Gergely Czuczor

The poem Riadó, published in December 1848 in Kossuth Hírlap, brought Gergely Czuczor a six-year prison sentence. It belonged to the radical revolutionary poetry of the period. Czuczor was imprisoned at Kufstein and released in 1851 following efforts by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

He was born on 17 December 1800 in Andovce into a relatively prosperous farming family. His father wanted him to become a soldier, but the young Czuczor entered the Benedictine order at Pannonhalma in 1817. He studied in Nitra, Esztergom and Bratislava, among other places. After ordination in 1824, he began teaching in Győr and later taught rhetoric and poetry in Komárno.

He wrote epics and ballads, including Augsburgi ütközet in 1824. His principal linguistic work was a six-volume dictionary of Hungarian, completed with the contribution of János Fogarasi. He became a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1831 and died in Pest on 9 September 1866. His biography combines the work of a teacher, monk and language scholar.