| Tradition and Modernity | 6. UNITY AND DIVERSITY IN CULTURE | Society and Mother-tongue Culture |
One of the distinctive features of the 17th century is that statesmen began to realize the importance of cultural dissemination, and, having assessed social demands, found new and effective ways of managing the process. In Transylvania, cultural policy was influenced both by the social and scientific revolutions under way in western Europe and by the principality's unique circumstances. To be sure, the rulers who had guided Transylvania over a period of fifty years pursued divergent goals, but none of them could ignore these two factors.
By the time János Apáczai Csere returned from Holland, armed with a cultural program inspired by Cartesianism, the democratic educational principles and cultural secularism inspired by Puritanism had suffered a series of setbacks in Transylvania. The gravely ill Apáczai challenged both the prince's authority and Calvinist hierarchy, and was transferred from the Gyulafehérvár academy to the college at Kolozsvár; he died in 1659. The members {2-439.} of a Cartesian group in Várad — Benedek Nagyari, Péter Kovásznai, Ferenc Nagybányai, and Dean István Szikra — were dismissed from their posts. Sámuel Enyedi got caught in the crossfire of debates. In April 1661, the synod at Marosvásárhely, backed by Prince János Kemény, proscribed Presbyterianism.
Despite all these reverses, the new, universalistic principle that reason, properly applied, was the key to progress, was successfully propagated in cultural debates, as well as in the Magyar Encyclopaedia and other fine works. A growing segment of Transylvanian society came to regard this orientation as serving their country's vital interests. Apáczai's disciples continued to nurture Cartesian cultural principles and assumed the difficult task of putting them into practice over the three decades of Apafi's rule.
'Nowhere in the world can a state, nation, or government meet its obligations and foster progress without promoting the free pursuit of knowledge, which is the proper preparation of young people for religious or secular life'.[141] Thus did Mihály Apafi sum up the ruler's duty with respect to culture in the context of the principality. When he was a child, he had been tutored by an early propagator of English Puritanism, and then by Jakab Harsányi, a teacher from Várad. His court chaplains were all Puritans, and some became pioneers of Cartesianism. Apafi's reading spanned the basic handbooks of scientific rationalism, effective governance, and political absolutism, written by Bacon, Machiavelli, Descartes, Cocceius, Lipsius, and Grotius. He regarded the development of schools and academic institutions to be his most important task. In 1662, he resettled the former Gyulafehérvár academy's faculty and students from their first refuge, in Kolozsvár, to Enyed, where a college named after Gabriel Bethlen was founded thanks to his generous donations. At the May 1665 session of the diet, the feudal estates acted on his urgings to approve state support for the Enyed college; concurrently, Apafi instructed the Calvinists to create a network of village schools. The prince also gave orders for the {2-440.} establishment of Romanian schools, and of a Romanian printing house. A law, enacted in 1669, laid down that 'everyone is free to study abroad, and no one in this country should ever think of prohibiting travel for the purpose of studying abroad'.[142]
Péter Kovásznai, who owed his appointment as bishop to Apafi's support, gave voice to a need widely felt among intellectuals when, in 1672, he recommended that 'having created three colleges, we should now establish an academy'.[143] Apafi embraced the proposal and began to make plans for a Transylvanian Academy. The three colleges (at Enyed, Kolozsvár, and Marosvásárhely, where the onetime Sárospatak college's staff had fled) were placed under unified management and supervision. The printing press retrieved from Várad was added to the Treasury's press at Gyulafehérvár, and the curators of the colleges at Kolozsvár and Enyed were charged with supervising the facility. Apafi also laid the groundwork for a botanical garden that would serve the proposed academy. Inspired by the example of King Matthias's famed Corvina library, the prince strove to develop a national library that was up-to-date and covered all branches of knowledge. Apafi was determined to gather around him 'not only the learned Sons of our Nation, but also intellectuals from the neighbouring Country, who should be given appointments and decent wages'.[144]
Apafi could draw on Transylvania's rich tradition of official religious tolerance as he confronted the new challenges in this sphere. Socioeconomic changes had noticeably altered the balance in the financial resources of the four recognized religions. The social impact of the Greek Orthodox Church had deepened. Among Protestants, on the other hand, social and ideological differences came to be variously reflected in orthodoxy and reformist tendencies: first, Puritanism, then Cocceianism and Pietism as well.
There is no evidence that, over his long reign, Apafi ever imposed restrictions or proscription on a religious denomination. His one forceful intervention was provoked by a Church's neglect {2-441.} of its educational responsibilities: when Bishop Száva Brankovics refused to deliver his sermons in the Romanians' mother tongue, Apafi complied with the request of the lower clergy and removed him from office. The Unitarians who had fled from Poland and been given shelter by Barcsai enjoyed total security under Apafi's rule. The growing number of Anabaptist communities came to play a significant role in cultural life. Apafi's guiding principle was that the religious denominations should not impinge on each other's interests. It was thanks to his tolerant religious policy the Catholic Church, with support from abroad, began to recover some ground; that after many decades of decline, Unitarianism regained in vigour; and that the Saxons' Lutheran Church also began to flourish.
Apafi's own religiosity was marked by the emerging tendency to draw a distinction between faith and scientific knowledge. His interventions in the organizational and theological debates of the Calvinist Church were motivated not by personal religious beliefs but by political convictions and a modern conception of the ruler's duty. He exercised his authority as head of state to condemn the orthodox tendency, to protect the advocates of Cocceianism, and to promote intellectual freedom in education, thus opening the door to Cartesian rationalism. The Cartesians were free to pursue their teaching, and those who 'do not like it can write against it'.[145] Appointments to high government posts were made on the basis of qualifications, not family background, and Apafi expected the various denominational schools to enrich the country with educated people. His tolerant religious policy was active and constructive. When, on 10 June 1678, the prince endorsed the election of Kézdi-szentlélek's parson, Bertalan Szebelédi, to the office of Transylvanian vicar, he instructed the latter to 'remedy all deficiencies in his Church and renovate all its parochial buildings and annexes.'[146]
Apafi was probably more generous than any other Transylvanian ruler in his financial and moral support of the {2-442.} Calvinist clergy. To be sure, he also required them to serve the interests of the state. Without his protection, the chaplains at court and in the army would hardly have dared to deliver their unbelievably vehement attacks on the selfishness of the nobility, on greed and incompetence; or to propagate the official line, that people had to improve their ways and subordinate their individual interests to those of the collectivity.
To remedy social ills, the government always drew on the assistance of the Churches, and it did not shrink from interfering in people's private lives. Princely decrees prohibited drinking, dancing, and music-making, while the diet banned cursing and revelling. An edict, issued in 1672, reflected both the influence of Puritanism and the absolute ruler's refusal to discriminate among religious denominations: 'To please God, the adherents of this country's four recognized religions shall participate in an extraordinary service of worship and hold a nationwide fast.'[147] If they disobeyed, peasants would be put in stocks, and noblemen fined twelve forints. The edict specified that it was aimed at the greater good of 'our dear nation, which is in an advanced state of decay'; it served to encourage frugality and to imprint the prince's ideology on the popular culture.
Apafi, like Gabriel Bethlen, regarded the Transylvanian principality as the preserver of Hungarian statehood and independence. Although he was not able to restore Gyulafehérvár to the status of permanent princely seat, he wanted to turn his court into the bastion of a Hungarian culture that drew on the best European models. He encouraged his entourage to adopt behavioural norms that could serve as an example for the society at large. The language of state administration was Hungarian, while those of diplomacy were Latin and, to a growing extent, French. In fashion, Polish and French styles made headway at the expense of the national dress. The objects decorating the prince's palace at Radnót included gifts from other European rulers.
{2-443.} Life at court was governed by strict rules and the ceremony that attended contemporary monarchs. Mihály Apafi instructed that the court be kept abreast of foreign news by way of regular summaries, or 'novellas'; the next step, if time had allowed, would have been the creation of a national newspaper. He also took pains to keep foreign countries informed about Transylvania. At times, Apafi exercised the ruler's prerogative to censor publications; he gave instructions to historians and kept a close eye on the teaching curriculum. The place of culture in the hierarchy of social values changed markedly during the three decades of Apafi's rule. The values he espoused were enshrined in numerous works of literature.
In 1673, István F. Tolnai, a physician and theologian who had studied at universities in Holland and England, and who preserved Puritan traditions within the framework of Cartesianism, gave a full portrait in verse form of this statesman and champion of culture. On the occasion of Mihály Apafi II's election, Ferenc Pápai Páriz depicted the late prince as a classic absolutistic ruler and advised the son to follow his example. Pápai attributed to Apafi senior some aspirations typical of Cartesian intellectuals who had been weaned on Puritanism. Thus Apafi had defended the poor, had loved — and been loved by — the nation, had given his country peace and tranquillity, and had governed wisely. Wrote Pápai:
| 'Nemcsak kicsik közt van hatalmad, |
| Mert az erőt jelent, |
| Hogy a halandókhoz szelíd vagy: |
| Közügy vagy, és a rend.' |
| [You are not merely mighty amongst the weak, |
| You show your strength |
| By being gentle with all mortals: |
| You are the public interest and order.][148] |
{2-444.} When, after 1690, Transylvania was shorn of its autonomy, and domestic tranquillity became only a memory, the Habsburg regime introduced cultural policies that encompassed many progressive notions. However, if failed to persuade Transylvanians that it was serving the public interest, and thus its policies proved far less effective that those pursued by Apafi. The empire's centrally-drafted cultural policies, which had their greatest impact on Transylvania between 1690 and 1703, were part of a political strategy serving the interests of the dynasty, the court aristocracy, and the feudal estates. In Transylvania, as in Hungary, the Viennese court tried to have all cultural affairs administered by the Catholic Church, hoping that the latter, with its organizational apparatus and cultural heritage, would thereby become a servant of state interests. The cultural policy developed by Archbishop Kollonich and his circle aimed to impose a single, established religion; they took no account of Transylvania's rich tradition of religious pluralism and of the country's comparatively modernized culture.
Transylvania thus was drawn closer to Vienna and, in the process, became isolated from western Europe. The imperial capital held great attraction for the aristocrats, but many others, including masses of urban and rural Calvinists, were alienated by the court's policies. Meanwhile, among Romanians, the more prosperous strata turned away from priests who had taken the bait of social and financial rewards to endorse religious union. Transylvania's Catholic bishop, whose communications with Rome now had to pass through Vienna, strove to preserve not only the Church's autonomy from state encroachment, but also local traditions and the interests of the Hungarian community. Nor did the Habsburgs' cultural policy safeguard the interests of Saxons.
Thanks to the moral and material backing of the state, the Jesuits became the most powerful cultural force in Transylvania. They rapidly expanded their school network, and their educational methods drew the sons of the aristocracy and middle nobility. Yet {2-445.} even the Jesuits failed at the task of transforming the cultural profile of the former principality. And when, in 1705, Ferenc Rákóczi II prepared to come to Transylvania for his investiture, it was the Jesuits of Kolozsvár who formulated the guiding principles of the new state.
During the eight years of Ferenc Rákóczi II's tenure as prince of Transylvania, his government tried to build upon the cultural policies of Mihály Apafi, who had himself followed in the footsteps of Gabriel Bethlen. Endless political struggles undermined the effectiveness of official cultural policy, which nevertheless continued to favour religious tolerance, financial support for schools, and an untrammelled, worldly outlook in education. The language of administration, which the Austrians had decreed to be Latin and German, became Hungarian once again. The development of mother-tongue culture was to have been assured by the right of all denominations to establish schools. During Rákóczi's brief sojourn in Transylvania, the court temporarily regained its inner order and European-inspired ceremonial. One testimony to Rákóczi's cultural strategy was the Society of Noble Youths, which, as noted, was founded in 1707 at Kolozsvár, and designed to train political and military leaders.
| Tradition and Modernity | 6. UNITY AND DIVERSITY IN CULTURE | Society and Mother-tongue Culture |