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Nikola Zrinski
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nikola Zrinski or Miklós Zrínyi (Hungarian: Zrínyi Miklós, Croatian: Nikola Zrinski; January 5, 1620–November 18, 1664) was a Croatian and Hungarian warrior, statesman and poet, member of the Zrinski noble family.
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Nicholas was born in Čakovec (Csáktornya in Hungarian) to Juraj Zrinski and Magdolna Széchy. At the court of Péter Pázmány, he was an enthusiastic student of Hungarian language and literature, although he prioritized military training. From 1635 to 1637, he accompanied Szenkviczy, one of the canons of Esztergom, on a long educative tour through the Italian Peninsula.
Over the next few years, he learned the art of war in defending the Croatian-Hungarian frontier against the Ottoman Empire, and proved himself one of the most important commanders of the age. In 1645, during the closing stages of the Thirty Years' War, he acted against the Swedish troops in Moravia, equipping an army corps at his own expense. At Szkalec he scattered a Swedish division and took 2,000 prisoners. At Eger he saved the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand III, who had been surprised at night in his camp by the offensive of Carl Gustaf Wrangel. Subsequently he routed the army of George I Rákóczi, prince of Transylvania, on the Upper Tisza. For his services, the emperor appointed him captain of Croatia. On his return from the war he married the wealthy Eusebia Drašković.
In 1646 he distinguished himself in the actions against Ottomans. At the coronation of Ferdinand IV of Austria, King of the Germans, King of Hungary, and of Bohemia, he carried the sword of state, and was made ban and captain-general of Croatia. In this double capacity he presided over many Croatian diets, becoming noted for his efforts to defend the political rights of the Croats and insisting that, as regarded Hungary, they were to be looked upon not as partes annexae but as a regnum.
During 1652-1653, Zrinski was continually fighting against the Ottomans — nevertheless, from his castle at Čakovec he was in constant communication with the intellectual figures of his time; the Dutch scholar, Jacobus Tollius, even visited him, and has left in his Epistolae itinerariae a lively account of his experiences. Tollius was amazed at the linguistic resources of Zrínyi, who spoke Italian, German, Croatian, Hungarian, Ottoman Turkish and Latin with equal ease. Zrinski's Latin letters (from which it was gathered that he was married a second time, to Sophia Löbl) are, according to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition of 1911, "fluent and agreeable, but largely interspersed with Croatian and Hungarian expressions".
The last year of his life was also a culmination of his efforts and prestige. Zrinski set out to destroy the strongly fortified Ottoman bridge which, since 1566, had linked Darda to Osijek (across the Sava and the marshes of Baranja), and thus cut off the retreat of the Ottoman Army, re-capturing all the strong fortresses on his way. He destroyed the bridge on February 1, 1664, but the further pursuance of the campaign was frustrated by the refusal of the Imperial generals to co-operate. Despite this failure, the expedition had made his name notorious and praised throughout Europe. According to the 1911 Britannica, "it was said that only the Zrinskis had the secret of conquering the Turks". Emperor Leopold offered him the title of prince, while Pope Alexander VII struck a commemorative medal with the effigy of Zrinski as a field marshal, the Spanish King Philip IV sent him the Order of the Golden Fleece, and France's King Louis XIV created him a Peer.
The Ottomans, in an attempt to overturn the situation in their favor, laid siege to Novi Zrin (Újzrínyivár), a fortress which Zrinski had built, and the Imperial troops under Raimondo Montecuccoli remained inactive while he hastened to relieve it, refusing all assistance, with the result that the fortress fell. It was also by the advice of Montecuccolli that the Peace of Vasvár was concluded after the Battle of Saint Gotthard, despite the fact that Imperial troops maintained the upper hand. Zrinski rushed to Vienna to protest against it, but his view was ignored; he left the city in disgust, after assuring the Venetian minister, Sagridino, that he was willing at any moment to assist the Republic against the Ottoman Empire with 6,000 men. Zrinski then returned to Čakovec, and there, on November 18, he was killed in a hunting accident, by a wounded wild boar.
Zrinski's most significant literary work, The Peril of Sziget (Szigeti veszedelem or Zrínyiász), an epic poem written in the Göcsej dialect of Hungarian, was written in the winter of 1648-1649, and was published, together with a few miscellaneous pieces of poetry, under the title of The Siren of the Adriatic Sea (Adriai tengernek Syrenája) in Vienna in 1651. It was composed in the manner of the classic epic poets, such as Virgil and their 16th century successor Torquato Tasso.
The subject is the heroic but unsuccessful defence of Szigetvár by the author's great-grandfather, Nikola Šubić Zrinski (Zrínyi Miklós). According to Britannica: "Because of Zrinski's indiscriminate use of foreign words and seemingly careless metres, the work was much criticized". Nevertheless, the work earned him praise due to its fundamental idea (the duty of Hungarian/Croatian valour to overthrow Ottoman rule, with the help of God), and to its enthusiastic tone. It has drawn comparisons with the other Renaissance epics of period, and had many imitators; in 1848, János Arany was first to recast "the Zrinyiad", as he called it, on modern lines, and the work was completed by Antal Vékony in 1892.
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.