BETHLEN, GÁBOR

BETHLEN, GÁBOR. — Prince of Transylvania, born in 1580 into a very ancient Hungarian family, died in 1629. He spent his youth at the court of Sigismondo Báthory and later became one of Gabriele Báthory’s most trusted counsellors. After the latter’s flight, he was elected prince of Transylvania with the support of Turkey. He brought the independence of this country to such a degree that, at the beginning of the Thirty Years’ War, he was able to ally himself with the Bohemians in order to fight Hungary, on the pretext that the Catholics were preparing to march against the Protestants. A fervent Calvinist and declared opponent of the Habsburgs, he resolutely marched against northern Hungary, where Protestantism was continually losing ground through the efforts of Cardinal Pietro Pázmány. B.’s captain, Rákóczy, succeeded in occupying the fortress of Kassa, massacring there, among others, the canon Marco Crisino and the Jesuits Stefano Pongrácz and Melchiorre Grodecz (“the Martyrs of Cassovia”). At the diet held immediately afterward at Beszterczebánya, B. was elected king of Hungary, but did not accept the crown. At this same diet, the secularization of ecclesiastical property and the expulsion of Pázmány and the Jesuits from Hungary were decreed. Since the Bohemian allies were defeated, however, B. was forced to sue for peace. In compensation for renouncing the crown of Hungary, he obtained an enlargement of the territory of Transylvania and the title of prince of the Holy Roman Empire. During the Thirty Years’ War he took the field against Hungary twice more, but without significant results. Under his rule, Transylvania experienced considerable economic, artistic, and cultural development. He founded numerous Protestant schools, which, however, never attained the standard of those of the Jesuits. He eventually went so far as to admit a Catholic episcopal vicar into the country.

Alessandro Alessandrini