Soldiers’ Songs

In both significance and in number, soldiers’ songs (katonadal) follow love songs and mocking songs. They are near relatives of the historical, heroic, and wandering songs, but more than anything they tell about the hard fate, the life and death of the Hungarian soldier serving in foreign lands. Such songs really began to appear from the 18th century, but the bulk are from the second half of the 19th century, and their revival was largely over by the end of the First World War. Their tone is gloomy and embittered, since with the exception of the War of Independence, Hungarian soldiers always have had to spill their blood for foreign interests.

The soldiers’ song is very varied and by its content has the most varied relationships, that is to say, it is open towards every group of songs. One significant part of them actually continues to speak of civilian life, of recruiting, of the preparation for joining. Bitterness also finds expression, since social discrimination prevails even in the songs:

“Tell me, mother, tell me please the reason,

Why do press gangs only poor men seize on?”

“I shall tell you, sonny, be it treason:

Poor men have no patrons in no season.”

Magyarszentmárton (former Torontál County)

It is mostly self-consolation to sing about what a fine soldier the poor and the orphan will become:

In the town hall at Vásárhely,

There I had my measure taken;

There I had my measure taken,

There the army me did break in.

Butter pear is not a field pear;

Orphans make the model soldier;

Orphans make the model soldier,

’Cause they have no high protector.

Hódmezővásárhely (Csongrád County)

{501.} Because recruiting still counted as a celebration, the ones who proved unfit were ashamed of themselves; however, by the time of joining up, the lads turned uncertain, and the mothers lamented their sons just as they did their dead loved ones:

I’ve become a soldier,

Native land’s defender,

Mother is a-crying,

Now I’m taken from her.

Mother is a-crying,

And my rose in sorrow:

Blossom black of mourning

Sorrows in her window.

Farewell my rose dear,

I am off and leaving,

Don’t forget me ever,

I shall not you either.

Egyházaskér (former Torontál County)

In the first half of the 19th century soldiers were still recruited (cf. p. 454); they were induced to join military service with singing and music, but mostly by force, often for six, but sometimes for twelve years:

Now the drum is rolling

In the city market,

Now the flag is hoisted

High atop the turret.

Now must they be marching,

Poor and helpless fellows,

They must leave behind them

Many wives and widows.

When the rose’s root’s cut,

Then the bloom is fading,

When a bird has no mate,

Then her heart is aching.

Okorág (Baranya County)

The songs about training in the barracks recall the prisoner song; some, on the other hand, maintain close relationships with the songs of wandering, since wandering or soldiering far away from home, often in foreign countries, are related to each other in many ways:

Sick I am and sore with hiding,

Up hill, down dale, walking, riding.

Holy Script befits the clerics,

Down-and-outs must keep to barracks.

{502.} Western winds blow over hill’s edge,

Padua town sent her message:

Everyone must to the army,

’Cause there will another war be.

They who live at home in leisure

Lead a life that’s not all pleasure;

For they too must kick the bucket,

Linger abed till they cop it.

Soldier’s life’s for lords, not goners,

All the world must pay him honours;

Needs like salt, wine, he’s just scoffin’

Has no care for pomp nor coffin.

Never’s seen he by his mother,

Neither mourned by cherished lover;

But his comrades will bemoan him.

They at home will hear their mournin’.

Kisdobsza (Somogy County)

The semi-folk rhymed letters also belonged to the soldier’s life. These spread and improved with the help of printed and handwritten letterbooks. The songs of battle, war, marching, and of prisoners of war are equally sad in tone. Those which depict the difference between branches of military service are lighter in mood; and naturally–just as among the herdsmen–those on horseback, the huszárs, think of themselves as the best:

Horseman I am, not one of them paddlefoots,

’Cause my feet would noway suffer ankle boots;

Why hussar’s pelisse with braids looks nice on me,

Few the lassies who can take their eyes off me.

’Twas the Germans put me in the cavalry,

And they gave a hoss so I may travel free;

Mounted on a thoroughbred with stockings white,

I shall, sweetkins, come and see you every night.

Köröstarcsa (Békés County)

There are also many epic characteristics in soldier songs, some of which are entirely ballad-like: they speak of forcible enlistments, the hardship of marching, heavy punishments, battles. Everybody was just counting days and waited for the day of discharge, when the officers and drill sergeants could no longer order them about:

Don’t be sorry, little horse, and don’t shed tears,

I have taken care of you for three full years.

“Thank you, Captain, thank you for your kindness, too,

But I give my bleeding badges back to you!

I have done my three years time and seven days,

I shall not my hand to you saluting raise!”

{503.} Captain he would give us orders, boss around

That we have to groom and rub his hosses down.

Let his damn old mother take his ordering,

Not a hussar who did three years’ soldiering.

Szeged (Csongrád County)

266. Back of a mirror-case with sealing-wax inlay, 1885
Nagydobsza-Istvánmajor, Somogy County

And if they had to go to war, they could hardly wait for it to end. Such peace songs were by and large left out of folklore collections, since their content was contrary to the interests of the ruling class. They were therefore sung mostly in secret:

Far off in Odessa’s port a man-of-war lies anchored,

On her top is flying high the red, white and green standard

Blown by the wind, blown high, homeward it is waving...

Come ye girls of Hungary, for peace let us be praying!

In the sandy steppes of Russia lies a trench of ours,

Gay it is and all adorned with laurel sprigs and flowers.

Blown by the wind, blown high, homeward they are waving...

Back at home now wreaths for peace lovely girls are weaving.

Áj (former Abaúj County)