Marina's Masters

woensdag 14 januari 2009

F e r e n c ~ R á k ó c z i

Ferenc (Francis) II Rákóczi (March 27, 1676 – April 8, 1735) Hungarian aristocrat, he was the leader of the Hungarian uprising against the Habsburgs in 1703-11 as the prince of the Estates Confederated for Liberty of the Kingdom of Hungary.

He was also Prince of Transylvania, an Imperial Prince, and a member of the Order of the Golden Fleece.
Today he is considered a national hero in Hungary.

The Rákóczi Uprising

As the House of Habsburg was on the verge of dying out in Spain, France was looking for allies in its fight against Austrian hegemony.
Consequently, they established contact with Rákóczi and promised support if he took up the cause of Hungarian independence.
An Austrian spy seized this correspondence and brought it to the attention of the Emperor. As a direct result of this, Rákóczi was arrested on April 18, 1700, and imprisoned in the fortress of Wiener Neustadt (south of Vienna).

It became obvious during the preliminary hearings that, just as in the case of his grandfather Péter Zrínyi, the only possible sentence for Francis was death. With the aid of his pregnant wife Amelia and the prison commander, Rákóczi managed to escape and flee to Poland. Here he met with Bercsényi again, and together they resumed contact with the French court.

Most of the Hungarian nobility did not support Rákóczi’s uprising, because they considered it to be no more than a jacquerie, a peasant rebellion. Rákóczi’s famous call to the nobility of Szabolcs county seemed to be in vain. He did manage to convince the Hajdús (emancipated peasant warriors) to join his forces, so his forces controlled most of Kingdom of Hungary to the east and north of the Danube by late September 1703. He continued by conquering Transdanubia soon after.