17. The Macabre Fate of Georghe Doja
After the defeat of the Hungarian peasants, their class was condemned to perpetual servitude. They were permanently bound to the soil, fined heavily, had their taxes sharply hiked, and the number of days they had to work for their landlords was increased. The uprising’s leader, Gheorghe Doja, was captured and condemned to a fiendishly cruel and macabre death. Accused among other things of having sought kingly powers, he was sentenced to sit on a hot iron throne, while a heated iron crown was affixed to his head.
Next, bloody hunks were torn out of Doja’s body, and nine of his chief lieutenants, starved beforehand, were forced to eat his flesh. The aristocratic backlash backfired, however. Twelve years later the Ottoman Turks invaded Hungary, and had a relatively easy time in the conquest of what was still a bitterly divided country. As to Doja, the revolutionary aspects of his life were drawn upon heavily throughout the communist era in Romania, his land of birth. Similarly in Hungary, where Doja is the most popular street name in villages, and a main avenue and metro station in Budapest bear his name.
