Mihály Fazekas (1766–1828)

Citizen of Debrecen

In 1782, driven by his thirst for adventure, Mihály Fazekas broke off his studies at the College and enlisted. He fought in the Austro-Turkish War, then the Napoleonic Wars. Growing disgusted with killing, in 1796 he resigned from his rank of first lieutenant and returned to his hometown, where he spent his days tending his garden and conducting botanical studies.

He wrote poems, too, but without any poetic ambition. He set the life goal for himself to do as much as possible for his hometown and the Reformed College. He served as treasurer of the College, juror in court, and from 1807 as church warden. He organised the town’s law enforcement corps, which he captained. He was also on the committee that managed the construction of the Great Church. In 1805, when Ferenc Kazinczy publicly accused Debrecen’s intelligentsia of introversion and conceitedness, he defended his town as a champion. However, in 1807 he himself experienced such an indifference to new cultural forms, when his Herbal, co-authored with his brother-in-law, failed to become a widely read book. Starting in 1819 he published the popular educational Hungarian Calendar of Debrecen, which avoided superstitious weather forecasts. With five to six thousand copies the periodical achieved remarkable circulation for its time.

Yet Fazekas’ fame was brought by Mattie, the Goose-boy, and it lasts to this day. He wrote the epic poem in 1804, but published it only later in 1817, and even then he did so only because he was enraged by the pirate edition of his work in Vienna.

Had anyone asked him how he saw himself, he would only have replied: as a citizen of Debrecen.