Fatuska János – Fülöp Éva Mária – ifj. Gyuszi László (szerk.): Annales Tataienses I. Tata a tizenöt éves háborúban. Mecénás Közalapítvány. Tata, 1998.

Összefoglalók

Péter Szabó: The Cult of Brave Warriors: Ferenc Nádasdy and Miklós Pálffy The study enumerates the cult of the "Black Bey" Count Ferenc Nádasdy in comparison with the evaluation of another great leader of the 15 years war: Count Miklós Pálffy. In the literature Pálffy grew over Nádasdy just like an idol. Besides him we don't even know an authentic picture about Nádasdy. If we want to draw a more reliable picture about the cult of Ferenc Nádasdy, we need the more detailed analysis of the works of contemporary historians, since the sources dealing with chronicle of the 15 years war are biased. István Illésházy had been writing with a bias towards his brotherin-law Miklós Pálffy, and István Szamosközy the humanist treats the development of Royal Hungary with a distance giving only an inventory like description about the hero of Sárvár. János Baranyai Decsi describes only the events that are related to Transsylvania. As opposed to these Ferenc Nádsdy's own court preacher István Magyari's funeral speech over his lord's dead body, exemplifies the cult of bravery with a high spirit. It is known that in the course of 15 years war, the supreme commander of the Christian forces had been some Habsburg prince as a deputy of the King, and the factual leadership of the troops had in the hand of commanders who previously proved their abilities in Western Europe before they arrived to Hungary. Because of this fact the commandership of Nádasdy had only been an short episode. His tactics which had been built upon individual initiative, opposed to the co-ordinated moves of the allied forces, his Lutheran religion and also the tradition of his family taking the side of Estates (his father was regent) had not been a good recommendation in the Royal Court, - as it was emphasised by István Magyari in his funeral speech. Contrary to him Miklós Pálffy was educated in the Court, even had had office, and his wife was German. As a result of these, the cult of Ferenc Nádasdy ousted to the frontiers, the mistrust of the Court was substituted by the trust of the soldiers. The fact that the estates of Nadasdy - as opposed to Pálffy's - had been in the frontier zone, made it necessary to fight constantly to defend it. Among the soldiers there must had been a non written cult of his bravery. 161