Gulyás Katalin et al. (szerk.): Tisicum. A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok megyei Múzeumok évkönyve 27. (Szolnok, 2019)
Történettudomány - Szuromi Rita: Költőnő Babits Mihály árnyékában. Közenemesi asszonyportré a polgári Eger életéből
SZUROMI RITA: KÖLTŐNŐ BABITS MIHÁLY ÁRNYÉKÁBAN. KÖZNEMESI ASSZONYPORTÉ A POLGÁRI EGER ÉLETÉBŐL RITA SZUROMI: POETESS IN THE SHADOW OF MIHÁLY BABITS PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN OF THE GENTRY FROM THE LIFE OF THE BOURGEOIS EGER The name Gyuláné Pápai Vratatics szigeti Anna Buzáth (Eger, May 2, 1880 - Debrecen, August 28,1952) was preserved by a volume of poems published in 1926. Historians of literature, when talking about the book titled ’Óceán’ (Ocean), published by the Gárdonyi Society in 1926, did not deem important to highlight the value of the poems or the personality of their author, but the fact that the foreword of the volume was written by Mihály Babits. The author of the book is the descendant of family of Armenian origins that had settled down in Eger. The father, Lajos Buzáth apothecary, got the ’szigeti’ name with the noble title in 1898. The mother, Emilia Eisenmeyer was the descendant of the trader Bajzáth family. Anna Buzáth was barely 18 years old, when she rose to the gentry of Eger. Her father committed suicide the next year, due to his amassed debts. This fact determined the life of her maiden years, and she hurriedly got engaged to the landlord of Hevesvezekény, Gyula pápai Vratatics. The woman, due to her upbringing, had only been familiar with German and French authors, and was introduced to the lyre of Ady by her sonin-law, Endre Hunyadi Búzás. The poetry of Ady had such a deep impact on her that she could never shake it off. That is why her later critics had their reservations about her poetry all along. At the same time, Anna Buzáth was a celebrated poetess in Eger in the beginning of the 20th century. Her career was supported by ecclesiastic patrons of the arts of the archiépiscopal city, that is how her poems could be published in ‘Vasárnap’, a periodical printed in Arad, and other national magazines. The peak of her career as a poetess was the publication of the volume ‘Óceán’, the poems of which, compared to the original manuscript, had been censored vehemently. In the year of the publication of the volume, Anna Buzáth was widowed. This fact determined her social connections: her patrons slowly scattered, the mood of her poems descended into pessimism. In 1950, she was relocated with her son’s family to Dombrád. This is where she died, forgotten, in exile. The life of this woman of the gentry, the fulfilment of her poetry, the analysis and the description of her public appearances and system of connections in the archiépiscopal city show well what kinds of options a fortuneless woman had who was raised in the bourgeoisie but became part of the gentry in the first part of the 20th century in the archiépiscopal city’s conservative, Christian milieu. 187
