Page - 380 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

Chapter 8380 ever, metaphorically at best, and without any clear-cut frontlines between a “Scytho-Hungarian” and a “Finno-Ugrian” “school.”132 At this point, it is worth recalling other texts of an academic nature, those mentioned in Chapter 5, published in Hungary about Sámi and “Scythian” eth- nology, and the attempts Hell and Sajnovics made to attenuate the predictable consternation among increasingly zealous Magyar patriots over the theory ad- vanced in the Demonstratio. These attempts were mostly in vain. The repudia- tion of the Sámi kinship of the Hungarian language proposed by Hell and Saj- novics, framed in derogatory discussions of the Sámi, was especially prominent among the “bodyguard writers.” Given the intellectual and cultural sensibilities of this group, briefly described above, the implications of “Lappianism”— understood by them as not only linguistic but also ethnic kinship—seemed to them highly disturbing. Ábrahám Barcsay’s (1742–1806) poetry abounds in re- buffs addressed to Sajnovics whose “yoke” was perceived by him as a vital threat to ancient liberties, established on the cornerstone of the idea that Hun- garians are “the valiant grandsons of Scythians.”133 Similarly, in Lőrinc Orczy’s (1718–89) “The Errors of Star-Watcher Sajnovits and Hell Being Refuted” (1773), the author points out the absurdity of the allegation that the progeny of Alex- ander the Great’s brave opponents should be related to mere “Lapps,” munch- ing on dried fish. Orczy is profoundly ironic. Referring to the preface of the Demonstratio, he recalls that it was Hell who “forced” the strange idea on Sajnovics—but “I know you rejoiced in this kinship / with a noble nation like this / Lapps have always been so famous / just like eminent Tóts [Slovaks] among us.”134 The reference to “Tóts” is not accidental: Orczy concludes by recommending that “the astronomer” return to his “kind relatives,” an inaccu- rate hint at Sajnovics’s Slavic (though in his case Croat) ethnic background. It is, however, not merely an ethnic hint. “You could once be the lord of this people / leading it to the shore of the icy sea / raising it to glory / good Svatop- luk having lost it shamefully.” Svatopluk (c.840–94, r.871–94) had been the Slav 132 Béla Hegedűs, “Kalmár György a magyar nyelv származásáról,” in Historia litteraria a xviii. században, ed. Rumen István Csörsz, Béla Hegedűs, and Gábor Tüskés (Budapest: Universitas, 2006), 294–306, here 300. 133 László Vajthó, ed., Barcsay Ábrahám költeményei (Budapest: Királyi Magyar Egyetemi Nyomda, 1933), 50–51. 134 Miklós Révai, ed., Két nagyságos elmének költeményes szüleményei (Bratislava: Antal Loewe, 1789); http://mek.oszk.hu/03300/03368/03368.htm#77 (accessed April 19, 2019). It has been claimed that Barcsay may have been the author of this poem, too. Cf. Emese Egyed, Levevék fejemről Múzsák sisakomat: Barcsay Ábrahám költészete (Kolozsvár: Erdélyi Múzeum-Egyesület, 1998), 101. See, however, Piroska Balogh, “‘Scytha vagyok, nem Lap- pon’: Adalékok Csokonai Halotti versek című művének tudománytörténeti hátteréhez egy történész és egy poéta diskurzusából,” in Balogh, Teória és medialitás, 180–203, here 182.