Page - 378 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

Chapter 8378 appropriate the work of a collaborator as entirely his own quite closely resem- bles Hell’s redefinition of his role in authoring the Demonstratio nearly two decades earlier. The point is not so much the extent to which this was disingenuous—although, had it not been confined to private correspondence, Szerdahely would surely have resented it: after all, the Buda professor himself was quite knowledgeable about astronomy, also shown by his commemoration of Weiss written upon the latter’s death in 1785.126 Rather, Hell’s effort to ap- propriate the poem is noteworthy because it shows his deep identification with the approach to the wider significance of an astronomical discovery ad- opted in it. Finally, there is yet another perspective on the publication of Szerdahely’s poems in the Ephemerides. Like Hell, he was not only a former Jesuit but also a devoted adherent of the Hungarus tradition. He wrote Latin poetry and an Apologia pro lingua Latina (Defence of the Latin language [1790]) as a token of his allegiance to the old cultural markers of the country, and at the diets of both 1790 (as a member of the educational committee) and 1807 he spoke out forcefully for the retention of Latin as the official language of Hungary in church and state. This earned Szerdahely violent detractions among the pro- moters of Hungarian, despite many unquestionable testimonies of his strong attachment to the literature and culture of his patria, including the apprecia- tion of the beauties of the Hungarian language.127 Also like Hell, he was an outstanding scholar, with an increasing international reputation. Especially in conjunction with Hell’s correspondence campaign—if Kästner, Bernoulli, and via the latter the Berlin academicians received copies of the Historia, quite cer- tainly others in his broad network were not neglected either—the Ephemeri­ des was once again, as in the case of the 1776 astronomical journey and the activities of the Eger observatory, a vehicle for the international propagation of Catholic cultural and scientific achievement in the Hungarian half of the Habsburg monarchy. What were Hell’s chances of being taken seriously as a Hungarian patriot?128 After all, he had also made his name known as an eager, though not formally 126 György Alajos Szerdahely, Memoria admodum reverendi et Clarissimi Domini Francisci Weiss astronomi celeberrimi (Buda: Landerer, 1785). 127 Margócsy, “Szerdahely művészetelmélete,” 8. For Szerdahely’s 1807 statement on Hungar- ian, see Sándor Domanovszky, ed., József nádor iratai, 3 vols. (Budapest: Magyar Törté- nelmi Társulat, 1925–35), 3:74. It must also be added that at the same time he appears to have promoted the spread of Hungarian in education. Cf. Az Ország­ Gyűlésének írásai, Acta Comitiorum (1807): 270. 128 For a concise version of the argument presented in the following paragraphs, see László Kontler, “Politicians, Patriots, and Plotters: Unlikely Debates Occasioned by Maximilian Hell’s Venus Transit Expedition of 1769,” in Sterken and Aspaas, Meeting Venus, 83–93.