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Secondary sourcePhotograph

Postcard of Petőfi Square and Petőfi Memorial, Budapest

A black-and-white postcard showing Petőfi Square in Budapest with the bronze Petőfi statue of 1882. It records how the memorial looked in its setting.

Shows the 1882 Petőfi memorial in Budapest as it was seen and sold to the public, as a record of how the poet was remembered.

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Black-and-white photograph of a large Budapest square with a tall multi-story cream-colored building behind trees. A bronze statue of a figure with one arm raised stands on a stone pedestal inscribed PETŐFI on the right. A chain-and-post barrier runs along the street in the foreground, with a few pedestrians walking. Bare trees line the left side.
Budapest, Petőfi Square with Petőfi Memorial (1882), postcard by Postkartenverlag Brück und Sohn. Deutsche Fotothek, Germany.

About this source

What it is

This is a black-and-white postcard of Petőfi Square in Budapest, showing the bronze statue of Petőfi on a stone pedestal inscribed PETŐFI. The statue, made in 1882 by Adolf Huszár, is the memorial to the poet. The postcard was published by Postkartenverlag Brück und Sohn and is held by Deutsche Fotothek in Germany. The date of the postcard itself is not recorded in the facts.

Why it matters

Petőfi died in 1849 and was honoured with a public statue in Budapest over thirty years later. Postcards like this one spread images of such memorials across Europe, so people far from the city could see the poet's monument. The card also shows the everyday street scene around it, with pedestrians and a barrier in the foreground.

Look closer

  • What does the setting of the statue, with the street and the buildings, tell you about how the memorial was used?
  • Why might a publisher choose this view of the square to sell as a postcard?
  • What parts of the square or of Petőfi's life are not shown in this picture?

This photograph is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Sándor Petőfi on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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