Everything about S Ndor Pet Fi totally explained
Sándor Petőfi (born
January 1 1823,
Kiskőrös,
Hungary – died most likely
July 31 1849, in
Segesvár,
Hungary) was a
Hungarian national poet of Slovak descent and a key figure in the
Hungarian Revolution of
1848.
Early life
His birth certificate, written in
Latin, gives his name as
Alexander Petrovics. His father's first language was
Hungarian. (According to many sources, he was of
Serb descent and his original name was
Stevan Petrović, while according to other sources, he was of
Slovak descent ), and his mother was Mária Hrúzová (Hungarian:
Hrúz Mária) who spoke only
Slovak. However, he'd a very strong self-awareness of being
Hungarian, becoming the spiritual leader of the revolutionary radicals (who wanted full independence from the
Habsburg Monarchy and a free
Hungary). He wrote some of Hungary's greatest national poetry - from his poem,
Nemzeti dal ("National Song"):
By the God of the Hungarians / We swear, / We swear, that we'll be slaves / No longer! - (literal translation).
The family lived for a while 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 birthplace. His father tried to give his son the best possible education, but when Sándor was 15 they lost their money due to the
Danube floods of
1838 and the bankruptcy of a relative. Sándor had to leave the
lyceum he attended in Selmecbánya (
Banská Štiavnica). He had small jobs in various theatres in
Pest, worked as a teacher in
Ostffyasszonyfa and was a soldier in
Sopron.
After a restless period of travelling Petőfi attended college at
Pápa, where he met
Mór Jókai, and a year later, in
1842, his poem
A borozó ("The Pub") was first published in
Athenaeum under the name
Sándor Petrovics. On
November 3 of the same year he published this poem, using the name "Petőfi" for the first time.
However, Petőfi was more interested in the theatre. In 1842 he joined a travelling theatre, but then had to leave it. He tried to keep himself financially afloat by writing for a newspaper, but that wasn't enough. Malnourished and sick, he arrived in
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, and the 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 (1845, "Sir John", ISBN 1843910845). On the other hand, he felt he was forced into a folkish, wine-and-pubs, low-quality niche by his publisher, while in fact he also had an extensive Western-oriented education and revolutionary passions to write about. (Of course, these would be difficult to publish, due to the heavy censorship of the time).
In
1846, he met
Júlia Szendrey in
Transylvania, and they married the next year, against the
will of her
father, spending their honeymoon in the castle of Count
Sándor Teleki, the only aristocrat among Petőfi's friends. Afterwards, he was even more possessed by thoughts of a global revolution. He moved to Pest and joined a group of like-minded students and intellectuals who regularly met at
Café Pilvax. They worked at promoting Hungarian as a language of literature and theatre. (The first permanent theatre (the National Theatre) performing in Hungarian opened at this time.)
The Hungarian Revolution of 1848
March 15, 1848 was Petőfi's day. Among the various leaders of the revolution - called
Márciusi Ifjak ("Youths of March") - Petőfi was the key in starting the revolution in
Pest, co-author and, respectively, author of the two most important written documents: the
12 Pont (demands to the Habsburg Governor-General) and the
Nemzeti Dal.
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 March 19th to the 15th. (This was a lucky decision, given that the authorities knew their plans, and intended to arrest the revolutionaries on the 18th.)
On the morning of the 15th, the revolutionaries wit Petőfi began to march around the city of Pest, reading the poem and the 12 points to the crowd (which swelled to thousands). Then, they visited printing presses, declaring an end to all forms of censorship and printing Petőfi's poem together with the
12 Pont. The mayor was forced by the crowds to sign the
12 Pont. Later, a mass demonstration was held in front of the newly-built
National Museum, after which the group left for
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've no choice but to sign the 12 points. As one of the points was freedom for political prisoners, the crowd moved on 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/Bratislava) had in fact been pushing for slower reforms at the same time - delivering a list of demands to the Emperor on the 13th - but events had overtaken them briefly. Petőfi disagreed with the Assembly, and criticised the way they saw the goals and methods of the Revolution. (His colleague Táncsics was imprisoned yet again by the new government.) In the general election, he ran in his native area, but didn't get the seat. At this time, he wrote his most serious poem, the epic
Az Apostol ("The Apostle", an epic about a fictional revolutionary who, after much suffering, attempts, but fails to assassinate a fictitious king.)
Petőfi joined
Polish revolutionary general
Józef Bem's
Transylvanian army, fighting a successful campaign against Habsburg troops,
Romanian and
Transylvanian Saxon militias. However, it was defeated repeatedly when
Imperial Russia intervened to aid the Austrians. He was last seen in the
battle of Segesvár (Sighişoara),
July 31,
1849. The circumstances of his death are mysterious.
The main opinion is that he died in the battle, based on the account of a Russian military doctor in his diary. He saw an unusual-looking corpse dead of a stomach
lance wound, having Petőfi's characteristic yellowish face and matching clothing; Petőfi had the habit of wearing a civilian jacket with uniform trousers. Recently an ethnic Hungarian Romanian claimed to have located fragments of a stone eagle which local Hungarians are known to have erected in
1855 on the site of the
mass grave where Petőfi was allegedly buried. Considering the number of fallen Hungarians in the battle of Segesvár, an excavation wouldn't offer much hope, even if genetic material could be obtained from the graves of his parents. Some Hungarians, notably
Ferenc Morvai, believe Petőfi was captured and taken to Russia, where he died some years later of natural causes.
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. Today, streets are named after him throughout Hungary (perhaps one in every village, but in Budapest there are 11) and in the Hungarian-inhabited areas of Transylvania, as well as a
national radio station and a
bridge in
Budapest.
Poetry
Petőfi started his career as a poet with so-called "popular situation songs", to which his first published poem,
A borozó ("The Winery", 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 wasn't 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,
romantic 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's 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.
Monuments
Petőfi has a larger than life
terra cotta statue near the Buda end of
Erzsébet Bridge, sculpted by
Miklós Izsó and
Adolf Huszár.
Further Information
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