The news of the peace of Westphalia in the autumn of 1648 certainly elicited great sighs of relief all over Europe, though contentedness was not yet universal. In countries over which the menace of the expansion and further advance of the Ottoman Empire loomed larger, the news generated a period of great hopes. This applied first of all to Hungary and Croatia where an optimistic public feeling began to spread wide. The main sources of this optimism were the influential politicians and their statements, who were both mouthpieces and shapers of the general attitude. Who were convinced that after 30 years of warfare a period of regeneration ought to come, and sooner or later – not in the distant future – what they had been painfully missing for decades, exactly since the reign of Emperor rudolph (†1612, rudolph I as king of Hungary): a major concerted anti-Ottoman military undertaking would be launched, a comprehensive campaign with the participation and support by Europe’s Christian countries initiated and controlled by the ruler of the Holy roman Empire and also king of Hungary ferdinand III. As the contemporary utterance of the politicizing Hungarian estates reveal, this optimistic expectation was paired with a zealous manifestation of a readiness to act. They voiced their great resolve with which the eligible population would take part and fight as effectively as their reserves allowed against the porte. This uncompromising intrepidity, the fight against the Ottomans at any price was fed – in addition to many glorious examples in the past – by several contemporary events. Clashes with great casualties which made great stirs in the Hungarian and European public life. Contemporaries hailed the fallen, including those of the ill-starred military encounter at vezekény on 26 August 1652, as inflaming examples of perseverance. In the eye of the contemporaries those killed in the clash – including four members of the aristocratic Esterházy family – set an inspiring example of moral courage in the teeth of Turkish superiority in numbers: in a hopeless battle they chose perseverance to the end, that is, heroic self-sacrifice, instead of surrendering. In addition to numerous quondam utterances including some quality works of literature testifying to the intrepidity and fighting value of the Hungarian estates, two works of the applied arts were also created with the aim of perpetuating the glorious memory of the fallen heroes.The historic military events of the last one and a half decades in the 17th century – the triumphant termination of the Ottoman wars in Hungary, the expulsion of the Turks – overruled the original meaning of the time-honoured adage known all over Europe, the idea that Hungary was one of the safeguards/bulwarks of the western Christian community. Although it might have lost its topicality, it did not fall out of public remembrance. It underwent some modification, some shift of tone, the militant slogan of mobilization giving way to reference to the heroic deeds of the forefathers, to the glorious past, the historical merits of the kingdom, of Hungaria. Added to this – by way of a conclusion – is the profound conviction rooted in historical experience that it was not in vain to persevere above their strength against the pagan world power in calamitous times. To the contrary, the nation owed her well-nigh miraculous survival to it. After all, the fact that her disintegration and perdition could be avoided must have been by the will of divine providence. This idea is conveyed in a visual language by an extremely effective composition, an engraving made in Augsburg in the first decade of the 18th century undoubtedly upon a Hungarian commission. What were the Archabbot of pannonhalma p. Aegidius Karner’s ideas or intentions to have this engraving made? In the closing section of the paper an attempt is made to answer this question.
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Nov 4, 2024
Fiona Barker + 1
Open Access
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