Hungarian literature

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The greatest authors and poets in the Hungarian literature of the 19th century

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 Mór Jókai, Antal Szerb, Sándor Márai, Imre Kertész and Magda Szabó.

Earliest writings in the
10th-14th century

Main article: List of Hungarian chronicles
Old Hungarian Laments of Mary
Gesta Hungarorum
Chronicon Pictum, the "Illuminated Chronicle" from the court of King Louis the Great of Hungary from 1358

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

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

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 Fehérvár
," referring to the place where the abbey was built). This text is probably to be read as Fehérü váru reá meneü hodu utu reá with today's spelling, and it would read as a Fehérvárra menő had[i] útra in today's Hungarian. The rest of the document was written in Latin.

The oldest complete, continuous text in Hungarian is

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

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 Kézai. 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,

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

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 András 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

Battle of Szigetvár
, where his great-grandfather died while defending the castle of Szigetvár.

Magyars
"

Translation of Roman authors produced also some works:

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

Kemény János's Transylvanian Dukes, and Miklós Bethlen's memoirs with János Szalárdy's voluminous then-unpublished work on Transylvanian history from Bethlen's reign to the 1660s; and Mihály Cserei's early 18th-century work are highlights of Hungarian-language literature. Another category is historical verses in Hungarian, like that of Sebestyén Tinódi Lantos from the 16th century, Péter Ilosvai Selymes, Mihály Szabatkai and Gergely Bornemissza
.

Latin works in the period are more numerous.

Oláh Miklós 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

Lea Ráskai
around 1510 from an earlier work that did not survive.

Enlightenment and the language reform

The Hungarian enlightenment arrived, via

Mihály Csokonai Vitéz and Dániel 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 lokomotív had been used.

Gallery

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Hungarian literature, Encyclopædia Britannica, 2012 edition
  2. ^ Lóránt Czigány, A History of Hungarian Literature: from the earliest times to the mid-1970s, Clarendon Press, 1984
  3. ^
    ISBN 978-963-200-723-6
    .
  4. ^ a b c Regényi, Huba (28 May 2023). "Megjelent a Budai krónika újabb hasonmás kiadása" [Another similar edition of the Buda Chronicle has been published]. Magyar Nemzet.
  5. ^ a b "1473. június 5-én jelent meg a Budai krónika" [The Buda Chronicle was published on 5 June 1473]. József Attila könyvtár, Dunaújváros (Attila József Library, Dunaújváros). 30 May 2023.
  6. ^ András, Hess (1473). Ranschburg, Gusztáv (ed.). Chronica Hungarorum (PDF) (in Hungarian and Latin) (A Budai Krónika : A legrégibb hazai nyomtatványnak a Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum Könyvtárában levő példánya után készült lenyomata ed.). Budapest (published 1900).

External links

General

Specific sources

Literary chapters from the Encyclopaedia Humana Hungarica (1–5)

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