Letter to József Bary (the judge of the Tiszaeszlár affair)

1886. In very good condition.. 1 p, with envelope. Vay's letter about a legal case. We coundn't find any other Vay letter in auctions. Extramly rare.

Sándor Vay (1859 -1918) was a Hungarian poet and journalist. As a female, Sarolta Vay was one of the first Hungarian women to complete university studies. Vay worked as a male journalist both before and after the sensational trial for his marriage to another woman in 1889. The case drew the attention of noted sexologists of the period, including Havelock Ellis and Richard von Krafft-Ebing, who used it to explore female inversion in the emerging field of sexology. During his lifetime, he was well respected as an author of historical articles on notable figures and cultural topics related to Hungary.
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Vay's legal case was an influential one in the development of medical analysis of lesbians. The case was studied and published in journals by eminent sexologists, including Havelock Ellis and Richard von Krafft-Ebing] Sociologist and historian Hanna Hacker has described Vay as an archetype for the development of medical and psychiatric construction of the characteristics of lesbian identity and a model of butch women for the development of the field of sexology.[ The case itself marked the first time that passing had been judged on a medical basis rather than a legal/moral one. It also represented a shift from using punishment as a means of restoring social norms to an approach which attempted to understand and explain the underlying causes of anti-social behavior. The influence of the case was not limited to the medical profession, as "Simone de Beauvoir based her comments on lesbianism in The Second Sex on Vay's story