Sándor Petőfi reading “National Song”
Wednesday
Given how often 19th century poets have played critical roles in the modern liberation movements of various eastern European countries, I’m not surprised to learn that a Hungarian poet played a role in Sunday’s election. In the past, I’ve blogged about Ukraine’s Tara Shevchenko, Belarus’s Vincent Dunin-Martsinkevich, and Slovenia’s France Prešeren, Today’s post is given over Sándor Petőfi, whose poem “National Song (Rise Up Magyar)” provided Péter Magyar with the following stanza as he campaigned against Viktor Orbán.
Beautiful again shall be Hungary’s name
Worthy of its ancient fame
What centuries past have smeared with blight
We shall wash off and set aright.
We swear by God we shall be free
No longer sons of slavery.
Given the Orbán regime’s staggering level of corruption—“smeared with blight”–the vision of washing off and setting aright resonated deeply with the Hungarian people. They were determined no longer to be the sons and daughters of authoritarian slavery.
Petőfi was a lyrical poet who turned to political poetry in 1848, when revolutions were sweeping through Europe. According to Wikipedia, Petőfi “read the poem aloud on 15 March on the steps of the Hungarian National Museum in Budapest to a gathering crowd, who by the end were chanting the refrain as they began to march around the city, seizing the presses, liberating political prisoners, and declaring the end of Austrian rule.”
Although the revolution would ultimately prove to be defeated by the combined forces of the Austrian and Russian empires, the revolution “initiated a chain of events that led to the autonomy of Hungary within the new Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1867.”
Think of the joy Hungarians are currently feeling, not to mention friends of democracy around the world, as you read Petőfi’s poem, translated by Kőrőssy László. “Magyar” essentially means Hungarian, Hungary’s dominant ethnic group:
National Song (Rise Up, Magyar)
By Sándor PetőfiRise up, Magyar, the homeland calls!
The time is here, now or never!
Shall we be slaves or free?
This is the question, choose your answer! –
By the God of the Hungarians
We vow,
We vow, that we won’t be slaves
any longer!
We were slaves up til now,
Damned are our ancestors,
Who lived and died free,
Cannot rest in a slave land.
By the God of the Hungarians
We vow,
We vow, that we won’t be slaves
any longer!
Useless villain of a man,
Who now, if need be, doesn’t dare to die,
Who values his pathetic life greater
Than the honor of his homeland.
By the God of the Hungarians
We vow,
We vow, that we won’t be slaves
any longer!
The sword shines brighter than the chain,
Decorates better the arm,
And we still wore chains!
Return now, our old sword!
By the God of the Hungarians
We vow,
We vow, that we won’t be slaves
any longer!
The Magyar name will be great again,
Worthy of its old, great honor;
Which the centuries smeared on it,
We will wash away the shame!
By the God of the Hungarians
We vow,
We vow, that we won’t be slaves
any longer!
Where our grave mounds lie,
Our grandchildren will kneel,
And with blessing prayer,
Recite our sainted names.
By the God of the Hungarians
We vow,
We vow, that we won’t be slaves
any longer!
