Sándor Petőfi

Sándor Petőfi (né Petrovics; Slovak: Alexander Petrovič; Serbian: Александар Петровић; 1 January 1823 – most likely 31 July 1849) was a Hungarian poet and liberal revolutionary. He is considered Hungary's national poet, and was one of the key figures of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. He is the author of the Nemzeti dal (National Song), which is said to have inspired the revolution in the Kingdom of Hungary that grew into a war for independence from the Austrian Empire. It is most likely, albeit unknown, that he died in the Battle of Segesvár, one of the last battles of the war.

Early life

Petőfi was born on the New Year's morning of 1823 in Kiskőrös, a town in the Kingdom of Hungary of the Austrian Empire. Kiskőrös's population was predominantly of Slovak origin as a consequence of the Habsburgs' reconstruction policy designed to settle, where possible, non-Hungarians in areas devastated during the Turkish wars. His birth certificate, in Latin, gives his name as "Alexander Petrovics", where Alexander is the Latin equivalent of the Hungarian Sándor. His father, István (Stephanus) Petrovics, was a village butcher, innkeeper and second-generation Serb or Slovak immigrant to the Great Hungarian Plain. Mária Hrúz, Petőfi's mother, was a servant and laundress before her marriage. She was of Slovak descent and spoke Hungarian with something of an accent. Petőfi's parents first met in Maglód, married in Aszód and moved to Kiskőrös a year before the birth of the poet.

The family lived for some time in Szabadszállás, where his father owned a slaughterhouse. Within two years, the family moved to Kiskunfélegyháza, and Petőfi always viewed the city as his true home. His father tried to give his son the best possible education and sent him to a lyceum, but when Sándor was 15, the family went through a period of financial hardship due to the Danube floods of 1838 and the bankruptcy of a relative. Sándor had to leave the lyceum which he was attending in Selmecbánya (today Banská Štiavnica in Slovakia). He held small jobs in various theatres in Pest, worked as a teacher in Ostffyasszonyfa, and spent some months as a soldier in Sopron.