Kalla Zsuzsa: Beszélő tárgyak. A Petőfi család relikviái (Budapest, 2006)
Rita Ratzky: Sándor Petőfi, his tastes and style
the national guard - as in the painting Petőfi as a National Guard by Miklós Barabás. In the painting Petőfi looks very moderate and solemn, almost devout. The only ornamentation on the familiar black coat is the coat of arms sewn with pearls, and the sword is not of the frightening proportions that his contemporaries recalled. Ákos Egressy writes of the painting, ‘...this portrait, which was painted by the eminent artist Miklós Barabás in 1848, is the most faithful representation of Petőfi. The sword at his side, the broad ribbon in the national colours on his left arm, the Hungarian coat of arm without the crown on his chest. This coat of arms had been embroidered by his wife, Júlia Szendrey, with red, white and green pearls, to a pattern she had taken from my sister, Etel, who had made a similar one for my father.’ (1909, 18) Wearing the symbols of the Revolution was probably natural for Petőfi, and he even used certain eye-catching elements to enhance his appearance. A recollection by Adolf Ágai is interesting in this respect as it depicts Petőfi in the maelstrom of March 1848: ‘Out of the wide-open shirt collar protruded his insipid neck with its Adam’s apple, around which hung his curved sword on a blood-red silk ribbon more than a hand’s width across. Large silver buttons on his black silk braided military coat. Tight-fitting trousers, and shoes with fringes. A red feather in his little circular felt hat with its turned-up brim, with which he greeted the cheering crowds.’ (1908, 36-37) Although the wording is awkward - the sword was obviously not hanging around his neck but at his side — the most important part is the blood-red silk ribbon. This description is probably accurate because in Orlay Petrics’s painting Petőfi in Mezőberény the poet is wearing a wide, red scarf, albeit around his waist. It is more than likely that Petőfi consciously chose to wear this as a symbol of the Revolution. During these all-important days Petőfi’s wife was also making a statement in the way she dressed. Petőfi himself remarked: ‘I wrote the National Song on 13th March for a banquet which the young people had planned for March 19th but which, due to events, was cancelled. While I was writing the National Song at one table, my wife was making herself a cap in the national colours at the other.’ It is a well-known fact that during the War of Independence, army officer Petőfi did not wear the regulation uniform; at certain times he did not even carry a sword. Although, for various reasons, during the War of Independence officers did not Petőfi in Mezőberény by Soma Orlay Petries always adhere to the regulation uniform often retaining items of their civilian clothing, in Petőfi’s case, this frequently brought him into conflict with his superiors. This was because he deliberately emphasised the ‘non regulation’, the ‘revolutionary’: the bare neck and the civilian hat with the feathers of the Revolution. Describing him at the end of 1848 Károly Zilahy, who was a child at the time but later Petőfi’s first biographer, wrote: ‘It is as if he were standing before me now, the agile little man with his thick chestnut-coloured goatee, under his arm a short cane (with dagger), without a necktie, with a wide-open shirt-collar, which left his brown neck completely bare [...] He wore an army officer’s coffee-coloured, short, fur-lined coat with much-worn black trousers, the bottoms of which were dirty; he scurried along.’ (1864, 137-39) Recollections of May 1849 mention a short, canvas coat, the type worn by foot-soldiers, which was left over from his army uniform. In the summer of 1849 in General Bern’s camp, Petőfi was seen wearing a ‘white Orleans blouse’. On 30th July he had lunch with town-commander Gusztáv Gamera and was remembered as someone 211
