Klára Andrássy

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Klára Countess Andrássy de Csíkszentkirály and Krasznahorkai (born January 18, 1898 in Budapest , Kingdom of Hungary , † April 12, 1941 in Dubrovnik , Kingdom of Yugoslavia ) was a Hungarian nobleman and journalist.

Klára Andrássy at a young age

Life

Klára in the family called "Kája" was the youngest daughter of Count Theodor ( ung . Tivadar) Andrássy (* 1857, † 1905) and his wife, Countess Eleonore Maria Rudolphine Zichy (* 1867, † 1945). Klára was the granddaughter of the famous Hungarian politician Gyula Andrássy , the first Prime Minister of Hungary after the Compromise, who later held the post of Foreign Minister in Austria-Hungary (1871 to 1879). After the father's early death, the mother married her brother-in-law Gyula Andrássy Junior , who became Klára and her three sisters' foster father and guardian. Under the supervision of their extremely strict mother, Klára and her sisters grew up surrounded by nurses and chambermaids - in the Budapest Andrássy Palace at Fő utca 13 ( Budapest 1st district ) in winter and on the family estate in Töketerebes in summer . With the help of foreign educators, Klára received an upbringing that was appropriate to her class, which was common for young women in society at the time.

During the First World War , like most of the young women in her social class, she volunteered as a nurse for wounded soldiers who were transported from the front to the hinterland. With like-minded contemporaries, she founded a children's hospital which was named "Fehérkereszt" (German: "White Cross"). Klára experienced the horrors of the Hungarian Soviet Republic at the end of 1918 on the estate of her brother-in-law József Cziráky in Dénesfa. The family then fled to Switzerland and only returned to Hungary after the Communist terror of the Soviet Republic was put down.

Of the four daughters of Theodor Andrássy, Klára was considered the prettiest. At a young age she was also the most conservative among the sisters. Politically she was close to the views of her foster father Gyula Andrássy Junior. According to her mother's diary, there were hopes in the family that Archduke Albrecht von Österreich-Teschen would marry Kája, because he asked for her hand in exile in Switzerland in 1920 and became engaged to her. This turned out to be a fallacy, however, as the engagement was later broken off. Ultimately, Klára married Prince Karl Odescalchi on September 5, 1921 . The son Paul Otto emerged from the marriage. The marriage was not a happy one and they divorced in 1927.

At the beginning of 1926, Klara Andrássy became the executive chairwoman of the 'Holy Crown Association of Hungarian Women' (Hungarian: "Magyar Nők Szent Korona Szövetsége"). It was a women's association that set itself the goal of activating conservative women politically.

Klára Andrássy's wedding on September 5, 1921. Gyula Andrássy Junior is in the middle of the lower row in Hungarian magnate costume.

In her political views, Klára initially stood in stark contrast to the views of her sister Katinka, who was insulted as the "red countess" because of her marriage to Mihály Károly . She broke off all contact with the Károly couple and a reconciliation only came about in 1934. In the meantime, she gave up her original conservative legitimist stance and joined the bourgeois left. She developed into a staunch anti-fascist who sympathized with communists and from February 1938 reported regularly on the Spanish Civil War - above all in the Danish newspaper Politiken , the French magazine L'Ordre, but also in Hungarian newspapers. According to her sister Katinka, she even joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia at that time . However, it was not possible to substantiate this claim with documents.

In January 1939, Klára returned to Hungary. She lived in your Budapest palace, where she organized regular meetings with a circle of left-wing Hungarian intellectuals (e.g. Dezső Keresztúry , István Bibó and many others). At the end of 1939 she joined the 'Hungarian-Polish Committee' for the rescue of refugees and also made her palace available for the activities of the committee. The main task of this committee was the rescue of the front of the Nazis from Poland who fled Poland and Jews . A branch of the Polish Red Cross was temporarily located in her palace . Through this activity she was noticed by the secret services and came under surveillance. Since she was threatened with arrest, she turned to the then imperial administrator of Hungary, Admiral Horthy, and asked for an exit visa, which she was granted. Klára Andrássy received the requested visa and left Hungary in April 1941 with the intention of going to Great Britain via the Balkans and Egypt .

When she arrived in Dubrovnik, she went to the post office to inform her family by telegram of the happy arrival . While leaving the post office, she was the only one to be hit by an aerial bomb ( dud ) from a German aircraft and injured so badly that she died a short time later on April 12, 1941 in the hospital in Dubrovnik. Klára Andrássy was buried on April 15, 1941 in the Dubrovnik cemetery.

Klára Andrássy's intellectual legacy tried to preserve her son Paul Otto Odescalchi - who valued his mother very much. When his mother died, he was only 17 years old and was living with his father. Until the end of his life he endeavored to keep the memory of his mother alive. Klára's estate was packed in a suitcase by her secretary along with the family silver and given to the family. When the Odescalchis had to leave Hungary at the end of the Second World War , this suitcase was given to the sister of Klára's divorced husband, Eugenie Odescalchi. The suitcase and its valuable contents were later lost.

literature

  • Magyar Életrajzi Lexicon. Budapest 1981, ISBN 963-05-2498-8 , Volume 3, p. 12. (Hungarian)
  • 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

References and comments

  1. ↑ Jozsef Graf Cziráky de Dénesfalva (* 1883, † 1960), the second husband was her older sister Ilona.
  2. ↑ Dénesfa is a small town near Kapuvár in today's Győr-Sopron-Moson County , with 362 inhabitants (2015)
  3. ↑ Kája had three older sisters: Ilona (* 1886, † 1967), Barbara (ung.Borbála, * 1890, † 1968) and Katinka (* 1892, † 1985).
  4. ↑ Károly Borromeo Odescalchi de Szerén (born September 19, 1896 in Szolcsány , Neutra County , † April 10, 1987 in London , Great Britain ).
  5. ↑ Paul Otto Odescalchi (born September 28, 1923, † April 17, 2014) lived a large part of his life in Great Britain in emigration. He was married three times (1st Zsuzsanna Tamássy de Fogaras, 2nd Antonia Horne, 3rd Ann - Charlotte du Chastel).
  6. ↑ Károlyi Mihályné: Együtt a számûzetésben . I., 235.
  7. ↑ According to other information, it should have been an Italian aircraft.
  8. ↑ Princess Eugenie Odescalchi (born October 15, 1898 in Szolcsány, † August 18, 1985 in Szécsény ) was the younger sister of Károly Odescalchi and thus the sister-in-law of Klára Andrássy.
personal data
SURNAME Andrássy, Klára
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Andrássy de Csíkszentkirály and Krasznahorkai, Klára Countess (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hungarian nobleman and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH January 18, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Budapest , Kingdom of Hungary
DATE OF DEATH April 12, 1941
Place of death Dubrovnik , Kingdom of Yugoslavia