Hungarian literature

“ Baron Joseph Eőtvős was one of the noblest figures in the world of Hungarian literature. He distinguished himself as a statesman, a novelist, a poet and a scientific writer. His literary activity, like his life, had an idealistic tendency. He was a man of reflection rather than of action, but his reflections were penetrated with feeling, and his logic was infused with warmth of heart. His personality presents the feature, so rare in authors, which is expressed in the words of Vauvenargues: Les grandes pensées viennent du cœur. ”

“ It must not be thought, however, that Hungarian literature is exclusively national in its contents and character. Just as the country itself is open to the waters of the Danube, rolling down from the west, so too, from the time of the Middle Ages, its literature received a stream of western ideas. Every epoch in Hungary's intellectual development was closely related to movements in Western Europe. ”

“ Every branch of art received its inspiration from religion, and statues and pictures reveal exactly the same naïveté and the same religious fervour as the parchment books of that little library which has been bequeathed to the present generation as the Hungarian literature of the Middle Ages. ”

“ Henceforth Hungarian life and literature developed in perfect sympathy with one another, and kept pace so accurately together that, in the middle of the nineteenth century, when new aims opened before the people, and an ardent patriotism enthusiastically welcomed the new ideals of democracy, the nation's literature attained its zenith. ”

“ Hungary's three greatest poets, Vörösmarty, Petőfi, and Arany, happened to be contemporary with her three greatest statesmen, Széchenyi, Kossuth and Deák. Those men together, by herculean efforts, managed to awaken the country from its torpor, and to fill men's hearts with hope. They organised the population into a true nation. By their wisdom they created a future for their country, and by their poetry they surrounded it with glory. ”

“ During the last few years of his life, Hungarian literature had begun to take a new direction.
Among those who were stirred into activity by Bessenyei were the clergy, and their superior literary education made them important factors in Hungarian life. Their studies were chiefly classical, so that when once they began to write, they naturally took the classical poets, and especially Horace, for their models. It must be remembered that during the eighteenth century Latin was so largely used in Hungary that it might almost have been regarded as a living language. ”

“ In no other poetry of the time is the note of love for the Fatherland so powerful and so fundamental. With other peoples the feeling of national unity was still lying dormant, while in Hungary it moved the heart of the nation with the unconscious but mighty force of an universal instinct. The fire of the Turkish wars only served to make this element in the Hungarian character as strong as iron; and the development, in the sixteenth century, of the feeling of nationality, was one of the most important phases of the evolution through which the nation's mind has passed. ”

“ In the history of Hungarian literature, the poets who followed Latin models are designated by the name of "The Classical Poets." Their works, like most modern works in imitation of the Latins, are stiff, cold, somewhat too abstract, and naturally full of mythological allusions. ”

“ The comedies and the dramas of Eötvös and Gal, and particularly those of Szigligeti, show great progress in the Hungarian theatre, while in the poems of Petöfi and others is heard the harmonious yet sorrowful voice of the national muse.
After 1849, the genius of Hungary seemed for a while buried under the ruins of the nation. Many of the most eminent writers either fell in the national struggle, or, being driven into exile, threw aside their pens in despair. But the intellectual condition of the people has of late been greatly improved. ”

“ Their religion and their country were the two ideals which inspired the poets of the sixteenth century to sing their songs of joy or sorrow, and it was for his religion and his country, both of which were constantly threatened by neighbours to north and south, that the Hungarian statesman trembled. The Hungarian still fought for "God and the Fatherland" as he did in the Middle Ages—only the foe had changed. And the two-fold cry echoed by the nation's poetry is "God and Fatherland." ”

“ Bessenyei's plays are weak, and he was not very fortunate in his choice of the drama as a means of regenerating Hungarian literature, at a time when there were neither theatres nor actors. Nevertheless he must be honoured as a pioneer, and since his time the history of Hungarian literature has been one of continuous pro­gress. The modern era was inaugurated by him, though perhaps he effected more by his example and enthusiasm than by his talent. ”

“ There is nothing in contemporary Hungarian literature to equal their pleasant, fluent, conversational style. There is no pompousness, no affec­tation; all is life and grace and transparent sincerity. Three groups of the letters are especially interesting: those dealing with the life of the Hungarian emigrants, with Turkish life and customs, and those relating historical anecdotes.
Those which tell of the personal history of the unfor­tunate Prince Rákóczy make the strangest appeal to us. Mikes describes the sad, lonely life wh ich the Prince led. ”

“ If we may be permitted to use the language of geology, the soul of the Hungarian people during the Middle Ages might be said to show in section three different strata. At the bottom is the primitive pagan nature, brought from their Asiatic home. The next shows a more cultured mental condition, the result largely of intercourse with Turkish, Slavish, German, and Italian neighbours. Last comes Christianity, introducing a multitude of new features into the life of the people. ”

“ The characters and the whole atmosphere of the poem are purely Hungarian. This accounts for the immediate popularity of the book. A country notary, an honest but inexperienced man, travels on horseback to Buda. After many amusing adventures he arrives at his destination, but to his great disappointment he sees that in the very capital of the country, which ought to be the fountain-head of the national spirit, everything is foreign, the language the people speak, the books they read, the garments they wear, and even the measures they dance. ”

“ The sixteenth century was more favorable to Hungarian literature, and the political and religious movements which took place in the reign of Ferdinand I. and Maximilian II. (1527-1576) proved to be most beneficial to the intellectual development of the people. The Reformation, which was introduced into Hungary through Bohemia, the example of this neighboring country, and the close alliance which existed between the two people, exercised great influence on the public mind. ”

“ It strengthened the feeling of patriotism just as the Reformation increased religious fervour. The Hungarians became zealous both for their fatherland and for religious liberty. Great national misfortunes always light the flame of patriotism, which in times of security often becomes extinguished. Hungarian poetry of this period echoes the patriot's grief; the note is now soft, now harsh, but always the expression of real affliction; and in some of the poems we find the sadness of the patriot blended with fervent religious feeling. ”

“ Every innovation in the way of culture was first looked at from the point of view of the patriot, who asked, how far did it strengthen the nation? Science, art, literature were all estimated according to the probability of their developing the national sentiment. This was the one test by which to try the value of everything. In Hungary it was never l'art pour l'art. ”

“ Literature sprang into life and grew with amazing rapidity. The different, and often antagonistic literary schools, the popular, the high-classical, and the national, became united. Whatever was weak or false in them vanished. Ali that was really valuable developed to a higher degree. Just as through Kazinczy a rich prose language was gained, so now, by the powerful creations of Vörösmarty, a brilliant and purely Hungarian poetical language was called into life. The poetry of the new era had two roots ”

“ Here the Hungarian is eminently patriotic: he endeavors as much as possible to forget that he and his are bound to the empire of Austria, and he speaks of the German and the Slav who are his fellow-subjects with a sneer. The people whom one encounters in that corner of Hungary profess a dense ignorance of the German language, but if pressed can speak it glibly enough. I won an angry frown and an unpleasant remark from an innkeeper because I did not know that Austrian postage-stamps are not good in Hungary. ”

“ The events of that stirring period, even when related by the sober pen of the annalist, read more like romance than reality; and thus they cannot fail to lend themselves admirably to the purposes of historical fiction. More than one of that brilliant series of novels with which the genius of Hungary's greatest story-writer has enriched the literature, not of his own country merely, but of the world, takes its theme from those memorable scenes in which the author himself played no unimportant part. ”

“ Every modern nation has had to pass through the study of the classical poets before attaining to its own highest literary development. The Latin races completed that part of their preparation at the time of the Renais­sance, and naturally had a flourishing literature long before the Hungarians, who took up the study so much later. In Vörösmarty, the first poet of the great age, classical influence is still predominant, but later, in Petőfi and Arany, we see the triumph of the new spirit. ”

“ Every European people has its own special gift. Greece and Italy have the gift of art; Rome has law England political liberty and the power of planting colonies; Germany has metaphysics and scientific method; while France is distinguished by good taste. Hungary's endowment was a strong sense of nationality, that is to say, the desire to found and to maintain a state which knitted the people into an organic whole. Simultaneously with the growth of the national spirit, and lending it strong support, arose the nation's literature. ”

“ Another feature which distinguishes Hungarian from all the Indo-Germanic languages, but which we find in the language of the Ugrian tribes, is the assimilating of the vowel in the affix to that in the stem of a word. Just as in music the notes in a chord have to be in harmony with one another, so in a Hungarian word. ”

“ Eötvös occupied as prominent a place in Hungarian literature as in Hungarian politics. His peculiarity, both as a politician and as a statesman, lies in the fact that he was a true philosopher, a philosopher at heart as well as in theory; and in his poems and novels he clothed in artistic forms all the great ideas for which he contended in social and political life. ”

“ The letters give us a perfect picture of the inner and outer life of a man whose strength was sustained by the priceless blessings of a calm confidence in God and a happy optimistic view of the world around him.
The literary life of Hungary in the eighteenth century presents a desolate picture.
Even the two men who may justly be regarded as the most notable figures of that day lived far from their fatherland—Mikes on the shores of the Sea of Marmora, and Francis Faludi in the heart of the Eternal City, at St. Peter's in Rome. For several years Faludi was a confessor there. ”

“ The century which saw the Reformation was, above all things, sober and practical. These qualities have always characterised Hungarians, whence the great effect of the movement upon the people. Only once has the soul of the nation been stirred more profoundly, and that was during the first half of the nineteenth century, when the new democratic ideas took hold of the popular mind. ”

“ The character of its people has always been distinguished for sobriety and reserve. This, undoubtedly, was advantageous in so far as it aided political development, but, on the other hand, it deprived the nation of the literature of religious fervour. Nevertheless, Christianity was blended with the strong national feeling of the Hungarians, and each profoundly modified the other instead of developing along separate lines. Proof of this is furnished by many historical tales and monuments.
The Blessed Virgin is not only a religious idea, but also the patron saint of Hungary. ”

“ Eötvös excel led in his funeral orations, surpassing in that respect eve n Kölcsey, whom he acknowleged as his odel. His orations reveal a poetica! nature and dis­ play one of his characteristic literary methods, that of explaining or illuminating Hungarian history by allusions to events in the history of other European nations. The book entitled Thouglt t s, containing several bundred aphoristic utterances of a highly cultured and deeply religious mind, is of great value. One characteristic thought is that the heart is a better guide than reason. ”

“ It was in the tenth century that the Hungarians came from Asia, founded their state, and embraced Christianity, and were thus brought into contact with the Europe of the Middle Ages, and shared in its civilisation. ”

“ To this age belongs Vörösmarty, the first great classical poet of Hungary. He was born in the first year of the century. But before him, others had begun their work, and in 1802 appeared the first of the poems which were to become known and enthusiastically loved by the whole nation, Himfy's Love by Kisfaludy. Nature brought forth her gifted children in quick succession. In 1803 Kossuth was born, and in the next year Deák. Soon after came Eötvös, Liszt, Arany and Petőfi. In 1825 Széchenyi, destined to be Hungary's greatest reformer since the time of St. ”