Page:A history of Hungarian literature.djvu/131

 CHARLES KISFALUDY Pest into a literary centre by means · of a successful literary enterprise. During the eighteenth century Hun­ garian literary life had no real centre. George Bessenyei lived in Vienna, the very camp of the enemy, like an Iroquois among the Mohicans. Francis Kazinczy lived in the country, and Csokonai at Debreczen, the targest town in Hungary at that time. ln the nineteenth century, however, the popuJation of Buda and Pest began to increase rapidly, that of Pest especially, and soon exceeded that of the other towns. But amidst all the activity there was as yet no tru e literary life. It was Kisfal udy who created it. He began a literary enterprise which was calculated to gather round itself aU the most talented authors. His plans met the favour of the public. Kis­ faludy and his colleagues publisiled an Alma nack which bore the significant name of A.urora. Almanacks were very popular at that time. There were no magazines, and the finest productions of the poets fou nd a place in those silk-bound year-books, illus­ trated with steel engravings and gay with coloured fash ion plates. Round that centre Kisfaludy gathered young autbors of promise, and the pages of those almanacks first made kno wn the name of a youth who afterwards surpassed ali his fello w-workers on the A.urora -Michael Vörösmarty. Several of the steel engravings were prepared by Kisfaludy himself. This book was the first to devote itself exclusively to fiction, and it accomplished a great work by gaining sympathetic readers for the national literature even in those aristocratic eireles from which it had formerly been excluded. • aristocrats is eleady demoostrated by a httle incident in the lüe of
 * How entirely the national language was neglected by the