Kalla Zsuzsa: Beszélő tárgyak. A Petőfi család relikviái (Budapest, 2006)

Zsuzsa Kalla: The history of the Petőfi relics

In 1904 the death of Jókai brought an era in the life of the Petőfi Society to a close. In the name of clarity and the ‘simple’ Petőfi, Ferencz Herczeg warned Hungarian literature against modernism, the west and the world’s people: ‘By virtue of its traditions and with its whole organisation, the Petőfi Society serves a desirable interrelationship between literature and audience. In contrast to newly established literary groups, literary societies - in this case the Petőfi Society - wish to serve all Hungarian literature, unlike groups which only exist for the literature produced by their members. Sometimes voicing the slogans of innovation, yet opposing it at the same time.’ (Kéry 1911, B 6) In his speeches Ferencz Herczeg always represented the majority and the Society, and his words can be taken as official statements: ‘Let the Hungarian poet be the guard in the lofty castles of culture. Here I must point out that at those geographical points to which fate led our ancestors, we regard the unified Hungarian national state as the only possible framework for cultural life. Anything out- side it is decline and barbarism [...] talent is no substitute for national feeling, and the talents of those who write in Hungarian but do not feel Hungarian are of use to neither country nor humanity. Their talent is nature’s ephemeral toy, a will o’ the wisp, which evaporates instantly in the marshes.’ (ibid. 7)

The wind of revolution hardly touched the Petőfi Society. In 1918 they held a ‘reform session’, but order was soon restored. From this point on, the Society became a literary-political authority rather than an active, living movement, with Gyula Pékár as its president from 1920, and Ferencz Herczeg remaining as honorary president. Although contributors to the Society’s 1923 literary annual still included such illustrious writers as Riedl, Reviczky, Schöpflin, Gárdonyi, Ferenczi and Kosztolányi, the Petőfi commemoration had begun to drown in the boredom of officialdom, and speeches were being directed against the foreign, imported, ‘ever-present unsettling universal spirit’.

THE PETŐFI HOUSE

The establishing of the Petőfi House was an important step in the life of the cult. The Society was well aware of this, and so, citing European examples, they pressed ahead with the process. Numerous cubic places existed at that time: the

Shakespeare House in England, the house in Frankfurt where Goethe was born, Ariosto’s home in Ferrara, Dante’s study in Florence. In 1886 the Goethe Museum opened in Weimar under the protective wing of the Goethe Society. It is a popular place of pilgrimage among Hungarians, and is often referred to as a prototype. Although Gyulai’s article criticising plans to establish the Petőfi House rightly points out that these memorial places are where the writer was born or lived and worked, there is a counter example in Hungary, to which Petőfi also made a pilgrimage. This is the Doric- style mausoleum in Széphalom, which commemorates the writer and leader of the language reform movement, Ferenc Kazinczy. It was inaugurated in 1850 and later became a museum.

Museums which commemorate literary figures are, in a certain sense, also cubic places. Their function and way of operating are similar to those of churches, in that they are sacred places which must be preserved and passed on, and certain parts are closed to the public. Visitors, ‘pilgrims’, arrive and the objects on display enable them to come into direct contact with the writer or poet.

The purpose of a memorial house is to objectify and render tangible an idea, to ‘exhibit’ it and offer people the chance to make a gesture, for example lay a wreath. ‘People do not visit places dedicated to great minds simply out of habit or boredom but from an intuitive desire to see where writers whose works they admire were born, developed, struggled and fought their last - to turn past into present and bathe their souls in the sublime, enigmatic mystery [...] of earthly immortality.’ (Farnos 1909, 287) From time immemorial the ritual of visiting memorial sites has served to strengthen the solidarity of a group. In Petőfi’s case, national feelings were gradually becoming recognised and accepted, and the ritualised viewing of his relics strengthened these feelings still further. ‘The essence of this cult, with the Petőfi House as one of its chapels, comes not from a blind worship of fame, the unthinking veneration of relics or any superficial passion for collecting. What is really important is that it draws the audience in, keeping alive and propagating their desire for living, moral values. The cult itself is only the outer shell.’ (Kéry 1911, B 6)

Demand for a national shrine, the Petőfi House, grew along with the number of relics, although opponents also make their voices heard in the media: ‘It seems to us that it is not Petőfi but the

199