They pay tribute to the poet of the National Anthem with a showcase exhibition in Debrecen
On January 22nd, the Day of Hungarian Culture, the Bényi Gallery commemorates the person to whom Hungarian literature and art owes so much with a showcase exhibition: the focus of the special photo exhibition is on the 200th anniversary of Ferenc Kölcsey and the National Anthem – Főnix Rendezvényszerzégo Közhasznú Nonprofit Kft. informed our portal.
In the wake of the Anthem – 200 years of imprints in Kölcsey’s homeland, the material of the exhibition presents to the general public forty artistic photos taken by István Tóth from Nagyvárad, AFIAP and ESFIAP international award-winning photographer, president of the Euro Foto Art International Association, at the decisive locations in Ferenc Kölcsey’s life in Hungary and in Partium. Debrecen, Szatmárcseke, Álmosd, Nagykároly and Sződemeter are the five settlements where the artist’s photos were taken, recalling the life of the poet of the Hymn, researching his traces that remain today. The exhibition is realized with cross-border cooperation, with the cooperation of the Partium Ház in Debrecen and the Bényi Gallery.
After Kölcsey’s father died in the summer of 1796, his mother enrolled him in the Reformed College (he was 11 years old when she died). He completed all his studies here, and was attracted to philosophy and classical literature. He attended a poetry class, read German, French, Latin and Greek, he preferred to spend his time among books, discussing 16 years of encyclopedic studies. He destroyed his books, but he wrote his first surviving poems here in 1808-1809 (A pávátollhoz, A szágyethoz, Válastás, Kazinczyhoz and the poem “Az arcas”, which also reflects on the “Arkadia trial”). At the age of 18, he wrote an aesthetic treatise on poetry and prepared smaller reviews. At the end of his studies, however, he sent a bitter message to Kazinczy, whom he met in 1805, at Csokonai’s funeral: “May Debrecen be full of people with a more beautiful feeling, but he was the place for my sufferings, which seem to diminish with my departure,” Ferenc Vitéz summed up the poet’s time in Debrecen.
The opening of the exhibition will take place on January 22, 2023 at 3 p.m., and the exhibition can be seen until March 5 in the street-front storefront of the Bényi Gallery.