At the beginning of the 19th century he had published a volume of erotics which made him famous, and his reputation was still further increased by his Regék or Tales. During the troublous times of 1809, when the gentry of Zala county founded a confederation, the palatine appointed Kisfaludy one of his adjutants. Subsequently, by command, he wrote an account of the movement for presentation to King Francis, which was committed to the secret archives, and Kisfaludy was forbidden to communicate its contents. In 1820 the Marczebánya Institute crowned his Tales and the palatine presented him with a prize of 400 florins in the hall of the Pest county council. In 1822 he started the Aurora with his younger brother Károly (see above). When the academy was founded in 1830 Kisfaludy was the first county member elected to it. In 1835 he resigned because he was obliged to share the honour of winning the academy’s grand prize with Vörösmarty. After the death of his first wife (1832) he married a second time, but by neither of his wives had he any child. The remainder of his days were spent in his Tusculum among the vineyards of Sümeg and Somla. He died on the 28th of October 1844. Alexander Kisfaludy stands alone among the rising literary schools of his day. He was not even influenced by his friend the great critic Kazinczy, who gave the tone to the young classical writers of his day. Kisfaludy’s art was self-taught, solitary and absolutely independent. If he imitated any one it was Petrarch; indeed his famous Himfy szerelmei (“The Loves of Himfy”), as his collected sonnets are called, have won for him the title of “The Hungarian Petrarch.” But the passion of Kisfaludy is far more sincere and real than ever Petrarch’s was, and he completely Magyarized everything he borrowed. After finishing the sonnets Kisfaludy devoted himself to more objective writing, as in the incomparable Regék, which reproduce the scenery and the history of the delightful counties which surround Lake Balaton. He also contributed numerous tales and other pieces to Aurora. Far less successful were his plays, of which Hunyádi János (1816), by far the longest drama in the Hungarian language, need alone be mentioned.
The best critical edition of Sándor Kisfaludy’s works is the fourth complete edition, by David Angyal, in eight volumes (Budapest, 1893). See Tamás Szana, The two Kisfaludys (Hung.) (Budapest, 1876); Imre Sándor, The Influence of the Italian on the Hungarian Literature (Hung.) (Budapest, 1878); Kálmán Sümegi, Kisfaludy and his Tales (Hung.) (Budapest, 1877).
(R. N. B.)
KĪSH, or Kais (the first form is Persian and the second Arabic), an island in the Persian Gulf. It is mentioned in the 12th century as being the residence of an Arab pirate from Oman, who exacted a tribute from the pearl fisheries of the gulf and had the title of “King of the Sea,” and it rose to importance in the 13th century with the fall of Siraf as a transit station of the trade between India and the West. In the 14th century it was supplanted by Hormuz and lapsed into its former insignificance. The island is nearly 10 m. long and 5 m. broad, and contains a number of small villages, the largest, Mashi, with about 100 houses, being situated on its north-eastern corner in 26° 34′ N. and 54° 2′ E. The highest part of the island has an elevation of 120 ft. The inhabitants are Arabs, and nearly all pearl fishers, possessing many boats, which they take to the pearl banks on the Arabian coast. The water supply is scanty and there is little vegetation, but sufficient for sustaining some flocks of sheep and goats and some cattle. Near the centre of the north coast are the ruins of the old city, now known as Harira, with remains of a mosque, with octagonal columns, masonry, water-cisterns (two 150 ft. long, 40 ft. broad, 24 ft. deep) and a fine underground canal, or aqueduct, half a mile long and cut in the solid rock 20 ft. below the surface. Fragments of glazed tiles and brown and blue pottery, of thin white and blue Chinese porcelain, of green céladon (some with white scroll-work or figures in relief), glass beads, bangles, &c., are abundant. Kīsh is the Kataia of Arrian; Chisi and Quis of Marco Polo; Quixi, Queis, Caez, Cais, &c., of Portuguese writers; and Khenn, or Kenn, of English.
KISHANGARH, a native state of India, in the Rajputana agency. Area, 858 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 90,970, showing a decrease of 27% in the decade, due to the famine of 1899-1900; estimated revenue, £34,000; there is no tribute. The state was founded in the reign of the emperor Akbar, by a younger son of the raja of Jodhpur. In 1818 Kishangarh first came into direct relations with the British government, by entering into a treaty, together with the other Rajput states, for the suppression of the Pindari marauders by whom the country was at that time overrun. The chief, whose title is maharaja, is a Rajput of the Rathor clan. Maharaja Madan Singh ascended the throne in 1900 at the age of sixteen, and attended the Delhi Durbar of 1903 as a cadet in the Imperial Cadet Corps. The administration, under the diwan, is highly spoken of. Irrigation from tanks and wells has been extended; factories for ginning and pressing cotton have been started; and the social reform movement, for discouraging excessive expenditure on marriages, has been very successful. The state is traversed by the Rajputana railway. The town of Kishangarh is 18 m. N.W. of Ajmere by rail. Pop. (1901), 12,663. It is the residence of many Jain merchants.
KISHINEV (Kishlanow of the Moldavians), a town of south-west Russia, capital of the government of Bessarabia, situated on the right bank of the Byk, a tributary of the Dniester, and on the railway between Odessa and Jassy in Rumania, 120 m. W.N.W. from the former. At the beginning of the 19th century it was but a poor village, and in 1812 when it was acquired by Russia from Moldavia it had only 7000 inhabitants; twenty years later its population numbered 35,000, while in 1862 it had with its suburbs 92,000 inhabitants, and in 1900 125,787, composed of the most varied nationalities—Moldavians, Walachians, Russians, Jews (43%), Bulgarians, Tatars, Germans and Gypsies. A massacre (pogrom) of the Jews was perpetrated here in 1903. The town consists of two parts—the old or lower town, on the banks of the Byk, and the new or upper town, situated on high crags, 450 to 500 ft. above the river. The wide suburbs are remarkable for their gardens, which produce great quantities of fruits (especially plums, which are dried and exported), tobacco, mulberry leaves for silkworms, and wine. The buildings of the town are sombre, shabby and low, but built of stone; and the streets, though wide and shaded by acacias, are mostly unpaved. Kishinev is the seat of the archbishop of Bessarabia, and has a cathedral, an ecclesiastical seminary with 800 students, a college, and a gardening school, a museum, a public library, a botanic garden, and a sanatorium with sulphur springs. The town is adorned with statues of Tsar Alexander II. (1886) and the poet Pushkin (1885). There are tallow-melting houses, steam flour-mills, candle and soap works, distilleries and tobacco factories. The trade is very active and increasing, Kishinev being a centre for the Bessarabian trade in grain, wine, tobacco, tallow, wool and skins, exported to Austria and to Odessa. The town played an important part in the war between Russia and Turkey in 1877-78, as the chief centre of the Russian invasion.