Rebellious Priests? The Catholic Clergy and the Diet, 1764–1765*

András Forgó
University of Pécs
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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 10 Issue 1  (2021): 73-95 DOI 10.38145/2021.1.73

The study of the eighteenth-century parliament has intensified in Hungary over the past decade and a half. This tendency is part of a larger European historiographical trend which has revalued the role of the Diets in the study of eighteenth-century political decision-making and political culture. The Hungarian Diet of 1764–1765 is traditionally seen as an outstanding political event in the century, and at the same time as a turning point of the reign of Maria Theresa. After the bitter experiences gained here, she did not convene the estates of Hungary during the remaining fifteen years of her reign, she rather ruled the country by decrees with the help of the institutions of the estates in Hungary. This study is looking for the answer to the question of how the clergy’s opposition to the politics of the court is represented in the sources and how the “change of sides” by the chapter representatives can be grasped in the parliamentary debates.

Keywords: Hungarian Diet, Catholic clergy, political culture, lower house, Corpus Juris Hungarici, Tripartitum, pasquillus, constitution, estates, eighteenth century

The study of the political activity of the ecclesiastical order in the eighteenth century is not a recent trend in Hungarian historiography. It has long been known in the secondary literature that the advancement of Catholic confessionalization, or in other words the massive support of Catholicism in the era, was accompanied by an increase in the role of the clergy in public life. This public role can be examined mainly through an analysis of the clergy’s activity in the parliaments. The study of the activities, composition, and decision-making mechanisms of the eighteenth-century parliament has intensified in Hungary over the past decade and a half. This tendency is part of a larger European historiographical trend which has revalued the role of the Diets in the study of eighteenth-century political decision-making and political culture.1

The Diet of 1608 passed an article which specified who would be entitled to participate in the work of the parliament, a matter previously regulated exclusively by customary law. Article I included the groups of the prelates (praelati), barons or magnates (barones/magnates), the nobles (nobiles), and the free royal cities (liberae regiae civitates) among the estates (status et ordines). It then specified the composition of the upper house (tabula superior) and the lower house (tabula inferior). As for the members of the clergy, the diocesan bishops were given the right to sit and vote in the upper house, while the representatives of the cathedral and collegiate chapters could vote in the lower house. The abbots and provosts infulati and possessionati were guaranteed a personal appearance in the Diet, but among the ordinary inhabitants of the country (inter regnicolas), i.e. in the lower house.2 As a consequence, the clergy enjoyed substantial representation in the parliament, and if they coordinated their activities, they could influence decision-making in both the lower and the upper houses. For precisely this reason, it is important to consider how members of the ecclesiastical order behaved during the parliamentary debates.

István Szijártó has placed eighteenth-century Hungarian estate politics in a new context when he applied the theorems of “confessional corporatism” and “constitutional corporatism” to the political life of the period. The first parliaments of the eighteenth century were dominated by religious debates. The Catholic majority and the followers of the legally authorized Protestant confessions, the Lutherans and the Calvinists, were in irreconcilable conflict. Taking advantage of the new situation after the expulsion of the Ottomans, the Catholics, led by the clergy, demanded the complete suppression of Protestantism, while the Protestants demanded free religious practice based on the 1606 Treaty of Vienna.3 These debates often paralyzed the work of the parliament for months. As it became almost impossible to make the decisions that were important to the court, beginning in 1715, Vienna sought to exclude the religious issue from parliamentary discussions. Eventually, this led to the regulation of religious affairs in 1731 and 1734 and the issuing of the two Carolina resolutio.4 Although this was not a reassuring solution for either party, the fact that the confessional issue was no longer a subject of debate in the Diets opened up the possibility not only for the negotiation of the reforms, but also for the defense of the constitutional order. As a consequence, an alliance of the estates across confessions could be established, which began an era that Szijártó has labelled the period of “constitutional corporatism,” when the parliament could deal more and more with the protection of the rights guaranteed by the Treaty of Szatmár (1711). This process culminated in the resistance movement of the estates at the Diet of 1764–1765. The next parliament, however, which met in 1790–1791 (after the death of Joseph II and following a 25-year pause), stirred up confessional tempers again. At this point, the Hungarian estates had to take a position on whether to codify Joseph’s policy of tolerance or to return to the religious conditions of Maria Theresa’s reign. The parliament eventually passed a law with the same meaning as the Edict of Tolerance, so religion once again could be removed from the agenda and the estates could continue to focus on the protection of the constitution.5

In his work on the eighteenth-century history of the Hungarian episcopate, Joachim Bahlcke formulated a definitive thesis about the relationship of the prelates to the court and thus, indirectly, about their role in public life. The central idea of the monograph is that, in the first half of the century, the prelates worked closely with the court on building the Catholic institutional system and at the same time resolutely supported the policy of the rulers in Hungary. In the middle of the century, however, there was a sharp turn: cooperation turned into opposition. Maria Theresa’s measures to reform the Catholic Church and to reduce the influence of the ecclesiastical order in Hungary provoked fierce resistance from the prelates. According to Bahlcke, the change in the relationship was first made noticeable by the Viennese reception of the famous Enchiridion de fide by Bishop Márton Padányi Biró of Veszprém.6 The document, which was extremely anti-Protestant, was banned by Maria Theresa, mainly due to its turbulent reception abroad. However, the real clash, according to Bahlcke, took place in the Diet of 1764–1765, when the clergy joined the clerical resistance generated by the writing of Adam František Kollár, director of the Vienna Library, which is to be discussed in more detail later. Unsurprisingly, the conflict only became really aggravated during the reign of Joseph II. When Pius VI visited Vienna, the Hungarian prelates took joint action against the ruler’s measures affecting the Catholic Church. Thus, in Bahlcke’s wording, cooperation became confrontation. In other words, by the end of the century, the Hungarian prelates turned against the politics of the court. 7

Bahlcke’s thesis has previously been criticized by many in Hungarian historiography,8 but it is noteworthy in his argumentation that, like István Szijártó, he considers the parliament of 1764–1765 an important stage of open confrontation. The work of Mihály Horváth discussing the same parliament refines the picture outlined by Bahlcke on the clergy’s role. According to Horváth, the clergy was united in the support of the opposition put up by the estates in the Kollár case, and the lower house clergy backed the opposition even at the beginning of the debate on the tax increase. At one point, however, they shifted to the side of the court, and that changed the balance of power in favor of the “ruling party.”9 Thus, in the following, I am looking for the answer to the question of how the clergy’s opposition to the politics of the court is represented in the sources and how the “change of sides” by the chapter representatives can be grasped in the tax debates.10

Political Debates of the Parliament of 1764–1765

In accordance with old traditions, Maria Theresa summoned the parliament on June 17, 1764 to Pozsony (today Bratislava, Slovakia). The laws set a four-day deadline for the estates to assemble. As the celebration of Corpus Christi fell on June 21 of that year, the first day of the meeting was held on June 22, with the presidency of Personalis Ferenc Koller in the lower house and Palatine Lajos Batthyány in the upper house. As usual, the estates invited the ruler to the parliament through an elected delegation, which marched into the city on July 3. Already the queen’s itinerary and her entrance to Pozsony signaled that a new era of governance had begun: while the ceremonies before the opening of the coronation parliament in 1741 took place with the usual solemnity, in 1751 and 1764 the members of the dynasty travelled to Pozsony without the usual night stop at Petronell, and the ceremonial elements of the entry into the city were also dramatically shortened.11 After receiving the propositions, the estates met again on July 5 in a so-called mixed session (sessio mixta) where they were all present to acquainted themselves with the text of the proposal. According to the plans, the lower house would have begun the detailed discussion on July 9. At this moment, however, the biggest scandal in the history of this parliament broke out, the outrage over the aforementioned work by Adam František Kollár.12

Maria Theresa wanted to use the Diet of 1764–1765 to implement reforms in Hungary that had already been introduced in the Czech and Austrian provinces. These reforms were primarily aimed at the transformation of taxation. Although the queen had managed to achieve a tax increase in the past,13 the estates did not want to consent to the voluntary waiver of their declared tax exemption. On the one hand, reference was made to István Werbőczy’s legal book, the Tripartitum (1514), which, although not officially part of the Hungarian Corpus Juris, was still highly esteemed among the nobility, mainly for the description it contained of the privileges of the estates. The Tripartitum stated that one of the fundamental privileges of the estates was that they were exempt from the payment of all gifts, taxes, and duties, and in return, they were obligated to provide military protection for the country.14

In defense of their tax exemption, they could also rely on Article VIII of Act 1741, in which Maria Theresa, in exchange for their financial and armed assistance in the Austrian War of Succession, reaffirmed the privileges of the Hungarian estates, first openly declaring their exemption from taxes by stating that property could not be a basis for taxation (ne onus fundo quoquo modo inhaereat). Thus, at the beginning of Maria Theresa’s reign, the court failed to switch to land-based taxation in Hungary, as it had already done successfully in Austria. After that, Vienna had no choice but to increase the amount of the war tax (contributio) from parliament to parliament, and these costs were passed on to the serfs by the nobility.15

The tax reform emerged in 1764 in connection with the question of military supply: Maria Theresa considered it necessary to put an end to the obsolete noble uprising (insurrectio) and to establish a permanent army maintained by the nobility instead. This was contained in the royal proposals. Moreover, the settlement of the serf-landlord issue was also put on the agenda in Vienna. For tactical reasons, however, it was not included in the royal proposal, but was intended to be submitted to the parliament when, in accordance with the traditions, the estates would come forward to lament the burdens of the poor taxpaying people (misera plebs contribuens), that is, the peasantry. As the estates invoked historical reasons to preserve their tax exemption, the court also needed such arguments to introduce reforms. These arguments were provided by Kollár’s work, which was written in Latin.16

The main purpose of the work, which stirred up a great storm, was to show that the rulers could exercise their legislative power without the consent of the estates and also that their power over the church extended to ecclesiastical property and possessions. In support of his propositions, Kollár analyzed the decrees of the Hungarian rulers from the Árpád era onwards, thus illustrating that the estates had only been able to intervene in government during the period of late medieval anarchy, and that the kings exercised power over the church without restriction. The Tripartitum, to which the nobility had since referred as the primary source of law, had been written during a period of anarchy, and it had never been accepted by a parliament and had even been revised by the estates themselves a few decades after its publication. The tax exemption for the nobility was rejected by Kollár on the grounds that the nobility had already been called the protector of the realm by Saint Stephen, and in the decree of Andrew II, it was stated that the nobles owed loyalty and service to the ruler in exchange for their privileges. Here Kollár refers to Article XXXI of 1222, which states that, in order to preserve their liberties, the estates owed obedience to the crown. The piquancy of this argument is that the next paragraph of the Article is the famous resistance clause, which the estates, on the basis of the Tripartitum, considered the legal guarantee of any legitimate action against the ruler.

The estates understood the message of Kollár’s work very clearly: the Habsburg government wanted to put an end to the uniquely strong rights of the Hungarian estates and intended to launch reforms which threatened to undermine the noble privileges in this hereditary province, too. As Kollár attacked the prerogatives of both the first and the second estates, both the ecclesiastical and the secular nobility rejected the conclusions of the work. Thus, the alliance of interests already discussed in the introduction of this paper was formed. The lower house began open resistance on July 9: it refused to discuss the royal proposals until its grievances had been remedied, which included the public burning of Kollár’s work and even the punishment of the Kollár himself to set an example. Although the intervention of the upper house poured oil on troubled waters, Vienna eventually had to back down: the distribution of Kollár’s work was banned, copies already sent to Hungary were confiscated, and Maria Theresa ordered an investigation on August 16 to clarify the matter. Although the lower house was still busy compiling the grievances, the work of Adam Franz Kollár was eventually taken off the agenda.17

Tempers, however, continued to flare: even though the queen was eagerly awaiting the estates’ response to the propositions, the estates were now busy collecting their grievances. This was followed by the tractatus diaetalis on the issue of taxation. As we have seen, it was not possible to raise the idea of a formal tax reform because of Article VIII of 1741. One of the queen’s confidants, Miklós Pálffy, the later Judge Royal, also warned the queen before convening the parliament against attacking this noble privilege, though he himself considered it harmful.18 There is no doubt that in rejecting land-based taxation, the nobility was clearly confronted with a European practice that increasingly involved privileged social groups in bearing the burden of the state, and thus for a long time prevented the reduction of the financial burdens of the common people.19 Therefore, it is no wonder that the Viennese government circles also condemned the privileges of the Hungarian estates. Wenzel Anton Kaunitz had a particularly negative opinion of the freestanding of Hungary, and he likened Hungarians to ticks.20 However, the court had no choice but to continue to focus only on raising the tax rate instead of on implementing comprehensive reforms.

However, in the tense atmosphere caused by Kollár’s work, the estates even refrained from raising taxes, and some county deputies even wanted to reduce taxes by the same amount as had been suggested by the previous parliament in 1751. Maria Theresa, on the other hand, stood her ground: in her response to the grievances of September 19, she insisted on the need for a tax increase. The upper house also sided with the queen this time, giving up the earlier anti-government position it had adopted during the tug-of-war around Kollár’s book. As a consequence, only the lower house needed to be softened and persuaded to give up its oppositional stance. This work was carried out, as usual, by the Personalis Ferenc Koller and the Royal Court of Justice. The main argument in favor of abandoning the position of the lower house was that the estates could only expect a positive assessment of their grievances if they, too, made concessions from their position on taxes. Persistent work was ultimately crowned with success: the lower house first withdrew its insistence on the restoration the level of taxation before 1751, and it eventually consented to an increase in taxes. Moreover, Maria Theresa even managed to extort support from the estates for the Royal Hungarian Noble Bodyguard. However, the court could not by any means record the outcome of the tractatus diaetalis in 1764–1765 as a success, as no results had been achieved with the estates on either the issue of the insurrection or the issue of feudal duties. 21 It is well-known that the latter was regulated by decree by the queen, but the former had not been satisfactorily settled for the court for a long time.22

The Role of the Clergy in the Parliamentary Debates

The ceremonial events surrounding the opening of the parliament were not a harbinger of the subsequent behavior of the clergy: according to a report by one of the county deputies, the prelates, together with the secular dignitaries, received Maria Theresa at the border with “great honor.” The head of the Hungarian prelates, Prince-Archbishop Ferenc Barkóczy of Esztergom (1761–1765), gave a nearly half-hour-long, “unspeakably beautiful” speech in Latin to the queen.23 A note from one of the court officials, which has survived in the official documents of the parliament, also highlights the primate’s ornate speech, interspersed with expressions appropriate to the solemnity of the event.24 In this speech, he contended that the country was lucky threefold, because Maria Theresa had visited Pozsony for the third time, after her coronation in 1741 and the parliament in 1751. Barkóczy emphasized that this time the husband of Maria Theresa, the co-ruler Francis of Lorraine, the Holy Roman emperor, and the heir to the throne, Archduke Joseph, had also come to Hungary. The primate also repeated the offering of vitam et sanguinem, which became famous in 1741.25 At that time, thus, there was no indication of a conflict.

However, on July 10, an unknown source had already notified Kollár that a discussion of his book had begun in the upper house. Primate Barkóczy now personally accused him of trying to question the privileges and rights of the nobility and of wanting to stir up a conflict between Maria Theresa and the estates. 26 In the Kollár case, Barkóczy remained an advocate of the clergy, whose positions were closely followed in the court. In addition to Barkóczy, Bishop János Gusztinyi of Nyitra (1764–1777) was active in the fight against Kollár’s work. He was elected to the twelve-member committee which had the task of investigating the so-called illegal allegations.

It was Gusztinyi who presented the results of the investigation to the estates, in which he made serious accusations against Kollár. According to Gusztinyi, Kollár had moved away from the faith by attacking the divine origin of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. He had also supported a misguided view of ecclesiastical property, according to Gusztinyi, as this property was not owned by the ruler, who was only a guardian and protector of it. The report also refutes Kollár’s attacks on the Tripartitum, which are seen as a defamation of the Hungarian nation, and it states that Kollár was deceived by “a-Catholic authors.” Finally, Gusztinyi contends that Kollár had disregarded the laws, the liberties of the estates, and the principles of canon law, and thus he had significant threatened to infringe on the public good and the “res publica.”27

However, not all of the prelates lined up behind the opposition. Archbishop József Batthyány of Kalocsa, the second dignitary of the episcopate, played a mediating role in the conflict from the outset, thus trying to address the tense situation. As soon as the conflict broke out, Kollár turned to the archbishop, asking him to represent his interests in the parliament. In his reply, Batthyány did not deceive Kollár: he explained that it would be difficult to pacify the offended Hungarians, and he also drew Kollár’s attention to the statements from his work directed against the papal power, the church, and the nobility. He encouraged Kollár to try to clarify his position and reconcile with the participants of the parliament by writing a letter in his own defense, and he promised to do everything to help him.28 Batthyány also contacted Corneille de Nény (Cornelius Franz von Neny), the cabinet secretary of Maria Theresa (1763–1776).29 Nény seems to have played a significant connecting role between the Hungarian parliament and the court, because in addition to the archbishop of Kalocsa, letters in his estate survived from Palatine Lajos Batthyány, Ferenc Balassa, count of Szerém county, Pál Festetich, councilor of the chancellery, and József Demkovich, deputy of Szerém county.30 Archbishop Batthyány wrote his reports to the cabinet secretary between October 3, 1764 and January 4, 1765. He wrote most of them in October and November, when, as we have seen, the debate on taxation was becoming increasingly intense. The archbishop tried to strike a balance between the estates and the court so that the queen’s intention could prevail. He sought to gain the support of the estates both in the cases of the amount of taxes which Maria Theresa sought to levy and the noble uprising. He also mentioned the contentions made by Barkóczy in opposition to the court on several occasions, but overall, he was optimistic about the clergy’s supportive attitude.31 Incidentally, the resistance of Archbishop Ferenc Barkóczy of Esztergom and Palatine Lajos Batthyány to the wishes and will of the court was an extraordinary shock, even for the contemporary public. Their deaths in 1765 were attributed to them having fallen into disfavor with Maria Theresa as a result of the events in the parliament.32

The next question is when and under what circumstances the opposition attitude changed in the parliament and what role the members of the clergy played in this. Following Mihály Horváth, the scholarly literature tends to concur that the lower house gave up the rejection of the tax increase at the 41st session of the parliament on October 10, 1764. József Bajzáth, canon of Esztergom, gave a long speech in which he said that the members of the upper house had already agreed to the tax increase, so if the estates were to insist on their negative position, they would anger the queen, thus completely turning her heart against the nation. However, if they were to agree to some tax increase, she would also respond to the grievances of the estates. After this, the representatives of the clergy also espoused Bajzát’s views, and seeing this, the other members of the lower house withdrew their insistence on a reduction in taxes, and the majority accepted the tax increase.33 Therefore, according to Horváth, the clergy in the lower house changed their mind during the debate and switched from the oppositional view of the lower house to the view of the court and the upper house, thus reversing the position of the whole lower house. Now, I will turn to sources which offer some insights into the ways in which the figures of the clergy who were involved in these shifts experienced the events.

János Szily, canon of Győr and the first bishop of the newly established diocese of Szombathely from 1777, represented his chapter in the parliament of 1764–1765 with his fellow canon György Herman. He regularly informed the members of his chapter about the events between July 6, 1764 and March 21, 1765, or in other words for almost the entire duration of the Diet, thus forming a picture of the whole course of the parliament. His fellow deputy is also relevant to this discussion because he is commemorated in several parliamentary satires, as we shall see, not in a particularly flattering way. According to Szily’s report, the clergy, as had been the case in previous years, held special meetings during the parliament, partly with the involvement of monks.34 Kollár’s work is mentioned in the first letters, which also confirm that the discussion about of his work erupted in the Diet on July 9. It is also clear from Szily’s letters that, in accordance with existing practice, the palatine, the personalis, and the protonotaries sought to expedite the work of the parliament, especially in compiling grievances, and that they urged the estates to discuss royal propositions.35 The two envoys also wanted to address the grievances of their chapter in the parliament, and to achieve this, they negotiated with Archbishop Ferenc Barkóczy as well. However, Barkóczy asked them not to submit their grievances to the joint committee responsible for compiling grievances or to the parliament at the time, because, as the archbishop argued, internal conflicts should be set aside due to the fact that Kollár’s book now threatened the whole ecclesiastical order. Thus, the two canons of Győr did not raise the grievances of the chapter for months.36

Szily had also following the tax debates since the beginning of September. Since the lower house initially demanded a reduction in the tax amount, on September 5, the 28th session, according to Szily’s report, after the departure of the upper house delegation, Personalis Koller asked the clergy’s opinion on the matter of the tax. Pál Kiss, the deputy of the cathedral chapter of Veszprém, replied with a long speech in which he indicated that the clergy agreed with the estates on everything. On the question of the noble uprising at the meeting the next day, however, the lower house clergy was no longer so united. Szily’s fellow deputy, canon Herman, represented the position of the estates, while Gábor Gloser (Gloszer), who spoke on behalf of the canons of the cathedral chapter of Kalocsa, was in favor of the ruler’s proposal.37 The latter should not surprise us. Gloser’s letter of commission explicitly stated that the chapter of Kalocsa would support the ruler’s propositions.38 The next day, on September 7, canon Herman again spoke in agreement with the county deputies about the noble uprising. This concord was also demonstrated at the next sitting, which was held on September 10. Canon Szily pointed out that the estates had every reason to be satisfied with the clergy, since the clergy did not oppose them, but, as they had promised at the previous parliament, the clergy had joined them on every issue.39

At the 39th session, which was held on October 1, the upper house again proposed raising the tax through the usual delegation, after which the personalis turned to the cities and the clergy for their opinion. At the time, János Szily himself spoke, arguing that since the estates knew the misery of the taxpaying ordinary people, they would join them with their vote. In contrast with Szily, György Malenich, canon of Zagreb, argued in his long speech in favor of the tax increase. This was also supported by István Bartha, canon of Eger, which is not surprising, because the abovementioned delegation of the upper house was led by Bishop Károly Eszterházy of Eger.40 The canon József Bajzáth from Esztergom proposed to offer the sum which had been paid in 1751, but in the end, the majority wanted to vote for the amount reduced by the surplus from 1751, and so this position was communicated to the upper house.41 In the days that followed, according to Szily’s report, there was no parliamentary session, but the deputies discussed the tax issue with the palatine and the personalis in private talks. Chancellor Ferenc Esterházy then arrived in Pozsony with three of his officers,42 which indicated that the pressure to accept the tax increase had grown. In the end, this increased pressure prevailed: at the meeting on October 17, which Szily apparently mistakenly calls the 54th day of the meeting, the lower house offered the abovementioned 100,000 forints for the costs of the Royal Bodyguard. At that point, even the deputies of the cathedral chapter of Várad supported raising the amount.43 From then on, the issue of the tax was touched upon only sporadically in Szily’s accounts, which is a clear sign of the victory of the court. On the other hand, though he was young, the canon of Győr suffered from a serious illness during this period, and although he tried to inform his chapter about the events which were taking place in parliament, he was repeatedly forced to apologize for his less and less frequent letters.44

Thus, unlike Mihály Horváth, Szily mentions neither the session of October 10 nor the speech given by József Bajzáth. However, according to the official diary of the parliament, which was certainly Horváth’s main source, Bajzáth surely gave a speech.45 This is confirmed by the note to the court cited above, which reports not only on the speech but also on its effect on the lower house.46 Compared to the scenario drawn by Mihály Horváth, Szily presents the position of the chapter deputies on the tax increase in a more nuanced way. According to him, there were canons who represented the position of the court from the outset. However, Szily’s records also indicate that the majority of the clergy, together with the majority of the lower house, changed their previous opposition position mid-October and accepted the tax increase.

We get a similar picture from the diary of Károly Fejérváry, deputy of Sáros County, about the events which took place in parliament. He also dated the outbreak of the Kollár case to July 9, and he even states that it was canon Szily who suggested to the estates that the two houses set up a joint commission of inquiry into the matter and recommended that Kollár be punished and that copies of his book be burned. Pál Kiss, provost of Veszprém, the canons József Bajzáth from Esztergom, József Herman from Győr, and István Bartha from Eger were also elected to the committee. Fejérváry also mentions the speech held by Gloser on September 6, in which he supported the reform of the noble uprising advocated by the court. However, according to him, at the time, Szily behaved in a manner that suggested that he was opposed to the reforms recommended by Gloser, much as he also did at the meeting on September 28, when he interrupted Gloser’s speech, and the two canons debated the issue of reforms before the lower house. Fejérváry also confirmed that Malenich’s speech, which he dated to October 2, called for the adoption of the tax increase. According to Malenich, on October 10, even canon Pál Kiss of Veszprém urged a compromise with the upper house, although he had previously spoken out several times in defense of the “poor taxpaying people.” The phrase, which, as we have seen, is typical of the era, was used to encourage rejection of the tax increase. Fejérváry claims that canon Bajzáth also joined him. Pál Festetich also reported in his letters to cabinet secretary Nény on the division of the canons, although his account differs somewhat from the two cited above. He mentioned István Bartha, canon of Eger, as the leader of the “opposition” canons, alongside Pál Kiss.47

After the Christmas break, the work of the parliament continued in January 1765. The drafting of the articles had begun, but other domestic issues had also come to the fore. From the point of view of our topic, it is worth mentioning the tensions around the anonymous pamphlet written by György Richwaldszky, canon of Esztergom, entitled Vexatio dat intellectum. The work was met with great resentment in court circles because it drew attention to the attack on the liberties of the estates and the dangers of the introduction of foreign legal practices. Richwaldszky called on the estates not to give up any of their rights, and he called on the Locumtenential Council to ensure that the ruler’s instructions did not violate the laws of the country or the prerogatives of the church. He also suggested that those who violate the “sovereignty” of the estates should be prosecuted for crimes of high treason. Railing against the spread of the teaching of natural law, which in his assessment threatened both the church and the old state system, he also emphasized that the interests of the nobility were the same as the interests of the clergy. All in all, he summarized the opposition of the estates to the issues raised by Kollár. It is a telling fact that the pamphlet still spread in manuscript form during the 1764–1765 parliament, but in 1785 it was printed in a Latin-German bilingual edition, so its points also served as weapons against the politics of Joseph II.48

Because of the pamphlet, which was publicly burned in Pozsony in 1765 at the order of the ruler, military forces were ordered to come to the town in which the Diet was held, and several members of the ecclesiastical and secular communities were interrogated. A sum of 2,000 gold was offered to anyone who could provide information about Richwaldszky’s whereabouts. In his report, however, Szily did not consider it probable that the investigation would produce results.49 And indeed, although Richwaldszky was suspected of having been the author of the pamphlet, the authorities failed to prove that he had written it. Nor did he lose the favor of the court, as proven by the fact that he was later involved in the preparation of the diocesan reform in the 1770s.50 This case is interesting from the perspective of the discussion here because in the person of Richwaldszky we find a canon who rebelled against the royal politics as early as 1765, albeit not during the lower house meetings, but in the form of an anonymous pamphlet.

Opposition to the policies of the court among members of the clergy was seen as exceptional even by contemporaries. According to general opinion, they were supporters of the “ruling party.” This view is reflected in particular in the pasquilli, that is, in the pamphlets which attacked the individual participants of the Diets. The Parliament of 1764–1765 abounds in pasquilli of this kind, which attacked the chapter deputies mainly in their person. Of these, the satire written against the aforementioned canon György Herman of Győr stands out. In addition to his allegedly immoral way of life (he was brought into disrepute because of a claim according to which he had had affairs with several girls and women from Győr), he was accused of supporting the issue of a tax increase in the parliament from the outset. According to one of the pasquilli, he agreed with Adam František Kollár that the priesthood should pay taxes, and allegedly, he could not even speak Latin properly.51 As we have seen, the records of canon Szily do not substantiate these accusations either, and it is particularly difficult to believe that the deputy, who had been elected to serve as the orator of the lower house delegation in August 1764,52 could not word his sentences precisely. On the contrary, Herman was known as a distinguished speaker,53 many of whose speeches survived. It was he who spoke at the funeral of Archbishop Barkóczy in 1765 in Pozsony.54 It is easy to imagine that Szily blunted the edge of his fellow deputy’s speeches in his accounts, but we can still assume that the author of the (anonymous) pasquillus exaggerated the weight of Herman’s pro-court manifestations.

The most fervent opposition among the canons was undoubtedly shown by József Bajzáth, the deputy of the Esztergom chapter. In most cases, he led the lower house delegation and, according to Szily’s accounts, he expressed his views innumerable times, or more narrowly, his rejection of the court’s demands. It is no coincidence that he, too, was suspected of having authored the Vexatio.55 Among the opposition, however, he was particularly popular. According to one of the verses celebrating him, he deserved the bishop’s mitre because he spoke with the voice of the people and even of God in his speeches.56 His oppositional conduct, however, did not jeopardize his political or ecclesiastical career, as a few months after the closure of the parliament, he became court councilor and officer of the Hungarian Court Chancellery, while at the same time he was also granted the title of bishop of Ansaria. By 1773, he had already been vice-chancellor and secret councilor, and in 1777, he was appointed bishop of Veszprém by the queen.57 Similarly, canon Pál Kiss of Veszprém was an oppositional voice in September 1764, when, according to Szily, his aforementioned speech was made, and Mihály Horváth has confirmed this in his research as well.58 Yet one of the pasquilli condemns him along with Herman and says he is of humble descent, though he most probably was the descendent of a noble family.59 These two cases remind us that the anonymous pamphlets can only be use with caution as expressions of “public opinion,” and we cannot always decide with certainty how far the accusations against the people ridiculed reflect the real facts and how many of these accusations were just clichés attributed to the social group to which the people targeted belonged. According to Festetich’s report, canon István Bartha of Eger, in agreement with several other county deputies, suggested keeping the Kollár issue on the agenda on August 7,60 and he even led the delegation of the lower house in September,61 but as we have seen, at the October 2 meeting, in agreement with his bishop, he opposed the tax reduction.62 On October 12, he was one of the deputies who called for a tax increase.63

Szily himself can also be classified as one of the canons who initially supported the opposition, and this did not ruin his career either, as his aforementioned appointment to the seat of Szombathely clearly testifies. These nuances are interesting because, according to contemporary opinion, the deputies of the cathedral chapters, in the hope of an episcopal mitre, supported the ruler’s politics.64 These examples, however, show that espousing a position in opposition to the wishes of the court did not necessarily lead to one being ignored when appointments were later made.

Among the consistently royalist canons, the aforementioned Gábor Gloser from Kalocsa and György Malenich from Zagreb stand out. Gloser was also targeted by one of the pasquilli, in which he was rebuked for his allegedly common origin.65 It is no coincidence that ignoble origin was an rebuke made in many pasquilli: historical research has also confirmed that the number of canons of humble origin in the chapters increased greatly in the eighteenth century.66 Gloser, whose pro-court behavior, as we have seen, was in accordance with his letter of commission, later held minor ecclesiastical and secular offices: in 1775 he was appointed to serve as provost of Felsőörs and, in 1777, as a prelate of the royal court.67 Canon György Malenich of Zagreb won the provostship of Buda from Maria Theresa in 1754 and the title of abbot of Zselicszentjakab in 1760, but later he did not advance in the hierarchy of the church.68 It is noteworthy, then, that a show of support for the court by the canons was not an absolute guarantee for later career advancement either.

Returning to our question, we can state that the sources only partially confirm the general conclusions in the secondary literature in connection with the parliament of 1764–1765. On the one hand, the unified opposition of the prelates in connection with the Kollár affair seems exaggerated. It is quite clear that the clergy acted in an organized manner against Kollár’s work, which, quite unsurprisingly, was coordinated by Archbishop Barkóczy himself. The claim, however, that all prelates adopted an oppositional stance cannot be substantiated. This conclusion seems to be refuted by the activity of József Batthyány and the role of Bishop Károly Eszterházy of Eger: canon Szily mentions the upper house delegation led by Eszterházy eight times, and in each case this delegation represented the position of the court. As usual, these delegations were led by clerics, and according to Szily’s accounts in 1764–1765, Eszterházy was the most active among the bishops.69 This is reinforced by an anonymous source from the royal court.70 Thus, even if Maria Theresa was disappointed with Archbishop Barkóczy, the second and third dignities of the Hungarian Catholic Church remained loyal to Vienna. It also seems an oversimplification to claim that the canons initially took a completely united position in opposition to court in the lower house tax disputes and then unexpectedly switched as a group. In fact, there were lower house clerics who supported the position of the court from the outset, while the majority of those who were against the proposal made by the court changed their minds gradually before supporting the court’s aims, along with the other lower house representatives.

Concerning the political affiliation of the county deputies, István Szijártó has convincingly refuted the popular opinion that the counties with Protestant majorities beyond the Tisza River were the leaders of the opposition in the eighteenth century parliaments, while the counties with Catholic majorities were supporters of the court. Much as in the whole course of the second half of the century, in 1764–1765 most of the deputies of in the counties which were in opposition to the court were Catholics.71 Similarly, it is not clear that in 1764–1765, at the initial phase of the discussion of the Kollár affair and the tax issue, the clergy as a whole belonged to the opposition. Like the county deputies, the clergy was also divided and represented different political positions. The parliament of 1764–1765 differs from the previous ones in that we find among them speakers who (temporarily) spoke openly against the aspirations of the court. More precisely, this phenomenon is not new either, since earlier (and later, in 1790–1791), part of the clergy opposed the ruler’s position several times, but only on matters of religion.72 In 1764–1765, however, several of them also became political supporters of the oppositional positions represented by the estates.

Archival Sources

Győri Egyházmegyei Levéltár [Diocesan Archives Győr] (GyEL)

II. Káptalani Levéltár [Chapter Archives]

1. Theca XLII

Kalocsai Főegyházmegyei Levéltár [Archdiocesan Archives Kalocsa] (KFL)

II. Kalocsai Főszékeskáptalani Levéltár [Arch-Chapter Archives Kalocsa]

1a) Főkáptalani magániratok, Jegyzőkönyvek [Private documents, protocols]

Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár [Hungarian National Archives] (MNL)

Heves Megyei Levéltár [Heves County Archives] (HML)

XII. Egyházi szervezetek és intézmények [Ecclesiastical organizations and

institutions]

2. Az egri káptalan magánlevéltára [Private Archives of the Chapter of

Eger]

Országos Levéltár [National Archives of Hungary] (OL)

A) Magyar Kancelláriai Levéltár [Hungarian Chancellery Archives]

57. Libri regii

Országgyűlési Könyvtár [Library of the Hungarian Parliament] (OGyK)

Magyar Parlamenti Gyűjtemény [Hungarian Parliament Collection] (MPGy)

Österreichisches Staatsarchiv (ÖStA)

Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv (HHStA)

Kabinettsarchiv

Kabinettskanzei

Nachlass Nenny

Länderabteilungen

Ungarische Akten

Comitialia

Obersthofmeisteramt,

Ältere Zeremonialakten

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Enchiridion Martini Bironii Padáni episcopi Weszprimiensis, de fide, haeresiarchis, ac eorum asseclis, ... deque constitutionibus, atque decretis imperatorum & regum, contra dissipatores catholicae ecclesiae editis: diotrephi seu Acatholicis in Hungaria commorantibus, ad ... Mariam Theresiam, ... exhibitum, Jaurini 1750.

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Forgó, András. “Formen der Spätkonfessionalisierung im Ungarn des 18. Jahrhunderts.” In Adel und Religion in der frühneuzeitlichen Habsburgermonarchie. Annäherung an ein gesamtösterreichisches Thema, edited by Katrin Keller, Petr Maťa, and Martin Scheutz, 273–87. Vienna–Cologne–Weimar: Böhlau, 2017.

Forgó, András. Egyház – Rendiség – Politikai kultúra. Papok és szerzetesek a 18. század országgyűlésein [Church – Estates –Political culture: Priests and monks at the 18th-century Diets]. Budapest: Szent István Társulat, 2017.

Gonsa, Gerhard. “Das kaiserliche Kabinett.” In Verwaltungsgeschichte der Habsburgermonarchie in der Frühen Neuzeit, edited by Michael Hochedlinger, Petr Mat’a, and Thomas Winkelbauer, 541–50. Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, Ergänzungsband 62/1. Vienna: Böhlau, 2019.

Gőzsy, Zoltán, Szabolcs Varga. “Bahlcke, Joachim: Ungarischer Episkopat und Österreichische Monarchie.” In Egyháztörténeti Szemle 9, no. 1 (2008): 70–75.

H. Balázs, Éva. Bécs és Pest-Buda a régi századvégen, 1765–1800 [Vienna and Pest-Buda at the end of the past century]. Budapest: Magvető, 1987.

Hende, Fanni. “Politikai reprezentáció a magyar országgyűléseken 1687 és 1765 között” [Political representation at the Hungarian Diets from 1687 to 1765]. PhD thesis, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, 2017.

Horváth, Mihály. “Az 1764-ki országgyűlés története” [History of the Diet of 1764]. In Horváth Mihály kisebb történelmi munkái, vol. 1, 375–422. Pest, 1868.

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Marczali, Henrik. Magyarország története III. Károlytól a Bécsi congressusig, 1711–1815 [History of Hungary from Charles III to the Congress of Vienna, 1711–1815]. Vol. 8 of A magyar nemzet története, Budapest: Athenaeum, 1898.

Nagy, János “‘Ha nézem a Papokat, mind ellenünk vannak.’ A káptalani követek ábrázolása a XVIII. századi országgyűlési pasquillusokban” [“As I look at the priests, they are all against us.” Chapter deputies in 18th-century Parliament pasquilli]. In Doromb: Közköltészeti tanulmányok 3, edited by István Csörsz Rumen, 237–48. Budapest: Reciti, 2014.

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Legitimating Power? Inaugural Ceremonies of Charles VI

Stefan Seitschek
Institute of Austrian Historical Research /Austrian State Archives
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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 10 Issue 1  (2021): 35-72 DOI 10.38145/2021.1.35

The paper focus on the inauguration ceremonies of Charles VI in the Austrian lands. The time span of these inaugurations from 1711 to 1732 and the fact that Charles received the tribute in person is of interest to describe the relationship between the ruler and the estates and the significance of these ceremonies as a whole. The paper will focus especially on the formal oath taking, the confirmation of privileges by the sovereign and where and when these ceremonies took place. For example, were the privileges confirmed in advance of the inauguration ceremony? Were oaths or other forms of affirming the good will of the sovereign like traditional ceremonies (Carinthia) required by the estates? Were there any differences? Who was involved and why were these expansive journeys and ceremonies staged almost two decades after assuming power?

Keywords: Charles VI, Inaugural ceremonies, Homage, Erbhuldigung, estates, Viennese court

This paper deals with inaugural ceremonies,1 more precisely, hereditary homages (in German Erb-Huldigung) in the Habsburg territories during the rule of
Charles VI (1711–1740). It does not deal with coronations in the Holy Roman Empire (Frankfurt), Hungary, or Bohemia.2 In a discussion of such ceremonies or rites, one has to consider their effects on the participants. These events were chances for elites to communicate with the sovereign and illustrate their own roles within the ruling groups. Every act of demonstrating their own status was, at the same time, a chance, as one ran the risk of losing one’s place in society. That is why the rank of the individual members of the estates was discussed at length in the runup to these ceremonies, including conflicts which couldn’t be solved at all. Such (inaugural) ceremonies were not only important as a means of making the rule and the assumption of power by the sovereign visible. They also represented the early modern hierarchical society as a whole (see below). “Bei symbolischen Kommunikationsakten stand daher stets die ganze soziale Existenz der Personen und das gesamte Ordnungsgefüge auf dem Spiel.”3 Of course, these conclusions, which have been reached over the course of the past several years of research, focus not only on the ruler and the administration but also on the role of the estates.4 As Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger puts it, “Aus der Reziprozität, Kollektivität und Performativität von Kommunikation folgt, daß Kommunikationsakte immer auch Akte der Konstituierung und Selbstverständigung einer Gruppe sind.”5 As will be discussed, the confirmation of the privileges of each province was an important element of the inaugural ceremonies. “It was precisely the existence of these estates and their vital role in the state apparatus that necessitated special rites of investiture establishing mutual rights and duties between the estates and the prince and warranting the continuation of their collaboration.”6

Charles VI was the last sovereign to attend a significant number of inaugural ceremonies in the Austrian lands in person. He attended ten inaugurations (excluding the Spanish inaugurations and those in the Inner Austrian cities) in person, making him one of few members of his family to reach this number.7 Homage was paid to Charles in Innsbruck in 1711, and he was crowned Hungarian king in Pozsony (today Bratislava, Slovakia) in 1712. After these ceremonies, in Vienna towards the end of 1712, almost two decades passed before the coronation in Bohemia (1723) and the inaugural ceremonies in Inner (1728) and Upper Austria (1732). The costly journeys involved complex travel arrangements.8 This is remarkable, because Charles’ brother Joseph I avoided such ceremonies after his coronation in Hungary (1687) and in Frankfurt (1690) as young boy.9 There are numerous sources concerning the inaugurations of Charles VI in the Austrian hereditary lands. In addition to the sources created by the central administrative bodies (Obersthofmeisteramt, Hofkammer), there is also an array of materials in the archives of the estates. Elaborately printed volumes complete with symbolically important engravings by the estates offer impressions of these ceremonies from the perspectives of the local representatives and exemplify the interest these representatives had in promoting their participation in these events.10 Several accounts were written by the court chamber’s councilor Johann Adam Heintz, including a detailed description of the coronation in Bohemia in 1723.11 Of course, newspapers at the time, such as the Wienerisches Diarium12 and the other organs of the media which offered historical overviews, provide additional information and sometimes depictions of the ceremonies.13 The significance of Huldigungen, furthermore, was already noted by scholars at the time.14

This paper focuses on three main goals with regard to these inaugural ceremonies. It begins with a description of the “typical” steps of such homages to the ruler according to the events in the early eighteenth-century Habsburg monarchy. The second part focuses on the ceremonies themselves, providing an examination of the ceremonies with which the estates paid homage and took oaths and, similarly, the ceremonies and procedures according to which the ruler granted privileges. In other words, I seek to explore the ways in which the mutual dependency of the two groups was expressed symbolically. The third and final part deals with the time and place where the ceremonies were held in the different Habsburg territories, which was important in no small part because these ceremonies also helped establish an order of succession. It is not a coincidence that the engraving of the welcome given by the estates to the imperial couple under a tent near Graz shows the young Archduchess Maria Theresia too.15

Győry von Nádudvar made the following contention concerning the declining demands of the estates and the enforcement of the Habsburg rule by Ferdinand II and Ferdinand III in the Austrian provinces: “Die Forderungen derselben vor den Erbhuldigungen verblassen zu einfachen Vorstellungen und die Erbhuldigung selbst wird zu einer jener glänzenden Ceremonie.” (Their demands in the runup to the inauguration faded and the ritual expression of homage itself became a splendid ceremony.) Thus, the question arises: were those inaugurations “mere spectacles?”16

Preparing an Inauguration

To what extent were these ceremonies set up by the court, and how could the estates influence the course of events? Apart from the travel arrangements, including arrangements for the staff or the necessary supplies, above all the details of the ceremony and the exact course of the procedure had to be determined. The process was based on the previous events. On the occasion of the voyage in 1728 to Inner Austria, the journey taken by his father Emperor Leopold I in 1660 functioned as a model, and for the inauguration in Linz, the ceremony which was held in 1658 was used as a point of reference. The court asked the estates involved to send appropriate documents concerning the previous inaugurations and the current situation in advance of the journey.17 One reason for this was that the court was given all relevant information in the runup to the inaugurations. Of course, there were reports about the past ceremonies in Vienna, but the court officials seem to have wanted to avoid surprises during the negotiations with the estates in the day(s) before the ceremony. In addition, the names and families of the hereditary office holders could change quickly because of the death of a family member. Already in 1712, the emperor required information regarding the inauguration in Lower Austria from the estates in Vienna. On June 27, 1728, Charles VI required again that the Carinthian estates notify the court of the arguments concerning the proposition and possible problems which might arise in advance of the inauguration, as there would be little time in Klagenfurt itself for negotiations and the preparatory meeting would take place only one day before the ceremony.18 The extensive correspondence between the court offices and the representatives of the estates during journey to Inner Austria cannot be presented in detail at this point. In the runup to the journeys to the provinces of the Habsburg monarchy, roads were renovated and new roads were constructed along the travel route. In 1728, Montesquieu described the improvements which were made to the road to the south. He enthusiastically wrote about the landscape of Styria and the improved road from Vienna to Graz, including the newly built Semmering route. According to his account, the construction of this road was relatively inexpensive (43,000 golden coins). He mentioned, for the sake of comparison, the Via Carolina between Karlstadt and Bakar (Buccari), which previously took five to six days to complete on horseback, with difficulty. Now, the trip could be made in one day by carriage.19

It is worth taking a closer look at some of the negotiations which were held between the imperial representatives and the estates before the inaugurations in the Austrian provinces. The ceremony held by the Lower Austrian estates constitutes a special case.20 Due to the lack of spatial distance between the court and the estates in Vienna, the estates were directly involved in preliminary negotiations. After deciding to accept the inauguration in Lower Austria in 1712, the emperor ordered the high steward Anton Florian of Liechtenstein (1656–1721) and the Court Chancellor Johann Friedrich Freiherr von Seilern (1646–1715) to serve as imperial commissioners and conduct the negotiations with the estates. The last inauguration in Vienna had happened only a few years earlier, in 1705. Liechtenstein and Seilern conferred with the Lower Austrian Marshal Otto Ehrenreich Graf von Abensberg und Traun and a committee of the estates in the room of the high steward on October 2 and 3. The committee consisted of two deputies of the prelates, two of the lords, and two of the knights, together with the Landschaftssyndicus. They discussed the course of the inauguration in detail, which they agreed would be based on the Anteactis. The day of the ceremony would be determined by the emperor on November 8. The Chancellery would inform the hereditary officeholders (Erbamtsinhaber) of their duties. In addition, the high steward would take the appropriate precautions. The emperor approved the proposals. The invitations are dated October 12.21 A summary of past inaugurations was written by the chancellery and the high steward’s office, and it was read and accepted by the imperial commissioners, the land-marshal (the head of the estates), and the deputies of the estates during a meeting.22 On October 18, the estates notified the court of their complaints. They demanded the abolition of unfair taxes, the expulsion of Jews from the lands of Lower Austria, the expulsion of not resident people or decrease of dear regarding damages caused. In particular, they asked the court to confirm the Lower Austrian immunities and liberties. The emperor replied to this letter on November 4 and offered a guarantee of the privileges of the estates, but not a proper confirmation in advance, there were no traces in the existing documents from previous inaugurations of any such confirmation having been given in the past. All fourteen objections raised by the estates could not have been addressed in the short time remaining before the inauguration ceremony anyway. However, the emperor insisted on being provided information on the ceremony and the hereditary offices from the archives of the estates.23

In 1728, the journey through the Inner Austrian lands was coordinated by a conferential assembly (Konferenzialversammlung) of the Inner Austrian privy department (Geheime Stelle). Court Vice Chancellor Johann Friedrich (II.) Graf von Seilern wrote to the burgrave in Carinthia and shared with him the latest information on the Kurialien (framework of the solemnity) and the ceremony (Graz, July 29 and August 7, 1728). In the Inner Austrian provinces, conferences were set up in advance to arrange the necessary measures (road repairs, food supplies, wood supplies, etc.). In addition, the estates tried to circumvent the Konferenzialversammlung in Graz to protect their own rights. The estates of Carinthia, Carniolia, and Gorizia refused the proposal to send a deputation to Graz for the scheduled arrival of the emperor on June 23 to coordinate with the inaugurations in the other Inner Austrian lands. They explained their refusal with reference to their ancient rights, the little time left, and the organization of the inaugurations in 1660 as a precedent.24

The sovereign usually convoked a Diet which would pay homage to him by means of a general patent.25 As in the other Inner Austrian provinces, the estates complained about the declaration of the sovereign’s intention through general patent. According to their point of view and tradition, a particular Land-Tags-Deliberation was necessary to hold an inaugural ceremony. In addition, all members of the estates had to be invited particulariter. It was even pointed out that the emperor had already been reminded of this fact on November 14, 1726. Still, the ceremonies through which homage was paid to Ferdinand IV and Leopold I had been implemented accordingly, though both rulers guaranteed the privileges of the provinces by a revers or, more precisely, indemnification (“that the ignoring of the estates should be of no disadvantage and mischief to them/besides should not have no effects in future/but should be carried out in the traditional way by announcement of a Diet”).26 The patent of announcement of the inauguration (March 20) contained a reference to the assurance of “alt-hergebrachten Freyheiten.” In addition, the patent stipulated that the general invitation should not be prejudicial. The reason given was the necessary extent of letters which couldn’t be realized at the time.27 The already promised reverse was demanded in an announcement issued by the Diet on April 2,28 and the emperor followed the example which had been set by his father and issued it.29 The letter included information about the departure (June 20). The dates of the ceremonies in the provinces were to be communicated later. For example, the Carinthian and Carniolian estates received instruction to pay homage at the end of June in 1728.30 After receiving information, the Carinthian estates informed their members about the time of the inauguration and invited them to come to Klagenfurt.31

How was the procedure of the inaugural ceremonies in the Inner Austrian provinces established? In 1728 in Graz, two imperial commissioners negotiated with deputies of the estates. With the arrival of the court in Graz, direct contact was established with the other countries. Therefore, the presence of the emperor made Graz an important point of information for the Inner Austrian countries. The estates were informed about the travel routes, and information about the inaugurations, such as the identities of the people who held the hereditary offices, was required.32

In Klagenfurt, the inaugural ceremony was debated the day before the event. The sources33 provide an overview of these (August 21). In the morning, the Huldigungsproposition was discussed by the estates and two imperial commissioners who were invited by deputies of the estates in the Landhaus (local parliament). In the Landhaus, two chairs on a stage under a canopy were prepared for the imperial representatives. At the beginning, the sovereign’s proposition for the Diet and the imperial credentials of the commissioners were read aloud. The first representative referred to the merits of Charles VI in his speech and informed the estates of the intention of the emperor to confirm the country’s privileges. In his response, the burgrave mentioned the hope of confirming these rights too and the issuing of a corresponding drafted instrument in time. The commissioners then left the Landhaus. The estates deliberated on the documents which had been submitted. In the end, they declared their intention to hold the inaugural ceremony, but they again insisted on having the old customs and privileges confirmed. For this reason, they complained about the convocation by means of a general patent and expressed the desire for a corresponding Schadlosverschreibung (indemnification; sub aurea bulla). The estates insisted on the traditional inaugural ceremonies at the Karnburg and the Herzogsstuhl on the Zollfeld, including a physical Jurament and the awarding of fiefs afterwards.

Figure 1. Detail from map of Carinthia by Johann Baptist Homann (around 1720)

 

Were the emperor to request exemption from these ceremonies, the estates were prepared to grant Charles VI a dispensation out of respect for his imperial dignity. As in 1660 in the case of Charles VI’s father Leopold, the estates asked for an affirmation that this consent would have no impact on future ceremonies. In addition, the emperor was to confirm the privileges of the estates verbally, and the estates asked for an appropriate instrument on this matter, as noted above. They also demanded that Carinthia should always be referred to as an archduchy in spoken or written declarations. In the afternoon, a deputation of the estates went to the conference led by the court chancellor Philipp Ludwig Graf von Sinzendorf (1671–1742). They were led by the burgrave. According to the session, the actus was to be set ad normam of the Styrian estates, and the general directory (Generaldirectorium) for the ceremony was to be done accordingly. The Generaldirektorium was then read, and it was met with criticism regarding matters of rank. As a consequence, it was rewritten with respect to the procession order to the churches and of the admittance order to the hand kiss, but unfortunately further information is missing. Nevertheless, the sources indicate that there were certain differences compared to the ceremony in Graz. For instance, the idea of welcoming the emperor under a tent before the city (was cancelled as in Graz).

In comparison, in Ljubljana the Landtagsproposition took place two days before the inauguration. The estates of Carniola requested the holding of the ceremonies as before and the confirmation of the country’s rights and liberties, but they retracted the stipulation that the emperor take an oath. In Gorizia, the proposition was declared by imperial commissioners just two days before the inauguration.

Even for the organization of the inauguration ceremonies in Linz in 1732 several conferences were held to make the necessary travel arrangements and plan the event.34 The second conference took place in Carlsbad, where the date of the trip from Prague to Linz was fixed. The emperor and his retinue was to arrive in Linz on July 23. After some hunting trips and other diversions in the area around Linz, Charles VI would return to Linz on September 6. September 10 was proposed as a date for the inauguration in order to leave sufficient time for the necessary preparations by the conference. Charles VI approved in his decision September 10 or 11 as possible days of the inauguration. The last conference took place in Linz on August 28. The main topic was the inauguration ceremony including details such as the procession order. Concerning the Toisonisten (members of the Order of the Golden Fleece) and their role with respect to the hereditary officers, Charles VI referred to the past inaugurations in Vienna, Graz, and Klagenfurt, where they had awaited him at the church. He requested similar arrangements for the ceremony in Linz. The exact ceremony for the inauguration would be compiled by the Councilor Johann Georg of Mannagetta (1666–1751), the Landsyndicus Maderer, and a court secretary. It would be submitted to the conference with the estates afterwards. The composition of the group is of particular interest because it illustrates the important role of the court. Only the Landsyndicus represented the point of view of the estates. Finally, the production of commemorative coins was discussed at this last conference. The casting and presenting of coins on such occasions was rather common.35 In addition to these preparatory conferences in Vienna, Carlsbad, and Linz, deputies of the estates also discussed the course of the inauguration. The High Steward Sigmund Rudolph Graf von Sinzendorf (1670–1747) and the Court Chancellor Philipp Ludwig Graf von Sinzendorf served as imperial commissioners.

To summarize, the court required information from the estates in the runup to the inaugural ceremonies. The ceremonies were based on the model of the preceding inaugurations in the different countries. In Inner Austria, the welcome ceremony held in Graz functioned as the model (ad normam). Although negotiations were held between the estates and the sovereign’s representatives, the ceremonies were outlined by the court authorities (as shown in Vienna, Linz, and Klagenfurt) and negotiated by experienced commissioners.36 The estates could request minor changes and indemnifications, but the scenery of the different celebrations was pretty similar. It is worth mentioning that not all problems could be solved. Conflicts arose due to overlapping spheres of power of the ruler or the countrie´s representatives.37 As shown, switching role during the ceremony was one way to overcome such inconsistencies by the hereditary officeholders, not taking part another. Decisions were made and the estates received letters of indemnity for untraditional proceedings. Of course, symbolic communication was an essential element which made it possible to organize such complicated ceremonies, but this kind of communication is not always clear but rather leaves some room for interpretation (for both sides).38

Schemes of Inaugural Ceremonies

The inaugural ceremonies in the Austrian lands were quite similar under the reign of Charles VI. 39 The sovereign was welcomed at the border of his land by a delegation of the estates, and there were additional “entry” ceremonies at the bigger cities (a welcoming ceremony, the handing over of city keys, etc.). Finally, the emperor (and his family) reached the site of the inauguration. At a distance of roughly half an hour from the town, the emperor was usually welcomed by a delegation of the estates, again under a tent. At the gate to the city, the magistrate greeted him by handing over the keys to the city. A procession moved to the main church, where the emperor was welcomed by the clergy. There, a mass was celebrated. Finally, Charles VI and his accompanying family members moved into their quarters.

Godsey speaks of a Trias involved in the inauguration: the sovereign, his councilors and the estates. During the ceremonies, the role of the councilors was assumed by the hereditary officeholders, who were grouped around their ruler.40 The estates gathered in their official meeting place (usually the Landhaus) in the morning (usually about 7 o’clock) on inauguration day. They then moved, led by the head (capo) of the estates, to the sovereign’s quarters. Costly regalia, such as scepters, were produced for the hereditary offices to be worn during the ceremony and presents were given to the officeholders. Indeed, the insignia were only presented during the ceremony, but they were not used as they usually were in coronations. The hereditary office holders were given their insignia by the court dignitaries taking up their offices.41 The estates awaited the emperor in front of his private apartments according to their rank, and they accompanied him to the main church of the town. Considering the fixed procession orders in the ceremonies which have been made the subject of research, the top of the column was usually formed by a group of servants of members of the court and/or the estates, trumpeters and drummers of the estates, Läufer, and so on. In 1728, the “imperial Livereè” and squires (Edelknaben) were at the head of the procession. This group was followed by the deputies of the cities, imperial court officials, councilors and the members of the estates. Hereditary offices (Erbamtsinhaber) without insignia joined the latter group. Then followed the hereditary officers with insignia. After them came the governor (Landeshauptmann). Then came the herald and, directly in front of the emperor on horseback, the land-marshal carrying the sword. Charles VI was regularly accompanied by the guard captains. After the sovereign came the hereditary chamberlain and chamberlains in service, followed by the remaining court servants. The train then was brought to a close by military units.42 The clergy walked with the other estates to the imperial quarters but left from there before the departure of the emperor. The right moment to leave the scene was indicated by a court official (Hoffourier). The clergy awaited the sovereign at the church, accompanied by the Toisonisten. They accompanied Charles into the church to his seat near the altar in the choir area. If it rained, the conference recommended that the Toisonisten accompany Charles VI on his way to the church on foot via a covered walkway in Graz in 1728.

Looking at the seating arrangements in the church during the “Hl. Geistamt” (Veni Sancte Spiritus) in 1712 (Vienna), 1728 (Graz, Klagenfurt) and Linz (1732), one notes that Charles VI sat on the left (Gospel side). The hereditary office holders and the captains of the guards (Trabants and Hartschiers) were placed around him. The officeholder of the hereditary land-marshal’s office stood to the right, near the emperor on the third tier, and other office-holders stood on the other tiers (only the third step on the left was empty). The division was slightly different in Lower Austria. For example, the marshal was standing to the left of the emperor, but still on the scales. The remaining hereditary officeholders were arranged on the left and right sides of the throne, between the Gospel und Epistle side. Usually, the herald was standing to the right of this group near the center of the church (in Klagenfurt, he was positioned on the left side). It is worth noting that the clergy was usually seated opposite the emperor. On the left (Gospel) side of the church, the benches of the Toison knights were usually arranged next to the emperor. Right after the knights sat the privy councilors, chamberlains, and the other members of the estates, usually separated by barriers. The court protocol of the ceremonies (Zeremonialprotokoll) of 1728 mentions that the seating arrangements would be modified to fit “today’s style” compared to 1660.

After the “Hl. Geistamt,” the procession returned in the same order to the imperial quarters. The clergy remained at the portal of the church, took off their ecclesiastical robes, and returned to court by themselves. The emperor was accompanied by the members of the estates and the holders of the hereditary offices until he reached his private quarters. In the retirade,43 he was then asked by a committee to accept the welcome shown by his subjects.

At this point, the imperial representatives (primarily the court vice chancellor or court chancellor) gave oral confirmation of the rights and liberties of the estates. The speech was answered by the head of the estates, e.g. the land-marshal, the most senior of the lords, or the burgrave in Carinthia, who again referred to the confirmation of the rights and liberties. The emperor then assured the estates of their rights and liberties himself. As in Graz, the emperor had to take an oath in front of a few members of the estates to respect the country’s rights and liberties.44 This had also been part of the procedure in 1660 (see the chapter below).

Charles VI then moved from the retirade into the inauguration room, where a throne had been prepared for him under a baldachin. Like the church, the hereditary land-marshal stood to the right of the emperor at the third level (Fig 2). On the left, the top stage remained empty (as in the cathedral in Graz). A similar division of the office holders can be observed in Linz, but the empty space to the left of the emperor was filled with the hereditary land-bannerholder. In Linz and Klagenfurt, the remaining hereditary office holders stood around the throne to the right and left of Charles VI, whereas in Graz, the governor (Landeshauptmann), the bishop of Seckau, or the prelates were positioned to the right. At the end of this group, to the right of the emperor towards the center of the room the Austrian herald usually stood. The remaining estates, which were led by the hereditary land-marshal in person in Graz, the burgrave in Carinthia, or the most senior lord in Linz, were facing the throne.

To the left of the emperor, facing the estates, the court chancellor or vice chancellor gave a speech to the estates and thanked them for their willingness to pay homage to their sovereign. This speech was usually answered by the capo of the estates. This was followed by the oath of allegiance and the ceremonial act of kissing the hand of the emperor in a specified order. After the ceremony, the court chancellor then submitted the signed confirmation of the country’s rights and liberties to the estates, which was initially confirmed by the sovereign (see the chapter below).

After the inauguration, the emperor was accompanied by the estates and the court members into the chapel of the Imperial quarters, where a Te Deum was celebrated. The procedure in 1712 resembled the procedure in 1732. The emperor again took his seat on the Gospel side. To his left stood the hereditary land-marshal. The other hereditary officeholders sat on the left and right sides of the chapel. The herald stood near the center of the room. This church office and the associated blessing were intended to strengthen the bond between sovereign and his subjects after the inaugurations.

After the Te Deum, Charles VI returned to his private quarters. He and the members of the imperial family who were present left the retirade for the table where a banquet was held. They were served by the holders of the hereditary offices. At this point, in Graz and Linz the emperor was presented with the commemorative coins by the hereditary land-mint-master. After the emperor had finished eating and returned to his chambers, the hereditary officeholders went to their own tables which were provided by the court with food. The officeholders were usually allowed to invite eleven people. In addition to these tables, there was a Freitafel (free table), in Carinthia an additional table for the family of the so-called ducal peasant (Herzogsbauern), and in Tirol for the representatives of the peasantry. The inaugural ceremonies came to an end with these meals.45

The inauguration ceremonies also included what could be described as sound effects. The town cannons and the arms used by military or civil units were fired on three occasions during the inaugurations: the welcoming show of homage and the act of kissing the emperor’s hand, the Te Deum, and the first drink taken by the emperor, who had just been confirmed as ruler, at the table. This could then be accompanied by a ringing of all the bells of the town. The bell ringing was carried out even during the processions to the church, as in Vienna or Klagenfurt. The exuberant atmosphere was described in Tyrol (“sich mit Schreyen und Juchzen lustig gemacht”).46 The day after the inauguration or coronation, Charles VI mostly promoted a group of members of the estates and declared them councilors or chamberlains.47

However, there were other forms of inaugurations. In some of his territories, Charles VI did not take part in the ceremonies in person.48 Usually the governors-general were delegated to appear at the inaugurations in Milan, Mantua, Brussels, and Ghent.49 Most important were the Duchy of Brabant and the County of Flanders in the Austrian Netherlands, where the governor-general usually took part in the inaugural ceremonies, including reciprocal oath-swearing. In the case of Governor Prince Eugene, his minister Marquis de Prié (1658–1726) undertook this task. Still, the sovereign was present. A portrait was displayed on a throne under a baldachin.50 The Wienerisches Diarium describes the entry and homage ceremony in Ypres, which was accepted by the general and councilor of state prince of Ligne. There, the magistrates and deputies of the country towns took their oaths separately.51 In 1728, the substitute Count Strasoldo accepted the show of homage in the palace. There, he addressed the estates with his hat on, only taking it off and bowing (Knie-biegende Reverenz) when mentioning the emperor’s name. His speech was answered by the vice-land-marshal. The oath was read aloud in German and Italian (Welscher Sprache) by a privy councilor standing to the left of the count. The estates replied with their hands raised and fingers extended.52

In Milan, Prince Eugene was welcomed by the Marquis of Castiglione and was presented with the keys to the city on April 16, 1707. In return, Eugene distributed jars with water and soil as a symbolic gesture with which he expressed that he had taken over the territory in the name of Charles (III).53 In the recently occupied territory of Banat, local notables and officeholders (Senior, Oberknese, Provisor) paid homage to representatives of the sovereign, as is mentioned in the so-called Einrichtungsprojekt of the Banat (1717/1718). This project paper dealt with the establishment of an administration in the new province. A second oath would be inappropriate according to this draft.54

I want to stress several aspects of the ceremonies. First, the ceremonies of welcome and homage were structured by speeches and replies,55 but the presence of the sovereign provided opportunities for the estates and office-holders to request audiences and submit gravamina.56 Already in 1725, the Styrian officeholder Herberstein spoke with Charles VI and complained of the country’s difficult situation, and Charles even made a note of this in his diaries.57 Usually, the central ceremonies of the inauguration ceremonies took place indoors.58 In 1711, the ceremony took place in the Burgsaal in Innsbruck. In Vienna, the ceremony was held in the Ritterstube of the residence. In his journeys, this ritual took always place in the imperial quarters. The Carinthian estates even dispensed with the traditional places of an inauguration at the Karnburg or Herzogsstuhl. In short, this important moment of paying homage took place in the sovereign’s rooms. In Gradisca, the sovereign’s representative accepted the homage in the Kaiserl. Pallast.59 During the reception and inaugural ceremonies for the sovereign, he was confronted with delegations of the estates (for instance as part of the welcome ceremonies at the borders of the provinces, at the moment of entry into a town, etc.) and the corporative body as a whole (during the masses and the ceremonies surrounding the taking of the oath). We can trace a reciprocal relationship. The shows of welcome and homage were answered with the confirmation by the emperor of local rights and liberties.

Confirming Rights and Liberties, Taking Oaths

In Klagenfurt (Carinthia), in 1728 the ducal peasant (Herzogsbauern) almost missed the emperor when he moved to his private quarters according to the description provided by Linsee. The Cabinet Secretary Johann Theodor Freiherr von Imbsen informed the Herzogsbauern that Charles VI was already leaving for the retirade. The Herzogsbauern ran to the ruler and touched his coat. When Charles turned around, the Herzogsbauern kneeled to present the document concerning his rights and liberties, but at that moment, he dropped the document accidentally. Charles laughed and promised to confirm the rights and liberties.60 This may be little more than an apocryphal anecdote, but the scene described is rather interesting. A representative of the province begged the sovereign to confirm his rights and liberties in the runup to the inauguration. Such attempts and assurances were also part of the inaugural ceremonies described above.

“Far from being acts of unilateral submission, they served the purpose of mutual recognition and obligation through reciprocal oath taking. The estates acknowledged their ruler and promised loyalty, and in return, the ruler confirmed the estates’ rights and liberties.”61 Speeches and symbolic gestures were essential parts of an oath. Klaas Van Gelder points out that some Diets were able to intertwine the question of inauguration and taxes, and this gave them a stronger position in the negotiations.62 This is all the more interesting from the perspective of the relationship between Gottesgnadentum and emerging ideas of a social contract. “At the same time, supported by cameralist and Enlightenment thinkers, the concepts of the social contract and popular sovereignty gained increasing influence, and the notion of ‘the state’ or even ‘the nation’ came to replace ‘the prince’ as the sole source of law and legitimate power.”63 Rohr focuses extensively on the oaths and confirmation of rights and liberties before, during, and after the inaugural ceremonies. Rohr refers to the assurance of the confirmation of the privileges by the emperor or his chancellor when the request was made by a committee of the estates for the emperor to accept their show of homage in the emperor’s private quarters and at the beginning of the ceremony in the room in which proceedings were held. The representative of the estates then replied and asked the emperor of his representative to confirm the privileges of the local bodies.64 The scribes of the estates who described the inaugurations and, in particular, these elements of the ceremonies (such as Peritzhoff or Deyerlsberg) offered similar accounts. This is not a coincidence. Rather, it illustrates the importance of these events for the estates. As a consequence, the moment was the privileges of the estates were assured is of particular interest, because it reflects the relationship between the sovereign and the estates. Usually, it took place immediately before the show of homage. Why? When were these documents actually issued? It is worth mentioning that the members of the estates serving the emperor were relieved of their offices during the inauguration. Of course, this demonstration of independence was only theoretical, and it shows how the interests of the sovereign and his subjects were intertwined.65

It is worth taking a closer look to the situation in Lower Austria in 1712, which can be understood as having served as a model. After returning to his private quarters, the hereditary high chamberlain asked Charles VI in the name of the most senior lord to give him and a committee an audience. They were invited to the council chamber (Ratsstube), where they were awaited by Charles, who was standing under a baldachin. To his left stood the court chancellor. The senior lord asked the emperor to accept their show of homage and to confirm the provinces’ rights and liberties. The court chancellor answered in the name of Charles, thanking them for the invitation and announcing the ceremony in the Ritterstube. In the Ritterstube, Court Chancellor Seilern thanked them for the numerous demonstrations by the estates of their will to pay homage to their new ruler. In return, Charles VI was prepared to confirm common customs and the rights and liberties of the estates.66 As described above, the land-marshal answered on behalf of the estates and confirmed their willingness to pay homage. Still, he required a verbal confirmation of the provinces’ rights and liberties. Indeed, Charles stood up and promised such a confirmation. Afterwards, the court chancellor announced that the oath would be read aloud, and the members of the estates were to repeat it.67 While the estates took this oath, Charles VI took off his hat. After the oath had been taken, the court chancellor handed over the sealed confirmation of the rights and liberties of the Lower Austrian estates to the land-marshal.68

The inauguration ceremonies in Tyrol (1711),69 the Inner Austrian provinces (1728), and Upper Austria (1732) were rather similar, but there were slight differences in the stages identified above. After the mass, Charles VI retired to his quarters. There, in his retirade, he was usually invited by a delegation of the estates to receive their show of homage, and they reminded him to confirm their rights and liberties in return.70 At this point, the court chancellor answered instead of the emperor and confirmed his will to do so.71 Although the inaugural ceremony in Graz served as the model for the 1728 ceremony, this ceremony was unique at this juncture. A committee from the estates was given an audience in the Wohn-zimmer of the sovereign. They underlined their will to show a show of homage on behalf of the estates, but they themselves required an oath (Juramentum) taken by the sovereign. Charles replied that he would do so according to the example set by his ancestors72 and the alten Modum in the runup to the Homagio, including a confirmation of the provinces’ rights and liberties. This oath was taken privatim by the emperor in the presence of a small committee of the estates before the inauguration in the retirade. Charles VI removed his right glove, raised his hand with three fingers extended, and took the oath. The beginning of the text of the Juramentum was read aloud by the governor, who referred to the confirmation. The court vice chancellor, who was present as was the High chamberlain, held another written example of the sovereign’s Juramentum. Charles replied, “As was read to us, we swear with this oath to all local people of the principality of Styria to preserve everything so help me God, Maria, and all Saints.” It is not surprising that the estates paid for a costly print of the inaugural ceremony that included a detailed engraving of this scene. Petr Maťa has pointed out that the depiction of the emperor taking an oath in front of members of the estates in Graz is unique.73 The commission informed the estates in writing that the emperor had taken the oath. Looking at the text of the oath, Charles VI bound himself, and he referred, in the text of this pledge, to God, the Virgin Mary, and all saints.74 As in Carinthia (see above), the estates showed respect for the sovereign’s imperial dignity when receiving his oath in private.75

The ruler then moved to the prepared room, where the show of homage was held.76 The emperor was located under a baldachin surrounded by the hereditary office holders according to their ranks and duties. These schemes were documented in the written reports of the ceremonies by the court and the estates.

A representative of the ruler, usually the court chancellor,77 gave a speech referring to reasons for the delay of the inauguration and mentioning the confirmation of the rights and liberties of the estates.78 Only in Tyrol did Charles address the estates at this point himself.79 The representative of the estates then answered, usually referring again to the confirmation.80 In Görz, there was a conflict about the person who held the office of the hereditary land-marshal, who assumed an important task during the inaugural ceremony in close proximity to the sovereign. It is not surprising that this office was then assumed by the senior of the college of Deputies (Verordnete). This situation was even described by Charles in his diary: “estates in the city prior to 9, not by foot but riding due to the long hill, mass as usual very hot […] senior function, here 10 ½, afterwards homage, as usual me speaking, Te De(um) in castle chapel.”81

Charles refers not only to the senior but to his speech “as usual” during the inaugural ceremonies in this entry. Indeed, in most cases Charles now answered the estates himself, reaffirming his commitment to confirm the liberties of the provinces.82 In Klagenfurt, Charles gave thanks for being exempted from the act of taking an oath. Although the traditional elements of the Carinthian inauguration (Herzogsstuhl, Karnburg) were left out, the court protocol referred to inaugural ceremonies in the usual manner there (more consueto).83 As in Klagenfurt, the estates in Carniolia dispensed with the oath before the show of homage, which Peritzhoff describes in detail. The sovereign had to issue a revers for this concession (August 30). Peritzhoff explains, referring to Charles V, that delegates accepting a show of homage should not be included in such a dispensation.84

The oath taken by the estates was then read aloud and repeated by their members, who raised their hands with three finger extended.85 For instance, in Linz Charles lifted his hat during the reading of the oath as a reference to the presence of God. Of course, there were slight differences. In Trieste, the nobles, patricians and members of the city council represented the city. The vice court chancellor held a speech in German, which was answered by a representative of the city in Italian. The oath was read aloud by a Referendar (‘senior councilor’), and it was repeated by the representatives in Italian with their hands raised and fingers extended. Heintz stresses that Charles did not speak on this occasion in Trieste.86

In some case, such as in Lower (1712) and Upper Austria (1732), the estates were then given the written confirmation of their rights and liberties. In Tyrol, it took time for the document to be presented due to the coronation of Charles in Frankfurt, but in a rescript (issued in Innsbruck on December 27), he assured the estates again that he would confirm their rights and liberties as soon as possible.87 The Carinthian estates had to demand their confirmation after the departure of the emperor, and they had to wait for it for several years. It was then backdated.88 It is remarkable that Starhemberg already received the written confirmation of the rights and liberties in Linz (as had happened in the case of Lower Austria).89

It is worth comparing the situation with circumstances in other territories. In Milan (1707), Mantua (1708), and Parma/Piacenza unilateral oaths were taken.90 As in the other provinces, oaths were taken in the Austrian principalities of the Netherlands, as already noted. The prince confirmed the privileges of the territories, and the estates swore their loyalty. The small district of the Retroceded Lands was gained in 1719 from France and had lost its assemblies. As a consequence, only the representatives of the territory swore an oath to the prince, and taxes could be imposed without their consent.91 Maťa refers to an episode in Moravia which illustrates that there were talks about an inauguration there (1726). The estates were asked by a staff member of the Bohemian Chancellery if they required the emperor’s presence, because if not, a commissioner would be sent.92 The Silesian territories represented another special case. In these territories, which were a conglomerate of principalities or lordships, some (Habsburg) rulers accepted ceremonial shows of homage in Breslau (including Frederik II of Prussia),93 which consisted of oaths by particular subjects and corporations. Some estates of the Silesian hereditary principalities demanded to take oaths within their borders. Sometimes Habsburgs accepted recognitions in person if possible. Otherwise, commissioners were sent.94 To hasten Charles’ return, Count Leopold Adam Strasoldo was delegated to accept the show of homage in the county of Gradisca in 1728.95

Finally, shows of homage also played a part in the inaugurations of kings. In Bohemia, a show of homage was introduced after the transformations caused by the Verneuerte Landesordnung (1627). This ceremony took place one day before the coronation. Indeed, the ceremony was quite similar to other ceremonial shows of homage, except that it was not as splendid as the ceremonies in other provinces. The obvious reason for this was that the ceremony took place in the runup to the coronation. The ceremony was held in the Landstube. The estates were addressed by the hereditary high steward (the Obristerblandhofmeister, not the court chancellor), the Oberstburgraf answered. Afterwards, the court chancellor kneeled in front of the sovereign and listened to his answer, which he then repeated to the estates, including the sovereign’s proposition, which was read aloud in Czech and German. Afterwards, the sovereign addressed the estates himself and assured them that he would confirm their rights and liberties. The burgrave thanked the ruler and declared the will of the estates to take the oath. The oath was then read aloud in German and Czech and repeated by the estates. The show of homage was noted in Charles’ diaries: “nacher in landt stuben, landtt(a)g, huld(igung), ich r(e)dt, nach 11 nach haus.”

To summarize, the ceremonies involved in the inaugurations and the shows of homage to the ruler had numerous common (repeated) elements, such as the speeches held by the capo of the estates, the gesture made by the emperor when he lifted his hat on certain occasions, and oaths taken in spoken languages (German, Italian, Czech). Speeches and gestures were elementary parts of the ceremony of taking an oath. The sovereign assured his audiences that he would confirm their rights and liberties verbally and in written form after the inauguration. It is noteworthy that the inaugurations were held indoors. Charles dispensed of the traditional ceremonies at the Herzogsstuhl and Karnburg in Carinthia outdoors because he felt that they were unnecessary given his imperial dignity. Looking at the sites, it can be noted that the homages took place in the imperial quarters, usually the imperial residence or the bishop’s palace. The ruler usually replied verbally to the claims made by the estates at some point during the inauguration. In most cases, this happened after the speeches held by the estates just before they took their oath. Only in Graz was Charles forced to take an oath at the beginning of the ceremonies. In Tyrol, this happened after the speech held by the chancellor and before the answer given by the governor, which was even noteworthy in the descriptions.96 Of course, Charles was prepared to accept the gravamina of the estates too on the occasions of his stay. The ceremonies described illustrate the (at least theoretically) contractual character of the relationship between the sovereign and the estates. In particular, the personal oath taken by Charles VI in Graz stresses this fact.97 The ceremonies are of interest because we can determine that both sides entered into a commitment by verbal oaths and by written confirmations of these oaths.98

Timing of the Inaugural Ceremonies

With regards to the inauguration ceremonies of the first half of the eighteenth century, it must be pointed out that emperor Joseph I only was given a show of homage in Lower Austria (1705). Maťa points out that Joseph already started avoiding inaugurations during the reign of his father by not assuming the Bohemian crown. In addition, Maťa stresses that the Austrian estates remained rather reserved in insisting on an inauguration, and they held their Diets. Only the Carinthian estates received a letter of indemnity, and the Silesian “princes and estates” asked that a delegate be sent due to the difficult times.99 Of course, Joseph’s rule lasted only six years during the War of Spanish Succession. Money and time for such costly ceremonies and travel were consequently scarce goods during his reign. The emperor may have felt that the Lower Austrian case should be adequate to demonstrate the assumption of power in the Austrian provinces as a whole. William Godsey traces a supra-regional reference to the Lower Austrian inaugural ceremony.100 “What began as an exception in Moravia with Leopold I developed into standard practice, although it remains difficult to determine whether the abandonment of investiture rites was a dynastic program at this stage or merely the result of contingencies and financial shortcomings.”101

The inaugurations of Charles in Tyrol in 1711 and in Lower Austria in 1712 took place in a transit station or directly in the town of the imperial residence and therefore the court. In any case, they were both demonstrations of the rule of the Spanish King and Emperor Charles VI (III of Spain) and his ascent to power in his new capital. In the same year in which he was crowned in Hungary, Elisabeth Christine was promptly crowned upon their arrival from Barcelona in Pressburg, in 1714. After these two inaugurations, the next inaugural ceremony took place more than a decade later (the coronation in Bohemia in 1723). The next show of homage in the Austrian provinces only happened 16 years later, in 1728. Returning from the health resort of Carlsbad and Prague in 1732, Charles was given a show of homage by the Upper Austrian estates in Linz. In particular, the journeys of 1723, 1728, and 1732 were expensive. It is hardly surprising that, in their speeches, the court officials usually referred to the difficult times and wars as explanations for the late inaugurations.102 It is surprising, however, that Court Chancellor Sinzendorf already mentioned this reason in his speech to the estates of Tyrol in 1711. Charles had just arrived from Spain,103 and his brother had died only months before. This can perhaps be interpreted as a late excuse for the failure of the deceased Joseph to hold the ceremonies. In any case, we can trace this topos in the speeches to the estates during the reign of Charles VI.

So why were these costly ceremonies even held after 1720 and until 1732? Klaas van Geldern underlines that some of the estates of the Austrian Netherlands were able to postpone shows of homage and were even able to force Charles VI to accept their demands in return for their consent to taxes. That is why most of the shows of homage in the Austrian Netherlands were carried out only in 1717.104 Although the subsequent years were filled with numerous conflicts and negotiations with European powers, the inauguration in Bohemia (1723) or in the Inner Austrian lands in 1728 seems to have taken place relatively late. Of course, finances in the Habsburg Monarchy were always strained, but this was true in later years as well, when the court decided to travel. The question of costs and the sequestering of the necessary funds in advance of travel were topics of extensive discussion (for example in 1723 and 1728). The conference justified the journey in 1728 with reference to the long period of time since the last show of homage had been made in 1660. The court officials feared disadvantages in fief affairs due to this long term if the inauguration were not accepted by the emperor in person or by a representative of Charles VI in the same year. Consequently, taking part in the inaugural ceremony in Styria meant that Charles would have to do the same in the other provinces.105 In addition, it should be considered that Archduke Charles was feoffed with the Austrian (Habsburg) fiefs only in 1728.106 So there may have been a strategy concerning the Austrian inaugural ceremonies and plans to revive them to secure succession.

“The death of a prince and the subsequent assumption of power by his or her successor remained critical moments.”107 In connection with the long period of time between the inaugurations, one should note the importance of the issue of succession in these years as a reason for these journeys.108 On the one hand, there was the legend according to which only a crowned Bohemian king would be born heir. The announcement of another pregnancy of Elisabeth Christine in Prague in 1723 seemed to confirm this. On the other hand, it was a reply to Bavarian and Saxon claims to parts of Charles’ rule.109 Both trips gave the opportunity to present the emperor’s oldest daughter Maria Theresia to the estates, though she remained in Graz in 1728.110 The Pragmatic sanction had been approved by the estates of the Habsburg Monarchy at the beginning of the 1720s, which is why these trips and the personal presence of Charles VI perhaps can be understood as a sign of appreciation and ultimately strengthened the acceptance of him as ruler by the estates. Rohr refers to the fact that at such inaugurations possible successors sent their delegates to demonstrate their titles.111 Of course, any inauguration of Maria Theresia was impossible due to the fact that there were still hopes for a male heir.112 Still, Charles tried to secure the succession of his son-in-law in the Holy Roman Empire.113

Summary

Prima facie, it is important to stress that the (personal) inaugurations described above maintained their importance and were not just mere spectacles, as William Godsey has already shown in his study of the Lower Austrian case:

“Im Übergang von der ständischen Herrschaft zum Frühparlamentarismus in Österreich büßten die tief in der ständischen Tradition verwurzelten Krönungen bzw. Erbhuldigungen weder für den konsti-
tutionellen Staat noch für die politische Öffentlichkeit ihre staats­rechtliche Bedeutung ein.”114

Inaugurations afforded an opportunity to demonstrate baroque splendor,115 but it is worth mentioning that the imperial authorities and Charles himself advised the estates not to waste too much money. Of course, the estates organized costly ceremonies, but ideas of economic efficiency or just necessity were already present. Holenstein describes the shows of homage as phenomena of a “longue durée.”116

At the end of their existence in some countries, such as Styria and Carinthia, the inaugural ceremonies began to show a certain degree of uniformity. The Lower Austrian inauguration served as a model or at least an important point of reference. Even in 1732, in addition to the documents about the shows of homage to Leopold I in Linz in 1658, the documents concerning the Lower Austrian example pro aliquali norma were also consulted.117 Due to the organizational framework, it is no surprise that the Kurialien (ceremonial framework) for the inauguration in Graz served as a model for the other ceremonies held in Inner Austria. It seems that the inaugurations of Leopold I after the Thirty Years War were an important milestone in this development. In spite of the affirmations or indemnifications of Leopold, the changes became a very important reference point for the ceremonies which were held for his son.

The inaugural ceremonies were embedded into local Diets to which the members of the estates were invited. Convoking the estates by means of a general patent could give rise to complaints, as has been shown in the case of Inner Austria. It is of interest that Charles’ father Leopold did the same in 1660. A great deal of the implementation of the shows of homage in the Austrian provinces in 1728 and 1732 was determined in the preparatory conferences in Vienna.118 The court corresponded with the estates and asked for the submission of information on the previous ceremonies, but the estates had little scope for raising objections. This was all the more true because the court required all the relevant information of the estates in the runup to the journeys too. The marginal resolutions of the emperor concerning the proposals of the conferences offer insights into the ruler’s decision making process. Of course, the estates had the chance to negotiate shortly before the inaugurations, but the scope for negotiation was limited due to the little time left before the date of the inauguration. Basically, however, it should be noted that the Viennese court had to respect the setting of the past inaugural ceremonies. The course of the day on which the ceremonies were held was organized according to these examples from the past.119 If information was lacking due to missing references in the records (Vorakten), records of inaugurations which had already been held in the other countries were consulted. In the case of the inaugurations in 1728, there was no reference to the movement of the clergy from the court to the church. The course was set according to the example of the ceremony which was held in 1712 in Lower Austria. Even the emperor referred to the previous inaugurations as models when it came to the participation of the Toisonisten in 1732. Concerning traditional elements of the inaugurations, certain ceremonies were still of relevance, but few of these ceremonies were actively practiced during the reign of Charles VI. In Carinthia, Charles was exempted from the traditional ceremonies at the Karnburg and the Herzogstuhl.

So why were these costly ceremonies still held? Of course, they had to be in the interests of both the sovereign and his subjects (“as stakeholders in the monarchical enterprise”).120 However, it is difficult to determine what reasons the sovereign may have had, or more precisely, the reasons for which the sovereign chose at times to take part in person in such inaugurations or to avoid them are best explained by the existing circumstances.121 Certain inaugurations usually happened at the beginning of the rule of the sovereign.122 In his first years, the proclaimed Spanish King Charles, who was then crowned emperor, was crowned in Hungary and then treated to a show of homage in Lower Austria (1712) and Tyrol (1711). His father had used his journey to Frankfurt to be inaugurated in Linz by the Upper Austrian estates in 1658 too (as Charles did on his return from Prague in 1732). So these inaugurations sometimes formed part of a greater journey. Of course, the ceremonies were held before audience sometimes large, sometimes comparatively small, and they were then made part of public discussion through newspaper articles, engravings, medals, etc.123

Inaugurations had two important functions: the establishment and consolidation or, more precisely, perpetuation of power relations.124 One interest of Charles in his late years was to secure his succession by legitimating his own rule. A suggested reason for his decision to undertake the journey to Inner Austria was the long-term enfeoffments in the provinces. Were the emperor to refuse the journey, his councilors advised him to send a delegate in his stead to Inner Austria in order to avoid legal disadvantages (see above).125 The most important issue was the confirmation of the country’s rights and liberties by the prince and the timing of this confirmation. Mentions of these affirmations in the correspondence before the inauguration and the multiple mentions in the speeches of the representatives and the ruler himself illustrate their importance. Usually, there was a verbal assurance before the show of homage, and a written copy was delivered immediately or within a certain period of time after this. Only in Graz did the emperor have to take a personal oath before a small group of representatives of the estates, as had been done in 1660. In Carinthia, the traditional form of the oath on the Herzogstuhl had already been abandoned because of the imperial dignity of Charles VI (as in 1660).

Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger describes rites suitably as ceremonies with which past acts are remembered and commitments are made to fulfill specific acts in the future.126 As shown in this discussion, both elements were of importance for the people involved. They mattered for the emperor because of his succession order, and they were important to the estates because of their need to maintain old customs and reassert their rights and liberties.

Archival Sources

Bayrisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Munich

Ministerium des Äußeren, 39392

Kärntner Landesarchiv, Ständisches Archiv (StA Ktn.)

Österreichisches Staatsarchiv (ÖStA)

Allgemeines Verwaltungsarchiv (AVA)

Adelsarchiv (Adel)

Reichsadelsakten (RAA)

Finanz- und Hofkammerarchiv (FHKA)

Alte Hofkammer (AHK)

Hoffinanz Innerösterreich (HFIÖ)

Sonderbestände, Sammlungen und Selekte, Sammlungen und Selekte (SUS)

Handschriftensammlung (HS)

Varia des Hofkammerarchivs (Varia)

Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv (HHStA)

Hofarchive, Privat- und Familienfonde (HA)

Obersthofmeisteramt (OMeA)

Zeremonialprotokolle (ZA-Prot.)

Handschriftensammlungen (HS)

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Stollberg-Rilinger, Barbara. “Herstellung und Darstellung politischer Einheit: Instrumentelle und symbolische Dimensionen politischer Repräsentation im 18. Jahrhundert.” In Die Sinnlichkeit der Macht: Herrschaft und Repräsentation seit der Frühen Neuzeit, Historische Politikforschung 5, edited by Jan Andres, Alexa Geisthövel, and Matthias Schwengelbeck, 73–92. Frankfurt/Main: Campus Verlag, 2005.

Stollberg-Rilinger, Barbara. Rituale. Historische Einführungen 16. 2nd ed. Frankfurt–New York: Campus Verlag, 2019.

Vácha, Štěpán, Irenea Veselá, Vít Vlnas, and Petra Vokáčová. Karel VI. & Alžběta Kristýna. Česká Korunovace 1723. Prague: Paseka, 2009.

Van Gelder, Klaas, ed. More than Mere Spectacle: Coronations and Inaugurations in the Habsburg Monarchy during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Austrian and Habsburg Studies 31. New York–Oxford: Berghan, 2021.

Van Gelder, Klaas. “Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-century Coronations and Inaugurations in the Habsburg Monarchy: Why do they matter?” In More than Mere Spectacle: Coronations and Inaugurations in the Habsburg Monarchy during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Austrian and Habsburg Studies 31, edited by Klaas Van Gelder, 1–28. New York–Oxford: Berghahn, 2021.

Van Gelder, Klaas. “Inaugurations in the Austrian Netherlands: Flexible Formats at the Interface between Constitution, Political Negotiation and Representation.” In More than Mere Spectacle: Coronations and Inaugurations in the Habsburg Monarchy during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Austrian and Habsburg Studies 31, edited by Klaas van Gelder, 168–97. New York–Oxford: Berghahn, 2021.

Vokáčová, Petra. “The Bohemian Coronation of Charles VI and Its Hidden Message.” More than Mere Spectacle: Coronations and Inaugurations in the Habsburg Monarchy during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Austrian and Habsburg Studies 31, edited by Klaas Van Gelder, 143–67. New York–Oxford: Berghahn, 2021.

Wanger, Bernd Herbert. Kaiserwahl und Krönung im Frankfurt des 17. Jahrhunderts. Darstellung anhand der zeitgenössischen Bild- und Schriftquellen und unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Erhebung des Jahres 1612. Studien zur Frankfurter Geschichte 34. Frankfurt/Main: Kramer, 1994.

Figure 2. Homage in Graz
(Austrian State Archvies, Allgemeines Verwaltungsarchiv, Bibliothek C-320, Deyerlsberg)

 

Representatives in a Changing World: Characteristics of Urban Advocacy at the Turn of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries*

István H. Németh
National Archives of Hungary
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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 10 Issue 1  (2021): 3-34 DOI 10.38145/2021.1.3

The Kingdom of Hungary had a strong system of estates within the Habsburg Monarchy, and this exerted a significant influence on the positions of free royal cities. The free royal cities enjoyed a large degree of internal autonomy until roughly the end of the seventeenth century, with little oversight or interference by the larger state. Since 1526, the cities had been members of the estates which had taken part in the Diets (the parliaments which could be regarded as the early modern form of the Hungarian), though they had played a minor role in comparison to the counties. In the last third of the seventeenth century, the system of estates underwent significant changes. The royal state came to exert more control, and in the free royal cities, the central administration began to play a stronger role as a force for oversight. The interests of the state administration now played an important role in the selection of the city’s leaders. The delegates who represented the cities in the Diets were also chosen according to these considerations. The local bodies of state administration were given major say in the selection of the representatives. As a consequence of this, delegates began to be chosen who were from different social backgrounds, including people who had different places within the system of the estates. While earlier, the individuals who had been sent to take part in the Diets had been members of the Lutheran bourgeois elite, from roughly the late seventeenth century onwards, members of the nobility living in the cities began to play an increasingly influential role. Many of the delegates from the city of Kassa (today Košice, Slovakia) who will be discussed in the analysis below came from families of non-noble origins which, however, had been granted nobility as a reward for the services they had performed in the chamber administration. The career paths for members of these families led either to administrative bodies in the city or back into state administration.

Keywords: Catholicization, confessionalism, urban elites, professionalism, state administration, Habsburg Monarchy

The Positions and Roles of the Free Royal Cities in the Hungarian Diets

Within the Habsburg Monarchy, the Kingdom of Hungary remained a province with a strong system of estates (or feudal order). The threat of the Ottoman Empire, which ultimately affected the other provinces of the Habsburg Monarchy, compelled the Habsburg rulers and the Hungarian estates to seek mutual compromise. The influence of the estates of the Kingdom of Hungary, which played a significant role in providing protection for the monarchy and also in its food supplies, became so strong in these areas (precisely because of the importance of these two considerations) that the central government and the estates were able to reconcile their apparently conflicting interests for a very long time. The central administration of the monarchy, which was undergoing dramatic development at the time, and the strong feudal order in Hungary were able to coexist, and the counties governing the internal life of Hungary remained in the hands of the Hungarian estates. Even after the proclamation of highly centralizing decrees at the end of the seventeenth century, the counties retained a strong domestic political role essentially until the formation of the modern nineteenth-century state. As a consequence of this, the estates in Hungary played a more prominent role in the domestic politics of the country than the estates in the other provinces of the monarchy. These differences became increasingly apparent, particularly from the first quarter of the seventeenth century. Assemblies of representatives of the estates became the main forums for the internal sovereignty of the country, and the participating estates took control of domestic feudal policy (i.e. in addition to the counties, they took control of the judiciary, the local military, tax collection, etc.). Thus, the Diets in feudal Hungary were considerably more important than the assemblies of the estates in other provinces of the Habsburg Monarchy. For the historian, then, both the Diets themselves and the domestic participants who appeared at the Diets (which were the most important forum of the feudal order) are significant subjects of study.1 In this complex feudal monarchy, since the fifteenth century, the free royal cities had had municipal rights independent of the royal court.2 The state order of the cities grew even more rigid compared to the late Middle Ages, and they maintained their right to self-government even if members of the nobility who moved into the burgs and, in the case of some cities, the military strained the medieval administrative framework.3 However, the cities did not have significant political influence in the Diets. From the perspective of the authorities, the monarch had more direct say in their lives. They had to pay an annual land tax (census) to the ruler as the landlord, and the extraordinary war tax (taxa) was set by the central organs of finance, not the estates. From the first third of the seventeenth century on, these taxes could even be collected several times, independently of the decisions reached at the Diets.4

Changes in the Hungarian Feudal Order in the Seventeenth Century

The changes which exerted a direct influence on Hungarian policy towards the cities from the end of the seventeenth century also influenced both the selection process of the individuals who served as envoys of the cities to the Diets in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the responsibilities and prerogatives of these individuals. The extension of the state administration to the free royal cities, the city leaders, and the denominational affiliations of the inhabitants of the cities determined, in the long run, the city administration and political representation. The era was not a period of calm construction. A decisive and irreversible turn came in the fates of the free royal cities in these decades of change, and this turn was further aggravated by numerous external factors. Between 1662 and 1681, a period spanning almost two decades, not a single Diet was held. The primary reasons for this were the responses which were caused by the differences concerning ideas of state administration, within the Habsburg Monarchy, between the Kingdom of Hungary and the elite which governed the monarchy. The county estates were resolved to maintain the domestic political relations which had developed in the sixteenth century and changed several times over the course of the seventeenth. Beginning with the period of the Wesselényi uprising (1670–1671), however, the political leadership at the head of the monarchy planned and implemented fundamental changes in these relations. The changes in public administration and domestic political life were hardly unique, however. On the contrary, they were part of a larger European trend. One of the fundamental shifts in the early modern era, a shift which came in parallel with the formation of the modern state, was the extension, simply, of the prerogatives of the state. This was accompanied by the introduction by the state, which was using centralizing and later absolutist measures, of central regulations concerning matters which earlier had been determined entirely by the estates and their representatives. In the areas which had become the responsibility of the state which had been built under the authority of the absolute ruler, the state administration, reinforced by the ruler’s legitimacy, became an unambiguously decisive factor.5 Economic history characterizes this transformation as the creation of the fiscal state (of the fiscal-military state), an expression which captures the purely economic, financial relationship between cause and solution.6

One immensely important area of centralization is confessionalization, or to put it more simply, the extension of the authority of the ruler over religion and the church (and this is one of the hallmarks of an absolutist or centralized state administration). The religious policy pursued by the Habsburg government in the Czech-Moravian and Austrian hereditary provinces was clearly part of an effort in this direction, and this was indeed part of larger political practice in the other states of Europe. The notion of “one state, one religion” had become a fairly uniformly espoused political stance in the seventeenth century in each of the states which sought to create a more or less centralized or absolutist administration.7 The issue of confessional belonging was of key importance in Hungarian domestic politics, as the events which took place in part as a result of the advance of state confessionalization clearly indicate. As the end of the Bocskai uprising (1604–1606), which broke out in no small part because of issues and conflicts of a strongly sectarian and confessional nature, the Peace of Vienna (1606) resolved (among other things) the sectarian dispute between the two parties, i.e. the Hungarian estates and the ruler. At the beginning of the reign of Ferdinand II, there was a strong demand for the establishment of a state with only one denomination, but this did not take place in the case of the Kingdom of Hungary. The reasons for this are related in part to the domestic political compromise which addressed, over the course of the whole period, the domestic political conflicts between the estates and the ruler/state.8 This compromise seemed precarious at the time precisely because of the issue of confessionalization. The attacks launched by the two Transylvanian princes (Gábor Bethlen and György I. Rákóczi) confirmed the previous place of the Hungarian estates. The Diet which was held in Sopron in 1622 and then the Peace of Linz (1645) restored the relationship between the estates and the ruler.9 In contrast, in the Austrian provinces (mainly Lower and Upper Austria and Styria), a strong counter-reformation had been underway since the first quarter of the century, which had included forced relocations and conversions.10 In contrast with the practices used to implement religious policy in the other parts of the Habsburg Monarchy, in the Kingdom of Hungary, attempts were made to effect change with peaceful means. Educational institutions run mainly by the Jesuits were established in the free royal cities and landlord market towns, and with them came the monasteries.11 The monasteries became the foundations for a slow process of conversion which enjoyed funding from the state. By the last third of the seventeenth century, the nobility had, for the most part, been converted,12 as had the middle-nobility stratum of trained professionals working in the state administrative bodies in Hungary.13 Debates and decisions reached in the Diets strengthened the results of the process of Catholic renewal, and the Hungarian Protestant political elite was increasingly pushed to the margins.14

While the parties managed to resolve the conflicts which had emerged earlier relatively quickly (1606–1608, 1622, 1645) and the domestic political balance between the estates and the ruler was, ultimately, restored, in the 1660s, the primary concern for the new political generation, which consisted of the people surrounding the new ruler, Leopold I, was simply the issue of the efficient operation of the state.15 The newly emerging political system of the Viennese government was now negotiating with a fundamentally changed Hungarian political elite, which was no longer the generation which had been born in the first quarter of the seventeenth century. For this new generation, the compromise and the rules of the political game which had emerged as a consequence or corollary of this compromise were self-evident and repeatable.16 The complete political turnaround and the reforms to public administration which were favored by the Vienna government were made possible by the period following the Wesselényi conspiracy (1664–1671). The series of armed uprisings and trials concerning accusations of treason in the wake of the conspiracy were unique in Hungarian politics in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but they enabled the Vienna government to implement its plans for reform without constraints. Extremely high taxes were levied in the Kingdom of Hungary, and radical changes were implemented in the ways in which the taxes were levied. The tax based on providing for the military and the levy that was introduced as a sales tax were collected without the consent of the Diet.17 With the establishment of the Gubernium, an attempt was made to set up a new system with an office better connected to the central bodies that would govern instead of the estates. However, the Gubernium could not play a significant role due to the prevailing conditions in the country. One of the first tasks of the new administration was the recatholicization of the country. Protestant churches were confiscated and handed over to the Catholic Church.18 The measures adopted led to religious civil war,19 and the comparative stability of domestic life, which had been based until this point on compromises, was upset, as the old rules of the game no longer applied.

The measures introduced by the Habsburg government were very rapid and effective, especially when it came to restoring the institutions of the Catholic Church and taking control of the estates and buildings which had formed the basis of the institutional system. However, they had rapid repercussions for Hungarian politics due to the larger tax burdens and the radical changes to confessional life. The Thököly Uprising (1677–1685) and the Rákóczi War of Independence (1703–1711) were both consequences of the effects these measures had. At the time, during the period of the “religious civil war” of the late seventeenth century, people who belonged to different denominations were automatically regarded as enemies or, in situations of war, even as spies. The Rákóczi War of Independence was something of an exception to this, as the Lutherans again came to hold the advantage, but as a consequence of a balanced religious policy, the different denominations were still able to achieve of a certain degree of compromise and cooperation.20 The political circumstances of the Szatmár Peace Treaty (1711) helped ensure that the new administrative system that had emerged by the end of the seventeenth century could continue to develop relatively peacefully and essentially remain in place until 1848. In the first quarter of the eighteenth century, the entire Hungarian central administration underwent major reform, and the Hungarian Royal Lieutenancy Council (which replaced the Gubernium), the Hungarian Royal Chamber (which had been reorganized), and the Hungarian Court Chancellery formed the backbone of the Hungarian state administration. The Hungarian counties retained their prominence and influence in domestic politics, but in the free royal cities and the organs of the central government, the Catholic revival program was successful. Only Catholics could hold important positions in the administration, and the newly introduced administrative principles remained.

The Turning Point in Urban Policy

The new domestic policy affected the free royal cities of Hungary the most, where, beginning in the early 1670s, a significant political turn took place. The change served in part to further recatholicization and in part to secure the financial resources for increased spending by the state administration and, in particular, the army. Instead of having to rely on cities which had gone into debt and had to struggle to pay their tax burdens, the central government wanted to create a situation in which the cities would constitute a larger and more secure foundation for tax incomes. In order to address economic problems, the government wanted to introduce administrative tools similar to mechanisms and measures in other provinces of the monarchy. It sought to exert an influence on the internal composition of the city councils and to introduce state overview and reform of urban management. The central government’s primary goal was to reform urban management, and it approached this issue from several angles. First, it sought to make the city administration even more layered and more complex and also easier to keep under strict oversight and control. It also sought to determine the composition of the staff that led and operated the administration to ensure that it consisted of people who had the adequate training and expertise, who were loyal to the state administration, and who could be trusted to deal reliably with the incomes and properties of the cities and not to use them for their own purposes. The primary task of the initial period of intervention was to remove the (Lutheran) burghers in key positions and replace them with Catholics. The process of recatholicization served not only to implement increasingly the principle of one state, one religion. The selection of Catholics for positions of prominence and influence was, in the political context of the last third of the seventeenth century, a primary criterion of loyalty.21

In addition to ensuring the loyalty of its subjects, the state also needed to restore the cities economically. The factors which were taken into consideration when new members were chosen by the commissioners and delegated to the councils would have furthered the economic growth of the cities and the transparency of administration, as, alongside the criterion of belonging to the Catholic Church, knowledge of law and economics was also given considerable emphasis in the instructions.22 According to the chamber commissioners, the ability to elect the most important officers had to be taken away from the people and made subject to a decision by the ruler, since these figures allegedly “were the first leaders from the perspective of the ruin and retention of the city.” The cities would have been left only with the right to make nominations, and the commissioners would have selected the appropriate individuals from among the candidates, as was customary in Austria (sicuti moris est in Austria). Were a commissioner unable to choose a suitable candidate from the nominees, the Hungarian Chamber would have made the decision.23

In the end, the extreme means of nomination were never used. Rather, a policy was adopted according to which Catholics enjoyed strong support, but the city’s economy was also taken into consideration. The positions of key leaders in the city can be clearly discerned on the basis of the instructions given in the first few years. The city magistrate, the mayor (where there was one), and the notary had to be selected from among the candidates nominated by the central authorities.24 The commissioners not only determined the selection of the magistrate and, in some cases, the mayor, but also exerted an increasingly strong influence on the composition of the members of the internal council, then the elected council, and, where it existed, the external council. However, the election commissioners did not have an easy task, as very few of the individuals available met the ruler’s expectations, especially in the first period. The city official to be selected had to belong to the Catholic Church, but in addition to this, he also had to have an estate (benepossesionatus) and proper qualifications (qualificatus).25 In the last third of the seventeenth century, due to the haste with which changes were being introduced, individuals with inadequate qualifications and social status were often appointed to very significant city offices.26 However, it cannot be claimed that, contrary to the intent of the ruler, the changes made on the basis of denominational belonging led to a striking or irreversible drop in the qualifications of city leaders. Indeed, by the time people belonging to the second generation since the change began to take office, quite the contrary was true.

From the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Catholic city leaders almost without exception had training in law, and it was gradually inconceivable that someone without strong social ties would be elected. Alongside the converted city leaders, the urban nobility, which had important family and social-economic ties and therefore enjoyed considerable prestige and were among the former economic intellectuals, also played a major role in the leadership of the cities. Usually, the descendants of the people belonging to this circle remained in the city leadership or entered the service of the state (or married people who had entered the service of the state). In the first decades of the eighteenth century, there were some city leaders from burgher families who, as Catholics, were seen as having the necessary qualifications. They came to occupy important positions in the city leadership as burghers with suitable social recognition and prestige who, from the perspective of their family circles, had a kind of double identity. They were tied to the local burgher communities because of their occupations and family ties, but they were also tied to the public administration because of their roles as public officers and other familial ties with public officials.27

New Considerations on the Basis of which the City Delegates Were Chosen

The frameworks described above exerted a decisive influence on the ways in which the representatives who were sent to the Diets were selected and the question of who, ultimately, represented and was eligible to represent the interests of some of the free royal cities. The urban state policy which had begun to emerge in the second half of the fifteenth century was consolidated in the sixteenth century, as is indicated by the fact that (in contrast with earlier years) from the middle of the century on, the possibility that a city might not send a delegate to the Diet was not raised by a single urban council. The number of delegates that the city would send was not fixed in this period, but the cities usually sent two and sometimes three or four representatives to the Diet. The instructions for the representatives of the cities and their credentials were issued by the city’s internal councils, and the points contained in them focused essentially on the protection of the interests of the given city. The delegates were always members of the city council, but in many cases the city notary was included among them or the notary accompanied the two-person delegation.28 State oversight of seventeenth-century urban policy may have influenced the cities to support the aspirations of the ruler at the Diets as well (as they were in a more vulnerable position). By the end of the seventeenth century, the cities had managed to acquire considerable influence through the ruler and the government, and this influence was quite clear in the Diets from the eighteenth century onwards. One very clear consequence of this change was that, in the Diet held in 1687, a legal limitation was placed on the number of free royal cities, as there was legitimate fear that the number of cities would exceed the number of counties.29 As in the case of other city officials, the individuals who were selected to serve as delegates were chosen by the chamber bodies. This direct use of political control was clearly apparent in the fact that, in the 1681 Diet, at least one of the delegates sent from each of the free royal cities (which earlier had spoken out against the Counter Reformation) was Catholic, and sometimes both of the delegates were Catholic, even in cases of cities which still had clear Lutheran majorities. This shift in the denominational longing of the delegates was clearly a consequence of the instructions given by the chamber. In the first such Diet, 30 of the 49 envoys of the fourth order were Catholic, while only 16 were Lutherans and 3 were Calvinist. The cities of Kassa, Pozsony (today Bratislava, Slovakia), and Eperjes (today Prešov, Slovakia), for example, which had strong Lutheran elites, sent only Catholic ambassadors to the Diet. In the case of Lőcse (today Levoča, Slovakia), the sources clearly indicate that Johann Fabritius and Daniel Weber were nominated under pressure from the chamber administration of the Szepes (Spiš) region, while the selection of the famous Lutheran printer Johann Brewer reflected the views of the majority of the city. Credentials were issued and instructions given for three delegates, but only the two Catholics could officially appear at the meetings of the Sopron Diet.30

The frameworks presented above and the shift in the composition of the urban elite thus exerted a strong influence on the individuals who were chosen to serve as city leaders. Drawing on the example of the city of Kassa, I offer a sketch of their social backgrounds. The sources suggest that there were no significant differences among the delegates sent by the cities from the perspective of their social backgrounds. Where there were differences, these differences were due to distinctive circumstances (for instance, varying proportions of members of the nobility or the intelligentsia) within a particular city, such as Pozsony and the mining cities of what is today central Slovakia (and at the time was referred to as “Alsó-Magyarország,” or “Lower Hungary,”) to Nagybánya (today Baia Mare, Romania). In the discussion which follows, I will offer an overview of the careers of some of the delegates from Kassa whose professional trajectories can be considered typical as a means of offering insights into the socio-historical effects of these changes. While in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the city notaries had played prominent roles, from the end of the seventeenth century on their relevance diminished drastically. It suffices perhaps to consider the example of the most famous notary from Kassa, Johannes (Bock) Bocatius, who for a short time also held the office of magistrate. Bocatius took part in the 1601 Diet as a notary. Then, during István Bocskai’s military campaign in Upper Hungary (a term used to refer to a region which today, essentially, is Slovakia), he became one of the prince’s close intellectual advisers. As Bocskai’s foreign ambassador, he was taken prisoner by Rudolf I. Like many of his associates, as a dominant urban intellectual and one of the decisive figures who shaped the ideology of the uprising, Bocatius also played a prominent role in domestic political life.31 Daniel Türck, a notary from Lőcse, took part in seven parliaments. His diary, which fortunately survived the upheavals of history, has become one of the essential sources on the early sixteenth-century Diets.32 At the end of the seventeenth century, there was only one notary, András Kercho, among the delegates to the Diet, though we know of a total of 14 delegates sent from Kassa by 1741. It is worth noting that Kercho was a Catholic burgher when he acquired his position as notary, as this post was given high priority by the royal commissioners in the post-1670 period, and only Catholics could be appointed to hold it.33 Kercho was the child of a family from Turóc County, as the last will and testament which he drew up with his wife on December 30, 1709 indicates. When he arrived in Kassa, he did not have any inherited property. (One could suggest a parallel between his career and that of János Keviczky, a key figure in the seventeenth-century Kassa elite.34) Kercho married the widow of György Szentsimonyi. Between 1691 and 1697, he was active on the external committee that represented the burghers, and from 1699 until his death on August 14, 1710, he served as a member of the internal council. He had the typical career of a Kassa notary, broken only by the period during which the soldiers of Ferenc II Rákóczi occupied the city. Kercho did not hold any city office between 1705 and 1707. However, the land he acquired lay in the part of the outskirts of Kassa where the majority of the city leaders also acquired estates. His neighbors were the Demeczky family, Johann Grasz, and János Jászay. His connections thus tied him to the new elite of the city.35

There were many German burghers among the Kassa urban elite even in the seventeenth century, despite the fact that during this period, the German population was becoming less and less significant and a large number of Hungarians had moved into the city. Hungarians had begun to settle in Kassa in significant numbers in the middle of the sixteenth century, but it was really in the seventeenth century that they began to acquire a role and place in the city elite that was significant enough for them to replace the German elite. With the increase in the number and significance of the Hungarians in Kassa, not only was the ethnic and power map of the city redrawn, but the place of Lutheranism as the confession which had held sway since the Reformation was undermined, as the vast majority of the Hungarians were Calvinists. Initially, the Lutheran city leadership had not allowed the Calvinists into the city. The Calvinists were only allowed to have their own religious community in the city beginning in the first third of the seventeenth century, and only as a consequence of pressure put on the city by the Transylvanian prince. The tensions between the Lutherans and the Calvinists only further facilitated the flow of Catholics into the city, a process which already enjoyed the support of the Vienna government.36 At the end of the seventeenth century, Andreas Breiner and Michael Goldberger were the only two Kassa councilors to appear at the Pozsony Diets with credentials. This was tied both to the shifts which had taken place in the ethnic makeup of the city of Kassa and to the fact that the highest authorities considered the selection of the Catholic delegates a priority. The non-Catholic Hungarian population of Kassa was represented by Dávid Féja and András Vida. They were both representatives of the old Kassa bourgeoisie, as socially tied to the city as the seventeenth-century local urban elite.37 This trend continued in the Diets which met during the Rákóczi War of Independence, in which, thanks to Rákóczi’s confessional policy, Protestants and Catholics enjoyed relatively balanced representation.38

Urban Nobles as Representatives of Urban Interests

The most dramatic change to take place in the delegates who were sent by the city of Kassa to the Diets was the sudden leap in the number of Catholic Hungarians who belonged to the nobility. Kassa was predestined by its status as a regional center, its role as the administrative center for the military and the chamber of Upper Hungary, and its distinctive sociohistorical characteristics to become a local center for the urban nobility, which was clearly emerging as a new social stratum in Western Europe as well. This transformation of the social order of the city was also furthered by the fact that Kassa, as the seat of the region between the Transylvanian principality and the Hungarian Kingdom, often served as a kind of place or refuge for members of the Transylvanian nobility, who sought refuge at times of unrest or turmoil (which were relatively frequent) in the Principality of Transylvania.39 Almost all the individuals who appeared in the name of the city at the national Diets and smaller Diets held at the end of the seventeenth century fell into this category. Imre Szentmártony, a member of the legal intelligentsia of the time, was active in Kassa as a recognized lawyer.40 From 1703 until 1720, he served as a member of the internal council, and he served as magistrate for three years when the city was under occupation by Rákóczi, and he regularly took part in the Kuruc Diets. His wife, Katalin Marussy, widow of István Orbán, was related to the Lászay and Regéczi families, and his father was a so-called iudex nobilium (noble judge) in Abaúj County.41

Mihály Demeczky was the child of a noble family from Gyergyószék. He may have studied law at the Jesuit University of Nagyszombat (today Trnava, Slovakia) before settling in Abaúj County. At first, working in the service of Imre Thököly, he represented the prince as his ambassador. He became a city notary in Kassa and very quickly became a member of the internal council, director of the city’s estates, and a magistrate in 1686 and 1687,42 but he also held minor positions in the county as a juror and accountant.43 Demeczky was not chosen by the royal commissioners by chance. As a young nobleman who had spent time among the Jesuits of Nagyszombat, he was selected as the solution to a challenging problem, for he had to replace Mihály Udvarhelyi, who himself had been selected in 1674 with some difficulty and who, as the chapter notary, worked both for the city and for the chapter.44 The position of city clerk not only secured him a salary, it also gave him considerable influence. In order to maintain his position, he allegedly did not hesitate to lobby against a resolution passed by the Diet in 1687 on the election of officials in the free royal cities. However, after this came to light, he fell out with the city leadership and renounced his rights as a burgher. Indeed, before doing this, he was not even willing to go to the meetings of the city council. Rather, the internal opposition of the city leadership met in his home. Although this unhappy state of affairs was resolved in accordance with the strict instructions of Leopold I, Demeczky’s relationship with the council clearly remained troubled, for he never held office again.45

Like Demeczky and Szentmártony, László Jászay may have been an intellectual nobleman who had studied law, though the sources contain no clear indication that he had any degree at all. He served as a delegate to the Diet, and this and the services he performed in city affairs and the various occasions on which he served as a delegate suggest that, like Demeczky and Szentmártony, Jászay had also been a member of this stratum. This is also supported by the fact that in 1676, citing the services he had performed for the city and his poverty, he asked the council to refrain from compelling him to present a letter of confirmation (the document which attested to his noble birth) or from paying the tax levied on burghers. Six years later, he had become a member of the internal council, and there is no indication in the sources that he was among the community of the elected.46 He also served as the delegate sent by Kassa to the assembly of the representatives of the cities of Upper Hungary, and one year later, he was a delegate to the Diet. Alongside the magistrate and city prosecutor Balázs Váncsay, he was a member of the committee charged with the task of designating the site of a church for the Lutherans, in accordance with the decisions reached at the 1687 Diet.47 Balázs Váncsay was the father of István Váncsay, who would emerge as a prominent Kassa politician. His career illustrates the changes which were underway and the ways in which individuals were compelled to adapt to these changes. Balázs Váncsay is mentioned in the sources as a Hungarian cantor and, later, as the city prosecutor. He was one of the figures who helped the family acquire a noble title. Together with his brothers Mihály and Mátyás, he was given a title on May 4, 1665 by Leopold I.48 Váncsay may have served as a suitable link between Catholics and Lutherans, as he converted to the Catholic faith very early on. His son István was baptized on July 25, 1673 by a Lutheran pastor. His godparents, Márton Madarász, István Kassai, organist Sándor Pischel, Mrs. Zsófia Puttemberger Ádám Kiss, Mrs. Judit Liptai András Tornay, and Mrs. Judit Faigel Dávid Féja, were prominent members of the city’s Lutheran elite.49 His second child, Gábor, was baptized by the Catholic parish priest in 1681,50 so he clearly converted sometime between these two dates, but presumably sometime around the moment when he went from being the Hungarian cantor to serving as the city prosecutor, as it was customary to reward intellectuals who had converted with positions in the city or state administration and thus to ensure them a livelihood. This may have taken place sometime around 1676, or at least this is suggested by the fact that in 1676, András Újvári-Bodnár, a resident of Kassa, rebuked Váncsay precisely for this reason, and indeed he rebuked him so churlishly that he was sentenced to pay a fine of 100 thalers.51 The council, which was already mostly Catholic by that time, may have chosen Váncsay to negotiate with Thököly, who was marching against the city, precisely because he was a convert.52

Balázs Váncsay was also a link to the next generation of Kassa city leaders, to the members of the elite who represented the interests of the city of Kassa in the Diets which were being held at a time in which the political circumstances and issues had changed dramatically. Balázs Váncsay’s son István, who was born a Lutheran (or Calvinist), became both the most significant figure of the city government who wielded the greatest influence but also the person who caused the biggest scandal in the politics of the city at the time. From the perspective of his social connections, the young Váncsay was clearly among the city leaders who were proud of their noble rank and sought ties to the noble families of the county.53 Already as a young man, he may have been a divisive figure, for in 1692, he came into conflict with Mihály Tarnóczy. Váncsay had sought to cheat Tarnóczy, and Tarnóczy had become so enraged that he had chased Váncsay through the vineyards, but first he struck him in the head with a small hatchet. He threw a stone at Váncsay (who fled) which quite possibly would have killed him had Váncsay, who had only recently turned 20, not been quick on his feet.54 He began his career as an advocate in the city council, in the council that was newly elected by Ferenc II Rákóczi, but he was soon mentioned in the sources from subsequent years among the most prominent members of the internal council. During the War of Independence, he was one of the members of the Kassa council who was sent the most frequently to meet with Rákóczi or Rákóczi’s most important officers or to represent the city at the Kuruc Diets.55 István Váncsay was at the Diet held in 1712 (which brought the War of Independence to an end from the perspective of domestic politics) as the only city notary of the time, with András Hlavathy, the envoy sent by Kassa, at his side. During the Diet, the two delegates participated in the debate with the cities which again had been given the status of free royal cities over their rank, but they were dealing, in addition, with the issues concerning the tax agreement, which was deemed hopeless, and they also worked to facilitate the selection of the new parish priest of Kassa.56 Váncsay was a respected councilor at the time. He had served as deputy magistrate in 1709 and then had been elected to serve as magistrate in 1710 and 1711.57 Váncsay seems to have been someone who did not hesitate to come into conflict with others if he felt he had to protect his own interests or if he felt that a member of his family had been insulted.58 As noted above, he was baptized a Protestant, but by 1712, he had converted to Catholicism, for in this year he became the godfather of one of István Radikovicz’s twins.59 The fact that he was ranked second on the council which was elected in front of chamber councilor Franz Meixner on January 28, 1712 and which consisted exclusively of Catholics is again clear indication that he had converted. He was also elected to serve as a tax collector.60

Váncsay served on the council until 1714, and it is reasonable to suggest that he failed to hold his position because of events which had transpired during the Rákóczi War of Independence and suspicions concerning biased management of city funds. In 1717, Baron Johann Ignatz Viechter, a chamber councilor and delegated election commissioner, was given the task of putting the management of Kassa on stable footing. In order to do this, he had Bertalan Máray appointed mayor of the city, and he requested all the records of the city accounts and strove to determine who had been responsible for the earlier mismanagement of city finances. Váncsay was among the accused. According to the report, he was chosen to serve as a member of the council again on condition that he submit for examination the records of accounts from the period during which he had served as magistrate. It had then become clear that, during the upheavals caused by the War of Independence, Váncsay may have dealt in an underhanded manner with the wealth which had flown into the city, as it came to light, in the course of the investigation, that he had taken 13 last wills and testaments from the city archives which had never been found again. Each of these last wills and testaments had named the city as the heir.61 In spite of the suspicions which were cast on him, Váncsay was still nominated to serve as deputy magistrate62 that year and as advocate and magistrate the following year. Of the latter two positions, he secured the second with a majority of the votes, and he remained in office as magistrate until 1727, or in other words for nine years.63 Váncsay ruled with an iron fist during his time in office, as evidenced by the fact that he did not leave office voluntarily or simply as a result of a vote held by the council, but rather as the consequence of an extraordinary procedure, something that was used only as a rare exception at the time. In January 1726, the Szepesi chamber, which passed on the contents of the annual royal decrees, informed the city that they would not send an election commissioner. Rather, the election would be held without a commissioner. Their only stipulation was that Váncsay submit the records of accounts from the period between 1709 and 1712 to the chamber for examination.64 It referred, as an antecedent to this, to the fact that during the election of city officials held in 1724, the royal commissioner had objected to Váncsay’s management,65 but as Váncsay had failed to submit the records (which now were well over a decade old) even after having been called on to do so several times, royal commissioner Pál Lipót Mednyánszky was having him removed from office, and he would not be allowed anywhere near the highest circles of the city leadership until he had done as instructed and had submitted the records.66

The city of Kassa treated the case of its former magistrate as a matter of considerable importance and even urgency. One explanation for this may simply have been the prestige and authority which Váncsay enjoyed, but the city may also have resented the manner in which the royal commissioner and the ruler were infringing on the rights of the city council. The council turned to the Hungarian Court Chancellery and then the Court Chamber with its complaints, and it charged Adam Aloysius Talheim, who was a Vienna agent and who served on the chancellery, with the specific task of handling this matter. The council was perfectly willing to spend money and barter with the wines stored in the city cellars in order to ensure that Váncsay be restored to his position as magistrate as soon as possible. (They even turned to Mátyás Bél, a Pozsony pastor, for assistance, as indicated by the fact that two of the barrels of wine that were sent to the chancellor were stored in his cellar.67) Talheim earned his money, and the wine given to further Váncsay’s case also proved an effective bartering tool, for in February 1728, the chancellery recommended that the Royal Chamber support Váncsay’s reappointment as magistrate, as, in the end, he had submitted the records requested of him and had settled the issues concerning the city finances. The chancellery felt that Váncsay had already proven his capacity for the office and that he had done a great deal for Kassa as a royal estate (peculium regium).68 Kassa therefore quickly received permission from the ruler, and Váncsay regained power over the city, as he began serving as deputy magistrate that year and then regained his seat as magistrate the following year in the election that was held before the royal commissioner.69 True, the Szepes Chamber Administration was by no means satisfied with Váncsay’s work. Indeed, it had several specific complaints. It objected, for instance, to the various luxury expenditures he ordered, and records of accounts again were missing. The basic principles according to which the orphanage would be run had not been clearly specified, and the urbarium for the city estates still had not been prepared. The apothecary, which was worth more than 30,000 forints, had been leased for 3,000 forints, and worst of all, no records had been kept of the estates which had ended up in the hands of the city.70 Váncsay nonetheless triumphed over the other candidates in the 1729 and 1730 elections and again in 1733, and he sat in the most prominent places on the council until his death. Considering that, as the most prominent member of the council, he also held the position of mayor (as was established practice) and thus essentially had complete control over the management of the city, we can justifiably say that István Váncsay was the most significant magistrate of Kassa in the first half of the eighteenth century.

Social Ties and the Early Stages of Career Paths

Members of the Váncsay family were working in the service of the chambers by the middle of the eighteenth century, but like the children of many other individuals who held offices in Kassai, they saw greater assurance of good career prospects in the service of the state. János Nossiczi Thurzó, who worked as part of the office responsible for collecting the thirtieth (a tax),71 was a permanent member of the Catholic council created in 1712 until his death on August 12, 1732, and in the last two years of his life, he served as the city magistrate.72 In addition to serving on the city council, he was also given constant employment by the Szepes Chamber Administration.73 One sees evidence of the close relationship between the chamber and the city management in the fact that, among the children of the city councilors, members of the Almássy, Csomortányi, Demeczky, Ganóczy, and Berezik families became the chamber officials. Usually, the officers who had positions as clerks were sons of the mayors of Kassa, but some of them managed to make it to positions in the middle of the hierarchy of offices. György Thurzó, the son of the aforementioned János Thurzó, served as assistant accountant to the chamber administration.74

There were tendencies in the family and social ties of the Kassa delegates and, more generally, the new elite of the city which indicate the existence of various subgroups. The delegates tended to come from a social group which could perhaps most accurately be characterized as the intellectual, officeholding stratum of the nobility the families of which had gotten their noble titles one generation earlier (usually, in the middle of the second half of the seventeenth century). If one looks at the network of relationships involving the godparents of the Kassa delegates and their children, one notes one of the largest nodes of this network was formed by the relationships among the families which sought closer bonds (such as the bond between family and godparent) among people who belonged to the city elite. The few delegates who were Lutherans formed a distinct group, the most interesting of which was perhaps the subgroup formed by András Hlavathy and Gergely Lukácsik, who asked women who were married to leaders of the Szepes Chamber Administration to be godmothers to their children. This all clearly illustrates that the smaller groups which had already been identified in Sopron also existed in Kassa, and the model introduced there was also valid in the case of a city which was an administrative center in Upper Hungary.75 Indeed, as the seat of the Szepes Chamber Administration, Kassa perhaps bore a stronger affinity with Pozsony from the perspective of its ties to the local network of officeholders. The roles of the city, which served as a prominent site for domestic political affairs in the Kingdom of Hungary, as both a residence and an administrative center further strengthened these urban-political and social factors, which were also factors in the other free royal cities and which exerted a stronger or weaker influence on the lives of the city communities. Members of the new, well-educated, Catholic urban elite appeared very quickly among the city leaders in the first years of the turnaround in urban policy. Elected officials almost without exception had legal degrees, and they built strong social ties. It was also not at all uncommon for a Catholic intellectual to enter into a familial relationship not with someone who belonged to one of the families which was part of the city elite, but rather with one of the employees of the local chamber. In these cases, we can speak of people who had ties to the city and the burghers because of their occupations and lifestyles but who were also tied to the state administration because of their family connections to state offices and people who held positions in the state offices. Naturally, this put them in a very advantageous position. As burghers who were also intellectuals (for the most part, with training as physicians or apothecaries), they were recognized members of the given communities, and because of their good ties to local representatives of state power, they clearly enjoyed an array of other advantages.76 The close study of the Kassa delegates definitely indicates that the leaders of the burgher community of the city tended to develop close ties to the local nobility and the state administration, even more so than in the case of Sopron or Pozsony. This was true not simply in cases involving the official affairs of the city but also from the perspective of the personal relationships of the city leaders.

In Summary

This discussion of the careers of delegates from the city of Kassa to the Diets sheds light on fact that, from the perspective of its professional (administrative) training and qualifications, the new Catholic urban elite managed to catch up relatively quickly to the Lutheran burgher community. In contrast with the Lutherans, however, Catholics enjoyed significant advantages according to the new principles of urban policy. Thus, the two groups were never on an equal footing from the perspective of politics. This was especially true when, due to the administrative significance of the city (like Pozsony and Kassa), the government no longer sought to maintain the former confessional balance and instead wanted to create a city leadership consisting exclusively of Catholics. This new, professional, trained urban elite was no longer tied exclusively to the burgher class. Rather, it was closely linked to the local nobility and the noble-officeholding urban stratum, which it came to resemble more and more. For the sons of this new elite, the prospect of serving in state office seemed an increasingly normal, natural way to launch a career. It also became increasingly common for the leading urban elite to include many individuals who were members of the nobility who lived primarily off their incomes as officeholders or, in other words, who belonged to the abovementioned stratum of noblemen intellectuals. Thus, from the perspective of social history, a new class of officeholding intellectuals emerged from the very mixed stratum that consisted of both burghers and members of the nobility. This new class had strong ties to the burgher lifestyle, and it not only took the baton from the honorary urban leaders in city administration but also began to serve in ever larger numbers in state offices.

Archival Sources

Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [National Archives of Hungary] (MNL OL)

A 20 (Litt. Cam. Hung.) Magyar Kancelláriai Levéltár, Magyar Királyi Kancellária regisztratúrája, Litterae Camerae Hungaricae

C 30 (Acta nob.) Helytartótanácsi Levéltár, Magyar Királyi Helytartótanács, Acta nobilium

E 156 (UetC) Kincstári Levéltárak, Magyar Kamara Archivuma, Urbaria et Conscriptiones

E 210 (Misc.) Kincstári Levéltárak, Magyar Kamara Archivuma, Miscellanea

E 23 (Litt. Cam. Scep.) Kincstári Levéltárak, Magyar Kamara regisztratúrája, Litterae camerae Scepusiensis

E 254 (Repr., inf. et inst.) Kincstári Levéltárak, Szepesi Kamara regisztratúrája, Repraesentationes. informationes et instantiae

Österreichisches Staatsarchiv (ÖStA)

Finanz- und Hofkammerarchiv (FHKA)

AHK HFU Akten Alte Hofkammer, Hoffinanz Ungarn, Akten

AHK HFU ung.MBW Alte Hofkammer, Hoffinanz Ungarn, Ungarisches

Münz- und Bergwesen

Archív Mesta Košice [Košice City Archives] (AMK)

H I-II. Supplementum H, Listy a listiny

H III/2. mac. Supplementum H. Mestské knihy a registre, Knihy mestskej administratívy, Malá mestská kniha (Liber civitatis minor)

H III/2. pur. Supplementum H. Mestské knihy a registre, Knihy mestskej

administratívy, Veľká mestská kniha (Liber civitatis maior)

H III/2. re. Supplementum H. Mestské knihy a registre, Knihy mestskej

administratívy, Knihy voljeb (Liber restaurationum)

Schr. Supplementum Schramianum

Schw. Colectio Schwartzenbachiana

Štátny archív v Banskej Bystrici, pracovisko Banská Bystrica [State Archive in Banská Bystrica, Banská Bystrica workplace] (StABB)

MMBB: Magistrat Mesta Banská Bystrica

Štátny Archiv v Košiciach [State Archive in Košice] (StAKE)

Zb. cirk. matr. Zbierka cirkevných matrík

Štátny archív v Prešove, špecializované pracovisko Spišský archív v Levoči [State Archive in Prešov, specialized workplace Spišský archiv in Levoča] (StALE)

MML Magistrat Mesta Levoče

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* The essay was made possible with the support of an NKFI K 116166 grant and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Momentum “Family History Research Group.”

 

Loving Husbands, Caring Fathers, Glorious Ancestors: Male Family Roles in Early Modern Transylvania

Angelika Orgona
Hungarian National Museum
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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 9 Issue 4  (2020): 624-649 DOI 10.38145/2020.4.624

 

The study examines how a Transylvanian nobleman, Gáspár Kornis of Göncruszka (1641–1683), created a narrative concerning four generations of his family. Though in his memoir, a patrilineal lineage scheme dominates, a close reading of scattered family documents also provides insights into the practices of horizontal bonding among relatives. The letters and last wills reflect the life cycle changes and represent emotional relationships among family members. By considering the act of writing as an emotional practice, the essay tests the claims of the memoir with the help of other archival and extratextual sources. What were the narrated roles of heroized protagonists, and what were the everyday duties of noble heads of family in the early modern period? The study depicts the transformations of the family network during crisis situations in the Transylvanian Principality.

Keywords: male family roles, kinship networks, egodocument, generational memory, orphanhood, widowhood, seventeenth-century Transylvania

This study presents a case study of family roles for men in the early modern era, drawing on the example of one of the most prestigious families in the Principality of Transylvania, the Kornis family of Göncruszka. At the time when the Kornis family was prominent, strong, dominant heads of families controlled the family networks across Europe. However, the uniqueness of the history of the Kornis family lies not in the internal system of relations of the micro-community, but in the intricate web of the relationship between the family and historical background of the region. The family was pro-Habsburg and Catholic, so it maneuvered as part of a political and religious minority in a principality with a protestant majority which itself was balanced between the Habsburg and the Ottoman Empires. The Kornis house had to endure a series of political attacks, exile, and imprisonment. In the first decade of the early seventeenth century, all the male members of the family were persecuted for political reasons; three of them—the father and two of his sons—fell victim to intrigues.

I interpret the family as a network of relatives and emotionally connected individuals who are able to function effectively for the benefit of family members through coordinated political and economic strategies. With the help of scarce sources scattered in the Kornis family’s preserved fond in Kolozsvár (today Cluj-Napoca, Romania) and other family archives, I seek not only the answer to how men behaved as husbands and fathers and what tasks they performed as heads of families, but the case of the Kornis house also shows what happened to this individual family in the event of the murder of the head of the family and the loss of the property that would have ensured the physical survival of the family. How was the family network transformed with the loss or absence of the head of the family? Who would play the role of head of the family in such cases, and how? What kinds of bargaining processes, both in the language of power and emotions, accompanied this? What strategies, both usual and exceptional, did the head of the family use when the continuity of the lineage was compromised? These are among the questions to which I seek answers.

The Memoir of Gáspár Kornis: The “Ancestral Gallery” of the Patrilinear Line

In his short memoir, Gáspár Kornis of Göncruszka (1641–1683) presents the history of the Kornis house, beginning with his great-grandfather, also named Gáspár, and tracing the family through the patrilinear line.1 The term “house” in the language at the time referred to the clan, the consanguineous community of brothers from one male ancestor; in this ego document, the Transylvanian branch of the Kornis brothers, whose common ancestor was the great-grandfather.2 Gáspár Kornis emphasizes the public significance of the family in the portraits he offers of the heads of the families, while the microenvironments of the protagonists, the everyday family environment, the household (women and children, horizontal relationships), remain obscure. The memoir is a good example of the patriarchal family scheme, in which the head of the family is the dominant and representative member.3

Early modern patriarchal male identity was closely linked to the role of the family head.4 Gáspár Kornis put his thoughts on paper as the head of his family, keeping in mind its destiny as he envisioned it and the prosperity of his descendants. The creation of the work written between 1678 and 1683 was given concrete relevance by the positive and negative changes that took place in his private life. It was a joyous event for him that, having been widowed after his previous long, childless marriage, he now had children from his second marriage.5 The author’s social place corresponded to the dominant model of male identity at the time: mature adult, husband, father, and member of the social elite. Gáspár Kornis offered a narrative which dwelt on the alleged powers and responsibilities of his predecessors as heads of the family while at the same time legitimizing his own role and place. His intention to create a family of descent can be interpreted as a symbolic gesture. In the glorious “ancestral gallery” of its predecessors, he depicts heroes who had worked to the last drop for their nation and family. Miklós Esterházy also used visual depictions of his living and deceased family members in accordance with his intention to found a dynasty when laying the foundations for a family portrait gallery.6

Over the course of four generations, generational memory as an oral tradition fades as its pass away.7 By offering a narrative of the grandfather’s family past dating back to the time of his great-grandfather, Kornis’s work brought to life a collective memory tradition, a community of memory, which became an essential element of family identity after his death.8 The first figure summoned in his work is the founder of the Transylvanian branch of the noble family of the same name from Abaúj County, who raised the family to the top ranks of the Transylvanian elite. In the narrative from the elder Gáspár to the younger Gáspár, from great-grandfather to great-grandson, the intention seems to have been to draw a parallel: much as his ancestor had done through good marriages and skillful policies, by crafting a narrative of the family history, the narrator is at the service of the Kornis house and will become a paragon to his successors.

The Glorious Ancestor

The history of the Kornis family in Transylvania began with a good marriage. The nobleman of Abaúj County, the elder Gáspár Kornis (c. 1546–1601), married Ilona, the only daughter of and heiress to Imre Dolhay, the greatest landowner of Máramaros County (Maramureş, Romania). The advantageous marriage, combined with Gáspár’s talent, resulted in a brilliant career. As a prestigious landowner in Partium (a region in the Hungarian Kingdom to the immediate west of Transylvania), Gáspár became the lord lieutenant of Máramaros County, the captain of Huszt (today Khust, Ukraine) Castle, and a member of the princely council. Four girls and one boy were born to the first marriage who survived to adulthood. Two sons were born to his marriage to Erzsébet Tholdi of Bihar, who was a daughter of an old landowner family in Partium. Gáspár then became one of the largest landowners of Transylvania with his third marriage to Anna Horváth of Zaránd, the widow of Ferenc Geszthy, general of Transylvania.

Gáspár the Elder is the first hero of the memoir of the great-grandson of the same given name. According to the memoir, he “did a lot of memorable things for his homeland.” The text highlights only two things from his career: one was that he was Captain of the castle of Huszt, and the other was that, because of his diplomatic efforts, King Rudolph sent General Giorgio Basta to help against Michael the Brave, who ruled Transylvania.9 The latter is not correct. Michael, the voivode of Wallachia, who occupied Transylvania, sent Gáspar to the king in August 1600,10 but although the legation immediately preceded the battle at Miriszló (Mirăslău, Romania) on September 18, it had no causal connection with it.11 By the erroneous logic of the “post hoc ergo propter hoc,” Gáspár (the author of the memoir) presents his great-grandfather to his descendants as an ideal patriot who fought for his nation.

The other written sources on the role of Gáspár as head of the family help explain why his great-grandson called him “of blessed memory.” He chose a new homeland, thus opening a new Transylvanian branch in the line of the Kornis family. He thus gained a foothold in the principality and, as a consequence of the gratitude shown by the Báthory princes for the services he performed, he elevated his descendants from the nobility of Abaúj county to the Transylvanian elite. He based his family’s wellbeing on a considerable stock of possessions which he acquired partly through his services and partly through his marriages. He carefully laid down the order of inheritance for his sons and daughters by taking care to preclude any subsequent family strife or litigation. Following the political attitude of their father, Gáspár’s sons also inherited his court network. The great-grandfather gave his children a Catholic education and denominational guidance. His descendants became the pillars of the Catholic Church in the principality.12 As a family head, he also proactively organized his sons’ marriage strategy. As a result of the three marriages, the family’s network of relatives and the size of the estates concentrated in the hands of the family members increased, both in Transylvania and in the Kingdom of Hungary.

Gáspár became a supporter of the Viennese court who cherished the dream of the restoration of a unified Kingdom of Hungary, though he later fell victim to this allegiance. The mercenaries of the Romanian voivode Michael killed the pro-Habsburg Gáspár. Gáspár had thought the survival of the Transylvanian branch to be assured.13 He had no idea that two of his sons’ marriages would be childless, nor could he have known that the offspring of the third son would grow up without their father.

The Martyr Grandfather

After the great-grandfather, Boldizsár (c. 1577–1610), the senior son from the second marriage of the elder Gáspár, plays an important role in the memoir. Boldizsár married Katalin Keresztúry in the summer of 1600. Katalin was the only daughter of Kristóf Keresztúry, princely councilor and Captain of Kővár. According to contemporary reports, her dowry came to an impressive total of one hundred thousand forints. She inherited the Szentbenedek (Mănăstirea, Romania) Castle in Belső-Szolnok County, a famous specimen of Transylvanian Renaissance architecture.14 Unfortunately, the correspondence between the spouses did not survive. Thus, the two letters that Boldizsár wrote to his mother-in-law, Ilona Kőrösy, widow of Kristóf Keresztúry, are especially valuable.

Ilona Kőrösy took control of the estates after the death of her husband in 1599. She was also responsible for finding a husband for her only daughter. Boldizsár’s first letter, dated January 22, 1600, provides information on the latter subject.15 The letter concerns the organization of the proposal, possibly the engagement, which may have been linked to two events.16 The marriage has already been agreed on between the two parties, as the prospective husband uses the term “my well-wisher lady, my beloved mother.” The terms “my lady mother, my lord father” were the terms usually used by a man at the time when he wanted to address his spouse’s parents.17 With this intimate form of address, Boldizsár referred to his future mother-in-law and to the planned family relationship, and using the formulae of the day, he wished her a happy, long life “with all those whom she wishes.” The latter, enigmatic reference may even refer to the betrothed girl, about whom, apart from this, there is not a single word in the letter. In keeping with contemporary social norms, the text is limited to the practical details of the proposal. As usual, the groom would have set off accompanied by noble gentlemen, but they were unable to arrive at the agreed time, Tuesday, due to the prevailing conditions because of the war, so he asked the widow to wait until Sunday evening, together with the relatives who had gathered.

Although in the early modern era, the genres of fiction provided the most ample room for the expression of emotions, in this strictly practical text we observe figures of rhetoric which suggest a whole range of heightened emotions on the part of the young man. Primarily, he expresses his concern that he does not fulfill the bride’s family’s expectations, so the widow, he fears, will prejudice the bride against him or possible prompt her to change her mind: “Maybe Your Grace could judge me, or could say me a shaky man.” In his request, addressed nominally to the bride’s mother but actually to the entire family, he expresses the desire to get to know of his future relatives: “I desire above everything the acquaintance of their graces.” He uses exaggeration to emphasize his wish: “it’s imperative to wait for us, your grace,” “above all I beg your grace.” He assures his future mother-in-law of his commitment to her: “Whatever I could do, believe your grace that I would be your grace’s willing servant.” Last but not least, he expresses his feelings for the bride with the following metaphor: “God knows I would fly, if I could, which I know your grace also would believe.”18

After the assassination of Boldizsár’s father, Boldizsár took over as the head of the family. Although he was not the oldest brother, he still managed to expand his power horizontally. In the patriarchal family, the principle of seniority prevailed, but just as the firstborn was not distinguished in the inheritance of property, the principle of equal inheritance was followed according to the law, so in the transfer of authority, it was not only age that mattered, but also suitability for the position of leadership.19 In the present case, the sources do not permit us to draw a nuanced picture of the power and emotional relations between the brothers, but the relationships among them were marked by both the ability to unite and rivalry and jealousy.20

In Transylvania, the period marked by the rule of general Basta (from the summer of 1602 to the autumn of 1604) were calm, prosperous years for Boldizsár Kornis and his family. The head of the family became one of the most prominent politicians of the principality. He became the general of the Transylvanian armies and the lord lieutenant of Belső-Szolnok county. The short storm of this sunny period came in the spring of 1603, when Mózes Székely launched an attack. Boldizsár had his family flee to the castle in Görgény, and he himself, as the general of the country, confronted the claimant to the throne at Basta’s side. The other letter to his mother-in-law, which was written at the time, survived in the archives of the Kornis family. In the letter, Boldizsár, who was away and involved in the campaign, informed his mother-in-law, whom he addresses as “my lady my mother in love,” of his health and the military movements. The main motive for writing the letter seems to have been his concern for the fate of the goods and belongings evacuated from Transylvania. He shared his fears with Ilona Kőrösy, the head of the women’s household that remained at home, that if their belongings were taken out of the Szatmár (Satu Mare, Romania) castle, which was full of German guards, they would fall prey to robbing armies. As a good owner, Boldizsár even writes about the importance of ventilation in the spring and cleaning the clothes stored in the chest: “The clothes are now all blown by the wind, we clean them and don them on Monday, no damage has been put them up yet.”21

During the Bocskai uprising (1604–1605), Boldizsár lived in exile in Prague, away from his family, as a political refugee. During his absence, he took care of his loved ones by assigning a reliable male supporter to his mother’s household in the person of Zsigmond Sarmasághy, a Catholic nobleman who was involved in family communication.22 The relationship between the widow and the friend reflects the dynamics of male-female cooperation. The good friend managed property matters, and he reassured the worried woman that the passing army had done little damage to the vineyard and that the crops had already been harvested. During his stay in Kolozsvár, he collected information about István Bocskai’s plans and the movement of the troops, and he reported on all this in detail.

From a decade of marriage between Boldizsár and Katalin, only the letters described above, addressed to Ilona Kőrösy (the mother-in-low), have survived. Unfortunately, we do not have direct data on the age of the wife, but we assume that, like aristocratic coevals, Katalin married at the age of 14 or 15, so she was young and inexperienced.23 Because of the burden of expecting and having children, it was not she but her mother who was at the top of the hierarchy in the home. Because of her age and her authority, Ilona Kőrösy was, presumably, the one who set the direction for the days, helping her son-in-law manage the home and the estate.

Although it was completely common for the aristocrat husbands in the early modern era to be at home relatively infrequently, as a head of the family, Boldizsár may have felt excluded when his wife had a child in the autumn of 1604 and he didn’t remain at home and couldn’t see the child.24 The existence of several children who survived to adulthood is indicated by the charter received from King Rudolph in 1606 in recognition of his services to the Holy Crown, his captivity, and his exile.25

After several months of absence, Boldizsár returned home to his family in the summer of 1606 with an amnesty granted in accordance with the treaty of Vienna. Giovanni Argenti, the Jesuit rector of Kolozsvár, who himself had been expelled from Transylvania, captured the scene of family reunification that took place in Nagybánya (today Baia Mare, Romania): the husband, wife and mother-in-law celebrated the reunion with holy communion.26 Once the fate of the family seemed to be consolidated, we have gaps in knowledge about the birth of three children. We know from a later source, the statement made by Katalin Keresztúry (Boldizsár’s widow) in 1612 in front of the Pozsony (today Bratislava, Slovakia) chapter, that Ferenc was born around 1607 and István was born in 1609.27 Boldizsár’s third child, Borbála, was born at the end of 1610, but by this time, Boldizsár had already been killed. In 1610, together with his half-brother György, he became involved in a conspiracy against Prince Gábor Báthory. During a raid in Szék (today Sic, Romania) on the night of March 24, the prince’s men killed György and wounded and captured Boldizsár, who was beheaded in Kolozsvár six months later, in early July, after having confessed under torture.28 The event came to be known as “the assassination in Szék.” As noted above, Boldizsár’s daughter Borbála was born after he had been executed. In a petition to King Matthias II in 1614, Katalin referred to her as a “filia posthuma.”29

Although the cause of the conflict between the prince and his Catholic councilors was primarily of a sectarian and political nature, it has been narrated in historical memory as the “conspiracy of cuckold husbands.”30 According to this story of jealousy, which spread later through the chronicles, on his way to the diet in Beszterce (today Bistriţa, Romania), the prince visited Boldizsár’s castle in Radnót (today Iernut, Romania), where Boldizsár’’s beautiful wife caught his eye. In the absence of direct evidence, unfortunately, it is not known how much truth there is in the story. Sources left by family members immediately after the events explain the conflict for political and confessional reasons.31

The story of the cuckolded husband appeared decades later in generational memory. The prominent figure in the memoir by the younger Gáspár Kornis is the grandfather, Boldizsár, around whom the author constructs a martyr’s story: the hero fights for his family and for his country, fails, and is killed. In telling the story of Boldizsár, the memoir remains quiet on the confessional and political causes of the conflict, explaining what happened to the husband as the consequence of his righteous commitment to protecting his family and himself. According to this interpretation, the person of the grandfather does not appear as a fallen, executed politician, but as a hero, a martyr who defended his family and country. Later, it is also clear from the text that the property which was confiscated from Boldizsár would be recovered by the Kornis family, which would continue to flourish through the Boldizsár’s descendants and preserve the glorious memory of its ancestor. On the other hand, Boldizsár’s opponents (the prince and his evil advisers) die as a consequence of divine justice. Their riches are scattered, and nothing is left of them apart from the memory of their treachery. The crime committed against the grandparents’ house and the family honor is characterized in the memoir as a grave sin against both divine and human law, and this characterization thus explains why the grandfather (Boldizsár) would have been justified in being part of a conspiracy against the prince and thus also preserve the reputation of the family.

With the death of Boldizsár, Katalin was left a pregnant widow with two little boys. Earlier, her mother, Ilona Kőrösy, had provided support during her son-in-law’s absence, but the situation had changed. Katalin had to take care of her old, sick mother, and she became the head of the family. The burden on Katalin was exacerbated by other circumstances: her husband’s execution involved the confiscation of properties, and Katalin’s own estates were also confiscated. This meant a complete economic collapse. The family had to flee Transylvania. Katalin’s brother-in-law, Zsigmond, who fortunately had not been present when the raid had been held in Szék, also fled to Hungary with his wife, Ilona Pálffy, on hearing the bad news.

The “Seedless” Uncle

The memoir of the younger Gárpár Kornis makes some mention of Zsigmond, Boldizsár’s younger brother. Zsigmond fled to Hungary after the assassination in Szék. Then, after Gábor Bethlen ascended to the throne in Transylvania, Zsigmond returned, as he had been granted an amnesty. The memoir mentions the “many glorious duties” Zsigmond fulfilled for his “sweet homeland,” for which he received, exceptionally, esteem and rewards from the princes, Gábor Bethlen and György I Rákóczi. He recovered the Kornis estates and acquired other properties. The memoir highlights Zsigmond’s important family role. As a “seedless man,” he left all his goods to his nephew, Ferenc, Boldizsár’s son.32 Zsigmond is the first figure of whom the narrator had personal memories and who could preserve and pass on the family tradition.

The Transylvanian branch of the Kornis family survived through the descendants of Boldizsár. There were no children from the marriages of his brothers. Zsigmond’s wife, Ilona Pálffy de Erdőd,33 struggled with a chronic disease, epilepsy, which prevented her from living the usual life of an aristocrat woman.34 She presumably spent most of her time in the castle in Papmező (today Câmpani de Pomezeu, Romania). The sources contain very little data concerning her life. Some letters to Zsigmond mention her: “I offer my services to my aunt.”35 When her husband mentions her in his letters, he almost always writes of her illness: “I would be as I would be, but my poor wife is still in that condition.”36 Although we do not have data indicating that she was ever expecting or gave birth to a child, she may have faced additional difficulties carrying a pregnancy due to her illness.

The head of the family was responsible for the posterity of the family name, so it is not surprising that Zsigmond struggled with the thought of his childless marriage.37 According to the traditional view, disease was a punishment from God. Zsigmond also regarded their situation as a punishment, and he referred to his wife’s condition as a “cross” and “God’s grave whip.”38 In his letters, he suggests that he viewed himself as the sinner on whom punishment was being visited, and he expresses a sense of guilt: “It is above all bitter that I have sinned and my beloved wife is whipped instead of me.”39 A passage from another letter suggests that he identified emotionally with his wife, who was experiencing mental and physical pain, a suffering he described as “so bitter that it surpassed death in many ways.”40

Pregnancy, especially in the first months, may increase the risk of epileptic seizures. Pregnancies, naturally associated with marriage, may have exacerbated the wife’s condition and increased the husband’s sense of guilt. Zsigmond nourished his hopes of having an heir for a long time. After caring for Ilona conscientiously and devotedly for four decades, he became a widower at the age of 57 and then considered his chances of remarriage. At the time, he no longer believed he had much chance of having offspring, but he was still tempted by an image of a caring wife who would tend to the tasks of his everyday life.41 Finally, he gave up the intention to remarry and devoted his attention to his brother’s orphaned children.

The strengthening of the relationship between the uncle and the nephews and niece naturally followed from the Zsigmond’s “seedlessness” and the fact that Boldizsár’s children were left half-orphans. The role of surrogate father strengthened the uncle’s place as head of the family, and his role as guardian promised additional financial benefits. In the summer of 1613, when he was still in exile in Hungary, he took responsibility for Boldizsár’s family and seized the right to control them and their properties. In the spring of 1614, after Prince Gábor Bethlen, hoping for political gain by winning the sympathies of the pro-Habsburg Catholic lord, had recalled Zsigmond to Transylvania, Zsigmond wrote a letter to the Transylvanian parliament in which he asked for the settlement of the situation of “my poor little uneducated, orphaned cousins, children of my poor lord, Boldizsár Kornis.”42

After the parliament abolished the proscription against the exiles, Zsigmond settled with his wife, his sister-in-law, and the three half-orphaned children on what had been Boldizsár’s estate in Radnót. The ambivalent relationship between the widow and her brother-in-law was reflected in the fact that the castle and estate in Radnót (the property of Boldizsár which had been confiscated) was acquired by Zsigmond not for Boldizsár’s children but for himself. Zsigmond did not completely exclude the widow and children, but in the absence of any legal foundation for a claim, Katalin could live “only thanks to the good will of Zsigmond, without any foundations.” 43 A conflict of interest developed between the two of them. Zsigmond sought to reclaim and unite all the confiscated Kornis estates in his hands, including the former possessions of his two dead brothers. He thus placed Boldizsár’s relatives in a vulnerable, dependent position. Between 1613 and 1616, there was a conflict between two families living under one roof, the widow and her brother-in-law.44 The widow, Katalin, submitted a claim to the Viennese court for funds for the maintenance of her children and the education of her two sons. She noted that she had “not a slip of land” in Transylvania. In her applications for assistance, she used the rhetoric one would expect of a widow. She emphasized her vulnerable position and the political loyalty her family had always shown: “Humillima orphana et perpetua Servitrix, Catharina Kereszthury Magnifici quondam Balthasaris Kornyss relicta vidua.”45

During these years, Zsigmond’s position in the principality was also precarious. In 1616, as a result of a temporary loss of favor, he lost Radnót. Prince Gábor Bethlen donated the castle to Chancellor Simon Péchy.46 The chancellor first offered money to the widow, who was a part-owner in Radnót, but Katalin, referring to her children, demanded not money but property in exchange for a share of Radnót.47 The following spring, she was given Szentbenedek, which had been confiscated, as well as several other of her husband’s confiscated properties, and she left Radnót with her children. In the meantime, her sons had already grown up. They had to be sent to a higher-level school, which meant financial hardship for the family.48

The tension between the widow and her brother-in-law was resolved by developing a new family strategy. As a result of the decision, which was presumably had been in the making for years, both parties were forced to make concessions in order to regain the economic and social influence and status of the Kornis house. Katalin Keresztúry did not remarry, leaving all the property she had inherited from her parents to her children. When her daughter turned eight years old, Katalin sent her to the Clarisses in Pozsony. Thus, Borbála did not have to be married, and her inheritance did not fall into the hands of a different family. Katalin also confirmed the children’s right to inherit by will, according to which all maternal property is divided into three parts, but if Borbála were to make an eternal vow of virginity at the age of fifteen, half of her inheritance would be given to the cloister and the other half to her brothers. Katalin Keresztúry also entered the convent, thus solving the problem of providing support for herself. To avoid further fragmentation of the estate, one of the boys was also assigned to pursue a career in the church after having completed his studies.49

The cloister helped Katalin remedy more than her financial problems, nor can one ignore spiritual motivations. Relatives who choose the church vocation, according to the Catholic conception, became “advocates” of family members before God, and they regularly prayed for the forgiveness of sins and for the spiritual salvation of their living or deceased relatives.50 Last but not least, within the walls of the distant cloister, along with her daughter, Katalin found peace of mind, as she was able to flee the rumors concerning her alleged disgraceful acts and the alleged illegitimate origins of her daughter.

According to the family strategy, the other important decision had to be made by Zsigmond, who had less and less hope of having children as long as he was at his ill wife’s side, so Boldizsár’s children were the only hope for the continuation of the Transylvanian branch of the Kornis family. However, it took Zsigmond a long time to come to regard his brother’s children not as rivals but as his own heirs. The bargain between the widow and her brother-in-law took place sometime between 1618 and 1624. In 1618, Katalin still regarded her brother-in-law as the usurper of her children’s paternal inheritance, so in her will, she prohibited him from looting them any further.51 In 1624, before she went to the cloister, she wrote another will according to which she made Zsigmond the “curator” and “defender” of the estates, alongside Prince Gábor Bethlen and Governor István Bethlen.52

In 1638, one year after the death of his wife, Zsigmond began writing his will, in which he named Boldizsár’s eldest son, Ferenc, as his main heir. Twenty years brought about a lot of changes in the relationship between the uncle and the half-orphans. Over the course of his long life, Zsigmond was able to follow the fates of his nephews and niece for a long time, so we can monitor changes in their relationships. Zsigmond supported Ferenc’s and István’s education at the Jesuit Academy of Nagyszombat (today Trnava, Slovakia), where they enrolled in 1618, and he also supported their studies at the Jesuit Academy of Vienna, where they enrolled in 1621.53 He made sure that they would come to the attention of important figures in the princely court, and various rites and ceremonies offered occasions for him to ensure that his nephews would begin to develop contacts in a social space that would be the backdrop of their later lives as adults. The two boys played an important role in the funeral of Princess Zsuzsanna Károlyi. Ferenc and István delivered an oration and elegy Latin in St. Michael’s Church in Gyulafehérvár (today Alba Iulia, Romania), next to the castrum doloris. Their participation as adolescents constituted a significant public appearance and also carried an important message: as a manner of Baroque theatricality, it reminded the participants of the princess’s deceased children, who would have been about the same age as the performers had they survived.54

The exchange of letters between Zsigmond and Borbála, Ferenc, and István was one of the most important means of communication. This is especially true for a nun living within the walls of a distant cloister in Pozsony. Borbála Konstancia (a name she acquired after becoming a nun) regularly corresponded with her brother, Ferenc, and her uncle, Zsigmond. After the death of her mother in 1629, the practice of sending letters remained her only link to her family.55 The letters replaced the experience of visiting one another, as indicated in one of her letters: “My Gracious Patron Lord and my sweet father […] I did not want to pass up the good opportunity to visit Your Greatness through this little humble writing of mine.”56 The letter writer’s own condition and the recipient’s health were constant elements of the letters. As was typical of letters written by members of the Church, Sister Konstancia’s letters began with an invocation (“Jesus Mary St. Clare”), and they also contained an indispensable intercessory prayer for family members. In an emotional letter written to her uncle just before his death, Borbála wrote the following: “I offer my poor humble divine prayer to Your Greatness as my Gracious Patron Lord, my Sweet Father. I wish from my pure heart to Your Greatness that God give you all blessed goods, good health, long life.” Her words reflect concern for the health of the elderly family member: “I have heard these days of the sickness of Your Greatness, which was not a small sorrow for me, therefore I prayed to my God to console your Greatness.” On the other hand, when talking about her own condition of health, illness, and near-death, she remarks almost indifferently, “I do not think I shall live long.” She refers to her uncle as her “patron” and her “father,” and she does professes affection for him: “I have no greater joy in the world than when I hear of Your Greatness being healthy and I take your kind letters from Your Greatness.” Unfortunately, Zsigmond’s letter to Borbála did not survive. In his will, he addressed her as “my poor nun sister, Madam Borbála Kornis.” He left her a hundred gold coins and three hundred forints and let the nuns pray for him in the cloister.57

We have only indirect data on the relationship between Zsigmond and his nephew, István, who was a Jesuit priest. Zsigmond was the chief patron of the Transylvanian Catholic Church, but if the stakes were to ensure succession and preserve the social status of the family, he quite certainly did not hesitate to subordinate the interests of the Church to the interests of the family. After the death of his wife Ilona, he tried to get his nephew out of the order, albeit unsuccessfully.58 In his will, he recalled his nephew: “I want to commemorate in this testament my beloved brother and both my carnal and spiritual kinsman, who, though the Lord God has chosen for himself and is anointed with priestly dignity, yet I want His Grace to benefit from the few goods that the Lord God has entrusted to me in this mundane existence. ” He left an estate for his nephew to support the Jesuit college in Szatmár.59 However, the young priest died sooner than his elderly patron. In 1642, Zsigmond hurried István’s sickbed. As he wrote in one of his letters, he hoped “before [my nephew] dies, [to] say a few words to the poor man, even if he is a priest, yet my kinsman.”60 István died less than a month later, and Zsigmond, unable to fulfill his promise in his will, made a donation to the Jesuits of Szatmár the following year. He stipulated that they be given a hundred forints a year, a hundred cubes of wheat, and a hundred cubes of wine.61

Undoubtedly, Zsigmond had the most personal, direct contact with Ferenc, who was a layman. After the death of his wife, Zsigmond declared in his testament that he considered his nephew to be his successor, heir, and the future head of the Kornis family. The will asks for God’s blessing on Ferenc’s life so that he may be of service to God, the Holy Catholic Church, and his sweet homeland. Zsigmond also prayed for the descendants of Ferenc and the survival of the Kornis house.

Zsigmond repeatedly reflected on his role as patron and head of the family. In his will, as if holding a mirror in front of himself, he apologized to his nephew, which as a kind of trope was a typical feature of the genre, and he admitted that for various reasons and shortcomings, he had been unable to help him as he would have liked, even though Ferenc’s love for him and his good behavior had deserved more reciprocity. For all this, however, he gave him ample compensation by making his nephew the heir of all his possessions.62 There are many examples of shows of care and love in the will. The function of testamentary writing was “the duty of love for those surviving” an emotional practice, and it addressed the need to ensure care for offspring. Zsigmond’s use of expressions for members of the family, to whom he referred as “my sweet cognates, the beloved who survive me,” also suggest that he had embraced the role of a kind of substitute father. He asks Prince György I Rákóczi and Princess Zsuzsanna Lorántffy to “defend and protect” his heir. The request has an extremely humble style: “very humbly begging for Your Majesty.” Zsigmond seeks to win the prince’s support by sharing his fears and worries about his nephew. He uses diminutive words about Ferenc: “my poor orphan and my very helpless brother,” although his nephew was an adult, a married man, and the lord lieutenant of Kolozs County. Zsigmond writes about Ferenc as if he were his son. As the son replaces the father after his death, so will Ferenc replace Zsigmond in the service of the prince: “Do not leave Ferenc Kornis, Your Majesty, whom I relinquish to Your Majesty instead of me.”

Zsigmond’s embrace of the role of the father and the willingness of the other members of the family to welcome him in this role can also be observed in the daily correspondence of the family members. Discussions of one another’s health constituted an indispensable part of the letters. Ferenc worried about Zsigmond’s health, and Zsigmond often worried about Ferenc’s health. Although he did not call Ferenc his son, Zsigmond did refer to Ferenc’s wife as his daughter-in-law, thus indicating that he either felt he was in or sought to suggest he was in an emotionally intimate relationship with his nephew’s wife, Katalin Wesselényi.63 Katalin, for her part, called her elderly relative “my father,”64 and she regularly inquired about his health. During visits, he often enjoyed Kata’s “housekeeping” and his hunting trips with Ferenc. The time they spent together also provided an opportunity for Zsigmond to develop a “grandfather” relationship with Ferenc’s children. He called the younger children “The Lady Her Grace’s cseléd,” a somewhat literary term for servant. He thus suggested that, at that age, the children were still attached primarily to their mother. Zsigmond also used their nicknames to refer to them (Boris, Kata, and Gazsi), which would also have been understood as an expression of affection. He referred to his nephew’s only son as the “little Gáspár hussar,”65 perhaps because he often let the little boy ride on his knees as if he were riding a horse.

Over time, he gradually went from being a caring head of the family to an increasingly old and sick person who needed the help and care of his nephew. The communication between the two of them also changed in light of this, with more and more talk about Zsigmond’s illness. For instance, in a letter written on May 6, 1642, he wrote of his own impending death:

I was so sick that I thought I was about to die, and I still wouldn’t mind if Your Grace were closer to me and your health were good, because I need Your Grace to take good care of me now, sweet brother, because it seems that I will soon embark on that very long journey, from whom the Lord God will protect Your Grace for a long time, Amen.66

 

Zsigmond Kornis died on November 6, 1648 in Radnót after long illness at the age of 70. In accordance with his will, he was buried next to his wife in the chapel of the castle in Papmező. After long preparations, his successor, Ferenc, who was raised by him like his own child, arranged the last rites for his uncle with great splendor. In the invitation to Zsigmond’s funeral, he referred to the deceased as “pater secundus,” i.e. as his second father.67

Summary

In this essay, I offered a case study of the male roles in a family network among the nobility in the early modern era, drawing on the example of the Kornis family. The head of the family, as the dominant and representative member of the family, had complex competences. As the head of the nuclear family, it was his duty to provide prestige, financial security, legal representation, confessional guidance, protection, and care for his wife and his children. Furthermore, it was his main, Christian duty to be a loving husband and a caring father.

As the head of the extended family, in addition providing legal-economic representation, he increased and maintained the prestige, wealth, and property of the family. All this could be achieved through skillful policies and advantageous marriages, so as a successfull head of a family, he built and transmitted an extensive network of kinship relations which helped further the social integration of his offspring and gave them the opportunity to choose appropriate spouses. Family peace and agreement was served by determining the order of inheritance. The rivalry between the brothers and the struggle for control of the dynasty weakened the members of the family, individually and collectively, so the family members sought compromise and cooperation as soon as possible.

The strength of the family as a community can be measured mostly in its responses to crisis situations. In these cases, the responsibility of the head of the family to develop a crisis strategy and effectively represent and enforce group interests increases. Therefore, the loss of the head of the family itself creates a particularly serious situation. In this case, the trauma and mourning had to be left behind, as the vacant position had to be filled in order for the family to survive. With the loss of the head of the family, widows were able to perform the duties of the head of the family within the patriarchal framework to a limited extent, sometimes through an accompanying male helper. Widows were compelled to rely primarily on members of their own birth families against the male relatives of their deceased husbands, and in the absence of help, they easily found themselves in a vulnerable, submissive position against their brothers-in-law.

Among the numerous critical periods in the history of the Kornis family of Göncruszka, the two most serious periods followed the loss of the two heads of the family, first Gáspár and, a decade later, Boldizsár. Both events plunged the family into existential insecurity: voluntary or legal exile, loss of property, followed by family fragmentation. In these crisis situations, the cohesive power of the Kornis house was shown. After the murder of Gáspár, his middle son, Boldizsár, and, after Boldizsár’s execution, Boldizsár’s younger brother, Zsigmond, took the baton. Initially, a conflict of interest arose between Boldizsár’s widow and Zsigmond over the right to supervise the orphans and their property. This conflict was later resolved by a compromise which benefited both parties. Zsigmond, who initially reclaimed the confiscated estates of his brothers, eventually made one of his nephews the heir to all his possessions. He was thereby able to play the roles of father and grandfather, which legitimized his position as the head of the family and which he would not otherwise have had as roles, due to the infertility of his marriage.

The career, destiny, and ability of a given family member sometimes helped the family’s strategy and sometimes worked against it.68 In the Kornis family, we see examples of both. The talent and good marriages of the heads of families played an important role in the rise of the family and its survival among the Transylvanian elite. At the same time, Boldizsár’s early death and György’s and Zsigmond’s childless marriages endangered the family’s survival. The Transylvanian branch of the Kornis family of Göncruszka was characterized by demographic weakness for three generations. Boldizsár had only one son, Ferenc, who remained a layman, and Ferenc’s only son to reach adulthood was the memoir-writer, Gáspár.

At the end of the seventeenth century, the younger Gáspár Kornis played the role of the head of the family with the act of writing memoirs. He characterized his ancestors as husbands and fathers who suffered as martyrs for the honor of their families and as patriots who worked for their nation to the last drop of their blood. The traumas suffered by the heads of the families because of their political views and their religion (traumas including attacks, assassinations, murders, exile, and execution) became the foundations of a collective identity. Faith, fidelity, suffering, and martyrdom became cultic threads of the family legend, enshrined as a tradition in the narrative of the memoir.

Archival Sources

Archivele Naţionale ale Românei, Direcţia Judeţeana Cluj [National Archives of Romania, Cluj County Directorate] (ANR-DJC)

Colecţia generală [Collection General]

Fondul familial Kornis [Kornis Family Fond]

Colecţia Sándor Mike [Sándor Mike Collection]

Colecţia József Kemény [József Kemény Collection]

Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [National Archives of Hungary] (MNL OL), Budapest

A 57 Magyar kancelláriai levéltár [Hungarian Chancellery Archives]. Libri Regii

E 147 A Magyar Kamara Archívuma [Archives of the Hungarian Chamber]. Acta radicalia

E 249 Magyar kincstári levéltárak. Szepesi kamarai levéltár [Hungarian treasury archives. Szepes (Spiš) Chamber Archives]. Benigna mandata

F1 Erdélyi kormányhatósági levéltárak. A gyulafehérvári káptalan országos levéltára [Transylvanian national government archives. National archives of the Gyulafehérvár chapter]. Libri Regii

F 12 Erdélyi kormányhatósági levéltárak. A gyulafehérvári káptalan országos levéltára [Transylvanian national government archives. National archives of the Gyulafehérvár chapter]. Lymbus

P 707 Magánlevéltárak. Családi fondok. A Zichy család zsélyi levéltára [Private archives. Family fonds. Archive of the Zichy family at Zsély]

P 1314 Magánlevéltárak. Családi fondok. A Batthyány család körmendi levéltára [Private archives. Family fonds. Archive of the Batthyány family at Körmend]. Missiles

R 210 Tunyogi József gyűjteményének maradéka [Remains of the collection of József Tunyogi]

X 903 Másolatok gyűjteménye. Külföldön őrzött magyar vonatkozású levéltári anyagok nyilvántartása [Collection of copies. Register of Hungarian-related archival materials kept abroad]. Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Wien. Finanz- und Hofkammerarchiv. Hoffinanz Ungarn Akten

Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Könyvtár Kézirattára [Manuscript Collection of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences] (MTA KK), Budapest

Ms 425 Veress Endre-gyűjtemény. A göncruszkai gróf Kornis család oklevéltára I–VI. [Endre Veress Collection. The collection of diplomas of the Count Kornis family of Göncruszka, vols. I–VI]

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* In my pursuit of the research on which this article is based, I enjoyed the support of the Bolyai Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Momentum “Integrating Families” Research Group.

Bor Forced Labor Service as Reflected in Diaries

Tamás Csapody
Semmelweis University
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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 9 Issue 3  (2020): 391-407 DOI: 10.38145/2020.3.391

Military forced labor service was introduced in Hungary during World War II. Men who were unreliable from the aspects of origin, religion, nationality or politics were conscripted for forced labor. Initially, forced laborers constructed primarily military objects on the home front, while later they were also dispatched to the battlefield. They had no weapons or uniforms, their provisions were poor and often they had to do building or mine clearing in the most dangerous areas. Hungary sent a total of approximately 6,000 forced laborers to work in the southern operational territories in 1943 and 1944. They had to undertake forced labor in the mining district of Bor in Yugoslavia, which was under German occupation. The majority were Jews, but there were also Jehovah’s Witnesses, Reform Adventists and Nazarenes. They lived under Hungarian military supervision and worked under German management. The locations of forced labor, the durations of time spent in the mining district, the experienced sufferings, etc. were very different. The forced laborers themselves were also different, for example with regard to their origins, occupations, and age. Several Jewish forced laborers wrote diaries and some of them managed to take those home. Later diaries written in Bor had a particular fate. Some were lost for a time or have remained in fragments, while others with important additions were deposited in archives or taken abroad by the diarists. All the diaries analyzed in the study testify to the survival of their writers. However, they mostly bear witness to the everyday life of forced labor service in Bor (otherwise difficult to learn about) and the behavior of those who held them, as well as the forced laborers’ sufferings, faith and hope. At the same time, they speak about the entirety of forced labor in Bor alongside its personal stories. The diaries are ego-documents, yet also historical sources. Their factual descriptions and subjective approaches augment our knowledge gained in the past. The six diaries written in Bor and analyzed in this study are personal confessions with significant source value.

Keywords: World War II, forced labor, Jews, diaries, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bor, Holocaust, ego-documents

Diaries written in Bor occupy a special place in the history of the Bor forced labor service. They were written during World War II, but they cannot be classified as typical war diaries. True, they were not written in the hell of war, during a retreat or on the home front. Yet they were still penned under conditions of war, confined between fronts, in theaters of military operations, far from the Hungarian border, in a foreign land, and often also under infernal circumstances. Although those who wrote the Bor diaries in forced labor service were subordinated to the Hungarian and German military, their diaries cannot be regarded as soldiers’ diaries or work diaries, even though they contain descriptions of places of work.

It was not prisoners treated as prisoners of war but forced laborers in captivity who wrote the diaries in secret. Although most of the diaries contain descriptions of journeys and the texts also record forced and frequent changes of place, they naturally cannot be called travel diaries. Though the fear of destruction appears repeatedly in the descriptions, since the shadow of death was present in the diarists’ lives due to accidents at work, illnesses, beatings, murders, and executions, they cannot be regarded as camp diaries written in concentration or extermination camps. In truth, we can say that they were written by victims of the Holocaust in forced labor camps.1 They simultaneously represent letter, camp, prisoner, and travel diaries. The Bor diaries found during my research are ego-documents written by Jewish forced laborers, more or less regularly and chronologically recorded, which are fragmented and which contain personal notes.2

The Known Bor Diaries

At present, we have knowledge of six diaries that were written at least partly in Bor.3 Of the six, only four can be appropriately described, since two have survived only in fragments. Those two have more content missing than what exists (László Faludi) or what can be accessed at present (György Szöllösi). The content that is known of them deserves far more than just a mention, yet it is clearly insufficient to allow a comparison with the four that can be read in their entirety (the diaries of György Laufer, Imre Pártos, Béla Somló, and Lajos György).

The diaries cover durations of varying lengths. Information about the call-up for forced labor service in Bor is the earliest initial point of time (May 31, 1943), while arrival at the authors’ place of birth in Hungary and accounts of subsequent experiences mark the latest (April 3, 1945). However, the diaries were written over very different time spans between the two time limits. Time frames are defined essentially by “external” circumstances, such as who was called up for forced labor service in Bor, when (1943 or 1944), and which group (the first or second “stage”) the person left Bor as part of. “Internal,” subjective differences also played a role in terms of from when and until when the diaries were written. Differences defined as “internal” and “external” were naturally closely connected, since, for example, the forced marches and mass murders which were common during the first stage made it impossible to record the events. This was very different from the situation of those who were dispatched from Bor in the second stage and had plenty of opportunity to write diaries in the period following liberation after they arrived in Temesvár (Timişoara) or Szeged, which both represented freedom and calm for them.

Three of the Bor diaries are held in public collections, while I was able to study or was informed about the other three from contacts of former Bor forced laborers or their descendants. All of the diaries, except for one, are unpublished.

László Faludi’s Diary

One of the two diaries that cannot be studied in full was written by László Faludi.4 His hand-written diary is of unknown length.5 However, the existing numbered eight pages suggest that its length must have been some 100 pages. His notes written in a grey pen on lined pages are clearly legible.

László Faludi, whose permanent residence was in Budapest, was a forced laborer in Páhi. From there, his unit was ordered to Szeged and then to Bor. According to his diary, the steamer which transported them to Serbia was sailing between Titel and Belgrade along the Danube on July 14, 1943.6 They reached Belgrade at night, after having experienced a huge storm lasting an hour. The following day, they reached their destination, the port of Prahovo on the Serbian side of the Serbian-Romanian border along the Danube. The journey by rail to Zaječar and then to Bor took two days. The 3,000 forced laborers arrived in Bor on July 17. He was held captive in Bor in the camp called Berlin for exactly 14 months to the day, until September 17, 1944.

The accessible (presumably) one tenth of the diary suggests that he wrote about three major themes: the forced labor in Bor, the past labor movement and the communist future, and his personal life. Employing the diary genre, Faludi wrote an autobiographical memoir, which is not at all unusual in such literature. He used his diary as a memoir and as a result it has a retrospective character.

His diary is explicitly for posterity. It is addressed not only to those who might find his notes, but to “the future generation who will appreciate”7 his writing. Thus, for Faludi, writing a diary was an activity intended for a larger, anonymous readership rather than any specific individual or, at least according to the text, the author himself. It is a message for the youth of the future, written amidst the suffering of forced labor service. It is full of pathos and is ideological, almost with an overtone of propaganda.

Considering the proportions of the fragmented diary, the largest section is a description of the past labor movement. The text clearly shows that Faludi came from the organized labor movement, in which he was socialized, started to read literature, and found his best friend. He defined himself as a skilled worker in a cotton mill and a proletarian who “struggled against the infringements of capitalism” and engaged in anti-war propaganda both inside and outside the mill. He believed in “the matter of liberty, equality, brotherhood, peace, work, and bread,” and his soul “was united with the souls of other proletarians.” “Socialist poets” became his “soul mates” in the movement, and he mentions Endre Ady, Attila József, and Sándor Petőfi by name. Influenced by their writings, he himself began writing poems and short stories. His younger brother became his colleague in the movement, and Faludi refers to him as always being the “best comrade and brother.”8 Faludi also recounted two experiences of key importance connected to the labor movement: reading something9 and May 1, 1938.

Faludi was sent back from Bor in the first group, and he must have escaped somewhere on the way while still in the Serbian mountains. He joined Tito’s partisans.10

Nothing more could be found about László Faludi in Hungarian archives, and only tiny bits of information were accessible in online data bases. His brief letters were usually published in the letters section of dailies and weeklies. They suggest that he remained on the left and maintained his critical attitude and sensitivities in terms of public life and his positive vision of the future.11

György Szöllösi’s Diary

The author of the other Bor diary that cannot be read in full is György Szöllösi.12 His hand-written diary exists in full, yet it cannot be accessed at present. Neither the few pages at my disposal nor the diary extract sent by György Szöllösi’s son13 provide sufficient information to analyze the diary.14 However, Szöllösi’s life and, within it, the period of forced labor service in Bor can be reconstructed on the basis of a video interview recorded by the USC Shoah Foundation Visual History15 and his testimony in one of the trials held by the people’s tribunal.16 Although it is impossible to get closer to the notes in the Bor diary, we still learn that Szöllösi was taken to the Bregenz subcamp in the spring of 1944. In the one and a half months he spent there, he experienced instances of “tying” (being hung from his hands after they had been tied together behind his back) ordered by the military detachment, and he witnessed the mutilation of two of his fellow laborers following their unsuccessful attempt to escape. Later, Szöllösi was ordered to work in the mines from a railway construction, and thus he ended up in the Straflager (punishment camp) in Bor. Here, he did not live under the supervision of the Hungarian military but rather of German soldiers. Since he did not get there as a form of punishment, he was far better off than he had been in the Bregenz subcamp. In the end, he was sent home as part of the second group.

Tito’s partisans liberated him on September 30, 1944. Like many of his fellow forced laborers, he first went to Temesvár and then to Budapest, which had been liberated in the meantime. (Subsequently, he probably wrote his diary from spring 1943 to the beginning of 1945.) Following his return home, he became an assistant police inspector in Sopron in the summer of 1945. After spending a short time in Germany and France, he left for the United States in May 1947. He settled in Chicago, changed his name to George Brent, and became a businessman.

György Laufer’s Diary17

At present there are four Bor diaries which can be accessed in full. The first note in György Laufer’s18 36-page hand-written diary, which is now part of a public collection,19 was written more than two and a half months after his arrival in Bor on October 5, 1943. His last note was recorded ten days before the first group left Bor on September 7, 1944. So the diary starts “too late” and finishes “too early,” including a duration of almost 11 months to the day: a large proportion of the nearly 14 months he spent as a forced laborer in Bor. With regard to its total length and the number of entries, the diary can be described as “brief.” Laufer wrote his diary continuously, but not daily. The longest gap, which lasted nearly two months, occurred between January and March, 1944. It was presumably cause by an illness which lasted for five weeks. Like László Faludi, Laufer was in the Berlin camp, and he also worked in the limestone quarry in the village of Krivelj to the north, as well as in Bor, but in Bor, he worked as a photographer.

His diary touches on the series of changes which occurred in the life of the Berlin camp beginning in early 1944. When the new chief commander of the camp, lieutenant colonel Ede Marányi,20 arrived in this period, the life of forced laborers changed dramatically. As Laufer noted in his diary, prisoners were treated more and more strictly. Individual and group “tying” took place regularly and frequently, and as a result, more and more people tried to escape. From his notes, it is possible to reconstruct precisely to the day the time when 15 “lads” fled on March 27, 1944. More people were able to flee within a few days. Of those who tried to escape, 10 were captured the same week. Ede Marányi had two of them executed on Sunday, April 2, 1944. In his diary, Laufer reported the death of a “Jehovah’s Witness” escapee (April 11, 1944). Although he does not mention names, the dates of the deaths agree with the data in the official records of military graves.21 However, the attempts to escape were motivated not only by the increasingly common practice of “tying,” but also by other forms of abuse. Laufer noted that from the beginning of April 1944, prisoners were only allowed to receive letters from their parents or wives, but not from girlfriends.

György Laufer identifies August 29, 1944 as “the most exciting and eventful” day of the time he spent in Bor. This was because, as he writes, “we were called upon to be ready to march because we could expect the order to set off at any moment.”22 The following days were spent waiting, although Laufer had only recently ended up in Bor as a photographer. A one-line note in his diary was made at 4:50 a.m. on September 7, 1944 saying, “Alert! My God be with me.”23 However, the alert was not followed by marching orders at that time. He had to wait another ten days, though there is no record of this in his diary.

The diary comes to an end here, but Laufer’s story in Bor, of course, continued. He was dispatched from Bor in the first phase. He did not write his diary during the marches. He was shot in the head in Cservenka (Crvenka/Tscherwenka) in western Bačka or its vicinity, but shockingly, he survived, and after he had recovered, he returned to Budapest in April 1945.24 The effects of György Laufer’s severe head injury inflicted in the vicinity of Cservenka accompanied him throughout his life.

Little is known of the photographer György Laufer who finally settled down in Budapest and started a family after his years in Szeged. Taking the circumstances of the period into account, the fact that his name is included in the list of profiteers published in the Bulletin of the People’s Tribunals in its issue of March 1946 does not tell us anything about him.25 He became an active member of the Bor group, and his name appeared in the documents of secret investigations in connection with the death of Miklós Radnóti (1967–1975).26

Imre Pártos’s Diary27

Law graduate Imre Pártos and economist Béla Somló belonged to the older generation among the Bor forced laborers. Pártos was 42 years old and Somló was 41 when they reached Bor in 1943. They were taken to Bor in the same group as the much younger György Szöllösi and Lajos György, who also wrote diaries. Pártos and Szöllösi presumably knew each other, since they were taken to the same subcamp.

From the day of joining his unit (June 5, 1944), Imre Pártos recorded something in his diary every day up to the last day of the year. He wrote entries in his diary for a total of 210 days, regardless of which Bor camp he was in or which way he had to take after liberation. He spent four months in Bor camps and two months wandering, marching, and fleeing between Bor and Szeged. He then spent two months in the liberated city of Szeged.

He generally summed up the events of a given day in three concise sentences. An obvious reason for being concise was that he wrote his diary in a small notebook (the only one among the Bor diaries) which offered him only a limited amount of space. Unlike the other diarists, he did not have to do physical work. From the very beginning to the very end, he was a clerk, and he was aware that this was a privilege. He was not held in contempt for being a legally qualified clerk, and if he had anything to fear, it was only the members of the detachment outside his unit. Enjoying the trust of both the detachment and his fellow forced laborers, he became president of the “welfare committee.”28 His estate29 includes an original document that indicates an income of 10,092 pengős and expenditures of 4,469 pengős. This suggests that a self-help social support system was organized with the approval of the camp commander in the Bregenz subcamp. However, Imre Pártos was able to take home both this unique document and a possibly complete list of names (497 in all) of those in the subcamp.

Pártos and the other forced laborers alongside him were liberated by the partisans from the second group setting off from Bor. This meant that he was finally freed from Bor, yet neither had the war come to an end nor was he no longer in danger. The story of his march with the partisans and his escape from the Germans is unusual but, thanks to his diary, we know it. Pártos did not advance in the direction of Arad or Temesvár, as one would have expected, but traveled instead to Szeged via Nagybecskerek (Zrenjanin). He arrived barely two weeks after Szeged was liberated. One day, he was still threatened by the horror of public work and “malenkij robot,” while the next day he was already working as a detective with the Szeged police. Although the diary provides information about the increasing workload at the police, it does not reveal details. It is also known only from a note which was written after he had stopped regularly writing in his diary that he was appointed as Szeged tribunal prosecutor on June 6, 1945. Pártos worked in both job in which he had both political and professional competencies for 16 months, until October 31, 1946, when he was relocated to Budapest.

The files of the people’s tribunal and the local press provide a fragmented picture of Imre Pártos’s work as a prosecutor. Newspapers in Szeged and its vicinity reported on some 35 people’s tribunals for which Pártos served as prosecutor.30 During the trials, he acted as prosecutor in cases in which charges were brought against particularly important war criminals and “anti-people” criminals, such as the commander of the former ghetto of Szeged, the former chief of police, the former Lord Lieutenant, the former deputy mayor, and the former guard commander of the Csillag Prison. In several cases, Pártos was the people’s prosecutor in the trials of military superiors of Jewish forced laborers. As a tribunal prosecutor he participated in at least two cases when the people’s tribunal passed sentence on former detachment members in Bor.31

After almost exactly two years spent in Szeged, he was appointed to the position of people’s prosecutor in Budapest (October 31, 1946) and deputy chief people’s prosecutor eight months later (June 6, 1947). This took place at a time when the Communist Party was seizing power. The people’s tribunals often played a role in this. Pártos represented the prosecution during certain phases of the trials of the Arrow Cross chief of press Mihály Kolosváry-Borcsa,32 minister from the Smallholders’ Party Endre Mistéth,33 and social democratic leader Károly Peyer.34

After the people’s tribunals ceased to function, the government appointed Pártos deputy chief state prosecutor (January 27, 1950).35 About five years later, the Presidential Council of the Hungarian People’s Republic awarded him the “Order of Merit for Socialist Labor” in “recognition of his excellent work in the Chief Prosecution Office.” At the time, Pártos was the prosecutor of the main department of the Chief Prosecution Office (December 24, 1954).36 Following the suppression of the 1956 revolution, he did not participate in the show trials.37 Pártos began his career as a solicitor before the war and retired as a legal counsel from the Budapest Contractors’ Company on December 31, 1966.

Béla Somló’s Diary

The author of the longest diary known among this admittedly small group was Dr. Béla Somló.38 The text, which exists in a typed transcript in a public collection, is several times longer than any other Bor diary.39 The manuscript is a typical example a work with a retrospective character which is not “intact,”40 since in the absence of the original hand-written diary, it cannot be established whether subsequent changes were made and what expectations the author wanted to comply with in relation to any potential changes. Béla Somló passed on to succeeding generations all of his diaries about marches into the regions of the southern borders of Hungary and to Ukraine in the same way.41 At that time, the anti-Jewish laws had not yet affected Somló, and he participated in the reinforcement of the occupying troops as a soldier of the Pécs mechanized division.

Somló’s diary written in Bor is a source of abundant information about the lives of forced laborers who were taken to the Rhön subcamp in the second group. After his fortunate liberation, he provides a uniquely rich description of the colorful life in Temesvár, a city which survived the war with relatively little damage and had already been liberated. It was an urban center in which Jews, Hungarians, Romanians, and Russians lived together.

The bulky file of surveillance documents kept by the State Security Authority reveals more about Béla Somló’s post-1945 life than any other source. Somló, who was not a party member, spoke several languages and liked music. He was kept under surveillance on suspicion of spying for six years between 1950 and 1956. The suspicion was unfounded, and his case was closed.42

Lajos György’s Diary43

The author of the sixth Bor diary which has survived in full44 is Lajos György. While I had to make inquiries about László Faludi and Béla Somló and about György Laufer’s authorship, the opposite was true in the case of György. Also, he was the only person among the Bor diarists with whom I was able to meet in person.45 His son, aesthetician Péter György, first mentioned the existence of the diary in a biographical essay published in the literary journal Alföld in 2010.46 A year later, in his essay-novel Apám helyett47 (Instead of my father), which met with considerable interest, the story of his father’s forced labor service in Bor and his Bor diary played essential roles in the first seven chapters.

Lajos György’s Bor diary can be divided into three distinct sections based on chronological and topographical aspects: Bor, liberation and wandering, and finally, being home in Budapest. Regarding its themes, it is a historical and a personal diary. The personal thread is intense in the sections written during his time in Bor and during the period he spent wandering and also in the notes made after he had returned home, although in the latter, the proportions are naturally turned around completely. The narrative changes from a war-time forced labor camp diary into a “travel diary” and a personal one. It is the diary of a year in the life of a young man who was 18 and then 19 years of age and who was taken to a forced labor service, compelling him to cross international borders, pass through theatres of military operations, and learn about the old and new systems from close-up, and yet György was barely able to separate from his parents. In addition, he was in love. So the text is also a diary documenting his turbulent emotional life over the course of a single year of his first love. Moreover, the diary has another important layer. The text is a document which sheds light on the ways in which his attitude towards the communist idea developed via practical trials. Thus, Lajos György’s diary can clearly be regarded as a diary of transformation, mobility, and the process of becoming an adult.

Lajos György wrote his diary between May 31, 1944 and April 3, 1945. The section on Bor embraces a shorter period, and it also contains entries written during and about the liberation and the events of the months after György had returned home. It begins when he was drafted to work as part of the forced labor service, and the diary contains entries kept over the course of a year, almost to the day. Over the course of this period of time, according to his entries, György slept in a total of 58 places, starting with Jászberény, the location specified in the summons he received, followed by the locations in Bor, and on the way home following liberation as far as to his residence in Budapest.

György’s diary contains drawings, which is not unusual in diary literature, though his is the only one among the Bor diaries that contains drawings. Tiny sketches in red ink are found in the margins and, in some instances, at the top of the pages. They are connected to the texts. György drew a castle, rails, mine carts, piles of bricks, a red star (with “Long Live Tito” underneath in Serbian), a hammer and sickle, a red cross, tanks, books, a watch (with the word “watch” in Russian underneath), a Christmas tree, and a traditional Hungarian Christmas cake.48 In the same red ink, he underlined titles, sub-titles, some dates, and words or names which he regarded as important, presumably when he reread the diary later.

Lajos György was placed in the Laznica camp, which was, relatively speaking, the best in Bor. It was the only subcamp of Bor that was situated inside a village and was not surrounded by a fence due to its location. It was the furthest Hungarian subcamp from Bor and it was not along the busier north-south main road. Last but not least, the commander of the camp, ensign Jenő Halász, had a comparatively humane attitude.49 Yet later, Lajos György encountered a member of the detachment named János Császár in the Berlin camp.50 The cruelty of this sergeant major had the same negative effect on him as it did on the other diarists. Later, like László Faludi, György Laufer, and György Szöllösi, Lajos György also participated in the people’s tribunal trial of János Császár.51

Summary

On the basis of the number of diaries which have survived, even if in some cases only in fragments, one has the impression that very few of the forced labor service men in Bor wrote diaries. Two of the authors of the surviving six diaries were taken to the Berlin camp with the 1943 group and spent 14 months in Bor. The others arrived a year later and were held captive in different subcamps in the mountains. The diaries clearly show how differently the diarists experienced their forced labor service, depending on their ages, qualifications, assignments, and the conditions in the camps. Nothing was previously known about how a forced laborer lived and thought during his time in Bor if he worked inside the camp, for instance in the kitchen, or he was a photographer or a clerk or if he had been in the organized labor movement. The Bor diaries provide us with a few impressions of the experiences of forced labor in theaters of military operations or under Hungarian and German control. Notes made in the present tense at the locations and the later transcripts make it possible to draw a more nuanced picture.

Another perspective from which the diaries may offer a more nuanced understanding of the experiences of people assigned to forced labor camp service involves the so-called “Jewish question” in the camp. As György Laufer writes in his diary (which is the only source known so far which touches on this), the Jewish forced laborers were marked with “the Mogen Dovid,” which was daubed in “oil paint” on their chests and their backs (Laufer writes about this in the entry from March 30, 1944).52 So from then on, the Hungarian Jewish forced laborers held as prisoners in the Berlin camp were compelled to wear the Star of David on their clothing until the liberation. Béla Somló dealt most with the situation of the Jews in the camp. He was preoccupied with the difference between the position of “whites” and “yellows” (the term “white” referred to people who were born Jewish but converted to the Christian faith. They were officially considered Jews). He often wrote about the distinction between “white” Jews and non-baptized “yellow” Jews. Thus the anti-Jewish laws carried weight in acts of discrimination even in Bor. Those with yellow armbands could not be cooks, nor could they work in the kitchen. Moreover, they could not be workers within the camp or be present in the office. They had to turn in their boots and wear the Star of David. Béla Somló, Imre Pártos, and Lajos György had white arm bands, as did the poet Miklós Radnóti and the philosopher Sándor Szalai, who were also taken to Bor.

With one exception, the Bor diaries did not end in Bor. They record the liberation and the experience of encountering the partisans and Russian soldiers. They also describe what the forced laborers experienced during their escape, on the way home, and at the locations where they stayed. After having survived Hungarian and German captivity, they were still exposed to threats from the partisans and the looming danger of falling into Russian captivity. The diaries show precisely how the war, its consequences, and the temporary situations affected them. Arrival home also presented them with losses, since they learned that many of their relatives had perished in the Holocaust. They had to rethink their lives, including their personal lives. In different ways, they participated in the emergence of a new world, including the rise of a different dictatorship, the complex circumstances of which they themselves struggled with later.53

Bibliography

Primary sources

Állambiztonsági Szolgálatok Történeti Levéltára [Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security] (ÁBTL)

Béla, Somló. 3.1.5. O–9054.

Budapest Főváros Levéltára [Budapest City Archives] (BFL)

Nb.206/1945. 160–161. Lajos György

Nb.3281/1945.80. András Tálas

XXV.1.a. 3757–1947, Károly Peyer

XXV.2.b. 13981–1945, Mihály Kolosváry-Borcsa

Holocaust Emlékközpont [Holocaust Memorial Center]

Károly, Koltai. 2011.360.1.

Honvédelmi Minisztérium Hadtörténeti Intézet és Múzezum [Ministry of Defence Military History Institute and Museum Military History Archives] (HM HIM HL)

PGy 2826. Béla, Somló. Diary. The participation of the Pécs motorised heavy vehicle division IV/2 in entering the region to the south of Hungary’s border in 1941 (1980)

PgyM/368 and M/368. Béla, Somló. Diary (Bor, 1 June 1944–Temesvár, 19 October 1944). Diary (Temesvár, 19 October 1944–Budapest, 27 February 1945).

TGy 2811. Béla, Somló. Diary. The participation of the column of the Pécs motorised vehicle division IV/2 in the rapid deployment force of the military campaign in Russia (1941).

Hadisír Nyilvántartó [Records of Military Graves], http://www.hadisir.hu/hadisir-nyilvantarto

Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Csongrád-Csanád Megyei Levéltára [National Archives of Hungary Csongrád and Csanád County Archives] (MNL CSML)

Szeged Nb.206/1945. Trial of cadet sergeant János Császár

Szeged, Nb.1106/1945. Lance corporal Mihály Palócz’s war crime

Szeged, Nb.1200/1945. Captain István Vida’s anti-people crime.

Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum [Hungarian National Museum] (MNM)

Legújabb Kori Iratgyűjtemény [Collection of Contemporary Documents]

83.242.1. Faludi, László. Diary of a Bor forced laborer

Történeti Fényképtár [Department of Historical Photographs]

78.386. Faludi, László. Three camp postcards

Magyar Zsidó Múzeum és Levéltár [Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives]

B/327 L2_E4_75. Laufer, György. Diary written during Bor forced labor service

Visual History Archive (VHA)

USC, Shoah Foundation, George Brent, interview 19753, 1996.

György, Lajos. Diary. 31 May 1944–1 April 1945. The original copy of the diary is with Lajos György’s widow, Otília Vass (Budapest), while the copy seen by me is in Péter György’s ownership.

Magyar Közlöny [Hungarian Official Gazette], 124.12.1954, no. 106, 754.

Magyar Közlöny [Hungarian Official Gazette], 16.02.1950, no. 28, 1.

Nemzeti Emlékezet Bizottsága [Committee of National Remembrance] (NEB)

Datebase. https://perek56.hu/ords/f?p=1051:1

Pártos, Imre. Diary. The original diary and Imre Pártos’s documents connected to his forced labor service in Bor are in the ownership of his daughter-in-law and granddaughter (Budapest).

Somló, Béla. Diary (Bor, 1 June 1944–Temesvár, 19 October 1944). Diary (Temesvár, 19 October 1944–Budapest, 27 February 1945). The originals are owned by Márta Koczka Sántháné (Debrecen).

Szöllösi, György. Diary. The original copy of the diary is owned by Dennis Brent (Dallas).

 

Secondary literature

Anonymous. “Itt a feketézők, valutázók, árdrágítók második hivatalos listája” [The second official list of black marketeers, illegal dealers in foreign currencies, and profiteers]. Világosság, March 3, 1946.

Csapody, Tamás. “Laufer György naplója” [György Laufer’s diary]. Múltunk 64, no. 1 (2019): 184–224.

Csapody, Tamás. “A naplóíró Somló Béla” [The diary writer is Béla Somló]. FONS 24, no. 3 (2019): 339–402.

Gyáni, Gábor. “A napló mint társadalomtörténeti forrás: A közhivatalnok identitása” [The diary as a social history source: The identity of a public servant]. In Gyáni, Gábor, Emlékezés, emlékezet és a történelem elbeszélése [Remembrance, memory and the narration of history], 145–60. Budapest: Napvilág Press, 2000.

György, Péter. “Az amnézia-terápia: A Kádár-korszak fausti egyezsége” [Therapy of amnesia: The Faustian pact of the Kádár era]. Alföld 61, no. 1 (2010): 64–69.

György, Péter. Apám helyett [Instead of my father]. Budapest: Magvető Press, 2011.

Kunt, Gergely. Kamasztükör: A hosszú negyvenes évek társadalmi képzetei fiatalok naplóiban [Reflections of adolescents: Social ideas of the long 1940s in diaries of young people]. Budapest: Korall Press, 2017.

Sinclair Jr., Upton Beall. Kutató Sámuel [Samuel the Seeker]. Translated by Dezső Schöner. Budapest: Népszava, 1913.

The Corporeal Continuation of the Holocaust: A Look at Miscarriages

Alexandra M. Szabó
Brandeis University
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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 9 Issue 3  (2020): 408-429 DOI:10.38145/2020.3.408

Scholarship on women’s experiences is recently surfacing to understand a broader and more nuanced picture of Holocaust history. This case study wishes to add to the currently emerging interpretations of gendered experiences through the events of miscarriages that persecuted women experienced before, during, and after the Shoah. While the topic of miscarriages is only a segment of the larger subject of pregnancy, this research aims to offer a methodological example of including corporeal experiences into the gender analysis of the examined time period. This case study thus presents its relevance in bearing the ability to alter previous scholarly understanding on the demographics of Jewish communities after 1945 by showing that women’s reproductive and fertility experiences have not been included in social scientific discussions.

Keywords: Women and the Holocaust, gendered experiences, gender analysis, pregnancy, miscarriages, Jewish women.

In this paper, I examine experiences of miscarriages caused by the Holocaust in order to present the idea that defined timelines of history and demographic indicators do not necessarily align to the social reality of corporeal and gendered experiences. Originally, the wider scope of my research was about returning Holocaust survivors who had been deported from Hungary,1 and the initial step was to review demographics concerning the Jewish population from the immediate postwar period in comparison to the past decades of the twentieth century, especially the interwar period. My examination of the demographic data led me to the discovery that Holocaust survivors are mainly treated as a homogenous group in Hungarian scholarly work, and this failure to draw distinctions among them has led to some unexplored ground in the history of survivors.2 The aim of this paper, therefore, is to look deeper into the social history of the Hungarian Jewish population in the so-called transitory period of the early postwar years in Hungary from liberation in 1945 to the beginning of Communist rule in 1949.3 The purpose of such a case study about a specific group of people within a specific timeframe is, ultimately, to provide a lens we can glean insights into societal changes from a wider but also from a closer perspective. Therefore, this paper is going to complement quantitative research with a qualitative approach. Through this examination, I seek further explanations and a more nuanced understanding of alternate realities that lay behind macrosociological knowledge with the help of a feminist approach.4

Such an approach provides further questions about the context and actors of a given societal reaction or change, especially about women and their role. Given the outstanding shifts in the demographics of the Jewish community in Hungary post-1945, sociological and historical analyses specifically highlight the low amount of live births, which becomes an even more so focused aspect when taken the contemporary general claim into consideration that it became the Jewish woman’s social duty to recuperate the lost souls of the Holocaust.5 Therefore, the aim of this paper is to turn towards the survivors with an inquiry that allows us to understand further possible reasons of the low statistics through a qualitative approach instead of a quantitive one, yet with the aim of integration. Consequently, my examination has led me to the understanding that women miscarrying in this era was just as significant, if not greater, as in other contexts. However, claiming definite causality is not the aim of this paper, in that the traumas of the Holocaust affected all of the women’s reproductive health and led to high rates of miscarriage; the intention is rather to present that such casualties did happen, as by nature, such explanations are omitted from the statistics.

 

Demographics after Survival

As Viktor Karády’s extensive work on the Hungarian Jewry after 19456 clearly shows, the main change in the social structure of survivors was the high demographic losses due to casualties (illnesses and the poor physical state of survivors, self-destruction, and even pogroms), conversion, emigration, and mixed marriages. Moreover, a significant upsurge can be observed in terms of Jewish marriages, and a change in family structures. Given the importance of the latter two shifts, I have chosen to consider the realities of starting a new family, as such decisions amount to and represent significant social changes.

The demographic boost in marriages within the surviving Jewish community in Hungary in the immediate post-war period becomes significant in comparison to before and during the active years of the Holocaust. This compensatory demographic process is noteworthy if we seek to understand familial choices, at least in part, as fundamental coping strategies of Holocaust survivors on a macrolevel. A prevalent response was to (re)marry, and this led to a surge of approximately 1,000–1,200 more Jewish marriages in 1946 than in 1943/5, and more than 2,200 Jewish marriages were held in Budapest in 1947.7 The demographic upswing is extraordinary if one considers the growth of the numbers of Jewish marriages to the stagnant number of marriages among people of other faiths in this time period in Budapest.8

The tremendous growth in the numbers of new marriages did not, however, mean a similar upward trend in birth rates. The demographic recuperative tendency of Jewish communities in Hungary, according to Karády, is not significant in other than getting (re)married; recuperative fertility is thought to have lessened or ceased due to several reasons, such as the destruction of households, losses of property and wealth, psychological effects of persecution, etc.9 The female experience of not being able to bear a child for psychological reasons, physiological reasons, or a complex combination of the two, and further realities, remains unexplored. Therefore, after carefully presenting the demographic data on the number of live births, I will turn my attention to those mothers who are not counted in the statistics due to unsuccessful pregnancies.

I find this dimension extremely important because it constitutes an essential, if not overlooked, component of the social history of Holocaust survivors; it shows that the trend of Jewish births after the Shoah, compared either to the number of Jewish marriages or the live birth rates among couples of other faiths, is not exclusively due to inherent structural differences in Jewish families. My discussion of some of the reasons behind the numbers will show that, at the time, this was a silenced social reality, and it remains a silenced part of the past to this day. This is true in part because women who lost pregnancies or were unable to conceive are not included as distinct categories in demographic data and in part because sociological inquiry on the Holocaust has, in general, failed to include gender as a perspective.

I will complement my discussion of the background of this social history with elements of oral history by concentrating on the voices of women about intimate topics related to the establishment of families. I thus focus on the unexplored and rather unarticulated topic of miscarriages as one of the many almost unmentioned events in the lives of women survivors and the several different responses with which miscarriages were met and the outcomes they had. My paper will show that miscarriages were (and are) a hidden yet significant topic and that pregnancy losses changed the responses and roles of women even after the Holocaust. My discussion thus also adds to the theoretical literature on how gender is a fluid social category and women do not have an “essential nature” under any circumstances.10

Women and the Holocaust

To begin an inquiry from the perspective that women survivors did not consistently respond in “typical” or expected ways to pregnancy or a miscarriage is to suggest that women should be studied independently in Holocaust history. The historiography on women in the Holocaust follows an evolution of thought, beginning with an insistence on distinguishing women from men, since history and the study of history have been largely influenced by men, yet men have had different sets of experiences than women. This starting point includes emphasis on allowing women to speak for themselves and also to be seen and heard.11 However, gender analysis in Holocaust scholarship has been a rarity, though a more recent trend of studying women separately in the Holocaust follows the same route as studying women in general history, and this has made women somewhat more visible in Holocaust studies.12

Feminist scholarship on war and women, moreover, has gone beyond conclusions based on simple gender dichotomies and has been able to shed light on new realities while deconstructing myths that limited further knowledge production.13 A crucial distinction which has been drawn is that war affects women, and it affects women in different ways than men in terms of torture and murder (for instance), an aspect which has been marginalized by the standard that war is “men’s business.”14 Yet, there are several experiences that easily debunk this standard. For instance, a specific form of psychological torture as a result of wartime rape affected only women, namely being made pregnant by one’s rapist, who was also the enemy in the larger conflict, and then being stigmatized within one’s own group. Moreover, women in the wars of the twentieth century constituted a significant share of direct casualties as civilians due to the strategy of so-called total war, which drew no distinction between combatants and civilians,15 while Jewish women, together with Jewish men, were “nonpersons” unworthy of life according to Nazi ideology.16

Nazi ideology was genocidal based on racial distinctions, thus it might seem as it took no consideration of gender, but it has already been established that Nazi practice was not gender neutral,17 so it is important to note that it was so because Nazi policy never neglected the aspect of gender, rather it added to the complexity of its power structures. The Holocaust was inherently a gendered process, wherein the forced changes of location, forms of forced labor, forms of treatment, etc. were all gender based and thus had formative effects on experiences, survival, and death.18 A significant example includes the initial selection upon arrival in the camps, which determined the fates of the persecuted based on gender. Visibly pregnant women and women with children were immediately sent to their deaths.19 Those who were not sent to the gas chambers after arrival were then segregated, also based on gender, which then marked the differences in how women and how men faced hardships and experienced the modes of survival.20

Moreover, specific strategies applied in genocidal practice are gender-focused, such as sexual assaults and other means of targeted attacks on reproductive abilities, which coheres to the main aim of annihilating an ethnicity and culture.21 Women’s bodies could function as a weapon of war, as raping women who were regarded as part of the “enemy” group had the effect of stripping their husbands and fathers of their masculinity and destroying their status as protectors within their communities.22 This practice was also part of the Holocaust, although the policy of Rassenschande under the Laws for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor might suggest otherwise, given that it prohibited sexual relations with anyone identified as Jewish.23 Whether the rapes which were committed during the Holocaust were part of a military strategy or acts prompted in part by the genocidal desire to dehumanize, historians agree that sexual violence against their did happen and is an important part of their experience.24

Survivor accounts also inform us that the fear of suffering any sort of sexual violence was constantly present, and sterilization is a central theme in many of the women’s memoirs.25 However, accounts in which experiences of sexual assaults, menstruation, pregnancy, etc. are elaborately discussed are rather scarce. Women did not talk about them in part, as Joan Ringelheim comments in her discussion of interviews with Holocaust survivors, because the assaults were seen as having “no significance within the larger picture of the Holocaust,” even by the victims themselves.26 Whether this is the result of a male-dominated memory of the Holocaust or of the stigmatization mentioned above, the silencing added to the exclusion of female experiences from the history of the Holocaust. And although not every woman may have suffered any or every form of sexual assault or gendered violation, the sources concerning practices of sexual assault in some camps suggest these experiences were more common than not. For example, in the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp, the methodologically planned steps against menstruation were coffee-like drinks which contained bromide, and as in other camps, invasive sterilization methods were used to prevent pregnancy, while infants and children were sent to the gas chamber.27

A Feminist Framework

Study and discussions of exclusively female experiences are not intended to measure the sufferings of women and compare them to the sufferings of men, but rather to learn about fertility before, during, and after the Shoah in order to gain a better understanding of the success or failure of the coping strategies of survivors regarding family structures. Much as women’s responses to experiences are not universal, the timelines of physical and psychological recuperation were not either. Therefore, when discussing miscarriages specifically happening to survivor women, I refer to fetal loss as a possible corporeal continuation of the Holocaust to strengthen the need to include this aspect not only to sociological analyses but to an overall historical understanding. The basis of this approach is Lenore J. Weitzman’s and Dalia Ofer’s sequential framework, which offers a methodological scheme to understanding women’s responses to the Shoah in Holocaust historiography.28

The sequential framework complements the continuity and the disruptive frameworks by inviting Holocaust historians to broaden their view of women in a timely manner, which in my interpretation means looking at the “longue durée” of women’s lives, to follow the shifts in responses and behavior through the entire course of the Holocaust, and not statically.29 This framework is divided into three stages: 1) the general reaction of the continuity model at the beginning of the Nazi assault on Jews, 2) the in-between stage of coping strategies changing into disruptive patterns as Nazi measures intensified, and 3) the tipping point, when change came about in the women’s perspective, and the “new me” was born, usually due to a fatal trigger (e.g. a miscarriage, the death of a loved one, etc.).

I have chosen the sequential model to put survivors’ testimonials that mention instances of miscarriages into a framework because of the attention this model devotes to time. The other frameworks either consider the roles of women from the prewar period as mothers, wives, and homemakers as roles which were kept up or roles which retained their relevance30 or they focus on forms of female behavior that were or are considered discontinuous, i.e. the dramatic ways in which women abandoned their prewar roles and conventions eventually to engage in activities that would have been unthinkable prior to their experiences of the reality of the Holocaust.31 The main argument of this paper about miscarriages concentrates on the time aspect in a sequential sense, i.e. that it is not only characteristic of the female experience during the Holocaust statically, in singular point(s) of time ending 1945. According to this view, I find it important to reconsider the sociological findings on the population of Hungarian Holocaust survivors in the immediate postwar setting and, more specifically, to explore the underlying reasons for the low number of live births in a retrospective manner.

Demographics Revisited

As a demographic examination of the Jewish population shows, although there was a high compensatory upward trend in the immediate postwar years in Hungary, this was mainly visible in the number of marriages but less so in the number of births.32 In 1945, the number of Jewish births (529) was about half what it had been in 1944 (1,164). This figure rose significantly to approximately 1,500 births by 1946/7, but this meant only a return to the prewar figures (1,540 births in 1938).33 Moreover, the main argument of Karády’s chapter on reproduction and the family structures among Holocaust survivors is that after the compensatory upward trend of demographics, in the long run, the Hungarian Jewish population returned to its tendency towards decrease.34 This statement fits the overall thesis of Jewish social studies about a general trend of decline in terms of Jewish populations most commonly due to a low number of live births, conversion, and mixed marriages, etc., namely, that there is a threat of “Jewish disappearance.”35

However, conclusions concerning a “Jewish disappearance” as a general trend turn out to be too vague and lack a qualitative approach for more precise consideration, offering explanations borrowed from history through the lens of statistical data as decontextualized pieces of information.36 Even if changes in demographics concerning a decreasing Jewish population is worrisome at a given time, the interpretation of a “Jewish disappearance” does not work in all cases. In this respect, other, deeper analyses of given set of demographic data could show that the numbers have been decontextualized and this decontextualization explains why social histories fall victim to general conclusions concerning loss or “disappearance.” In a study on Breslau Jews, for instance, Till Van Rahden shows that the linear understanding of intermarriages leading to integration was not applicable to the Jews of the city. Rahden demonstrates how this understanding or assumption (that intermarriage leads to assimilation) does not do justice to the complex identities of the Jews of the city and that choosing a Gentile partner did not always represent a break with the Jewish tradition, since in many instances, the intermarried spouses continued to follow Jewish religious practice, and in several cases they did so with the children born to the mixed families.37 Similarly, the decreasing demography in Hungary after 1945 can hold further realities which offer other explanations for low birth rates.

When contextualizing the declining numbers of births, Karády elaborates on the possible reasons for this drop by reviewing the corporeal explanations. He reviews the statistics from a vast societal starting point on an annual basis, and he includes a list of the psychological effects of persecution alongside a more detailed explanation of the consequences of migration, political shifts (the increasingly powerful Communist Party, the rise to power of which caused a new wave of shock among Hungarian Jews), the disproportionately large number of women aged 0–20 in comparison to men, and the structural changes of families in terms of trends (having one or two children after the war instead of seven or eight, which had been typical before the war).38 However, Karády does not include, in his discussion, the possibility that some couples had other underlying reasons, or that women were not able to become or remain pregnant, though in some cases, this inability to bear a child would constitute a further effect of the Holocaust which did not cease with liberation.39

I contend that a woman’s inability to have a child after the Holocaust must be included among the possible reasons for low birth rates among Jews and must also be studied if we seek to arrive at a nuanced understanding of women’s sexual vulnerability and the potential consequences of the experiences of persecution that Jewish women suffered during (and in this case also after) the Holocaust. These are issues which remain largely unexplored in the secondary literature.40 In order to initiate such an understanding, I have conducted qualitative research based on oral history using the Visual History Archive of the USC Shoah Foundation. When I searched for survivor testimonies using the indexing term “miscarriages,” I found 16 accounts in English, which I have chosen to use as the basis for the present case study. A larger sampling could be achieved by adding further indexing terms and by including other resources and databases, which is an aim for further extended research on the topic, wherein I can go beyond identifying miscarriages as an additional explanatory point, and achieve a deeper understanding of the extent of miscarriages, its direct and indirect effects on the population, its scope in connection to the era’s politics of reproduction, and other related questions. Nonetheless, given the framework of the paper, I corroborate my argument about the urgency of identifying the survivor women’s reproductive issues by using the results found in the narrower search of the VHA testimonies.

It is important to note the time scope of the oral histories examined. The survivors’ accounts were videotaped in the 1990s and early 2000s, and a very small number at the end of the 1980s. This might, of course, mean that elements of memory and remembrance are problematic, since over 45 years had passed since the actual events had taken place, yet in the specific case of miscarriages, I believe that being embedded in the social matrix of the time of speaking is of greater impact. In case of the VHA Shoah Foundation interviews, women talking about pregnancies can be articulate, but surely not as emphatically as today, when there is a more assertive mindset and vocabulary with which to talk about sexuality (or the vulnerability of sexuality, for that matter). This might further explain the low number of testimonies in which women discuss their experiences of failed pregnancies. The majority of the searched testimonies, moreover, discuss the event of a miscarriage before or after the Holocaust, and there are less recollections of pregnancy losses during the murderous Nazi persecution when forcibly removed from home.

Instances of miscarriages during the Holocaust, either in ghettoes, camps, or in hiding, are more silenced due to the fact that the pregnancy itself had to be kept a secret for the woman in question could thus avoid being murdered immediately or, because of the lack of medical help, the mothers passed away after the miscarriage. Here, the risk of comparing experiences before, during, and after the Holocaust might arise. Any attempt to measure or quantify sufferings, in my assessment, would be misguided, as each of these three time periods was unique for its own reasons. Moreover, each experience is distinctive and unmeasurable since these events happened to individuals, much as, more generally, the pain and torments suffered by woman cannot be meaningfully compared to the pain suffered by men and children.

Qualitative Research: After the Holocaust

Of the 16 testimonies, one is a duplicate (possibly a system error of the search engine), so the actual number of interviews on which I based my case study is 15. Of the 15, two accounts were told by men about their wives and their lost children. Almost half of the people (seven) mention miscarriages that happened after liberation, while two mention miscarriages which took place before ghettoization in Poland and six speak of miscarriage which took place during the active years of the Holocaust, out of which four happened in Auschwitz and two in hiding. Although the quantity of the testimonies is too narrow to be of representative value of an entire society, it does include these different sets of experiences that allow the sampling to be an indicative case study, i.e. miscarriages occurred in this period and thus its examination needs to be elevated into the historical inquiry, however small a number of witnesses testify.

One of the male interviewees claims that he and his wife were constantly trying to get pregnant and his wife had several miscarriages for about twelve years after liberation, during which time they migrated to Israel, and they were only successful in their attempts at childbearing later, in Canada.41 This indicates the complex circumstances of the aftermath of the Holocaust in a survivor’s life, which might illustrate the different tolls this complex new reality might have had on restarting life. Another male Holocaust survivor speaks about his wife’s miscarriage after their marriage in 1956.42 Considering the over ten years that had passed since liberation, discussing this miscarriage in terms of Holocaust trauma might rather be of a speculative nature but especially because Charles does not elaborate further on the fatality. Nevertheless, this testimony is also of crucial importance in the discussion of miscarriages as it instigates the question how far can we think in terms the continuation of the Holocaust in women’s bodies if 1945 cannot be declared as an end point, and whether such a question could be sufficiently examined at all.

Similarly, the women who speak about miscarriages which took place after 1945 note that they lost several pregnancies, some at a late stage. Two female survivors mention multiple miscarriages which took place in 1947–1948. One of them gave birth in 1946, right before making Aliyah, but her baby died in infancy.43 Another mother, Tobi was seven months along when she had a miscarriage.44 Tobi got married to her husband in Canada in 1950, after which she had a miscarriage when she was in her seventh month (the child would have been their first born). When seeking medical attention in the local hospital, she was told by the doctor that she would have to start trying to have another baby immediately and not spend too much time grieving.

Seven months after the loss of her first pregnancy, Tobi gave birth to her son, who weighed five pounds. Similarly, her second child was born prematurely at six months and was kept in an incubator for seven weeks. The hospital required payment for the child to grow strong while in the incubator, which was a financial burden for Tobi who had her firstborn child at home while his husband earned $45 a week. As she had to pay rent and feed her family, Tobi offered the hospital a deal: “or you gonna take 15 dollars from me per month or you keep the baby. And when I’m gonna have money, I’m gonna come for the baby to take it home. And he was ‘Ok, ok, 15 dollars…’.” She thus managed to pay for the intensive care her baby needed in a year’s time, spending $1,000 to save her children.

Tobi’s recollections about the beginning of a new (family) life after having survived the unthinkable shows the politicized significance of a woman survivor from a social and biological viewpoint. She was to bear a child, not mourn the loss of a pregnancy, to fulfil her familial desires, and perhaps a social, and even a religious duty.45 The demographic indicators, as well as the interview questions (embedded in the framework of VHA’s interview methodology in 1996) do not allow us to extend this investigation further, and thus leaves room only for speculation. For the “business” of keeping her child alive, she was the primary caretaker and the primary executive power concerning the financial aspects of the necessary healthcare in an emergency situation, thus reversing the prewar gender differences of spatial orientation within the family structure. Her husband was earning the income for the household, but it was she who had to negotiate for the future life and health of their children, outside of the home.

However, the multiple and late miscarriages from the sampling of this case study show that stability was trembling in women’s bodies to the extent that even successful childbearing did not guarantee life for the newborn. One of the stories told symbolically invokes the sensation of trembling, possibly a result of a seemingly never-ending persecution: Lena,46 Jewish Holocaust survivor born in Thessaloniki, got pregnant again around 1947 after her husband arrived back from deportation, at a time when they were living in a small room in their previously confiscated apartment with several Greek strangers. Once, while she was having a shower, one of the men pushed the door in and entered the bathroom to which Lena’s sudden reaction resulted in her falling to the floor, and losing her child, a baby girl. “I fell down, and I had miscarriaged. And was a girl. A little girl. And I start to cry, all the time, I was crying because they took me in the hospital, to clean me, to do whatever it was, it was a miscarriage, it was not like normal. And I was all the time crying that it was a girl, it was a girl, a little girl, a little girl. That was the problem.”

Lena’s account shows that the underlying psychological effects are in a complex relationship with physical fear that could have resulted fetal loss in such a direct way because of falling, but presumably also in indirect ways. The underlying reasons of fear can be not only complex in its nature but caused by a number of causes, such as the stress of having to live in a previously confiscated apartment with others, the justifiable or unjustifiable threat of Gentiles in the early postwar period, or that of antisemitism that was prevalent in several countries even to the extent of newly occurring pogroms47, and possibly several other factors depending on the time and space (in Greece, for example, the overshadowing of the Holocaust and the survivors returning to Greece by the Greek Civil War48).

Pregnant women were also exposed to unsafe conditions since they were often on the move, as emigration was one of the most common coping strategies for previously deported Holocaust survivors, and this also constituted a risk to a healthy pregnancy. Maria W., for example, was on her way to make Aliyah when, in Marseille, she had a miscarriage. As she did not speak French, she felt even more vulnerable and was rather an observer of what was happening to her. After she had spent some days in the hospital, she was taken to a DP camp, where she was left lying on the floor for two weeks. Only later, after having arrived in Israel, was she given the professional medical attention that a miscarriage would necessitate.49 Maria never had a child after this experience. In her recollections, she does not elaborate on not having had children, i.e. she does not indicate whether this was for physiological or psychological reasons. However, it becomes clear that for all the women whose accounts I read, the circumstances of childbirth were rather difficult, often even harsh. Women had to deal with the continuation of the Holocaust in their bodies, both mentally and bodily, and they also had to address the circumstances and environments in which they found themselves at a moment of emergency.

Qualitative Research II: Before and During the Holocaust

The sources indicate different reactions to the growing tension and hostility during the period leading up to the Holocaust as well and to the changing structures of family lives. Some of the findings offer significant examples of the experience of unsuccessful pregnancies due to the growing tensions of Nazism in Poland in the 1930s. One account is about a neighbor who was pregnant, while another survivor talks about her own story. Chronologically, the first incident happened before ghettoization, but when German soldiers were already strolling in the streets of Kazimierz (a district of Kraków) in Poland. One day, soldiers entered a store-holders’ property and were greeted and served by the store-holder’s daughter, who had recently gotten married and was pregnant with their first child. For unknown reasons to the narrator, the pregnant daughter was kicked in the stomach by one of the Nazi soldiers, causing her to miscarry. After having lost her child, the mother also passed away. The acquaintance of the storyteller remembered this regrettable event specifically because the funeral which was held for both mother and child was the first funeral she had ever attended.50

Similarly, when more drastic measures of persecuting Jews were implemented in Poland, a woman named Fay lost her father to “some gangsters” in their town, and later her mother also died during the German invasion. Fay remembers the Germans entering Grodzisko Dolne, the small village in which they lived, with their huge motorbikes and cars. According to her account, the fear she experienced caused her to miscarry. “I was so scared,” she said, “I lost a baby.”51 Although Fey was not directly attacked by any of the Nazi invaders, the fear of the unknown preceded the actual events of aggressive persecution, and it may have been this fear (as she herself seems to have thought) that caused the death of her unborn child. This is the only information she provides in her testimony in 1988, without further comment. She does not talk about the emotional aspects of this experience or of her grief. Her articulate but hardly detailed account offers an example of one way in which a Jewish woman felt it acceptable or appropriate to speak about the loss of a pregnancy.

Of the fifteen testimonies, two tell vividly detailed stories of miscarriages which took place while the mothers were still in the camps. Marika, a Hungarian Jewish woman held in Ravensbrück, formed a close relationship with a woman named Elvira in the camp, and Elvira eventually told her story. 52 Marika had become pregnant in the previous concentration camp she had been taken to in Frankfurt am Main (Elvira hints that Marika may have been a victim of rape). Marika did not tell anyone anything of her pregnancy, but she started to become very sick, and eventually, she could not eat or stand anymore. Those in the same barrack with her realized that she was pregnant when the older women interpreted these signs as clear indications of pregnancy. The miscarriage happened when she was lying on the top bunk. Elvira and the other women saw blood flowing down onto the floor from the top bunk, so they took her down (“And we had to drag her down from the top”). They wrapped her in a blanket and took her to an isolated part of the camp where corpses were lying and they left her there, crying out in pain. According to her account, Elvira went back to where Marika lay several times, possibly tormented by the (a)moral decision they had made, against the other girls’ warnings not to return. Eventually, she left her there. Elvira said several times that there was nothing they could have done for her, but she also showed doubt as to whether the decision to abandon Marika, who was presumably in the midst of losing her baby, was the best choice.

The act of giving an account of this event, whether as an intentional compensatory act or not, seems to have been critically important for Elvira throughout her testimony. And her account is, indeed, an important part of Holocaust history, as it demonstrates the extent of secrecy that pregnancy called for in camps and how a pregnant woman would attempt to tackle such a situation in order to escape immediate murder at the cost of (unanticipated) pain (not to mention offering an example of one of the reactions of those in her immediate surroundings). Marika’s attempt to keep her pregnancy a secret as long as she could tragically suggests that similar events (pregnancies and miscarriages) during camp life remain not only untold but unexplored.53 Although I find the tendency towards reticence on this subject common among the different survivor groups for the abovementioned reasons, the secondary literature on the world of the concentration camps is again outstanding in this respect, i.e. in its failure to explore this subject, much as it has largely failed to explore the subject of rape as a sexual and not just violent act.54 It is crucially important, therefore, that Elvira told Marika’s story, as it now offers textual evidence of Marika’s tragedy (and thus makes her part of Holocaust memory), even if by telling it, Elvira risked moral judgement.

Another miscarriage that we know of happened in Auschwitz, where initial secrecy was just as much a factor, but here the mother’s life was saved by some medical attention. The story of the woman involved, Eszter, perfectly illustrates the lack of adequate medical treatment and hygiene. She managed to keep her pregnancy a secret until giving birth to her son on December 5, 1944, when she was taken for medical care to one of the healthcare facilities in Auschwitz. After the birth, her placenta did not come out, and a Polish woman attending to her (not a Jewish woman, yet it is not quite clear who the personnel were from the testimony) did not call the doctor for medical attention and help. Though she was bleeding continuously, the doctor arrived only two hours later and pulled the placenta out, when the bleeding finally stopped. Eszter recalls that the people treating her did not wash their hands, though she did not come down with an infection. The people who knew about her childbirth did not put her back in the barracks, because then she would have been sent to the gas chambers, so they gave her a job in the hospital.55

Although the medical staff saved Eszter’s life by keeping her pregnancy a secret, the mistreatment she had to undergo put the health of her reproductive system and indeed her very life at risk. Most definitely such events in the camps had an impact on the women’s future ability to bear children, but if one accepts the definition of health (including reproductive health) found in the preamble to the constitution of the World Health Organization, according to which health is “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity,”56 the health of women who did not have miscarriages during the historically defined timeline of the Holocaust were also affected, not necessarily at a specific moment of the Shoah, but throughout it.

Conclusion

Overall, I find that though we have only a small number of sources which touch on miscarriages suffered by victims and survivors before, during, or after the Shoah, it is important to examine them closely in order to gain some insights into the personal stories which demographic statistics alone do not offer. After having reviewed the sociological findings with the inclusion of survivor testimonies, I found that sociological analyses do not suffice in achieving far-reaching conclusions. The damaged state of women’s reproductive systems could easily constitute as a significant reason for the lower rate of childbirths in Hungary in the period of 1945 to 1949.

This conclusion suggests that in order to add nuance to our understandings of societies which were strongly influenced by the Holocaust, we should expand the scope of our inquiry to include groups and forms of trauma which have been largely overlooked. This is not an easy task. The difficulty is caused by the intimate nature of women’s experiences and the fact that their experiences were not given voice or were actively silenced for so long. Therefore, unsurprisingly, sexuality, sexual vulnerability, or miscarriages specifically and the sufferings they caused were not easily brought up, nor were questions specifically concerning miscarriages asked by the interviewers. My findings, however, could be grounds or directives for further research on the allocation of resources for the study of testimonies and ego-documents as well, which could complement sociological findings and offer a wider perspective and more intimate knowledge of the continued traumas of the early postwar era. Such a wider scope of investigation could even result in a historiographical rebalance which would put more trust (back) into memoirs as primary historical sources, a concern which has been resurfacing in the works of other historians as well.57 Without meaning to overstate the potential implications, it is perhaps unsurprising that by including women’s voices through a feminist approach to a structural rethinking of history, one may draw more attention to and encourage more interest in survivor narratives.

Finally, after we have discussed these experiences and allowed gender analysis to inform “the memory of violence and the destinies and decisions made by those targeted for annihilation.”58 it would be important to analyze modes of expression. Further research could explore how the narratives were formed, what this entails, and how potential results could add to the conventional narratives of the Holocaust and of other genocides. Women’s narratives shed light on experiences which have been left untold, and they offer new perspectives even when describing the same events. A significant example could be emotion as a determinative factor59 due to the unique connection between gender and memory.60 This would represent just one of the additions further research could offer towards the general aim “to give women the voice long denied them and to offer a perspective long denied us.”61

Bibliography

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