The New Hungarian Quarterly, 1973 (14. évfolyam, 50. szám)
Gyula Illyés: The Presence of Petőfi
84 THE NEW HUNGARIAN QUARTERLY Because he opened our single worlds, the door to consciousness, as a poet, but also stepped through that door to make known to us a man of extraordinary character. This is no everyday phenomenon. There is no end of studies which discuss the greatness of Petőfi’s verse. To the same extent one might also analyse the greatness of the man himself. The combination of the two, again, is no common occurence. A writer becomes great from the moment he assumes a permanent place in the national awareness; from the time he affects even those who are ignorant of his name, or who know little else, and his works become like tangible parts of a nation’s wealth, like a bridge or a public building. With a difference, however. The city hall in Pest was torn down long ago: it has disappeared from the streets, and it will vanish from men’s minds. But “At the End of September” cannot be destroyed or carted away like bricks from a nation’s consciousness. There are works of the spirit which form an integral part of a country, and whose function is like that of a waterfall which drives a generator. A great novel both attracts and provides as much pleasure as a great height giving out over a splendid view. It is in this sense that the works of Sándor Petőfi are a part of the life of the Hungarian nation. But we treasure not only his works; he left us something else as well. His life, too, has become a thing to be prized. Its turns, one might say, are themselves works of art. There too he made his impression, as he intended. According to his own words he cared little for posterity’s judgement of him as a poet, but not a day passed that he did not jeopardize all he possessed in order that posterity might remember him as an honest man, faithful to his ideals. This is what we are doing now, at the 150th anniversary of his birth. It is a double wreath which we Hungarians, as well as the rest of the world, place on his brow: one for his extraordinary spirit, the other for his extraordinary character. Petőfi belongs to two kinds of reader. One is the man who reads poetry ignorant of the fact that he is reading verse; the other the man who, so to speak, has read all the poetry in the world. In other words, those who enjoy his works as they do a folk song, the author’s name hardly entering their minds; and those who, astounded, discover in the folksong-like artlessness of his work the stamp of a mind of Shakespearean dimensions. How his genius came into the world one cannot explain; nor is it necessary to consider here the way in which his genius worked. Let me begin with a seemingly modest observation. Petőfi has always had disgruntled readers, and no doubt he has them still. In the past there have been those