Dénesi Tamás (szerk.): Collectanea Sancti Martini - A Pannonhalmi Főapátság Gyűjteményeinek Értesítője 6. (Pannonhalma, 2018)
III. Forrás
286 Csécs Teréz: Levél az 1848. március–áprilisi Győrről Teréz Csécs “Dear Fellow-Citizen” A letter about Győr in March–April 1848 A good number of diaries, memoirs and letters are known about the events of the revolution in Győr, the “Hungarian Marseille” from March and April 1848. Zsigmond Simon (1814–1891), Benedictine monk and professor, summarized the events in Győr and what happened to him between 15 March and 12 April in a letter hitherto unknown and first published here. He sent his letter of personal and friendly tone from Győr to Sopron to one of his fellowmonks, Antal Nyulassy (1820–1900) living then in Sopron. The correspondent was an academic professor at the time of the revolution in 1848, as well as a censor — under compulsion and against his will — in Győr, thus he played an important role in the publication of the journal entitled Hazánk (Our Homeland). Owing to the prudence and agreement of Simon, the censor and the journaleditor, Dr. Pál Kovács Pál, the news of Pozsony written in “the strongest language” were published in Hazánk in spite of the fact that the abolition of censorship had not been approved by the king yet. Zsigmond Simon responded to the events of the revolution of 16 March in Győr with sympathy, and as for the tense atmosphere in the city, his sentences are in harmony with the diary of János Ecker. Even schoolorder was upset, teaching was impossible, discipline broke, teachers were expected to wear a cockade, and later the pupils and the monastic teachers also went on patrol until teaching was terminated. The correspondent expresses his concern about the aversion and aggression against the ecclesiastics, and – in a subdued ironic tone – he writes about the atrocities against himself, too, since he was also depicted on the gate of a house among the ones to be hanged: “I have been exalted” but for a night. In the last part of his letter – with considerable apprehension – he ponders on the survival of the Benedictine Order and on the future economic life among changed circumstances in case of the survival.
