Szabó, R. (2021). A possible memory-political aspect of the Second Battle of Mohács through the work of Wilhelm Camphausen. Modern Geográfia, 16(2), 43–65. https://doi.org/10.15170/MG.2021.16.02.03
At the Battle of Harsány Hill at 1687, the united Christian army defeated the Ottoman troops and blocked them to recapture Buda Castle. The so-called “second Battle of Mohács” had numerous symbolic contents, most of them were based on highlighting the similarities and differences between the first (1526) and second (1687) battle. However, the Battle of Harsány Hill was not only a symbolic pair of the Battle of Mohács in 1526 but also appeared as a symbol of various political and geopolitical phenomenons and events of other eras. The geopolitical roots of Wilhelm Camphausen’s depiction can be traced back to the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878. In my work, I aimed to decipher the message conveyed by this artwork, in the late 19th century in the light of German foreign policy. After the examination of the biographical aspects of the creative artist and the stylistic features of the work, I monitored the geographical, symbolic and memory aspects of the depiction.
Keywords: Battle of Harsány Hill, Camphausen, geopolitics, memory, symbolic space