Esterházy

The Fraknó (Forchtenstein) line became "the most prominent of the three".[7] In the discussion that follows, Hungarian names are given in brackets.

Nikolaus was born in Galanta. Raised as a Protestant, he later converted to Catholicism. Created Count by the Emperor in 1626, he achieved great wealth in part by marrying (twice) into money.

In 1625, Nikolaus was elected Palatine of Hungary, the King's chief lieutenant within Royal Hungary. Nikolaus laid out what became the long-term family strategy, allying himself with the Catholic religion and the Habsburg emperor. He fought against the Protestant champions Gábor Bethlen and György Rákóczi and sought to free Hungary from Turkish domination.[7]

Nikolaus Eszterházy (1582–1645)

Paul was the third son of Nicholas, born in Eisenstadt. Elected Palatine in 1681 and created Prince of the Holy Roman Empire (in Hungary the title of Prince did not exist till the 20th century) in 1687 by the Emperor. Paul was a poet, a harpsichordist, and a composer; a number of his cantatas survive; see Harmonia Caelestis. He also wrote a number of religious works. Under Paul the palace in Eisenstadt was rebuilt. Paul served as commander of troops in southern Hungary, during the struggle against the Turks, starting in 1667,[7] and his troops were among the coalition that raised the siege of Vienna in 1683. He also played an important role in suppressing the autonomy of the existing Hungarian nobility.

Prince Paul I

The line that descended from Paul, the first Esterházy prince, is given as in the following figure. The sequence of princes that follow him continues below.

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. Under him, the family seat at Eisenstadt evolved into a provincial musical center. He died 24 March 1721.[6]

Half-brother of Michael, he reigned for only 11 weeks, as he died on 7 June 1721.[6] As his son Paul Anton was only ten, authority was assigned to two regents: Count Georg Erdödy,[6] and his widow Maria Octavia (c. 1686 – 1762). The latter was responsible for introducing the German language to the court.

Son of Joseph. In his youth he studied in Leyden[6] and also served as a soldier, rising to the rank of Field Marshal. He served as imperial ambassador to Naples from 1750 to 1752, and traveled extensively.[8]

Paul Anton was a musical prince; he played the violin, the flute, and the lute, and compiled a large inventory of musical manuscripts. Paul Anton also played an important role as a patron of music. In 1728, his mother Maria Octavia, "probably at her son's instigation"[6] engaged the composer Gregor Werner to be the family's Kapellmeister (music director), a post in which Werner served for several decades. Much later (1761), Paul Anton engaged Joseph Haydn to be his Vice-Kapellmeister in 1761, taking over most of the aging Werner's duties. 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.[8]

Prince Paul Anton [Pál Antal] (1711–1762)

Son of Joseph, in his youth a decorated soldier. He was the primary patron of Haydn and builder of Esterháza (see above).

Prince Nikolaus Esterházy I

Son of Nikolaus I, married first, in 1763, Maria Theresia Gräfin Erdödy e Monyorokerek et Monoszlo (1745–1782), and second, in 1785 Maria Anna Gräfin von Hohenfeld (1768–1848). He was elevated to the status of Prince (Fürst) in 1783. He received the Order of St. Stephen in 1777. 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. His Corps participated in various actions between July and October, 1792, after which he received the Commanders Cross of the Order of St. Stephen. His corps was later absorbed into other military formations. He was Colonel and Proprietor (Inhaber) of the 31st Infantry Regiment, from November 1777 to October 1780, and then Proprietor and Colonel of the 34th Infantry Regiment, from September 1780 until his death. He was initiated to the Order of the Golden Fleece in 1790, and also became an imperial Chamberlain.[9] He disbanded the Esterházy musical establishment for the duration of his reign.

Prince Anton [Antal] (1738–1794)

Born in Vienna, on 12 December 1765, he was the son of Anton and his first wife Maria Theresia. He became reigning Prince on the death of his father in 1794.

Like several of his predecessors Nikolaus II pursued a military career. 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. Ultimately these led to the family being placed under a sequestration order, roughly the equivalent of bankruptcy.

Nikolaus II as portrayed by Martin Knoller in 1793. Oil on canvas. Esterházy Privatstiftung, Burgenland.

Served Austria in a series of diplomatic posts, and in 1848 was briefly Foreign Minister.

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]

Prince Paul Anton III [Pál Antal] (1786–1866)

Owing to financial trouble, Nikolaus III sold the family art collection "on generous terms" to the Austro-Hungarian state in 1870. The collection is, as a result, on public view today in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest.[11]

Nicholas III, Prince Esterhazy

The reign of Nikolaus IV was a time of revival for the Esterházy family fortunes. The family estates were made into flourishing businesses, including a "traditional welfare net, providing security for employees."[12] With the resulting improvement in the family finances, the family properties were finally released from decades of sequestration.[13] In addition, the family palaces—including the long-abandoned Esterháza—were restored and provided with modern plumbing and electricity.[13] In these efforts Nikolaus was greatly assisted by his wife, Princess Margit (1874–1910), née Countess Cziráky.[13]

The lifetime of this prince witnessed momentous, often catastrophic changes for the Esterházy family. At the end of the First World War, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was split up, and the family's land holdings thus came to be located in several different countries.

In 1938, the legal instrument of fideicommiss, which had allowed families to hold property in foundations owned by the whole family, but governed by the head of the family alone, was abolished in Austria (aristocratic families had used this instrument to finance the representative household of the head of the family as well as to maintain palaces and castles, and to pay allowances to family members without personal wealth.) After the dissolution of the Esterházy trust, prince Paul became the sole owner of the wealth accumulated therein so far.

The Second World War proved disastrous: the family was scattered during the war years, and at the end of the war the new Hungarian government carried out a comprehensive land reform, "confiscating the land of gentry with estates of more than 50 hectares".[14] Only the land in Austria remained in prince Paul's possession. 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. Prince Paul endured a show trial and was sentenced to solitary confinement for 15 years. Freed in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, he moved to Zurich with his wife, Melinda Ottrubay, whom he had married in Budapest in 1945, and lived in Zurich, from there managing his Austrian domains, until his death.

Paul's wealth was inherited by his wife Melinda. Since she had no children, she created several foundations to preserve the cultural and historic heritage of the family, with the historic family seat Schloss Esterházy in Eisenstadt as the centre of all activities. Her nephew Stefan Ottrubay acts as general manager.

At Fraknó, Eszterházy-Castle

Prince Paul-Anton Nikolaus Maximilian, the heir to the line, born in Munich in 1986. The title of Prince has no legal standing in Hungary today, as noble titles were abolished in 1947 (for details see Hungarian nobility). In Austria, aristocratic titles were abolished in 1919.

Listed chronologically.

Count Carolus Esterházy

• Count Carolus [Károly] (1725–1799). Son of Countess Szidónia Pálffy and Count Ferenc, bishop of Eger. Founder of the Eszterházy Károly Főiskola (College) in Eger (1774).
• Joseph Eszterházy was nephew to Palatine Paul. He was Ban of Croatia between 1733 and 1741. Francis Eszterházy also held that title between 1783 and 1785, but he was opposed by Francis Széchenyi.
• Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy (1847–1923), a minor member of the family, was notorious for his role in the Dreyfus affair.
• Count Paul Oscar Esterházy was an immigration agent, who, in 1886, settled south of the present town of Esterhazy, in Saskatchewan, Canada with 35 Hungarian families from the vicinity of Kaposvár. His claim to the Esterházy name was never recognized by the Esterházy family, although he claimed he had "incontrovertible proof of the legality of my claim and of birthright."
• Count János Esterházy (1901–1957) was a politician in Czechoslovakia, renowned for being the only member of the Slovak parliament to vote against the expulsion of the Jews in 1942. After the war ended, he was arrested and imprisoned in the Soviet Union, later charged with treason and collaboration with the Nazis, sentenced, and died in prison in Czechoslovakia; in Russia he was posthumously rehabilitated in 1993.
• The renowned Hungarian writer Péter Esterházy (1950–2016) was the grandson of Count Móric Esterházy (1881–1960), prime minister of Hungary and one of the five biggest landowners of Hungary. After the regime change in 1989, Péter Esterházy refused to accept the return of any land or valuables nationalised by the communists.
• Katalina Esterházy is the maiden name of the wife of the late Timothy Landon, a Brigadier General and Knight who was instrumental in the modernization of Oman.
• Márton Esterházy (born 1956) is the younger brother of Péter Esterházy. He was a soccer player, playing for the Hungarian national team between 1980 and 1988 and took part in the world championship of 1986, in Mexico. He obtained 29 caps and scored 11 goals. At the club level, Márton played for Budapest Honvéd and also AEK Athens.