Theatre
Comoedia Balassi Menyhárt árultatásáról
Not translated into English
Anonymous · 1569
Synopsis
Menyhárt Balassi, a great lord, has left John Sigismund, Prince of Transylvania, for the king in Vienna, and would like to keep the castles of Szatmár and Nagybánya received from the former. He sends the preacher Szénási to seek support at court; the latter returns to say that there is no more credit, except perhaps with the archbishop, on condition of passing from Calvinism to Catholicism. Nothing is easier for him: before the archbishop, under cover of confession, he proudly recounts his plundering, his murders and his betrayals.
Context
The play was probably written at the beginning of 1567; in 1569, the Unitarian pastor Pál Karádi printed it in Abrudbánya, saying it had fallen into his hands and offering it as an example against the betrayals that were ruining the country: it is the only work from his press to have survived. The author, probably a humanist man of letters from the west of the kingdom, remains unknown; he was at first confused with Karádi, which János Horváth refuted in 1914, and then Péter Bornemisza, who had known Balassi, was proposed. The model, a real magnate, was being celebrated at the same moment by the chronicler Sebestyén Tinódi.
Who it is for
A short play in dialogued prose, in five parts, which assumes one knows who was contesting Hungary at the time between Vienna and Transylvania; no French translation.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the first true comedy and the first satirical portrait in Hungarian literature.