First of all I have to mention, that Balint Balassi used two different versions about his name, BALASSI and BALASSA. In Hungary the Balassi is usual.
But who was he and what should you know about him?
He was one of the first Hungarian renaissance poets who used Hungarian language in his poems. He lived in the 16th century, when Turks occupied Hungary. He was born in the castle of Zolyom as a nobleman in 1554, two years after the famous fighting when Hungarians defended the Castle of Eger.
The main episodes of his life are connected to the love and the fighting against Turks. The famous poems on love were addressed to two young ladies, Anna and later Julia. It was a hopeless feeling because he had to marry his niece, Krisztina Dobó, who was the daughter of the hero of Eger, Istvan Dobó. Balint Balassi had some trouble about his property and at last he had to move to Poland, and became an officer in the army. He wrote lots of beautiful poems about the life of soldiers. He and his men wanted to fight against the enemy, but the central strategy was to keep the peace and the status quo. In 1994 the Christian army planned a military expedition against Turks and Balint Balassi joined to the army as an officer. At the siege of Esztergom when there was a large hole on the wall, he was the commander the first attacker company, and he died there as a hero.
His largest work was the so called Balassa Codex, which contained his manuscripts. It is very interesting that every poem had a melody too. Balassi based his poetry on well known and popular melodies, because that times singers went across the country and told news and poems as a song.
Besides poems Balint Balassi is known as a play writer as well. We know many comedies from his pen.
After centuries, Balassi was known as a religious poet, but at the end of the 19th century, someone found his poems on his love. Nowadays the Hungarian literature looks at Balassi as one of the best examples of using the Hungarian language as a medium in the late medieval times.
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