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János vitéz ("John the Valiant") is an epic poem written in Hungarian by Sándor Petőfi. It was written in 1844, and is notable for its length, 370 quatrains divided into 27 chapters, and for its wordplay. It is a story of the young shepherd who is forced to leave his home and undergoes adventures as he defeats the villains such as Turks and witches while searching for his true love. Petőfi took large inspiration from Homer's Odyssey.
The poem has gained immense popularity in Hungary, and is today considered a classic of Hungarian literature.[1][2] It was adapted into a popular operetta by Pongrác Kacsóh in 1904 and into the animated feature film Johnny Corncob, the first of its kind in Hungary, in 1973.
Kukoricza Jancsi ("Johnny Maize") is found abandoned in a corn field as an infant; he is taken in by a peasant landowner, and by his adolescent years, is a shepherd for his master. He is in love with an orphan girl, Iluska, who is being raised by her envious stepmother. Jancsi and Iluska hope to be married, but once, while they are spending time together, many of his sheep wander away, and he is chased from the village by his master.
Dejected, he joins a company of hussar cavalrymen en route to France to fight the Turkish invasion there. The hussars journey from Hungary to France (crossing the many, heavily fictionized countries in between, such as Venice, India and Mongolia, where they arrive just in time for the battle. Jancsi saves the French princess from capture, and the king in gratitude offers him her hand in marriage and the kingdom to rule. Jancsi turns the offers down, telling the king about his love for Iluska; the king then gives him a reward of gold, and names him János vitéz ("Sir John").
János travels back to Hungary by boat, only to learn that Iluska has been worked to death by her cruel stepmother. In memory of her, he plucks the single rose growing from her grave and keeps it. He then sets off on a series of increasingly more dangerous adventures, hoping to end his life in some glorious feat. He reaches the Land of the Giants, where he kills the king in his castle and has all the other giants pledge fealty to him. Later, he arrives in the Country of Darkness that is ruled by evil witches. He calls on his mighty giant vassals to help him wipe them out. As each witch dies, the forest becomes a little brighter, and János notices that one of them is Iluska's stepmother. She is the last to be destroyed, leaving the land in full daylight.
After several years of further wandering, which includes him slaying a dragon, János finally emerges at the end of the world, the coast of the Óperenciás sea (a traditional uncrossable ocean in Hungarian folklore). He again calls a giant, this time to wade across with him on his shoulder. They arrive at an island after two weeks, which turns out to be the Land of the Fairies. János, unable to feel happy without Iluska, wants to kill himself in a small lake, and tosses the rose in first. At this moment, it turns out that the lake contains the Water of Life: the rose changes into the form of Iluska. Reunited, the two lovers get married at once, and the fairies proclaim them king and queen. They live happily ever after.
John Ridland, professor of English at University of California, Santa Barbara, released a complete, rhyming English translation in 1999 entitled John the Valiant. The translation made efforts to retain the informalities and tone of the original, such as rendering "Kukorica Jancsi" as "Johnny Grain o'Corn" and "Illuska" as "Nelly" or "Nel". Ridland received several honors for his work, including the Balint Balassi Memorial Award presented by the Consul-General of Hungary to the United States.[3] The work has since been made available online for free.[4]
Pongrác Kacsóh was a composer and lyricist who had previously set a folk tale to music (Csipkerózsika). In 1904, he wrote János vitéz, an adaptation of Petőfi's poem, which was to become his greatest success.
The operetta differed from the poem in several important ways. Most of all, it had a much stronger Hungarian nationalist undercurrent, revealed most explicitly in the ending.
The ending is the most obviously different, as János decides to abandon immortality, eternal bliss, and even Iluska to return to his village. The sacredness of the Hungarian homeland was a common motif in art of the time, designed to keep nationalism alive in Hungarians under the yoke of Habsburg rule. While it is a clear departure from Petőfi's original, it is not entirely out of line with the rest of the poet's body of work, who was himself a fiery nationalist (having started, and died in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848).
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