Sándor Petőfi

Russian revolutionary democrats 1823–1849 ✕ Killed in action

Hungary's national poet, who opened the revolution in Pest on 15 March 1848 with the National Song and went missing at Segesvár

Born Sándor Petrovics at Kiskőrös in 1823 to a mother of Slovak descent and a father who was a second-generation Serb or Slovak immigrant, he left school in poverty, drifted as an actor and soldier, and from 1842 published poems under the name Petőfi; the epic János Vitéz (1845) made him immensely popular. A central figure of the "Youths of March" of the Pilvax coffee house in Pest, co-author of the Twelve Points and author of the National Song, he played the key part in starting the revolution on 15 March 1848. When the revolution passed into the hands of noble politicians he criticised the Diet and failed to win a seat in the election. He joined the revolutionary army and fought in Transylvania under the Polish general Bem; last seen alive at the battle of Segesvár on 31 July 1849, he was never found.

Also known as: Alexander Petrovics