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

Zsuzsa Kalla: The history of the Petőfi relics

stylish design and homogeneous interior, it was to become an important example of Hungarian Art Nouveau.

Despite the Ernst fiasco, or perhaps because of it, the exhibition rooms were filled with material received through the Petőfi Society appeal, and the library and research room were used for examinations of the numerous authentic manuscripts and first editions that were discovered. Ferenczi and his colleagues took great care over the collection process, only accepting items from contemporaries and with data that could be verified. This explains the occasional ‘not authentic in origin’ note in the inventory book.

One of the most memorable days in the life of the Petőfi House was its opening on 7th November 1909, where the élite and, naturally, the aristocratic ladies who had led the collecting gathered. The media sang its praises hut the chorus was not of one voice. Viktor Cholnoky wrote: ‘There is stone, there is painstaking devotion and our poverty can provide sufficient wealth to raise a church to someone who passed away without

The Petőfi House after the war

allowing even a gravestone to he built.’ (Cholnoky 1909, 733) József Kiss wrote a poem for the Petőfi House, which was ‘not a mud hut, but a proud castle’ where ‘proletarians can come with their rough hands’. The poem has a bitter, sober postscript:

‘You have a house, Petőfi, and land,

It has turned out well, you pay duty,

In the end Fate gave you much Yet your ideas still have no home.’

(Kiss 1909, 10)

There was also a much more ambivalent reaction. The writer Sándor Bródy expressed gratitude for the dedication of Herczeg and his colleagues, while seeing the Petőfi House as what kept opposition thought alive: ‘Petőfi has a palace in Pest! But it is as if the army which once drove him from an election district had suddenly become master in Hungary [...] The March wind vexes them, and the fact that the son of a Slovak servant has become such a master among them unsettles them. Create for him the cosiest, most splendid home, so those who recoil from the great, gothic cathedral of the nation where Cossacks of the Danube and Tisza wish to settle come to this little marble palace to find consolation, to believe and to pray - for the future.’ (Bródy 1907) A columnist writing for Népszava lists the mandatory counter arguments and doubts: What is the real purpose of the Petőfi House? What do the well-dressed visitors have in common with the poverty-stricken Petőfi? What is the point of collecting relics? Relics say nothing about a person; Can a person who once lived be venerated as a demigod? How many books by Petőfi could have been published with the money that was spent on construction? He then adds: ‘Yet, those who know, love and appreciate Petőfi can be greatly moved as they stroll through the rooms of the church that was built to keep his memory alive. [...] There are the relics of a young man in love, the marks of a wanderer’s suffering, the signs of a man struggling with life, and the thoughts of a fighting revolutionary.’ The article closes with an instructive thought, stressing the importance of education: ‘Whatever the circumstances, it is a great asset to Hungarian culture and helps the work of the Hungarian revolution.’ (Révész 1909, 5)

The Petőfi House became one of the sights of the capital, but at the same time the number of

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