Fraternity-Testvériség, 1955 (33. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1955-11-01 / 11. szám

TESTVÉRISÉG

17

Béla Bartók’s book on Serbo-Croatian folksongs, which contains texts and transcriptions of 75 folksongs and a morphology of Serbo-Croatian folk melodies. The study assists in the understanding of cultural interrelations; it is a significant document of the eminent Hungarian composer’s interest in the native art of a neighboring nation. Zrinyi’s and Gundulic’s epic—both having an important place in their national literature—ought to be regarded as a pattern for the solution of debatable issues. Considerable headway could be made towards the elimination of traditional and artificial prejudices by realizing that there are. bonds between peoples which remove political barriers. Both epics follow an identical device; both transfer the limited scope of a certain European area to the universal horizon of Christianity, and have indigenous traits, emerging from the “nonwestern soil” of Europe. Finally both poets concentrate on the mystery and misery of human destiny without which there is no poetry and no faith.

MIHÁLY CSOKONAI VITÉZ

(1773—1805)

I.

No poet is untouched by the world about him, but sometimes the cleavage between his sensitivity and lack of sensitivity of his environment is such that contact on a creative level seems impossible. Yet there are poets who within the limited scope of their existence are able to respond, regardless of the burden of their tragic or seemingly futile strength. Their élan vital is something to be admired. A case in pont is Mihály Csokonai Vitéz, the Hungarian poet, who lived in a society which rarely measui’ed literature as art. His lyrical, philosophical or mocking tone and the melodiousness of his poems evidence imaginative and verbal resourcefulness which, while not always overcoming the barbarities and profanities of expression, justify the favorable verdict of posterity. We read that his “Lilia songs opened a new epoch in the development of Hungarian lyric poetry,” 1 and that “he was among the first who wished to enliven the Hungarian literary language with the idiom of the people.”2

Eighteenth century Hungary suffered the after-effects of wars. The country, a battleground of Austrian and Turkish warfares, was not only dislocated economically, but frustrated culturally.

1 Antal Szerb, MAGYAR IRODALOMTÖRTÉNET (Budapest, 1946), p. 254.

2 Gyula Farkas, A MAGYAR IRODALOM TÖRTÉNETE (Budapes, 1934), p. 137.

To envisage the standards of eighteenth century Hungarian society, one has to be reminded of the fact that “in the first half of that century it was considered immoral for a young lady to know penmanship.”3 In judging such backward conditions, we must not lose sight of the external and internal factors that retarded the creative spirit. One observes similar spiritual aridity in other war-ridden central, eastern and south-eastern European countries. Cultural activities took an encouraging turn in the second half of the eighteenth century, and

Mihály Csokonai Vitéz

while the barriers against cultural growth were not entirely removed, nevertheless some of the ruins of the nation were cleared away. Latin, French, German writers and poets and Hungarian folklore influenced literary taste, foreign works were translated, the national ethos was emphasized, critics and linguists cooperated with authors in their literary objectives. “At the time when Bishop Percy in England began to collect the treasures of ancient folklore, Hungarian popular poetry was just beginning to flourish.”4

(To be continued)

3 Ida Bobula, A NŐ A XVIII-IK SZÁZAD MAGYAR TÁRSADALMÁBAN (Budapest, 1933), p. 182.

4 Frederick Riedl, A HISTORY OF HUNGARIAN LITERATURE (New York, N. Y., 1906), p. 4.