Paul Shore

Patriotism, Catholicity and Drama in the Jesuit Schools of Eighteenth Century Kolozsvár

In 1693 the Society of Jesus returned to Transylvania after an absence of close to a century following the ascendancy of the Protestant prince Bethlen Gábor who had expelled them and closed their schools.  The organized return of the Society (small groups of Jesuits had be working in the area for several decades) was a direct consequence of the acquisition of the Grand Principality by the House of Habsburg, which supported the Jesuits in their endeavors and in turn could count on the loyal promotion of its own agenda by the fathers.  During the next eight decades the Jesuits established schools in several Transylvanian communities that played a major role in the cultural development of the region.  The most important cluster of Jesuit schools was located in Kolozsvár (Cluj, Klausenburg), the political and economic metropolis of the Principality.    The complex of Jesuit schools in Kolozsvár included an academy that later received the designations of collegium and Universität, a convictus Noblium or school for aristocratic boys, a seminarium pauperum or school for poor youth, and a domus conversorum that housed and probably also educated recent converts to Catholicism.[1]  The Society also operated an orphanage, although the education, if any, offered to the orphans is not known. Significantly, the Jesuit presence in the community ultimately extended to include a printing press, a bookshop, a paper mill, and the astronomical observatory of the famed scientist Hell Miska.[2]  More than merely a cultural outpost, the Jesuit complex in Kolozsvár was a remarkably diverse and complete replication of centers of high baroque culture as promoted by the Habsburgs.

The Jesuits of Kolozsvár based their curriculum and extracurricular activities on the guidelines set down in the Ratio Studiorum of 1599.  In this foundational document the production of school plays is not mandated, but great emphasis is placed on public speaking, on the demonstration of linguistic competence, and on the value of competition in a public or semi-public setting.  Jesuit educators, constructing an educational program in the richly theatrical culture of the late Renaissance, quickly seized upon the idea of using school dramas as means of teaching public speaking skills and morality, and as a way of advertising the Jesuit schools themselves, thereby generating not only a long list of original plays but an extensive literature on the topic.[3]   Within the Habsburg lands, Jesuit school drama, developing alongside of other forms of public performance such as recitations and academic defenses, played a significant cultural role in the seventeenth and early centuries.[4] Within Hungarian speaking lands, Jesuit drama helped shape both the development of literary Magyar as well as the perpetuating Baroque Latin as a living language in a nation that continued to use Latin as the language of its government well into the nineteenth century.  At the same time Jesuit drama reflected influences from many directions, including France and Germany, making the finished product "cosmopolitan" in ways that school dramas developed in other contexts seldom were.[5]  Hungarian Jesuit dramas thus contained elements of both the wider world and of the specific historical and cultural context of early modern Hungary. 

The visual arts were central to the presentation of many Jesuit school dramas produced in Hungary; while the sets, costumes and properties themselves have not survived, contemporary drawings reveal the richness and sophistication of the visual display of many Jesuit plays.[6]  The tradition of using drama to promote Jesuit educational goals reached back to the beginnings of the Counter-Reformation in Transylvania: the original Jesuit collegium in Kolozsvár was the site of the earliest known play produced by a Jesuit school in a Hungarian-speaking region, which appeared in 1587. Significantly, this drama focused on the history of the first Christian king of Hungary, St. Stephen.[7] 

While specifics on the dramas offered by the Jesuit schools of Kolozsvár are often lacking, we can gain glimpses of the Jesuit school theatre in the brief notices it receives in the histories of the Society.  Jesuit plays were generally performed before an audience that included members of the general public, thereby increasing the influence they would have had on wider community, a pattern initiated quickly once the Society had returned to Transylvania.  During the first year in which the recently returned Jesuits operated a school in Kolozsvár, a competition was held for the best play, the prize being offered by Apor Péter, a Catholic who had just been elevated to the rank of Baron.[8]  Different classes and members of the collegium community might take part in the production of dramas. In 1711 the rhetoricies, poets and grammar classes all participated in the production of a series of plays produced "in the public theatre" of the collegium.[9]  Play performances are reported as being staged in Udvarhely “de nostris Magister” (probably a Jesuit scholastic) and became a mainstay of the lower divisions or “grammatices” of the Jesuit collegium where in many years all classes of the “grammatices” took part.[10]   These plays often had a message that went beyond simplistic expositions of virtue and vice, or retellings of familiar Biblical themes.  Special attention was devoted to themes from Hungarian history, particularly those that supported the argument that Hungary had a special mission as a Catholic nation, as bulwark against infidels or as a model polity enjoying the Regnum Marianum, or rule of the Virgin Mary.  Another reference form the history of the Jesuit community, partially illegible, indicates that in 1702 a drama was staged in honor of the daughter of the Governor of Transylvania.[11]  In 1713, shortly after the unsuccessful Rákóczi rebellion, during which the town itself was occupied by kuruc troops, an “exhibitio comica” was staged the day following the graduation of the first baccalaureate class of the collegium.  This play dealt with the conversion of St. Stephen, the first Christian king of Hungary, and with the conversion of his uncle Duke Gyula.  These historical events have defining importance in Hungary’s relationship to the Holy See, for it was the pope who sent Stephen a Christian king’s regalia, which helped construct the tradition in which kings of Hungary (including the Habsburgs) were denominated “Apostolic.”  The piety and rectitude of Hungary’s first Christian rulers was of added significance in Transylvania, where a large percentage, if not an absolute majority of the population claimed descent not from Catholic Hungarians, but from Roman legionaries and Dacian settlers.[12]  The differing claims of Hungarians and Romanians on Transylvania, a debate that is unresolved today, places the production of a play on Stephen and Gyula by the mostly ethnic Hungarian Jesuits in multiple contexts.  Like other Jesuit dramas, this play promoted morality and what Szkefû Gyula calls the “baroque ideal,” but in addition the retelling of the conversion of the House of Árpad reinforces the moral and spiritual legitimacy of the Hungarian crown’s authority (even when it is held by a foreign dynasty) over Transylvania.[13] The same theme of Hungarian history intertwined with patriotism and piety is evident in a three act drama entitled “Emericus Bebekus et Joannes Zápolya, Roxiae Gubernatores a Ludovico I Hungariae Rege constituti,” written by Koloszvári (sic) Paulus and produced in 1723.[14] The chief characters of this drama are somewhat harder to identify than those of the foregoing play.  John Zápolya, King of Hungary (1526-1540), ruled during the final years of Hungary’s collapse as the Turks advanced following the battle of Mohács.  Known in his own lifetime as the “pious” (“jámbor”) king, John is a plausible candidate as one of the play’s protagonists.[15]

Martyred heroes were often a popular theme for plays produced in the Society’s schools.   The title of a play produced in 1741, “Alexius Japon, [Alexius the Japanese?]” refers one of the Japanese martyrs of the seventeenth century, whose story was well known to all Jesuits and their students.[16]  Alexius Nakamura was the scion of a royal family in Firando, and after converting to Catholicism was either beheaded or burned alive in Nagasaki 27 November 1619.[17]  Although he was not a Jesuit himself (instead he was a Dominican novice) and was not beatified until the nineteenth century, Alexius was a logical candidate for a Jesuit drama since he also possessed another characteristic held in high esteem by the Society: noble blood.  The story of the Japanese martyrs not only contained dramatic incidents but also provided examples of fortitude and devotion to the Church in a hostile environment, a lesson that would not be lost on the tiny minority of Catholics in central Transylvania.  The theme of martyrdom in far off lands itself occupied a special place in the baroque psyche, and was also the subject of public declamations made by Jesuit students.[18]   While martyrs had been part of the history of the Church from its earliest years, baroque sensibility increased the focus on their physical sufferings and their ultimate triumph over the world and over enemies of the Faith.  Situated in a community where only a small percentage of the population was Catholic, the performers in “Alexis” would have identified with the noble and youthful martyrs whose victory was assured.

Among the plays identified as Jesuit dramas held in the collection of the Romanian Academy in Kolozsvár (Cluj) are several that point to other classic themes in the Jesuit playwright’s repertoire.  These include “Apollo ab Aula Regis Midae Exul,” and Lucius Brutus in Aula Tarquini Superbi.”[19]  While the texts of these plays have not survived, it may be surmised that the character of Junius Lucius Brutus, a legendary sixth century B. C. E. Roman hero identified with opposition to tyranny and civic virtue, was offered to the public as a moral model.   Brutus had the added advantage of having feigned madness in order to escape the grasp of the tyrannical Tarquinus, and as the leader of the avengers of the rape of Lucrece would have had an opportunity to display righteous anger.  Sex, pagan virtue, fortitude and the protagonist’s skill at outwitting an evil opponent together provided a potentially riveting plotline.  Other times the central character would be drawn from Imperial Rome. "Constantinus Magus post recuperatam ope divina santitatem derutis inamium Deorum fanis vero Deo Augustate erigens," produced by the Seminarium S. Josephi in 1724, appears to have combined imperial glory and righteousness in a manner that would reflect well on Rome's successor, Vienna.[20]

Not all plays produced by the Jesuits of Kolozsvár would be acceptable to today's audiences. One such drama, produced in 1754, bore the name "Mariophilus,” was the tale of a youth murdered by the Jews and restored to life through the help of the Virgin.[21] Undoubtedly the theme of this work was the myth of the ritual murder of a young Christian by Jews, to serve as a sacrifice in their Passover celebrations.  The origins of this "blood libel" reach back into the Middle Ages, but the Baroque era saw a vigorous return of the view of Jews as murderers, particularly of youths.  Other heroes of Jesuit plays are also often young men in the roles of rescuers or exhibiters of mercy: in "S. Gualbertum amore pendentis è Cruce Christi inimico parcentem" a divine sign is provided to a young Christian seeking to avenge his brother's murder.[22]  The legend of Gualbertus relates that the eleventh century Italian noble was traveling on Good Friday when he came upon the man who had killed his brother.  He was about to kill the murderer himself, when he recalled Christ's forgiveness of His own killers.  As he embraced the murderer, Gualbertus had a vision of Christ on the Cross nodding in approval.  Following the manifestation of this divine numen, the Florentine aristocrat entered a Benedictine monastery and later founded the Vallombrosan congregation.  Again, youthful virtue, noble birth, and decisive action are elements of this drama that may have required some special stage machinery to illustrate the vision of Christ on the cross.

Numerous records of Jesuit school dramas make mention of  “comediae,” a term that need not imply humorous situations and characterizations, but only a happy ending, or perhaps only colorful and bright costumes.[23]  The appearance of dramas during the carnival season may also have played a role in their identification as "comedies."[24]  For example, in at the time of the scholastic exercises held for the 1709 academic year, three “comicè productae” were a performed in the Jesuit complex in Kolozsvár, two in the Museum Convictorum, and one in the “Auditorium.”[25]  It is not known whether the students of the convictus joined those of the Academy in this production, but since the overall enrollment of both schools at the time was relatively small, and it seems not improbable that some of the students of the convictus participated in the play.  Jesuit writers went to lengths to emphasize the popularity of the plays their schools produced.  The Society’s chroniclers noted when Calvinists and other non-Catholics were in the audience, as well as when a Calvinist was so taken with a play that he requested a copy of the script.[26]  Other unnamed plays were performed for the entertainment and edification of audiences in intervals during the dedication of the Jesuit church, or as part of ceremonies at the close of the academic year.[27]   Unique among plays noted in Jesuit records is an unnamed worked produced by thirty members of the convictus and which was written by the students themselves.[28]

            While the public declamations offered by students of the Jesuits' schools lacked the costumes and staging of the dramas, these declamations were also important public demonstrations of the same skills and virtues showcased in the plays produced.  The themes of these declamations often paralleled those of the dramas, with themes taken directly or indirectly from Hungarian history frequently in the spotlight.  In 1725 the "supremae" and "mediae" classes of Grammarians (the first level of collegium) declaimed on King Solomon, a topic whose significance in the popular culture of the Kolozsvár region went beyond the strictly Biblical reference.[29]  A century and a half earlier a humorous, Hungarian language story entitled Salamoun Királynac az David Király fianac Markarkalfal valo trefa beszedek rövid könyve...(Colosuarátt: [Heltai Gásperné], 1577) appeared in Kolozsvár. In this dialogue the proverbally wise Solomon is verbally outmaneuvered by the peasant Markalf in an exchange conducted in Hungarian.[30] Public recitations might also occur in Hungarian, paralleling the use of the vernacular in drama. Students in Kolozsvár offered poetical performances in Hungarian in 1747, 1756, and 1763.[31] Finally, another standby of the Ratio-derived curriculum was the public disputation, where many of the same skills (mastery of Latin, oral skill, poise and confidence) showcased in a school drama would also be in evidence.[32]  In the relatively small Jesuit schools ofKolozsvár, students probably participated in several of these public displays, as well as in choral musical performances, thereby reinforcing the lessons and messages of the school dramas.[33]

            In the second half of the eighteenth century Jesuit school plays were performed less frequently throughout the Habsburg lands.  The disruptions of the Seven Years War put an end to performances in the Bohemian Province and what was probably the Jesuit comedy staged at the collegium in Breslau (Wroc³aw) rang down its curtain in 1757.[34] In the years immediately before the Suppression school plays became a rarity.  Perhaps the last Jesuit dramatic production in the Habsburg lands occurred in 1771 in Gyulafehérvár/Alba Iulia.[35]  The general decline of the Jesuit school play can be attributed to changing tastes, but the embattled position of the Society may also have contributed to the reduction in the number of performances.  The traditional alliance between Jesuits and local elites was under increasing strain in the western Habsburg lands, and a similar trend may have been underway in the east as well. 

The legacy of plays produced in Kolozsvár by Jesuits outlasted the actual presence of the Society in that city.  Joannes Illei, born in Komorno in 1725, was serving as the Rector of the Seminarium S. Josephi in 1773, when the suppression of the Society compelled him to seek employment as a teacher elsewhere.  While his subsequent career is not known in detail, it is reported that in 1789 he published a “Bachanal” play, and two years later offered several “Ludi tragici” to the public.[36]  Despite the late dates of these productions, they were probably continuations of the baroque model that had served the Society for so long, although in at least one case the production seemed to be bidding for the attention of audiences yearning for the cosmopolitan drama of Vienna.  Lestyán Mozés, long a teacher in Kolozsvár, offered a Hungarian translation of a successful Metastasio play entitled Atllius Regulus in 1793.[37]

The ultimate importance of the Jesuit school dramas produced in Kolozsvár can only be appreciated in the context of all the literary activities and performances offered by the Society.  The spectators who witnessed these productions encountered on a daily basis to the architectural and frequently personal presence of the Society and its message, concentrated within a town where virtually all relationships were face to face.  They bought meat and wine that came from Jesuit lands, rose to the tolling of bells in the towers of the Jesuit church, and watched the town's aristocracy publicly demonstrate their connection to the Society.  Jesuit-produced plays were an integral part of a total campaign waged by the Society on literary, artistic, and theological fronts to draw the community into the ambit of the Catholic Church, and, in the case of Hungary and Transylvania, the larger Habsburg world.  The remoteness and size of Kolozsvár made the relative significance of these efforts even greater than they would have been in metropolises such as Vienna or Prague.  Within the narrower horizons of this small Transylvanian city, the Society was able to dominate the cultural life of the region, and through the production of plays, leave a permanent mark on the relations between the Catholic Church and other faiths. 

            In a larger context, the plays produced in Kolozsvár during the decades following the return of the Jesuits to the region are best understood as part of a multi-sided effort on the part of the Society to introduce a new aesthetic to the community and to the entire region to which they now had formal entree.  While this fact has been recognized by European scholars, studies of Jesuit drama as a world wide phenomenon have paid little attention to this connection.[38]  This aesthetic, which I shall call Habsburg Baroque, had its roots far from Transylvania, in the reaches of the Upper Danube, in the piazzas of Rome and in the elaborate ritual of academic debates held in the Jesuit dominated universities of the western Habsburg realms.  The reference points of this aesthetic with out exception lay to the west, and its vocabulary was drawn from the narrative of the Church Triumphant and of its champions, the House of Austria.  The tone, one might even say the "attitude" expressed by the Habsburg Baroque seemed confident, even if the actual position of the dynasty was frequently less than secure.  While elements of this expression of the Baroque achieved an accommodation with some of the local decorative traditions within the Habsburg lands, there was much about it that was transnational, even transcontinental.  Before the arrival of the Society in Transylvania, this aesthetic was unknown in the region, and the erection in 1724 of the Jesuit church, the first example of the Baroque in the Principality, initiated a transformation of public spaces in Kolozsvár that stressed the town's connection to far off Vienna and Rome, and to the larger world that these two metropolises sought to dominate.  This visible transformation was an outward signs of a profound reorientation of the entire Principality.  In the seventeenth century Transylvania had been a semi-independent political entity whose relationship to the great powers of the west was influenced in large part by its desire to remain free of foreign control.  Its rulers shifted alliances and played off Turk against Habsburg in an effort to prevent domination by either.  Culturally, the result was that the influence of Western Europe, while never eliminated, was attenuated by political developments.  One of the most significant consequences of a strong Calvinist presence in Transylvania was a retarding of the advance of the most exuberant forms of the baroque in literature as well as in the visual arts, while the presence of Eastern Rite Christians likewise inhibited the spread of artistic influences from the west.

            The following century however saw the binding of Transylvania to the Catholic dynasty of the Hasbsburgs, who themselves had turned their ambitions eastward after being thwarted in their attempts to gain control over Central Europe.  The new aesthetic, despite its ability to assimilate elements from places as diverse Mexico or the Philippines, paid scant attention to local artistic traditions and ethnic affiliations in Transylvania. The new point of reference in the public expressions of the Baroque was the relationship of the dynasty to Catholicism, and the desire of that dynasty to bind its peoples and territories together into a cohesive and ultimately loyal unit.  The role of the Jesuits in promoting this agenda was central.  From the first the Society openly identified with the Habsburgs, praising them from the pulpit, assisting their armies as chaplains, performing diplomatic missions for them and spreading the message and symbolism of Pietas Austriaca into a region on the cultural frontier of Western Christendom.  In return the dynasty supported Jesuit literary undertakings and assured the Society of its preeminent position in Transylvania.  The Jesuits also sought to draw Eastern Rite Christians into union with Rome, a project involving an interaction between east and west that colored the themes of some of the plays produced in Kolozsvár and elsewhere in the eastern Habsburg realms. 

The Baroque Latinity of Jesuit school dramas was paralleled by the public displays of processions, musical performances, missionary undertakings and the supreme spectacle of the Mass itself, each of which were carefully crafted by the Jesuits to produce a powerful affect.  As expressed in the architecture of the Jesuit church and school buildings, the Habsburg Baroque aesthetic was dramatic and ornamental while simultaneously exhibiting functional qualities.  The imposing façade of the Jesuit Church and the rich decoration of the column dedicated to the Virgin Mary provided a counterpoint to the less ornate street fronts of the adjacent Jesuit schools and residences.  The aesthetic was meant for an interaction with the public as it passed by, not merely for the initiates of the Jesuit community.  The overall impression was meant to be one of beauty, power and permanence.  Jesuit school plays, in addition to their sometimes elaborate set designs and lofty moral messages, also conveyed the solid products of Jesuit education: the skills demonstrated by the student performers were built upon a knowledge of grammar and the niceties of Latin syntax and scansion.  The mechanics of producing a play were themselves an indication of how Jesuit education could address practical problems.  Without having the texts of the plays that are alluded to in the records of the Society it is difficult to know what specific role these dramas played in promoting the image of the Society to the general public, either in Kolozsvár or more widely throughout Transylvania.   However, we may be sure that virtue and fidelity, both to the Catholic Church and to those secular authorities legitimated by God (e. g., the Habsburgs) were recurring themes in these productions.

© Paul Shore, 2002