Kalla Zsuzsa: Beszélő tárgyak. A Petőfi család relikviái (Budapest, 2006)
Zsuzsa Kalla: The history of the Petőfi relics
By morning they had arrived in Budapest. At Józsefváros railway station a delivery coachman hurried up to me and asked if I was looking for Petőfi’s bed and cabinet. The question took me by surprise. “How did you know that it was Petőfi’s bed'1” “Because it is on the railway bill,” he answered. And I did indeed find a small note tied to the side of the bed containing the following: “Be care- ful, folks! Petőfi’s bed!!!” Railway officers and workers were standing re- spectfully around the bed.’ (Kéry 1908, 61-62) It is hard retrospectively to determine whether or not these objects are authentic, although the Petőfi Society, in accordance with museological demands, almost always requires certification of authenticity. However, certain rules concerning the structure of the collection help in understanding what became of the objects. Zoltán Petőfi, for example, was in the habit of giving his father’s relics away. In fact, he occasionally used them to pay off loans from friends. Thus, similar cases can authenticate one another. The authenticity of a relic is less easy to establish if the person from whom it originates cannot be identified or the name cannot be connected with available biographical data (examples being the names Gabányi and Tyroler). In cases like these it can be assumed that the items belong to episodes in Petőfi’s life that are either not known or of little significance. For example, the history of the inkwell given to Kornélia Prielle by the poet János Arany. The story is not at all clear but, since the collection contains keepsakes of the actress’s acquaintance with Petőfi, it is possible that the inkwell also belonged to the poet or that he used it. Some objects cannot be identified due to the lack of information given in the inventory books. The same goes for the material acquired by the Petőfi House after 1926, for which there is no inventory book, the only available reference being the notes in the Petőfi Literary Museum’s first inventory book (1962). Most of the objects in the Petőfi House collection and exhibition were associated with the important moments in a ritualised life — namely birth, love, writing and death - with familiar portrayals and, last but not least, with the poems. It is worth noting that the curators of the exhibitions, which were repeated every five to ten years, always gave centre stage to the same objects, and that these objects, probably those that museologists regarded as authentic, were always included in catalogues and illustrated books. Petőfi’s birth as a motif has always been a feature of exhibitions, and imaginations are captured by the unusual circumstances surrounding it: the time - the night of New Year’s Eve — confirmed by the story Az apostol [The Apostle], and the ongoing argument concerning the place. The bed in which he is reputed to have been bom was given pride of place, ‘serving to remind you that the star of promise always shines upon a crib’ (Cholnoky 1909, 734), and the font and christening jug were also discovered, albeit many years later. Recollections of Petőfi being a passionate pipe smoker, especially when he was thinking and writing, are well known. Descriptions confirmed the image, to which was added the appeal of a pipe as a personal item characterising the individual. It cannot be by chance that so many Petőfi pipes were found, some as late as the 1960s. Of several possible reasons, one might quite simply be that Petőfi owned a large collection of pipes. Another could be that pipes were often used over several generations, the particularly attractive and unusual examples being passed on as gifts. A költő kardjai [The Swords of the Poet] was the title chosen by Sándor Fekete for his volume of essays and studies on Petőfi. In exhibitions the sword symbolises the revolution, the soldier-poet, moral courage and martyrdom. Moreover, Petőfi’s poems embellish this symbol with a particular feature: the lyre. In the oeuvre the sword often appears with this instrument, the symbol of poetry. ‘My lyre and sword are yours, o liberty!’ (Petőfi Összes Művei [Complete Works] III, 221) ‘I must live until that great day | my sword and lyre laboured for!’ (223) A next year I may never see, | But if I sing, my poetry | With blood and sword-blade I shall write.’ (214) The sword thus became an indispensable element in the legend of the revolutionary poet. Another traditional, tried-and-tested exhibition method was to include and elaborate on Petőfi’s lovers. It is probably the fact that it can be linked to the poems that made a lock of hair from the deceased Etelka Csapó a popular exhibition item. Although the poem, ‘If in her early life, I had not loved I This lovely child with blonde curls on her head, | I would have given her my love and life I As she was lying on her pillows dead.’ (ibid. I, 257), seems to have been written about the lock of hair, it is far more likely that the curl was arranged later at the collector’s request by Etelka Csapó’s sister, Mrs Sándor Vachott, as it is hard to believe that the Vachott family kept their rel194
