Count Istvan Bitto de Sarosfa et Nadasd

Count Istvan Bitto

It was usually the exception, rather than the rule, for members of the lower landowning nobility to rise up into important kingdom-wide positions of power. Their affairs and problems were of a local nature, and usually they felt satisfied with their economic and political positions in county administration. Furthermore, the upper stratas of power were jealously occuppied by the magnates, who did all they could to exclude other parts of society and to force the government of the kingdom on their (often hapless) children.

For Bratislava County nobility, the times of exceptional social climbing occurred during the 16th and 17th centuries; those turbulent times were witness to the Esterhazys, Nadasdys, Illeshazys, and Palffys rise from minor Bratislava nobility to unimaginable wealth and splendour.

In the 19th century, only a few members of Bratislava county nobility rose up high enough to join the ranks of the at most dozen most powerful men in the kingdom. One of these was Istvan Bitto of Sarosfa and Nadasd. He was born in 1822 in Sarosfa (now Blatna na Ostrove), a village the family owned since the middle ages, situated in the wealthy and fertile Rye Island (Csallokoz). His mother was Julianna Nagy, and his father, Benjamin Bitto, was viscount of Bratislava County.

As with so many members of the lower nobility, Bitto studied law and entered the legal civil service. He began his career in Moson County, adjacent to Bratislava County on its south side. Bitto was taken up in the events of 1848, and he joined the Hungarian revolutionaries. He was even made a member of parliament.

The joy did not last long. The revolution was brutally suppressed, and Bitto fled the country, returning only in 1851. He gained the trust of Istvan Deak, and thanks to him he became a member in the newly created Hungarian government, as member of the Liberal Party.

 After the compromise with Austria Bittó was the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives between 1869 and 1872. He served as justice minister in the government of Count Lonyay from 1871 to 1872. On 1 March 1874 he was appointed by King Francis Joseph prime minister. He held this office only until 2 From March 1875 when he was replaced by Baron Wenckheim. In the era of Coloman Tisza (1875–1890) he was one of the few former liberal oppositionists (he was the only Prime Minister who later joined to the opposition). From 1899 until his death Bittó was a member of the House of Magnates.

In 1875, Istvan Bitto and his wife were painted by the famous Hungarian portrait painter, Miklos Barabas.

Members of he Bitto family still live in the region of the old Bratislava County.

A few related websites

There are plenty of Hungarian genealogy websites on the internet. I thought however that I would post links to those websites which directly concern the nobility of Bratislava County.

Nemeth de Nyek Family

Csuthy de Csuth Family

Bogyay de Nagymad et Varbogya Family

Karatsony von Hodos

The name of this ancient noble family morphed many times during the centuries. The family was known as Karaczun, Karaczon, Karachon, Karachun, Karacsony, Karatsony, Karatsonyi, or Karacsonyi. The word Karacsony means "Christmas" in Hungarian, and so is a relatively common name. However, the Karacsony family of Hodos was one of the oldest in Bratislava County.

Hodos, now Vydrany, is a village in the Csallokoz in Bratislava County, and falls within the district of Dunajska Streda (Dunaszerdahely). It appears that in the earliest times it was property of the Castle of Bratislava - but as so often happened with these villages, the warriors who settled there changed into the hereditary landowing nobility. The Vermes and the Hodossy families are thought of as having descended from these original landowners, and so is the Karacsony family.

The Karacsony of Hodos had a fruitful history in the middle ages, as Ivan Nagy's Magyarorszag Csaladai testifies; plenty of names have been recorded in legal land disputes based around Hodos. Nagy Ivan records the archival mentions in 1295 of Nicolaus and Karachon, the sons of Bulchu. From then on, legal disputes around land ownership abound, involving such interesting and important characters as Nicholaus Esterhazy or the 15th century Hungarian Palatine Michael Orszagh of Guth.

Arms of the House of Orszagh, of the Genus Guth

The progression of this family from relative wealth and power to decline and loss of land ownership is a typical story of the ancient middle nobility of Hungary, which attempted to navigate the double dangers of inadequate inheritance laws and the expansive tendencies of the great magnates hungry for land.

The Karacsony family moved to Rethe (now Reca), a village near Szencz (now Senec) in Pozsony County, in the 17th century. However the family never forgot its place of origin and has kept 'de Hodos', 'von Hodos', but most frequently 'hodosi' as a predicate well into the 20th century.

Of more recent members of the family, Karoly Karatsonyi de Hodos was an infantry officer, who in 1859 received from Emperor Franz Josef a letter confirming his pensioned status, ending his career as Major in the 34th Austro-Hungarian infantry regiment the "Prince Regent of Prussia". In the 1920s and 1930s, hodosi Karacsony Sandor was Royal Chief Forestry Advisor of Hungary.

A certain element of celebrity has recently touched the family name, after Lena Meyer-Landruth won the Eurovision song contest for Germany in 2010. Her grandmother was Hanna Karatsony von Hodos, whose husband Andreas Meyer-Landruth was a distinguished Cold War diplomat. Though the gossip columns abound with mentiones of Lena Meyer-Landruth's Hungarian heritage, it may come as a surprise to some that this family is from a village in Slovakia.

As with many ancient Hungarian families, the Karacsony of Hodos never seemed to have received a patent of arms, and therefore they do not have an 'official' coat of arms. However, as all nobles, they used seals engraved with a coat of arms, almost certainly self-designed. The Karacsony seals contain typical noble attributes, such as arms holding swords, celestical bodies, or hussars.

Hungarian National Dress

It is exceedingly rare these days to come across an original, high quality exemplar of a nobleman's dress from 19th century Hungary. However, one has come up at an estate sale in the U.S.: here is the link:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230735428929&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT


The jacket is of exquisite quality, in what appears like embroidered and crushed silk. Usually, national dress in the 19th century was invariably black and sober (unlike the extravagant multi-colour creations of the 18th century). The one distinguishing feature was the quality of the material - and this example is one of the finest.

Vizkelethy of Joka

The Vizkelethy de Ilka (Joka in more modern parlance) was a famous, now long-extinct family. Its origins lie in the village of Jelka, and they descend from the original medieval families which owned Jelka. However, in the middle ages the family moved to Vizkelet, a small village near Galanta, and so since then they have been known as the Vizkelethy of Jelka.

Already in the 16th century the family received no less than two confirmations of nobility. But this was only the start of their successes. The three Vizkelethy brothers in the 16th century, George, James, and Thomas, became very powerful individuals. George was the private secretary of the Prince of Transylvania, Stephen Dobo, the famous warlord. His brother James Vizkelethy became the vice-palatine of the Kingdom of Hungary in the late 16th century. The last brother Thomas (1544, died 1611 in Bratislava), was in important officer and later the representative of the Hungarian government. He also became Lord Chief Justice and vice-palatine of Hungary. His greatest achievement was that fact that in 1608 Rudolf II raised Thomas Vizkelethy and his family to the baronate. This made his family one of only a handful of hereditary Barons in Hungary in the 16th and early 17th centuries; the practice of raising Hungarian nobles to the baronate and counthood became relatively common only much later.

Thomas's son, Michael (1579, died 1648), was also vice-palatine of Hungary. With him died out the baronial line of the Vizkelethys.

Sources:
Kerekes, P.: Lexikon Erbov Slachty na Slovensku IV, Nitrianska Stolica, 2010
Siebmacher: Adels von Ungarn etc.

 

The Nobility and Landowners of Kosuty

Kosuty, or Nemes Kosut in Hungarian, is another well-known village in the Matyusfold region. It is located 5km from Galanta, and was famous for the number of distinguished families inhabiting elegant classical manor houses in the village. Below is a list of the nobles and landowners of Kosuty throughout the 19th century.

Abrahamffy


Fekete (Galanthai)

Jezerniczky

Godolle

Bottlik

Czemez

Szabados

Kiss

Szajkovits

Thuroczy

Takats (Jokai)

Telekes

Kardos

Kurtossy

Petrovics

Burian (of Rajecz - Count Istvan Burian descends from this family)

Panghy

Csizmazia

Kozma

Pitross

Vashegyi

A Noble Ending

I have noticed that there is, particularly in the US but generally in the West as a whole, a deep confusion with relation to Hungarian surnames and whether one can assume "nobility" of the bearer of that surname. I have also gotten several messages about this.

I refer to the "nobiliary" particle of Y at the end of a surname. It appears that the popular understanding of this is that both Y and I at the end of a name are territorial equivalents such as "von" in German and "de" in French; but that I denotes a non-noble from a certain place, while Y denotes a noble from a certain place.

This is, I must say, on the whole complete rubbish. There is no such rule, and both endings of Y and I are used by both common and noble families - the greatest families in Hungary had Is in their surname - Teleki de Szek, Rakoczi, Szechenyi, Ujlaki. And the Y ending is used by millions of descendats of commoners today. To cite a queer instance: the illustrious Palffy family, who were Counts of Bratislava, were called "Palffy" even before they became noble.

I seriously believe that this misconception is unacceptable, because the alternative interpretation is so obvious: that a Y or I ending is identical to the "-er" endingt in German - i.e. Hamburger, Frankfurter, and other savoury delicacies. It means from the place, and not of the place in its aristocratic interpretation.

Another misconception is that Hungarian nobles all had a Y or I ending in their name, again because the belief is that it denotes nobility. This idea comes from the old medieval land tenure, when families tended to take the place name and made it into their surname. But, as we see from the families in this blog, this is not the case. The Prikkel, Szullo, Csiba, Csorba families are older than most families of Hungarian magnates, their histories stretching back at times to the 12th century, who on the whole managed to keep their 800year old estates until the 20th century - and yet they have no Y or Is at the end of their names. Even with magnates - Count Burian, Count Bethlen, Count Thurzo, Count Tisza, Count Fekete, Count Josika, Count Forgach, Prince Kollonics, Prince Grassalkovich - these are well-known and illustrious names, and the list could go on.

What these families do have, though, is usually a territorial designation after their surnames in Latin - so for instance Forgach de Ghymes et Gacs. In Hungarian, this would be ghymesi es gacsi Forgach (note the lower case spelling for the place names). This is the real noble particle, which only nobles could ever have. Mind you, many nobles did not officially have a noble territorial designation, which of course did not make them any less noble - such as the Ravasz family.