Egy 18. század végi deákzendülés nyomában
Tracing an eighteenth-century students’ revolt

Summary/Abstract: In 1794, at the Calvinist College of Sárospatak, Hungary, a private tutor severely, perhaps cruelly, penalized a regularly misbehaving child who had severely jeopardized his own good health. The incident, which can be regarded anything but surprising, mainly because of the aristocratic origins of the penalized person made the magistrates of the school act in an unusually assertive way. Slighting the school board made up of students, with the power to conduct such procedures, the rector and the guardian-in-chief ordered the immediate replacement of the praeceptor, who had inflicted the punishment. The unlawful measure resulted in a students’ riot unprecedented in the era. Since these new developments threatened mainly the positions of first-rate students and their self-governing abilities, it was chiefly them who were involved in the indignance manifested in action. The riot taking several weeks as well as the subsequent investigation proving unsuccessful, on the whole, offers several lessons to learn. In the first place, it proves the power of student organization, sheds light upon the peculiar characteristics of the college’s organizational structure as well as some of its particular traditions encouraging the radical treatment even of the most important leaders. At the same time, mapping these few brief, yet rather eventful weeks provides us with further information with regard to the disciplinary and general moral condition of the school and, in general, major colleges. Also, we can see that the students of Sárospatak were aware of and efficiently employed the organizational methods that were new in Hungary, beginning to spread there only in the 1790s. Furthermore, it can also be observed how an everyday event developed into an unequalled series of events insofar as the students perceived in danger the future of their traditional selfgovernment, assuming a wide-ranging sphere of authority. Finally, the conclusion can be drawn that, at least in the short run, in the face of the events, the highly respected, well-to-do, lay and clerical elite, which had no co-ordination whatsoever in certain cases, exerted a rather feeble influence on the course of events.

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