Bányai Balázs - Kovács Eleonóra (szer.): A"Zichy-expedíció"- Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei. A. sorozat 48. (Székesfehérvár, 2013)
The "Zichy Expedition"
194 THE "ZICHY EXPEDITION became the founder of the Szentmihály-branch of the Zichy-family.27 He is Jenő Zichy's father. Edmund’s brothers - Jenő Zichy’s uncles - were Eugen (properly translated into Hungarian as “Jenő”), who carried the Hungarian name Ödön, 1809-1848) and Domonkos (1808-1879). The former had lands in Kálóz, in the county where he was administrator from 1844 until the spring of 1848. Then he retired from politics altogether. He emerged in Székesfehérvár after the occupation by the Croatian troops heading for Buda in the company of Jellasich, the Croatian leader. On 29th September he left Székesfehérvár with imperial manifestos, with a safe-conduct to Pozsony given to him by Jellasics and with his nephew Pál, who probably did not know anything about those political documents. At Soponya they encountered the Hunyadi-warband who found those documents and therefore arrested and escorted them to their commander, Artúr Görgei. Görgei charged Zichy in front of a military courtmartial. The court sentenced him to death. The sentence was carried out on 30th September.28 His older brother, Domonkos - who owned Szentiván in County Fejér next to Aba - was bishop of Veszprém at that time and was, like his brother, not sympathetic to the new political structure. He openly expressed his opinion about it and that led to a scandal in Veszprém. The news of his brother’s execution and the hearsay about the bishop playing into the hands of the Austrians did not improve his situation. He fled quickly to Austria. He resigned his seat in 1849. After the freedom fight he settled in a town called Major next to his huge lands in county Bihar (today Romania). Here he maintained a hospital for the needy free of charge and donated huge sums of money to the Roman and Greek Catholic churches until the end of his days.29 Count Ödön Zichy (1811-1894), despite the fragmentation of the lands, owned big manors in County Somogy and Fejér in the middle of the 19th century. His holdings in County Fejér were Kishörcsök, which belonged to the territory of Kálóz and Zichyfalva, which belonged to Szentmihály, but was an autonomous taxation community since 1856 and included the parts of the village owned by the Zichy family (the manor house, its park and the farms of the manor).30 As a young man, the count served as a military officer but he retreated after a few years. He married princess Paulina Odescalchi in 1832. Jenő was born as their 4th child out of five in 1837.31 The family lived initially in Hungary but probably after the execution of Eugene (Ödön) and the flight of Domonkos, moved to Vienna.32 It is because of their transfer to Vienna that they rented out their palace in Székesfehérvár to people who established the Hotel Magyar Király in that building.33 Despite all this, he never lost contact with his homeland where he was member of the House of Lords. He controlled the foundational manors of the family in County Árva. He played a ma-
