Kalapács és üllő között

Abstract

In 1571, Christian Schesaeus (1535?–1585) published his most important work, the four-book historical account entitled Ruina Pannonica, in Wittenberg. This verse work covers the history of Hungary from 1540 until 1552. The Wittenberg edition also contains the three-book Historia de bello Pannonico about Suleiman I’s final campaign in Hungary, which took place in 1566. Centuries later manuscripts were found containing five books which were identified as books V-VIII and XII of the Ruina Pannonica. Josef Trausch proposed that the apparently missing books IX-XI were in fact the three books of the Historia de bello Pannonico. István Hegedűs even asserted that from the beginning Schesaeus wanted to write a great epos in twelve books on the model of Vergil’s Aeneid, centering around the life and rule of John II (1540-1571). He also viewed Schesaeus as a precursor of transylvanianism. On the basis of these assumptions, Ferenc Csonka, the editor of the Schesaeus corpus, published a twelve-book edition of the Ruina Pannonica. Péter Kulcsár argued that this editorial decision was problematic on several grounds, holding that while Schesaeus did have the intention of expanding his work, he never completed this project. In this paper, I argue that the four books of the Ruina Pannonica published in Wittenberg constitute a complete work with its own cohesive message and objectives, that the original idea has certainly not been to write a long work covering the period from 1540 until 1571 and concentrating on John II, who was still alive when the work was written, and that Schesaeus can hardly be considered a precursor of transylvanianism.