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Famous Hungarians

Balint Balassi

Bálint Balassi
b. 1554 - d. 1594

Great poet of the Hungarian Renaissance

Balassi, Bálint (or Balassa) - he used both versions - (Zólyom, 20 Oct. 1554. - Esztergom, 30 May 1594.: great poet of the Hungarian Renaissance ~ the son of János, castellan of Zólyom and Anna Sulyok. At the age of 11 his father sent him to Nurnberg, later he studied under Péter Bornemissza, famous preacher of the era. In 1569 - on ground of false charges - his father and István Dobó were suspected of conspiracy, both of them were seized and imprisoned in Bratislava (Pressburg).

With the help of his wife the father escaped from the prison, went back to Zólyom, then - with his family - fled to Poland. It was in Poland, where the young Bálint Balassi came forward with his first literary product: for the consolation of his parents he translated a religious work from German, the Beteg lelkeknek való füves kertecske (Herbous garden for sick souls), which - in 1572 was printed in Cracow. In the same year the father was pardoned in Vienna. In order to counterbalance the prolonged suspicion and his kinship with István Báthori, the new prince of Transylvania, in 1575 the father sent his son to relieve Gáspár Bekes, who had rebelled against Báthori. Bálint Balassi was captured on the way, but Báthori refused to surrender him to the Turkish Sultan, moreover later the Prince took him to his court, and then to Poland. In 1577 Balassi participated in the siege of Dancka (Gdańsk), which was held by the troops of the Austrian Emperor. There he heard the news of the sudden death of his father, so he returned home. He also took part in the surprise attacks against the border fortresses held by the Turkish and returned to the feuds and lawsuits his father had 'bequeathed' to him. He had several love-affairs. He won the heart of Anna Losonczy, the wife of Kristóf Ungnad, governor of Croatia and commander of the Castle of Eger. He made an oath of allegiance to the king, but his Polish antecedents and princely relations made him suspicious for the court of Vienna for ever. Between 1579 and 1582 he served in Eger as a lieutenant. On account of a quarrel of some sort he left the town of Eger and returned to Zólyom. At the Christmas of 1584 he married his niece, the widowed Krisztina Dobó in the church of Sárospatak. The new wife was the elder sister of Ferenc Dobó, the captain-in-chief of Upper Hungary. His brother-in-law, Ferenc Dobó, Lord Lieutenant of Bars instituted legal actions against Balassi, on grounds of disloyalty and incest. Having been hard pressed he catholicised in 1586, but still, the church annulled the marriage and declared János Balassi - the son born at the end of 1585 - illegitimate.

In 1588 he was reprieved by the Court and the re-legitimised marriage was terminated by divorce. In the same year he went into the service of the castellan of Érsekújvár, but the wife of the castellan fell in love with him, so he was forced to leave the castle. During these years he had been continuously besieging the rich and widowed Anna Losonczy through letters and poems , but by that time his former lady disregarded his efforts. In his last years Bálint Balassi was adrift. In 1589, during his stay in Transylvania, he wrote his pastoral and the most beautiful pieces of the Júlia-cycle. Finally the ever worsening financial problems, quarrels and lawsuits drove him to Poland. He wrote his most beautiful poems in Ferenc Wesselényi's castle, Dembnó and in Cracow, where Anna Zarkándy, Wesselényi's wife had a house. In these poems - after Angerianus - he calls his new Anna Celia. In the autumn of 1591 he returned to Hungary, but could not win the favours of the Court or receive a proper position, so he had to supplement his continuously decreasing incomes with wine forwarding and trading. In 1593 - accepting the invitation of István Illésházy - he joined the army of Miklós Pálffy, who set forth against the Turkish. He took part in the siege of Fejérvár and the victorious battle of Pákozd, later he re-conquered his family fortresses, Divény and Kékkő. During the siege of Esztergom - the spring of 1594 - both of his thighs were shot through. A few days later he died of sepsis.

Bálint Balassi was the first prominent, world-class representative of Hungarian-speaking poetry, and the user and creator of new poetic forms. In his poetry he combined love lyrics with the experiences of the fight against the Turkish conquerors. In the beginning he adopted the clichés of the classical love poetry, but soon his strong personality created genuine Hungarian poetry. For almost 300 years only his religious poems were known to the public (his 26 God-poems - in the volume of János Rimay's poems - were published 40 times between the 1630s and the beginning of the 19th century). The secular works (love songs and heroic poems) were found only in 1874, on the pages of the Radvánszky-codex in the library of the Radvánszky family. Bálint Balassi had comprehensive musical education. He was not only inspired by the numerous tunes (Italian, German, classical Latin, Polish, etc.) he knew, but they also served as direct models for his poems. The so-called Balassi-stanza was a sung form itself.

Source: Balassi Balint Institute