Fraternity-Testvériség, 1955 (33. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1955-10-01 / 10. szám
TESTVÉRISÉG 17 1566; he is the central character of the Zrinyiász. Theodore Körner, the German romantic poet and Schiller’s friend, wrote a play about him.8 The parents of the poet died (his father was Banus of Croatia) when he was a child, and he was raised by Cardinal Péter Pázmány, who, as a writer of religious tracts, is considered the Hungarian Bos- suet. It was Pázmány who converted the poet’s father to the Catholic creed. His formal education was directed by the Jesuits in the cities of Nagyszombat and Graz, and at the University of Vienna. He excelled in classical knowledge, learned Latin, Italian, French, German and Croatian and in his youth spent several years in Italy. After his return, he settled down on the family estate in Csáktornya where he had a large private library which in relationship to the Hungarian literary scene has the same “unique” cultural significance as the private library of Euripides has in relationship to the Greek literary scene. During the Thirty Years War Zrínyi attained the rank of general of Ferdinand Habsburg, the Third; he was also the Banus of Croatia. In the meantime he wrote pastoral poetry in the vein of Italian Renaissance poets, idylls and elegies; the latter expressed his grief over the death of his wife, Countess Eusebia Draskovich. He wrote religious and patriotic poems and concentrated on his magnum opus. In 1652 he married Countess Zsófia Lobi; from this marriage two sons were born. As a patriot he questioned the Habsburg rule in Hungary, and in a pamphlet rejected Austrian “protection”. To him this w*as not a rhetorical issue, but a principle, a profound conviction. In 1655 the nation wanted him to be the palatine9 but the court of Vienna prevented his election. Zrínyi, sensing the danger of the nation’s entire absorption by the Habsburgs or by the Turks, renounced his heretofore applied policy of appeasement and turned to György Rákóczi, the Second, Prince of Transylvania, from whom he hoped to obtain support for the restoration of Hungary’s independence. But Rákóczi failed in his political and military aspirations and his failure had its repercussions on the future activities of Zrínyi. After this disappointment he organized his own army and fought the Turks, but again Vienna interfered. The collapse of Transylvania, hastened by Austrian intrigue, convinced Zrínyi that the Hungarians must rely solely on themselves and that a Hungarian army, free from 8 Graf Nikolaus Zrínyi, DER FALL VON SZIGET, Übersetzt von Árpád Guillaume. Mit einer Einleitung von Árpád Markó. (Budapest, 1944), p. 5. 9 The Hungarian term for palatine is “nádor.” The Latin terms are “comes palatinus” or "palatinus regis.” Since the time of St. Stephen, the first Hungarian Christian ruler, the palatine occupied, next to the monarch, the most important public position in Hungary. Austrian interference, must protect the destiny of the nation. The perfidy of his enemies, this time personified in General Raimund Montecuc- coli, prevented Zrínyi from attaining his objective, which was to drive the Turks out of the country. It does not seem without foundation to accept the hearsay, that the Habsburgs had a hand in the death of Zrínyi. In his major works Zrínyi castigated the adversaries of Hungary who retarded the freedom and progress of the nation. He did not air trite grievances; he observed the treachery of his antagonists; he carefully avoided being trapped by them. It is well to remember that he lived in an age when in matters of decisive importance society was represented by the nobility. Within the moral limitations of his time, Zrínyi had a social conscience. When he wrote that “we are not inferior to other nations,” when he coined the slogan “hie nobis vel vincendum vel moriendum est,” (here we must win or die), or when he popularized the phrase “ne bántsd a magyart” (do not offend the Hungarian) he spoke and acted in accordance w’ith his courage, faith and sense of responsibility. He wras a “lyric and epic poet, a political thinker and a practicing statesman, a military and political pamphleteer.” 10 His “Christian universalism” 11 expressed his belief that man was created in the likeness of God, therefore man is a creature of spiritual dignity; his patriotism was not a vehicle for worldly success, but a canon applied to the obligations of public life. He was unable and unwilling to accept a world without moral laws. His political and military pamphlets, such as Siralmas panasz (Piteus Complaint), V. Károly császár (Emperor Charles, the Fifth), Tábori kis tracta (Little Tract About Camp Life), Mátyás király életéről való elmélkedés (Reflections About the Life of King Mathias), and his most mature work in this field, Török áfium ellen való orvosság (Antidote Against Turkish Narcotics), show Zrínyi a writer who borrowed ideas from foreign, mostly Italian authors, but remolded them and enriched them with his own ideas. His Török áfium ellen való orvosság was published in 1705 by Count Simon Forgách, who dedicated it to Ferenc Rákóczi, the Second, the great national leader. In 1891 Jenő Rónai Horváth published a complete edition of Zrinyi’s prose works. As a political and military analyst, Zrínyi ranks with some of the acclaimed writers of his times, although he could not be called in a scholarly sense a political scientist. While some of his thoughts are traceable to foreign authors, the wisdom and compelling power of his prose writings, syntactical heaviness nothwithstanding, reveal 1 • 10 Géza Féja, A RÉGI MAGYARSÁG (Pozsony, 1936), p. 126. 11 Mihály Babits, op. cit., p. 230.
