CHAPTER VII.
1520-1711.
During the seventeenth century Hungary was oppressed by two evils of apparently antagonistic character; either of which, however, was to have the same fatal effect on Hungarian Literature. On the one hand, nearly two-thirds of Hungary proper, as apart from Transylvania, was under Turkish rule; on the other, the Habsburgs, then at their apogee, waged a relentless war against the liberties and independence of the Hungarians both in non-Turkish Hungary and in Transylvania. In the latter country, the Bocskays, Bethlens, and Rákóczys had in succession contrived to establish a Hungarian principate which, although acknowledging Turkish ascendancy, yet retained many of the rights of sovereignty. These two sets of circumstances were in themselves hurtful to the development of anything relating to Hungarian nationality, and most of all to Hungarian Literature. The counties under Turkish rule could not, by the very nature of the oppression under which they smarted, produce any literary movement at all. The counties under Austrian rule were held in bondage both political and intellectual, which stifled all attempts at a national literature. The sages have as yet not been able to prove, that a republican government must of necessity be beneficial to the material and political welfare of a nation. As to the intellectual progress of a nation, on the other hand, Liberty is generally taken to be an indispensable condition. Literature is possible only where there is at least a republic of minds. The Austrian government took good precautions to render the rise of such a republic in Hungary an impossibility. All the higher and middle schools in Austrian Hungary were, during the seventeenth century, in the hands of the Jesuits. The order of Jesus has not, as is well known, prevented a very great number of its members and pupils from rising to eminence in Theology and in Science. It could not, owing to its cosmopolitan and anti-national constitution, further movements of national literature. Quite apart from the debatable nature of its moral and political teachings, it retarded or stopped all such movements by employing in its schools the Latin language as the vehicle of instruction. At Nagyszombat (in 1635); at Kassa (in 1657); at Buda (in 1687), the Jesuits founded, or taught in, universities, where lectures on all branches of knowledge were delivered in the mongrel language of the mediæval Scholastics, which has always had a baneful influence both on knowledge and its students. In the Protestant schools, the number of which exceeded seven hundred and fifty, the same radically false system was observed. The consequence was, that the vast majority of Hungarians had never received a living knowledge of either the history of Man or of Nature, and could accordingly turn their dead intellectual capital to no account. The only Hungarians whose mental acquirements had sufficient vitality to serve as stimulants to literary production of a higher type were such as could read Italian or French, that is, works, written in one, and thus fertilizing another living language. Such exceptional individuals could then be found only amongst the wealthy classes, or in other words, amongst the magnates. Thus it happened that all great literary work in Hungarian produced during the seventeenth century was done by the great noblemen, and by them alone. Hungary may therefore afford a fair test for the curious problem, whether from an aristocracy of birth can be recruited that aristocracy of genius the work of which forms a nation’s great literature. In Hungary, the aristocracy of birth proved, on the whole, unequal to such a task. The Hungarian magnates of the seventeenth century did much creditable work in belles-lettres, and some also in graver departments of literature. Yet, they were unable to originate more than a temporary and inferior reform; and, moreover, they did, as we shall see, serious harm to the literary life of the nation at large, in that they were not able to engage its interests in the growth of its literature.
Of these magnates, the eloquent Cardinal Primate of Hungary, Peter Pázmány (1570-1637), Archbishop of Esztergom, claims our attention first. In his thirteenth year he became a convert to Catholicism, and later a Jesuit; and so intense was his zeal for the Church of Rome, that most of his active life was spent in a propaganda, by writings even more than by words, for his church, and with a constant literary warfare with the non-Catholics of Hungary. He is said to have converted no less than thirty of the noblest families of his country to the Catholic persuasion. At his time, perhaps the greatest number of Protestants were in Transylvania, whose princes were warm-hearted protectors of the Reformation; and since they cultivated the Hungarian language in preference to any other, Pázmány thought it wise to use the same idiom in his controversial writings. Pázmány’s theological armoury is taken chiefly from the controversial works of his French colleague and contemporary, the famous Jesuit Bellarmin. In his style, however, he shows considerable originality. He prefers the strong, racy expressions, proverbs and similes of the common people. His is a direct and vigorous, rather than an artistic style. The strange contrast between his popular vocabulary and the scholastic fence of his thoughts lends a peculiar flavour to his Hodegus or “Kalauz” (1613), and his sermons (“Prédikácziók,” 1636). Among his numerous Protestant opponents were: Peter Alvinczi, of Kassa; and George Komáromi Csipkés, of Debreczen; the latter translated the whole Bible into Hungarian. As a sad contrast to the splendid career of the convert Pázmány, we may mention here the life-long sufferings and wanderings of the loyal Protestant Albert Molnár de Szencz (1574-1634), who was persecuted wherever he came, in Germany, Austria, Hungary or Transylvania; and who, one of the true epigones of the Conrad Gesners and Sylburgs, published, in the midst of poverty and misery, Hungarian dictionaries; a valuable Hungarian translation of the Psalms (1607, after French models), which is in use to the present day; a Hungarian Grammar (1610); and a Hungarian translation of Calvin’s Institutio. Finally, the gorgeous picture of the Cardinal cannot be set off to more advantage, than by a slight mention of the fanatic and obscure Sabbatarians (“Szombatosok”), in the background, whose religious poetry is no uninteresting evidence of the Hungarian theological literature of that time.
Amongst the numerous protégés and pupils of the victorious archbishop we find also Count Michael Zrinyi (1618-1664), a descendant of the famous Zrinyi, who, in 1566, defied single-handed the invasion of Sultan Soliman the Splendid, by offering him, with a handful of men, unconquerable resistance in the Castle of Szigeth, some twenty miles west of Pécs. Count Michael was one of the best educated men of his time, and equally great as a patriot, poet and general. The sad state of Hungary could not but affect deeply a man, whose historic rôle seemed to be clearly indicated by the glorious heroism of his ancestor. Having travelled abroad, especially in Italy, where Tasso’s religious epic Gerusalemme liberata was read then more than ever after, he conceived the idea of stirring up a vast crusade against the Turks, by singing the deeds of his great-grandfather in an epic at once political and religious. This epic is commonly called the “Zrinyiad” (“Zrinyiász”), and consists of fifteen cantos, written in rugged and rough style. It reveals much power of description and religious enthusiasm; but it is lacking in form and moderation; nor can the portraits of its heroes be called plastic by any means. It is, from the artistic standpoint, spoiled by the deficiency above mentioned; the central hero is too perfect to be lastingly interesting. Old Zrinyi is capital matter for ballads; for an epic he is too faultless. On the other hand, the “Zrinyiad” is one of the most effective of patriotic epics. Like the epic works of Klopstock in Germany, or “Ossian” in England, it had at the time of its appearance a great national value, apart from its literary merits. In telling the Hungarian nation in tones of sacred anger, that the Turkish oppression was due to the depravity of the Magyars, in exhorting them in vigorous modes to rally and shake off the yoke of the infidels, Zrinyi added an internal lustre to his work which even now, after more than two centuries, has not lost much of its splendour. Like the daring and glorious deed of his ancestor, his poem is more of a patriotic than an historic event. It were only gross exaggeration to count the “Zrinyiad” amongst the world’s great epics. The poet might well belie history in letting his ancestor personally kill the great Sultan. It would be dishonest to add to the glory of the poet by ignoring the truth of the literary canon.
As to the other magnates who wrote poetical works in Hungarian during the seventeenth century, it will be sufficient to say, that their poems were meant chiefly for the gratification of their authors; and although some of them were printed in book form, yet the bulk was left in the well-deserved obscurity of family archives. The most noteworthy of these poets were: John Rimay de Rima (1564-1631), an imitator of Balassi; Peter Beniczky de Benicze (1606(?)-1664); Count Stephen Kohári (1649-1731); Baroness Catherine Sidonia Petrőczi; Count Peter Zichy; Count Valentin Balassi, the second poet of that name (1626(?)-1684); and Baron Ladislas Listhy (1630-1660(?)), whose epic, “The Disaster of Mohács” (“Mohács veszedelme”), betokens a remarkable talent for versification.
So exclusive was the influence of the magnates on the literature of that time, that the one remarkable poet of the seventeenth century who was no magnate himself, although a nobleman, selected as the subject of his epic poem a romantic event from the life of one of the leading magnates. Count Francis Wesselényi besieged, in 1644, the Castle of Murány, defended by the beautiful widow, Mary Szécsi. In the end he won both the heart of the heroic beauty and the castle. This famous event forms the burden of one of the most popular of Hungarian poetical narratives, briefly called, “The Venus of Murány” (“Murányi Vénus”, 1664), written by Stephen Gyöngyössi. Its language is musical, and the narrative tone very felicitous. The poet has evidently made a close study of Ovid, and frequently reaches the light touch and charm of the Roman; he even adds an element of romance, which has endeared his work to more than six generations of Hungarian readers. The metre is Alexandrine.