Mihály Vörösmarty
Mihály Vörösmarty [ ˈmihaːj ˈvørøʃmɒrti ] (born December 1, 1800 in Kápolnásnyék / Pusztanyék ; † November 19, 1855 in Pest ) was a Hungarian poet, writer and translator.
Life
Mihály Vörösmarty was born into a noble Catholic family. His father was an administrator with the Nadasdys. Mihály was educated in Székesfehérvár by the Cistercians and in Pest by the Piarists . The death of the father in 1811 plunged the widow and the large family into extreme poverty. As a tutor with the Perczel family, however, Vörösmarty managed to finance himself and to complete his academic training in Pest.
The activities of the Diet of 1825 sparked his patriotism and gave a new direction to his poetic genius (he had already started a drama called Solomon) and he rushed into public life after falling from a hopeless passion for Etelka Perczel was recorded, which was socially far above him. We owe a large number of excellent poems to this unrequited love , while his patriotism found expression in the heroic epic Zalán futása (Zalan's Flight) (1824) - in splendid colors and exquisite style, one of the pearls of Hungarian literature . This new epic marks the transition from the classical to the romantic school.
From then on, Vörösmarty was praised by Károly Kisfaludy and the Hungarian romantics as one of their own. All the while, he lived hand-to-mouth. Although he quit law in order to devote himself entirely to literature, his contributions to newspapers and reviews were poorly paid.
Between 1823 and 1831 he wrote four dramas and eight smaller novels, some of them historical, some fantastic. Of these novels, he considered Cserhalom (1825) the best, but modern critics favor A két szomszédvár (Two Neighboring Castles) (1831) - a terrible tale of hatred and vengeance.
When the Hungarian Academy was finally established on November 17, 1830, he was appointed a member of the Philological Department and finally succeeded Károly Kisfaludy as director with an annual income of 500 forints.
He became one of the founders of the Kisfaludy Society and launched the Athenäum and Figyelmezö magazines - the first, the main fiction magazine, the second, the paper with the best reviews.
From 1830 to 1843 he devoted himself mainly to drama, perhaps the best of his plays, Vérnász (Blood Wedding) (1833), which won the Academy's 200 guilder prize. He published several books of poetry that contained some of his best works. Szózat (Appeal, 1826), which became a national song, Az elhagyott anya (The Forsaken Mother) (1837) and Az uri Hölgyhöz (For the Noble Lady) (1841) are all inspired by ardent patriotism. His marriage to Laura Csajághy in 1843 prompted him to write a new cycle of erotic poems.
In 1848 he started an excellent translation of Shakespeare's works with János Arany and Sándor Petőfi . He himself was responsible for Julius Caesar and King Lear .
He represented Jankovics in the state parliament from 1848. In 1849 he became one of the judges at the Supreme Court. The national catastrophe (the defeat of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848-49) touched him deeply. He was in exile for a short time, and when he returned to Hungary in 1850 he was already an old man. A deep melancholy bothered him for the rest of his life. In 1854 he wrote his last great poem, A vén cigány (The Old Gypsy). He died in Pest in the same house in which Károly Kisfaludy had died twenty years earlier. His funeral at Kerepesi temető on November 21, 1855 was a national day of mourning. A collection was organized for his destitute children by Ferenc Deák , who was their guardian.
His most famous poem is the Szózat (Eng. "Call"). Commemorations for the Hungarian national holiday on March 15th usually begin with the national anthem and usually end with a setting of Vörösmarty's poem Szózat .
A square in the center of Budapest is named after him, the Vörösmarty tér in the Pest district, where the Café Gerbeaud is located, and the asteroid (172593) Vörösmarty .
literature
- Constantin von Wurzbach : Vörösmarty, Michael . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 51. Part. Imperial and Royal Court and State Printing Office, Vienna 1885, pp. 137–156 ( digitized version ).
Web links
- Literature by and about Mihály Vörösmarty in the catalog of the German National Library
- Mihály Vörösmarty in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Poems (selection)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Vörösmarty, Mihály |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Hungarian poet, writer and translator |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 1, 1800 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Kápolnásnyék |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 19, 1855 |
| Place of death | pest |