Veres Gábor - Berecz Mátyás (szerk.): Hagyomás és megújulás - Életpályák és társadalmi mobilitás a végváriak körében - Studia Agriensia 27. (Eger, 2008)

LÖKÖS PÉTER: Az „egri nők” motívum kialakulása a magyar és az európai irodalomban

Péter Lőkös

THE EMERGENCE OF THE “WOMEN OF EGER” MOTIF IN HUNGARIAN AND EUROPEAN LITERATURE

The study deals with the history of the motif of the “Women of Eger”. From our analysis it becomes evident that this particular theme arose from the work of foreign rather than Hungarian writers, and the descriptions of Ascanio Centorio in particular. The bravery of the women of Eger was to follow two very different paths in Hungarian and foreign literature. Hungarian writers of the 16th and 17th centuries (to whom one should also add Christian Schesäus) devote little time to the topic. Such writers were not familiar with the Centorio’s work, and consequently ignorant of the tale of the two Eger amazons. Among the foreign writers (and we include here the extended descriptions of German authors in Hungary), it was the Centorio-inspired description that spread, albeit with one or two exceptions. It was for this reason that foreign readers tended to associate the siege of Eger with the bravery of the women of Eger in the 16th and 17th centuries. In the second half of the 18th century, however, the situation changed when Hungarian historians, followed in turn by Hungarian writers and poets, become familiar with the Centorio- inspired texts. Outside Hungary, however, one notices a tendency to leave out the story of the two women of Eger in historical accounts. Indeed there are many that fail to mention the bravery of the Eger women at all.

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