Emmerich Thököly

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Emmerich Thököly
Signature Emmerich Thököly.PNG

Count Emmerich Thököly (born April 25, 1657 in Kežmarok (German Käsmark ), Royal Hungary (today Slovakia ); † September 13, 1705 in Nikomedia (Turkish Izmit ), Turkey ; today often: Tököly or Tökölli , Hungarian: Thököly Imre , Slovak : Imrich Tököli , Croatian: Mirko Thököly , in his own spelling: Emericq Thököly ) was a magnate in Royal Hungary, Statesman, leader of an uprising against the Habsburg rule and prince of Transylvania . In his time, he was often referred to ironically as "tót király" ( Slovak king) or "kuruc király" ( Kuruc king) . His statue is in the colonnade of important Hungarian personalities on Heroes' Square (Budapest) .

origin

Emmerich was born on April 25, 1657 in Kesmark as the son of the Protestant Count Stephan II. Thököly and his wife Maria Gyulaffy (1637-1659). His father, Stephan II. Thököly, was a participant in the magnate conspiracy . When the conspiracy was discovered, his father was on his Arwaburg . When it became clear that he was also involved in the conspiracy, the castle was besieged from November 1670 by imperial troops under Field Marshal Sigbert Heister (1646-1718). After two weeks, the defenders of the castle surrendered to the imperial troops on December 10, 1670. Stephan II did not experience this task of the castle anymore because he died in the castle during the siege on December 4th - whether as a result of illness or suicide is not clear.

Emmerich (Imre), at that time a school boy of just 14 years, is said to have escaped the siege by the imperial family and left the Arwaburg unscathed through a secret passage. According to other sources, he was commissioned by his father's followers Stephan Boczko and Daniel Günther von Lilienfeld from the Evangelical College in Eperies, founded by Stephan II in 1667, via Chust Castle (in today's Ukraine ) to Transylvania to Prince Michael I Apafi (1632 –1690) brought to safety. Emmerich's sisters Katharina (1655–1701), Maria (1656–1695) and Eva (1659–1716) were in the Arwaburg during the siege. They were first imprisoned but later released.

Here he came into contact with refugees from Royal Hungary (that is, the area not occupied by the Turks), who had great hopes for the noble and rich young man; for he had fled like them after a large part of his family's possessions had been confiscated by the emperor. The discontent reached its peak when, on February 27, 1673, Emperor Leopold I repealed the Hungarian constitution , appointed Johann Caspar von Ampringen as civil and military governor, expelled 450 Protestant clergymen and sentenced another 67 to criminal service in the galleys .

The Catholic House of Habsburg tried by all means to prevent the spread of the "new teaching". At that time, Transylvania developed into the center of the anti-Habsburg movement, headed by Thököly as the leader of the Kuruc . Initially, he recorded significant military successes.

Leader of the Kuruc

Central europe 1683.png

Encouraged by aid promises from Louis XIV of France , the Habsburg opponents rose up under the motto “pro libertate et justitia” and elected the young Thököly as their leader. The uprising began in 1678 and within a short time the entire area of ​​today's Slovakia, including the central Slovak mining towns, was under Thököly's control. In 1681 he wrested an armistice from the emperor after he had increased his army with 10,000 Transylvanians and a Turkish army under the leadership of the Pasha of Großwardein ( Oradea in Romanian , Nagyvárad in Hungarian) supported him.

On June 15, 1682 Thököly married the widowed and convinced Catholic Ilona Zrínyi - according to the Protestant rite, the wedding was performed by the Lutheran preacher Miklós Lipóczy - it was a real love marriage, because Thököly was originally from a relative, the daughter of General Michael Teleki (1634–1690), who came from Transylvania, was engaged to be married. The dissolution of this engagement should lead to some confusion and political upset in Hungary. Ilona Zrínyi, 14 years her senior, was the eldest daughter of the former Banu of Croatia , Peter Zrínyi , who was involved in the Wesselényi magnate conspiracy and who was executed on April 30, 1671 in Wiener Neustadt . Her four children from the connection with Thököly died early. From her first marriage she had two children: Juliane and Franz II. Rákóczi .

The Turkish sultan had given Thököly the title of King of Upper Hungary (today's Slovakia) in 1682 , but he never used this title (only later did he use the title 'Prince of Transylvania'). As a result, his troops conquered many imperial fortresses and thus expanded Thököly's dominion in the west to the Waag . At the two state parliaments that he held in Košice (German Kaschau , Hungarian Kassa ) and Tállya in 1683 , the estates distrusted him, as they feared he would sacrifice national independence to the alliance with the Turks. So they denied him the approval of aid funds and a contingent of warriors, whereupon he got them by force.

During the second Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683, he supported the Turks significantly through military activities in what is now Slovakia and through the participation of some of his Kuruc in the huge Turkish army that had been sent to Vienna. The Turkish Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa nevertheless blamed Thököly for the defeat of the Turkish troops. Thököly then hurried to Adrianople ( Edirne in Turkish ) to justify himself to the Sultan .

Defeat against Habsburg

Shortly afterwards, after realizing that the Turkish cause was lost, he tried to use the Polish King John III. Sobieski to achieve a reconciliation with the Austrian emperor (i.e. the Habsburgs), whereby he offered to lay down his arms if Emperor Leopold recognized the religious rights of the Protestants in Royal Hungary and Thököly as the prince of Upper Hungary (more precisely: of 13 northeastern Hungary Counties of Royal Hungary). Leopold rejected these conditions and demanded unconditional surrender, and so the war began again. But Thököly's 1685 campaign ended in a series of defeats and when he asked for the help of the Turks in Oradea, they took him prisoner. He was imprisoned in Adrianople (probably due to his previous negotiations with Emperor Leopold), whereupon most of his supporters surrendered to the Emperor. The following hunt for remaining actual, but also supposed supporters of the Thököly uprising against the emperor, which was apparently also used as a counter-Reformation, fell victim to the evangelical martyrs of Eperjes (1687).

In 1686 Thököly was released from his dungeon and sent to Transylvania with a small army, where he failed, as in a second undertaking in 1688. The Turks then became suspicious again and had him captured again. On August 21, 1689, however, the Turks sent him again with 16,000 men to Transylvania and in September of the same year he defeated the combined troops of General Donatus Heissler and Michael Teleki in Zernyest . (Count Teleki was killed in the fight, Hotler was taken prisoner by Thököly). After this grand victory, Thököly was elected Prince of Transylvania by the state parliament in Kereszténysziget , but he was only able to defend his position against the imperial armies with extreme difficulty. In 1691 he left Transylvania. Then he continued to fight the Habsburg troops with the Turks, who had gradually been pushed back south, and was indeed a brave soldier (but, due to historical circumstances, fought in vain) in these battles. He led a Turkish cavalry unit, for example in the battle of Slankamen (1691) and was best known as the Turkish commander in the battle of Zenta (1697) on the Tisza .

The final end of his military career heralded this historic battle when the imperial troops under the command of Prince Eugene of Savoy ("the noble knight") achieved the decisive victory over the Turks on September 11, 1697, which ultimately led to the peace of Karlowitz and the final expulsion of the Turks from the Kingdom of Hungary.

In the Treaty of Karlowitz on January 26, 1699, the emperor was so angry about Thököly's behavior that he was specifically excluded from the amnesty that the emperor granted the Hungarian insurgents. After another unsuccessful attempt to regain the principality in Transylvania (1700), Thököly and his wife Ilona Zrínyi were exiled to Galata (near Constantinople) on imperial orders - Emperor Leopold insisted that Thököly be housed outside the European continent should. From the Turkish sultan, however, he received large estates and the title of Count von Widdin for his services.

A good two and a half years after his wife Ilona, ​​Emmerich Thököly died on September 13, 1705 in Nicomedia, where his remains were temporarily resting in the Armenian cemetery of Nicomedia (today İzmit) for over 200 years.

With him, the counts of the Thökölys died out in the male line.

posterity

After the Austro-Hungarian Compromise in 1867, the era of dualism began. After more than 150 years, the Hungarian nation remembered its earlier heroes who died in exile in Turkey . The political disputes between Austria and old Hungary subsided and a time of political understanding began. As early as 1873, Semplin County submitted a petition to the Hungarian Parliament , demanding the repatriation of the bones of Prince Franz II Rákóczi , his foster father Emmerich Thököly, his mother Ilona Zrínyi and other fellow sufferers from exile in Turkey. Other counties and free cities joined this petition.

Thököly's sarcophagus in the mausoleum of the New Evangelical Church in Kesmark.

Thereupon, in 1889, a Hungarian delegation headed by MP Kálmán Thaly (1839-1909) traveled to Turkey to see for themselves that the remains of the prince and his companions were intact. At the same time negotiations with the Turkish government regarding the repatriation took place. In order to remove the legal obstacles, the Hungarian Parliament had to annul or override the "Exile Ordinance" (Article XLIX, § 2 and § 3) from 1715, in which Franz II. Rákóczi, Emmerich Thököly and their companions as political Enemies of the homeland had been declared. The corresponding parliamentary resolution was passed on October 23, 1906 and was confirmed a day later by Emperor Franz Joseph I (1830-1916). With that, all obstacles that stood in the way of a return were removed.

The repatriation and reburial can be described as one of the most pompous events of the Hungarian Kingdom during the time of the Danube Monarchy. The coffins were first transported by ship across the Bosporus and then transferred to a special train. This homecoming turned out to be a triumphant reception of the dead exiles by the Hungarian nation. On the way, the train stopped at various stations where holy masses were celebrated and prayers were said with a large participation of the population . The first destination of the train was Budapest , where on October 28, 1906 the coffins were unloaded in a majestic and dignified procession through the city to St. Stephen's Basilica , where a solemn requiem was held.

On 29 October 1906, the coffins Rákóczi and his companions were to Kosice (the former "capital" of the Kuruc movement) transported in purpose-built with great pomp tomb in Elisabeth Cathedral buried. Because Kaschau was the "Rákóczi town" and the center of the Kurutz movement, Rákóczi and his companions were also buried in this city - only the remains of the Protestant "Kurutz King" Emmerich Thököly were transferred to the New Evangelical Church of Kesmark. In 1909 a mausoleum was built for Emmerich Thököly in the New Evangelical Church in Kesmark , in which his remains were buried in a splendid marble sarcophagus.

reception

Emmerich Thököly was a staunch Lutheran and an avowed opponent of the Catholic Habsburgs . In Hungary he was revered as a national hero and this reverence continues even today. In Hungarian historiography he is portrayed as a hero who, on the one hand, fought for religious freedom, especially for evangelicals , and, on the other hand, wanted Hungary to be separated from the Habsburgs (i.e. Austria ). To achieve this goal, he also accepted a military alliance with the Ottoman Empire . Even today his person is highly venerated in Hungary but also in Transylvania; there is hardly a city where there is not a "Thököly Street" or "Thököly Square". Schools and cultural institutions were named after him and numerous monuments were erected to him in many places in Hungary.

Outside the borders of Hungary, his work is viewed much more critically. Above all, he is accused of fickleness and instability in his politics. But his military alliance with the Ottomans under Kara Mustafa is particularly condemned during the siege of Vienna and the subsequent battle on Kahlenberg (1683) where Thököly fought against the Christian armies on the side of the Ottoman Empire.

gallery

  • The Thököly Castle in Kesmark

  • Kesmark, New Evangelical Church in which the Thököly Mausoleum is located.

  • The Thököly Monument in the colonnade of the Millennium Monument in Budapest

  • Signature of Emmerich Thököly

  • The Arwaburg belonged to the Thököly family in the 17th century (aerial photo with the Arwa river )

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Emmerich Thököly  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Thököly monument, a work by the Hungarian sculptor Jenő Grantner (* 1907, † 1983), was erected in the colonnades of the Hungarian kings in 1954 in the niche of the Maria Theresa monument, which was removed by the communists .
  2. ↑ According to other information, it should have been 730.
  3. ↑ Twenty-six of these Protestant clergymen, condemned to slave service in the galleys, were to be freed in 1676 by Admiral Michiel de Ruyter on behalf of Wilhelm of Orange . They had been sentenced to death in a trial in Pressburg in 1674 for refusing to sign off for their Protestant faith. The death penalty was eventually converted into a galley penalty, but the news about this course of action against Protestants had caused a stir , especially in the reformed Netherlands . - Cf. Martin Moravek: Michiel de Ruyter (1607-1676), the liberator of Hungarian Protestant preachers . In: Carpathian Yearbook 2015, pp. 45–54, here p. 51ff. and Anton Klipp: Fragments on the history of Protestantism in Old Hungary in Carpathian Yearbook 2006, ISBN 80-88903-78-5 , page 49 ff
  4. ↑ Ilona Zrínyi was the widow of Prince Franz I Rákóczi .
  5. ↑ Austria's heroes and military leaders from Maximilian I to the most recent times, described in biographies and character sketches from and after the best sources and source works. , GoogleBooks, pages 356-359
  6. ↑ As early as 1678, after the Kuruc uprising, Thököly entered into a military alliance with Kara Mustafa.
predecessor Office successor
Michael I. Apafi Prince of Transylvania
1690–1691 		Michael II Apafi
personal data
SURNAME Thököly, Emmerich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Thököly, Imre; Tökoly, Emmerich von; Tököly (Turkish); Tökölli (Turkish); Thököly, Imre (Hungarian); Tököli, Imrich (Slovak); Thököly, Emericq (in its own notation)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Leader of an uprising against Habsburg rule and Prince of Transylvania
DATE OF BIRTH April 25, 1657
PLACE OF BIRTH Kežmarok , Royal Hungary (now Slovakia)
DATE OF DEATH September 13, 1705
Place of death Nicomedia