born 1 April 1814 János Erdélyi, who collected the songsJános Erdélyi, ktorý zbieral piesne

János Erdélyi was born here on 1 April 1814 and became one of the leading Hungarian critics and philosophers of his century, and above all a collector of folk poetry — a man who argued that a nation's literature has to grow out of the songs ordinary people actually sing. It is worth saying plainly that the national awakening which reached this town was Hungarian, not Slovak. In Ung county the movement that mattered locally was the one being made in Pest, while a hundred and fifty kilometres west Slovak writers were codifying a literary language of their own. Both were happening at once, in one kingdom, and this is one of the places where you can see the seam.János Erdélyi sa tu narodil 1. apríla 1814 a stal sa jedným z popredných maďarských kritikov a filozofov svojho storočia — a predovšetkým zberateľom ľudovej poézie, ktorý tvrdil, že literatúra národa musí vyrásť z piesní, aké ľudia naozaj spievajú. Treba povedať priamo, že národné prebudenie, ktoré doľahlo do tohto mesta, bolo maďarské, nie slovenské. V Užskej stolici bolo miestne dôležité to hnutie, ktoré sa robilo v Pešti, kým stopäťdesiat kilometrov na západ kodifikovali slovenskí spisovatelia vlastný spisovný jazyk. Dialo sa to naraz a v jednom kráľovstve — a Kapušany sú jedno z miest, kde ten šev vidno.