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

Brno Brno ( , ; ) is a Statutory city (Czech Republic), city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava (river), Svitava and Svratka (river), Svratka rivers, Brno has about 403,000 inhabitants, making ...

Moravia Moravia ( ; ) is a historical region in the eastern Czech Republic, roughly encompassing its territory within the Danube River's drainage basin. It is one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia. The medieval and early ...

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

Jacob Frank Jacob Joseph Frank (; Yiddish: יעקבֿ פֿראַנק; ; born Jakub Lejbowicz; 1726 – 10 December 1791) was a Polish-Jewish religious leader who claimed to be the reincarnation of the self-proclaimed messiah Sabbatai Zevi (1626–1676) ...

, 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 Jews. The concept of messianism originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible a messiah is a king or High Priest o ...

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

Judaism Judaism () is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic, Monotheism, monotheistic, ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jews, Jewish people. Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of o ...

to the

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

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

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, 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 t ...

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

masonic lodge A Masonic lodge (also called Freemasons' lodge, or private lodge or constituent lodge) is the basic organisational unit of Freemasonry. It is also a commonly used term for a building where Freemasons meet and hold their meetings. Every new l ...

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, he traveled via Strasbourg to Paris and became a

Jacobin The Society of the Friends of the Constitution (), renamed the Society of the Jacobins, Friends of Freedom and Equality () after 1792 and commonly known as the Jacobin Club () or simply the Jacobins (; ), was the most influential political cl ...

, changing his name, once again, to Junius Frey. The new name derived from ''Junius'' from the Roman

Junii The gens Junia or Iunia was one of the most celebrated families of ancient Rome. The gens may originally have been patrician, and was already prominent in the last days of the Roman monarchy. Lucius Junius Brutus was the nephew of Lucius Tar ...

family that fostered the famous tyrant slayer

Brutus Marcus Junius Brutus (; ; 85 BC – 23 October 42 BC) 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 Servilius Caepio Brutus, which was reta ...

, 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 (polity), state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to Coup d'état, overthrow its government, spy ...

and espionage and executed by guillotine on 5 April 1794 in connection with the case against his brother-in-law

François Chabot François Chabot (; 23 October 1756 – 5 April 1794) was a French politician. Early life Born in Saint-Geniez-d'Olt (Aveyron), Chabot became a Capuchin friar in Rodez before the French Revolution, while continuing to be attracted to the work ...

.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 18th-century Austrian poets 18th-century poets from Bohemia 18th-century poets from the Holy Roman Empire 18th-century Roman Catholics Austrian people of Czech-Jewish descent Austrian Roman Catholic writers Catholic poets Converts to Roman Catholicism from Judaism Czech Roman Catholic writers Edlers of Austria Executed Austrian people Executed Czech people Frankism People executed by guillotine during the French Revolution People from the Margraviate of Moravia Writers from Brno {{Europe-hist-stub