Born into a wealthy and powerful noble family with strong ties to the House of Habsburg, Balassi was educated by the Hungarian Lutheran bishop Péter Bornemisza and was already writing notable verse at a young age.

Balassi's short life was marked by financial ruin and a series of social failures: an unhappy marriage, unrequited love, slander, legal troubles, and a lackluster military career.

He died early on in the war against the Ottoman occupation of Hungary during the siege of Esztergom-Víziváros, the same year as the result of a severe leg wound caused by a cannonball.

[3] Balassi was a true Renaissance figure, a child of his age, a noble writer who was reckless in romance and hot-tempered, but also a humanist with exceptionally refined taste.

There is no doubting the honesty of his religious emotions, although he belonged to several denominations during his life - raised by a Lutheran, Calvinist parents, and then the influence of Jesuits during his adulthood.

Whatever the case may be, Balassi was both archaic and ahead of his time, renewing contemporary fashion by reaching back to ancient sources and later incorporating features of Mannerism and Turkish poetic forms.

The first Hungarian institutes abroad, the so-called Collegium Hungaricum, were established by Kunó Klebelsberg (minister of culture at the time) in the 1920s in order to build relations with the international scientific community (in Vienna and Berlin in 1924, in Rome and Paris in 1927).

Some of them maintain libraries, Hungarian language teaching centers and galleries in addition to their primary work in culture, education and organising science.

At the institute's central branch located in Budapest, those wishing to learn Hungarian can choose from a unique selection of in-depth courses geared toward various levels.

Its foremost task is not only to develop teaching materials for non-native speakers, but also to provide appropriate educational resources to teachers of Hungarian as a heritage language abroad.

Other than the organization of seminars, conferences and training sessions, the publication of professional journals, e-textbooks and e-books also forms a vital part of the institute's mission.

Students—who arrive from all around the globe—have the opportunity to experience life in Hungary first-hand, benefit from intense language training in the classroom and forge lifelong friendships.

This preparatory program enables foreign students to acquire the kind of technical vocabulary and language proficiency demanded by the advanced-level, university entrance exam.

The Balassi Institute as a legal successor of the International Hungarology Center sends visiting professors to more than thirty universities, with an average of 1500-2000 students attending their courses annually.

Visiting professors’ tasks, in addition to classroom teaching, involve joining research projects, encouraging building relations with Hungarian universities and colleges, urging students to go on study tours in Hungary, taking an active part in introducing Hungarian culture to foreigners and organising local cultural events.

The main purpose of the program is to bring Hungarian publications — whether literary or non-fiction, recently published or classical works — to the attention of the international book trade and readers alike.