Esterházy
[1][2][3][4] From the 17th century, the Esterházys were the greatest landowner magnates of the Kingdom of Hungary, during the time that it was part of the Habsburg monarchy and later Austria-Hungary.
Their son, Ferenc Esterházy (1533–1604) inherited the coat of arms and title of his mother and the full surname of the family became Eszterházy de Galántha, Galanta being a small town east of Bratislava (Hungarian: Pozsony, German: Pressburg), now capital of Slovakia.
The success of the family arose from the steady accumulation of land, and loyalty both to the Roman Catholic Church and the Habsburg Emperor, the latter factor being the most important.
A consistent theme of Hungarian history was an ardent and sometimes violent wish to become free of Austrian rule, a wish that was finally fulfilled at the end of World War I.
The Esterházy princes were consistently loyal to the Habsburg monarchy, on several occasions rendered vital services to it in times of crisis.
The most important seat of the Esterházys was Kismarton (today Eisenstadt, Austria), since the heads of the family chose to make a castle in this tiny village their primary residence.
Their practical reason for choosing to create and maintain the princely court at Eisenstadt may have been that while the region was in Hungary, it had been mainly settled by Germans, and was situated rather close to the Habsburgs' Imperial residence, Vienna.
The main line of the Esterházy family were generally bilingual, in Hungarian (as a result of their ethnicity) and German (as they were aristocrats of the Austrian Empire).
The family name is also rendered variously: Eszterházy (Hungarian spelling), Esterházy (German), and Esterhazy (typographic convenience).
During the following reign, that of Prince Anton (1790–1794), the Esterházy family mostly did without the services of musicians, and Haydn, retained on a nominal appointment, spent most of this time in trips to England.
He spent his summers in Eisenstadt and annually composed a mass for the name day of the Prince's wife (and Haydn's friend), Princess Maria Josepha Hermengilde (1768–1845).
He fought against the Protestant champions Gábor Bethlen and György Rákóczi and sought to free Hungary from Turkish domination.
Son of Paul, he was the first to benefit from a 1712 decree of Emperor Charles VI, which made the title of Prince hereditary among the Esterházys.
[6] As his son Paul Anton was only ten, authority was assigned to two regents: Count Georg Erdödy,[6] and his widow Maria Octavia von Gilleis (c. 1686 – 1762).
At the same time, he upgraded the court orchestra, hiring several virtuosi who served under Haydn; the composer recognized their ability by writing many solo parts in his early symphonies.
He was Captain of the Hungarian Noble Life Guard from September 1791 until his death in 1794, and commanded an autonomous corps on the Upper Rhine at the beginning of the War of the First Coalition.
He is remembered for his amassing a large art collection, for his musical patronage of Haydn and Beethoven, for his sexual debauchery, and for his high expenditures.
The family encountered financial trouble during his reign, and (according to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, ), "the last years of his life were spent in comparative poverty and isolation, as even the Esterházy-Forchtenstein estates were unequal to the burden of supporting his fabulous extravagance and had to be placed in the hands of curators.
"[10] Owing to financial trouble, Nikolaus III sold the family art collection "on generous terms" to the Austro-Hungarian state in 1870.
The family estates were made into flourishing businesses, including a "traditional welfare net, providing security for employees.
Further, in the years after 1945 Hungary came under the rule of the Hungarian People's Republic, an authoritarian Communist regime sponsored by the Soviet Union.
The widow of Prince Paul, Melinda Esterházy, created several foundations to preserve the cultural and historic heritage of the family.
Herman Melville references the family's wealth in chapter 29 of Mardi (1849): "But as sailors are mostly foundlings and castaways, and carry all their kith and kin in their arms and their legs, there hardly ever appears any heir-at-law to claim their estate; seldom worth inheriting, like Esterhazy's."
Avram Davidson's Doctor Eszterhazy stories are set in a fictitious ramshackle Balkan empire resembling Austria-Hungary, but with Ruritanian characteristics.
The character Toby Esterhase, who appears in several of John le Carré's spy novels, either is or pretends to be a member of the Esterházy family.
