Batsányi János lookout tower

The eponymous: He was born in 1763 inTapolca, in a bourgeois family. He made himself conspicuous in intelligence. He finished his schools inKeszthely, Veszprém, Sopron and Pest. He was 22 years old when he get his university degree. By this time he versified on four languages: Hungarian, Latin, German and French.

He get to baron Lőrinc Orczy’s house as a barrister in embryo, than he became te teacher of the baron’s son. Orczy liked him and welcome in his saloon in where he could meet with the intellectual youth of the enlightenment. At the end of the year 1785, after the death of his student he became a civil servant (assistant, then clerk) at the directorate of the Chamber inKassa.

Baróti Szabó Dávid, Kazinczy Ferenc and Batsányi estabilished the first hungarian literary society in 1787(Hungarian Society from Kassa). Many people join them troughout the country. They started up the Magyar Museum (1788–1792), the first literary review in Hungary. However among the editors, especially between the radical Batsányi and the prudent Kazinczy a political debate get started: Kazinczy didn’t like, that his article (the journal’s inaugural) was reedited by Batsányi, who gave for it a more acute tone. As of the second issue they worked separate, it was written by Batsányi alone. Thereafter Kazinczy seceded from the society and estabilished his own periodical, the Orpheus. (Kazinczy’s and Batsányi’s relationship was uptight earlier also.)

He became a big upholder of the french revolution’s ideas and he wolcome its first actions. He was denounced because of his poem (About the changes of French) published in the Magyra Museum in 1792. He wasn’t condemned, but he was eyed from this time. He was fired in 1793 because of his views. Then he became a confidential secretary at earl Miklós Forgács, lord lieutenant of Nyitra.

He was accused of participation in the Martinovics-resistance movement. At the 11th of November, 1794 he got arrested. In the lawsuit he was cleared of the indictment of getting up, but he was sent to prison for a year after all because of neglecting to report the illegal movement and because of the “dangerous principles” he opinionated in his plea. First he get to the prison of Buda then to the prison of Kufstein.

After his get-out (23. April 1796.) he accepted a position in Bécs. He released the works of Ányos Pál (Magyar Minerva I. Bécs, 1798.) provided with his own notes and he worked on the translation of the Ossian from which the War from Iniszthona was published only. (Erdélyi Muzéum V. 1816.).

He got married with the celebrated poet, Baumberg Gabriella in 1805, and he got published her poems in 1805 and 1807.

Batsányi expected the liberator in Emperor Napoleon when he march in Bécs in 1809. At the request of his ex prisoner partner from Kufstein, the Duke of Brassano he translated edict of Napoleon (on the 15th of May) in which he call on Hungarians to break with Austria. After the peacemaking, following the French he moved to Paris. Napoleon gave him a subsidy of 2000 franc in every year.

A császár bukása után Batsányi jelentkezett a Párizsba bevonuló osztrákoknál, akik 1815-ben a spielbergi börtönbe vetették, majd 1816-ban a feleségével együtt internálták: szigorú rendőri felügyelet mellett élt a felső-ausztriai Linzben.

A kulturális életbe már nem tudott bekapcsolódni, így az ortológus–neológus vita idején is az ortológusokat támogatta – valószínűleg információ hiányában, de magyarázzák Kazinczy ellenérzésével is.

Hitvesének elvesztése (1839. július 24.) után egyre nehezedőbb magányban élt 1845. május 12-én bekövetkezett haláláig. 1843-ban, 80 éves korában a Magyar Tudományos Akadémia felvette levelező tagjai közé. Könyvtárát a Nemzeti Múzeumrahagyta. Magyarországon csak két év múlva tudták meg, hogy már nem él.