Barbara Andrássy

Borbála Andrássy at a young age

Barbara Andrássy ( Hungarian Andrássy Borbála; born January 9, 1890 in Budapest , Austria-Hungary ; † August 18, 1968 in Montreal , Canada ) was a Hungarian countess and chronicler of the Hungarian uprising in 1956.

Life

Borbála Maria Theodora Andrássy was the second daughter of Count Theodor (ung. Tivadar) Andrássy (* 1857, † 1905) and his wife, Countess Eleonore Maria Rudolphine Zichy (* 1867, † 1945). Borbála was the granddaughter of the famous Hungarian politician Gyula Andrássy , who held the post of Foreign Minister in Austria-Hungary. Within the family she was nicknamed "Boj". She spent her childhood in the castles of the Andrássys in Terebes , Tiszadob and in the Budapest palace of her parents on the Margit rakpart in Budapest. With the help of foreign educators, she received a proper education, she was taught in foreign languages ​​(German, English and French) and received an excellent general education (music, literature, art). She was particularly interested in painting; she also learned to paint and worked as a very talented hobby painter. Many of her pictures are still preserved today.

After the father's early death, the mother married her brother-in-law Gyula Andrássy Junior , who took on the role of foster father and legal guardian for Borbála and her three sisters.

Borbála was married to Margrave György Maria Pallavicini on January 30, 1911 (born December 5, 1881 in Budapest, † January 4, 1946 ibid.). The marriage had four children:

• György (born July 11, 1912 in Tiszadob , July 21 (?) 1949 in?)
• Theodora (Thyra) Viktoria (* July 25, 1914 in Balatonberény , † November 22, 2017 in Turin , Italy ) ⚭ 1st Nikolaus Graf Festetics (* 1912, † 1971); 2. Sándor Dóra (* 1905, † 1986)
• Eduard (Ede) (born December 26, 1916 in Budapest, † December 23, 2005 in Vancouver , Canada) ⚭ Ilona Maria Gerliczy de Granny (* 1921, † 2007)
• Anton (Antal) from 1951 "Pálinkás" (* July 30, 1922 in Budapest, † December 10, 1957 ibid.) ⚭ 1. Judit Székely (* 1924, † 1999), 2. Ilona Dudás

The Pallavicinis were - similar to the Andrássys - a conservative and class-conscious noble family for which politics always played a major role. Barbara's husband was a member of the Hungarian Parliament , as a staunch legitimist he belonged to the opposition and pleaded for the preservation of the kingdom or the Austro- Hungarian monarchy. The eldest son György, called "Kisgyuri" (the "little Gyuri") in the family, studied in Belgium and was close friends with Otto von Habsburg .

Barbara Andrássy with husband György Pallavicini in 1910

The youngest son Anton Pallavicini embarked on a military career. In 1940 he enrolled in the Ludoviceum Military Academy in Budapest, which he graduated in 1943 with the rank of lieutenant . He took part in the Second World War and fell into Soviet captivity. As an anti-fascist , he applied for admission to the (communist) party of the Hungarian working people in 1948 , for this reason he gave up his historic nobility name "Pallavicini" and called himself "Palinkás" from 1951. In 1954, however, his admission into the party was denied, with reference to his aristocratic descent. On October 30, 1956, Palinkás was elected chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council with the rank of lieutenant colonel . In this capacity he played a decisive role in the liberation of the then Prince-Primate of Hungary József Cardinal Mindszenty . After the uprising was put down, Palinkás was arrested on December 25, 1956 for participating in the " counterrevolution ". In 1957 he was tried in a military tribunal and sentenced to death. The sentence was carried out on December 10, 1957. His remains were buried in the infamous Lot 301 of the New Cemetery of Rákoskeresztúr . After the fall of the Wall, Palinkás was rehabilitated and today he is considered a martyr and national hero in Hungary.

After the Second World War and the establishment of the " People's Democracy ", which was established not only in Hungary but in all states of the former Eastern Bloc , the hatred of the new rulers against the former aristocracy in Hungary increased beyond limits. In 1951 Borbála was also declared an "enemy" of the (now communist ) state. Matyás Rákosi and his comrades established a reign of terror in Hungary. During this time of the communist dictatorship , numerous show trials took place in Hungary. Barbara Andrássy was robbed of all her belongings. Your valuables as well as the valuable family furniture were "nationalized". She received an evacuation order (dated May 22, 1951), which was to Fokorupuszta near the town of Besenyszög. For security reasons, she not only destroyed her own diary, but also a large part of the family documents before the evacuation, as she feared that these documents could fall into the hands of the notorious secret police. In exile, she lived in a non-heated hut that was full of mice and vermin. She reports from this time in her meticulously kept diary, which later appeared in book form and became known as "The Resettlement and 1956 Diary". Even today this diary is an important source of information for historians. After the fall of the Rákosi regime, the forced evacuation in Hungary was lifted and Borbála was released again in 1956. For the time being she found refuge with her sister Ilona , who managed to shelter her in Dénesfa.

In early 1957 she received permission to emigrate to her daughter Thyra, who lived in Italy. Some time later she moved to Canada to live with her son Eduard, who was now living there. In the last years of her life she lived very withdrawn, she occupied herself a lot with painting, wrote memorabilia or organized documents in the 'remaining' family archive. She only found out about the death news of her two sons György and Antal in Canada. She suffered severely from these losses until the end of her life. She died on August 18, 1968 in Montreal, Canada, where she was also buried.

literature

• Emese Hulej: A Andrássy lányok története ("The story of Andrássy's daughters") In: nők lapja. Vol. 70, No. 9, February 27, 2019, p. 62ff. ISSN  1419-5488 . ( Hungarian )

Web links

• Biography (slovak)

References and comments

1. ↑ Barbara had three sisters: Ilona (* 1886, † 1967), Katinka (* 1892, † 1985) and Klára (* 1898, † 1941)
2. ↑ György died in a prison camp somewhere in Siberia , the exact place of death could not be determined.
3. ↑ György Pallavicini was a staunch opponent of the National Socialists , which is why he came into conflict with the authorities. In 1944 he was arrested and taken to the Dachau concentration camp . In 1946 he met Otto von Habsburg again in Belgium. Already there he was advised not to return to Hungary because he is under surveillance in Hungary. 'Kisgyuri' ignored this recommendation and was arrested, interrogated and imprisoned in Hungary as soon as he returned. In 1947 he was sent to Siberia. It was only years later (1957) that the family learned that he had been deported to the Soviet Union and died in a gulag camp in Siberia around 1949.
4. ↑ Almost all those executed by the communists in the Hungarian uprising were buried on this infamous plot. Today this part of the cemetery has been elevated to a national memorial.
5. ↑ Fokorupuszta is an emigrant farm (Hungarian Tanya) about 7 km from the village Besenyszög.
6. ↑ Besenyszög is a village in Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok county with 3279 inhabitants (2017).
7. ↑ The diary was first published after the political change in 1990 at the instigation of her son Eduard Pallavicini. A second edition was published in 2016 under the name of the author Pallavicini-Andrássy Borbála and the title: A lelkünkhöz nem nyúlhatnak (German: "Our souls cannot touch / grasp"). The diary consists of two parts: the first part contains the so-called "deportation / evacuation diary" and the second part deals with the time of the Hungarian uprising in 1956. (Európa Kiadó, Budapest 2018, ISBN 978-963-405-550- 1 , Hungarian)
8. ↑ Dénesfa is a small town near Kapuvár in today's Győr-Sopron-Moson County , with 362 inhabitants (2015)