Francis II Rákóczi

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Franz II. Rákóczi, portrait by Adam Manyoki .

Rákóczi's signature:Signature Franz II. Rákóczi.PNG

Franz II. Rákóczi (born March 27, 1676 in Borsi Castle (today Borša ) in Semplin County , Kingdom of Hungary ; † April 8, 1735 in Tekirdağ , Ottoman Empire ); ( Hungarian: II. Rákóczi Ferenc , slow: František II. Rákoci ) is now considered a Hungarian national hero and was the richest nobleman in Royal Hungary at the time . He was the clan of the Upper Hungarian Sáros County and leader of the uprising named after him (1703 to 1711) , the last and largest uprising of Hungarian nobles against the Habsburgs.

Its full titles were: “Franciscus II. Dei Gratia Sacri Romani Imperii & Transylvaniae princeps Rakoczi. Particum Regni Hungariae Dominus & Siculorum Comes, Regni Hungariae Pro Libertate Confoederatorum Statuum necnon Munkacsiensis & Makoviczensis Dux, Perpetuus Comes de Saros; Dominus in Patak, Tokaj, Regécz, Ecsed, Somlyó, Lednicze, Szerencs, Onod. "

Coat of arms of Francis II Rákóczi as Prince of the Holy Roman Empire
Francis II Rákóczi (Hungarian banknote, 500 forints, 1998)

Origin and youth

Rákóczi comes from a family that, among other things, held the office of the princes of Transylvania. Franz's noble relatives were often involved in anti-Habsburg uprisings:

After the expulsion of the Turks (end of the siege of Vienna in 1683, conquest of Buda in 1686), Transylvania became part of the Habsburg Empire (Royal Hungary).

Rákóczi lost his father at the age of four months and grew up entirely under the influence of his ultrapatriotic mother Jelena Zrinski ( Hungarian: Zrínyi Ilona ), the daughter of the Bans of Croatia Petar Zrinski (1621–1671) , who was executed in 1671 . From 1685 to 1688 she defended the Mukachevo fortress ( Hungarian: Munkács ) against a siege army of the imperial family. After the capitulation, the emperor locked her in a monastery until she exchanged Emmerich Thököly (1657–1705), whom she married in 1688, for an Austrian general. Rákóczi grew up rather neglected “with the domestics”, which gave him physical hardness. After Thököly's flight to Turkey, he went to Vienna with his mother and sister in 1688, but was separated from them there and sent to the Jesuit college of Neuhaus in Bohemia for five years as the ward of Cardinal Kollonitsch (the family was predominantly Protestant, but his father was already had become Catholic). The Jesuits are said to have tried to draw him into their order, not least because of his large possessions, but were unsuccessful - Rákóczi only retained a deep piety throughout his life. Having come of age, he began studying in Prague in 1690 and then went on a cavalier tour in 1693 . a. to Italy before settling in Vienna. On September 26, 1694, he married Charlotte Amalie von Hessen-Wanfried (1678-1722), daughter of Landgrave Karl von Hessen-Wanfried , in Cologne against imperial resistance , and withdrew with her to his Upper Hungarian estates.

Rebellions against Habsburg

Main article: Revolt of Francis II Rákóczi

Rákóczi on the frontispiece of the Histoire des revolutions de Hongrie with his memoirs (1739)
Monument from 1937 on the Parliament building in Budapest
Bust of Rákóczi in Ópusztaszer

At first he resisted all participation in uprisings - for example, when he was asked to participate in an initially successful peasant uprising in the Tokaj wine region in 1697, he fled to Vienna. However, the harsh repression by the Habsburgs and the fact that in 1701 he only got back a small part of his once huge (over 1 million hectares) estates caused a change of heart. With other nobles such as Bercsenyi he planned a revolt at the beginning of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701, but the Belgian officer François de Longueval (1647–1719), who was supposed to deliver letters from the rebels to Louis XIV , betrayed it to the emperor. Rákóczi was arrested at the end of May and taken to the same prison in Wiener Neustadt, where his grandfather was waiting for his execution. With the help of his wife and the officer Gottfried von Lehnsfeld , who had been bribed with a large sum of money and who paid with his life for it, he escaped in dragoon uniform on November 24, 1701 and went into exile in Poland. The emperor had him sentenced to death in absentia in 1703, put a bounty on the head and confiscated his goods.

In Warsaw, Rákóczi found protection with the French ambassador. At the beginning of 1703, rebellious farmers from northeast Hungary persuaded him to take over the leadership of their uprising, and from May he sent flags with the inscription "Cum deo pro patria et libertate" into the country and called every Hungarians to arms. In June he crossed the Carpathian border with his few farmers. The nobles initially suspected a peasant revolt and hesitated. When they learned of his leadership, they joined in large numbers from autumn 1703. At the end of the year he already ruled Upper Hungary (today's Slovakia) and the central part of the lowlands and invaded Transylvania and Transdanubia. When they reached the Austrian border, he also received support from a Bavarian-French advance, which got bogged down in Tyrol, so that the Allies could catch up and defeat the French and Bavaria at Höchstädt on August 13, 1704.

At its height, his Kuruzen army consisted of over 60,000 horsemen (" hussars ") who marauded as far as Vienna in 1704. However, they were poorly armed and therefore mostly inferior in open field battles, thus forced to use guerrilla tactics. The uprising was supported by France with money and advisers (Colonel de la Motte, who commanded the artillery), but troops could no longer be spoken of after Höchstädt. Rákóczi himself devoted himself only one or two days a week to state affairs and spent his time on the hunt, in pious devotion, studying or with his loved ones. His wife and two sons lived as hostages (raised under the guardianship of the emperor) in Vienna. In July 1704 the Transylvanian and Upper Hungarian estates elected him as their leader, on September 20, 1705 he was appointed Prince of Hungary at the Diet of Szecseny. He rejected the royal crown on the grounds that there must be a foreign power behind it. During the uprising the crown was offered in vain to Bavaria, Saxony and Sweden. Only with Peter the Great did he conclude a secret agreement in 1707 in which the latter offered him the Polish crown, but this had no consequences due to the course of the Northern War . In Hungary there were conflicts with the high nobility over the liberation of the serf peasants, who formed the majority of the Kuruzen army, and their absence from the goods as well as the lifting of the tax exemption of the high nobility. Before that, Rakoczsi had paid for the war partly out of his own pocket, that is, with the income from his huge goods.

It was not until 1708 that the Habsburgs, who fought in the War of the Spanish Succession, were able to send an army under Field Marshal Guido von Starhemberg against the Kuruc, who were besieging Trenčín on the way to Silesia . There Rákóczi's army was defeated on August 3rd in the Battle of Trenčín . The Kuruzen were pushed back to the northeast. Hungary was bleeding to death more and more due to epidemics (the uprising claimed half a million victims in total) and so it was decided to continue negotiations, which the allies of Emperor Joseph I urged to free troops against France. In 1711 the Peace of Szatmar was signed and the uprising ended. The chief negotiator, General Sandor Károlyi , was therefore long regarded in Hungary as a traitor, but initially acted on behalf of Rákóczi, who went to Poland in 1710 to negotiate with the tsar. Peace brought many advantages for Hungarians: full amnesty (with a few exceptions), freedom of religion, respect for the Hungarian estates. The high nobility preferred peace with the emperor to the uprisings of their serfs that had already begun.

exile

Franz II. Rákoczi rejected the contract and an amnesty for himself (including the offered German principality) and went into exile in Paris in 1713 . He received a pension from Louis XIV in 1714 and was a welcome guest in Versailles. Since he was in constant financial need, he ran a gambling club in his house through his confidante, the Abbé Brenner, which provided him with an annual income of 40,000 livres. Prevost reports on this in his Manon Lescaut . When the Hungarian historian Gyula Szekfű (1883–1955) discovered this in his book Rakoczi in Exile in 1913 (along with a few other character weaknesses of the national hero such as his many love affairs, which Rakoczi himself does not make a secret of in his confessions based on the model of Augustine ), this sparked a storm of indignation and his book was publicly burned by patriots. Rákoczi himself joined a Carmelite monastery (Camaldules de Grosbois) as early as 1714 - under the name of Count Sarus - where he devoted himself to study and prayer for a few years and wrote his memoirs. In the negotiations with the emperor in Rastatt in 1713 that followed the separate peace between the sea powers in Utrecht, Louis XIV used in vain for Rákóczi. In 1717 he left France after the Turks had given him hope. Despite warnings from the regent and the tsar, he embarked with 40 faithful in Marseille. However, the Turks were defeated by Prince Eugene , with Hungarian troops also fighting on both sides. In the Peace of Passarowitz in 1718 he was not only ignored, but had to move further away from the Habsburg borders into the Asian part of Turkey according to a clause in the treaty. He and his followers were assigned twenty houses in Tekirdag (Rodosto, European part of Turkey), where the Rákoczi Museum is located today. One of his sons lived with him for a few years and his long-estranged wife also visited him. In addition, he pursued theological studies, hunted and carpentry, as described in the letters of Rakoczi's secretary Kelemen Mikes (1690–1761), which are considered classics of Hungarian literature. Many of his followers were secretly in the wages of the emperor or sold information to the Russians or other powers. In 1735 he died in his home and was buried in the Catholic Church of Smyrna . He had his heart and two manuscripts (including Confessiones ) sent to the General of the Carmelite Order in France.

It was not until 1906 that the remains of the prince (with those of his mother and son) were brought home to what was then the Kingdom of Hungary at the expense of the state , laid out in St. Stephen's Basilica on October 28 and solemnly on October 29 in the Elisabeth Cathedral in Kaschau ( ung .: Kassa , Slov.: Košice ) buried.

Offspring and relatives

The male line Rákóczi died out in 1756 with Georg, his youngest son. A total of four children are said to have resulted from the marriage. The eldest son Leopold Georg (born May 28, 1696 in Kis-Tapolcsány) is said to have died early in 1700, as did a sister Charlotte, who died early before 1700. The other two sons Joseph (1700–1738) and Georg (1701–1756) grew up under the tutelage of the emperor in Vienna. Both were married: Georg with the Marquise de Bethune, then with Margueritte Suzanne de Bois l'Isle (both marriages were childless), Joseph in 1735 with Marie-Josepha Contentière. From the latter marriage a daughter Josepha-Charlotte (1736-1780) was born, who did not marry and had no children.

The mysterious Count of Saint Germain claimed to have been a son of Rákóczi, but found little faith. Defenders of this hypothesis identify him with this eldest son Leopold Georg, who was allegedly only supposedly declared dead and secretly grew up at the court of the last Medici Duke of Tuscany.

Rakóczi had a brother Georg III, who did not survive his first year in 1667, and a sister Julianna (born 1672), who married the Belgian nobleman Ferdinand Gobert, Count of Aspremont-Linden-Reckheim in 1691 .

Rákóczi monument
in Bad Kissingen
Rákóczi monument
in Siófok (Hungary)

Others

The Rákóczi spring in Bad Kissingen , which was discovered in 1737 when the Franconian Saale was relocated in the old river bed, was allegedly named after the then popular prince in the 18th century, although he never stayed in the spa town. The rakoczy spring developed into the mostly drunk spa and healing spring of the later Bad Kissingen. The local festival, which has been taking place on the last weekend in July since the 1950s, was named Rákóczi festival after this mineral spring .

In 1924 a fire destroyed most of the interior furnishings of the Rotenturm Palace , including the secret archive of Prince Franz II Rákóczi, which was kept in the tower.

The Hungarian national song , the Rákóczi March , is named after him and was arranged by Franz Liszt (Hungarian Rhapsody No. 15) and Hector Berlioz ( La damnation de Faust ) , among others . The melody is said to be based on trumpet signals from the Kuruzen Army.

The Tokaj wine was in the 18th century to a preferred wine at European courts, particularly in France, after Rákóczi sent his envoy abundant with this provided abroad.

In the Turkish city of Tekirdağ , where Rákóczi spent several years in exile and finally died, the Rákóczi Museum is located today , which deals with his life and Turkish-Hungarian relations. In addition to contemporary objects and paintings, various writings are exhibited in the well-restored building.

literature

  • Kalman Benda: Article Rakocy In: Biographisches Lexikon zur Geschichte Südosteuropas , Vol. 4, Munich 1981.
  • Kalman Benda: The Rakoczi Uprising and the European Powers . In: Österr. Business u. Lit. Vol. 22, 1978, p. 328.
  • Paul Lendvai: The Hungarians , Princeton University Press 2003.
  • Sandor Marki: Rákóczi Ferencz . 3 volumes. Budapest 1907/1910.
  • L. Baron v. Hengelmüller : Franz Rákóczi and his struggle for Hungary's freedom 1703–1711 . Several volumes. Stuttgart, Berlin: Deutsche Verl.-Anst., 1913.
  • O. Redlich: History of Austria . Vol. 6, 7, 1921, 1938 (Vol. 7 Becoming a Great Power 1700–1740 )
  • E. Horn : François Rakoczy II - prince de Transylvanie . Paris 1906 (translation by JE Horn (Joseph Einhorn) F. Rakoczy II, Prince of Hungary and Transylvania (1703–1711), historical character pictures , Leipzig 1854, 1906), online here: French edition 1906
  • Béla and Ágnes Várkonyi: Rákóczi Ferencz . Budapest 1955, 2nd edition 1976.
  • Gabor Kiss: Franz Rakoczy, Peter the Great and the Polish Throne (around 1717) . In: Yearbook Gesch. Eastern Europe . Vol. 13, 1965, p. 344.
  • Peter Broucek: The Kuruzzeneinbruch in Lower Austria and in Styria 1703-9 . Military historical publication series No. 55. Vienna 1985, ISBN 3-215-06102-3 .
  • Gyula Szekfű: Rakoczi in Exile (Hungarian), 1913.

Works

  • Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire des révolutions de Hongrie , in: Domokos Brenner, Histoire des révolutions de Hongrie, oú l'on donne une idée juste de son légitime gouvernement. Avec les memoires du prince François Rakoczy sur la guerre de Hongrie, depuis 1703, jusqu'à sa fin et ceux du comte Betlem Niklos sur les affaires de Transilvanie. The Hague 1738/1739
  • Mémoires sur la guerre de Hongrie depuis 1703 jusqu'à sa fin , The Hague 1739 (many Hungarian editions, e.g. Archivum Rakoczianum Volume 3, Part 1, Budapest 1978)
  • Confessio peccatoris (Latin autobiography), 1876, also as vol. 5,6 in Abbé Brenner: Histoire des révolutions de Hongrie où l'on donne une idée juste de son légitime gouvernement , La Haye 1739
  • Testament politique et morale du prince Racoczi , 1751 (disputed)
  • Rakoczi's political correspondence and the files of his high treason trial were edited by Thaly, Lukinich in 12 volumes in the Archivum Rakoczianum 1873/1935
  • Some of the foreign policy correspondence was edited by J. Fiedler: On the history of Franz Rakoczi and his connections with foreign countries , Vienna 1855/58 (Fontes rerum austriacarum, II., Vol. 9, Vol. 17)

Web links

Commons : Francis II Rákóczi  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Sources and footnotes

  1. ↑ This is what anti-Habsburg rebels called themselves in Royal Hungary under Thököly
  2. ↑ He lived in today's Quai Malaquais No. 9, which is still known today as the "Hôtel de Transylvanie".
  3. ↑ In 1916 Szekfű published another book in which he defended his portrayal
  4. ↑ Kelemen Mikes, Letters from Turkey, Hungarian, 1794, 2nd edition, Pest 1862 (Ferenc Toldy, editor), critical edition Budapest 1907 (editor F. Miklos). German letters from Turkey , Insel Verlag 1999. The letters are to a fictitious addressee in Constantinople.
  5. ↑ Kindlers Literaturlexikon, dtv edition, p. 9425.
  6. ↑ Lendvai, loc. Cit.
  7. ↑ As well as all Hungarian followers who were buried in Turkey, except for Kelemen Mikes, whose grave was no longer found
personal data
SURNAME Rákóczi, Franz II.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES II. Rákóczi Ferenc (Hungarian); František II. Rákoci (Slovak)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Leader of the uprising of Francis II Rákóczi
DATE OF BIRTH March 27, 1676
PLACE OF BIRTH Borsi Castle (now Borša ), Semplin County
DATE OF DEATH April 8, 1735
Place of death Tekirdağ , Ottoman Empire