Attila Restás

Ladislaus Bartholomaeides, the Historiographer of Gömör County and his Works

Ladislaus Bartholomaeides (1754–1825) was a Lutheran pastor, deacon of Gömör and a prominent scholar and historiographer of his native land, County of Gömör. He was educated at the University of Wittenberg in the Josephine era. After returning home, he began publishing some smaller historical treaties about his native land and its inhabitants. His main work was a description of County of Gömör (Notitia historico–geographico–statistica, 1806–1808.) The adjective ’statistica’ in the title of his book indicates that all factors are discussed, relevant for the state and economy policy (society, churches, population, mineral sources etc.) which contemporary German scholarship called Staatsmerkwürdigkeiten. Also his paternal ancestors were pastors of Hungarian noble origin, and his mother’s family was belonged to the welthy landowners in Upper Hungary, Ladislaus Bartholomaeides was a native Slovak speaker, and he only learnt Hungarian in his youth, when he was employed as a cantor, i.e. as a Hungarian schoolmaster in the southern part of his county where the Hungarian language was mostly spoken, before his academic peregrination to abroad. He is not known to have written any significant work in Hungarian, as he wrote all his textbooks, scholarly works or religious writings in Latin, German and Slovakized Czech. This kind of identity is called Hungarus identity which united the inhabitants of the multi-ethnic Hungaria before the national awekening of the 19th century. In my paper I focus the connections of the emerging premodern national ideologies and the multi-cultural local society in Bartholomaeides’ life and works.

geography and historiography, Upper Hungary, Gömör County, 18th century, 19th century, Hungarus intellectual, neo-Latin literature

Edmond Malaj

Der antiosmanische Krieg und die Beziehungen zwischen Georg Kastrioti Skanderbeg und Johannes Hunyadi

The article focuses primarily on Skanderbeg’s relations with John Hunyadi. Both Hunyadi and Skanderbeg are among the most significant leaders of the anti-Ottoman struggle in the fifteenth-century Europe. In later centuries, they came to occupy central roles in the national identities of their respective peoples: Skanderbeg as the national hero of the Albanians, and John Hunyadi as a key figure of Hungarian identity. In addition, the article briefly addresses Skanderbeg’s relations with Hunyadi’s son, Matthias Corvinus, who later ascended the throne as King of Hungary. In this aspect, I provide key information drawn from a wide range of historical studies as well as from original documents. My research results are presented both in contrast to Pálosfalvi’s article ‘Skanderbeg and the Hunyadis: Myth and Reality’ and an addition to his findings.

Skanderbeg, Johannes Hunyadi, The Anti-Osman Front, Battle of Jalomitsa, Battle of Niš, Battle of Warna, Pope Pius II, Wladislaw II, George Branković, Sultan Murat II.

Péter Juhász

The geography of the Pontic Steppe in the 9–10th century

This study intends to present the geographic perceptions of the early medieval sources describing the Eastern European steppe. The main goal is to outline the dwelling places of the Hungarians in the 9th century and the Pechenegs in the 10th century on the Pontic steppe. The sources, I examine here, embody very different points of view and come from different cultural circles. The so-called Armenian Geography from the 7th century, the Byzantine De administrando imperio with information from the late 9th and mid-10th centuries, and the Persian Ḥudūd al-ʿālam (Regions of the World) from the late 10th century. As an important addition, some important pieces of the Muslim Jayhānī tradition from the very beginning of the 10th century. The first three sources give a detailed description of Eastern Europe, presenting the peoples, countries and borders living in the vast area east of the Carpathians and north of the Black Sea. Harmonizing their mental map is a rather difficult task in several cases due to the dynamic changes in steppe conditions. Armenian Geography is important in understanding the hydrography and determining where the Bulgars lived. I outlined the area controlled by the Hungarians and then the Pechenegs near the Black Sea primarily on the basis of the DAI. The Ḥudūd provides additional important pieces of information for this, but it caused serious difficulties in several cases, such as the localization of different Bulghār countries or the Mirvāt. These two sources complement each other well for the two groups of Pechenegs, east and west of the Volga. The examined sources add up to a very dynamic map of the Eastern European steppe from the 7th to the 10th century, showing the political processes in their progress.

9th-10th centuries, geographic perceptions, Eastern European steppe, Armenian, Byzantine and Muslim sources, Hungarians, Bulgarians

A dolgozat Szántó Arator István (elhunyt 1612) Confutatio Alcorani című művének forráslistáját vizsgálja, különös tekintettel az iszlám elleni polemikus auktoritások felsorolására a 2. könyv nyolcadik fejezetében (Szántó 1611, 75–76.). A kutatás egy kuriózumnak számító bejegyzésre fókuszál: Theodore Abū Qurra nevére, az egyik legkorábbi arabul író keresztény teológuséra (9. század). A tanulmány azt vizsgálja, mennyit tudtak Theodore Abū Qurráról a 16–17. századi európai szerzők, és művei milyen mértékben szolgáltak forrásul az iszlámról szóló vitairataikhoz. Először bemutatja Theodore Abū Qurra életét és munkásságát, különös tekintettel az iszlámról szóló, görög és arab nyelven fennmaradt írásaira, hangsúlyozva azok apologetikus jellegét és az iszlám terjesztésének kritikáját. Ezután áttekinti a szerző „kutatástörténetét” Szántó koráig és korában, bemutatva, hogy bár személye nem volt pontosan ismert, műveit már ekkor fordították és kiadták. Végül feltárja, hogyan juthatott Szántó Arator István tudomására Abū Qurra neve és munkássága, feltételezve, hogy a Gretser-féle kiadás és személyes kapcsolatai (például Francisco Torresszel) révén ismerhette a releváns szövegeket. A tanulmány rámutat, hogy Theodore Abū Qurra munkái – amelyek a legkorábbi keresztény apológiák közé tartoznak az iszlám ellen – témái visszaköszönnek a kora újkori antiturcica irodalomban.

Szántó Arator István, Theodore Abū Qurra, iszlámmal szembeni polémia, antiturcica irodalom, forráskutatás