Historian Silvester Trnovec uncovers the colonial realities behind Móric Beňovský’s famous claim.
The original interview was published in the Slovak Academy of Sciences magazine Akadémia. You can read it here.
Adventurer, traveller, legend. Móric Beňovský (1746-1786), a Hungarian nobleman from present-day Vrbové in western Slovakia, is one of the best-known but also most controversial figures of 18th-century Central European history. His activities in Madagascar took place within the context of European colonial expansion and the slave trade.
At the end of 2025, a new scholarly work was released in Paris, offering a critical edition of previously little-known archival documents concerning his activities in Madagascar, while also opening up the broader issue of the colonial legacy in Central Europe. Its lead author is the Africanist SILVESTER TRNOVEC from the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV).
The story of Móric Beňovský, positioned somewhere between fact, self-presentation and legend, is most often associated with adventure. Your latest publication brings to light little-known documents from French archives. How did the idea to examine his legend critically come about?
