Opening of the statue of Ferenc Kölcsey

Every man has two homelands. A broader one, which is connected to his nation, and a more intimate one, which is the immediate landscape of his homeland. Ferenc Kölcsey was given a truly special, narrower home by Fate. The county of Satu Mare and its seat, Nagykároly.

The charm of this region of Satu Mare, as I have seen it from my personal impressions and from my historical reading – if we examine its location more closely – is that it is situated at the intersection of three great historical landscapes. This is roughly the end of the Plain, which is characterised by fewer monuments and large squares. Kölcsey studied at the Reformed College in Debrecen, the intellectual centre of the Tiszántúl, and the foundational nature of this cannot be overstated. The other zone of great history is the Felvidék, the northern Germanic-urban line of the old Royal Hungary, where Kölcsey himself often visited, as Ferenc Kazinczy’s Széphalma and Kassa, the symbol of the Kuruc past, were nearby. The third area is historical Transylvania. The ancestors of the Kölcsey family were themselves of Transylvanian origin and kept this tradition. This Erdőntuli Country starts a hug away from Nagykároly, but only a few hours away on horseback is Zsibó, the residence of Baron Miklós Wesselényi, and just a few hours further the Koltó Castle, the scene of Petőfi’s honeymoon, or Nagybánya, the rallying point of Bem’s Transylvanian army. These three zones were, of course, always the route of the armies. For almost two hundred years, troops of Habsburg kings and Transylvanian princes marched back and forth along this natural passageway. It was in Nagykároly that Prince Eszterházy negotiated peace terms with Prince Bethlen Gábor. It is no coincidence that it was here that the warring parties finally ended the Rákóczi War of Independence.

This county was already known for its diversity in the reform era. After the emigration of Rákóczi, the landowners invited more and more Catholics – including many Swabians who were becoming Hungarianised – to join the Calvinists, so the new episcopal seat was established in Szatmár (német) instead of the archbishopric of Eger, a worthy counterpoint to the county assembly and the bishopric bureaucratic centre of Nagykároly. The northern part of the county was also inhabited by Ruthenians of Greek rite, for whom, at the time of Kölcsey’s birth, ecclesiastical volumes in Cyrillic were already being printed in the Piarist monastery in Nagykároly, and the Hungarian linguistic volume of the scholar Miklós Révai was also published here. It can be seen that a region with an essentially Kuruc tradition was slowly transformed into a European scene: in 1794, it was at the inauguration of the archbishop that the Hungarian Jacobins, who were well ahead of their time in urging bourgeois transformation and were the founders of the reform era, met. Kölcsey certainly knew personally the priest of the Piarist monastery in Nagykároly, Imre Erdősi, who in February 1849 led the newly trained soldiers in the Austrian mountain troops’ bullet train with a cross and a Bible in his hand during the breakthrough of the Branyiskó Pass.

This was the intellectual environment that surrounded the poet of the Hymnus in his youth. It is no coincidence that he rose to a national level and made his mark as a patriot, artist and politician! Few people know that Kölcsey was also a role model (almost an idol) for the young Baron József Eötvös, the future Minister of Religion and Public Education in 1848 and 1867, who was impressed by his impeccable moral stance and oratorical performance. Even József Habsburg, the Hungarian governor, was aware of Kölcsey’s literary achievements when they met in Pest. Kölcsey naturally became a leading figure in the Diets of the Order of Bratislava, so much so that when he exchanged his office as chief notary of the Diet for that of the Diet’s notary, Chancellor Metternich himself complained that the Vienna court had no influence on the minutes of the Diet’s district tables. And the 52 counties received these, extracted for further work, thanks to Kölcsey’s expertise!   But he also defended, together with Ferenc Deák, the prosecuted Wesselényi (who coordinated the efforts of the Hungarian and Transylvanian assemblies but whose speech in Nagykároly was considered an insult to the sovereign) and the young Lajos Kossuth, who was arrested at a young age. Of course without any honorarium. Today, we can only wonder whether the rebuilding of the county house in Nagykároly, which was damaged in the earthquake in the early 1800s, was completed with a loan from the Károlyi family or with the officials’ own salary. It was in this stately county house that the pro-opposition burghers, armed with sabre and pickaxe, elected Kölcsey as county official in 1829. If you want to know how heated these local elections were, please read the opening pages of Mór Jókai’s novel The Sons of the Man with a Heart of Stone. Both the pro-reform and the bolshy nobles who wanted to cooperate with Vienna came armed and prepared for a regular battle within the ancient walls („For they were very happy to bash other people’s heads in for the country, but not their heads, they didn’t ask for that”). Fortunately, the most prestigious aristocrat in Northern Hungary, Count György Károlyi, supported the opposition from the background and this had its effect. As a friend of Széchenyi and Wesselényi, this active lord was one of the most respected politicians in the upper echelons. The wealthy family would have been entitled by custom to the title of hereditary archbishop, but Vienna tried to prevent this. The Károlyis were therefore ‘satisfied’ with having their nominee elected to the seats of deputy and chief magistrate by the county nobility, who were indebted to them… It was to this Count György Károlyi that Ferenc Kölcsey wrote the following poem on behalf of the others (excerpt):