Light within the Shade: Eight Hundred Years of Hungarian Poetry

The Power of Poetry in theHungarian Literary Tradition

229 The Power of Poetry in the Hungarian Literary Tradition zsuzsanna ozsváth The sustained effusion of pure verbal energy characterizing Hungarian poetry may be regarded as one of the most striking components of Hungarian culture. Its history goes far back in time. More than eight hundred years ago, under the inspiration of classical and medieval Latin poetry, Hungarian poets began to craft a rich chain of poetic designs, much of it in response to the country’s cataclysmic history. With precision, depth, and intensity, these verses give account of their authors’ visions of themselves as participants in history and their most personal experiences in the world. The roots of Hungarian poetry reach further back, however, than the Latin influence that inspired its development. Incorporating the myths and songs of the ancient Magyars, these roots spring from a Finno-Ugric linguistic background and a series of cultural encounters with a wide variety of tribes migrating in the second half of the first millennium from western Siberia to their present location in Central Europe. Subjugating the nomadic immigrants of the sparsely inhabited central plains, at first some of these Magyar groups lived in tribal organizations. They also roamed over the land of other peoples settled in neighboring countries and fought against them. In the tenth century, however, essential changes took place. The Magyars came under Christian influence and formed a kingdom, headed by István I (997–1038). By then, their culture 230 | Light within the Shade and language surpassed those of their ancestors, whom they had left behind in the foothills of the Urals five hundred years before. Having had numerous encounters with a variety of different people and cultures, the European Hungarians experienced vital clashes between their own and other traditions and changed in the process some of their customs, words, and speech habits.1 In this way, major linguistic transformations occurred: the tongue of the Magyars amalgamated its Asian roots with European sounds and speech patterns, starting a process that prepared the language for the Latin influence. The earliest Hungarian literary texts come from the eleventh century . These were religious texts, composed in Latin, using Roman characters instead of the ancient runic writing. Around 1200, further changes took place: religious Latin writings started to be translated into Hungarian . Although, with the expansion of literacy, these translations grew in volume and significance, they never suppressed the ancient popular Magyar folk songs and sagas but rather coexisted with them. In the fourteenth century, secular literature started to develop in the country, taking its impetus from the literary structures, rhyme, and meter of Western poetry. Politically, too, Hungary attempted to grow along the path of the Western Christian feudal structure. But after István I died, wars and pagan rebellions became recurrent in the kingdom. In addition, inner power struggles and royal disputes interfered with the peaceful consolidation attempts of earlier periods. The ongoing turmoil notwithstanding, the political unity of the Hungarian kingdom remained unchanged until the Mongol invasion (1241–1242). This event altered the country forever. Killing half its population and destroying much of its natural resources, the Mongol hordes left behind rack and ruin of catastrophic dimensions. The damage they caused and the trauma that followed in their wake tore deep 1. Yet, as Géza Balázs says, “In these exchange contacts, the Hungarian language has taken over a large number of words, but has always adjusted them to its own linguistic system and was thus able to preserve its own individuality.” The Story of Hungarian: A Guide to the Language, trans. Thomas J. DeKornfeld (Budapest: Corvina, 1997), 116. z su z sa n na oz svát h | 231 into Hungarian life and being: this affected Hungarian political decisions and the national consciousness, and, in the long run, the poetic energies, vision, and imagination of generations of Hungarian poets. Indeed, the memory of the Mongol assault did not fade. As time went by and new armies roamed the land of the Magyars, the memory of that cataclysmic assault merged with the consciousness of new threats of destruction. On the popular level, history turned into tales of struggle and identity chronicled by the country’s poets, many of whom played a major role in shaping Hungarian collective memory. Over subsequent centuries, stories of foreign occupations, massacres, and heroic resistance were relived, absorbed, and echoed by countless poems, songs, legends, and myths, projecting...