A Hungarian Romance: A Novel

Susanna Forgách and Ferenc Révay were married on April 21, 1598, and went to live in the castle of Szklabinya. Ferenc failed to consummate their marriage, indeed, he didn't even try. On New Year's Eve the following year, Peter Bakics, the Révays' counsin, turned up at the castle to celebrate. From then on, Peter's visits to the castle became increasingly frequent. Ferenc always welcomed him, not yet comprehending that perhaps he was no longer the object of Peter's visits.

Peter told stories well, for he loved to collect and pass on information as currency wherever he went. One day Peter brought news that István Illésházy, a friend of Ferenc's, was being tried for treason.

These people are all in the records of history. What Hankiss show more has done is twine the unknown personal lives with the public records, not with the aim of writing a historical novel, but rather as a means of exploring how each sphere determines and affects the other. To do this, she intersperses the ongoing story of Peter and Susanna, and their inevitable affair, against the trial and its ramifications for the nobility and the country.

At that time, Hungary was ruled by the mad Emperor Rudolf, a German. Rudolf held court in Prague and Vienna, outside Hungarian parliamentary jurisdiction. As the trial of Illésházy dragged itself out over the years, as the nobles who sat in judgement were threatened and coerced to arrive at Rudolf's preferred verdict, Ferenc and Susanna each developed signs of madness too, in their own individual ways. During all this time, political alliances were forged, fell apart, and formed anew. The waves of Reformation and counter Reformation swept the land, and always, there was the threat of the Turk.

Finally Ferenc Révay sued for divorce. Hankiss tells us

We cannot be at all surprised - if we recognise the nature of those volatile times - that the prospects for and opinions of divorce changed from moment to moment. As it was not really the custom to write openly about political aims, the national colours, anything which the occasion presented were used as substitutes. So that from this time Protestant and Catholic, religious tolerance and the Counter Reformation lined up against each other by proxy through the plaintiffs and defendants in a private case.

However, this is a tale of obsession, rebellion, lust, treachery and madness. The wheel turned.

...the chameleon public changed a cuckold into a sadist, an adulteress into a martyr, and a lecher into a hero. Old fossil notions were pushed off the shelf. From one pole to the other, and what lies between? The whole of life. Die ganze welt, no less.

Hankiss has given us not just a romance, but a cautionary tale, an exploration into the private and public depths of the times, and what times they were. show less