“I’LL PLOUGH IN FRONT OF THE EYE HOSPITAL...” - A NEW STYLE BALLAD

The hero of new style “hospital ballads” is either the patient or a well-known, highly esteemed eye specialist or head surgeon of a regional hospital. In the ballads, he is usually a real historical person mentioned by name. On the basis of these data, it can be claimed that the ballads were composed in the 20s or 30s of the twentieth century. A fragmentary text, lacking real tragedy of ballads and interwoven with lyric elements, was collected in 1961 in Orosháza (Békés County, South-East Hungary). Some variants of the “hospital ballad” collected earlier and several other variants found later as well as similar pieces show that it must have been a well-known, popular folk poetry genre, at least in the eastern part of the Hungarian language area.