KIRSCH (or Kirschenwasser), a potable spirit distilled from cherries. Kirsch is manufactured chiefly in the Black Forest in Germany, and in the Vosges and Jura districts in France. Generally the raw material consists of the wild cherry known as Cerasus avium. The cherries are subjected to natural fermentation and subsequent distillation. Occasionally a certain quantity of sugar and water are added to the cherries after crushing, and the mass so obtained is filtered or pressed prior to fermentation. The spirit is usually “run” at a strength of about 50% of absolute alcohol. Compared with brandy or whisky the characteristic features of kirsch are (a) that it contains relatively large quantities of higher alcohols and compound ethers, and (b) the presence in this spirit of small quantities of hydrocyanic acid, partly as such and partly in combination as benzaldehyde-cyanhydrine, to which the distinctive flavour of kirsch is largely due.
KIR-SHEHER, the chief town of a sanjak of the same name in the Angora vilayet of Asia Minor, situated on a tributary of the Kizil Irmak (Halys), on the Angora-Kaisarieh road. It is on the line of the projected railway from Angora to Kaisarieh. The town gives its name to the excellent carpets made in the vicinity. On the outskirts there is a hot chalybeate spring. Population about 9000 (700 Christians, mostly Armenians). Kir-sheher represents the ancient Mocissus, a small town which became important in the Byzantine period: it was enlarged by the emperor Justinian, who re-named it Justinianopolis, and made it the capital of a large division of Cappadocia, a position it still retains.
KIRWAN, RICHARD (1733-1812), Irish scientist, was born at Cloughballymore, Co. Galway, in 1733. Part of his early life was spent abroad, and in 1754 he entered the Jesuit novitiate either at St Omer or at Hesdin, but returned to Ireland in the following year, when he succeeded to the family estates through the death of his brother in a duel. In 1766, having conformed to the established religion two years previously, he was called to the Irish bar, but in 1768 abandoned practice in favour of scientific pursuits. During the next nineteen years he resided chiefly in London, enjoying the society of the scientific men living there, and corresponding with many savants on the continent of Europe, as his wide knowledge of languages enabled him to do with ease. His experiments on the specific gravities and attractive powers of various saline substances formed a substantial contribution to the methods of analytical chemistry, and in 1782 gained him the Copley medal from the Royal Society, of which he was elected a fellow in 1780; and in 1784 he was engaged in a controversy with Cavendish in regard to the latter’s experiments on air. In 1787 he removed to Dublin, where four years later he became president of the Royal Irish Academy. To its proceedings he contributed some thirty-eight memoirs, dealing with meteorology, pure and applied chemistry, geology, magnetism, philology, &c. One of these, on the primitive state of the globe and its subsequent catastrophe, involved him in a lively dispute with the upholders of the Huttonian theory. His geological work was marred by an implicit belief in the universal deluge, and through finding fossils associated with the trap rocks near Portrush he maintained basalt was of aqueous origin. He was one of the last supporters in England of the phlogistic hypothesis, for which he contended in his Essay on Phlogiston and the Constitution of Acids (1787), identifying phlogiston with hydrogen. This work, translated by Madame Lavoisier, was published in French with critical notes by Lavoisier and some of his associates; Kirwan attempted to refute their arguments, but they proved too strong for him, and he acknowledged himself a convert in 1791. His other books included Elements of Mineralogy (1784), which was the first systematic work on that subject in the English language, and which long remained standard; An Estimate of the Temperature of Different Latitudes (1787); Essay of the Analysis of Mineral Waters (1799), and Geological Essays (1799). In his later years he turned to philosophical questions, producing a paper on human liberty in 1798, a treatise on logic in 1807, and a volume of metaphysical essays in 1811, none of any worth. Various stories are told of his eccentricities as well as of his conversational powers. He died in Dublin in June 1812.
KISFALUDY, KÁROLY [Charles] (1788-1830), Hungarian author, was born at Téte, near Raab, on the 6th of February 1788. His birth cost his mother her life and himself his father’s undying hatred. He entered the army as a cadet in 1804; saw active service in Italy, Servia and Bavaria (1805-1809), especially distinguishing himself at the battle of Leoben (May 25, 1809), and returned to his quarters at Pest with the rank of first lieutenant. It was during the war that he composed his first poems, e.g. the tragedy Gyilkos (“The Murder,” 1808), and numerous martial songs for the encouragement of his comrades. It was now, too, that he fell hopelessly in love with the beautiful Katalin Heppler, the daughter of a wealthy tobacco merchant. Tiring of the monotony of a soldier’s life, yet unwilling to sacrifice his liberty to follow commerce or enter the civil service, Kisfaludy, contrary to his father’s wishes, now threw up his commission and made his home at the house of a married sister at Vörröck, where he could follow his inclinations. In 1812 he studied painting at the Vienna academy and supported himself precariously by his brush and pencil, till the theatre at Vienna proved a still stronger attraction. In 1812 he wrote the tragedy Klára Zách, and in 1815 went to Italy to study art more thoroughly. But he was back again within six months, and for the next three years flitted from place to place, living on the charity of his friends, lodging in hovels and dashing off scores of daubs which rarely found a market. The united and repeated petitions of the whole Kisfaludy family failed to bring about a reconciliation between the elder Kisfaludy and his prodigal son. It was the success of his drama Ilka, written for the Fehérvár dramatic society, that first made him famous and prosperous. The play was greeted with enthusiasm both at Fehérvár and Buda (1819). Subsequent plays, The Voivode Stiber and The Petitioners (the first original Magyar dramas), were equally successful. Kisfaludy’s fame began to spread. He had found his true vocation as the creator of the Hungarian drama. In May 1820 he wrote three new plays for the dramatic society (he could always turn out a five-act drama in four days) which still further increased his reputation. From 1820 onwards, under the influence of the great critic Kazinczy, he learnt to polish and refine his style, while his friend and adviser György Gaal (who translated some of his dramas for the Vienna stage) introduced him to the works of Shakespeare and Goethe. By this time Kisfaludy had evolved a literary theory of his own which inclined towards romanticism; and in collaboration with his elder brother Alexander (see below) he founded the periodical Aurora (1822), which he edited to the day of his death. The Aurora was a notable phenomenon in Magyar literature. It attracted towards it many of the rising young authors of the day (including Vörösmarty, Bajza and Czuczor) and speedily became the oracle of the romanticists. Kisfaludy’s material position had now greatly improved, but he could not shake off his old recklessness and generosity, and he was never able to pay a tithe of his debts. The publication of Aurora so engrossed his time that practically he abandoned the stage. But he contributed to Aurora ballads, epigrams, short epic pieces, and, best of all, his comic stories. Kisfaludy was in fact the founder of the school of Magyar humorists and his comic types amuse and delight to this day. When the folk-tale became popular in Europe, Kisfaludy set to work upon folk-tales also and produced (1828) some of the masterpieces of that genre. He died on the 21st of November 1830. Six years later the great literary society of Hungary, the Kisfaludy Társaság, was founded to commemorate his genius. Apart from his own works it is the supreme merit of Kisfaludy to have revived and nationalized the Magyar literature, giving it a range and scope undreamed of before his time.
The first edition of Kisfaludy’s works, in 10 volumes, appeared at Buda in 1831, shortly after his death, but the 7th edition (Budapest 1893) is the best and fullest. See Ferenc Toldy, Lives of the Magyar Poets (Hung.) (Budapest, 1870); Zsolt Beöthy, The Father of Hungarian Comedy (Budapest, 1882); Tamás Szana, The Two Kisfaludys (Hung.) (Budapest, 1876). Kisfaludy’s struggles and adventures are also most vividly described in Jókai’s novel, Eppur si muove (Hung.).
Sándor [Alexander] Kisfaludy (1772-1844), Hungarian poet, elder brother of the preceding, was born at Zala on the 27th of September 1772, educated at Raab, and graduated in philosophy and jurisprudence at Pressburg. He early fell under the influence of Schiller and Kleist, and devoted himself to the resuscitation of the almost extinct Hungarian literature. Disgusted with his profession, the law, he entered the Life Guards (1793) and plunged into the gay life of Vienna, cultivating literature, learning French, German and Italian, painting, sketching, assiduously frequenting the theatre, and consorting on equal terms with all the literary celebrities of the Austrian capital. In 1796 he was transferred to the army in Italy for being concerned with some of his brother officers of the Vienna garrison in certain irregularities. When Milan was captured by Napoleon Kisfaludy was sent a prisoner of war to Vaucluse, where he studied Petrarch with enthusiasm and fell violently in love with Caroline D’Esclapon, a kindred spirit to whom he addressed his melancholy Himfy Lays, the first part of the subsequently famous sonnets. On returning to Austria he served with some distinction in the campaigns of 1798 and 1799 on the Rhine and in Switzerland; but tiring of a military life and disgusted at the slowness of his promotion, he quitted the army in September 1799, and married his old love Rózá Szegedy at the beginning of 1800. The first five happy years of their life were passed at Kám in Vás county, but in 1805 they removed to Sümeg where Kisfaludy gave himself up entirely to literature.