Hungarian Poetry

The Medieval Period

Along the well-worn path the Hungarians (Magyars) took westward during the centuries preceding their entry into the Carpathian Basin in 896 CE, they shaped a peculiar folk culture and folk poetry. Ethnographers, linguists, and researchers of comparative literature have arrived at this conclusion, even though no written trace of ancient Hungarian literature has survived. The runic alphabet of the seminomadic Hungarians was not used for recording literary texts, but the wealth of ancient poetry is attested by later allusions, although after Christianization in about 1000, both the state and Church made every effort to eradicate even the memory of the pagan period. The chant of the shaman, an improvised incantation for the purposes of sorcery, prophecy, necromancy, or healing, often combined with music, dance, and a primitive form of drama, thus survived primarily in children’s rhymes and other simple ritualistic expressions. The secular counterparts of the shamans, the minstrels (regősök), provided the first examples of epic poetry, recounting the origin of the Hungarians. Two of these epics are known (in their later reconstructed forms) as the Legend of the Miraculous Stag and the Lay of the White Steed. The versification is believed to have been similar to that of other ancient European poetry; it is thought, for example, that the Hungarian minstrels did not use rhyme, relying instead on alliteration.

The culture of medieval Hungary was influenced by both Roman and Byzantine Christianity, but it was most effectively shaped by the various monastic orders (Benedictines, Cistercians, Dominicans, and Franciscans, among others) who settled in the land from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries. Learning remained almost entirely theological until the middle of the fourteenth century, and writing continued even longer in Latin, the language of the Church.

The Latin hymns and laments of Hungarian monk-writers were mostly dedicated to the praise of Hungarian saints, and their subject matter generally derived from the legends associated with these saints. Because only later copies of these creations survived, little is known of their origins or of their authors.

The earliest known poetic text in Hungarian originates from about 1300: The “Ómagyar Mária-siralom” (“Ancient Hungarian Lament of Mary”) is an adaptation from the “Planctus Sanctae Mariae” of Geoffroi de Breteuil (died 1196). The original liturgical hymn was transformed into a pious lay song with strong mystical undercurrents. Written in the ancient Hungarian line, consisting of eight syllables, with stress on the first and the fifth, the poetic technique of the “Ancient Hungarian Lament of Mary” is so accomplished that centuries of literary practice must be assumed to have preceded it.

While epic romances and troubadour songs began to flourish in the fourteenth century, the poetry of chivalry left relatively scarce evidence of its existence in Hungary. Its best-known example is the chanson de geste woven around the figure of Miklós Toldi, a popular strongman-soldier. Elements of this epic passed into folklore and formed the basis of works several centuries later, including a masterful epic trilogy by János Arany.

By the fifteenth century, secular poetry in the vernacular had made its presence strongly felt in Hungary. The untutored minstrels and rhymesters were joined by clerks and scribes (the deák), who supplemented the works of the bards with their own compositions, including “historical” songs as well as love poems and satirical lays. One good example of their work is the narrative song titled Szabács viadala (1476; the siege of the Szabács), which recounts an episode of warfare against the invading Ottoman army. Its contradictions continue to intrigue scholars; while its language is bleak and it reads like a school exercise, it exhibits a strikingly modern vocabulary and flawless technique in its use of decasyllabic rhymed couplets.

The Renaissance and the Reformation

While indifference toward literacy and the written word continued to be the rule of the period, there arose in Hungary important centers of Renaissance culture during the reign of the Anjou kings (1308-1382) and especially during that of Mátyás (1458-1490). His efforts to establish a strong central authority were well served by the professional men in his employ, recruited from a variety of countries. Besides these learned foreigners, a new crop of Hungarian intellectuals appeared as a result of schooling in the universities of Western Europe.

Outstanding among these was Janus Pannonius (1434-1472), a Ferrara-educated bishop of Pécs, the creator of finely chiseled epigrams, elegies, and panegyrics and the first Hungarian man of letters whose fame transcended the borders of his homeland. His topics included affairs of state, the growing Ottoman peril, the love he felt for his homeland (while missing the culture of Italy), and his disenchantment with the policies of his sovereign. Renaissance luxury and the contemplative atmosphere of court literature were shattered during the stormy period following Mátyás’s death, but the tradition of Humanist poetry domesticated by Pannonius and his circle of followers has remained alive in Hungarian literature to this day. The large number of Hungarian poems surviving from the sixteenth century indicates that a considerable body of verse already existed in the Middle Ages, even if most of it is unknown today.

The major impulse for this cultural growth was the Protestant Reformation. The literature of Hungary became a battleground for the various new tenets. Hymns, didactic verses, and rhymed paraphrases of biblical episodes, written in Hungarian, became weapons that assured the rapid acceptance of Protestantism among the people. Of the secular minstrels of the century, the best known and most prolific was Sebestyén Tinódi (died 1556), who was more a storyteller than a poet. His accounts of battles and sieges were accurate, but his verse was monotonous and repetitive, made enjoyable only by musical accompaniment. Free adaptations of Western European poetry abounded during the century, the principal genre being the széphistória (named after the Italian bella istoria) interwoven with elements of Hungarian folklore, thus reflecting a strong native character.

Bálint Balassi

Representing the finest achievements of the Hungarian Renaissance is the poetry of Bálint Balassi (1554-1594), a nobleman whose turbulent life was spent in constant pursuit of love, wealth, and adventure, often under the shadow of political suspicion. His works have something of the flavor of the English Cavalier poets, something of François Villon, with the additional feature of an intimate knowledge of nature. Proficient in eight languages and familiar with the works of the great Humanists, Balassi wrote poetry with great dexterity. His cycles of love poems remained unsurpassed for centuries, and the intensity of his Christian verse, in which he disputed with God while seeking solace in him, foreshadowed the thoroughly personal religious works of later Hungarian poets. The intensity of a soldier’s life made itself felt through the discipline of his lines. His most perfectly composed and most frequently quoted poem is a cantio militaris, “A végek dicsérete” (1589; “In Praise of the Marches”), an eloquent hymn to life on the marches and to the beauty of nature, ending with a moving grace and farewell. Balassi developed a verse form for himself, a nine-line stanza consisting of six-, six-, and seven-syllable cycles, with an aab-ccb-ddb rhyme scheme; named after him, this pattern became a favorite of Hungarian poets.

The Counter-Reformation and Baroque

Much of the seventeenth century was characterized by the militant spirit of the Counter-Reformation, resulting in an enormous output of religious poetry, mostly by Roman Catholic writers. The outstanding Hungarian poet of the century, Miklós Zrínyi (1620-1664), a thoroughly Baroque man of letters, bore one significant resemblance to Balassi: He also had firsthand knowledge of combat, and his descriptions of battle scenes, especially in his epic carrying the Latin title Obsidio Szigetiana (wr. 1645-1646; The Peril of Sziget, 1955), are particularly graphic and authentic. In his narrative, as well as in his prose writings, Zrínyi displayed the explicit and fervent political commitment which was to become an integral part of much Hungarian poetry. Although the influence of Vergil, Ludovico Ariosto, and Torquato Tasso is discernible in The Peril of Sziget, the presentation of details and the use of atmosphere make it a profoundly original Hungarian creation.

The cultivation of sentimental rococo poetry became a fashionable pastime during the seventeenth century. Even highborn ladies tried their skill at it, most of them producing religious or domestic verse. The epic tradition of Zrínyi was carried forward by an inventive, widely-read courtier who stayed away from actual battles. The heroes of István Gyöngyösi (1629-1704) were genuine nobles and ladies; in his numerous epithalamia, he revealed their love secrets to his\ readers in great detail and with obvious relish. He was the typical poet-follower of lords, adjusting his politics and principles to those of the “great family” he served. His works are nothing more than family or society stories, but their accomplishment is undeniable. Gyöngyösi’s honest craftsmanship, especially in his descriptions of the countryside, presages the works of the great Romantic and realist poets of the nineteenth century.

With the growth of readership, an eager public appeared for secular as well as religious poetry. For some time, these writings circulated in handwritten copies, but by the 1680s, a number of printed songbooks were in popular demand. The vulgarized versions of Renaissance poems in the form of verse-chronicles constituted the bulk of the poetry of the age, with a number of rhymed greetings, soldiers’ songs, laments, and dirges also in evidence. The proliferation of love poetry was striking; entire songbooks appeared filled with these often ribald verses, attempting to follow the high standards set by Balassi and Gyöngyösi. Among students, the traditions of goliardic poetry were revived, with sharp expressions of social discontent.

Political and religious intolerance resulted in the outbreak of the kuruc wars during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Reflecting the makeup of the rebelling armies, many popular songs of this period voiced the complaints of fugitives, outlaws, and impoverished, vagrant students. A large body of (mostly anonymous) poetry was produced during the successive rebellions and campaigns. Written in the simplest folk idiom, suitable for musical adaptation, such songs and laments provide gripping descriptions of the miseries and joys of kuruc life. The most famous among them (such as “The Rákóczi Song”) later inspired Franz Liszt and Hector Berlioz to compose stirring Romantic music.

Eighteenth century

From 1711, when the kuruc armies of Prince Ferenc Rákóczi II were defeated, to the 1770s, Hungarian literature experienced a period of relative decline. Only the continuing flood of imitative, mannerist rococo verse indicated the survival of poetry. The poets of this period showed a remarkable command of form and diction, and some of them were important in the development of modern poetic techniques. Baron László Amade (1704-1764), a sophisticated cultivator of poésie galante, produced poems worthy of mention. Ferenc Faludi (1704-1779), a Jesuit abbot, also became interested in secular poetry. In spite of its rococo affectations and style, his verse was firmly grounded in reality and took much from Hungarian folk literature. With his earthy realism and his prosodic experimentation, Faludi became one of the early exponents of truly modern poetry.

The Enlightenment reached Eastern Europe by the 1770s and—even though the absolutist Habsburg authorities thwarted any political organization—its effect on the cultural life of Hungary was profound. Intellectual renewal was rapid and irresistible. One of its centers was Vienna, where Hungarian noblemen were educating their sons. French, German, and English-language treatises and literature filtered into Hungary, resulting in the founding of great private collections of books and art, the formation of literary societies, and the publication of periodicals. French (later German) Neoclassicism became the dominant trend in poetry. The earliest prominent figure of Hungarian Enlightenment, György Bessenyei (1747-1811), while known mostly for his essays and his plays, also wrote a number of philosophical poems. Had they appeared in print during his lifetime, they would have been pioneering works.

Ferenc Kazinczy

Much more influential was Ferenc Kazinczy (1759-1831). Although writing relatively few poems, of modest merit, he was for nearly forty years the central figure of Hungarian literary life; he organized, criticized, encouraged, and educated the writers and poets scattered throughout Hungary by maintaining an extensive correspondence from his rural manor. All the good, and many of the bad, poets of the period were indebted to him. While they considered style, presentation, and construction to be of supreme value, attaching secondary importance to the thoughts conveyed, Kazinczy and his circle soon came to the conclusion that, in its uncultivated state, the Hungarian language was inadequate to communicate the timely ideas of literature and the arts. They made reform, refinement, and development of the language a question of primary importance. Proclaiming these aims in their sharply worded epigrams, epistles, and critical essays, they initiated the struggle between “neologists” and “orthologists” which persisted through much of the nineteenth century.

Mihály Csokonai Vitéz

While the early reform generation produced few outstanding poets, one of their contemporaries, Mihály Csokonai Vitéz (1773-1805), exhibited the fruits of his search for new forms of expression. He made use of everything he learned from European literature, transmitting it into his own sphere of experience and producing from the synthesis something original and integrally his own. He was the first Hungarian who attempted (unsuccessfully) to make a living from his literary efforts. Despite the fact that he lived in a state of squalor and acutely felt rejection, many of his poems are marked by a subtle grace and cheerfulness. They range from Rousseauesque philosophical ponderings to drinking songs and village genre pieces. His love cycles written during his many periods of courtship happily blend light passages of rococo fancy with more sober thoughts. Csokonai Vitéz could be compared to the Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759-1796), except that this would overemphasize the populist element of his poetry.

Romanticism

While the Enlightenment gave rise to philosophical and didactic verse, disposed to abstraction and aridity, lyric poetry found another impetus. The reformers and experimenters encouraged originality and aesthetic individuality, in sharp contrast to both neoclassicism and the earlier Baroque orientation. The campaign for national independence revealed a set of common feelings shared by all Hungarians and resulted in anxious efforts to preserve the native tongue and indigenous customs. The intensive exploration of traditional literature, the growing awareness of literary history, and the Romantic influence of Ossianic poetry combined to open the way for unrestrained experimentation. In the area of versification, for example, Western European patterns were adopted by Hungarian poets as if based on stress alone. Consequently, the French Alexandrine was assimilated as a twelve-syllable accented line of two beats, each having six syllables. Four of these lines were arranged into a stanza, at first all lines rhyming, later following the Western example of rhyming couplets. Even more significant was the introduction of a metrical principle that could be based on the length of syllables. Since the Hungarian language makes a clear distinction between long and short syllables, this practice is perfectly suited to it. Some of the poets introduced the purely metrical, nonrhyming forms of Greek and Roman poetry, while others adapted rhyming verse forms from the West. The flexibility and smoothness resulting from these experiments was unprecedented in Hungarian poetry.

The typical attitudes of Romantic literature—the glorification of history, the preference for a noble and often affected “sublimity,” which went hand in hand with a healthy respect for reason—were made more complex in Hungary by an exaggerated emphasis on folk poetry and a contradictory predilection for new techniques of versification. The resulting torrent of poetry during the early decades of the nineteenth century presented a sharp contrast to that of the previous epoch. Lyric ballads, elegies, and epic romances prevailed, in accordance with the requisite extremes of desolation and melancholy on one hand and exhortation and pride on the other. As elsewhere in Eastern Europe, Romantic literature in Hungary contributed to the birth or revival of national consciousness and to the forging of a national identity. With its maturation and with the strengthening of political processes, this literature assisted in democratizing the atmosphere for a national culture. The patriarchal-feudal mode gave way to a semibourgeois one: Writers and poets were able to earn a living from their writings, making noble patronage unnecessary. Publishing became a profitable business; men of letters combined their work with editing and journalism, and they began to be recognized and respected on their own.

One of the architects of the transition to Romanticism was Sándor Kisfaludy (1772-1844), a scion of wealthy landholders, whose two-hundred-verse cycle A kesergő szerelem (1801; sorrowful love) combined strong traditional elements with Renaissance, Baroque, and rococo influences. The form he created to harmonize with his message, the “Himfy-stanza,” composed of eight- and seven-syllable accented lines, came to be one of the favorites of Hungarian poets. Dániel Berzsenyi (1776-1836) did not bring innovations in style or in form, but the emotional intensity with which he proclaimed enduring virtues—moral integrity, courage, love of freedom and justice—accounted for his great popularity during the reform period, when politics and ethics were considered intertwined. His terse and vigorous images and phrases are charged with classical allusions, but his elevated style and antique pose conceal the wounded soul of a modern person. His disillusionment with his morally deficient contemporaries was great; while his intensely disciplined art continued to reflect a remarkable self-control, behind the wisdom of antiquity lay the resignation of a Christian longing for contentment. Although Berzsenyi was disappointed because Hungarian poetry did not develop along his guidelines, his influence on future poets was strong and lasting.

Ferenc Kölcsey

Ferenc Kölcsey (1790-1838) was the most profound thinker among the Hungarian Romantics. A saintly man of uncompromising standards, he embodied the national aspirations of the age. The earlier examples of his relatively small poetic output were clearly influenced by the notion of a Weltliteratur, but later, he showed a predilection toward a vigorous, striking, though often grave and pessimistic, nationalistic poetry. His best-known poem is “Himnusz” (1823; “Hymn”), a somber invocation to God on behalf of the Hungarian nation, which was put to music and is now the national anthem of Hungary.

Mihály Vörösmarty

Mihály Vörösmarty (1800-1855), the greatest Romantic poet of Hungary, introduced a new element into the literary life of the nation. His works were much more than reflections on the events around him; they expressed well-considered and inspired judgments on the vital questions of the age as dictated by the poet’s genius. In “Szózat” (1836; “The Summons”), he addressed the world on behalf of his nation: “The sufferings of a thousand years call for life or death.” This appeal remains unmatched in its confidence and its effect on the reader’s conscience. Familiar with the inherent contradictions in the societies and cultures of his age, Vörösmarty also inquired whether humankind “ever advanced through the medium of books” in his “Gondolatok a könyvtárban” (“Thoughts in the Library”). The ensuing images suggest a pessimistic answer, but the poet appears unable to accept such a dark conclusion: “A new spirit finds its way ahead,” he insists in this and in other poems, which shows him to be a true poet of humankind. There is a nagging doubt and a touch of despair in his mature poems, and the defeat of the nationalist revolt by combined Russian-Austrian forces in the Hungarian War of Independence (1848-1849) released the floodgates of his bitter, almost demoniac imagery.

Populism

In Hungarian literary history, the decade preceding the 1848 Revolution is referred to as the “era of the people and of the nation.” Romanticism was very much alive, but by this time some of the best poets found even Romanticism too narrow and infused it with plebeian-democratic ideals expressed in an increasingly realistic manner. The stylistic trend best suited for the purposes of this period was the populist (népies) approach. It fused Romantic and realistic elements, steadily (although cautiously) increasing stress on the latter. During the 1840s, a courageous, involved commitment to critical realism became dominant, especially among members of the younger generation. The immediate aims of literature were to rediscover folk poetry, to depict the life of the common people, and to give voice to their aspirations. In a domestication of the universal Romantic philosophy, the concept of the “true man” was adapted to that of the “true Hungarian.” The indirect aim of the young writers and poets was the modern expression and interpretation of national character. What they could not foresee was that this national character was to undergo radical transformation during the second half of the nineteenth century.

Sándor Petőfi

In the person of Sándor Petőfi (1823-1849), many of these ideals found their consummation. Petőfi was endowed with everything a national poet must have: innate talent, a fiery commitment, the right historical situation, and a sense of manifest destiny. After a brief life (he died in his mid-twenties), he left behind a body of works that, both in quality and in volume, cannot be ignored in any assessment of world literature. (He also shared Lord Byron’s fate in that he died a tragic death, which made him both a symbol and a myth.) After imitating the folk style so successfully that many of his verses are popularly known as folk songs, he signaled his break with the strict Romantic approach in a spirited parody of the heroic epic, A helység-kalapácsa (1844; The Hammer of the Village, 1873). His most popular epic, János Vitéz (1845; Janos the Hero, 1920; revised as John the Hero, 2004), also indicated this transition. The tale and its trappings are stock Romanticism, while the treatment and the picture projected are closer to realism.

Political themes became increasingly interwoven with his poetry during the 1840s. Even in his genre-pieces, the setting sun was compared to a bloody ruler, and the clink of wineglasses to the clanging of chains enslaving men. In a letter, he proclaimed his guiding principle: “When the people rule in poetry, they will be close to ruling in politics as well, and this is the task of our century.” Not surprisingly, this kind of thinking led him away from a Romantic admiration for the past. Petőfi produced some of the most powerful love poetry of the century, and his descriptive poems (mostly about the plains region between the Danube and Tisza rivers) are imbued with folksy, evocative humor, particularly when presenting the lifestyle of the Hungarian nobility. He developed a style and a language quite clearly his own, which grew to accommodate the whole spectrum of Hungarian life. As a result of his “democratic style,” his readers understood him immediately. While moving away from strict Romanticism, Petőfi found the direct and natural approach his predecessors sought. He moved effortlessly from one type of poetry to another, adopting new techniques at will and solving the most difficult problems of versification with ease and grace.

János Arany

János Arany (1817-1882) was a friend of Petőfi. They agreed on a number of issues and were both committed to making the life of the people the central theme of literature. While Petőfi was a fiery radical, quite conscious of his genius, Arany was an exemplary office worker who wanted to be “just like everyone else.” He first attracted attention by writing the epic poem Toldi (1847; English translation, 1914), a thoroughly Romantic historical story with a hero of folk imagination who avenges the outraged feelings of the common people—a natural, simple, untainted soul, unselfish but self-respecting and conscious of his own worth. In Arany’s epic, the Hungarian nation is presented as it once was (according to the Romantics): a family community, governed by the rules of justice and nature. The defeat of the Hungarian Revolution and the death of his friend Petőfi injured Arany deeply. In poems that were highly subjective, empirically analytical, and soberly reflective, he tried to bridge the conflict between his ideals and the realities of life in subjugated Hungary. The language of his poetry was something he deliberately created. It was not the straightforward, unambiguous voice of folk poetry, but rather a precise literary speech of carefully chosen words and expressions, bearing the widest variety of meanings and associations. Arany’s poems may be immediately comprehensible to the reader, but they are, at the same time, among the most difficult in Hungarian literature to render in a foreign language.

Despite his considerable lyric output, in which a wide variety of subjective topics were treated, Arany saw himself primarily as an epic poet, and as such, he considered it his task to revive in a contemporary context the common and single-minded national consciousness. This vision explains his predilection to treat a variety of historical subjects in his epics. He avoided the pseudohistorical idealization of the peasant by incorporating into his writings a distinctly un-Romantic view, according to which, even though national character is best preserved by the common people, it may also become primitive because of its isolation, and it should be enriched with values originating in other cultures. Apart from Toldi, Arany is best remembered for his ballads, the themes of which were taken from the sad and trying periods of Hungarian history. This outmoded genre, extant only in the villages and marketplaces, was salvaged through Arany’s masterful handling of the Hungarian sentence and especially through his use of numerous psychological associations.

Legacy and change

The success of Petőfi and Arany resulted in a veritable cult of populist poetry. Petőfi’s numerous imitators, not all of them without talent, copied his style and themes with genuine fervor but seldom achieved his level of consistency and brilliance. Thus, the Petőfi cult soon degenerated into absurd virtuosity and buffoonery. Arany’s followers were somewhat more successful. Their writings are characterized by literary skill, an effective use of common speech, and a scrupulous concern for details of versification. These poets led long and blameless lives and filled many of the leading positions in the nation’s cultural affairs during the late nineteenth century. It was largely as a result of their efforts that the poetic guidelines of Petőfi and Arany, imbued with excessive nationalistic and isolationist tendencies and referred to as populist-nationalism, became the official dogma of Hungarian cultural life. Lyric poetry, its position already weakened by the appearance of new, more subjective prose genres, became even more monotonous and irrelevant to the growing urban and semi-urban readership.

The 1880s brought about a flurry of revival in Hungarian poetry, when a few solitary writers, almost completely ignored by the academic establishment, attempted to infuse new vigor into the literary life of Hungary. The name of János Vajda (1827-1897) became synonymous with opposition and stubborn refusal to conform to artificial standards. Largely because of his aggressiveness and lack of objectivity, his antitraditional, pantheistic, and symbol-studded poetry was never even acknowledged, let alone respected by the critics. Seeking visions of glory and greatness in an age when such were outmoded, he spent his declining years in angry meditation, writing more good lines than good poems. Among the younger outcasts, Gyula Reviczky (1855-1889) merits mention for his melancholy, reflective poetry, in which impressionistic and Symbolist elements were first expressed in Hungary. József Kiss (1843-1921) was not an outcast; indeed, for a time he was among the most popular poets of Hungary. As the successful editor of the country’s first bourgeois literary weekly, A hét, he strongly influenced contemporary taste, and his lyric poems and ballads introduced the life of Hungary’s Jews into the mainstream of Hungarian literature.

Modern poetry

The turn of the century witnessed the rise of a wealthy liberal middle class in the cities of Hungary. Their desire to gain recognition for their tastes and values alongside traditional Christian-national ones contributed to a spirit of literary secession. Passive and late-blooming as this “secession” was, it achieved a grudging acceptance of relative (as opposed to absolute) values, and by introducing free association into the practice of poetry, it loosened the structure of Hungarian verse. At the same time, a “great generation” of writers and poets appeared on the scene. Their artistic power was too elemental and their appeal too overwhelming to be stopped. Not all of them wanted to change Hungarian society, but most of them agreed in wanting to open all avenues for describing the realities of Hungary as “a country of contradictions.”

Endre Ady

Among those contributing to the periodical Nyugat, one may find some of the brightest names in twentieth-century Hungarian poetry. In influence, quality, and complexity, none of them approached Endre Ady (1877-1919). When he published his first important volume, Új versek (1906; New Verses, 1969), he embodied the shocking newness of modern European literature, and critics promptly declared him incomprehensible, immoral, unpatriotic, and pathological. Unrelenting, Ady poured forth (besides his numerous newspaper articles) a series of poetry volumes, the titles of which reflect the break he made with traditional poetry: Vér és arany (1908; Blood and Gold, 1969), Az Illés szekerén (1909; On Elijah’s Chariot, 1969), Szeretném, ha szeretnének (1910; Longing for Love, 1969), A minden titkok verseiből (1910; Of All Mysteries, 1969), Ki látott engem? (1914; Who Sees Me?, 1969), and A halottak élén (1918; Leading the Dead, 1969). Everything about which he wrote was universal yet at the same time very Hungarian: his enthusiasm to struggle against existing wrongs, his desire for an explainable, “whole” world, his ambivalent attitude toward revolutionary change, and his view of the modern man-woman relationship as a ruthless struggle. He was deeply concerned about the loneliness of his nation in the dangerous modern world and the tragedy this position portends. He was never able to break the bonds of Calvinist determinism, but in his religious poems, he presented the most tormented disputes with God and the most complete submission to his will ever witnessed in Hungarian poetry. His technique for creating a strange and mysterious world using the simplest language was supreme. Fusing iambic meter with the stressed rhythm of Hungarian poetry, his uncomplicated sentences evoke a variety of colors and shifting hues.

Mihály Babits

The most intellectual poet of the first Nyugat generation was Mihály Babits (1883-1941), who was willing to experiment with every form, style, and technique. Disdaining the emotional, enthusiastic approach to literature, he emphasized craftsmanship. In the face of significant social issues, however, he revealed that behind the mask of the aesthete, there was a noble, caring soul, devoted to human dignity.

Dezső Kosztolányi

Like Babits, Dezső Kosztolányi (1885-1936) is most often referred to as a “bourgeois humanist.” Overcoming the strong Decadent influence of his youth, he continued to display occasional moments of theatricality. The child who lived in him juggled rhyme and rhythm with great dexterity, sometimes in sheer delight, sometimes ironically. The wonder of all things, the desire to discover every secret, compelled him to blend Impressionism and Symbolism almost spontaneously, in a variety of poetic forms. Later, no longer limited to recording the events of everyday life, he wrote poems concerning the eternal image of human action. His titles became unadorned, his structure well ordered, the stanzas often ending with vigorous Sapphic lines. Thus, he moved away from the bourgeois decadence of the fin de siècle and fused the modern immediacy of his poems with traditionally conceived forms.

Other Nyugat poets

If Ady represents an energetic and open commitment to social action and Babits represents a bourgeois humanism, passive until forced by desperation into action, then the other Nyugat poets may be described as taking positions between these two extremes. Early twentieth-century Hungarian poetry was divided between an emphasis on self-expression and a subservience to the eternal demands of art, between the desire to change and the recognition of supreme permanence. The ambience of Nyugat, however, was such that the writers of its circle never became sharply polarized.

Gyula Juhász (1883-1937), probably the most “autobiographical” Hungarian poet of the twentieth century, voiced powerfully the distress of the solitary and oppressed individual. His poems, whether evoking images of the physical world or depicting the misery of the peasants, blend the delicate colors of Impressionism, the lethargy of fin de siècle, and the most realistic, even radical, tendencies with ease. Frequently recalling the past (especially in his love poems), he used a rich variety of adjectives, thus inducing a mood of melodious sweetness.

The poetry of Árpád Tóth (1886-1928) was tired, fragmented, melancholy, expressing a vague desire to break out of the drabness of his world. In a number of other ways, too, he showed an affinity with poets of the West such as Paul Verlaine and Oscar Wilde. Rarely using any Symbolist devices, Tóth’s poems were exceptionally rich in word pictures, similies, and metaphors. Lacking in his verse was any sympathy for the masses, as he believed it was in vain to hope to reach other souls in one’s isolation.

Milán Füst (1888-1967) used the brightest of colors in his relatively few poems, which evoked figures and images from the past. This was no mere return to Romanticism: Füst spent months polishing a single poem, merging the restlessness of Art Nouveau with classical monumentalism and a desire to achieve tranquillity. Füst’s poems reveal a shrewdly designed private world in which the struggles with everyday problems of life and artistic destiny can be resolved.

During the politically and materially ruinous period between the two world wars, Hungary experienced a flowering of literary life. Nyugat continued to be the most resilient and effective forum for the modern poets of Hungary, in spite of repeated attacks from the Right and the Left alike. The growth of authoritarian nationalism evoked a corresponding wave of humanist opposition, although the latter was often tinged with a sense of hopelessness. The interwar poets broke with the idyllic worldview of the prewar decades, and many of them began seriously to doubt the viability of an “inner man.” In order to escape the mannerism of the fin de siècle, they reached back to older forms, trying thereby to create order out of chaos. Few poets adhered to avant-garde principles, but their influence was significant.

Lajos Kassák (1887-1967) was the first genuine worker who achieved a name for himself in Hungarian literature, largely through his poems exhibiting a bewildering array of expressionist, Futurist, and Decadent influences. His extravagant hopes for humankind were balanced by the firm structure of his verse, which was achieved without relying on rhyme, stress, or regular rhythm. In spite of the personal voice he employed, he did not speak for himself, instead expressing humankind’s vehement response to the phenomena of modern technology.

If Ady’s task was to initiate a literary revolution, that of Attila József (1905-1937) was to carry on and fulfill its promises. During his tragically short life, marred by poverty and neurosis, this gifted poet absorbed a great variety of influences. From Kosztolányi, he learned to respond to the immediacy of the moment; from Juhász, he gained an intimacy with his country and his fellow men; from Babits, the pursuit of classical values. József’s daring use of and dexterity with construction reveal the influence of Kassák, while his interest in the simple forms and rhythm of Hungarian folk songs shows that he was not immune to the sway of modern populism. His poetry, nevertheless, shows a striking originality and uniqueness. True to his time and its influences, József intermingled material phenomena with the subjective stream of his moods, thus presenting an artistic experience which varied and dissolved according to the state of his mind. He demonstrated great facility in his use of traditional forms, achieving particularly striking effects with the sonnet. He may have solved the paramount artistic dilemma of his time, fully experiencing and giving poetic expression to the shattered and shattering twentieth century. He paid a price, however, for this achievement: “My heart is perched on nothing’s branch,” he wrote during the last year of his life, before he killed himself.

One of József’s most original contemporaries was Lőrinc Szabó (1900-1957), who, exhibiting many traits of the bourgeois avant-garde, cannot be placed in any single category. He forged his individualistic style from a blend of strident expressionism and the influence of the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity), tolerating no affectation. Szabó’s poems always have a direct message without recourse to suggestion, invocation, or magic. An early theme of his poetry is the loss of illusions, which he later combined with the ruthlessness of nature and the futility of human struggle. It was only a short step from this to a solipsistic position and a fascination with Eastern philosophy, which may have served the poet well during the years of silence enforced upon him by the cultural policy of post-World War II Hungary.

While the claim is frequently made that the “official” literature of interwar Hungary was conservative and nationalistic, the artists of dissenting views, including those of the noncommunist Left, had considerable access to literary forums such as the periodicals or newspapers. Many of the middle-class poets, from socialist idealists to adherents of Catholicism, were characterized by an intellectual hunger, strong humanist convictions, and an “urbanist” attitude, the latter becoming the collective name under which they were known. Their best-known representatives were Zoltán Jékely (1913-1982), a poet of wry, melancholy erudition, and György Rónay (1913-1978), whose modern verse was based on Christian humanism and rational sobriety.

The poetry of Miklós Radnóti (1909-1944) was characterized by the affirmation of order and harmony, respect for reason, and a strong interest in the classics. His early attraction to pastoral themes, emphasizing the joys of life and containing a wholesome eroticism, soon gave way to the realization that fateful social forces were at work in his Hungary. Aware of the terrible inhumanity looming over the horizon, he broke the superficial calm with powerful volumes, such as Járkálj csak, halálraítélt! (1936; Walk On, Condemned!, 1980). His poetry blossomed on the verge of his violent death, when, as a prisoner of the Nazis, he penned some of his best lines during his final days.

Sándor Weöres (1913-1989) turned away from the objective reality of his surroundings and used his instinctive skill to produce an unbelievably varied poetic output, which emphasized his interest in the sound of words and in the myths and rites of the eternal human condition.

New populists

Quite distinct from this group, a large heterogeneous body of writers and poets began to appear during the 1930s, whose special emphasis on rural themes marked them as the new populists. They believed that it was the peasantry who, after a meaningful land reform, would provide the ideology and the energy for a national revival, and that they would also produce a new, dedicated intellectual leadership. They visualized Hungary as forming a bridge between East and West, although most of them had no sympathy for the Soviet system. The rift developing between the new populists and the urbanists proved to be one of the great misfortunes of modern Hungary. Neither group was able to prepare the nation for the changes that were obviously coming after the end of World War II, and neither group was powerful enough to bring about a thorough “moral revolution” which would implement much-needed social reforms.

The outstanding figure of the populists, Gyula Illyés (1902-1983) is generally regarded as one of the foremost Hungarian poets of the twentieth century, as well as a versatile prose writer and playwright. Early in his career, he was strong enough to ignore traditional rules and seemed to delight in a stylized, disciplined “primitiveness.” Persuasiveness and originality characterize his best poems, which are heroic in mood and subject, with a touch of melancholy discernible throughout. During the late 1930s, he was the spokesperson of the populists, and his radical leftist past made him acceptable to every political group after the end of World War II. His enthusiasm for Soviet-imposed change soon cooled, and in 1956, he wrote Egy mondat a zsarnokságról (1956; One Sentence on Tyranny, 1957), which may be called the Hungarian poem of the twentieth century. He wrote some of his finest poems in his old age, in verse characterized by musicality, gentle resignation, and introspection.

The end of World War II hardly signifies a milestone in the history of Hungarian literature, although thorough changes were implemented in the makeup of the country’s intelligentsia. Hundreds of promising talents were destroyed by the war and its sordid aftermath, and as many or more were silenced later under various pretexts. After a few years of tenuous coalition, which offered genuine opportunities for free cultural development, the message was brought home that in the same manner that “there is no separate solution to Hungary’s political problems,” there would be no independent Hungarian cultural life, either. The pseudoprinciples of Socialist Realism were enforced in Hungary for only a few years, but their effects proved to be long-lasting. Literature was placed completely in the service of daily politics, with bewildering and (in retrospect) amusing results.

Few dramatic changes resulted from the aftermath of the 1956 Revolution. After a handful of writers and poets were imprisoned, and a much greater number thoroughly intimidated, the “new” government declared that it was permissible for an artist to ignore politics. The Writers’ Association was disbanded in order to create a “sounder” atmosphere, and the nation’s best writers and poets quietly ceased publishing their creations. An eager coterie of political adherents tried to fill the gap, and authorities permitted many blameless and harmless apolitical poets to have their works printed, after years of muzzling them. The 1960s brought amnesties, the renewal of cautious debates, and the admission that there may be more than one kind of Socialist Realism. During the 1970s, with most of the real dissidents safely dead or out of the way, the authorities saw fit to open many avenues for literary experimentation and aesthetic debate, and exceptions to the Marxist hold on the country could be seen to demonstrate the resilience of the people’s creative spirit.

Post-Cold War poetry

In post-Cold War Hungary, in which literature and poetry of the prior several decades had functioned as a moral opposition to the Communist government, there was great expectation of a flowering of literature once the political obstacles were removed and the writer finally could freely explore their imagination. However, critics have found this has not happened, for several reasons. After the fall of the previous system, the dissident writer lost the poetic mission, a point of reference. Many writers also became politicians and had no time to write. Economics played a large role as well, with the cessation of government subsidies, the disintegration of state book-distributing giants, and steep increases in prices of new books. Living under high inflation and suffering from rising unemployment, the public was unable to afford as many books as it once purchased. Also, writers complained that, in the new commercial markets, unless a book promised profit, it would not be published regardless of its merit. The publishers that managed to stay in business tended to be those that published lurid potboilers, criminal and adventure stories, and soft-core pornography. As a reaction to the prohibition of erotic images and thrillers during the Communist rule, the Hungarian public often favored such publications over more serious literature.

The literary landscape of the “new” Hungary also found increasing tension between traditional nationalist and religious ideas and those of the modern era. The populists—those who claimed themselves as the cultural arms bearers of nationalism—started an offensive against cosmopolitan writers, known collectively as “urbanites,” for the control of ideology and cultural lifestyle in Hungary. While the roots of this conflict stemmed from a decades-old rivalry between the city and the countryside, the more recent rise of multiparty politics has encouraged rivalry and resentment to increase. Populist authors regard the urbanites as arrogant because of their advantages in education, travel, and knowledge of languages—a gap that will take a generation or more to close. Urban liberals assume that the rural group is burdened by ideology. A glimpse into the populist mentality can be found in contemporary Hungarian poet Ferenc Juhasz’s long poem “A szarvassá változott fiú kiáltozása a titkok kapujából” (“The Boy Changed to a Stag Cries Out at the Gate of Secrets”), based on a Transylvanian folktale. The theme “you can’t go home again” is evident here, in that the provincial cannot return to the old way of life but also does not fit in with the liberal intellectual world of Budapest.

Despite the factionalism and political and cultural hurdles facing modern Hungary, it remains a country with an active literary culture. Fortunately, in the 1990s and at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the works of several major contemporary Hungarian poets—Csoóri, Illyés, Ágnes Nemes Nagy, Radnóti, Gyozo Ferencz, György Petri—have become readily available in translation, widening the narrow conduit between Hungarian and world literatures.

Sándor Csoóri

Sándor Csoóri (1930-2016), a leading contemporary Hungarian poet, essayist, and scriptwriter, has been called “the genius of discontent” and is considered to be one of the most prominent artistic spokespersons for the Hungarian people in the last decades of the twentieth century. A recipient of the Attila József Prize in Poetry, he also won the prestigious Kossuth Award twice (1990, 2012), Hungary’s greatest honor for achievement in artistic and scientific work. He serves as a modern voice for the populist movement, albeit a moderate one, and his poems and other literary works exhibit a never-ending concern over a threatened culture and national identity. For Csoóri, the village represents a simpler society, the rudiments of a human community, a rough-hewn harmony beyond the experience of a more complex city. His cynicism is evident in “My Mother, a Black Rose,” a tender and sensitive evocation of his mother’s daily struggle for existence. Although not well, she still milks the cow, sweeps, and launders. “Unwelcome strangers,” a code name for communist functionaries, talk to her “rudely” and, fearful, she tightens “her black shawl as if it were her loneliness.” There are “wonderful new machines” around but no one comes to help her. “One night she falls to the ground/ Small, broken, shattered/ A bird will come/ And carry her away in his beak.” His anthology Before and After the Fall: New Poems (2004), published in English, includes poems written from 1985 to 1994 that depict what Csoóri called a "chronic memory of violence." Csoóri also recieved the 2006 Balassi Bálint-emlékkard (Balint Balassi Memorial Sword Award).

György Petri

One particular poet who received both critical and public acclaim was György Petri, who died of cancer at the age of fifty-six in 2000. Readers appreciated Petri’s combination of ideas and the language used to express these ideas. When it was still dangerous, he berated the “socialist regime” and kept the torch of the 1956 revolution burning. With the fall of communism in 1989, he then turned on himself, opposing the fragments of a society that seemed indestructible in its evilness, and he revoked memories, half heroic, half satiric, and issued statements on death. His poetic stance was rejection; he used the most ingenious devices to free himself of bile, but it seemed the more he got rid of, the more there was. His poem “Electra” displays his bitterness and is powerful not only because it serves as a powerful allegory of vengefulness in the wake of the abusive communist regime but also because it, in part, turns the myth around to highlight universal guilt:

Take my little sister, cute sensitive Chrysothemis

to me the poor thing attributes a surfeit of moral passion,

believing I’m unable to get over

the issue of our father’s twisted death.

What do I care for that gross geyser of spunk

who murdered his own daughter!

The reality, as equated with sorrowful-history-turning-into-detestable-sociology, is not a matter to laugh about or something to play with. However, the poet would have liked to have played if only his fearful honesty and temperament had let him. Although well-known as a love poet, Petri sullied what might be tender verses with obscenity and fierce irony to reflect how living under Hungary’s dishonest, brutal communist regime cheapened even the finest feelings. He did not see an easy way to assuage the psychological damage inflicted by the Communists, even in the wake of communism’s fall in 1989: “The epoch expired like a monstrous predator./ My favorite toy’s been snatched.”

The Twenty-first Century

Though decades of Hungarian poetry were praised by international critics, ample translations of Hungarian works were still lacking at the beginning of the twenty-first century, limiting their audience. However, in 2004, Kálmán Faragó and David Hill began a Hungarian poetry translation initiative called Converging Lines. What began as a collaboration of English and Hungarian writers at the Converging Lines festival evolved into more than twenty years of improving the international visibility of Hungarian poetry and supporting young poets. The initial translations were published in a booklet and locally circulated, but this quickly grew, with the help of poet and translator George Szirtes, into the New Order: Hungarian Poets of the Post 1989 Generation (2010) anthology. The anthology features many prominent twenty-first-century poets who were emerging at the time, including Anna T. Szabó, Krisztina Tóth, and Ottilie Mulzet, who credit the anthology as their first "big break." A later anthology translated by Gábor G. Gyukics and Michael Castro, They’ll Be Good for Seed: Anthology of Hungarian Poetry (2021), features sixteen contemporary Hungarian poets, including János Áfra, Mónika Mesterházi, Márió Z. Nemes, Anna T. Szabó, János Térey, and Krisztina Tóth. Additionally, translators such as Owen Sheers, Antony Dunn, Clare Pollard, Matthew Hollis, and Agnes Lehoczky also contributed to the twenty-first-century trend of bringing Hungarian poetry to the world.

Contemporary Hungarian poetry is written primarily in free-verse form, and traditionally structured poetry is considered by some poets to be archaic. Márió Z. Nemes, for example, composes mostly prose poems, excluding verses completely. Additionally, most subjects are not specific to Hungary, though many works reflect political or social conflicts and issues relevant at the time of their publication. Among the important Hungarian poets writing modern poetry are János Térey (1970-2019), András Gerevich, Zsófia Balla, Attila F. Balázs, and Dénes Krusovszky.

Bibliography

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