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

Rita Ratzky: Sándor Petőfi, his tastes and style

a quarter of which must be paid in advance. I know you said I could only go up to 500 forints, so you would quite right to disapprove of my choice. But we viewed at least fifty flats without finding one which matched your requirements, which were: 1. close to me - we would have sacrificed that for comfort and a low price, 2. not further out than ours, 3. three rooms, 4. dry, clean and with good air, 5. at least one room looking onto the street, 6. not more than 500 forints. It was impossible to find all these things in one flat. The only consolation I have is that six months is not the end of the world. You can manage somehow, and look for something yourself. Then you will see, caeteris paribus, that this flat is not expensive and what an enormous task it is to find somewhere good and reasonably priced. So, from the numerous bad ones I chose the least bad, bearing in mind that you cannot take your new wife to a nasty, unhealthy, dark prison in Pest because of that 60 pforints difference, which is only 30 really.’ (Pest, 7th August 1847)

Petőfi’s flat was a meticulously furnished, lower middle-class home. It was, however, also obviously the home of literary and artistic people. The most striking item in the auction records was the eight- piece, blue and white, wool biedermeier drawingroom suite comprising a chaise longue, armchairs and upright chairs. The bedroom was also well furnished and cosy, with two polished beds complete with bed-linen, polished wardrobes, a cabinet, a polished washbasin, a mirror and bedside tables. Further evidence of the degree to which the flat was equipped was the dining-room suite, the valuable porcelain tableware and the amount of kitchenware.

In a letter to the office of the attorney general dated 22nd July 1850, Júlia Szendrey wrote: ‘It is well known that before he married me, my husband had no property at all - as is generally the case with writers but particularly true of Hungarian writers. So he could not have acquired the property in question, indeed it was bought with the money which was given to me for my marriage by my father, who is in a comfortable financial situation.’ Although Petőfi’s widow wrote this letter in order to retrieve the items that were confiscated by the authorities, it is probably true that her father, Ignác Szendrey, although having tried his best to prevent the marriage, did not let his daughter marry without a dowry.

Petőfi and his wife had food delivered from resPetőfi in Pest 1848 by Soma Orlay Petries

taurants. This may have been partly to save money, but is also sure to have been because Petőfi did not want his wife spending her time on household chores. From time to time, however, Júlia did do the cooking, for example to make her husband’s favourite dish, chicken paprika. (See Egressy Gábor levele unokahúgúhoz, 19th July 1848, Pest) ‘It was interesting that when at noon I met Petőfi by the Danube he told me laughing that that morning his wife, Juliska, had gone to the market in Buda because the one in Pest was so expensive. While she was crossing a bridge one of her chickens had escaped and jumped into the Danube.’ (Tompa Mu hály Hunger jószágigazgatóhoz, 7th July 1848, Pest) Petőfi’s expectations and wishes concerning the lady of the house were certainly unusual for the time. They each had a writing desk with its own writing set. Petőfi was proud of the fact that his wife was well read, moreover that she wrote, albeit only a diary at first, and even helped her publish parts of her diary in the periodical Életképek [Images of Life]. However, he did not like his wife’s idol,

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