01/10/2026
GaM - 7. Oktober 2026, 18.30–20.00 Uhr - Präsenzveranstaltung
Institut für Geschichte, Universität Wien, Universitätsring 1, 1010 Wien, Hörsaal 30
Jour fixe des Instituts für die Erforschung der Frühen Neuzeit in Kooperation mit Geschichte am Mittwoch
Szabolcs Serfözö (Budapest): „Under the Protective Wings of the Majestic Austrian Eagle“. Representation of the Habsburg Rulers in the Kingdom of Hungary, 1526–1780
Moderation: Friedrich Polleroß
Abstract:
20th-century Hungarian historiography viewed the Habsburg dynasty’s rule over Hungary in a highly negative light, frequently employing the metaphor of Hungary struggling „in the claws or shadow of the two-headed eagle“. This narrative was built on the juxtaposition of the struggles for national independence and the oppressive and „colonizing“ Habsburgs, and made the Kuruc-Labanc conflict the fundamental interpretive framework for the country’s history in the 16th–18th centuries.
Recent historical research, however, has recognized that the estate-based state of Hungary was deeply integrated into the Central European Habsburg Monarchy and that the country’s early modern history was determined by pressures to compromise and reconciliation with the Vienna court. In fact, the survival of the Hungarian feudal society under the pressure of the Ottoman Empire depended fundamentally on the support of the Central European Habsburg Monarchy as a regional great power.
The Kingdom of Hungary’s integration into the Habsburg Empire – that is, the Hungarian royal title held by the Habsburg monarchs and the estates’ loyalty to the king – found expression in the most diverse forms of royal representation and Habsburg self-fashioning: in ceremonies and objects, in both the sacred and secular spheres. The lecture provides an overview of these artifacts, whose wide spectrum ranges from coats of arms to ecclesiastical ceremonies and Habsburg portrait galleries in city halls.
Zum Vortragenden:
Szabolcs Serfözö, PhD, is an art historian and chief curator at the Hungarian National Museum – Historic Picture Galley in Budapest. His main research fields are baroque ceiling paintings in Central Europe and the dynastic representation of the Habsburgs. He authored a monograph on the representation of the Habsburgs in early modern Hungary, published in Hungarian in June 2026. See at:
Üdvözöljük a Martin Opitz Kiadó oldalán!
