M ATTHIAS C ORVINUS (H UNYADI ) - Matthias and his legacy

C

ZECH HISTORIOGRAPHY

Mit Mathias verließ der mächtigste und berühmteste Herrscher Ungarns und zugleich der härteste Bedränger des böhmischen Volkes die Welt… Der Glanz und Ruhm, welche er dem ungarischen Namen verschaffte, verdunkelte sich bald wieder; des Schlag, den er dem böhmischen Reiche versetzte, war ein tödtlicher, der nie wieder vollständig heilte. Deshalb werden immer die ungarischen und böhmischen Stimmen auseinander gehen, wenn es sich um die Beurtheilung An-denkens handeln wird.¹ This is a focal statement on Matthias Corvinus by the most famous and most influential historian, the founder of modern Czech histori-ography František Palacký (1798–1876). His work, Dějiny národu českého [His-tory of the Czech nation] became the classical work for the Czech his[His-tory; the na-tional ideology of his book became the standard for thinking of Czech history for the second half of the nineteenth and big part of the twentieth centuries. Even though some parts of his work were reconsidered sooner (the oldest parts of Czech history written according to the forged ‘manuscripts’; the Hussite period), the Poděbrady period stayed in the mind of the general public codified in his words for a long time. Before I go on with the treatment of the pre- and post-Palacký historiography, a section from a Hungarian standard work on Matthias from the late-nineteenth century must be presented. Vilmos Fraknói (1843–1924) wrote when closing the biography of Matthias: Zwar ist alles, was er mit seinen sieg-reichen Waffen errungen, plötzlich nach seinem Tode verloren worden; das glän-zende Gebäude, was sein Genie aufgebaut, unter seinem unbedeutenden Nachfolger zusammengestürzt; – aber den Glanz sienes Namens und den Ruhm seiner Thaten hat er seiner Nation als unvergänglichen Schatz.² The same wording of the two German translations with exactly opposite standpoints is quite telling.

Matthias Hunyadi has never been a very popular personality in Czech histori-ography: the reasons are many but this statement has also its limitations. The evaluations and elucidation of trends in the historiography from the earliest

pe-1 Franz Palacky, Geschichte von Böhmen. Vol. V/1 Prague: Friedrich Tempsky, 1865. 326.

2 Wilhelm Fraknói, Mathias Corvinus, König von Ungarn. 1458–1490 Freiburg i. Br.: Herder, 1891. 316.

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riod up to the present time will form the content of this small article. What prob-lems then can one come across in Czech history writing? Where is the start of the nationalist historiography and the national myth? Is the diction and language of the sources different? Is the understanding of the king’s position in Czech history identical for all historians and for all ages? These and many more are the ques-tions that one may ask.

Let us briefly summarise the relation of Matthias to the Czech lands. During his long reign he was constantly coming to contacts with the them. The first oc-casion was in 1457, when he was imprisoned by King Ladislas and transported to Prague as his captive. After the king’s death it seemed natural and even necessary to start a close collaboration with the Governor of Bohemia, George of Po-děbrady. Both of them became kings of their countries very soon. Even though the cooperation was confirmed with the treaties of ‘eternal friendship’ signed on the Moravian-Hungarian border in Strážnice (1458), it lasted for, perhaps, half a year. The Central-European political scene had more than just two cardinal play-ers and the significant role of Emperor Frederick III soon proved to be decisive.

Especially George was changing sides very freely. In 1461 the royal marriage that was previously agreed on came into being as George’s daughter Catherine married Matthias. Finally, a peaceful cooperation might have been expected but the wedlock lasted merely until early 1464 when the young queen died. Then again and definitely the close relations were broken and the interactions changed slowly from political cooperation through negotiations towards war. It started in 1468 and lasted till the end of George’s days only to be continued under George’s follower Wladislas II until the armistice of late 1474 and final peace treaty of 1478/1479. In the meantime, however, Matthias was elected king of Bohemia by the Catholic estates mostly of Bohemia and Moravia. This was a crucial event for the later understanding of the role of Matthias in the Czech national history. The follow-ing years were, at least in Bohemia and Moravia, relatively uneventful; the essential problem, however, was the political splitting of the Czech lands. In spite of the Olomouc treaty of 1479 (which stated that Moravia, Silesia and Lusatias should be pawned to the Hungarian Crown unless paid out) the death of Matthias brought a new unity of the lands under the Jagiellonian kings.

The standpoints of the sources and contemporary historiography of Bohemia and Moravia are naturally not the same: due to the political and religious con-flicts of the time. So the fact is that the diction of Palacký is not new in the nine-teenth century. The Bohemian Utraquist sources of the period were already very hostile to King Matthias. There is no big court chronicle of this period, but the continuation of the Hussite urban historiography was very widespread and re-flecting the Utraquist ideology well. The compilation of Staré letopisy české [Old Czech Annals] for example relate the 1469 Olomouc election of Matthias as:

“The Hungarian king had a congress in Olomouc made; in this convention there were all lords from Moravia and Bohemia, his partisans and also from Hungary.

MATTHIAS IN CZECH HISTORIOGRAPHY 33

And then, they elected him king, among others Zdeněk [of Šternberk] with all other partisans… But it would be arduous for this king to come to Prague or Karl-štejn; and gaining the crown of Bohemia to name himself King of Bohemia law-fully and not mendaciously.”³ A description from the other side by Peter Es-chenloer, a Wrocław scribe, is again substantially different, celebrating the new king and praising him for organising a great feast in Olomouc.⁴ The religious af-filiation makes a nice and clear-cut division, but it was not always so. The Catho-lics sometimes also doubted or even disbelieved the king, which may be seen in some further comments of Peter Eschenloer when Wrocław was deprived of some of its privileges under the rule of the strong king.

There are other Czech writers, whose relation to the king was ambivalent.

They criticised the king from various standpoints, but also praised him. For ex-ample Jan Dubravius (1486–1553) in his Historiae regni Bohemiae did not have many qualitative statements, but in his Theriobulia, a discussion between the Lion (King) and other animals who give advices for a good government, written for Louis II, King Matthias is on the one hand criticised for vain glory in chang-ing his name to Corvinus (from his father’s name Hunyadi), on the other, Du-bravius admires him for the kind attitude to all the people including simple sol-diers as well as for the glory of his feasts.⁵ Similarly Bohuslav Hasištejnský z Lobkovic (1461–1510), the great humanist in the court of Wladislas II, often mentioned the late king. In some of his epigrams he compares Wladislas and Matthias and the most important characteristics of Matthias is a cruel reign in Hungary. In one poem called “Bohemia to sister Hungary” (Boemia ad Hun-gariam sororem) Bohemia wishes Hungary that no future king want to torment the country, no further Matthias come. In his writing Matthias is also praised for his wealth. In his tract De avaritia Hasištejnský strongly criticised Matthias for organising attempts to assassinate Wladislas. In some of his letters with historical content he mentions the wars with George and then Wladislas and portrays Mat-thias as a monarch who was suppressing the lords and elevating the poor and he even states that Matthias wanted himself to be seen as the “threat of the world.”⁶

3 František Palacký, Ed., Staří letopisové čeští od roku 1378 do 1527 [Old Czech Annals 1378–

1527] In: Dílo Františka Palackého [The oeuvre of František Palacký] Ed. Jaroslav Charvát Praha: L. Mazáč, 1941. Vol. II. 172.; a slightly longer text In: František Šimek, ed., Staré letopi-sy české z vratislavského rukopisu [Old Czech Annals from the Wrocław manuscript] Prague:

Historický spolek and Společnost Husova musea, 1937. 140.

4 Peter Eschenloer, Geschichte der Stadt Breslau. Vol. I–II. Ed. Gunhild Roth. Münster, New York, Munich and Berlin: Waxmann, 2003. Vol. II. 758–9.

5 Jan Dubravius, Theriobulia / Rada zvířat, Ed. Miroslav Horna and Eduard Petrů. Prague: Aca-demia, 1983. 110, 130–132, 178; Idem, Historiae regni Bohemiae Prostějov, 1552.

6 Bohuslav Hasištejnský z Lobkovic, Carmina selecta. Ed. Jan Martínek. Prague: Aula, 1996. 68–

70, 108–110, 122; Bohuslai Hassensteinii a Lobkowicz, Epistulae. Ed. Jan Martínek et Dana Martínková Leipzig: Teubner, 1969. 10–11, 15–16, 44, 52 (terror orbis videri voluit); Bo-huslaus Hassensteinius baro de Lobkowicz, Scripta moralia, Ed. Bohumil Ryba. Leipzig: Teub-ner, 1937. 18.

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Later Bohemian historians did not consider Matthias as their sovereign, as for example Bartoloměj Paprocký z Glogol (1540–1614) shows. Even though he was Polish by origin, he wrote a number of historical works in Bohemia; in his lists of Kings of Bohemia, like in those of others, Matthias is always missing.⁷

Modern historiography of the Czech lands started in the mid-nineteenth cen-tury with František Palacký. He was a strong opponent of Matthias and his work contains a number of sound statements clearly opposing the Hungarian king:

Palacký did not spare him not only attacks on his anti-Bohemian policy resulting in less activity against the Ottomans and subjugation of his own land,⁸ but also moral repudiation and criticism.⁹ What were the reasons for such a shrewd rejec-tion of the King of Hungary and Bohemia? The reasons that led Palacký to such definitive statements are quite clear today. It is the very nature of the nineteenth-century nationalist historiography, for which it was necessary to resort to such declarations. The war of Matthias against the Bohemian national hero, George of Poděbrady is a crucial point, and of course, all other topics which are connected – war against the Utraquists, who carried on the Hussite tradition, in which Mat-thias was representing the deadliest enemy of the Czech nation, the Roman Catholic Church (the Hussite period was viewed by Palacký as the climax of the national history) and also the splitting of the country and thus endangering the

7 Bartoloměj Paprocký z Glogol a Paprocké Vůle, Diadochos, Vol. 1 Prague, 1602. (rpt. Brno:

Garn, 2005.)

8 Palacky, Geschichte von Böhmen, IV/2. Prague, 1860. 669.; “Niemand wird aber in Zweifel zie-hen können, daß wenn der vorzüglichste Schirmvogt der Christenheit von damals, König Mathi-as von Ungarn, seine Kräfte nicht in Eben so erfolglosem als unrühmlichem Kampfe mit den utraquistischen Böhmen vergeudet und erschöpft hätte, er in der Zurückstauung der Türkenfluth auf der Thracischen Halbinsel, wo sie noch neu und nicht festgewurzelt war, ungleich größere Verdienste und höheren Ruhm hätte gewinnen können. Es ist nicht eitel Vermuthung, wenn wir behaupten, daß Ungarn den Mißgriff und die Schuld seines gepriesensten Königs hinterdrein durch ein beinahe zweihundertjähriges blutiges Leiden abzubüßen hatte”.

9 For example, the above mentioned quotation goes on as follows: “Daß er ungewöhnliche Geis-tesgaben, auch viele Vorzüge und Tugenden eines großen Herrschers besaß und in dieser Be-ziehung vielen in der Geschichte berühmt gewordenen Fürsten gleich kam, darüber wird es wohl keinen Streit geben: desto mehr aber über seinen moralischen Charakter und Werth. Wir halten dafür, daß der hohe Werth eines Menschen weniger in Physischen und Verstandes-anlagen und entsprechender Tüchtigkeit, als vielmehr in seiner sittlichen Bestimmung und Auf-führung, im gerechten und edlen Handeln beruhe, und daß wenn Jemand auch die ganze Welt von oberst zu unterst gekehrt hätte, er doch nicht als großer Mann gelten könne, wofern er kei-nen sittlichen Werth besäße. Mathias war allerdings zu scharfsichtig, als daß er die Bedeutung der Sittlichkeit und Tugend im gewöhnlichen Leben verkannt hätte, und deshalb zeigte er sich auch gern gerecht, großmüthig, edel und freundlich, wenn dies seinem persönlichen Vortheil und seinen Wünschen nicht entgegen war; die Freigebigkeit, besonders gegen Gelehrte und Künstler, war bei ihm ein vernünftiges und löbliches Bestreben, seinen Ruhm bei Zeitgenossen und Nachkommen zu sichern: sein Egoismus war aber roh und unbändig, er anerkannte kein Gesetz über sich, wollte nichts von Selbstverläugnung, nichts von Gerechtigkeit gegen Feinde, nichts von Dankbarkeit gegen Wohlthäter wissen; die Welt sah wenig Heuchler, die ihm gleich gekommen wären…” Palacky, Geschichte, Vol. V/1. 326–327.

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land’s unity. Thus, it is a case of utter conflict with the national myth as created by Palacký in the nineteenth century.

Josef Válka (born 1929) elucidated the standpoints of Palacký very clearly.

There were two complex constructs running through all his work; first of all, it was the philosophy of history with the main reason in the background which was the nation itself. Válka says: “While the historical-philosophical scheme was in the Czech historiography antiquated long ago, the moral characterology still per-sists until present day, but then without the solid religious-philosophical basis of the moralist Palacký.”¹⁰ And the question of moral character of historical person-alities is the other crucial construct of Palacký. His strong concern can be seen in the vivid description of the character of George of Poděbrady for whom Matthias served as a direct opposite: “King George never stopped, during his life, to take Matthias as almost his foster son on the Hungarian throne. He saw in him just a young man of exuberant spirits and full of jokes, as he met him and took a fancy to him in Prague in his family. However often insulted and deceived by him, he ascribed it rather to his somewhat childish exuberance or liveliness then to bad will. George again and again let himself appeased by his hypocrisy and flattery and showed towards him similar fragility as magnanimous Otakar II towards Philip of Kärnten, his treacherous cousin.”¹¹ The relation of George and Mat-thias, which formed the axis of Palacký’s narrative, was gradually reconsidered by modern Czech historiography and finally analysed by Josef Macek (1922–

1991), who radically rejected the moralistic statements of the founder of Czech historiography.¹² Nevertheless, these moralistic statements are still a part of the popular history writing and even part of the textbooks. The strongest problems in the relation of George and Matthias is not the fact that George was the first who broke the treaty of Strážnice in 1458, but the fact that Matthias started war against his former father-in-law and also that he did not keep his promises after being tactically defeated near Vilémov, where he got into the hands of George who released him (according to some historians the biggest mistake of George) after Matthias promised to work for appeasement between George and the pope.

In popular history the two kings are still understood as contrasting personalities,

10 Josef Válka, “Matyáš Korvín a Česká koruna” [Matthias Corvinus and the Crown of Bohemia]

Časopis Matice moravské 110 (1991) 315.

11 Palacky, Geschichte, Vol. IV/2. 507.

12 Josef Macek, “Král Jiří a král Matyáš. Od přátelství k nepřátelství (1458–1469)” [King George and King Matthias: From friendship to enmity (1458–1469)] Časopis Matice moravské 110 (1991) 297–311, which is a shortened version of Idem, “Corvin Mátyás és Poděbrad György”

[King Matthias and George of Poděbrady. In: Hunyadi Mátyás: Emlékkönyv Mátyás király halálának 500. évfordulójára [Matthias Hunyadi: Memorial Volume to the 500th anniversary of the death of King Matthias] Eds. Gyula Rázsó–László V. Molnár. Budapest, 1990. 201–244.

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even though they were both using all the possibilities given to them by their posi-tions as late medieval kings.¹³

But back to Palacký. In his work he was strictly taking over the diction of the sources, so his conclusions may seem right. What he lacks, however, is the deeper analysis of the sources. Nevertheless, his work is still very useful, pre-cisely for the fact that he collected a large number of various pieces of evidence, since a general court chronicle (the type of Bonfini) lacks for this period.¹⁴ Palacký’s history of the nation had, of course, a big success and the ideology be-hind it became the national myth. He, thus, had many followers, the most signifi-cant of whom is Rudolf Urbánek (1877–1962), who dedicated his whole schol-arly life to the research of the period and personality of George of Poděbrady,¹⁵ or Ernest Denis (1849–1921), a French historian, whose work became extremely famous in Czech translations (often with additions) by Jindřich Vančura (1856–

1936) and was in line with Palacký’s ideology.¹⁶ In their statements they were similarly deprecatory as Palacký. Their judgements spread in the popular history writing of the pre-WWI and inter-war period (e.g. Jaroslav Kosina, 1862–1928)¹⁷ and especially in the historical novels of Alois Jirásek (1851–1930) and historical paintings of Mikoláš Aleš (1852–1913), Věnceslav Černý (1865–1936), or book illustrator Stanislav Hudeček.

With the creation of the new Czechoslovak republic the national myths would come to conflict, since there was the Bohemian tradition of Matthias as a national foe and the popular Slovak tradition of Matthias as a good king. There was a per-sonality, however, who helped to overcome the conflict: Jan Jiskra of Brandýs.

He was the military captain, who led some remnants of the Hussite troops to northern Hungary and fought against John Hunyadi and his son later on. His af-finity to the Habsburgs was not stressed, but his fight against Matthias was in line with the later struggles of George. This tendency continued also in the post-WWII years and in the Marxist historiography, which also stressed the close con-tacts between Slovakia and Moravia in this time (language, property of magnates on both sides of the border etc.). Jan Jiskra surely became one of the national

he-13 E.g. Petr Hora-Hořejš, Toulky českou minulostí [The strolls through the Czech past]. Vol. II.

Prague: Baronet, 1995. 398–420.; Stanislava Jarolímková, Co v učebnicích nebývá, aneb Čeští panovníci, jak je Možná) neznáte [What usually misses in the textbooks, or Czech rulers as you maybe do not know them], Vol. I. Prague: Motto, 2006. 253.

14 Evaluated thus by Válka, “Matyáš Korvín,” 314.

15 Especially Rudolf Urbánek, Husitský král [The Hussite King] Prague: Vesmír, 1926.; and Idem, České dějiny [Czech history], Part 3. Vol. III–IV. Prague: Jan Laichter, 1930; Prague: Nak-ladatelství ČSAV, 1962.

16 For the period of Matthias, Arnošt Denis, Konec samostatnosti české [The end of Czech inde-pendence], Vol. I. Prague: Šolc a Šimáček, 1932.

17 E.g. Jaroslav Kosina, Velikáni našich dějin [The great men of our history] Prague: Vilímek, s.d.;

Idem, Ilustrované dějiny světové [The illustrated world history], Vol. II. Středověk [The Middle Ages] Prague: Vilímek, 1928.

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roes, not comparable to George, but still as good as other Hussite leaders, and re-ceived a considerable attention from Czech as well as Slovak historians.¹⁸

With the post-WWII period the Marxist historiography became the only tool for the interpretation of the national past. The nation equalled the lower strata of the society and thus the Hussite “revolutionary movement” was seen as the

In document Matthias and his legacy (Pldal 30-40)