Francis II Rakoczi

Childhood

He was the richest landlord in the Kingdom of Hungary and was the count (comes perpetuus) of the Comitatus Sarossiensis (in Hungarian Saros) from 1694 on. He was the third of three children born to Francis I Rakoczi, elected ruling prince of Transylvania, and Zrinyi Ilona, who was the daughter of Zrinyi Peter, Ban of Croatia, and niece of the poet Zrinyi Miklos. His grandfather and great-grandfather, both called George, were Princes of Transylvania. He had a brother, George, who died as a baby before Francis was born, and a sister, Julianna, who was four years older than Ferenc. His father died when Ferenc II was four months old.

Upon Ferenc I's death, his widow requested guardianship of her children; however, the advisors of Emperor Leopold I insisted that he retain guardianship of both Ferenc and his sister, especially as Ferenc I had willed this before death. Despite further difficulties, Zrinyi Ilona was able to raise her children, while the Emperor retained legal guardianship. The family lived in the castle of Munkacs (today Mukacheve, in Ukraine), Sarospatak and Regec until 1680, when Ferenc’s paternal grandmother, Sofia Bathory, died. Then, they moved permanently into the castle of Munkacs. Rakoczi retained strong affection for this place throughout his life. Aside from his mother, Rakoczi's key educators were Gyorgy Korossy, castellan to the family, and Janos Badinyi.

End of the Thokoly Uprising

Zrinyi Ilona’s second husband, Imre Thokoly took little interest in Rakoczi's education, as he was by then heavily involved in politics. However, the failure of the Turks to capture the Habsburg capital in the Battle of Vienna in 1683 frustrated Thokoly's plans to become King of Upper Hungary. When the Turks began to grow suspicious of his intentions, Thokoly proposed sending the young Rakoczi to Constantinople as a guarantee of his goodwill. But Rakoczi’s mother opposed this plan, not wishing to be separated from her son.

In 1686 Antonio Caraffa besieged their residence, the castle of Munkacs. Zrinyi Ilona successfully led the defence of the castle for three years, but capitulated in 1688. The two Rakoczi children fell again under the guardianship of Leopold I, and moved to Vienna with their mother. They regained their possessions, but could not leave the city without the Emperor's permission.

At the age of 17, the Emperor emancipated Rakoczi from his mother, thereby allowing him to own property. His sister Julianna had interceded for him after marrying a powerful Austrian, General Aspremont. Rakoczi lived with the Aspremonts until his marriage in September 1694, to 15-year-old Princess Amelia, a daughter of Charles, Landgrave of Hesse-Wanfried and a descendant of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary. The couple moved to the Rakoczi castle at Sarospatak, where Rakoczi began to manage his properties.

The Treaty of Karlowitz on 26 January 1699, forced Thokoly and Zrinyi Ilona into exile. Rakoczi remained in Vienna under the Emperor’s supervision. Relying on the prevalent anti-Habsburg sentiment, remnants of Thokoly’s peasant army started a new uprising in the Hegyalja region of Northeastern present-day Hungary, which was part of the property of the Rakoczi family. They captured the castles of Tokaj, Sarospatak and Satoraljaujhely, and asked Rakoczi to become their leader, but he was not eager to head what appeared to be a minor peasant rebellion. He quickly returned to Vienna, where he tried his best to clear his name.

Rakoczi then befriended Count Miklos Bercsenyi, whose property at Ungvar (today Uzhgorod (Uzhhorod), in Ukraine), lay next to his own. Bercsenyi was a highly educated man, the third richest man in the kingdom (after Rakoczi and Simon Forgach), and was related to most of the Hungarian aristocracy.

The Rakoczi 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 Rakoczi 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, Rakoczi was arrested on 18 April 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 Peter Zrinyi, the only possible sentence for Ferenc was death. With the aid of his pregnant wife Amelia and the prison commander, Rakoczi managed to escape and flee to Poland. Here he met with Bercsenyi again, and together they resumed contact with the French court. Three years later, the War of the Spanish Succession caused a large part of the Austrian forces in the Kingdom of Hungary to temporarily leave the country. Taking advantage of the situation, Kuruc forces began a new uprising in Munkacs, and Rakoczi was asked to head it. He decided to invest his energies in a war of national liberation, and accepted the request. On 15 June 1703, another group of about 3000 armed men headed by Tamas Esze joined him near the Polish city of Lawoczne. Bercsenyi also arrived, with French funds and 600 Polish mercenaries.

Most of the Hungarian nobility did not support Rakoczi’s uprising, because they considered it to be no more than a peasant rebellion. Rakoczi’s famous call to the nobility of Szabolcs county seemed to be in vain. He did manage to convince the Hajduk (Hungarian soldiers) (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. Since the Austrians had to fight Rakoczi on several fronts, they felt obliged to enter negotiations with him. However, the victory of Austrian and British forces against a combined French-Bavarian army in the Battle of Blenheim on 13 August 1704, provided an advantage not only in the War of the Spanish Succession, but also prevented the union of Rakoczi’s forces with their French-Bavarian allies.

This placed Rakoczi into a difficult military and financial situation. French support gradually diminished, and a larger army was needed to occupy the already-won land. Meanwhile, supplying the current army with arms and food was beyond his means. He tried to solve this problem by creating a new copper-based coinage, which was not easily accepted in Hungary as people were used to silver coins. Nevertheless, Rakoczi managed to maintain his military advantage for a while – but after 1706, his army was forced into retreat.

A meeting of the Hungarian Diet (consisting of 6 bishops, 36 aristocrats and about 1000 representatives of the lower nobility of 25 counties), held near Szecseny (Nograd county) in September 1705, elected Rakoczi to be the "vezerlo fejedelem" - (ruling) prince - of the Confederated Estates of the Kingdom of Hungary, to be assisted by a 24-member Senate. Rakoczi and the Senate were assigned joint responsibility for the conduct of foreign affairs, including peace talks.

Encouraged by England and the Netherlands, peace talks started again on 27 October 1705 between the Hungarians and the Emperor. Both sides varied their strategy according to the military situation. One stumbling block was the sovereignty over Transylvania – neither side was prepared to give it up. Rakoczi’s proposed treaty with the French was stalled, so he became convinced that only a declaration of independence would make it acceptable for various powers to negotiate with him. In 1706, his wife (whom he had not seen in 5 years, along with their sons Jozsef and Gyorgy) and his sister were both sent as peace ambassadors, but Rakoczi rejected their efforts on behalf of the Emperor.

In 1707 during the Great Northern War he was one of the candidates to the throne of Poland, supported by Elzbieta Sieniawska.

On Rakoczi’s recommendation, and with Bercsenyi’s support, another meeting of the Diet held at Onod (Borsod county) declared the deposition of the House of Habsburg from the Hungarian throne on 13 June 1707. But neither this act, nor the copper currency issued to avoid monetary inflation, were successful. Louis XIV refused to enter into treaties with Prince Rakoczi, leaving the Hungarians without allies. There remained the possibility of an alliance with Imperial Russia, but this did not materialize either.

At the Battle of Trencsen (German: Trentschin, Latin: Trentsinium, Comitatus Trentsiniensis, today Trencin in Slovakia), on 3 August 1708 Rakoczi’s horse stumbled, and he fell to the ground, which knocked him unconscious. The Kuruc forces thought him dead and fled. This defeat was fatal for the uprising. Numerous Kuruc leaders transferred their allegiance to the Emperor, hoping for clemency. Rakoczi’s forces became restricted to the area around Munkacs and Szabolcs county. Not trusting the word of Janos Palffy, who was the Emperor’s envoy charged with negotiations with the rebels, the Prince left the Kingdom of Hungary for Poland on 21 February 1711.

The Peace Agreement

In Rakoczi’s absence, Sandor Karolyi was named Commander-in-Chief of the Hungarian forces, and quickly negotiated a peace agreement with Janos Palffy. Under its provisions, 12,000 rebels laid down their arms, handed over their flags and took an oath of allegiance to the Emperor on 1 May 1711 in the fields outside Majteny, in Szatmar county.

The Peace of Szatmar did not treat Rakoczi particularly badly. He was assured clemency if he took an oath of allegiance to the Emperor, as well as freedom to move to Poland if he wanted to leave the Kingdom of Hungary. He did not accept these conditions, doubting the honesty of the Habsburg court, and he did not even recognize the legality of the Peace Treaty, as it had been signed after the death of the Emperor Joseph I on 17 April 1711, which terminated the plenipotential authority of Janos Palffy.

Exile

Rakoczi was offered the Polish Crown twice, supported by Tsar Peter I of Russia. He turned the offers down, though, and remained in Poland until 1712, where he was the honoured guest of the Polish aristocracy. For a while he lived in Gdansk under the pseudonym of Count of Saros.

He left Gdansk on 16 November 1712, and went to England, where Queen Anne, pressured by the Habsburgs, refused to receive him. Rakoczi then crossed the Channel to France, landing in Dieppe on 13 January 1713. On 27 April he handed a memorandum to Louis XIV reminding him of his past services to France and asking him not to forget Hungary during the coming peace negotiations for the War of the Spanish Succession. But neither the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 nor the Treaty of Rastatt in 1714 made any mention of Hungary or Rakoczi. No provisions were even made to allow Rakoczi’s two sons, who were kept under surveillance in Vienna, to rejoin their father.

Prince Rakoczi, although not recognized officially by France, was much in favour in the French court. But after the death of Louis XIV on 1 September 1715, he decided to accept the invitation of the Ottoman Empire (still at war with the Habsburgs) to move there. He left France in September 1717, with an entourage of 40 people. and landed at Gallipoli on 10 October 1717. He was received with honours, but his desire to head up a separate Christian army to help in the fight against the Habsburgs was not under serious consideration.

The Ottoman Empire signed the Peace Treaty of Passarowitz with Austria on 21 July 1718. Among its provisions was the refusal of the Turks to extradite the exiled Hungarians. Two years later, the Austrian envoy requested that the exiles be turned over, but the Sultan refused as a matter of honour. Rakoczi and his entourage were settled in the town of Tekirdag (Rodosto in Hungarian), relatively distant from the Ottoman capital, and a large Hungarian colony grew up around this town on the Sea of Marmara. Bercsenyi, Count Simon Forgach, Count Antal Esterhazy, Count Mihaly Csaky, Miklos Sibrik, Zsigmond Zay, the two Papays, and Colonel Adam Javorka were among many who settled there, sharing the sentiment of the writer Kelemen Mikes, who said, “I had no special reason to leave my country, except that I greatly loved the Prince.”

Rakoczi lived in the Turkish town of Tekirdag for 18 years. He adopted a set routine: rising early, attending daily Mass, writing and reading in the mornings, and carpentry in the afternoons; visited occasionally by his son, Gyorgy Rakoczi. Further military troubles in 1733 in Poland awakened his hopes of a possible return to Hungary, but they were not fulfilled. Rakoczi was 59 years old when he died on 8 April 1735.

Rakoczi’s testament ( will ), dated 27 October 1733, left something to all his family members as well as to his fellow exiles. He left separate letters to be sent to the Sultan and to France’s Ambassador to Constantinople, asking them not to forget about his fellow exiles. His internal organs were buried in the Greek church of Rodosto, while his heart was sent to France. After obtaining the permission of the Turkish authorities, Rakoczi’s body was taken by his faithful chamberlain Kelemen Mikes to Constantinople on 6 July 1735 for burial in Saint-Benoit (then Jesuit) French church in Galata, where he was buried, according to his last wishes, next to his mother Zrinyi Ilona.

His remains were moved on 29 October 1906 to the St. Elisabeth Cathedral in Kassa, Hungary (today Kosice, Slovakia), where he is buried with his mother Ilona and his son.

Timeline

Memory

Francis II Rakoczi has become a Hungarian national hero whose memory still lives on.

Memorials

His equestrian statue with the famous motto Cum Deo Pro Patria et Libertate ("With God for Fatherland and Liberty") written on its red marble base was erected in front of the Hungarian Parliament Building on Lajos Kossuth Square in 1937, the work of Janos Pasztor. In the 1950s, the first two words, Cum Deo (i.e., "With God"), were removed for ideological reasons; in 1989, they were restored.

When, after 1945, the great Millennium Monument on Heroes' Square was purged of statues of the Habsburg kings of Hungary, the best Hungarian sculptor of the period, Zsigmond Kisfaludi Strobl, made a new statue of Rakoczi instead of King Lipot II. It was erected in 1953 together with a relief on the base depicting the meeting of Rakoczy and Tamas Esze.

Places and institutions

Near every Hungarian cities have commemorated Rakoczi by naming streets and squares after him. There are 11 Rakoczi streets and 3 Rakoczi squares in Budapest alone (see: Public place names of Budapest), including one of the most prominent avenues, named Rakoczi ut ("Rakoczi Avenue"), forming the boundary between Districts VII and VIII. The street was named after him on 28 October 1906 when his remains were brought back to Hungary from Turkey and a long funeral march went along the street to the Eastern Railway Station. Rakoczi ter ("Rakoczi square"), in District VIII, was also named after him in 1874. One of the bridges on Danube at Budapest is also named Rakoczi Bridge after Francis II. Rakoczi.

In Hungary two villages bear the name of Rakoczi. Rakoczifalva in Jasz-Nagykun-Szolnok County was established in 1883 on the former estate of Rakoczi where the Prince had a hunting lodge. The neighbouring Rakocziujfalu became an independent village in 1950 (before that it was part of Rakoczifalva).

The village of Zavadka, today in Ukraine next to the Veretski Pass (Hungarian: Vereckei-hago) where Rakoczi arrived at Hungary in the beginning of the uprising in 1703 and where he said goodbye to his followers in 1711 going into exile was renamed Rakocziszallas in 1889. The neighbouring village of Podpoloc (today Pidpolozzya) where Rakoczi spent a night in 1703 was renamed that year Vezerszallas. After 1918 the two villages got back their former names.

The Mount Bovcar (today Vovcharskiy Vrh in present-day Ukraine and the neighbouring Bovcar Spring was named by the local Rusyn people after Rakoczi who drank from the spring on 18 February 1711. Bovcar means "the Tsar was here" in Rusyn language.

The library of Borsod-Abauj-Zemplen county in Miskolc (II. Rakoczi Ferenc Megyei Konyvtar) has also been named after him.

The house, in which he lived in Tekirdag is a museum now, open to the visitors every day except Mondays.

Banknotes

Rakoczi’s portrait can be found on Hungarian banknotes. Before it had been withdrawn from circulation, it was on the 50-forint note. Since then it has been transferred to the 500-forint note.

Rakoczi March

A well-known patriotic tune of the 18-19th century (composer unknown), is also named after Rakoczi, as it was reputed to be his favourite, although actually it was composed only in the 1730s. Hector Berlioz orchestrated the piece, and it was also used by Franz Liszt as the basis of his Hungarian Rhapsody No.15. The Rakoczy March remains a popular piece of Hungarian state and military celebrations.