The Eighth Tribe, 1976 (3. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1976-03-01 / 3. szám

Page 4

THE EIGHTH TRIBE

March, 1976

The Rákóczi Family before the generals of the Hubsburg imperial forces after their capture at Munkács, 1688.

Habsburgs in the late seventeenth century, ended up as a bitter exile in the Ottoman Empire, leaving it up to his foster son, Prince Ferenc Rákóczi II, to continue this uneven struggle against the Habsburg Goliath.

Given this background, young Ferenc Rákóczi’s childhood and upbringing was rather torturous, and filled with all the hazards and promises that only the heir to such a distinguished tradition could expect. Thus, young Rákóczi was only twelve years old when — after three years of heroic defense — his mother was obliged to surrender the KURUC fortress of Munkács to the Habsburg imperial forces (1688). Following this debacle, lie was promptly separated from his mother, placed under the guardianship of the Magyar-hating Cardinal Kollonich, and then sent off to various Jesuit centers of learning in Rohemia to be educated in an anti-Hugarian and anti-Protestant tradition. Only in 1692, at the age of eighteen, was Rákóczi able to extricate himself from under these oppressive circumstances, when he was declared of age, and also got married — although against the wishes of the emperor.

This period of relative peace and personal independence did not last long for Rákóczi. After a few visits to his Hungarian estates, he became increasingly involved in the renewed anti-Habsburg movements of

the 1690’s, which were brought about by the oppressive measures of the Habsburg occupying forces that took over Hungary after the expulsion of the Turks. The resulting misery was especially great among the peasant masses, whose economic exploitation and brutalization went beyond anything witnessed under Turkish rule, and whose misery was also increased by the growing religious intolerance of the Catholic conquerors. But this misery and disaffection was not limited to the peasantry, many of whom fled after the Turks. Even a number of the Hungarian nobility (particularly those with the Protestant-Transylvanian traditions) began to look upon the Ottoman rule as the lesser of two evils.

These were then the conditions that prepared the ground for Rákóczi’s “War of Liberation” and prompted the devoutly Catholic prince to become the leader of the new anti-Habsburg national crusade for national independence, social justice and religious equality and tolerance for all. The tolerant and relatively egalitarian traditions of his Transylvanian forefathers could not be obliterated from his mind.

Rákóczi’s struggle lasted for eight years, from 1703 to 1711. It ultimately ended in his personal defeat and exile, hut also in a partial political victory (a compromise peace) for the brutalized nation. During this period Rákóczi’s personal fate became