János vitéz by Sándor Petőfi * * * *
János vitéz, which can be translated as John the Valiant, is a narrative epic poem written by Petőfi in 1844, when he was only twenty one years old. Considering that Petőfi died at only twenty six, basically everything he ever wrote was written when he was ridiculously young, and this poem is a particularly good example of just how much he had already developed his distinctive voice.
The story begins with a young shepherd called Kukorica Jancsi. His name is a little difficult to translate, although the traditional English translation calls him Johnny Corncob because he was found abandoned in a cornfield as a baby. Personally, Johnny Corncob sounds considerably less heroic to me than Kukorica Jancsi, but there you go.
At the beginning of the poem, Jancsi is supposed to be looking after his sheep when he spots his sweetheart, Iluska, washing clothes in the river. Iluska is a diminutive form of Ilona, so even her name has this affectionate, familiar quality to it. Jancsi persuades her to abandon the washing for a while so that they can have some lovey dovey time together, which Petőfi describes poetically enough that exactly what they are doing is open to interpretation. It could just be kissing. It could perhaps be something more. But when you read this at about ten years old, they are kissing. They are absolutely just kissing. That is what all of us assumed at school, and I am sticking with it.
Unfortunately, Iluska has the obligatory evil stepmother, who catches them together and drags her away. Jancsi then remembers that he was supposed to be looking after some sheep and discovers that half of them are gone. His foster father is understandably not delighted to learn that Jancsi has managed to lose a significant portion of his livelihood, so he throws him out. Jancsi says goodbye to Iluska and leaves the village, and that begins his enormous journey.
What I particularly enjoyed about János vitéz as an adult is the way the story gradually moves from the mundane into complete fairy tale fantasy. It begins in a recognisable Hungarian village landscape with sheep, washing in the river, young love and an angry foster father. Then Jancsi walks out into the wider world, and the scale of the story keeps growing around him. He encounters robbers, becomes a hussar, travels to distant countries, fights battles, meets giants and witches, and eventually reaches a world that has left ordinary reality completely behind.
It feels almost as though we are watching a Hungarian folk tale expand around him.
Jancsi himself is the archetypal folk tale hero. He begins with nothing. He is a foundling without wealth or status, and once he loses his home, he effectively has nothing except his own character and his love for Iluska. Yet he is brave, loyal and fundamentally good, and every new stage of his journey gives him another opportunity to prove himself. He does kill rather a lot of things along the way, admittedly, but eventually we are dealing with fairy tale creatures, so I think we can give him some leeway.
The thing I appreciated most on this reread, though, was Petőfi's language. The poem is genuinely beautiful. He draws heavily on Hungarian folk language, traditional imagery and the rhythms of folk tales, but elevates them into poetry without making the result feel artificial or disconnected from ordinary people. The opening landscape is particularly vivid because it feels so recognisably Hungarian, and then that familiar landscape slowly disappears as Jancsi travels farther from home and deeper into the fantastical.
That transition works particularly well because Petőfi does not begin by announcing that we are entering a magical world. We begin with sheep. We begin with a girl washing clothes in a river. We begin with a young man who neglects his work because he wants to spend time with his girlfriend. The supernatural elements become increasingly prominent as the journey continues, until giants, witches and magical kingdoms feel like a natural extension of the world we started in.
That also makes János vitéz a fascinating introduction to Hungarian folklore. It uses many elements that recur throughout Hungarian folk tales. There is the poor young hero setting out into the world, the seemingly impossible challenges, the distant kingdoms, the witches, the giants, the magical creatures and the repeated tests of the hero's courage and character. Read through a modern lens, it is essentially a fantasy adventure constructed from Hungarian folk tale traditions.
Rereading it as an adult also made me appreciate why this particular work has remained such an important part of Hungarian culture. As a child, it is very easy to concentrate on the adventure. Jancsi goes places, fights things and encounters increasingly strange creatures. As an adult, I was much more conscious of the structure underneath that adventure and of how Petőfi moves between the ordinary and the mythical while keeping Jancsi emotionally connected to the very small world he came from.
There is also something rather lovely about returning to a work that was simply "school reading" when I was a child and discovering that I actually like it. Mandatory reading has a way of turning literature into something you have to get through for the next lesson, especially when you are ten. Reading János vitéz now, without having to answer questions about it afterwards, allowed me to pay attention to how pretty it actually is.
And it is pretty. It is funny in places, romantic in others, occasionally violent, increasingly bizarre, and completely sincere about all of it. Petőfi takes a shepherd who loses his sheep because he is distracted by a girl and sends him into an adventure of heroic proportions without ever losing the folk tale simplicity at the heart of the story.
The importance of János vitéz in Hungarian culture also means that it has been adapted several times, including a very famous musical adaptation by Pongrác Kacsóh, which premiered in 1904. It is a daljáték, a Hungarian musical theatre form closely related to operetta, and it turned Petőfi's story into a stage work with music and songs.
I have never actually seen the whole thing, although something rather strange happened while I was rereading the poem. Certain passages started coming back to me with music attached to them. Apparently I heard enough of Kacsóh's adaptation at some point in my childhood for parts of it to lodge themselves in my brain without me consciously remembering where they came from.
I initially assumed the operetta had largely disappeared from the stage, but it turns out that it is still performed, including by the Budapest Operetta Theatre.
Another adaptation, and probably the one I find most interesting, is Marcell Jankovics's 1973 animated film. It has some historical importance of its own because it was the first Hungarian feature length animated film, and it was created for the 150th anniversary of Petőfi's birth.
Visually, it is absolutely fascinating. If you have seen Yellow Submarine, you will probably understand immediately why the two films are often compared. Jankovics's János vitéz is incredibly colourful and psychedelic, with Hungarian folk art mixed with the visual language of pop art and Art Nouveau. The result is unmistakably a product of the late 1960s and early 1970s, but it is also unmistakably Hungarian. It is a strange combination, but it works remarkably well with a story that becomes increasingly surreal as Jancsi travels farther from home.
The music is also a major part of the film, and I was particularly curious about what it did with Kacsóh's music. By 1973, the stage adaptation had already been around for almost seventy years, and its songs had become strongly associated with János vitéz. But the animated film does not simply reuse the operetta's score. Instead, it has its own original score composed by János Gyulai Gaál. In fact, creating a musical identity that would not simply evoke Kacsóh's enormously popular adaptation was one of the challenges Gyulai Gaál faced.
His music is closely connected to the visuals and changes along with Jancsi's journey rather than simply sitting behind the animation. There are elements of Hungarian musical tradition, but the score also reaches much further. Jankovics gave the composer specific classical references for certain scenes, including Wagner's Tristan und Isolde and Verdi's Otello for the love scene, while in other places he wanted something more reminiscent of Kodály. The result is music that participates in the storytelling rather than merely accompanying it.
There are also songs in the film, with lyrics written by József Romhányi and performed by Gjon Delhusa. These are used as transitions between parts of the story, giving the film another musical layer while still keeping it completely separate from Kacsóh's earlier adaptation.
The film also takes an interesting approach to adapting a poem. Much of Petőfi's descriptive narration disappears, while the dialogue is retained, which leaves the animation and music to provide much of the imagery and atmosphere that Petőfi originally created through language. That makes the film feel less like an illustrated version of the poem and more like a visual and musical interpretation of it. There are changes to the story, but the core of János vitéz is still very much there.
I actually think the sheer variety of these adaptations says something important about the original poem. János vitéz works as literature, but its structure and imagery are also remarkably adaptable. It became musical theatre at the beginning of the twentieth century, then became a psychedelic animated film with an entirely new musical language almost seventy years later. Its combination of romance, adventure, comedy, folk tradition and increasingly extravagant fantasy gives artists an enormous amount to work with, and each medium can emphasize something different about Petőfi's world.
I definitely recommend János vitéz, particularly if you are interested in reading literature from Hungary or exploring folk traditions outside the ones most commonly encountered in English language classics. It is not particularly long, English translations are available, and you get an enormous amount packed into its twenty seven cantos.
It begins beside a river with a shepherd, some missing sheep and a girl called Iluska. By the end, Petőfi has taken you somewhere else entirely. That journey from the ordinary Hungarian countryside into the impossible is exactly what makes János vitéz endure.
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