It is a common claim in historical literature on the leader of the early eighteenth-century Hungarian uprising against the Habsburgs, Ferenc Rákóczi II, that prior to his election as prince of Transylvania in 1704, he bore the title princeps Sacri Romani Imperii, a title allegedly granted to his family in a 1645 peace treaty between King Ferdinand III of Hungary and his great-grandfather, György Rákóczi I, prince of Transylvania. The present study proves that this tradition was based on a mistake by Leopold I’s court historian, Galeazzo Gualdo Priorato, used by Ferenc Rákóczi in repeated requests to have his assumed title confirmed between 1694 and 1700. Close analysis of his arguments reveals that they were based on erroneous historical evidence and a voluntarist interpretation of some basic rules of inheriting princely titles. Rákóczi also wrote letters asking for support among the elite of the Holy Roman Empire, attaching copies of the 1650 marital contract between his grandfather’s brother, Zsigmond Rákóczi and Henriette, daughter of Frederick V of the Palatinate. This agreement displays the title S.R.I. princeps next to each member of the Rákóczi family, which would be a convincing piece of evidence, if the same information was not missing in all surviving mid-seventeenth-century copies. Ferenc Rákóczi II appears to have been firmly convinced that he had a rightful claim to this title, just as his predecessors had. He was also able to convince many about his truth, except for the Viennese court; as a result, the charter he had aspired to was never granted. Nevertheless, the vast majority of the Hungarian elite seemed content to acknowledge his claim and refer to him as prince; especially, as the princely title, typically granted externally by Transylvania or the Empire, conferred no particular privileges in Hungary.

Nincs absztrakt.

Nincs absztrakt.

Conrad Jacob Hiltebrandt, a Pomeranian student of Lutheran theology travelled through the Principality of Transylvania three times between 1656 and 1658 in connection to various Swedish diplomatic missions to Eastern and Southeastern Europe. His travelogue – which had been reworked by the author himself several times after his arrival to his home region, with the inclusion of many pieces of information from the contemporary Staatsbeschreibung literature – offers an interesting insight into how a 17th-century traveler, with special interest in theology, seen this multiconfessional region. The work indeed offers a variety of interesting information concerning the individual confessional groups, and even accounts of discussions on theological questions with Isaac Basire, the professor of the Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia) college, as well as of the latter’s fight against the Transylvanian Presbyterian movement. Nevertheless, the interconfessional tensions – which in spite of the general acceptance of the system of four accepted churches, and the tolerated status of Orthodoxy, had been present in the principality – did not feature on the pages of the young theology student’s travelogue. Even if the historians of today are justified to discover such traces that point towards an initiative for the Calvinist confessionalisation of the Transylvanian state in the 17th century, these did not reach the point that a contemporary coming from a confessionalised region would have noticed. The most striking feature of the Transylvanian society for Hiltebrandt remained its multiconfessional character, and the Pomeranian theology student seen it – contrary to today’s expectations – with a certain benevolent irony, not as a desirable state.

Nincs absztrakt.

Throughout the early modern period, there was a constant presence of pretenders from the voievodates of Moldavia and Wallachia in Constantinople, who sought support in the Ottoman capital for gaining the thrones. The case of Mihnea, the alleged son of Voievod Mihnea Radu of Wallachia and Moldavia, himself voievod of Wallachia in 1658–1659, is singled out by the exceptionally detailed documentation that illustrates the network this pretender managed to maintain at the Sublime Porte. Thanks to the surviving Transylvanian correspondence and Mihnea’s excellent contacts with the principality’s embassy, a much deeper insight could be offered into the pretender’s activities and networks than what could have been written based exclusively upon the widely studied Venetian, French or Imperial diplomatic correspondence. The contacts of this Wallachian pretender can be regarded as exceptional, as he, like foreign embassies and some Ottoman politicians, had direct contact to the House of Osman, through the person of Atike Sultan, daughter of Sultan Ahmed I, and her husband, Doğanci Yusuf Pasha. The Transylvanian correspondence also revealed important details about the much more typical case of Vasile Lupu, as well as about phenomena which were not documented so far. One such phenomenon was the practice that ruling voievods tried to neutralize other pretenders with making them sign an oath, or even secure their political support in the Ottoman capital in exchange for a regular salary. From a comparative perspective, the case of Mihnea can illustrate that Moldavian and Wallachian rulers (and would-be voievods) were much more deeply integrated into the political hierarchies and decision-making circles of the Ottoman Empire than the princes of Transylvania.

This paper discusses Transylvania’s sovereingty towards the Ottoman Empire through a comparative analysis of the principality’s diplomatic representation at the Sublime Porte. Four major questions are examined in detail. First, how were the embassies structured? What different forms and ranks of deputies did various political entities deploy to represent their interests in the Ottoman capital? Second, can the embassy’s location be taken as an indicator of the prestige of the representatives residing there? Third, what was the ceremonial aspect of their presence, that is, the formal acts of the entry of the diplomats to Constantinople and their audiences with the grand vizier and the sultan? Last, what conclusions can be drawn from the occasional mistreatment of diplomats? The typology of the diplomatic representatives at the Sublime Porte and the terminology associated with them proved to be unfit for showing clear distinctions between the treatment of tributaries and independent states. The topography of the residents’ lodging also showed divisions running along different lines. The analysis of diplomatic ceremonies, however, did point to distinct boundaries between the peripheries of the empire, its tributaries, and the states independent from the sultan’s rule. Both the quantitative and qualitative differences in the diplomatic ceremonies in Constantinople proved to be weaker between Transylvania and the independent states than among the principality and the voievodates of Moldavia and Wallachia. The cases of mistreatment, on their part, pointed to an important chronological divide in the prestige Transylvania enjoyed at the Sublime Porte and the analysis shows that this change tookplace in the late 1650s and early 1660s.

The survey discusses the identity and self-image of 17th century Hungarian and Transylvanian travellers as conveyed through their travel texts. The cultural borders in the mental map of the travellers coincided with the Eastern and Southeastern borders of Transylvania. The authors placed themselves in the same position as their Western European contemporaries: although the general tone in their diaries was that of admiration, they did not make explicit comparisons to the disadvantage of their home. There are also some cases of criticism on civilisational basis towards the West, which shows, that the travellers felt that they stayed on equal grounds with the West. The few cases of auto-stereotypes also show that some travellers tended to reinforce even the negative stereotypes attributed to Hungarians, in order to question the Western discourse which placed them on a lower grade on a civilisational scale. Towards the Eastern neighbours, the travellers tended to use a condescending tone, qualities such as boorishness, lack of education and barbarity were attributed to Russians, Wallachians and Moldavians. The worst reputation was the share of the Ottomans: in their case, even if – in a very few cases – tolerance and understanding came into picture, there was no possibility of acceptance. Hungarian travellers only used the discourse of their own inferiority towards Western Europeans, when it was a part of their political agenda: otherwise, they included themselves into the concept of the region, imagined on the basis of erudition and Latin education, which they more and more often called Europe.

A Swedish diplomat, Claes Rålamb travelled to Constantinople through Hungary, Transsylvania and Wallachia in the years 1657–58 and he described his journey in a diary (preserved in two versions) and several letters. Rålamb’s accounts on his travel are generally considered to be unusually impartial. This seems to be true for his comments on the „Turks”, meanwhile studying his notes about people living on the border of the Ottoman Empire shows that he readily made generalized statements about whole ethnic groups derived from individual cases. The analysis of several cultural categories (eating and drinking, clothing, vehicles and accommodations, natural and cultural sceneries, courtesy and representation) shows that he perceived the people living in this area as backward and sometimes even offensive. Although he came from another European periphery, with his Western-European system of norms he represents the cultural turn which took place in Sweden in the middle of the 17th century and is usually described as an accelerating integration to Europe.