between the Hungarian Romanian and Jewish communities, and was marginally affiliated with both the Ma art group and the Erdélyi Helikon writers.

Rodion Markovitz was seen by his contemporaries as an eccentric, and some of his colleagues believed him a minor and incidental writer. He was also noted for his leftist inclinations, cemented during his personal encounter with Bolshevism but toned down during the final decades of his life. Although he continued to publish short stories until the 1940s, and wrote the sequel novel Aranyvonat ("Gold Train"), his work never again matched the success of Szibériai garnizon. His final home was the Banat city of Timișoara, where he worked for the Romanian and Hungarian press, and eventually became a grassroots activist of the Hungarian People's Union.