Hungarian literature
is the body of written works primarily produced in
Hungarian
,
[1]
and may also include works written in other languages (mostly Latin), either produced by Hungarians or having topics which are closely related to
Hungarian culture
. While it was less known in the
English-speaking world
for centuries, Hungary's literature gained renown
[2]
in the 19th and 20th centuries, thanks to a new wave of internationally accessible writers like
Mor Jokai
,
Antal Szerb
,
Sandor Marai
,
Imre Kertesz
and
Magda Szabo
.
The beginning of the history of Hungarian language as such (the proto-Hungarian period) is set at 1000 BC, when according to current theory, the language had become differentiated from its closest relatives, the
Ob-Ugric languages
. No written evidence remains of the earliest Hungarian literature, but through
folktales
and
folk songs
, elements have survived that can be traced back to pagan times. Also extant, although only in
Latin
and dating from between the 11th and 14th centuries, are shortened versions of some Hungarian legends relating the origins of the Hungarian people and episodes from the conquest of Hungary and from campaigns of the 10th century.
[1]
In earliest times the Hungarian language was written in a
runic-like script
, although it was not used for literary purposes in the modern sense. The country switched to the
Latin alphabet
after being Christianized under the reign of
Stephen I
(1000?1038). There are no existing documents from the pre-11th century era. The Old Hungarian period is reckoned from 896 CE, when Hungarians conquered the
Carpathian Basin
, settled down and started to build their own state. Creation of the first extant written records followed soon after. The oldest written record in Hungarian is a fragment in the
Establishing charter of the abbey of Tihany
(1055) which contains several Hungarian terms, among them the words
feheruuaru rea meneh hodu utu rea,
("up the military road to
Fehervar
," referring to the place where the abbey was built). This text is probably to be read as
Feheru varu rea meneu hodu utu rea
with today's spelling, and it would read as
a Fehervarra men? had[i] utra
in today's Hungarian. The rest of the document was written in Latin.
The oldest complete, continuous text in Hungarian is
Halotti beszed es konyorges
, a short funeral oration written in about 1192?1195, moving in its simplicity.
[1]
The oldest poem is
Omagyar Maria-siralom
(the
Lamentations of Mary
), a free translation from Latin of a poem by
Godefroy de Breteuil
.
[1]
It is also the oldest surviving
Uralic
poem. Both the funeral sermon and the Lamentations are hard to read and not quite comprehensible for modern-day Hungarians, mostly because the 26-letter Latin alphabet was not sufficient to represent all the sounds in Hungarian before
diacritic marks
and double letters were added.
During the Middle Ages and well into the Renaissance, the language of writing was mostly Latin. Important documents include the
Admonitions of St. Stephen
,
which includes the king's admonitions to his son
Prince Imre
.
Among the first chronicles about Hungarian history were
Gesta Hungarorum
("Deeds of the Hungarians"), by an unknown author, and
Gesta Hunnorum et Hungarorum
("Deeds of the Huns and the Hungarians") by Simon Kezai. Both are in Latin. These chronicles mix history with legends, so historically they are not always authentic. Another chronicle is the
Chronicon Pictum
("Illustrated Chronicle"), which was written for King
Louis the Great
by
Mark of Kalt
in 1358.
Further,
Rogerius
's 13th-century work was published with
Thuroczy chronicle
in the late 15th century. In
Split
(now a part of
Croatia
)
Thomas of Spalato
wrote on local history, with much information on Hungary in the 13th century. At that time
Dalmatia
and the city of Split were part of the
Kingdom of Hungary
.
Renaissance and Baroque during the
15th
-
17th
centuries
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The 15th century saw the
first translations
from the
Bible
. Two
Transylvanian
preachers, Thomas and Valentine, followers of the
Bohemian
religious reformer
Jan Hus
, were responsible for this work, of which the prophetic books, the Psalms, and the Gospels have survived. A great part of the vocabulary created for the purpose is still in use.
[1]
Renaissance literature flourished under the reign of
King Matthias
(1458?1490).
Janus Pannonius
, although he wrote in Latin, counts as one of the most important persons in Hungarian literature, being the only significant Hungarian humanist poet of the period.
The
Buda Chronicle
was published in 1473, it was produced by
Andras Hess
in
Buda
, and is the first
incunabulum
ever printed in Hungary.
[3]
[4]
[5]
Thus, the year 1473 is considered the beginning of Hungarian book printing.
[5]
The
Chronica Hungarorum
from the Hess printing house in Buda is unprecedented in Europe in the 15th century, because no other country's history of printing begins with the publication of a folk's history. This is the first example, that the printing history of a country begin with the publication of the history of a people.
[3]
[4]
The Hungarian book printing preceded England, Spain, and Austria.
[6]
In fact, the number of printing houses was not too high at that time. At the end of the 1470s, 66 printing houses could operate in Europe, of which two were in the
Kingdom of Hungary
(in
Buda
and Pozsony (now
Bratislava
)).
[4]
In 1526 most of Hungary fell under
Ottoman
occupation, from which date the beginning of the Middle Hungarian period is set, in connection with various cultural changes. The most important poets of the period were
Balint Balassi
(1554?1594),
Sebestyen Tinodi Lantos
(c. 1510?1556) and
Miklos Zrinyi
(1620?1664). Balassi's poetry shows Mediaeval influences. His poems can be divided into three thematic categories: love poems, war poems and religious poems. Zrinyi's most significant work,
Szigeti veszedelem
("
Peril of Sziget
", 1648/49) is an epic written in the style of the
Iliad
, and recounts the heroic
Battle of Szigetvar
, where his great-grandfather died while defending the castle of Szigetvar.
Translation of Roman authors produced also some works:
Janos Baranyai Decsi
translated
Sallust
's
Catalina
and
Jughurta
's war in the late 16th century. A decade later appeared the translation of
Curtius Rufus
's life of
Alexander
in
Debrecen
.
Historical works were even more numerous: the chronicle of
Gaspar Heltai
, published by him in
Kolozsvar
;
Zay Ferenc
's unpublished work on the siege of
Belgrade
from the 15th century;
Kemeny Janos
's Transylvanian Dukes, and
Miklos Bethlen
's memoirs with
Janos Szalardy
's voluminous then-unpublished work on Transylvanian history from Bethlen's reign to the 1660s; and
Mihaly Cserei
's early 18th-century work are highlights of Hungarian-language literature. Another category is historical verses in Hungarian, like that of
Sebestyen Tinodi Lantos
from the 16th century,
Peter Ilosvai Selymes
,
Mihaly Szabatkai
and
Gergely Bornemissza
.
Latin works in the period are more numerous.
Istvan Szamoskozy
,
Janos Baranyai Decsi
,
Miklos Istvanffy
,
Janos Bethlen
, and
Farkas Bethlen
,
Ferenc Forgach
,
Gyorgy Szeremi
,
Ambrus Somogyi
,
Gianmichele Bruto
and
Olah Miklos
are the most important authors of historical works from the 16th to 17th century. In German
Georg Kraus
and
Georg Zeiler
wrote on Transylvanian history. In Spanish one may read
Bernardo de Aldana
's apology for the 1552 loss of the castle of
Lippa
to the Turks.
Among
religious literary works
the most important is the
Bible
translation by
Gaspar Karoli
, the
Protestant
pastor of
Gonc
, in 1590. The translation is called the
Bible of Vizsoly
, after the town where it was first published. Another important religious work is the
Legend of Saint Margaret
, copied by
Lea Raskai
around 1510 from an earlier work that did not survive.
Enlightenment and the language reform
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The Hungarian enlightenment arrived, via
Vienna
, about fifty years after the Western European enlightenment. The first Enlightenment writers were
Maria Theresia
's bodyguards (
Gyorgy Bessenyei
,
Janos Batsanyi
and so on). The greatest poets of the time were
Mihaly Csokonai Vitez
and
Daniel Berzsenyi
.
The most prominent figure of Hungarian language reform was
Ferenc Kazinczy
, who helped make the
Hungarian language
a useful tool for scientific theorization; many new words were coined for describing new inventions, for example,
mozdony
(
locomotive
). Previously, the
loanword
lokomotiv
had been used.
Gallery
[
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]
See also
[
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]
References
[
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]
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Hungarian literature
,
Encyclopædia Britannica
, 2012 edition
- ^
Lorant Czigany,
A History of Hungarian Literature: from the earliest times to the mid-1970s
, Clarendon Press, 1984
- ^
a
b
Farkas, Gabor Farkas; Varga, Bernadett, eds. (2023).
Chronica Hungarorum 1473 (Fakszimile kiadas es kiser?kotet)
[
Chronica Hungarorum 1473 (Facsimile edition and accompanying volume)
] (in Latin and Hungarian). Budapest: Orszagos Szechenyi Konyvtar (National Szecheny Library).
ISBN
978-963-200-723-6
.
- ^
a
b
c
Regenyi, Huba (28 May 2023).
"Megjelent a Budai kronika ujabb hasonmas kiadasa"
[Another similar edition of the Buda Chronicle has been published].
Magyar Nemzet
.
- ^
a
b
"1473. junius 5-en jelent meg a Budai kronika"
[The Buda Chronicle was published on 5 June 1473].
Jozsef Attila konyvtar, Dunaujvaros (Attila Jozsef Library, Dunaujvaros)
. 30 May 2023.
- ^
Andras, Hess (1473). Ranschburg, Gusztav (ed.).
Chronica Hungarorum
(PDF)
(in Hungarian and Latin) (A Budai Kronika : A legregibb hazai nyomtatvanynak a Magyar Nemzeti Muzeum Konyvtaraban lev? peldanya utan keszult lenyomata ed.). Budapest (published 1900).
External links
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General
[
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Specific sources
[
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]
Literary chapters from the
Encyclopaedia Humana Hungarica
(1?5)
[
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]
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The list is by chronological order.
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Early sources
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14th century
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15th century
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15th ? 16th century
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16th century
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16th ? 17th century
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17th century
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17th ? 18th century
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18th century
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18th ? 19th century
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19th century
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19th ? 20th century
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20th century
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20th ? 21st century
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Contemporary
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