Bálint Balassi

Baron Valentinus Balassa de Kékkő et Gyarmat (, ; 20 October 1554 – 30 May 1594) was a Renaissance lyric poet. He wrote in nine languages: Latin, Italian, German, Polish, Turkish, Slovak, Croatian, Magyar and Romanian. He is the founder of modern slovak lyric and erotic poetry. He lived at Kingdom of Hungary, a multinational state in Central Europe.

Life Balassa was born at Zvolen the Captaincy of Cisdanubia and Mining Towns in the Kingdom of Hungary (today Slovakia). He was educated by the reformer Peter Bornemisza and by his mother, the highly gifted Protestant zealot, Anna Sulyok. He went to school in Nuremberg since 1565.

His first work was a translation of Michael Bock's Wurtzgärtlein für krancke Seelen (Little Herb Garden for Sad Souls), (published in Kraków), to comfort his father while in Polish exile. On his father's rehabilitation, Valentinus accompanied him to court, and was also present at the coronation diet in Pressburg (today's Bratislava), capital of Royal Hungary (Uhorsko) in 1572. He then joined the army and fought the Turks as an officer in the fortress of Eger in North-Eastern Hungary. Here he fell violently in love with Anna Losonczi, the daughter of the captain of Temesvár, and evidently, from his verses, his love was not unrequited. But after the death of her first husband she gave her hand to Kristóf Ungnád.

In 1584 he married his cousin, Krisztina Dobó, the daughter of the commandant, István Dobó of Eger. This became the cause of many of his subsequent misfortunes. His wife's greedy relatives nearly ruined him by legal processes, and when in 1586 he turned Catholic to escape their persecutions they slandered him, saying that he and his son had embraced Islam. He is buried in Hybe in today's Slovakia.

Balassa's poems fall into four divisions: hymns, patriotic and martial songs, original love poems, and adaptations from the Latin and German. His manuscript was circulated for generations but never printed until 1874, when Farkas Deák discovered a copy of them in the Radványi library. Balassa was also the inventor of the strophe which goes by his name. It consists of nine lines a a b c c b d d b, or three rhyming pairs alternating with the rhyming third, sixth and ninth lines.

Literary award The Balint Balassi Memorial Sword Award is an annual Hungarian literary award founded by Pal Molnar in 1997, and presented to an outstanding Hungarian poet, and to a foreign poet for excellence in translation of Hungarian literature, including the works of Balassi.