Eszmetörténet, szellemtörténet, tudomány- és technikatörténet
Irodalomtörténet
Vallástörténet
When Alexander Rudnay (1760-1831) was installed as Primate, which is the highest position
of Catholic Church in the Hungarian Kingdom, in 1820, he faced several challenges.
First, he had to balance between the Habsburg Court and the Vatican, and between the
Court and the Hungarian-Slovak noble estates. Second, the Catholic Church was in crisis
at the beginning of the 19th century as the high clergy felt a moral deterioration.
This paper presents the poetical representation of the installation ceremony, which
was held in May 1820. More than a hundred poems were born in several languages (Latin,
Hungarian, German, Slovak, and French) by numerous kinds of authors (such as clerics,
nobles, students or simple citizens). Of course, in these poetic laudations the authors
all praised the excellence and virtue of Rudnay, but they also tried to articulate
what their wishes were, what expectations they had, what they thought about their
political chances, and how an archbishop should support a political cause at the Court.
In this sense, the poetry that was born for this occasion was a specific tool of political
communication by which their opinions and desires could be express.
