Egy felvilágosult reformer és három (ex-)jezsuita: Van Swieten, Hell, Kollár, Sajnovics – és a Demonstratio

This short essay revisits the question of the source of inspiration for the linguistic research that led to the composition of Sajnovics’s Demonstratio, While it has recently been suggested that the idea was improvised during the Vardø expedition of 1768-69, it is worth reconsidering Sajnovics’s superior Maximilian Hell’s testimony that the prompt was given by Gerard van Swieten, the leading figure of the Habsburg academic refoms. As Van Swieten is not known to have possessed relevant expertise, it is proposed that the real source was the polymath and Viennese court librarian Adam František (Franz) Kollár, who later also wrote the first review of the Demonstratio. The proposition is framed within the context of the increasingly uneasy but working cooperation between (ex-)Jesuit scholars and the Habsburg enlightened refomers during most of the Theresan era.

kulcsszavak: Maximilian Hell; Adam František (Franz) Kollár; Sajnovics János (Joannes); Gerard van Swieten; jezsuita tudomány; Habsburg felvilágosult reform