The Eighth Tribe, 1975 (2. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1975-03-01 / 3. szám
March, 1975 THE EIGHTH TRIBE Page Three Petőfi is a poet of the homeland, of the rural areas, of the Hungarian Plains. His love of home, parents, wife, and simple people is heartwarming even in the romantic age of poetry. Combined with his love of his home and nation is his love of freedom, political, and personal. His quest for freedom and hatred of tyranny is tempered only by his compassion for the people and nation—for the people whom he would like to see living in democratic society, and for the nation which he wants to see living in freedom. time that the Hungarian and Russian forces met as enemies in battle, and it was destined not to be the last. Petőfi, through his pen and his personality, left a mark on the subsequent years ahead. His letters, before his death, show clearly that this little man knew neither fear nor submissiveness. Ready to offer his life for what he believed, his sincerity and generosity free of any self seeking, captivated his contemporaries as well as all those who have become familiar with his writings, his poetry. Petőfi was, however, more than a poet of tradition and patriotism and social conscience of the nation. He was a freedom fighter who took his principles seriously, he was in the forefront of young Hungary trying to change the political status quo. When the Austrian army invades the country, he becomes a soldier, and when the Russian czar sends troops to Hungary after the Austrian Army in 1849, Petőfi joins the battle under his beloved Polish general now in Hungarian service, Gen. Jozef Bem. He falls from a Russian bayonet at the battlefield of Segesvár, on July 31, 1849. His death is a gloomy premonition in Hungarian history. 1849 was the first Most wonderful however, is the effect he had on the following generation of Hungarians, beginning even with his death. His character, his ideas, his personality did not disappear in the mass grave at Segesvár, but became part of the heritage of Hungarian cultural life and has enriched it for over 126 years. Sándor Petőfi’s lasting and ever-increasing impact on the emotional and intellectual life of subsequent generations has always been recognized by the governments of Hungary. The Bach-regime fought Petőfi’s spirit, which appeared here and there to console the Hungarians in their tragic fate, with
