Barna Attila: Lőcsei Fehér Asszony. Legenda és valóság - Győri Tanulmányok Füzetek. Tudományos Közlemények 16/2014 (Győr, 2014)

Lőcse’s White Lady and her lawsuit of high treason (Summary)

Foreign language summary

of being a woman, she followed her husband to army camps and even to wartime places, and "Julianna was paying attention to both parties”.

The fall of Lőcse

The capitulation and the story of Lőcse's (today: Levoca, Slovakia; Leutschau in German and Leutsovia in Latin) betrayal is also the chronic of the Hungarian independence Revolution's last period. The Hungarian rebels were defeated in Trencsény (today: Trencin, Slovakia) in 1709, moreover, they were also defeated in Romhány in January 1710, the state of Hungarian rebels and the army was suppressed to the place where the revolution had started years ago and had achieved its first successes. The Court Council of War of the Habsburg Monarchy developed the plan of the whole Upper Hungary's retake, which highlighted target was Lőcse's occupation. It was the strongest and strategically most significant town of the Spis, the whole county could be controlled from there.

It can be justified with data that from the autumn of 1709 that Mrs. Korponay lived in the town of Lőcse, which was besieged by troops of the emperor, and that she had an affair with General István Andrássy, commander in chief of the town. By that time, her husband, János Korponay's wealth and property was being threatened as in the leadership of the Hungarian rebels, which was falling apart, betrayals and lurches were getting common. Those who pledged alliance to the Emperor also wanted to acquire property of others, besides their own. Historical fact: Austrian troops encompassed the town in November 1709 and launched more, mostly unsuccessful attacks against the town strengthened with stonewall and towers, which fell in the middle of February. Lőcse was unexpectedly occupied by the Emperor’s teams.

The strongest evidence of the betrayal was that after the capitulation of the casde, Mrs. Korponay repeatedly requested the returning of her husband's property and she also listed her merits; these were acknowledged by court chancellor Miklós Illésházy in a letter. Rákóczi mentioned it in his memoir during the years of emigration as the followings: "I never knew details, however, it seems that baron Andrássy was persuaded by his lover to let the besieging Germans into the town through a secret door." The rebel’s propaganda newspaper of that time, the Mercurius Veridicus (in Hungarian: Veracious Mercurius) also believed that the fall of the town happened because of a seducing woman: "That, which could not be taken away with cannons, bombs, attacks, threats or very generous promises from the noble soul of the people of Lőcse, that could be achieved through flattery and allurement of a frivolous woman." — pub- 88 -