Bálint Balassi

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The native form of this personal name is Gyarmati és kékkői báró Balassi Bálint. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals.

Bálint Balassi
Balassi Bálint statue at the Kodály körönd in Budapest

Baron Bálint Balassi de Kékkő et Gyarmat (

erotic poetry
.

Life

Balassi was born at Zólyom in the Captaincy of Cisdanubia and Mining Towns in the Kingdom of Hungary (today Zvolen, Slovakia). He was educated by the reformer Péter Bornemisza and by his mother, the highly gifted Protestant zealot, Anna Sulyok.[5] He went to school in Nuremberg since 1565.

His first work was a translation of

Royal Hungary in 1572. He then joined the army and fought the Turks as an officer in the fortress of Eger in North-Eastern Hungary. Here he fell violently in love with Anna Losonczi, the daughter of the captain of Temesvár, and evidently, from his verses, his love was not unrequited. But after the death of her first husband she gave her hand to Kristóf Ungnád.[5]

Naturally Balassi only began to realize how much he loved Anna when he had lost her. He pursued her with gifts and verses, but she remained true to her pique and to her marriage vows, and he could only enshrine her memory in immortal verse.[5]

In 1574 Bálint was sent to the camp of

Stephen Báthory; but his troops were encountered and scattered on the way there, and he himself was wounded and taken prisoner. His not very rigorous captivity lasted for two years,[5] during which he accompanied Báthory where the latter was crowned as King of Poland. He returned to Hungary soon after the death of his father, János Balassi.[citation needed
]

In 1584 he married his cousin, Krisztina Dobó, the daughter of the valiant commandant,

Catholic to escape their persecutions they slandered him, saying that he and his son had embraced Islam.[5] His desertion of his wife and legal troubles were followed by some years of uncertainty, but in 1589 he was invited to Poland to serve there in the impending war with Turkey. This did not take place and after a spell in the Jesuit College of Braunsberg, Balassi, somewhat disappointed, returned to Hungary in 1591. In the 15 years war he joined the Army, and died at the siege of Esztergom-Víziváros the same year as the result of a severe leg wound caused by a cannonball.[6] He is buried in Hybe in today's Slovakia.[citation needed
]

Balassi's poems fall into four divisions: hymns, patriotic and martial songs, original love poems, and adaptations from the

Mihály Csokonai Vitéz and Sándor Petőfi. Balassi was also the inventor of the strophe which goes by his name. It consists of nine lines a a b c c b d d b, or three rhyming pairs alternating with the rhyming third, sixth and ninth lines.[5]

Family tree

The family tree of the Balassi family:[7]

Ferenc BalassaOrsolya PerényiBalázs Sulyok
Imre BalassaMenyhért BalassaAnna ThurzóZsigmond BalassaJános BalassaAnna SulyokSára SulyokIstván DobóKrisztina SulyokGyörgy Bocskai
Boldizsár BalassaIstván BalassaBálint BalassiFerenc BalassiDamján DobóFerenc DobóKrisztina Dobó
Katalin Hagymássy
István Bocskai
Gábor HallerIlona BocskaiMiklós BocskaiKristóf BánffyJudit BocskaiGyörgy Palocsai HorvátKrisztina BocskaiErzsébet BocskaiKristóf Báthory

Literary award

The Balint Balassi Memorial Sword Award is an annual Hungarian literary award founded by Pal Molnar in 1997, and presented to an outstanding Hungarian poet, and to a foreign poet for excellence in translation of Hungarian literature, including the works of Balassi.[8]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Bálint Balassi". Britannica.com. 2008. Retrieved 22 July 2009.
  2. ^ Homepage of The Bálint Balassi Memorial Sword Award
  3. ^ His biography in the Hungarian Biographical Encyclopedia (in Hungarian)
  4. ^ a b István Nemeskürty, Tibor Klaniczay, A history of Hungarian literature, Corvina, 1982, p. 64
  5. ^ a b c d e f  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Bain, Robert Nisbet (1911). "Balassa, Bálint". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). p. 240.
  6. ^ Lóránt Czigány: A History of Hungarian Literature / Bálint Balassi
  7. ^ Ágnes Kenyeres, ed. (1967). "(A-K)". Magyar életrajzi lexikon (1000–1990). Vol. I. Akadémiai Kiadó.
  8. ^ "Balassi Kard Művészeti Alapítvány". Retrieved 18 October 2021.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bálint_Balassi&oldid=1183593212"