Mihály Csokonai Vitéz

Mihály Csokonai Vitez ( born November 17 1773 in Debrecen, † January 28, 1805 ) was a Hungarian poet.

Life

Csokonai made ​​his first poetic steps in Debrecen, where he also went to school. He was educated at the local Reformed College, which was founded in the 16th century, the early days of the Protestant movement. In the Catholic Habsburgs ruled by Hungary, this was a place of independent spirits.

Csokonai and his classmates founded in 1790 a Society for the Study of Western literatures. This Csokonai took over the work on the Italian. He learned Latin, Italian, French and German and is said to have been concerned with Greek, English, Hebrew, Arabic and Persian.

In 1795 the Enlightenment Martinovics movement of the preparation of a coup was accused in Hungary. Some members of this movement were hanged in Buda. As part of this repressive measure came all efforts in enlightening the suspicion of endangering the Habsburg rule: Csokonai himself was forced to leave the Debrecen College.

He then began studying law in Sárospatak. In the fall of 1796, he was in Pressburg ( now Bratislava ), where the Hungarian Reichstag met his poems in book form out. Then he went in 1797 after Komárom, today Komárno, Slovakia, where in 1797 the nobility discussed a rebellion against Napoleon. There he met Julia Vajda know, a citizens' daughter, who inspired him to Lilla songs.

Also in Debrecen Mihály Csokonai Vitez had already written many songs, which continued a local old folk and traditional students. His marriage to Julia was rejected by her parents because of his indigence.

In the years 1799 and 1800 he worked as an assistant teacher at the Gymnasium of Csurgó in western Hungary. He was unable to find a permanent job, nor to publish his works. He returned to Debrecen, where he sought no society except to some Debrecen literati. At the age of 31, he died on January 28, 1805 from pneumonia ( he had been at a funeral, where he gave his last lecture, caught a cold, and could not recuperate more).

Works

• Dorottya vagyis a Damak diadala a farsangon, comic epic in 1804 (Eng. Dorothea or The Triumph of the ladies at Carnival, Vienna 1914; incomplete)
• Lilla, cycle of poems, created 1793-1802, published in 1805 (English Lilla, Budapest 1971)
• Poétai munkái, the poetic work, Vienna 1813, 4 volumes

• Magyar poems, Stuttgart 1825
• Anthology of Hungarian poets, Pest 1828
• Album hundred Hungarian poet, Dresden 1854
• Hungarian poet forest, Stuttgart 1897
• Hungarian seals from five centuries, Berlin / GDR 1970
• How could I call you? Hungarian love poems from ancient and modern times, Budapest 1971
• Mihály Csokonai Vitez, poems (selection), Budapest 1984

• At the echo of Tihany
• At the solitude
• Konstantin Opel
• In the hope
• The poor Zsuzsi at the camp is

Many poems were set to music also, for example, of Gy. Kosa, Gy. Dávid, F. Farkas, I. Kardos, Z. Kodály, J. Kossovits, M. Pászti, T. Polgar, B. Reinitz, R. Sugár and M. Turay.