To the connection of Béla Zolnai and Emile Pillias

Abstract

The essay before the source edition puts into context the collegial relationship between the French Rákóczi scholar Emile Pillias and the professor of the University of Szeged, Béla Zolnai. As the text of the study and the letters written by Pillias reveal, the French researcher not only did a great deal of work in researching the French connections of the Rákóczi family, but also felt close to the spirit of Rákóczi's soldiers ('kuruc'). In his last letter from the French front in the Second World War, Pillias even described himself as a 'royal hussar', three months before he was killed in action in May 1940.