János Bényei Deák (?-1645)
A Reformed teacher and pastor. Educated in Hungary, he then taught in Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia), 1630, and in Marosvásárhely (Tirgu Mures ), 1633.
He was a tutor of two sons (Zsigmond and György) of Prince György Rákóczi I at Gyulafehérvár, and he edited the Latin handbook of Janua Linguarum Bilingvis, Latina et Hungarica with his pupils. He accompanied his students abroad, visiting the University of Leiden in 1634 and the University of Utrecht in 1635. Upon his return home, he became the second teacher in the college of Sárospatak in September, 1637. In his inaugural he made a speech about the "Merciful wisdom and the wise mercyness," and he taught rhetoric among other things. He resigned in 1641 and became a pastor at Mád, and he was made a scrivener by the Diocese of Abaúj. He died of cholera in 1645. His life could have been quite altered by the Ring of Fire.
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György Berényi (Bodok, 1601-1677)
Politician, writer. He learnt at Körmöcbánya (Upper Hungary) in a monasterial school and went abroad to an unknown university. Returning home, he became the castle captain of the aristocrat Forgach family, first at Sempte, then he served the Thurzó family at Temetvény as a captain.
He wrote a diary about the happenings of the Diet of Sopron (1634-35) and of the Diet of Pozsony (Pressburg, Bratislava) between 1634 and 1638 where he was a delegate of Nyitra County. He became the leader of the county's insurrection in 1641, and he was a delegate again on the 1642 Diet. He joined the royal army against Prince György Rákóczi I in 1643.
We can find him in Rákóczi's service in 1646 but two years later returned to Vienna and got a dominium from the king in 1655 for it. Next year he was made a baron. He was successfully negotiating with Rákóczi on behalf of Emperor Leopold I in 1659. He became a royal advisor at the court in 1660. He seemed to change sides easily.
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Gáspár Bojthi Veres (born 1595, died after 1640)
Teacher; secretary of Prince Gábor Bethlen and later court member of Prince Rákóczi I.
He studied in Debrecen from 1613, then from 1617 to 1620 he studied in Heidelberg, at Prince Gábor Bethlen's expense. Returning home in 1621, he next became a tutor to István Bethlen and a teacher at Marosvásárhely. The prince made him his historian and a professor as well, at Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia). He was responsible for the archives of the local church. Prince Rákóczi I made use of his services as a secret envoy to Germany in 1640.
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Tamás Borsos
He was a teacher, the son of Prince Bethlen's envoy, Tamás Borsos. He travelled abroad for ten years. He finished his studies at the University of Padua in 1632 where he got his physician and bachelor of arts degree. After returning home, he became a Unitarian teacher and dean in Kolozsvár (Cluj, Klausenburg). Here he wed Anna Ádám in 1638. He resigned from his dean position in that year and worked as a physician. At this time he began to write his diaries, keeping records of his family and contemporary history until 1647.
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János Büringer
He started his studies at the University of Wittenberg in April, 1631. In the 1630s there were about three hundred Hungarians learning or teaching in Western schools: he was one of them. He was teaching between 1644-47 in Besztercebánya (Banská Bystrica), Upper Hungary, then in Eperjes (Prjesov) in 1648. He became a notary public in Modor in 1651. Finally he taught at the Evangelical College of Pozsony (Bratislava, Pressburg) until his death. János might make a good agent of change in Hungary if he became fascinated with the new technology available because of the Ring of Fire.
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Péter Czack (?-1636)
He was a writer and a member of a delegation in 1602 from Kassa (Kosice) to Lõcse (Levoca), escorting Peter Zabler. He was a skilled diplomat and in 1605 successfully negotiated with the Hajdu soldiers who were threatening his city, Lõcse (Levoca). We can see him among the city's officials from 1606 until his death: he was in charge of taking care of the buildings' and roads' safety. He was a city judge between 1632-33. He kept a diary that has disappeared. It's possible that his life could be expanded by medical knowledge learned from Grantville and/or that he becomes interested in America's up-time building codes and road construction.
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Anna Csáky
She was a nun of the Poor Claires, the daughter of Master of Treasury István Csáky and Anna Wesselényi. She joined the nunnery in Pozsony (Bratislava, Pressburg) in 1625. She sent letters from there to her mother and brothers and to Gábor Vadas between 1639-71. We know twelve of her letters which bear witness of her high education.
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Baccio (Bartholomeo) del Bianco (1604-1656)
He was a painter, a stucco-artist, an architect, and a military engineer. He was born in Florence and he got his artistic education there. He became the assistant of Giovanni Battista Pieroni and set out to find his luck in the Holy Roman Empire in 1620.
The Council of War assigned him to examine the castles and walls in Hungary. He made scale models of Mosonmagyaróvár and Pozsony and was working on the walls of Gyõr, Sopron, and Komárom. Later he and Pieroni worked on the fortifications of Prague. At this time, 1623-30, Andrea Spezza was building Wallenstein's palace in Prague, between. They got work here, too: Pieroni had designed the stanza of the garden while Baccio del Bianco made the stuccos of the central great hall between 1629-30.
Then he returned to Italy and taught architecture and fortification building in Florence. He designed the plans for the facade of the cathedral in Florence. He joined the court of Phillip IV of Spain in 1650 where he was organizing festivities and designing gardens until his death. As an architect and artist he probably would have been fascinated by the technological advancements made possible by the up-timers.
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Johann Heinrich Alsted (John Henry Alsted, Alstedius)
(Ballersbach, 1588-Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia), 1638)
He was a German Protestant theologian and philosopher and epitomized what would now be called a Renaissance man. He was teaching between 1629-1638 at the College of Gyulafehérvár where he had come with Heinrich Bisterfeld and Ludwig Piscator at Prince Bethlen's invitation. He created numerous encyclopedic works regarding theology and philosophy, which were well-known at the time. We know of three hundred fifty-five of his works.
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Tamás Borsos (born in Marosvásárhely in 1566, died sometime after 1633)
He was a notary public and city judge in Transylvania, and also acted as Prince Bethlen's envoy to the Turks.
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Mihály Dálnoki Nagy
He studied at the Unitarian college of Kolozsvár (Cluj, Klausenburg), then travelled to Italy in 1631 and studied at Padova. He returned in February, 1637. He became the president of the university. In 1645 he was studying the solar eclipse and was almost totally blinded. He was famous for his remarkable memory and for teaching philosophy. He was a pastor from 1646 on. Knowledge from Grantville would have (hopefully) saved him from losing his eyesight and certainly would have expanded his thoughts on philosophy.
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Péter Debreczeni (Debrecen, 1608-?)
He was a Protestant pastor who studied in Debrecen (located in Turkish-occupied land) and became a teacher there. He was learning in western universities from 1636 on (Leiden, Franeker). He was a pastor at Munkacs (Munkacevo) in 1647 and in 1649 and perhaps in 1666 as well. Later he was pastor at Técsõ.
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István Deselvics
A Protestant pastor from Gyõr, in 1630 he was studying at the University of Leipzig, then came home and became the court pastor of Count György Széchy, the Lord of Murány Castle.
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Zsuzsánna Dóczi
A poet in the Trans-Danubian region, her religious songs can be found in the Codex Lugosy of 1635.
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Count Miklós Draskovits (1595-1659)
A poet, he was in school in 1608 when he wrote a poem for the nobleman, Fere
nc Forgács. He was said to be an envoy of this nobleman. His wife was Erzsébet Endrõdy.
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Dániel Dubravius
Lutheran bishop from Zsolna (Upper Hungary). His parents gave him a nice education. He went abroad to learn and returned in 1619. He was teaching in Breznóbánya and in Bánóc in 1630. Then he became a pastor for Count Predmirre, and from there he went to Szenic. He had to run away from there because of his religion. Finally, he was elected bishop in Bánóc in 1648. He was a great orator and had a good knowledge of the Bible. He was a humble person and dressed in very cheap clothes.
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Mátyás Duchon
Lutheran poet from Nyitra county (Upper Hungary). His brother was Florián Duchon, a Lutheran pastor. He gained the title of doctor and was famous for smaller poems.
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János Fabinus (?-1644)
Lutheran pastor. His ancestor came from Poprád (Upper Hungary). He was studying in Boroszló in 1630. He was shot down at Illésháza by one of the hussars of Rákóczi.
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Ambrus Földvári
Protestant pastor from the first part of the seventeenth century who wrote epic poems and translated the Catechisatio, Theologia, and Theologicum Examen of Guillelmus Bucanus into the Hungarian language. These works were never printed and were entirely lost.
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Pál Fráter (?-1658)
Soldier, poet. He was the son of a Transylvanian judge, and his mother was Ilona Horváth Suselich. He was a soldier at several points during the reign of Prince György Rákóczi I.
In 1634 he was arrested because he was accused of being a friend of István Bethlen, the enemy of the prince. He was imprisoned in his own castle from where he escaped to Royal Hungary.
It was during his exile when he wrote his poetic letter to Anna Barcsay. Later he became a confidential advisor of Prince György Rákóczi II, the next ruler, and he was given the leadership of the Hajdu soldiers. He got his lands back in 1654, after the campaign in Moldova. There are lots of different possibilities for this character post-Ring of Fire.
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Pál Keresztúri Bíró (?-1655)
Protestant preacher, distinguished educator and famous for his polemics.
He studied in Debrecen, where he became a student of theology in 1617. He became president of the students in 1620 and returned to his home village to teach in 1622. He went to Bréma, Germany, in 1624 and to the Netherlands. The following year he took a longer trip in England and came home in the summer of 1626. He set out again in 1627, presumably sent by Prince Gábor Bethlen. He became a student at the University of Leiden and came home during the late summer of 1629 to become the leading teacher of the University of Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia), in the capital of Transylvania.
He was instructing the children of Prince György Rákóczi I from the summer of 1634 on. In this court-school the children of the Prince studied together with the children of the Transylvanian nobility. He became the court-priest of the next ruler, Prince György Rákóczi II, at Várad. He moved to Gyulafehérvár in 1648 and took charge again of leading the court school.
His theology consisted of a synthesis of traditional Reformed thought and Puritanism. He firmly represented the theological inheritance of the traditional Protestantism. It was not enough for him just to know the theory in all details but he was urging people to consider these principles very thoroughly and make them into a personalized religious experience. This experience was supposed to be obtained continuously, with a very close-to-God feeling. In his preachings he emphasized the Puritan moral views and not the prophetic zeal. He highlighted that a Christian man should spend his life in constant spiritual activity. He debated with his Jesuit adversaries both theologically and politically. He defended the writings of Prince György Rákóczi I, too.
In his pedagogics he thought that physical punishment should be avoided and rather than that, placidity and motivation should be applied. He didn't consider the children "small adults" as they had been considered in the Middle Ages. In his pedagogics he used the sense of humor, the good mood, and playing, more open-mindedly than others. He thought that the attention of the children should be attracted all the time. His thinking was similar to Comenius' slogan: "Omnia sponte fluant, absit violentia rebus" or: "Let everything go on and let the violence be far away."
He didn't teach reading and writing apart from each other, but taught them side by side. His students had to learn first in Hungarian and later in Latin. In teaching a language he put the emphasis on talking skills rather than making the children memorize the grammar. He may have been the first who taught the basics of modern languages this way. He taught the languages of neighboring nations and the "civilized nations'" languages as well: Romanian, Polish, Turkish, German, French, and English were taught in his school.
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Gáspár Madách (1590-1641)
He was a juryman, judge, and a representative of the Diet of Upper Hungary. He was a comes (count) from 1636, the familiaris of the aristocrat Simon Balassa, the director of his properties of Kékkõ Castle. He wrote poems in Hungarian and in Czech languages: these writings were not considered the best poems on Earth.
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Some Final Thoughts:
The Hungarian heroism against the Ottoman Empire allowed the civilized Western monarchs to fight their political/religious wars for thirty years.
As a result of the Ring of Fire, the Prince of Transylvania would have learned that after these wars the Austrians would drive the Turks out after the siege of Vienna in 1683. Once Buda was retaken, Hungary would be liberated by the allied European crusaders. Contemporary sources agreed that this "liberation" caused greater misery and destruction across Hungary than the long Turkish occupation, not forgetting the Serbian attacks and massacres that followed it in the 1700s.
After forcing the Turks out, Hungary would lose the last bits of its independence and even Transylvania would fall into the hands of the Habsburgs, who, after putting down two major wars of independence (1704-1711 and 1848-49), would finally force Hungary into their monarchy, taking control over foreign, military, and financial affairs. They had only been able to create their monarchy with the Russian tsar's help.
Hungarians would learn through the Ring of Fire that the Austrian Habsburgs would bleed them dry for three hundred years in defense of Christendom and then drag them into the First World War. Hungary was the only country in 1919 that shrank back to a smaller size than what it had been after 1541, with the allied American and West European politicians signed the Treaty of Versailles which took away seventy-four percent of its territory.
The Habsburgs were common enemies of Hungary and the USE, and the Turks could have been manipulated into crushing them. Obviously, there were either no negotiations with the Grantvillers before 1637 or they were kept completely secret. Either the Habsburgs or the Turks could have succeeded in stopping or hindering them.
It would be very much in the prince's interest to use the Turks to destroy the Habsburgs. Of course, he would have asked for a high price from the sultan for letting them through. Who knows how many cities, villages, and strategic castles would be returned to the Transylvanians in exchange for the passage to Vienna? Who knows how many Hungarians could be saved from the Muslims' slavery? How much stronger would his power grow?
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Appendix
The following books have given me a great help in writing my article:
Péter Katalin: "A magyar romlásnak százada" Budapest, 1979
Péter Katalin: "Esterházy Miklós" Budapest, 1985
Hegyi Klára: "Egy Világbirodalom végvidékén" Budapest, 1976
Újváry Zsuzsanna: "Nagy két császár birodalmi között" Budapest, 1984
Bitskey István: "Pázmány Péter" Budapest, 1986
Makkai László: "Bethlen Gábor emlékezete" Budapest, 1980
Nagy László: "Megint fölszánt magyar világ van" (Társadalom és hadsereg a 17.század elsõ
felének Habsburg-ellenes küzdelmeiben) Budapest, 1985
Földi Pál: "Zrínyi Miklós" Budapest, 2015
Földi Pál: "Tündérkert õrzõi" Debrecen, 2014
Földi Pál: "Végvárak vitézei" Debrecen, 2014
Nagy László: "A török világ végnapjai Magyarországon" Budapest, 1986
Nagy László: "Hajdú vitézek" Budapest, 1986
Nagy László: "Kard és szerelem" Budapest, 1985
ifj. Barta János: "Buda visszavétele" Budapest, 1985
Somogyi Gyõzõ: "Végvári vitézek 1526-1686" Budapest, 2014
Somogyi Gyõzõ: "Az erdélyi fejedelemség hadserege 1559-1690" Budapest, 2013
Benda Kálmán: "Magyarország történeti kronológiája 1.-2. kötet" Budapest, 1981
Szerecz Miklós: "Vitézség tüköri: Zrínyitõl Rákócziig" (kézirat)
https://www.facebook.com/Vit%C3%A9zs%C3%A9g-t%C3%BCk%C3%B6ri-Zr%C3%ADnyit%C5%91l-R%C3%A1k%C3%B3cziig-145821772190768/
Please, visit this page for pictures of castles and other information:
https://www.facebook.com/Hungary-1632-1004766599572709/
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Notes From the Buffer Zone: Escapist Fiction by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
It’s been a hell of a last six months or so. Not only was the American election a nightmare of screaming and fighting—not just among the candidates, but among the voters as well—and in 2017, the acrimony has grown worse. To make matters even worse, celebrities, icons, and just plain marvelous folk have been dying at the rate of two and three a day.
Grantville Gazette, Volume 70 Page 19
