According to his birth certificate, István Dankó was born on June 14, 1858 Szatymazon (on the then Szeged-Fölsőtanya) – In a letter, he himself gave his birth one day earlier, and according to Gyula Juhász’s 1928 article, Dankó’s birthplace was in the gypsy quarter of Fölsőváros, Szeged, on Hangász utca (the site of today’s house number 13 Bihari utca) . He lost his father at the age of nine, from whom he only inherited a violin, and he and his three younger sisters were left half-orphaned. He could not continue school, he completed only three elementary classes. He liked to read, often borrowed books, according to his contemporaries, mostly He liked the works of Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo and Mór Jókai.
Ignác Erdélyi Jr., also known abroad, taught him to play the violin for two months, but then allegedly interrupted him because he did not find him virtuoso enough, so Pista Dankó became a clay thrower. He was 15 years old when he organized his gypsy band, with which they played music in the surrounding farm world for some money, food or wine. István Tömörkeny wrote that “it was not uncommon for the gypsies to climb the mulberry tree in the courtyard and play music from there”, and at other times they lowered one of them in a bucket into the well to play the music of the cheers.
Dankó must have been 17-18 years old when Ferenc Joó was a portrait painter saturatingi, they played music at his vintage ball, and he fell in love with her 13-year-old daughter. Three years later, the desert captain Pál Daróczy, the peace officer of the outlaw world, asked for Ilonka’s hand in marriage, but the father interrupted them – however, the girl gave Danko a rose at the gate. Pista Dankó and Ilona Joó got married on July 13, 1880 in the Belváros parish in Szeged (according to other data, in the church in Kistelek) after two unsuccessful marriages. They had two children, but both died young.
Pista Dankó played music in the inns of Szeged, at balls and vintage parties. In the summer of 1883, he met Lajos Pósa, a staff member of the Szegedi Napló, and through him he signed a contract as a secretary at the city theater. They often wrote music and texts for the plays together, while Dankó got to know the figures of literary life in Szeged, such as Géza Gárdonyi and István Tömörkeny, in whose honor the editors of the Szegedi Napló gave a feast in 1886. The real breakthrough for him was Sándor Lukácsy’s folk play Rebeka, for which Dankó wrote the music, and in which Lujza Blaha played the title role.
Dankó Pista traveled around the country several times from the mid-1880s, and in 1895 he won the Új Idők career prize by setting Lajos Pósa’s Balaton notes to music. In the 1890s, he performed with his troupe in the Great Plains and in the larger cities of the Highlands, overshadowing the popularity of German singing groups. They also toured Russia, playing in Moscow and St. Petersburg, also with great success. According to the legend, after the concert in the Tsar’s court, the monarch himself allegedly congratulated him and put his most beautiful diamond ring on the primate’s finger as an acknowledgment. The other guests followed suit, and when Dankó got a ring on each of his fingers, he sighed: “Dear God! Why did you only give us ten fingers?!”
When his financial problems eased, he bought a house built in Csengőd and a vineyard. However, the successful series came with trials, he was attacked by a lung problem, and the disease tormented him especially during the cold winter periods. The “Pósa-asztal” society started a collection for him, and donations for his treatment came from all over the country, to which the ministry also contributed. He was treated for a winter in Sanremo, Italy, but his health did not recover. After his last concert tour, he returned home to his beloved farm in Csengőd, when his condition became critical, he was taken to Buda, to his brother-in-law’s house on Pauler Street, where he spent his last months lying in bed.
He died on March 29, 1903, at the age of 45. In the yard of the house on Pauler street, Ferenc Herczeg said goodbye, during the mourning ceremony the choir of the People’s Theater sang, five hundred gypsy musicians walked at the head of the endless funeral procession, who performed Dankó’s “My violin is broken…”, “Now the sun is setting…” and I had a The coffin was taken to the Nyugati railway station, and from there by train to Szeged, where it was laid to rest in front of the museum. Here Lajos Pósa and István Tömörkeny gave farewell speeches, and then they were placed in the downtown cemetery, in the decorative grave site donated by the city, for eternal to rest.
Pista Dankó composed more than 400 songs, the most famous of which are: “It’s not good to go to the spinning wheel every night”, “They still say there is no witch in Szeged”, “The big bell of the old church in Kecskemét is ringing”, “My violin is broken”, “Now there is in the setting sun”. He also tried to write plays, his play A Pataki léányok was published at the end of 1893, Gypányszerelem in 1899, and then his folk play A halász szereője.
He wrote a poem about Pista Dankó for Endre Ady, ten years after his death, a marble statue was erected in Szegeden from a public donation, and in 1940 a film was made about him, in which he was personified by Pál Jávor. In the country, many streets, public institutions, and one of the radio stations of the public media bear his name.