143 JÓZSEF KURTA
Gone up in smoke: Vetsei István’s translations of
József Kurta
144
Protestant bishop, but for some reason his work survived only as a man-uscript.3
Another work of Ostervald capturing the attention of several Hun-garian translators was the Traité des sources de la corruption qui règne aujourd’huy parmi les chrétiens4, which was published in 1700. The Hun-garian edition appeared in 1745 at Debrecen, and the circumstances of the translation are also known.5 This translation that had long been cred-ited to György Maróthi was in fact proved to derive from a team of trans-lators, as pointed out by Béla Tóth in 1975.6 During rearrangement work at the Protestant Theological Institute’s library (Kolozsvár), one of these editions was found among the duplicate records. A handwritten note in this copy shows that the translation of Ostervald’s work was planned not only in Debrecen.
„The translation of this dearest book was almost finished during my wandering in Franeker, Belgium, in the year of 1745, being encouraged by the honourable Mr. Venema. 400 Belgian Forints were given to have it published. However, the whole work of mine has gone up in smoke when, while close to completion, in the same year another translation was shown to the public in Debrecen. István Vetsei”7.
According to this record, Herman Venema encouraged a Hungarian peregrinus to translate Ostervald’s work into Hungarian. 400 Forints
“were given” for the printing. This note promises exciting details of the history of theology and peregrination, but the lack of sufficient data pre-vents reconstructing the whole story.
Various questions remain unanswered regarding the person of István Vetsei. From that period this name appears solely in connection with the
3 SZINNYEI József, Magyar írók élete és munkái, II, Budapest, 1893, 849.
4 Pierre BARTHEL, op. cit., 135.
5 OSTERWALD Friderich János, A keresztyének között ez idő szerént uralkodó romlott-ságnak kutfejeiről való elmélkedés. Melly frantzia nyelven irattatott ... és mostan ma-gyar nyelvre fordíttatván ki-adattatott. (8-r. [7] + 313.; [7] + 357 + [1]) Debreczen-ben, 1745. Nyomt. Margitai János.
6 TÓTH Béla, Ki fordította Osterwald „Traité des sources de la corruption…” című művét magyarra? = Magyar Könyvszemle, 1975, 165–166.
7 Vetsei noticed the inscription on the verso of the first fly-leaf . He also noticed his name on the frontpage: „Vetsei Istváné. 1745. eszt[endőtől] fogva.” The book’s catalogue number is Duplum 0105.
Gone up in smoke: Vetsei István’s translations of Ostervald’s works …
145 city of Debrecen, but from there more than one student bears this name.8 Questions remain also with respect to his pilgrimage, insofar as no student appears to have this name among the records of Franeker for this year.
After finishing his studies, Vetsei came back and started his pastoral work in several congregations of the Danube-Tisza Interfluve. There is another undated note on the front page of the Ostervald-volume present evidence about this:
„N[ota] B[ene] this work of Osterwald was occasionally criticised by the honourable Catholic Mr. Késmárki János in Baja, county of Báts, who was nevertheless a good man and willing to serve me.”9
Other information regarding this person may be derived from another note regarding his earlier theological remarks:
„N[ota] B[ene] this I wrote in 1750 in my youth. With God’s blessing I was able to see the abolishment of those many monastic orders who were worshippers and advocates of superstition, I saw the diminishing of priestly power, the building of several churches by the Toleranti, the re-moval of images and pilgrimages and the education of all children with-out religious discrimination etc.”
The scanty biographical information does not allow us to say when and where Vetsei had learned French sufficiently well in order to trans-late the whole work. Currently we do not know anything of the circum-stances of his stay in Franeker, nor his relation with Herman Venema.
From his notes we may recover not only „Pater Venema”’s devotion to the Hungarians, but the “encouragement” also testifies to a close rela-tionship between disciple and teacher.10
8 Intézménytörténeti források a Debreceni Református Kollégium levéltárában: A kollé-giumi levéltár repertóriuma. Diáknévsor 1588-1792, Iskolán kívül lakók névsora. Ti-szántúli Református Egyházkerület, Debrecen, (Editions for the celebration of the145th anniversary of the Protestant College in Debrecen I.) 2013, I, 377, 426, presumably the 4222. és 5885. entries’ items.
9 Pastors under this name served in this region between 1773–1782 in Szeremle, 1782–1784 at Fülöpszállás, 1789 at Tas, 1797 in Máriagyüd, but further re-search is needed for the details.
10 EREDICS Péter, Magyar vonatkozású könyvek kora újkori holland professzori könyv-tárakban: Bibliotheca Venemaniana. = Könyv és Könyvtár, Debrecen, XXV/2003, 425–428.; DERS.: Ungarische Studenten und ihre Übersetzungen aus dem
Nieder-József Kurta
146
In the theological views of Venema and Ostervald we may note sev-eral similar traits that explain why Venema advised him to translate Os-tervald’s work, an example of “reasonable orthodoxy”. The background and motivation of Venema’s encouragement remains veiled, however.11 Another unsolved problem remains the 400 Forints. Only further archiv-al research in this case of the translation which had ‘gone up in smoke’
can bring new results.
ländischen ins Ungarische in der Frühen Neuzeit, Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien, (Debrecener Studien zur Literatur, Vol. 14), 2008, 31–33.
11 Two of OSTERVALD’s works were found in Venema’s library: Over den Pred-ikdienst, Amsterdam, 1739. and the two volumes of De sleutel des Bybels, Am-sterdam, 1740. I would like to thank Mr. Péter Eredics for these information.
Gone up in smoke: Vetsei István’s translations of Ostervald’s works …
147
149 RÓBERT OLÁH