Description
“Since 1989, the Day of Hungarian Culture is celebrated on 22 January, the date on which, according to the manuscript, Ferenc Kölcsey finished writing Hymnus, Hungary’s national anthem, in 1823. Up until the 19th century, the Hungarians did not have a national anthem. Ferenc Kölcsey, who resided in Szatmárcseke from 1815, wrote his greatest poetic work, Hymnus, in January of 1823, when the court in Vienna was stepping up its attacks on Hungary’s constitutional order. The poem was first published in 1829 in Károly Kisfaludy’s magazine Aurora, without the subtitle “of the turbulent centuries of the Hungarian nation”, which was included in the manuscript, while in the first volume of Kölcsey’s works published in 1832 it appears with the author’s subtitle. In 1844, a contest was announced for setting the work to music, which was won by Ferenc Erkel, conductor at the National Theatre. His work debuted on 2 July 1844 in the National Theatre in Pest, with the composer himself conducting. It was first sung before a larger audience on 10 August 1844, at the launch of the Szécheny steamboat at the Óbuda Shipyard. At events in the 1840s either Hymnus or Szózat, or both were sung, while by the 1850s Hymnus became the popular piece that better expressed national sentiments. Hymnus was officially recognised as a national symbol by Paragraph 36 of Act XXXI of 1989, which overhauled the Constitution of 1949, and was included in the Constitution as Paragraph 75 of Chapter XIV. Article I of the Fundamental Law of Hungary which entered into effect on 1 January 2012 states: “The national anthem of Hungary is the poem Himnusz by Ferenc Kölcsey, set to the music of Ferenc Erkel.””
