Page - 78 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

Chapter 178 The demise of the independent Principality of Transylvania in the turmoil of the wars that led to the expulsion of the Ottomans from Hungary has al- ready been mentioned briefly above. From the Habsburg vantage point, this reconquista implied the task of integrating the vast newly gained territories with their already extensive composite monarchy politically, economically, and culturally. Although the Diploma Leopoldinum of 1690120 stipulated the maintenance of the religious status quo in Transylvania, Catholic mission, nat- urally with a prominent role assigned to the Society of Jesus, was central to this vast enterprise: despite differences in emphasis, the Habsburg endeavor of consolidating the dynasty’s hold over a somewhat exotic fringe area was com- patible with the Jesuits’ striving for the conversion of souls in obscure and con- tested locations (whether in Europe or overseas).121 After their 1607 expulsion, Jesuit presence in the region can still be documented quite extensively: the staunchly Calvinist but deeply pragmatic prince Gábor Bethlen (1580–1629, r.1613–29) allowed a handful of Jesuits to return for a new Transylvanian mis- sion, and the Society could also operate some schools, either openly, or formally Transylvania (Detroit, MI: Wayne University State Press, 1982), 96–129; Béla Köpeczi, László Makkai, András Mócsy and Zoltán Szász, with Gábor Barta, eds., History of Transyl- vania (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1994), part 3, 247–311. Cf. also László Kürti, The Remote Borderland: Transylvania in the Hungarian Imagination (Albany, NY: suny Press, 2001), 1–24, on Transylvania as a bridge between supposedly “advanced” Austria–Hungary and the “backward” East. For assessments of the political status and system of Transylvania, see Teréz Oborni, “Between Vienna and Constantinople: Notes on the Legal Status of the Principality of Transylvania,” in The European Tributary States of the Ottoman Empire in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ed. Gábor Kármán and Lovro Kunčević (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 67–89; Gábor Kármán, “The Hardship of Being an Ottoman Tributary: Transyl- vania at the Peace Congress of Westphalia,” in Frieden und Konfliktmanagement in inter- kulturellen Räumen: Das Osmanische Reich und die Habsburgermonarchie in der Frühen Neuzeit, ed. Arno Strohmeyer and Norbert Spannenberger (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2013), 163–83. 120 This constitutional document settled the status of Transylvania as a province directly de- pendent on Vienna, thus separated from the rest of the Kingdom of Hungary, autono- mous in its internal affairs as a principality under a Habsburg governor. In 1765, Transyl- vania was raised to the status of Grand Principality. 121 Cf. Jean Nouzille, “Les jésuites en Transylvanie au xviie et xviii siècles,” xviie siècle: Revue trimestrielle 50, no. 3 (1998): 315–28; Shore, Jesuits and the Politics of Religious Pluralism, 8. On the central role of “baroque” in Habsburg state-building, especially as regards the in- tegration of the territories obtained after 1526, more generally see R.J.W. [Robert John Weston] Evans, The Making of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1550–1700: An Interpretation (Ox- ford: Oxford University Press, 1979); Evans, Austria, Hungary and the Habsburgs, especially 3–16, 36–74.