Moses Dobruška or Moses Dobruschka, alias Junius Frey (12 July 1753, Brno,

Moravia Moravia ( , also , ; cs, Morava ; german: link=yes, Mähren ; pl, Morawy ; szl, Morawa; la, Moravia) is a historical region in the east of the Czech Republic and one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia. The m ...

– 5 April 1794) was a writer, poet and revolutionary. His mother was the first cousin of

Jacob Frank Jacob Joseph Frank ( he, יעקב פרנק; pl, Jakub Józef Frank; born Jakub Lejbowicz; 1726 – December 10, 1791) was a Polish-Jewish religious leader who claimed to be the reincarnation of the self-proclaimed messiah Sabbatai Zevi (1626 ...

, who claimed to be the

Jewish messiah The Messiah in Judaism () is a savior and liberator figure in Jewish eschatology, who is believed to be the future redeemer of the Jewish people. The concept of messianism originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible a messiah is a king or ...

and founded the Frankist sect. On 17 December 1775 he converted from

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in t ...

to the

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

faith and took the name of Franz Thomas Schönfeld. On 25 July 1778 he was elevated to nobility in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, becoming Franz Thomas

Edler Edler () was until 1919 the lowest rank of nobility in Austria-Hungary and Germany, just beneath a ''Ritter'' (hereditary knight), but above untitled nobles, who used only the nobiliary particle ''von'' before their surname. It was mostly given to ...

von Schönfeld. Together with , who did not convert, he became one of the main activists of the

masonic lodge A Masonic lodge, often termed a private lodge or constituent lodge, is the basic organisational unit of Freemasonry. It is also commonly used as a term for a building in which such a unit meets. Every new lodge must be warranted or chartered ...

of the “Knights of St. John the Evangelists for Asia in Europe,” active in Germany and Austria between 1783 and 1790, which was the first German-speaking masonic order to accept Jews. In 1792, in the wake of the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...

, he traveled via Strasbourg to Paris and became a Jacobin, changing his name, once again, to Junius Frey. The new name derived from ''Junius'' from the Roman Junii family that fostered the famous tyrant slayer

Brutus Marcus Junius Brutus (; ; 85 BC – 23 October 42 BC), often referred to simply as Brutus, was a Roman politician, orator, and the most famous of the assassins of Julius Caesar. After being adopted by a relative, he used the name Quintus Serv ...

, and ''Frey'' being a transliteration of the German word for "liberty". In June 1793 he published his book ''Philosophie sociale, dédiée au peuple françois''. He was arrested for

treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...

and espionage and executed by guillotine on 5 April 1794 in connection with the case against his brother-in-law François Chabot.Wölfle-Fischer, 1998, p. 141.

Notes

References

* Greco, Silvana, ''Moses Dobruska and the Invention of Social Philosophy. Utopia, Judaism, and Heresy under the French Revolution''. De Gruyter Oldenburg, 2022. * Greco, Silvana, ''Il sociologo eretico. Moses Dobruska e la sua Philosophie sociale (1793)''. Giuntina, 2021. * Wölfle-Fischer, Susanne, ''Junius Frey, 1753-1794: Jude, Aristokrat und Revolutionär''. P. Lang, 1998. * Davidowicz, Klaus Samuel, ''Jakob Frank, der Messias aus dem Ghetto''. P. Lang, 1998. 1753 births 1794 deaths Writers from Brno People from the Margraviate of Moravia Austrian people of Czech-Jewish descent Czech Roman Catholics Austrian Roman Catholics Converts to Roman Catholicism from Judaism Edlers of Austria 18th-century Austrian people 18th-century Bohemian people Frankism People executed by guillotine during the French Revolution Executed Czech people Executed Austrian people {{Europe-hist-stub