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Koning Sigismund en zijn gevolg in de Lage Landen – Nederlanders in Hongarije*
23-63Views:155The 1378 Great Western Schism gave a new direction to the Luxemburgs’ traditional pro-Valois politics. The House of Luxemburg took an abrupt turn away from the French orientation, who adhered to the obedience to the Avignon pope and were seeking for new partners. At the beginning of the 15th century, even amidst the Orléans-Armagnac vs. Burgundy antagonism, Sigismund had quite good contacts with the duke of Burgundy, probably stemming from their co-operation of the crusade of Nicopolis in 1396, the Flemish participation of which the article also investigates. Sigismund came closer to Burgundy at the Council of Constance, even though they had taken an opposite stand in important issues such as the inheritance of Brabant and Luxemburg. The Luxemburgs themselves also had possessions in the Low Countries, because in the 14th century the dynasty, besides Luxemburg, also owned the Duchy of Brabant and Limburg. In the 15th century, partly because of the Burgundians gaining substantial territories, they partially opposed their rights, thereby bringing forth conflicts within the Low Countries. The article explores the relations of the House of Burgundy with the provinces of the Netherlands, especially the county of Flanders and the Flemish cities. When it comes to ‘Burgundian’ contacts, it is fundamentally taken as relations with the Low Countries, particularly Flanders. The study examines the relationships that Sigismund maintained with the political figures of the Low Countries, especially the counts of Holland and Zeeland from the House of Wittelsbach, the duke of Gelderland and Juliers/Jülich asd well as the bishops of Utrecht and Lüttich/Luik. I also wish to shed light upon contacts beyond the scene of ‘high politics’. Although we can not speak of daily relations between Hungary and the provinces of the Low Countries, there were complex contacts. Hundreds of Flemish knights took up the Cross against the Ottomans and fought at Nicopolis, the campaign of which was also funded by 24 Attila Bárány the citizens of Flanders. A range of cities embraced a rather independent political track when supplied the Emperor with ships. Flemish or Dutch craftsmen built a river flotilla for Sigismund. Relations can be come across in the clergy: Dutch masters of theology and medicine were active in Hungary, most peculiarly contributing to the development of the university in Óbuda.
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De tuinman, de geldschieter, de koelie-werver en de mandoer: Vier portretten van László Székely en de Delische Kunstkring
101-117Views:759The Hungarian planter László Székely was active as a painter on Sumatra during the first decennia of the 20th century. In 1923 he painted four portraits of people from the planters’ community: The Mandoer, The Moneylender, The Toekang-kebon and The Koelie recruiter, which appeared in the weekly paper De Zweep. In this article I will give an overview of the cultural life in Deli and place Székely’s work in this context. Furthermore, I will explain the uniqueness of Székely’s portraits, using the theory of the English cultural historian Peter Burke.
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Onze man in Nagasaki: De gefantaseerde diplomatieke dienst van András Jelky in Japan
49-82Views:792The history of András Jelky was published in German in 1779 in Vienna and in Prague. Jelky was employed by the VOC and had sailed to the Dutch East Indies, had had adventures there and built a career. According to the book from 1779, he also worked as an emissary in Japan. In this article I will discuss the topic of the Dutch-Japanese relations in the 16th to 19th century and the potential role of Jelky.
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Reviewing the difficulties of Hungarian higher education in the first quarter of the 20th century and the role of university youth after the ‘Great War’: A newsreel supported pragmatic survey
79-100Views:250The basic idea of this paper was generated by some motion pictures shot on October events of 1918. This, at that time fundamentally novel media of mass communication can be considered as a visual interpretation of the moral behavior and the role attributed to the contemporary university youth in the series of revolutions after the ‘Great War’. Young people, many of them from universities, collected shocking experiences in the war that generated their moral and behavioral transition. At the time of the turn of the century there were development processes initiated in the Hungarian higher education, however, the war caused a break in these processes and, there were also certain structural changes introduced during and immediately after the end of the war which resulted in chaotic circumstances that kept on deepening the stress of students. Both the traditional press together with other printed documents and the contemporary newsreel have provided us with the sources being necessary and enough for making an attempt to answer, in what here follows, the questions: how the drastically changed, consequently chaotic situation within the Hungarian higher education along with the declined activity of student associations influenced the students, as well as how the most highlighted phenomena, such as the impact of war on everyday life and economy, the emergence and spread of violence, the reactions to the increased admission of female and Jewish students at universities affected the entire society and within this the university circumstances immediately after the armistice, and why the violence, radicalization, and “brutalization” of the so-called “war generation” became featuring at demonstrations.
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A Humanist Diplomat in Early 16th Century Hungary: Hieronymus Balbus
11-48Views:373The article investigates new sources, Western European, mainly English diplomatic reports – several being so far unknown for Hungarian scholarship, or, if known, not examined in this regard – e.g. held at the British Library Manuscript Collection to shed light on Hungarian-Ottoman relations at the eve of the fall of the “shield of Christendom”, Belgrade in 1521. The article follows the mission of Hieronymus Balbus, an Italian at the diplomatic personnel of Jagiellonian Hungary, in 1521 to the Habsburg, Tudor and Valois courts. Balbus’s diplomatic workings – through the embassy to the Emperor (Charles V in Worms and Brussels), a peace conference at Calais and Cardinal Wolsey and Henry VIII, King of England – has not been adequately seen in Hungarian historiography, and some of his letters and political activity ranging from Bruges, Worms, Calais, London and Cologne has not so far been mapped, yet new insights can be given for the understanding of Louis II’s diplomatic efforts during the stress of the siege and loss of Belgrade in 1521. The investigation is largely based on Balbus’s dispatches – which has not survived in Hungarian archival material but were preserved in the reports of English envoys of his activity, to the maker of Tudor policy, Chancellor Wolsey. The correspondence of Balbus provides valuable information on the administration of Louis II, about its relationship with the Turks and the Emperor. The leaders of Hungarian diplomacy did not lack astuteness and “had a clear picture” about the international power relations. The government experimented with alternatives, provided they did not receive any aid from the Habsburgs: they were willing to go as far as making an alliance with not only the English, but even with the Emperor’s enemies, the Valois. In 1521, despite the powerful Habsburg dominance, Hungarian foreign politics did have some room to manoeuvre.
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1956 at Ten and Beethoven’s Tenth: Edward Alexander and Hungary, 1965-66
185-199Views:259This article looks at Edward Alexander, an American diplomat who served in Hungary between 1965 and 1969, and his various writings. An Armenian-American man of letters, Alexander served in psychological warfare in World War II, then joined cold war radios and later the Foreign Service. Our focus is on the years 1965-67, when he served as Press and Cultural Affairs Officer at the Budapest Legation. Available sources include his official diplomatic reports, his rather large Hungarian state security file, a lifetime interview conducted under the aegis of the State Department in the late 1980s, a book on Armenian history, and a semi-autobiographical intelligence thriller he penned in 2000. These sources allow for a complex evaluation of his performance in Hungary and of his writing skills on account of his attempt to fictionalize his own exploits.
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A Historian in the Service of the Foreign Office: C. A. Macartney (1895-1978) and his writings on Hungary
163-184Views:311This study is focusing on the life of C.A. Macartney as a diplomat and a historian especially on his writings on Hungary and the Hungarian history. The importance of this point goes back to the fact that he published a good number of books and articles on Hungary between the period of 1926 and 1978. It has been proved that this very rich publication activity of him basically influenced the attitudes of the English-speaking intellectual world towards Hungary and the Hungarians. In the life of Macartney the career as a diplomat and his so-called graphomaniac historian activity were closely connected. Although he was an expert of modern Hungarian history and worked for the British Foreign Office as a member of the Foreign Office Research Department (FORD) during WWII years, he also had a very well-grounded knowledge on the history of Austria and the Habsburg Empire. With his diplomatic activity and historical skill Macartney inspired generations of English-speaking historians, intellectuals and decision-makers in the subject of Hungary and the Hungarians. This fact well indicates the long-term importance and influence of C. A. Macartney as a pro-Hungarian historian and diplomat.
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Nicholas Roosevelt in A Front Row Seat: Hungary in the 1930s As Reflected in the Memoirs of an American Diplomat
149-162Views:477As Nicholas Roosevelt put it in the foreword of his memoirs a “combination of circumstances gave [him] the front row seat at numerous important […] events in Europe during the interwar period,” which made it possible for him to “study history in the making” both as a journalist working for acknowledged dailies of the time, such as The New York Times and The New York Herald Tribune, and as a diplomat who served at various European posts in Europe including Hungary between 1930 and 1933. Due to both of these positions Hungarians considered Roosevelt a highly influential person, who could possibly air and expose Hungary’s situation in the international community after World War I, and help further the revision of the Treaty of Trianon. Drawing on his memoirs, diplomatic exchanges, as well as a selection of his newspaper and magazine articles, the essay proposes to reflect on how Roosevelt viewed Hungary, and whether his various forms of written narratives could have any effect and exert any influence in this regard.