Papp, KláraGorun-Kovács, Blanka Sidonia2008-12-012008-12-0120082008-12-01http://hdl.handle.net/2437/37862My paper presents the Hungarian documents of the peasants’ riot, led by Horea in Transylvania (1784).These documents were kept in the archive of the “Consilium Locumtenentiale” from Buda and they remained unknown to historic research until now. The importance of this relatively significant amount of documents ( over 4000 pages) consists in the fact that these regard not only the history of Transylvania but also the history of Hungary. In 2006 these documents were published with the support of The Hungarian Historical Research Institute from the University of Debrecen , in a special volume. Before analyzing these documents, I thought it would be useful to present the results of the Hungarian and of the Romanian research, regarding the riot led by Horea. By doing this I succeeded to avoid a series of misinterpretations during the research and I succeeded in providing a more accurate interpretation of the riot. For this reason, in the first part of the paper , I present the general image of the riot, thus excluding the excessive interpretations which were generated by the political views of some authors. I tried to present the point of view of the Romanian historians, point of view which belonged to two fundamental directions: a moderate one, and here we must mention Nicolae Iorga and David Prodan, and an excessively nationalistic one, found in Stefan Pascu’s work. Among the Hungarian historians we must mention Berlasz Jeno, as being one of the most accurate analyzers of the historical event, and Szucs Jeno, who made a parallel interpretation of the two methods of scientific research used by the two historical currents. It is obvious that Horea’s riot had not only economical reasons, although the historians from both countries insist on this. It is certain that the outbreak of the riot is due to the misunderstandings regarding the reorganization of the border regiments from Transylvania, fact that agitated both the peasants and the noblemen. Because of the subscriptions that were meant to precede the recruitment, were stopped by the emperor himself, the peasants thought that the emperor was forced to yield in to the pressures made by the noblemen. These subscriptions for the future border regiments were supposed to take place at the same time with another subscription which started at November 1st 1784 and agitated the peasants even more. The riot started at October 31st 1784 in Zarand, from where it quickly spread to Hunedoara, Alba, Cluj, and Sibiu counties, and even to Arad county which was situated on Hungarian territory. A crucial event of the riot was the issuing of an “ultimatum” at November 12th 1784 which imposed some conditions on the noblemen. Apparently this ultimatum should belong to the peasants, but in the debate over this subject, the historians are divided between considering this ultimatum the program of the riot ( David Prodan) or a nobiliary petition (H. Balazs Eva). The biggest exaggeration belongs to Stefan Pascu, who considered the document as being a political program which colud be, thus, prior even to the political programme of the French revolution. It is certain that the points belonging to the 12th November 1784 ultimatum were found in a proposition sent to Maria Theresa by the Austrian State Council, in 1762 with the intention to modernize the whole society from the eastern provinces of the empire. After December 7th 1784, following the battle of Mihaileni, the riot starts to fall apart. Shortly at December 24th 1784 the riot was considered to be ended, even by the authorities .Its leaders were captured in the last days of the year and then, they were executed. The documents that I brought up with this occasion, bring important facts to the chronology of the riot, more exactly to the end of it..The main part in the peacemaking process, was not played by the authorities from Transylvania, but by the royal commissary Anton Jankovics, who took all the important decisions regarding the peacemaking process, both in Transylvania and in Hungary. Even if in Hungary, the riot was present only in Arad county, measures were taken to prevent its spreading on almost the entire teritory of Hungary, especially in the 11 eastern counties which were close to the border with Transylvania. These measures implied the permanent day and night surveillance of the peasants, the limitation and later the interdiction of the gunpowder commerce, the confiscation of the weapons belonging to the peasants. All the Hungarian counties were forced to report weekly about anything that could cause the outburst of other riots.These measures have strongly affected the social and economical life in Hungary, especially the commerce. The documents show that Horea’s riot brought about a significant amount of fear both in Transylvania and in Hungary.On the other hand these documents allow us to take a look into the hidden part of the riot, its secret part, especially into those parts which deal with the participation of the orthodox priests at the violent events, and the activity of Mihai Popescu, a lieutenant in the Russian army, suspected to be one of the instigators of the riot. From these document we learn that the central authorities from Hungary regarded the riot not only as a problem of Transylvania, but also a Hungarian problem. This fact is shown by the big number of documents and also by the special interest that the authorities showed to any details which could suggest an imminent danger. Despite the contradictions between the emperor and the noblemen, these powers coopertated to make peace and to eliminate the danger which the riot represented.208huMagyarország történeteHistory of HungaryKoraújkori történelemHorea-felkelésErdély történeteEarly Modern HistoryHorea-uprisingHistory of TransylvaniaTörténelemtudományokBölcsészettudományok