Ferenc II Rakoczy

Ferenc II Rakoczi was born in the village of Borshi (now Košice Region, Slovakia ) in the family of the hereditary ruler of Transylvania, (1645–1676) and Ilona Zriny (Elena Zrinska) , niece of Miklos Zriny (Nikolai Zrinsky) . The grandson of the Transylvanian prince György II Rakoczi and the Croatian ban Peter Zrinsky .

The father of Ferenc II died when he was still a baby, so the Austrian Imperial Council under Leopold I secured the custody of the Austrian Hapsburg dynasty of Hungary under the minor heir of the Transylvanian throne provided by the testament of Ferenc I Rakoczy. Nevertheless, Ilona Zrinyi retained custody of her son during the supreme custody of Leopold I.

Ferenc Rakoczi's childhood passed in the castles of Munkacz , Sharoshpatak and Rehets , but after the death of grandmother Sophia Bathory from 1680, the Rakoczi family finally settled in Mukachevo castle, which later became the stronghold of the rebels led by him and to which Rakoci fed especially warm feelings throughout his life . The young descendant of Transylvanian rulers was educated in Jesuit schools.

The second husband of Ilona Zrinyi , “the king of the Kurus ” Imre Tököli , did not interfere in the upbringing of her children, mainly engaged in the struggle to preserve the sovereignty of Transylvania . However, the defeat of the Turks near Vienna in 1683 increased the distrust of the Ottoman Empire to the Transylvanian prince, and Tököli was even ready to send his adopted son as a hostage to Istanbul , but Ilona Srigny prevented such a decision.

In 1686 - 1689, Ferenc Rakoczy stayed with his mother in Mukachevo besieged by Austrian troops. Although originally Ilona Zrinyi was able to stand firmly in defense of the castle, but by 1689 the forces of his defenders dried up, and after the surrender, she and the children were sent to Vienna , which they could leave only with the permission of the emperor . After the signing of the Karlovytsky peace treaty on January 26, 1699, Tököli and Zrinyi were expelled from the country, while the young Rakoczy himself remained under the emperor.

Since 1692, Ferenc II Rakoczi was the governor of the Sharoski komitat . At this time, the remnants of the peasants who supported Tököli raised a new uprising and even seized the fortresses of Tokay , Patak and Uygey . However, Ishpan himself did not approve of the lack of organization of the spontaneous peasant movement and was forced to go to Vienna in a hurry to refute doubts about his loyalty to the imperial court. Nevertheless, in fact, Rakoczy came to the conclusion that it was necessary to restore the sovereignty of the independent Hungarian kingdom, which had been abolished in 1526, and began to think about organizing an armed uprising against the Hapsburgs . To this end, he secured the full support of the third largest land possession of the feudal land of the country, the educated landowner Miklos Bercheni , whose holdings bordered the Rakoczy lands and included the city of Uzhgorod (Ungvar).

On the eve of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1697, Ferenc Rakoczy was already among the participants in the anti-Austrian conspiracy, maintaining contact with the French king Louis XIV , who was preparing for a military conflict with Austria. After the disclosure of the conspiracy due to the interception of correspondence between Rakoczy and the French by an Austrian spy, a young Hungarian aristocrat on April 18, 1700 was imprisoned by the Austrian authorities in the Wiener Neustadt fortress (Bechuyhey) not far from Vienna . Rakoczy threatened an imminent execution, but in 1701 he managed to escape to Poland , where he met with Bercheni and representatives of France.

In 1703, most of the Austrian troops were withdrawn from Hungary and Transylvania to participate in the War of the Spanish Succession , and around Mukachevo a new army of Kurut rebels was assembled, mainly from the Hungarian and Ruthenian peasants of Transcarpathia , who demanded the elimination of feudal and foreign oppression. Kurucians turned to Ferenc II Rakoczy for help, and this time he agreed to lead the peasant uprising because of the favorable foreign policy situation. Considering the moment suitable for the beginning of the struggle for freedom, Ferenc II Rakoczy returned to northeastern Hungary, where on June 7, 1703, he called for an uprising against the rule of the Hapsburgs.

In the shortest time, Ferenc II Rákóczi managed to create a regular army based on the basis of the forces of the rebels against their masters peasants (almost the entire Hungarian nobility refused to support Rákóczi). On June 15, 1703, three-thousandth units of Tamas Ese joined the rebel forces at Lavochny , and soon 600 selected Polish mercenaries commanded by Bercheni were added to their forces. He was joined by significant peasant forces, and by September 1703, the whole of Hungary before the Danube was liberated from the Austrians. In the liberated territories, Rakoczy assisted the development of economic life, especially crafts and trade.

However, in 1704, under the Bavarian Hoechstedt (Hochshedt), the Austrians and the British succeeded in defeating the forces of the French and the Bavarians , which made it possible to throw against the rebels the new forces of the Austrian Labanians. Despite the reduction in French financial assistance caused by this event, until July 1704 the support of the Slavic and Romanian population allowed the fighters for the independence of Hungary to liberate all Transylvania from the Habsburg troops, and until December 1705 - the whole of Transdanubia. Moreover, under the influence of the military successes of the rebels, a considerable part of the nobility joined them, who did not share the social demands of the Kurus, but were also dissatisfied with the presence of a foreigner on the Hungarian throne. With the support of the nobility in 1704 Rakoczi was elected prince of the restored principality of Transylvania.

In September 1705, the estate National (State) meeting in the Segenec town of Nogradsk (szécsényi országgyűlés) refused to approve the emperor Joseph I as the Hungarian king , proclaiming instead the creation of a confederation led by Ferenc II Rákóczi to restore the country's independence. At the same time, a new state apparatus was created for the restored Hungarian state: the executive bodies — the Senate and the Economic Council — were created, as well as the regular army of Hungary.

On June 13, 1707, the National Assembly in Onoda approved the law on the detronization of the Hapsburgs from the Hungarian throne proposed by Ferenc Rakoczy. Since France was unable to provide systematic assistance to the fighting Hungary, in the diplomatic arsenal of Ferenc Rákóczi there was only one friendly state in relation to the Hungarian national liberation movement - Russia . In September 1707, a secret treaty was signed with the ambassadors of Peter I the Great , and the countries exchanged ambassadors. However, the military-political alliance between Hungary and Russia remained unrealized in practice: the invasion of Charles XII into the territory of the Commonwealth and the Russian state held all the forces of Peter I on the battlefields of the Northern War .

Among other things, the internal base of the Kurucians weakened after 1707 : despite the adoption by the National Assembly in December 1708 of the law on the liberation of the participants in the war of liberation from serfdom, the peasantry somewhat reduced its activity in the struggle for the independence of the movement. August 3, 1708 in a battle near the Slovak city ​​of Trencin Ferenc II Rakoczi was seriously injured when falling from a horse. Considering that their leader is dead, the Kurucians fled. Such a serious defeat in the battle with the Habsburg troops, as well as the subsequent victory of the Labanians in January 1710 at Romkhan, forced Rakoczy to withdraw his forces to the northeast, to Satmar and Mukachev , where he enjoyed the strongest support.

Not trusting the assurances of the emperor Janos Palffi’s amnesty, Ferenc II Rakoczi left the country on February 21, 1711 and went to Poland (shortly before this, after the abdication of August II Frederick, he put forward his candidacy for the Polish throne), seeking to get help from Russia and France and entrusting the supreme commander of the Hungarian troops to Baron Shandor Karoyi.

However, the nobility was inclined to compromise and peace with the Habsburgs, respectively, the commander-in-chief of the rebel army, Baron Sandor Karoyi himself, without the consent of the head of the Hungarian national liberation movement, entered into secret negotiations with the commander of the Austrian troops, Count Palfi, who ended in a treacherous peace treaty concluded on April 30, 17 in 2014. (now - Satu Mare in Romania ). Two days later, on May 1, 1711, the main forces of the Kurucians, 12,000 people, capitulated on Satmayten’s Nadmaiten field. Despite the official capitulation, the courageous defenders of the last fortress controlled by the Kurucians — the Mukachevo castle in Transcarpathia — defended themselves until their surrender to the Hapsburg troops on June 22, 1711 .

Until November 1712, Ferenc Rákóczi was hiding in Danzig under the name of Count Sharoshi. For some time he lived in the Russian state, hoping for military support of Peter I, then he left for England , but was not allowed into the country by the queen, therefore from 1712 he was in France, and on October 10, 1717 landed in Gallipoli on the Turkish coast in order to settle in Istanbul . He tried with the help of the Ottoman Empire to restore his power in Transylvania , but the conclusion of the Austrian - Turkish treaty crossed out Rakoczy’s hopes. Rakoczi’s translator in Turkey was Ibrahim Muteferrika - a Muslim of Hungarian origin, the first printer of the Islamic world.

In Turkey, Ferenc II Rakoczi worked on his “Memoirs on the Hungarian War”.

Ferenc II Rakoczy died in the city of Rodosto (now Tekirdag , Turkey ) on April 8, 1735 , and his ashes were transferred to his native Kosice , and buried in the crypt of St. Elizabeth's Cathedral .