Thanks to the exceptional translations provided by Bernard Adams, readers have access in English for the first time to two important texts by Ferenc Rákóczi II. Supported by extremely helpful notes, these volumes present Rákóczi's understanding of the strange windings and turnings of providence that marked his extraordinary life. The reader can also turn for assistance to accomplished essays by Gábor Tüskés in both volumes and to the insights provided by Robert Evans in his preface to the Confessio. These two volumes are interconnected. Rákóczi's Memoirs provide an account of the rebellion in Hungary between 1703 and 1711 amid the War of the Spanish Succession. In the Confessio, Rákóczi explores his path to the rebellion and its aftermath. Rákóczi fled first to Poland and then to France (via Hull). He retreated from the Bourbon court to live near a monastic order, which he describes as a period of spiritual transformation. In 1717 Rákóczi attempted to resurrect his political career by accepting an invitation to move to Turkey. However, after the Peace of Požarevac (Passarowitz) was agreed in 1718 between the Habsburgs and Ottomans, Rákóczi's race was run. To his death in 1735, Rákóczi lived under the sultan's protection at Tekirdağ to the west of Istanbul.

The two volumes are of a very different character. Rákóczi's Memoirs (written originally in French) offer a reasonably clear account of the rebellion in Hungary, understandably dwelling more on early political and military triumphs than on the collapse of the rebel cause. The Confessio (written originally in Latin) sets out a personal and political narrative in the context of extensive religious commentary and reflections. As Evans writes, the Confessio is a “devotional work in which the events of Rákóczi's vicissitudinous life struggle to gain autonomous expression” (Confessio, 7). Rákóczi's concerns about God's providence and his own sinfulness persist throughout the text. Rákóczi ponders “that alternation of good and evil, of consolation and affliction, of joy and sadness” by which providence steers life toward the purposes of God (Confessio, 33). He criticizes the folly of his pride but does not seem to grasp that his chief political error, as Tüskés observes, was to vastly overestimate the significance of Hungary in the calculations of other European powers. The Confessio reveals much about Rákóczi's life in varied contexts, from Vienna to Versailles to the Porte. The style of this text suggests some influence of earlier Hungarian Reformed historiography (and Rákóczi's father was born a Calvinist). Rákóczi has little good to say about the Jesuits who educated him. Rather, alongside the Augustinian model for his work, Rákóczi's commitment to moral austerity and to divine grace seems to point to Jansenist influences (although he angrily refuted this suggestion in the text as a malicious rumor).

If Rákóczi intended the Confessio as a humble and introspective account of the enduring struggles of a penitent sinner, his Memoirs offer a more straightforward defense of Hungary's cause. Rákóczi contests the efforts of slanderous Austrian tongues to proclaim the perfidy of the Hungarians. He argues that the rebellion was rather a “visible sign and bitter fruit of the crushing rule of the House of Austria.” If Hungarians displayed “the properties of a badly brought up child,” then not “the child but its parent must be blamed” (Memoirs, 49). Rákóczi suggested that divine providence sent him to his “desolate fatherland” to liberate his country from Austrian rule (Memoirs, 61). Rákóczi soon discovered the complexities of trying to hold together his rebel alliance in Hungary and in Transylvania and the need to balance support for his church while giving credible promises to Protestants about the restoration of their rights. As to why the rebellion in Hungary was defeated, in Rákóczi's view this was a matter of divine providence and the result of untrustworthy foreign allies, military incompetence, and above all a consequence of his own failings. Rákóczi has a clear sense of his responsibilities, especially to the communities living in his extensive estates in northeastern Hungary. However, his pious declarations about acting out of love of fatherland sit uneasily alongside chaotic political machinations and particularly the shocking murder at the 1707 rebel assembly of a county representative who spoke against the consequences of conflict on the country. Rákóczi evaded any blame for this incident, suggesting that his “only thought was to stop this disorderly conduct” as another terrified representative “flung himself at my feet and I protected him” (Memoirs, 173). Rákóczi is perhaps a little more convincing in his concern for the impact of the rebellion's collapse. He described the pathetic scene as families of his officers and noble supporters fled advancing Habsburg forces in late 1710 with “little children crying in the dilapidated wagons as they struggled through the half-frozen mud and slush” (Memoirs, 211).

These volumes are an important scholarly achievement and provide wider access to significant sources about the complex politics of the Rákóczi rebellion. The publication of these texts will be of great benefit to all interested in the political and religious history of early modern Hungary and the Habsburg monarchy.