full text - Prešovská univerzita v Prešove

„Aurea libertas fulvo non venditur auro“
Prekvapujúca podobnosť dvoch suplík uhorských
účastníkov americkej revolúcie
Patrik Kunec
KUNEC, P.: „Aurea libertas fulvo non venditur auro.“ Striking analogy between two
supplications of Hungarian participants in the American Revolution In: Annales historici
Presovienses 7/2007. Prešov : Universum, 2007, pp. 27-37.
The object of presented study are two written supplications of two different Hungarian
participants of the American Revolution in which they were asking for permitting their
military activity in the army of the USA. First was written in Latin by Michal Kováč de
Fabricy (c. 1724 – 1779) on January 13, 1777 in a French town of Bordeaux and addressed
to Benjamin Franklin, at that time an extraordinary envoy to the French royal court. The
latter was written also in Latin by František Serafín Beňovský (1753 – 1789), younger
brother of the famous adventurer Móric August Beňovský, probably in early December
1779 in Philadelphia. Beňovský’s supplication was addressed to the Continental Congress.
The very interesting fact is – and for a long time not observed by historians – that the
texts of the both supplications are very similar, even identical, as the transcriptions and
translations of these documents attached to the study can show. Unfortunately, we do not
know the explanation of the surprising similarity of the both texts. It is possible that some
text-patterns of the various applications were used by the foreign warriors in America.
There can not be a place for the speculations that František S. Beňovský got text-pattern
from Kováč personally because at the time of his arrival to the USA Michal Kováč was
dead. As for the results of these supplications the Kováč’s one was successful and he
finally fought until his death in the special unit called the Count Pulaski Legion, contrary
to František S. Beňovský whose application was dismissed and he finally returned from
the USA under very adventurous circumstances to his birth-town of Vrbové.
Medzi málopočetných a svojím osobným zaangažovaním skôr marginálnych účastníkov
amerického boja za nezávislosť uhorského pôvodu patril aj Michal Kováč de Fabricy
(1724 – 1779), ale práve on spomedzi nich zohral v americkej revolúcii najdôležitejšiu
úlohu. Hoci v americkej, francúzskej a poľskej historiografickej literatúre sa o ňom
nachádzajú len kusé zmienky a navyše je v súvislosti s ním uvedených mnoho mylných
informácií, ktoré sa dotýkajú najmä jeho pôvodu a národnosti (prevažne bol pokladaný
za Poliaka), v súčasnej dobe je jeho biografia už detailne známa. Je to najmä zásluha
Aladára Póku-Pivnyho, ktorý sa ako prvý venoval odkrývaniu osudov Michala Kováča
na základe archívnych výskumov. 1 Na jeho historický výskum nadviazal súčasný vojen-
1 Najobsiahlejšia z jeho rozsahom menších štúdií je štúdia PÓKA-PIVNY, Aladár: A Hungarian
under Washington. In: The Hungarian Quarterly, Vol. VII., No. 2 (Autumn 1941), s. 366
– 373. A. Póka-Pivny nebol profesionálnym historikom, ale pracoval ako sudca. Vo výskume
osudov Michala Kováča mu pomáhali korešpondenti v Amerike.
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