The national and literary current of which Vörösmarty was the chief
exponent brought several other great epic works to the surface. Andreas
Horvát de Pázmánd (1778-1839) was working for many years at a national
epic in twelve long cantos, singing the history of Árpád the conqueror.
In 1831, at last, he published the huge poem which, however, was
distanced and soon silenced by the masterwork of Vörösmarty. It certainly
helped both to set off “The Flight of Zalán” still more strongly, and
also to widen the circle of old Magyar mythology.
An epic poet of far superior merit was Gregory Czuczor (1800-1866). Had
he not been a monk, and so lost much of the vivifying contact of civil
life, he might have soared very high. It must be, however, added that his
conflict both with poverty and with the Austrian Government, did make
up largely for the lack of experiences of romantic, conjugal and family
conflicts. His was a vigorous, systematic and finely discerning mind.
To the epic he felt attracted not only by the general literary tone of
his time, but by his personal bent for popular or rather folk-poetry. The
_naïveté_ of the latter, which forms its distinctive feature, is also one
of the chief elements of the epic. Among Czuczor’s epics, “_Botond_,”
in four cantos, is the best. It tells part of the life of that famous
Hungarian hero of the time of the conquest. Botond had brought home from
his Byzantine campaigns a charming Greek girl, Polydora. One of the
Magyar heroes, Bödölény, who also loves Polydora, takes her secretly back
to Constantinople. Now Botond again invades the Greek Empire, and with
his huge war-club breaks a hole in the gate of the capital. In the end
he gets back Polydora. This simple plot is enlivened with recitals not
only of military and heroic exploits, but also of touching love-episodes.
The contrast between burly, brave Botond and the refined Greek maid, the
episodes in which Szende, the page occurs, and the beautifully rolling
hexameters lend a peculiar charm to this epic. Perhaps now, after the
realization of most of the ardent political hopes of Czuczor’s age,
his epic will be considered even as much better than at the time of
its appearance when it had to compete with the more fiery epic muse of
Vörösmarty. Of Czuczor’s linguistic works we have already made mention
(see page 112).
A contemporary of Czuczor, John Garay (1812-1853), although not a
poet of great distinction, must be here mentioned, on account of the
popularity of his innumerable ballads and similar epic poetry, covering
almost every one of the memorable events of Hungarian history. Rather a
rhetor than a poet, he wrote his ballads, of which “_Kont_” (relating to
the martyr-death of thirty Hungarian patriots at the hands of Emperor
Sigismund), is the best known, in an easy-flowing popular style. He
trusted rather to the attractiveness of the story itself than to his own
poetic genius. When well recited, many of his ballads are still very
effective.