Agria 38. (Az Egri Múzeum Évkönyve - Annales Musei Agriensis, 2002)

H. Szilasi Ágota: Az egri vár és hősei a képzőművészetben

H. Szilasi Ágota Eger Castle and its Heroes in the Visual Arts "After the lamentable reverse at Mohács" the victory of 1552 against the mass ranks of the Turks "once again showed Hungary's historic valour in its true colours'". From the past it was possible to learn both about the present and the future, "showing Hungarians what could and what should be done when their most sacred values were at risk". This at least was what painters and sculptors thought, along with historians, poets, writers, journal editors and politicians, during the 19

th century. Their works had an almost iconic significance linked inextricably with the history of Hungary at a time when national independence and Hungarian freedom were at stake. The first representations of Eger Castle and the victorious battle against the Turks appeared as early as the 16

th and the 17

th centuries in the form of topographical views and illustrations to historical texts. These were for the most part published abroad. Apart from the countless vedutas, which tended to be of the 1596 siege, there were also scenes based on the works of the contemporary historians Sebestyén Tinódi Lantos and Ortelius (Hungarische-Türkische Chronik, Nuremberg, 1684) representing the selfless heroic endeavours of the defenders of the castle, particularly those of the women. Although the 1552 siege of Eger Castle proved to be most popular with artists in the period between the 1860s and the Ausgleich of 1876 it has proved to be a popular pictorial theme ever since. Interest in the theme during the Biedermeier period can be ascribed to the changing roles of women, the prevailing attitudes towards the family and the nation. Károly Kisfaludy's Aurora of 1825 includes an Hungarian Amazon - possibly depicting Klára / Katica Dobó or Gábor Homonnai's wife - which proved to be the prototype for many later works, both from an ideological and a formal point of view. Another figure to be given prominence in both the historical accounts and in literature was castellan István Dobó, whose heroism, virtue and good leadership were imbued with a special symbolism. This study focuses not only on those works (paintings, prints, lithographs, sculptures and reliefs) devoted to this particular episode but on the social context in which they were produced. The study deliberately fails to consider Bertalan Székely's The Women of Eger. Those works by Mihály Kovács (1854), Bálint Kiss (1858) and Béla Vizkelety (1860) are pictorial manifestations of the pain of the failed 1848-49 War for Freedom. Aladár Körösfői-Kreisch's work of 1896, which was specially commissioned by Heves County to mark the millennium celebrations commemorating the thousandth anniversary of the Hungarian Conquest, 307