Századok – 2016

2016 / 3. szám - KÖZLEMÉNYEK - Deák Ágnes: Karger őrnagy isteni sugallata. Gábriel Jasmagy memoranduma a magyar koronázási jelvények felkutatásáról (1866)

GABRIEL JASMAGY MEMORANDUMA (1866)

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THE DIVINE INSPIRATION OF MAJOR KARGER. THE MEMORANDUM OF GABRIEL JASMAGY ON THE DISCOVERY OF THE HUNGARIAN CORONATION INSIGNIA (1866)

by Agnes Deák (Summary)

In the autumn of 1866 Gabriel Jasmagy, on the demand of state minister Richard Belcredi, prepared a memorandum, in which he summarised whatever he knew about the search for the Hungarian coronation insignia, buried in the surroundings of Orsova in the last days of the war of independence, and about their subsequent discovery in September 1853. Jasmagy was the chief confidant of the Viennese state police at Istanbul after 1849, upon whose services as a confidential informant they could constantly rely up to the late 1860s. He was one among those persons who had participated in the successful September action. His memorandum consequently contains basically new information about the quest, while shedding new light also on state security activity among the Hungarian emigree group in Turkey, on the moment of discovering the Crown, and, before all, on the consequent governmental considerations. That the expected shower of honours and mass reward failed to materialize was the result not only of personal intrigues but also of „communicational” considerations: namely of the intention to represent the discovery of the coronation insignia before the public not as the result of a successful police action but as a work of divine inspiration.