A szépnem hazaszeretete avagy hogyan mentette meg két nő Magyarországot 1722-ben
The Patriotism of the Fairer Sex, Or How Two Ladies Saved Hungary in 1722

Summary/Abstract: There is an oil painting (1797) of inferior quality in the Csáktornya Castle Museum, the copy of an early eighteenth-century fresco which no longer survives. It depicts an allegorical scene in which contemporary Hungary, having faced the imminent threat of losing its constitution and independence in the 1720, emerges unscathed. The allegory alludes to the story in which Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI (Charles III, King of Hungary) planned to abolish the Hungarian constitution and turn the country into another Land of Austria. The plan was averted by Anna-Maria Pignatelli, wife of Mihály Althan and alleged mistress of the emperor, and Eleonóra Strattmann, wife of Ádám Batthyány, with the help of her alleged lover, General Eugene of Savoy. Although the delicate episode was not embraced by historiography, it was nevertheless preserved in the oral tradition of the aristocratic and intellectual circles of the western counties of Hungary. Later, in the early nineteenth century, writer Ferenc Kazinczy wrote the story down and disseminated his own written version through his extended correspondence. The copy of the fresco, as well as the literary adaptations, conceived during the 1848/49 War of Independence and the 1867 Compromise, commemorate an episode which was originally strongly associated with the tension and sense of uncertainty created by the Hungarian recognition of the 1713 Pragmatica Sanctio. However, from the end of the nineteenth century onwards, the story of the two ladies’ plot was largely forgotten and consequently it failed to become part of the ‘edited’ corpus of the country’s historical memory.

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