Year 13 Hungarian Trip

Last week our year 13 Hungarian literature class headed to the Pest side of the city to explore the lives of József Attila and Radnóti Miklós. They are both an integral part of Hungarian history and literature, and besides that, their works and lives are linked to our internal oral examination in Hungarian, making this trip both intriguing and useful for our studies. First, we visited the house where József Attila was born, where we received insight on his devastating life in the form of a presentation from a wonderful lady who specialises in the poet’s life at the József Attila Memorial centre. We also explored the different houses the poet lived in and his elementary school - all of it shocked our group with the horror of the poverty he had to endure all his life. Before lunch, we finished the first part of the trip at his statue, where we honoured him by listening to one of his poems.

We continued with investigating the life of Radnóti Miklós. We looked at the apartments he lived in, firstly as a child, and later, the apartment he lived in for the rest of his life, with his love Gyarmati Fanni on Pozsonyi street. We stopped by his statue and finally ended the day at the RAM (Radnóti Miklós Művelődési Központ), where we could learn more about his personal life through a real-life representation of his bedroom, furnished with his original furniture, books and accessories. This trip was very eye-opening for the class about the conditions many famous Hungarians lived in and allowed us to connect more with the poets’ personal lives, making it a very memorable and educational day.

Barbara and Laura (Year 13)