For the second time in recent succession, a new work by Mihajlo Kolodko has been spotted in Vác, an up-and-coming town north of Budapest. First, as we reported, there was a likeness of Habsburg empress Maria Theresa placed by the city’s triumphal arch, a cultural reference to a notorious incident from history.
The Hungarian-Ukrainian sculptor has already left many miniature creations at apt locations around Budapest. Some link to urban myth, and there’s usually a certain amount of cheek about the concept. Everyone gets the joke, and the figurines raise a smile as onlookers pass the landmark.
His latest work refers to the little-known fact that the parents of poet Sándor Petőfi lived at Báthori utca 15 in Vác in 1847-48, at a time when many of his contemporaries were fomenting revolution in Hungary.
Petőfi was here in February 1848 when he composed a poem involving the family dog Morzsa and mother hen.
You can see how the figures were created in this video – which also refers to the ride Petőfi took exactly 175 years ago this month, the first ever train journey in Hungary, between Pest and Vác.
To view Kolodko’s latest creation in the flesh, Vác is now 30 minutes by train from Rákospalota-Újpest. The characters are sitting on their own plinth by the main station building.
