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

Rita Ratzky: Sándor Petőfi, his tastes and style

the French writer George Sand. In Úti levelek Kerényi Frigyeshez he writes, ‘George Sand is the new wonder of the world and I admire her, perhaps worship her too, hut I do not like her. She rips open society as a butcher rips open the belly of a cow, to show its innards in all their ghastliness and cries: It cannot go on like this!... oh, this is courageous, heroic, important work, but it is work for men not women. When I read her novels I am always disturbed by the thought that they were written by a woman, and I put them down unenthusiastically. If a woman likes to work, wonderful! Let her cook in the kitchen and weed in the garden, it is nice if she dirties her hands there, but she should leave the stables to the men.’ (XVIII, 14th October 1847, Koltó) As Petőfi respected his wife’s opinions and judgement in matters of basic principles, it is unlikely that he interfered in the traditionally female roles like interior decoration. For this reason surviving furniture and household items cannot give a clear insight into Petőfi’s tastes.

The most interesting and, especially for the poet, most important and private areas of the Petőfi home were the work corner and the pictures on the walls. One of the items of furniture was a polished bookshelf containing Petőfi’s pride and joy: a collection of several hundred books in deluxe bindings with golden spines. He had dreamed of this as early as 1845: ‘R. Kubinyi’s library is remarkable. It contains the greatest English, French, German, Italian and Spanish works of literature. Would there were more good people like R. K. in our country!’ (Úti jegyezet...) The walls were hung with valuable paintings - works by Orlay Petries and Miklós Barabás - and prints probably ordered from Paris.

Orlay Petrics’s painting Petőfi in Pest 1848, showing Petőfi in his study, reveals much about the poet’s tastes. The two were close friends, and it may therefore be assumed that the painting was done

partly at Petőfi’s request. The posture is slightly contrived and the composition takes great pains to include every important feature of a poet’s home: the full bookcase, books with golden spines on the imposing desk, the porcelain writing set, the bust of Béranger, and on the wall Miklós Barabás’s drawing of Júlia Szendrey. Standing in the centre of the painting with arms folded, the poet is turning to face us, as if he were saying ‘This is my world, simple but homely. Here I am surrounded by everything and everyone that is important to me.’

Petőfi had come a long way from the house in Szalkszentmárton to his home in Pest; from the lifestyle of a peasant-bourgeoisie in a market town to that of a petty-bourgeoisie intellectual in a city, and the Orlay Petries painting reveals that it was this latter lifestyle with which he felt most comfortable. Petőfi’s everyday life and habits were influenced by the most dominant style and fashion of the time: biedermeier. He wrote tender, speculative, intimate stanzas in the keepsake albums of many of his lady friends without considering it a burden, obligation or waste of his talent. What is even more unusual is his collection of pressed flowers, which today may not seem a very manly thing to do. During his second trip to Upper Hungary, Sub-Carpathia and Transylvania Petőfi gathered twigs and flowers at places that were important to him from an historical, literary and first and foremost emotional point of view, carefully pressing and labelling them, then putting them away as keepsakes. He was certainly not alone in doing this at that time, and this way of capturing the moment was not considered unmanly.

Having looked at the changes in Petőfi’s material environment, it can be concluded that, in spite of his unrefined manner, he had few difficulties integrating into the social life of the capital’s literary circles, and created a home which, while reflecting the style of the time, was also unique in character.

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