The Eighth Tribe, 1977 (4. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1977-06-01 / 6. szám
June, 1977 THE EIGHTH TRIBE Page 5 Book Review: A New Biography of Sándor Petőfi In 1973, Hungary celebrated the 150th anniversary of the birth of its greatest and internationally best known poet: Sándor Petőfi, (1823-1849). He was the poet of passionate love and passionate lover of the Great Hungarian Plain, the “puszta”. But above all, he was the poet of he Hungarian War of Independence in 1848-49, which started with his glowing patriotic poem: “Talpra magyar!” (Rise Hungarians!) and ended with the defeat of Hungarian freedom by the joint Austrian and Russian armies in Transylvania, at that time Eastern Hungary. The patriotic waves of the Petőfi celebration in 1973, induced Dr. Edward (Ede) Ágoston, an emigrant Hungarian poet living in Oakland, California, to immortalize Petofi’s memory in a biography written in poems. In the past 150 years several good biographies of Petőfi were published in narrative style but none was written in poems. The idea of a biography in poem was carried in the state of fermentation in Dr. Ágoston's mind for almost 50 years. In 1973, he started to put down his thoughts on paper and in 1976 was published the “Géniusz” (Genius): “Sándor Petofi’s biography in poems” —as stated in the subtitle of the book. The work is more than a biography: It is an epic poem of Petofi’s short but stormy life and the Hungarian War of Independence. The author deserves credit for having chosen the metrical versification used by another great Hungarian poet of the 19th century, János Arany. By so doing, Dr. Ágoston not only preserved the atmosphere of Petofi’s era, but he found the way to the ears and hearts of millions of Hungarians. There are a few “extreme modern” poets and critics who object to the easy-flowing, easy to understand, versification of Dr. Ágoston. They are wrong. Petofi’s biography in poems was written for the Hungarian nation and not for a few hundred “modernistselitists”. Dr. Ágoston’s decision to write the biography in the beautiful language of János Arany, Was a right decision, in both respects: artistically, as well as historically. It was the only right decision. A “modernistic” rendition of the “Genuisz” is unthinkable and would have been a literary failure. The “Géniusz” is a book of lasting value. At the same time, a proof of its author’s glowing patriotism and literary talent. Alexander Pásztor THE MAGYARS IN HISTORY by S. B. Vardy, Ph.D. Professor of History — continued — CHAPTER VI THE TRIBAL STRUCTURE AND POLITICAL LEADERSHIP OF THE MAGYAR CONQUERORS (How Many Magyar Tribes Were There, and Who Led Them?) According to Magyar traditions, which are supported by various contemporary accounts, the conquering Magyars of the “second conquest” of 896, were divided into seven main tribes. The names of these tribes were preserved for us in a historical work by the Byzantine Emperor, Constatine Porphyrogenitus, (944-959), who listed them as Megeris (Megyer/Magyar), Nekis (Nyék), Kourtougermatos (Kiirtgyarmat), Tarianos (Tarján), Genach (Jenő), Kari (Kéri) and Kasi (Keszi). To these seven must be added the remnants of the three Khazar tribes, the Kabars (“rebels”), who joined the Magyars, and became their eighth tribe. But not even these eight tribes account for all of the tribal names that have been preserved for us in Hungarian geographical names. The most common and obvious of these are Székely, Varsány and Tarkány, which are now presumed to be the tribal names of the “Late Avars” or the “Avar-Magyars” of the seventh century. Of these, only the Székely (Szekler) tribe is still in existence, in the form of the inhabitants of Eastern Transylvania, who today constitute the largest single Magyar speaking group within the confines of present-day Roumania. They have preserved their separate cultural identity largely as a result of having lived in a degree of administrative separation from the rest of the Magyars. They have served as guards on Hungary’s eastern frontiers for a thousand years, right up to 1918/20, when Transylvania for the first time was attached to Roumania. As preserved for us in Anonymus’s Hungarian History (Gesta Hungarorum) of the late twelfth century, Magyar tradition also holds that just before the Árpádian conquest of Hungary, the seven Magyar tribes formed themselves into a permanent “tribal federation” or “nation,” under the leadership of the chief of the most powerful tribe, the Magyar or Megyer tribe. He was Álmos, the son of Ügek (Őgyek), who soon handed the reigns of government over to his son Árpád. This nation formation” was allegedly accompanied by a so-called “blood oath” 32
