Albert Molnár

Portrait of Albert Szenczi Molnár

Albert Molnár (born August 30 or September 1, 1574 in Wartberg (Hungarian Szenc; Slovak Senec ); † January 17, 1634 in Cluj-Napoca in Transylvania, today Cluj-Napoca in Romania) complete: Albert Szenczi Molnár was a Reformed theologian , linguist , psalmist and traveling scholar from Hungary, 1615–1619 cantor and rector of the Latin school in Oppenheim .

Life

Albert Molnár belonged to the very active Calvinist minority in Hungary by tradition, education and upbringing . This special environment had a major influence on Molnár's life's work and its impact. Like many important theologians of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation times, he was a talented and thoroughly trained linguist. The fruitful combination of philology and theology made it possible for him to pursue a broad theological educational work for the Hungarian language area; its importance can be compared with that of Philipp Melanchthon for Germany.

Molnár never stayed in one and the same place for long. His path in life gives the impression of a very restless mind. However, the at times confusing conditions in Hungary, which was four-fifths occupied by the Turks, may have contributed decisively to the unrest of the scholar, who is strongly attached to his home country.

Although he worked most of his life abroad (Wittenberg, Strasbourg, Heidelberg, Altdorf, Marburg and Oppenheim), the development in his fatherland was always the focus of his interest. His Latin-Hungarian dictionary was used until the middle of the 19th century; many literary and scientific terms were first described by him in Hungarian. His Hungarian grammar, which was written in Latin, was used as a manual until the 18th century, which is how Molnár contributed to the uniformity of the Hungarian language beyond its scientific-historical significance. For the Reformed Church in Hungary, his psalms, the new, corrected edition of the Bible, the translation of Calvin's Institute and the Heidelberg Catechism are still an effective legacy today. Albert Molnár had a significant influence on the development of the Hungarian literary language and poetry.

Youth and school

He attended the school in Wartberg / Szenc and the grammar school in Győr (western Hungary), studied from 1587 for one and a half years at the Calvinistic theological academy in Güns, in Hungarian Gönc (northern Hungary) and from 1588 to 1590 in Debrecen .

Studies and creative time in Germany

Because of the Turkish rule, Hungary was economically, politically and above all spiritually separated from the rest of Europe. Molnár went to Germany in November 1590 to further his academic education and to take up spiritual, especially theological, impulses and to pass them on to his Hungarian compatriots. This was the beginning of a life of perpetual wandering, without it being possible to say whether external circumstances or his inner restlessness were the main driving force.

He attended the universities of Wittenberg , Heidelberg University , Herborn , Strasbourg and Altdorf, partly as a learner, partly as a teacher, and undertook an educational trip through Switzerland, the home of Calvinism and Italy.

At barely 20 years of age, he must have made a name for himself in the theological field, because Calvinist princes such as Landgrave Moritz von Hessen-Kassel and the electors Friedrich IV and Friedrich V of the Palatinate supported him financially.

In 1595, the only 21-year-old Molnár received a teaching post in Strasbourg because of his knowledge. As a committed Calvinist, however, he ran into difficulties and left the academic staff after three years. Molnár then moved to Geneva . From Geneva he came to Heidelberg and came into close contact with Martin Opitz . When he returned to Hungary, he found that he had become estranged from the difficult Hungarian situation and went to Frankfurt am Main. The rich trading metropolis was, however, Lutheran and gladly pushed away the uncomfortable Calvinists because they did not want to have any difficulties with the emperor in view of the imperial elections taking place here.

In 1603 Molnár went to the Altdorf University of Applied Sciences near Nuremberg , which at that time had a good reputation. There he worked closely with the philologist Konrad Rittershausen and edited the Elementa Grammatica Latinae and a Hungarian-Latin-Greek dictionary, which was printed in Nuremberg in 1604. Because of its quality, this dictionary was valid in Hungary for two hundred years, bearing in mind that Latin was the official language in Hungary until the middle of the 19th century. He was able to personally present a copy to Emperor Rudolf II . Personal relationships were established with Johannes Kepler , who was then the court astrologer to Emperor Rudolf.

In Altdorf he worked on his main work, the Psalterium Hungaricum , the translation of the Psalms of David into Hungarian in a special form of verse, i.e. a retouch. He took the German version by Ambrosius Lobwasser as a basis, but also used the French version by Clément Marot and Théodore de Bèze . In order to adapt his poetry to the melodies of the Geneva Psalter by Claude Goudimel and Loys Bourgeois , he used a variety of verse forms that were not customary in the Hungarian language until then.

From 1607 to 1611, Molnár stayed in Marburg under the patronage of Landgrave Moritz , where he revised the Hungarian translation of the Bible and wrote the first well-founded grammar of the Hungarian language, which until then had only been a vernacular.

Sárospatak Castle

Hungarian interim to Wurzbach

Molnár followed a call from his homeland to Strasbourg in 1598 and took over a teaching post at the school of the Calvinist Sárospatak in eastern Hungary (Semplin county). The city had been upgraded by the Rákóczi princes through the expansion of educational institutions to an "Athens on the Bodrog" or "Calvinist Athens".

Thereupon he was offered the post of director of the school in Gyulafehérvár (today Alba Iulia ) by Prince Gábor Bethlen of Transylvania. The Batthyány family wanted to bring him to the school in Német-Ujvar in what was then German-West Hungary (today Burgenland) in the same capacity . Molnár turned down both offers and finally took over the position of director in Oppenheim back in Germany.

First time in Oppenheim

The reason for his stay in Oppenheim is certainly to be found in the patronage function of the Palatinate Electors Friedrich IV and Friedrich V for Calvinism. Oppenheim experienced a second boom as a printing town at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Frankfurt publishers and printing houses (which were mostly the same in operational terms) with Calvinist tendencies had meanwhile completely or partially moved to Oppenheim. Many Calvinist writings, which were not allowed to be produced or distributed in most German and European countries, were printed in Oppenheim at that time and from there were secret routes to those countries, including literature in the Hungarian language.

Molnár worked in Oppenheim as an editor and proofreader . Based on Molnár's literary publications alone, it can be established that an astonishingly large number of Hungarian printed works were published and produced in Germany ( Nuremberg , Herborn , Heidelberg , Oppenheim, Hanau , Augsburg ) at that time. Molnár published the second edition of his extensive Bible translation at Hieronymus Galler in Oppenheim, a renowned large printing company . In November 1611 he married a Marburg citizen daughter in Oppenheim. However, he did not settle down as a result, but returned to Hungary with his wife immediately after the wedding.

Second time in Oppenheim

Because of the political conditions in Hungary it was not possible for him to work in public. He turned his back on his homeland again. In 1614 he appeared in Hanau, shortly afterwards in Amberg and a year later again in Oppenheim. In this city, which granted him asylum, he worked as cantor of the Latin school and from 1617 to 1619 as its rector . After its re-establishment in 1561 by Heidelberg humanists, the Oppenheim Latin School was a respected teaching institute until the Spanish occupation forces of Spinola put an end to it in the Thirty Years' War. Molnár's appointment as rector was an honorable assignment that would not have been given to everyone. The Heidelberg university registers contain the names of a surprising number of students who emerged from the Oppenheim school of that time.

In addition, he worked on other publications: he composed hymns, developed a reformed catechism, edited a prayer book and translated the Institutio Christianae Religionis Calvin into Hungarian. The works were partly published and printed in Oppenheim and partly in Heidelberg.

The outbreak of the Thirty Years War

Molnár's patron, Elector Friedrich V of the Palatinate, had embarked on the adventure of the Bohemian kingship and in the battle of the White Mountains before Prague lost the land and crown and also his home country, the Palatinate. Molnár went from Oppenheim to Heidelberg. When Tilly's troops took the city , Molnár was severely physically abused (tortured). He left the city and returned to his Hungarian homeland.

But it didn't last long there again. Before a year was up, he came to Hanau via Heidelberg after the Palatinate was occupied by Spanish troops. The Counts of Hanau gave the Calvinist religious refugees asylum until they too had to submit to the Viennese court.

Last years of life in Transylvania

After two years in Hanau, Molnár returned to his homeland and lived in Kassa from 1624 (now Košice in Slovak ). In 1629 Molnár followed the call of his patron Gábor Bethlen and went to Transylvania. The neighboring country of the Hungarian crown had largely made itself independent during the Turkish wars. The Sultan in Constantinople exercised only a loose supremacy. The Ottoman rule was not interested in religious disputes. In Transylvania there was practically tolerance and religious freedom. Prince Gábor Bethlen of Transylvania was a patron of artists and humanists and stood up for Protestantism. However, he died while his protégé was traveling to Cluj-Napoca. Therefore, the statements for the last years of life up to January 1634 are not uniform. While some chroniclers confine themselves to the fact that Molnár and his family had finally found a seat and tranquility in Cluj-Napoca, von Wurzbach emphasizes that Molnár finally died in 1634 in miserable circumstances without his sponsor and without a job.

His grave in Cluj-Napoca

Ratings and obituaries

Molnár was considered one of the most important scholars of his time, an educated and thorough representative of progress "and as such sharing the common lot of the same, to see badness and mediocrity preferred, to be persecuted by misfortune and to be least appreciated in his own fatherland".

Two friends wrote distiches on his death:

• Johann Heinrich Alsted : “Hungariae cunas, curas calami thalamique | debeo Teutoniae, Dacia dat tumulum "
• Johann Heinrich Bisterfeld : “Musa mihi favit, sed non fortuna, fuitque | Teutonia auxilium, sed patria exilium ” , the second line of which (Germany the refuge, the fatherland the foreign) marks his life as a grave inscription.

Portraits

Molnár, who was known early on, was around 60 years old. Of the four portraits reproduced here, the first two are likely to have been created around the same time and the last, according to the caption in the book source, around 1624 in Hanau before his final move to Transylvania.

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Works

Molnár revised the first Hungarian translation of the Bible twice (second edition by Hieronymus Galler in Oppenheim) and translated the psalms into Hungarian, which includes more than just linguistic skills. He also wrote a Hungarian-Latin-Greek dictionary Elementa Grammatica Latinae, which was published in Nuremberg in 1604 .

The catalog of the German National Library lists the following works:

• Dictionarium 1604, Szenci Molnár Albert szótára  : az Országos Széchényi Könyvtár és a Károli Gáspár Református Egyetem tudományos ülésszaka, 2004. October 29th = Dictionarium, 1604, the dictionary of Albert Molländnár , the dictionary of Albert Molländiányi  University and Hungarian Reformed Church , October 29, 2004 / Országos Széchényi Könyvtár. [Szerk. Szabó András (Ed.)] DNB 1132644070
• Claude Goudimel and Albert Szenczi Molnár: Három Zsoltár: 1st, 23rd, 121st; Négy hangra / fordította és versbe foglalta (1607) Szenczi Molnár Albert hugenotta dallam szerint (1565) Goudimel Kolos , DNB 362486549
• Szenczi Molnár, Albert (translator); Borsos, Miklós (illustrator); Ginács, László (designer): Psalterium Ungaricum: Szent David királynak és prófétának százötven zsoltári . DNB 993641709

The directory of the 16th century prints published in the German-speaking area (VD 16) contains 19 entries see VD16 .

The directory of the 17th century prints published in the German language area (VD 17) contains 25 entries, see VD17 .

literature

• Light, dr. Hans: Biography "Albert Molnár and Oppenheim" published in "Oppenheim, Geschichte einer alten Reichsstadt" (on the occasion of the 750th anniversary of the city elevation), Oppenheim 1975, pages 140–142, editor: Dr. Hans Licht (Dr. Martin Held Foundation)
• Giebermann, Gerriet: "Albert Molnár (1574–1634), Hungarian Reformed theologian and traveling scholar, 1615–1619 cantor and rector in Oppenheim" , published in Oppenheimer Hefte No. 30/31 - Dec 2005, pages 2–100, ISBN 3- 87854-197-X (Ed. Oppenheimer Geschichtsverein, written by Dr. Martin Held)
• Dézsi Lajos: Szenczi Molnár Albert 1574–1633. Budapest: Magyar Történelmi Társulat. 1897
• Nagy Géza: A református egyház története 1608–1715. I. kills. Máriabesnyő – Gödöllő: Attractor. 2008. ISBN 978-963-9580-96-1 (The History of the Hungarian Reformed Church 1608–1715. Vol. I.)
• Red. Sőtér István: A magyar irodalom története II keds. Budapest: Akadémiai. 1964-1966. Pp. 67-80. ISBN 963-05-1639-X (The History of Hungarian Literature Vol. 2)
• Wolfram Hauer: Germany and Hungary in their educational and scientific relations during the Renaissance , Franz Steiner Verlag, 2004, ISBN 978-3-515-08551-9 , u. a. P. 209 Online
• Jože Krašovec: Interpretation of the Bible , Continuum International Publishing Group, 1998, u. a. P. 1258 Online
• Constantin von Wurzbach : Molnár, Albert . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 19th part. Imperial-Royal Court and State Printing Office, Vienna 1868, p. 25 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Albert Szenczi Molnár  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Imre Révész: Szenczi Molnár Albert (1574–1633) (PDF; 7.4 MB) Vasárnapi Újság, Pest August 16, 1863 (Hungarian)

Notes and individual references

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} see literature Constantin von Wurzbach: Albert Molnár in the Biographical Lexicon of the Austrian Empire.
2. ↑ 15 km east of Bratislava; then Upper Hungary (Comitat Preßburg); today Slovakia.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Posts by user: Hkoala in April 2011.
4. ↑ one of the most important educational institutions of the Calvinist Reformed in Europe, never a university due to the resistance of the emperor, so no right to award doctorates.
5. ↑ Created in 1571 as the successor to the Aegidianum founded by humanists and reformers (among them Melanchthon and Luther ) in 1525 ; in Molnár's time it was still an academy;
6. ↑ The first Hungarian grammar was created by Ioannes Sylvester (wp: hu) in 1539 , see GRAMMATICA HUNGAROLATINA (PDF; 15.2 MB) .
7. ↑ Entry in the church book of Katharinenkirche Oppenheim that happened to be received.