Nordic Journal of Renaissance Studies 16 • 2019
Amedeo Di Francesco
Miklós Rrínyi's Hungarian Osmanology
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Nordic Journal of Renaissance Studies 16 • 2019 | |
| Towards the mid seventeenth century the prominent politician, military operator, and poet Miklós Zrínyi – with a view of contemporary confrontations with the Ottomans and looking back at the battle at Szigetvár in 1566, where his ancestor, the commander of the castle, and also Suleiman the Magnificent died – authored not only political treatises that were marked by Machiavellian inspiration, but also a heroic epic in the Tassonian mode, Obsidio Szigetiana (in Hungarian), about the deeds of his ancestor. Framed by themes of providence and fate, Zrínyi's exhortation in the poem to national unity and defence against the Ottomans in certain respects includes admiration for Ottoman culture and thus goes against the grain of dominant Hungarian attitudes. |