Radical Protestant Propaganda of the Thirty Years' War

State of Research
My assessment of the state of research into the image of Bethlen Gabor in radical
Protestant propaganda of the Thirty Year’s War will be brief, because very little has been
written on the topic. Bethlen is an extreme example of a trend in academic research which
has virtually ignored some figures of the war but concentrated intensely on others, chief
among them Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden and Count Tilly.
To date, there are only two sources which comment on the Prince of Transylvania’s
depiction in propaganda. These are Georg Kristóf’s article Die Gestalt Gabriel Bethlens in der
zeitgenössischen deutschen Dichtung (1931) 82 and Wolfgang Harm’s second compendium of
early modern broadsheets, entitled Deutsche illustrierte Flugblätter des 16. und 17.
Jahrhunderts: Die Sammlung der Herzog-August-Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel (1980). 83 While
both provide certain insights, they are unable, alone or together, to provide an overview of
the radical Protestant propagandistic campaign aimed at gathering support for the Prince.
Of the two sources, Kristóf’s work is more panoramic in its analysis of Bethlen’s image in
propaganda. Given the focus of my own thesis, it is only of limited use as it concentrates the
majority of its attention on the Prince’s image in Catholic (or Lutheran) propaganda. For
most of the article, Kristóf demonstrates that Bethlen was attacked in propaganda by
writers antagonistic towards Friedrich V, both Catholic and Lutheran, who used Friedrich V’s
defeat and Bethlen’s association to the Turks to discredit the Transylvanian.
On the three pages that do concentrate on radical propaganda that aimed to promote a
positive image of Bethlen Gabor, there is useful information on attempts to present him as a
82
Georg Kristóf, ‘Die Gestalt Gabriel Bethlens in der zeitgenössischen deutschen Dichtung’
Ungarische Jahrbücher 11 (1931), pp. 98-112.
83
Wolfgang Harms, Deutsche illustrierte Flugblätter des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts: Die Sammlung der
Herzog-August-Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, Teil 2: Historica (Munich: Kraus, 1980). Henceforth Harms.
40