Petercsák Tivadar - Berecz Mátyás (szerk.): Magyarország védelme - Európa védelme - Studia Agriensia 24. (Eger, 2006)
MAGYARORSZÁG VÉDELME -EURÓPA VÉDELME BALASSI BÁLINT ÉS BOCSKAI ISTVÁN KORÁBAN - TESZELSZKY, KEES: A Bocskai-korona mítosza. A koronázás körülményeinek leírása a fikció és a valóság tükrében
Kees Teszelszky THE MYTH OF THE BOCSKAI CROWN The Description of the Coronation, the Fact and the Fiction Bocskai’s coronation, the acceptance of a crown presented by the Turks, the written account, the description of the details of the ceremony, prompt various questions which the present study will attempt to address. In the literature writers tend to rely on one single source: the description made by Bocatius. As far as we are aware nobody has questioned the reliability of this text, nor indeed has it been the subject of a critical study. Such an enterprise we believe is merited bearing in mind that the text is of some significance in our understanding of the political effects of the Bocskai Uprising. If Bocskai hadn’t indeed declined royal power and said what he is claimed to have said in the above-mentioned text, then subsequent analyses of the events would no longer be valid. If what we suggest is true, it was Bocatius’s description during the coronation that determined the explanations that followed rather than anything that Bocskai actually did himself. For the researcher the most exciting question is how to prove or disprove whether Bocskai’s symbolic deed and his highly significant words were simply the products of Bocatius’s imagination. In our study we attempt to show, by means of a number of hypotheses, that Bocskai’s rejection of the crown was a political construct, which Bocatius himself invented in his writings. The purpose of creating this fiction was to legitimise the Bocskai Uprising to the detriment of the Habsburgs’ claim to monarchical power in the Kingdom of Hungary, thereby undermining the legitimacy of Rudolph’s rule. We then go on to look at a number of specific pointers in Bocatius’s work and to analyse them in greater detail, before comparing the text with another important political writing from the period, the Szerencs Proclamation. 246
