The Hungarian Heritage Institute (NÖRI) marked the 125th birth anniversary of celebrated poet Lőrinc Szabó (1900-1957) with a commemorative event at his grave in Fiume Road Graveyard. The ceremony, held on Monday, featured speeches by Gábor Móczár, Director-General of NÖRI, and Ernő Kulcsár-Szabó, a literary historian and full member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA).
Kulcsár-Szabó highlighted Szabó’s experience of two world wars and the broader crisis of European individualism, cultural decline, and mass society. He compared Szabó’s poetic response to those of Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Paul Valéry, and Gottfried Benn. Alongside Hungarian poets Dezső Kosztolányi and Attila József, Szabó helped place Hungarian poetry at the forefront of European literature. By 1945, he was widely regarded as a key figure in modern Hungarian poetry, blending elements of early 20th-century aestheticism, the avant-garde, and late modernism.
Szabó’s work explored themes of love, war, and existential struggle. As a translator, he played a crucial role in bringing the works of Shakespeare, Goethe, Baudelaire, and Rilke to Hungarian readers, bridging the gap between Hungarian and European literature. Though not widely known internationally, his influence on literary translation and modernist poetry remains significant.
Móczár emphasized that Szabó’s grave is a central stop in NÖRI’s thematic cemetery tours, particularly in the Artists’ Section of Fiume Road Graveyard, where he rests alongside Mihály Babits and Zsigmond Móricz. He noted that Szabó received a state funeral, and his close friend, poet Gyula Illyés, delivered an informal farewell speech. For years, friends gathered at his grave annually on October 3 at 2:55 p.m., the exact time of his passing.
Szabó’s original pinewood tombstone deteriorated over time despite multiple restorations by sculptor Ervin Páljános. In 2011, the Lőrinc Szabó Foundation commissioned a more durable artificial stone replacement, reinterpreted by Gábor Csóti.
Lőrinc Szabó remains a defining figure of modern Hungarian poetry. His 1932 collection You and the World (Te meg a világ) is considered, along with Attila József’s works on consciousness, one of the greatest achievements of 20th-century Hungarian literature.
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