Sándor Petofi
Encyclopedia
Sándor Petőfi was a Hungarian
poet and liberal
revolutionary
. He is considered as Hungary's national poet and he was one of the key figures of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848
. He is the author of the "Nemzeti dal
" (National Poem), the poem said to have inspired the revolution
in the Kingdom of Hungary
that grew into a war for independence from the Austrian Empire
. It is most likely that he died in the Battle of Segesvár
, one of the last battles of the war.
(Kingdom of Hungary
, then part of the Austrian Empire
). The population of Kiskőrös was predominantly of Slovak origin as a consequence of the Habsburgs’ reconstruction policy designed to settle, where possible, non-Hungarians in areas devastated during the Turkish wars.
His birth certificate in Latin
gives his name as "Alexander Petrovics", where "Alexander" is the Latin equivalent of the Hungarian "Sándor". His father, , was a village butcher, innkeeper and he was a second-generation Serb or Slovak
immigrant to the Magyar lowlands. Mária Hrúz, Petőfi's mother, was a servant and laundress before her marriage. She was of Slovak descent and spoke Hungarian with something of an accent. Petőfi's parents first met in Maglód
, married in Aszód
and
the family moved to Kiskőrös a year before the birth of the poet.
The family lived for some time in Szabadszállás
, where his father owned a slaughterhouse. Within two years, the family moved to Kiskunfélegyháza
, and Petőfi always viewed the city as his true home. His father tried to give his son the best possible education, but when Sándor was 15, the family lost its money, due to the Danube
floods of 1838 and the bankruptcy of a relative. Sándor had to leave the lyceum
which he was attending in (today Banská Štiavnica
in Slovakia). He held small jobs in various theatres in Pest
, worked as a teacher in Ostffyasszonyfa
, and was a soldier in Sopron
.
After a restless period of traveling, Petőfi attended college at Pápa
, where he met Mór Jókai
. A year later in 1842, his poem "A borozó" (The Wine Drinker) was first published in Athenaeum under the name Sándor Petrovics. On 3 November the same year, he published the poem under the surname "Petőfi" for the first time.
Petőfi was more interested in the theater. In 1842 he joined a traveling theater, but had to leave it to earn money. He wrote for a newspaper, but could not make enough money. Malnourished and sick, he went to Debrecen
, where his friends helped him get back on his feet.
In 1844 he walked from Debrecen to Pest
to find a publisher for his poems, in which he succeeded. His poems were becoming increasingly popular. He relied on folkloric elements and popular, traditional song-like verses.
Among his longer works is the epic "János Vitéz
" (Sir John, 1845). The poem is a fairy-tale notable for its length, 370 quatrains divided into 27 chapters, and for its clever wordplay. It has gained immense popularity in Hungary
,It has several musical and film adaptations and is today considered a classic of Hungarian literature
. however, he felt influenced by his editor, Imre Vahot, to continue writing folklore-style poems, while he wanted to use his Western-oriented education and write about growing revolutionary passions. (The government's censorship would have made such works difficult to publish.)
. They married the next year, despite the opposition of her father, and spent their honeymoon at the castle of Count Sándor Teleki, the only aristocrat among Petőfi's friends.
", his revolutionary poem.
When the news of the revolution in Vienna
reached them on the 15th, Petőfi and his friends decided to change the date of the "National Assembly" (a rally where a petition to the Hungarian noblemen's assembly would be approved by the people), from 19 March to the 15th. On the morning of the 15th, Petőfi and the revolutionaries began to march around the city of Pest, reading his poem and the "12 Points" to the growing crowd, which attracted thousands. Visiting printers, they declared an end to censorship and printed the poem and "12 Points".
Crowds forced the mayor to sign the "12 Points" and later held a mass demonstration in front of the newly built National Museum
, then crossed to Buda
on the other bank of the Danube. When the crowd rallied in front of the Imperial governing council, the representatives of Emperor
Ferdinand
felt they had to sign the "12 Points". As one of the points was freedom for political prisoners, the crowd moved to greet the newly freed revolutionary poet Mihály Táncsics
.
Petőfi's popularity waned as the memory of the glorious day faded, and the revolution went the way of high politics: to the leadership of the nobles. Those in the noblemen's Assembly in Pozsony, (today Bratislava) had been pushing for slower reforms at the same time, which they delivered to the Emperor on the 13th, but events had overtaken them briefly. Petőfi disagreed with the Assembly, and criticised their view of the goals and methods of the Revolution. (His colleague Táncsics was imprisoned again by the new government.) In the general election, Petőfi ran in his native area, but did not win a seat. At this time, he wrote his most serious poem, Az Apostol (The Apostle). It was an epic
about a fictional revolutionary who, after much suffering, attempts, but fails, to assassinate a fictitious king.
Petőfi joined Polish
Liberal
General Józef Bem
's "Transylvanian army", which initially was successful against Habsburg troops, Hungarian, Romanian
and Transylvanian Saxon militia
s. After Tsar Nicholas I of Russia
intervened to restore the Hapsburgs, the Transylvanians were repeated defeated. Last seen alive in the battle of Segesvár
on 31 July 1849.
during the battle of Segesvár by the Imperial Russian Army
. A Russian military doctor recorded an account of Petőfi's death in his diary. As his body was never officially found, rumours of Petőfi's survival persisted. In his autobiographical roman a clef
Political Fashions (Politikai divatok, 1862), Mór Jókai
imagined his late friend's "resurrection". In the novel Petőfi (the character named Pusztafi) returns ten years later as a shabby, déclassé figure who has lost his faith in everything, poetry, too.
Though for many years his death at Segesvár had been assumed, in the late 1980s Soviet investigators found archives that revealed that after the battle about 1,800 Hungarian prisoners of war were marched to Siberia
. Alternative theories suggest that he was one of them and died of tuberculosis in 1856. In 1990, an expedition was organized to Barguzin, Siberia, where archaeologists claimed to have unearthed Petőfi's skeleton.
robbers etc. Many of these early poems have become classics, for example the love poem A virágnak megtiltani nem lehet ("You Cannot Forbid the Flower", 1843), or Befordultam a konyhára ("I Turned into the Kitchen", 1843) which uses the ancient metaphor of love and fire in a playful and somewhat provocative way.
The influence of folk poetry and 19th-century populism is very significant in Petőfi's work, but other influences are also present: Petőfi drew on sources such as topoi of contemporary almanac
-poetry in an inventive way, and was familiar with the works of major literary figures of his day, including Percy Bysshe Shelley
, Pierre-Jean de Béranger
and Heinrich Heine
.
Petőfi's early poetry was often interpreted as some kind of role-playing, due to the broad range of situations and voices he created and used. Recent interpretations however call attention to the fact that in some sense all lyrical poetry can be understood as role-playing, which makes the category of "role-poems" (coined especially for Petőfi) superfluous. While using a variety of voices, Petőfi created a well-formed persona
for himself: a jaunty, stubborn loner who loves wine, hates all kinds of limits and boundaries and is passionate in all he feels. In poems such as Jövendölés ("Prophecy", 1843) he imagines himself as someone who will die young after doing great things. This motif recurs in the revolutionary poetry of his later years.
The influence of contemporary almanac-poetry can be best seen in the poem cycle Cipruslombok Etelke sírjára ("Branches of Cypress for Etelke's Tomb", 1845). These sentimental poems, which are about death, grief, love, memory and loneliness were written after a love interest of Petőfi's, Etelke Csapó, died.
In the years 1844–45 Petőfi's poetry became more and more subtle and mature. New subjects appeared, such as landscape. His most influential landscape poem is Az Alföld ("The Plains"), in which he says that his homeland, the Hungarian plains
are more beautiful and much dearer than the Carpathian mountains
; it was to become the foundation of a long-lived fashion: that of the plains as the typical Hungarian landscape.
Petőfi's poetic skills solidified and broadened. He became a master of using different kinds of voices, for example his poem A régi, jó Gvadányi ("The Good Old Gvadányi") imitates the style of József Gvadányi, a Hungarian poet who lived at the end of the 18th century.
It is interesting to note that several of Petőfi's poems were set to music by the young Friedrich Nietzsche, who composed as a hobby while studying classics at Pforta before beginning his career in philosophy.
Petőfi maintained a lifelong friendship with János Arany
, another significant poet of the time. Arany was the godfather of Petőfi's son Zoltán.
During the late 1940s, Boris Pasternak
produced acclaimed translations of Petőfi's poems into the Russian language
.
Today, streets and squares are named after him throughout Hungary and Hungarian-speaking regions of neighboring states; in Budapest alone, there are 11 Petőfi streets and 4 Petőfi squares, see: Public place names of Budapest. A national radio station
(Radio Petőfi), a bridge
in Budapest
and a street in Sofia
, Bulgaria also bear his name, as well as the asteroid
4483 Petöfi
, a member of the Hungaria family
.
Petőfi has a larger than life terra cotta
statue near the Pest end of Erzsébet Bridge
, sculpted by Miklós Izsó
and Adolf Huszár. Similar Petőfi statues were established in many other cities, as well, during the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
poet and liberal
Classical liberalism
Classical liberalism is the philosophy committed to the ideal of limited government, constitutionalism, rule of law, due process, and liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets....
revolutionary
Revolutionary
A revolutionary is a person who either actively participates in, or advocates revolution. Also, when used as an adjective, the term revolutionary refers to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor.-Definition:...
. He is considered as Hungary's national poet and he was one of the key figures of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848
Hungarian Revolution of 1848
The Hungarian Revolution of 1848 was one of many of the European Revolutions of 1848 and closely linked to other revolutions of 1848 in the Habsburg areas...
. He is the author of the "Nemzeti dal
Nemzeti dal
The Nemzeti dal , written by Sándor Petőfi, is the poem that is said to have inspired the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. Petőfi read the poem aloud on March 15 in Vörösmarty Square in Budapest to a gathering crowd, which by the end was chanting the refrain as they began to march around the city,...
" (National Poem), the poem said to have inspired the revolution
Hungarian Revolution of 1848
The Hungarian Revolution of 1848 was one of many of the European Revolutions of 1848 and closely linked to other revolutions of 1848 in the Habsburg areas...
in the Kingdom of Hungary
Kingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary comprised present-day Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia , Transylvania , Carpatho Ruthenia , Vojvodina , Burgenland , and other smaller territories surrounding present-day Hungary's borders...
that grew into a war for independence from the Austrian Empire
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...
. It is most likely that he died in the Battle of Segesvár
Battle of Segesvár
The Battle of Segesvár was a battle in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, fought on 31 July 1849 between the Hungarian revolutionary army supplemented by Polish volunteers under the command of General Józef Bem and the Russian V Corps under General Alexander von Lüders in ally with the Austrian...
, one of the last battles of the war.
Early life
Petőfi was born in the early New Year's morning of 1823, in the town of KiskőrösKiskorös
Kiskőrös is a town in Bács-Kiskun, Hungary. It is located at around . Sándor Petőfi was born here.- Geography :Kiskõrös is the sixth biggest city in Bács-Kiskun county by population. It is located in the center of the county, 22 km east from the river Danube and 110 km south of Budapest...
(Kingdom of Hungary
Kingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary comprised present-day Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia , Transylvania , Carpatho Ruthenia , Vojvodina , Burgenland , and other smaller territories surrounding present-day Hungary's borders...
, then part of the Austrian Empire
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...
). The population of Kiskőrös was predominantly of Slovak origin as a consequence of the Habsburgs’ reconstruction policy designed to settle, where possible, non-Hungarians in areas devastated during the Turkish wars.
His birth certificate in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
gives his name as "Alexander Petrovics", where "Alexander" is the Latin equivalent of the Hungarian "Sándor". His father, , was a village butcher, innkeeper and he was a second-generation Serb or Slovak
Slovaks
The Slovaks, Slovak people, or Slovakians are a West Slavic people that primarily inhabit Slovakia and speak the Slovak language, which is closely related to the Czech language.Most Slovaks today live within the borders of the independent Slovakia...
immigrant to the Magyar lowlands. Mária Hrúz, Petőfi's mother, was a servant and laundress before her marriage. She was of Slovak descent and spoke Hungarian with something of an accent. Petőfi's parents first met in Maglód
Maglód
Maglód is a town in Pest county, Budapest metropolitan area, Hungary.www.maglod.hu- Twin Cities :* Lueta , Romania* Mýtne Ludany , Slovakia...
, married in Aszód
Aszód
Aszód is a town in Pest county, Hungary.- External links :*...
and
the family moved to Kiskőrös a year before the birth of the poet.
The family lived for some time in Szabadszállás
Szabadszállás
Szabadszállás is a small town in Bács-Kiskun county, Hungary, 80 kilometres south of Budapest by rail.The town is surrounded by several areas of the Kiskunság National Park.- External links :* *...
, where his father owned a slaughterhouse. Within two years, the family moved to Kiskunfélegyháza
Kiskunfélegyháza
Kiskunfélegyháza is a town in the Bács-Kiskun county in southern Hungary, 130 kilometres southeast of Budapest by rail.Among the principal buildings are a fine Art Nouveau town hall, a Roman Catholic high school and a modern large parish church. The surrounding country is covered with vineyards,...
, and Petőfi always viewed the city as his true home. His father tried to give his son the best possible education, but when Sándor was 15, the family lost its money, due to the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
floods of 1838 and the bankruptcy of a relative. Sándor had to leave the lyceum
Lyceum
The lyceum is a category of educational institution defined within the education system of many countries, mainly in Europe. The definition varies between countries; usually it is a type of secondary school.-History:...
which he was attending in (today Banská Štiavnica
Banská Štiavnica
Banská Štiavnica is a town in central Slovakia, in the middle of an immense caldera created by the collapse of an ancient volcano. For its size, the caldera is known as Štiavnica Mountains. Banská Štiavnica has a population of more than 10,000. It is a completely preserved medieval town...
in Slovakia). He held small jobs in various theatres in Pest
Pest (city)
Pest is the eastern, mostly flat part of Budapest, Hungary, comprising about two thirds of the city's territory. It is divided from Buda, the other part of Budapest, by the Danube River. Among its most notable parts are the Inner City, including the Hungarian Parliament, Heroes' Square and...
, worked as a teacher in Ostffyasszonyfa
Ostffyasszonyfa
Ostffyasszonyfa is a village in Vas county, Hungary. The local racing track, Pannonia-ring is a testing circuit of Ducati. In 2008 Michael Schumacher tested a Superbike there.- External links :* *...
, and was a soldier in Sopron
Sopron
In 1910 Sopron had 33,932 inhabitants . Religions: 64.1% Roman Catholic, 27.8% Lutheran, 6.6% Jewish, 1.2% Calvinist, 0.3% other. In 2001 the city had 56,125 inhabitants...
.
After a restless period of traveling, Petőfi attended college at Pápa
Pápa
Pápa is a historical city in Veszprém county, Hungary, located close to the northern edge of the Bakony Hills, and noted for its baroque architecture. With its 33,000 inhabitants, it is the cultural, economic and tourism centre of the region....
, where he met Mór Jókai
Mór Jókai
Mór Jókai , born Móric Jókay de Ásva , outside Hungary also known as Maurus Jokai, was a Hungarian dramatist and novelist.-Early life:...
. A year later in 1842, his poem "A borozó" (The Wine Drinker) was first published in Athenaeum under the name Sándor Petrovics. On 3 November the same year, he published the poem under the surname "Petőfi" for the first time.
Petőfi was more interested in the theater. In 1842 he joined a traveling theater, but had to leave it to earn money. He wrote for a newspaper, but could not make enough money. Malnourished and sick, he went to Debrecen
Debrecen
Debrecen , is the second largest city in Hungary after Budapest. Debrecen is the regional centre of the Northern Great Plain region and the seat of Hajdú-Bihar county.- Name :...
, where his friends helped him get back on his feet.
In 1844 he walked from Debrecen to Pest
Pest (city)
Pest is the eastern, mostly flat part of Budapest, Hungary, comprising about two thirds of the city's territory. It is divided from Buda, the other part of Budapest, by the Danube River. Among its most notable parts are the Inner City, including the Hungarian Parliament, Heroes' Square and...
to find a publisher for his poems, in which he succeeded. His poems were becoming increasingly popular. He relied on folkloric elements and popular, traditional song-like verses.
Among his longer works is the epic "János Vitéz
János Vitéz
János Vitéz is a poem written in Hungarian by Sándor Petőfi and a musical by Pongrác Kacsóh adapted from the poem. The poem was written in 1845, and is notable for its length, 370 quatrains divided into 27 chapters, and for its clever wordplay. It has gained immense popularity in Hungary, and is...
" (Sir John, 1845). The poem is a fairy-tale notable for its length, 370 quatrains divided into 27 chapters, and for its clever wordplay. It has gained immense popularity in Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
,It has several musical and film adaptations and is today considered a classic of Hungarian literature
Hungarian literature
Hungarian literature is literature written in the Hungarian language, predominantly by Hungarians.There is a limited amount of Old Hungarian literature dating to between the late 12th and the early 16th centuries...
. however, he felt influenced by his editor, Imre Vahot, to continue writing folklore-style poems, while he wanted to use his Western-oriented education and write about growing revolutionary passions. (The government's censorship would have made such works difficult to publish.)
Marriage and family
In 1846, he met Júlia Szendrey in TransylvaniaTransylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
. They married the next year, despite the opposition of her father, and spent their honeymoon at the castle of Count Sándor Teleki, the only aristocrat among Petőfi's friends.
Political career
Petőfi became more possessed by thoughts of a global revolution. He and Júlia moved to Pest, where he joined a group of like-minded students and intellectuals who regularly met at Café Pilvax. They worked at promoting Hungarian as the language of literature and theatre, formerly based on French. (The first permanent theatre (the National Theatre) performing in Hungarian opened at this time.)The Hungarian Revolution of 1848
Among the various young leaders of the revolution, called Márciusi Ifjak (Youths of March), Petőfi was the key in starting the revolution in Pest. He was co-author and author, respectively, of the two most important written documents: the 12 Pont (12 Points, demands to the Habsburg Governor-General) and the "Nemzeti DalNemzeti dal
The Nemzeti dal , written by Sándor Petőfi, is the poem that is said to have inspired the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. Petőfi read the poem aloud on March 15 in Vörösmarty Square in Budapest to a gathering crowd, which by the end was chanting the refrain as they began to march around the city,...
", his revolutionary poem.
When the news of the revolution in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
reached them on the 15th, Petőfi and his friends decided to change the date of the "National Assembly" (a rally where a petition to the Hungarian noblemen's assembly would be approved by the people), from 19 March to the 15th. On the morning of the 15th, Petőfi and the revolutionaries began to march around the city of Pest, reading his poem and the "12 Points" to the growing crowd, which attracted thousands. Visiting printers, they declared an end to censorship and printed the poem and "12 Points".
Crowds forced the mayor to sign the "12 Points" and later held a mass demonstration in front of the newly built National Museum
Hungarian National Museum
- History:The Hungarian National Museum is said to have been founded in 1802 when Count Ferenc Széchényi set up the National Széchényi Library. This would then be followed a year later by the donating of a mineral collection by Széchényi’s wife. This led to the creation of the Hungarian National...
, then crossed to Buda
Buda
For detailed information see: History of Buda CastleBuda is the western part of the Hungarian capital Budapest on the west bank of the Danube. The name Buda takes its name from the name of Bleda the Hun ruler, whose name is also Buda in Hungarian.Buda comprises about one-third of Budapest's...
on the other bank of the Danube. When the crowd rallied in front of the Imperial governing council, the representatives of Emperor
Emperor of Austria
The Emperor of Austria was a hereditary imperial title and position proclaimed in 1804 by the Holy Roman Emperor Francis II, a member of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, and continually held by him and his heirs until the last emperor relinquished power in 1918. The emperors retained the title of...
Ferdinand
Ferdinand I of Austria
Ferdinand I was Emperor of Austria, President of the German Confederation, King of Hungary and Bohemia , as well as associated dominions from the death of his father, Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, until his abdication after the Revolutions of 1848.He married Maria Anna of Savoy, the sixth child...
felt they had to sign the "12 Points". As one of the points was freedom for political prisoners, the crowd moved to greet the newly freed revolutionary poet Mihály Táncsics
Mihály Táncsics
Táncsics Mihály was a Hungarian writer, journalist and politician.Mihály Táncsics was born as a son of Croatian father and Slovak mother.- References :...
.
Petőfi's popularity waned as the memory of the glorious day faded, and the revolution went the way of high politics: to the leadership of the nobles. Those in the noblemen's Assembly in Pozsony, (today Bratislava) had been pushing for slower reforms at the same time, which they delivered to the Emperor on the 13th, but events had overtaken them briefly. Petőfi disagreed with the Assembly, and criticised their view of the goals and methods of the Revolution. (His colleague Táncsics was imprisoned again by the new government.) In the general election, Petőfi ran in his native area, but did not win a seat. At this time, he wrote his most serious poem, Az Apostol (The Apostle). It was an epic
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
about a fictional revolutionary who, after much suffering, attempts, but fails, to assassinate a fictitious king.
Petőfi joined Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
Liberal
Classical liberalism
Classical liberalism is the philosophy committed to the ideal of limited government, constitutionalism, rule of law, due process, and liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets....
General Józef Bem
Józef Bem
Józef Zachariasz Bem was a Polish general, an Ottoman Pasha and a national hero of Poland and Hungary, and a figure intertwined with other European nationalisms...
's "Transylvanian army", which initially was successful against Habsburg troops, Hungarian, Romanian
Romanians
The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....
and Transylvanian Saxon militia
Militia
The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...
s. After Tsar Nicholas I of Russia
Nicholas I of Russia
Nicholas I , was the Emperor of Russia from 1825 until 1855, known as one of the most reactionary of the Russian monarchs. On the eve of his death, the Russian Empire reached its historical zenith spanning over 20 million square kilometers...
intervened to restore the Hapsburgs, the Transylvanians were repeated defeated. Last seen alive in the battle of Segesvár
Battle of Segesvár
The Battle of Segesvár was a battle in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, fought on 31 July 1849 between the Hungarian revolutionary army supplemented by Polish volunteers under the command of General Józef Bem and the Russian V Corps under General Alexander von Lüders in ally with the Austrian...
on 31 July 1849.
Death
Petőfi is believed to have been killed in actionKilled in action
Killed in action is a casualty classification generally used by militaries to describe the deaths of their own forces at the hands of hostile forces. The United States Department of Defense, for example, says that those declared KIA need not have fired their weapons but have been killed due to...
during the battle of Segesvár by the Imperial Russian Army
Imperial Russian Army
The Imperial Russian Army was the land armed force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian army consisted of around 938,731 regular soldiers and 245,850 irregulars . Until the time of military reform of Dmitry Milyutin in...
. A Russian military doctor recorded an account of Petőfi's death in his diary. As his body was never officially found, rumours of Petőfi's survival persisted. In his autobiographical roman a clef
Roman à clef
Roman à clef or roman à clé , French for "novel with a key", is a phrase used to describe a novel about real life, overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the "key" is the relationship between the nonfiction and the fiction...
Political Fashions (Politikai divatok, 1862), Mór Jókai
Mór Jókai
Mór Jókai , born Móric Jókay de Ásva , outside Hungary also known as Maurus Jokai, was a Hungarian dramatist and novelist.-Early life:...
imagined his late friend's "resurrection". In the novel Petőfi (the character named Pusztafi) returns ten years later as a shabby, déclassé figure who has lost his faith in everything, poetry, too.
Though for many years his death at Segesvár had been assumed, in the late 1980s Soviet investigators found archives that revealed that after the battle about 1,800 Hungarian prisoners of war were marched to Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
. Alternative theories suggest that he was one of them and died of tuberculosis in 1856. In 1990, an expedition was organized to Barguzin, Siberia, where archaeologists claimed to have unearthed Petőfi's skeleton.
Poetry
Petőfi started his career as a poet with "popular situation songs", a genre to which his first published poem, A borozó ("The Wine Drinker", 1842), belongs. It is the song of a drinker praising the healing power of wine to drive away all troubles. This kind of pseudo-folk song was not unusual in Hungarian poetry of the 1840s, but Petőfi soon developed an original and fresh voice which made him stand out. He wrote many folk song-like poems on the subjects of wine, love, romanticRomanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
robbers etc. Many of these early poems have become classics, for example the love poem A virágnak megtiltani nem lehet ("You Cannot Forbid the Flower", 1843), or Befordultam a konyhára ("I Turned into the Kitchen", 1843) which uses the ancient metaphor of love and fire in a playful and somewhat provocative way.
The influence of folk poetry and 19th-century populism is very significant in Petőfi's work, but other influences are also present: Petőfi drew on sources such as topoi of contemporary almanac
Almanac
An almanac is an annual publication that includes information such as weather forecasts, farmers' planting dates, and tide tables, containing tabular information in a particular field or fields often arranged according to the calendar etc...
-poetry in an inventive way, and was familiar with the works of major literary figures of his day, including Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
, Pierre-Jean de Béranger
Pierre-Jean de Béranger
Pierre-Jean de Béranger was a prolific French poet and chansonnier , who enjoyed great popularity and influence in France during his lifetime, but faded into obscurity in the decades following his death...
and Heinrich Heine
Heinrich Heine
Christian Johann Heinrich Heine was one of the most significant German poets of the 19th century. He was also a journalist, essayist, and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of Lieder by composers such as Robert Schumann...
.
Petőfi's early poetry was often interpreted as some kind of role-playing, due to the broad range of situations and voices he created and used. Recent interpretations however call attention to the fact that in some sense all lyrical poetry can be understood as role-playing, which makes the category of "role-poems" (coined especially for Petőfi) superfluous. While using a variety of voices, Petőfi created a well-formed persona
Persona
A persona, in the word's everyday usage, is a social role or a character played by an actor. The word is derived from Latin, where it originally referred to a theatrical mask. The Latin word probably derived from the Etruscan word "phersu", with the same meaning, and that from the Greek πρόσωπον...
for himself: a jaunty, stubborn loner who loves wine, hates all kinds of limits and boundaries and is passionate in all he feels. In poems such as Jövendölés ("Prophecy", 1843) he imagines himself as someone who will die young after doing great things. This motif recurs in the revolutionary poetry of his later years.
The influence of contemporary almanac-poetry can be best seen in the poem cycle Cipruslombok Etelke sírjára ("Branches of Cypress for Etelke's Tomb", 1845). These sentimental poems, which are about death, grief, love, memory and loneliness were written after a love interest of Petőfi's, Etelke Csapó, died.
In the years 1844–45 Petőfi's poetry became more and more subtle and mature. New subjects appeared, such as landscape. His most influential landscape poem is Az Alföld ("The Plains"), in which he says that his homeland, the Hungarian plains
Great Hungarian Plain
The Great Hungarian Plain is a plain occupying the southern and eastern part of Hungary, some parts of the Eastern Slovak Lowland, southwestern Ukraine, the Transcarpathian Lowland , western Romania , northern Serbia , and eastern Croatia...
are more beautiful and much dearer than the Carpathian mountains
Carpathian Mountains
The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians are a range of mountains forming an arc roughly long across Central and Eastern Europe, making them the second-longest mountain range in Europe...
; it was to become the foundation of a long-lived fashion: that of the plains as the typical Hungarian landscape.
Petőfi's poetic skills solidified and broadened. He became a master of using different kinds of voices, for example his poem A régi, jó Gvadányi ("The Good Old Gvadányi") imitates the style of József Gvadányi, a Hungarian poet who lived at the end of the 18th century.
It is interesting to note that several of Petőfi's poems were set to music by the young Friedrich Nietzsche, who composed as a hobby while studying classics at Pforta before beginning his career in philosophy.
Petőfi maintained a lifelong friendship with János Arany
János Arany
János Arany , was a Hungarian journalist, writer, poet, and translator. He is often said to be the "Shakespeare of ballads" – he wrote more than 40 ballads which have been translated into over 50 languages, as well as the Toldi trilogy, to mention his most famous works.-Biography:He was born in...
, another significant poet of the time. Arany was the godfather of Petőfi's son Zoltán.
Honours and memorials
After the Revolution was crushed, Petőfi's writing became immensely popular, while his rebelliousness served as a role model ever since for Hungarian revolutionaries and would-be revolutionaries of every political colour.During the late 1940s, Boris Pasternak
Boris Pasternak
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak was a Russian language poet, novelist, and literary translator. In his native Russia, Pasternak's anthology My Sister Life, is one of the most influential collections ever published in the Russian language...
produced acclaimed translations of Petőfi's poems into the Russian language
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
.
Today, streets and squares are named after him throughout Hungary and Hungarian-speaking regions of neighboring states; in Budapest alone, there are 11 Petőfi streets and 4 Petőfi squares, see: Public place names of Budapest. A national radio station
Hungarian Radio
Magyar Rádió is Hungary's publicly funded radio broadcasting organization. It is also the country's official international broadcasting station...
(Radio Petőfi), a bridge
Petofi Bridge
Petőfi híd or Petőfi Bridge is a bridge in Budapest, connecting Pest and Buda across the Danube...
in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
and a street in Sofia
Sofia
Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...
, Bulgaria also bear his name, as well as the asteroid
Asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
4483 Petöfi
4483 Petöfi
4483 Petöfi is a main belt asteroid with an orbital period of 973.6527141 days . The asteroid was discovered on September 9, 1986, and it was named after the great Hungarian poet Sándor Petőfi.-References:...
, a member of the Hungaria family
Hungaria family
The Hungaria asteroids are a group of asteroids in the asteroid belt that orbit the Sun between 1.78 and 2.00 AU. The asteroids typically have a low eccentricity and an inclination of 16 to 34 degrees....
.
Petőfi has a larger than life terra cotta
Terra cotta
Terracotta, Terra cotta or Terra-cotta is a clay-based unglazed ceramic, although the term can also be applied to glazed ceramics where the fired body is porous and red in color...
statue near the Pest end of Erzsébet Bridge
Erzsébet Bridge
Elisabeth Bridge is the third newest bridge of Budapest, Hungary, connecting Buda and Pest across the River Danube. The bridge is situated at the narrowest part of the Danube in the Budapest area, spanning only 290 m. It is named after Queen Elisabeth, a popular queen and empress of...
, sculpted by Miklós Izsó
Miklós Izsó
Miklós Izsó - May 29, 1875, Budapest) was a Hungarian sculptor. His sculptural style integrated elements of classicism and academic style.Izsó studied at the College in Sárospatak from 1840. He took part in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848...
and Adolf Huszár. Similar Petőfi statues were established in many other cities, as well, during the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.