The Dynastic Imagination: Family and Modernity in Nineteenth-Century Germany

Abstract

scholar who has spent years immersed in the archives. The events reconstructed from these materials were shrowded in secrecy and deliberately obscured by the agents involved, which created a major analytical challenge. This makes the work Michels undertook all the more impressive. The book is at its strongest when the narrative pauses to address these issues and assess the nature and contents of several contradictory sources. Some may find the selected phrases and words frequently reproduced in their original languages a distraction. Though experts in the field will welcome Michels’ precision, students without a working knowledge of German, Latin, Italian, and Hungarian might be intimidated by these insertions. This deep archival work lays the foundation for future studies, many of which are suggested by Michels in the conclusion. That ordinary Hungarians sought their fortunes with the Ottoman sultan rather than the Habsburg emperor may come as a surprise to those unfamiliar with the complicated positions taken by the residents of the former Kingdom of Hungary in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The romanticized popular rebels described by Michels are known in Hungarian historiography as the legendary kuruc freedom fighters. They were a staple of twentieth-century nationalist children’s literature and textbooks. In subsequent studies, an important task will be to disentangle the complicated positions occupied by these and other similar rebels in the collective memory of the region. A related task that remains for future scholars is the reconstruction of popular attempts to become subjects of the sultan before and after these revolts. Indeed, archival sources reveal the willingness of Hungarian and Transylvanian noblemen and commoners to shift their allegiance to the sultan throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Another important topic for further research is the Ottoman perspective on these events, highlighted by Michels himself as a necessary complement to his own outstanding piece of scholarship.