For his linguistic and literary works he is regarded as one of the cultural founders of the Hungarian Reform Era along with Dávid Baróti Szabó, Ferenc Verseghy, György Bessenyei, Mátyás Rát and János Kis.

[4] Until the age of eight he was brought up by his maternal grandfather, Ferenc Bossányi, the notary of Bihar County and parliamentary ambassador, where he did not hear any foreign word during his first seven years.

[6] After the death of his aunt he returned to his parents where he learnt Latin and German from a student of the College of Késmárk (today Kežmarok, Slovakia).

However the father, as a pietistic educator, understood under the profession of a writer a religious one, and therefore ordered his fourteen-year-old son to translate Christian Fürchtegott Gellert's dissertations on religion from Latin to Hungarian.

In 1774 the father urged his son to continue his translations, but Ferenc preferred to spend time reading György Bessenyei's Ágis tragédiája (1772), Ignác Mészáros's Kártigám (1772) and other belles-lettres works.

Later he got Sándor Báróczi's translation of Jean-François Marmontel's Contes Moraux (English: Moral tales) from the librarian of Sárospatak, which became his favourite book and he later took it along with him to the prison.

What fascinated him was the beautiful new style, the rhythmically arranged packing of sentences, the rigidity and purity of the language with a dramatic compactness, and the French strangeness which made the translation truly incomprehensible for amateur readers.

[7] After finishing his studies he travelled to Kassa on September 9, 1779, to meet Sámuel Milecz, the prosecutor of Tolna County, where he did his law degree and first met his young love, Erzsébet Rozgonyi and one of his role models, Dávid Baróti Szabó.

[7] He found himself soon in a more lively intellectual and political life in Pest and became interested in the church policies of Joseph II which were born in the spirit of absolutism.

Miklós Beleznay, József Teleki, Gedeon Ráday and László Prónay were working on the preparation of the Patent of Toleration in 1781 just when Kazinczy became their trustworthy man.

The policies of the emperor on religious tolerance, on the press, and on the permission for Protestants to hold office strengthened his beliefs in his Freemasonry convictions of believing in the illusion of the "brightness" coming from above.

Kazinczy later, in the beginning of the 1790s, started to sympathize with the ideas of the Illuminati order, and wrote about them enthusiastically to György Aranka: "their goals are... evertere superstitionem, opprimere Tyrannismum, benefacere (Latin: liquidation of superstitions, collapse of the tyranny, benefaction)... is it not the sweetest happiness of life?".

[7] In 1783 he returned to his mother in Alsóregmec, who encouraged him to travel to Tarnaörs to Baron Lőrinc Orczy to accept a job as honorary clerk.

Count Lajos Török, the father of Ferenc's prospective wife, was Director-General of the Kassa School District and the Grand Master of the Masonic lodge of Miskolc and a friend of Kazinczy.

This number rose rapidly to 124 of which 19 were common schools where pupils belonging to different denominations received state-funded joint education.

Its Roccoco emotions are remotely related to Jean-Jacques Rousseau's world of thoughts, but it is rather a sweeter and simpler happiness offering version of that.

[7] His emotional world was refined by the saloon life of Kassa, whose social pleasures he felt as delightful as the Freemasonry ceremonies which he often attended.

For the "nice companies" gathered in the saloons of the Török, Kácsándy and Bárcsay families and for female members of the Freemasonry he addressed his Bácsmegyeynek öszve-szedett levelei (English: Collected letters of Bácsmegyey) in 1789.

Ádám Pálóczi Horváth, János Földi, Mihály Csokonai Vitéz, Sándor Kisfaludy, Mihailo Vitković and Benedek Virág enthusiastically welcomed it.

[14] On November 13, 1787 Kazinczy together with Dávid Szabó Baróti and János Batsányi in order to organize the literary movements of the Hungarian literature of that era established the Magyar Museum periodical.

Two years after the Orpheus, the Magyar Museum also ceased in 1794 because of its editors were accused being members of the Jacobin movement of Ignác Martinovics.

In the crown's room, as a member of the Honor Guard of Abaúj County, he translated Friedrich Ludwig Schröder's Hamlet and wrote his letter to László Prónay, Ispán of Csanád, in which he spoke in favor of Hungarian acting.

Kazinczy returned to Pest on a ship, and after ten days he went to Székesfehérvár to meet Benedek Virág and Ádám Pálóczi Horváth.

He translated also: Helikoni virágok volume 2, first 10 songs of Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock's Der Messias in prose, one part of Christoph Martin Wieland's Die Gratien, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Emilia Galotti, William Shakespeare's Macbeth, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Brüder, Egmont and Clavigo, two plays from Molière: Le Mariage forcé and Le Médecin malgré lui, Pietro Metastasio's Temistocle; idylls from Salomon Gessner's 15 times revised and a philosophical play from Samuel Christian Hollmann Die Oekonomie der Natur.

[20] During that time he experienced that several enlightened policies of Joseph II which were born in the spirit of Absolutism had been repealed and he thought that the system shifted in the wrong direction.

He made an intense attack on the existing order in his translation of Christoph Martin Wieland's Sokrates mainomenos oder die Dialoge des Diogenes von Sinope which was published in 1793.

[7] Menyhért Szulyovszky, a member of Ignác Martinovics's Jacobin movement, handed over to him the Forradalmi Káté (English: Revolutionary Doctrines) during the county assembly.

On January 6, 1796, he was brought to the Prison of Obrowitz (today Zábrdovice, Czech Republic) near Brno, and on June 22, 1799, he was transferred further to Kufstein Fortress.

On June 30, 1800, his captors fearing the approaching French armies, he was taken first to Bratislava and then to Pest and finally to Munkács (today Mukachevo, Ukraine).

original productions (Eredeti Munkái), largely made up of letters, were edited by Joseph Bajza and Francis Toldy at Pest, 1836-1845, in five volumes.