Search

This paper attempts to present the intellectual legacy of Albert Wesselski (Vienna, 1871–Prague, 1939), a partly forgotten great figure of literary and textual folkloristic comparatistics of the first half of the 20th century, and argues for his timeliness. While he also played an important role as a literary mediator and translator (e.g. translations and interpretations of Boccaccio and Dante, translations of medieval Italian, French and Flemish folklore texts), he was primarily concerned with questions of the origins of European and Asian fairy tales, the problem of the processes of transmission and genre theory. He presented the transnational and transcontinental connections between individual (fairy-tale) texts in his reflections, which were based on his exceptional erudition and knowledge of the material. His views on the essentially literary origins of fairytale material were disputed by many in his day, but at least some of them now seem to be confirmed. His comparative method can be an inspiration for those working with folklore and literary texts, both here and now. The present paper attempts to provide a sketchy overview of the early stages of Wesselski’s oeuvre and to inspire further reflection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Media news made the name of Wenzel Pohl known in Hungary in the early 2000s, for the two large history paintings (The Battle of Mohács, Saint Stephen converting the Hungarians to the Christian faith), which had cropped up in the art trade and which were purchased by the Hungarian state and deposited in the Hungarian embassy in Vienna, were attributed to him. Although more recent research has proposed that the painter of the cycle once consisting of six pieces was most probably August Rumel and not Pohl, it is worth knowing of Pohl’s artistic activity irrespective of the Hungarian relevance, too, because his person is gradually fading out of art historiography – for example, his name is missing from the 96th volume of the Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon published in 2017. The best-known Pohl portraits are the ones he painted of the noted Jesuit astronomer, mathematician and physicist Miksa Hell. A full-figure portrait shows the scientist in traditional Sami costume during his research trip to the North, and we know of a portrait showing Hell is a monk’s frock. His engraved copies of paintings in the Viennese imperial collection, real forerunners to the representative 19th century album of prints presenting the collection, probably belong to a series. In the cycle of paintings about the coronation of Joseph II as Holy Roman Emperor (Frankfurt, 1765) he was assigned the painting of architectural details, which is confirmed by the fact that he was sent on a study trip to Frankfurt to make drawn sketches of the venues of the event. After the representative painting of Martin van Meytens he made a small-scale version of the group portrait of Maria Theresa and her family. His chef d’oeuvre is the representative painting series showing the events of the coronation of Maria Theresa in Pozsony in 1741 painted for the Hungarian Court Chancellery in Vienna. He painted it with Franz Messmer in the second half of the 1760s. In contrast, the three portraits of monarchs in Riesensaal in Innsbruck so far attributed to him by researchers were actually painted by Jakob Kohl. The other part of the paper contributes a few new viewpoints to the examination of the painting about the battle of Mohács earlier attributed to Pohl. In addition to contemporaneous woodcuts of the tragic battle of 1526 in news-letters and pamphlets in German, to 16th century Turkish miniatures, and diverse 16–18th century European manuscript and book illustrations, a ceiling fresco in Garamszentbenedek and several large paintings – including Rumel’s work – also conjured up the battle in the 18th century. Since in the nation’s historical consciousness and cultural memory the battle of Mohács did not acquire its symbolic, mythic position represented to this day before the 19th century, the two works of art were way ahead of their time in anticipating the salient position of the tragic event, because, unlike, for example, István Dorffmaister’s late 18th century pictures ordered in Mohács, they show the battle as a fatal even in the history of the entire nation. On the other side, by the terminating piece of the series ordered for the Transylvanian Court Chancellery being the battle of Mohács, the client departed from the 18th century imperial, dynastic outlook which presented as positive parallels to the battle of Mohács and the capture of Szigetvár by the Turks the victorious battles of the late 17th century liberating war led by the Habsburg Empire: the second battle of Mohács and the recapture of Szigetvár, partly as examples of divine justice and partly as legitimation of the Habsburg Empire’s territorial expansion “earned with blood”. It is noteworthy that the right side of central scene of Rumel’s Battle of Mohács resembles the composition of Leonardo da Vinci’s Battle of Anghiari surviving in copies only. It is presumable that the renaissance battle scenes served as a model example for the painter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the policies of the Holy See with regard to the Hungarian church during the pontificate of Pope Innocent XII (1691-1700). In the course of the Great Turkish War (1683-1699) important territories of the Hungarian Kingdom had been liberated from Ottoman rule, and the bishoprics and other ecclesiastical institutions started to reorganise themselves there. Yet the filling of church benefices constituted a constant bone of contention between the Apostolic See and the Habsburg Court of Vienna on account of the traditional right of patronage (ius patronatus) of the Hungarian kings, and the internal disputes between the newly reorganised bishoprics were also brought to Rome. A particularly sensitive area in this respect was the situation of the Protestant Principality of Transylvania, now under Habsburg rule, where the Viennese court aimed at strengthening the Catholic Church. A special episode of the period was, in the context of the development of general European politics, the attempt by the Habsburg court to have the bishop of GyBr, Duke Christian August of Saxony-Zeitz, created a cardinal. Atl these issues shed light on the way the Hungarian Catholic Church had changed with the expulsion of the Ottomans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The topic of the paper is a cycle of six large panneaux on Hungarian historical themes panted for the Vienna palace of the Transylvanian Court Chancellery. The series on Hun–Hungarian history from leaving behind the original habitat to the battle of Mohács is the earliest relic of Hungarian history painting, yet earlier researches only tangentially touched on it despite its salient importance. When the Principality of Transylvania became part of the Central European Habsburg Monarchy as a independent land in 1690, Leopold I founded the Transylvanian Court Chancellery in 1693 as the highest governing organ of Transylvania. Based in Vienna, the office functioned in diverse rented buildings for a long time, before the freshly appointed chancellor of Transylvania Gábor Bethlen (1712–1768) purchased a building in Vienna in 1755 for the office. He chose the Sinzendorf palace in Hintere Schenkenstrasse across from the Löwel bastion (later replaced by the Burgtheater) close to the palace of the Hungarian Chancellery. It functioned until it was demolished in 1880. In 1755–1759 the chancellor had a representative suite of rooms created on the second floor also including a dining room. Its walls were covered by six large (c. 325 x 310 cm) painted wall hangings or spalliers. It is known from a description by Mór Jókai that the cycle contained three scenes from the Hun–Hungarian prehistory and three from the history of the Christian Hungarian Kingdom. 1) Exodus of the Magyars from their original habitat bordering on China; 2) Pagan priest officiating a fire sacrifice and the Hun king Attila (?), 3) Prince of Moravia Svatopluk sells Pannonia to the chieftain of the Magyars Árpád for a white horse, 4) Saint Stephen converts the Magyars to Christianity, 5) King Matthias Hunyadi enters Vienna in 1486, 6) The battle of Mohács in 1526. In a study published in 1906 Piarist historian–archivist Sándor Takáts (1860–1932) adduced several data on the artists and artisans working on interior decoration of the chancellery palace including painters, presumably on the basis of the artists’ bills. These documents together with all the files of the Directorium in publicis et cameralibus perished in a fire that broke out in Vienna’s Justizpalast in 1927. The Hungarian historical panneaux were presumably painted by August Rumel (1715–1778) who features in the sources as Historienmaler and painter of the Viennese citizenry. On the basis of indirect information, the cycle can be tentatively dated to 1756–1758, as they were already included in the inventory of the chancellery in 1759. The Transylvanian Court Chancellery hardly used its first headquarters for one and a half decades after 1766. When in 1782 Joseph II merged the Transylvanian and Hungarian chancelleries, the Transylvanian office moved in 1785 next door to its sister institution, which had had a palace since 1747 a street further, in Vordere Schenkenstrasse, i.e. today’s Bankgasse. They moved in the one-time Trautson house. Parallel with that the treasury sold the former centre of the Transylvanian chancellery which was bought by imperial and royal chamberlain Count Mihály Nádasdy (1746–1826). As far as Jókai knew, the panneaux became court property in the 1780s and they were purchased at an auction in 1809 by Countess Rozália Bethlen (1754–1826) and transported to Transylvania. They can be identified in the chattels inventory for 1839 of the Jósika palace in Kolozsvár. Later the panneaux were inherited within the Jósika family. Elected minister a latere in 1895, Sámuel Jósika (1848–1923) had the cycle transported to Vienna and put them up in the “Hungarian house”, his official place, today the house of the Hungarian embassy. When his incumbency expired, the pictures went back to Transylvania and passed down in the Jósika family. In 1945 four of the pictures got lost. The two surviving pictures were purchased by the Hungarian State and hung up in the gala room of the Hungarian Embassy in Vienna in 2008 where they can still be seen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]