page_title: Sándor Petőfi
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Sándor Petőfi / Early life
caption_attribution_description: Magyar: Orlay Petrich Soma: Petőfi Sándor szülei
context_page_description: Sándor Petőfi 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, 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 that he died in the Battle of Segesvár, one of the last battles of the war.
context_section_description: Petőfi was born in the New Year's morning of 1823, in the town of Kiskőrös, Kingdom of Hungary, Austrian Empire. The population of Kiskőrös 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 (Stefan) Petrovics, was a village butcher, innkeeper and he was a 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 the family 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 financially difficult period, 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 Bystrica 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.
  After a restless period of travelling, Petőfi attended college at Pápa, where he met Mór Jókai. A year later in 1842, his poem "A borozó" (The Wine Drinker) was first published in the literary magazine Athenaeum under the name Sándor Petrovics. On 3 November the same year, he published the poem under the surname "Petőfi" for the first time.
  Petőfi was more interested in the theatre. In 1842 he joined a travelling theatre, but had to leave it to earn money. He wrote for a newspaper, but could not make enough money. Malnourished and sick, he went to Debrecen, where his friends helped him get back on his feet.
  In 1844 he walked from Debrecen to Pest to find a publisher for his poems and he succeeded. His poems were becoming increasingly popular. He relied on folkloric elements and popular, traditional song-like verses.
  Among his longer works is the epic "János Vitéz" (John the Valiant; 1845). The poem is a fairy-tale notable for its length, 370 quatrains divided into 27 chapters, and for its clever wordplay. It has gained immense popularity in Hungary, however, Petőfi felt influenced by his editor, Imre Vahot, to continue writing folklore-style poems, while he wanted to use his Western-oriented education and write about growing revolutionary passions. (The government's censorship would have made such works difficult to publish.)
caption: Petőfi's parents (painted by Petrich Soma Orlay)
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