Ottoman Hungary Török hódoltság (Hungarian) | |
|---|---|
| 1541–1699 | |
 Ottoman rule on Hungary at its peak in 1683, including theBudin,Egri,Kanije,Temesvar,Uyvar, andVarat eyalets. The semi-independentPrincipality of Transylvania was an Ottoman vassal state for the majority of the 16th and 17th centuries, the short livedImre Thököly'sPrincipality of Upper Hungary also briefly became an Ottoman vassal state due to an anti-Habsburg Protestant uprising between 1682 and 1685. | |
| Common languages | Hungarian |
| Religion | Roman Catholicism Reformed Church Serbian Orthodoxy Islam |
| Demonym | Hungarian |
| Government | |
| Beylerbey,Pasha,Agha,Dey | |
| History | |
| 1541 | |
| 1686 | |
| 1699 | |
| Today part of | Hungary,Croatia,Serbia,Slovakia,Romania |
Ottoman Hungary (Hungarian:Török hódoltság,lit. 'Turkish subjugation') encompassed the parts of theKingdom of Hungary which were under the rule of theOttoman Empire from theoccupation of Buda in 1541 until the liberation[1] of the region underHabsburg leadership during theGreat Turkish War (1683–1699), until theTreaty of Karlowitz in 1699. The territory was incorporated into the empire, under the nameMacaristan.[2] For most of its duration, Ottoman Hungary coveredSouthern Transdanubia and almost the entire region of theGreat Hungarian Plain.
Ottoman Hungary was divided for administrative purposes intoEyalets (provinces), which were further divided intoSanjaks. Ownership of much of the land was distributed to Ottoman soldiers and officials with the remaining territory being retained by the Ottoman state. As a border territory, much of Ottoman Hungary was heavily fortified with troop garrisons. Remaining economically under-developed, it became a drain on Ottoman resources. During the centuries long three-way Hungarian–Habsburg–Ottoman wars the Hungarian population was highly decimated.[3]
In 1686,Buda was recaptured from the Ottomans, and in 1687, after theSecond Battle of Mohács, the Hungarian parliament recognized that the inheritance of theHungarian crown had passed to theHabsburgs. The imperial armies pushed the Turks out of Hungary relatively quickly and occupied Transylvania as well. Following the defeat of the Ottomans in theGreat Turkish War, the Ottomans recognized the loss of the Ottoman Hungary by theTreaty of Karlowitz in 1699. The remaining Ottoman occupied territories (that encompassed the southern border regions of the Kingdom of Hungary),Temeşvar Eyalet,Syrmia andBelgrade, were reconquered by the Habsburgs during theAustro-Turkish War between 1716 and 1718, the cession of these regions was acknowledged by signing of theTreaty of Passarowitz in 1718.[4]
Since the 1360s, Hungary had been confronted with the Ottoman Empire. The Kingdom of Hungary ledseveral crusades, and campaigns and carried out several defensive operations and sieges against the Ottomans. Hungary bore the brunt of theOttoman wars in Europe during the 15th century and successfully halted the Ottoman advance. From 1490, after the death of KingMatthias of Hungary, royal power declined in Hungary, and theBlack Army of Hungary was disbanded. In contrast, by the 16th century, the power of theOttoman Empire had gradually increased, along with the territory they controlled in the Balkans. TheKingdom of Hungary was further weakened by the peasants revolt led byGyörgy Dózsa in 1514, and during the reign ofLouis II of Hungary (1516–1526), internal dissension divided the nobility.
In 1521, Hungary was invaded by SultanSuleiman the Magnificent. The key border fortress ofBelgrade, considered the southern gate of the Kingdom of Hungary, was captured by the Ottomans following theThird Siege of Belgrade. The Sultan launched an attack against the Kingdom of Hungary, defeating its smaller army at theBattle of Mohács in 1526, during which KingLouis II of Hungary died.[3]
After the death of the Hungarian king, both the AustrianHabsburg family and the Hungarian nobleZápolya family claimed the whole kingdom. KingJohn I of Hungary ruled theEastern Hungarian Kingdom, and the Habsburgs ruled the western part of Hungary. The Habsburgs tried several times to unite all of Hungary under their rule, but the Ottoman Empire prevented that by supporting the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom. King John I died in 1540, the Habsburg forces besiegedBuda, the Hungarian capital, in 1541. Sultan Suleiman led a relief force and defeated the Habsburgs, the Ottomans captured the city by a trick during theSiege of Buda and the south central and central areas of the kingdom came under the authority of the Ottoman Empire, therefore Hungary was divided into three parts. The north-western rim of the Hungarian kingdom remained unconquered and recognised members of the House of Habsburg asKings of Hungary, giving it the name "Royal Hungary". The Eastern Hungarian Kingdom is the predecessor of thePrincipality of Transylvania, which was established by theTreaty of Speyer in 1570 and the Eastern Hungarian King became the firstPrince of Transylvania. The Principality of Transylvania was a semi-independent state, and a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, it continued to be part of the Kingdom of Hungary in the sense of public law,John Sigismund's possessions belonged to theHoly Crown of Hungary, and was a symbol of the survival of Hungarian statehood. The boundary between the three territories thereupon became the frontline in theOttoman–Habsburg wars over the next 150 years.
Whereas a great many of the 17,000 and 19,000 Ottoman soldiers in service in the Ottoman fortresses in the territory of present-day Hungary wereOrthodox,Turks, and other Ottoman Muslims includingAlbanians,Greek Muslims andMuslimBalkan Slavs,[5] Southern Slavs were also acting asakıncıs and other light troops intended for pillaging in the territory of present-day Hungary.[6]
In these times, the territory of present-day Hungary began to undergo changes due to the Ottoman occupation. Vast lands remained unpopulated and covered with woods. Flood plains became marshes. The life of the inhabitants on the Ottoman side was unsafe. Peasants fled to the woods and marshes, forming guerrilla bands, known as theHajdú troops. Eventually, the territory of present-day Hungary became a drain on the Ottoman Empire, swallowing much of its revenue into the maintenance of a long chain of border forts. However, some parts of the economy flourished. In the huge unpopulated areas, townships bred cattle that were herded to southGermany and northern Italy - in some years they exported 500,000 head of cattle. Wine was traded to theCzech lands,Austria andPoland.[7]
The defeat of Ottoman forces led byGrand VizierKara Mustafa Pasha at theSecond Siege of Vienna in 1683, at the hands of the combined armies ofPoland and theHoly Roman Empire underJohn III Sobieski swung the balance of power in the region.[8] Still, in 1686, Buda was recaptured by the Ottomans. In 1699, under the terms of theTreaty of Karlowitz, which ended theGreat Turkish War, the Ottomans ceded to Habsburgs much of the territory they had previously taken from the medieval Kingdom of Hungary. Following this treaty, the members of the Habsburg dynasty administered a much enlarged Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary (previously they controlled only area known as "Royal Hungary"; seeKingdom of Hungary (1526–1867)).[citation needed]
In the 1540s, the total of the four principal fortresses ofBuda (2,965),Pest (1,481),Székesfehérvár (2,978) andEsztergom (2,775) were 10,200 troops.[9]
The number of Ottoman garrison troops stationed in Ottoman Hungary vary, but during the peak period in the mid-16th century it rose to between 20,000 and 22,000 men. As a force of occupation for a country the size of Hungary, even confined to central portions it was a rather low-profile military presence in much of the country and a relatively large proportion of it was concentrated in a few key fortresses.[10]
In 1640 when the front remained relatively quiet, 8,000 Janissary supported by an undocumented number of local recruits was sufficient to garrison the whole of theEyalet of Budin.[10]
The Hungarian Ottoman province covered about 91,250 km2 (35,230 sq mi).[11] The territory was divided intoEyalets (provinces), which were further divided intoSanjaks, with the highest ranking Ottoman official being thePasha of Budin. At first, Ottoman-controlled territories in present-day Hungary were part of theBudin Eyalet. Later, new eyalets were formed:Temeşvar Eyalet, Zigetvar Eyalet,Kanije Eyalet,Eğri Eyalet, andVarat Eyalet. Administrative centers of Budin, Zigetvar, Kanije and Eğri eyalets were located in the territory of present-day Hungary, while Temeşvar and Varat eyalets that had their administrative centers in the territory of present-dayRomania also included some parts of present-day Hungary. Pashas andSanjak-Beys were responsible for administration, jurisdiction and defense. The Ottomans' only interest was to secure their hold on the territory.
TheSublime Porte (Ottoman rulers) became the sole landowner and managed about 20 percent of the land for its own benefit, apportioning the rest among soldiers and civil servants. The Ottoman landlords were interested mainly in squeezing as much wealth from the land as quickly as possible. Of major importance to the Sublime Porte was the collection of taxes. Taxation left little for the former landlords to collect; Most of the nobility and large numbers of burghers emigrated into the Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary ("Royal Hungary") province.
After the final Ottoman conquest of Hungary in 1541, there were frequent border raids by Ottoman and Crimean-Tartar troops toward Christian border lands, during which civilian were killed or captured, marched away and sold in toslavery in the Ottoman Empire at the slave markets of Istanbul and Sarajevo.[12]Between 1522 and 1717, Tatars, soldiers from the Crimean Khanate, often participated in the Ottoman campaigns in the Hungarian border zones, and during these campaigns the tatars often captured slaves in Hungary and Austria; the long way back to the Crimea did provide opportunity for prisoners to escape, but many were abducted to Crimea, where they were either ransomed (if they were rich), or (if they were poor) sold on theCrimean slave trade.[13]
Wars, slave raids, and the emigration of nobles who lost their land caused a depopulation of the countryside. However, the Ottomans practiced relative religious tolerance and allowed the various ethnicities living within the empire significant autonomy in internal affairs. Towns maintained some self-government, and a prosperous middle class developed through artisanry and trade.
For more than 150 years, the territory of Hungary was a battleground between the forces of the great powers. The military conflict was constant during the entire period of the Ottoman rule. Hungary endured a great number of Ottoman military campaigns and sieges from 1521 to 1568, at the same time when Hungary had an ongoing struggle between its two kings (AustrianHabsburg family and the Hungarian nobleZápolya family). From 1591, and between 1593 and 1606, during theLong Turkish War, there were armed conflicts involving large military forces. From 1660 and between 1663 and 1664, during theAustro-Turkish War, also between 1683 and 1699 duringHungary's War of Liberation from the Ottoman occupation, the opposing sides fielded armies of about 50,000 soldiers in every year.[3] During the Ottoman rule, the relative calm periods were also not peaceful, the wars were ongoing at the borders. The raids were daily, primarily intended for tax collection and plundering, which caused significant damage in the Hungarian settlement areas: material destruction, population displacement, kidnapping and killing people. In the 17th century, the campaigns waged byPrincipality of Transylvania caused also similarly significant losses.[3]
The decay of the southernmost counties of theKingdom of Hungary had started long before the Ottoman rule, the Ottomans had already invaded Hungary's southern parts between 1390 and 1400.[3]
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As a consequence of the 150 years of constant warfare between the Christian states and Ottomans, population growth was stunted, and the network of ethnic Hungarian medieval settlements, with their urbanized bourgeois inhabitants, perished. The ethnic composition of the territory that had been part of the medievalKingdom of Hungary was fundamentally changed through deportations and massacres, so that the number of ethnic Hungarians in existence at the end of the Ottoman period was substantially diminished.[18]
The Hungarian journey of Evliya Çelebi, a Turkish traveller in 1660–1664:
The Tatars raided on that day and night. In a location called Szatmár some thousand enemy [the local inhabitants] encamped in a marshy place... The infidels all came out of the marshy place and there was massacre and fighting for three hours... When they arrived on the plain, the Tartars turned back at once and engaged the enemy [the local inhabitants] with the border warriors; some of them were put to the sword, all their possessions, as well as the children and women were taken and captured, and on the seventh day they returned to the camp with much booty and twenty thousand prisoners. When the prisoners were taken to the Islamic market, they were more than twice as many as our soldiers. My servants also brought three Hungarian students... In the meantime, due to the large number of prisoners, fear arose in the Islamic camp, and by order of the chief serdar, the children, girls and young women were kept, and nine thousand of the men fit to wield swords were killed on the shore of the Szamos river... With the blessing of Lord Melek Ahmed Pasha, on the eighth day of the Feast Eid al-Adha in the year 1071 [1662], with twenty thousand selected Tatar soldiers who started with forty or fifty thousand wind-speed horses... trusting in Allah, we went out of the Islamic camp and that day and night in the Transylvanian part of the Tisza river, burning and destroying a few hundred villages and towns, we reached Belső-Szolnok county. It was a cultivated and populous district, but it was destroyed without any trace of prosperity, and its inhabitants were taken prisoner. The next day we set fire to four towns and destroyed some villages, their inhabitants were partly taken prisoner and partly lost. Allahu Akbar! It is such a large plain and so populous countryside... However, when it was burned, it was so destroyed that only its land, its stone churches, and its towers remained, and his infidel and fornicate people all went into captivity. While we were here, we wandered without fear, destroying the western part to the right and then to the left, and came here between eating and drinking.
The economic decline ofBuda, the Hungarian capital at the time of the Ottoman conquest, was emblematic of its stagnated growth rate. The city's population was no larger in 1686 than it had been two centuries prior.[20] The Ottomans allowed the Hungarian royal palace to fall into ruins.[21] The Ottomans later transformed the palace into a gunpowder store and magazine,[22] which caused its detonation during the siege in 1686. The Christian Hungarian population significantly shrank in the next decades, due to them fleeing to the Habsburg-ruledRoyal Hungary, especially by 1547 the number of the original Christian population of Buda was down to about a thousand, and by 1647 it had fallen to only about seventy.[23] The number of Jewish and Gypsy immigrants became dominant during the Ottoman rule in Buda.[24]
The Hungarian inhabitants of cities moved to other places when they felt threatened by the Ottoman military presence. Without exception, in the cities that became Ottoman administrative centers the Christian population decreased. The Hungarian population remained only in some cities, where the Ottoman garrisons were not installed.[25] From the early 17th century, Serbian refugees were the ethnic majority in large parts of Ottoman-controlled Hungary. That area included territories between the great rivers Sava, Drava, and theDanube–Tisza Interfluve (the territory between the Danube and Tisza rivers).[26]
According toestimates made by Hungarian historians, the proportion of Hungarians in the Carpathian Basin was around 75-80% at the end of the 15th century, and non-Hungarians were little more than 20 to 25% of the total population.[27] The Hungarian population began to decrease at the time of theOttoman conquest. The decline of the Hungarians was due to the constant wars, Ottoman raids, famines, and plagues during the 150 years of Ottoman rule. The main zones of war were the territories inhabited by the Hungarians, so the death toll depleted them much faster than other nationalities.[15][16]
In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Ottoman conquest turnedKingdom of Hungary into a battlefield. According to Hungarian historiography, the ethnic pattern of Hungary changed significantly due to the centuries long wars. During the Ottoman occupation, thePrincipality of Transylvania maintained the continuity of Hungarian statehood. The Habsburg–Wallachian military campaigns between 1599 and 1604, and Ottoman–Tatar military campaigns between 1657 and 1661 were destructive for the Hungarians living in the region and the Hungarian settlements connecting the Hungarian ethnic blocks of thePartium andSzékely Land suffered the most extensive destruction. Between theBattle of Mohács in 1526 and the suppression ofRákóczi's War of Independence in 1711, the Hungarian and Catholic dominated population structure of the Late Medieval Kingdom of Hungary was broken up, in Transylvania the Romanians became majority and the Hungarians became a minority population, and in the more sheltered mountainous regions, the Romanian population steadily grew, benefiting from additional immigration from Wallachia and Moldavia.[14][28][29][30]
The three parts of Hungary, theHabsburg Hungary, Ottoman Hungary andTransylvania, experienced only minor differences in population increase in the 17th century.[31]
The South Slavic peoples (Serbs, Bosnian Muslims) expanded northward in the wake of the Ottoman conquest, while the Hungarian population that had survived it fled the area over the course of the 17th century. Throughout the 17th century, the newly settled Orthodox South Slavic population provided the Ottoman army in this region with military garrisons, logistical support, and food supplies. Consequently, the Hungarians derisively referred to the region of Ottoman conquest as "Rascia" (Serbia) thereafter.[32]
TheMagyarab people are a small Magyar (Hungarian) community living withinNubia, along theNile inSudan andEgypt.[33][34] They have distant Hungarian ancestors who intermarried with locals.[35] TheOttoman Empire had to recruit troops from conquered Christian people, most notably through thedevşirme system, a special "tribute in blood", by which theJanissary corps was primarily staffed. In this system, Christian youths were taken, or children were kidnapped during Ottoman raids, primarily from the Balkan provinces, then converted to Islam and drafted into Ottoman service. The Hungarian population was recruited under the Ottoman regime. The Hungarians who were relocated from Hungary to the banks of the Nile were soldiers in theOttoman army, brought there by Sultan Selim to serve as border guards. These groups of Hungarians ended up in Egypt and Sudan after retiring from military service, concluding their army careers there.[36]
According to the most authoritative studies, the combined population of all three regions grew from about 3.5 million at the close of the 16th century to about 4 million at the close of the 17th century.[31] This increase was before the immigration to Hungary from other parts of the Habsburg Empire.[37] TheOttoman–Habsburg wars of the 17th century were fought intermittently and affected populations occupying a much narrower band of territory.[31] Thus wartime dislocations in Hungary do not seem to have seriously affected mortality rates among the general civilian population.[31] The breakdown of social order and other economic links between contiguous regions that is associated with prolonged warfare of the medieval pattern was largely absent in Ottoman warfare of the 17th century.[31] The most severe destructions were experienced during the Hungarian time of troubles, when between 1604 and 1606 the worst effects of the controlled confrontation between Ottoman-Habsburg forces were magnified many times over by Hungary's descent into civil war during theBocskay rebellion.[31]
Hungary's population in the late 16th century was in Ottoman Hungary 900,000, in Habsburg Hungary 1,800,000 and 'free' (Transylvania) Hungary 800,000, making a total of 3,500,000 inhabitants for the whole of Hungary.[37]
The population growth in Ottoman Hungary during the 17th century was slight: from 900,000 to approximately 1,000,000 inhabitants, a rate similar to that experienced in Royal Hungary and Transylvania.[37]
Despite the continuous warfare with the Habsburgs, several Muslim cultural centres sprang up in this far northern corner of the Empire. Examples ofOttoman architecture of the classical period, seen in the famous centres ofConstantinople andEdirne, were also seen in the territory of present-day southern Hungary, where mosques, bridges, fountains, baths and schools were built. After the Habsburg reclamation, most of these works were destroyed and few survive to this day. The introduction ofTurkish baths, with the building of theRudas Baths, was the beginning of a long tradition in the territory of present-day Hungary. No less than 75hammams (steam baths) were built during the Ottoman age.
During the 16th and 17th centuries, there were at least fiveBektashi convents or dervish lodges established across Hungary: two in Buda, one inEğri, another inSzékesfehérvár, and a fifth one in Lippa.[38] In the 17th century, 165 elementary (mekteb) and 77 secondary and academic theological schools (medrese) were operating in 39 of the major towns of the region.[citation needed] The elementary schools taught writing, basic arithmetics, and the reading of theKoran and of the most important prayers. Themedreses carried out secondary and academic training within the fields of Muslim religious sciences, church law andnatural sciences.[citation needed] Mostmedreses operated in Budin (Buda), where there were twelve. In Peçuy (Pécs) there were five medreses,Eğri had four.[citation needed] The most famousmedrese in Ottoman-controlled territory of present-day Hungary was that of Budin (Buda), commissioned by theSokollu Mustafa Pasha during his twelve years of governing (1566–1578).[39]
In themosques, people not only prayed, but were taught to read and write, to read the Koran, and prayers. The sermons were the most effective form of political education.[citation needed] There were numerous elementary and secondary schools besides the mosques, and the monasteries of the Dervish orders also served as centers of culture and education.[citation needed]
The spread of culture was supported by the libraries. The mosque complex andtürbe ofSokollu Mustafa Pasha in Budin (Buda) was built by Ottoman chief architectMimar Sinan and contained a school and library offering Muslim religious sciences, literature, works on oratory, poetry, astronomy, music, architecture, and medical sciences.[39][40]
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The Ottomans practiced relative religious tolerance, and Christianity was not prohibited. Islam was not spread by force in the areas under the control of theOttoman Sultan,[41] however, Arnold concludes by quoting a 17th-century author who stated:
Meanwhile he [the Turk] wins [converts] by craft more than by force, and snatches away Christ by fraud out of the hearts of men. For the Turk, it is true, at the present time compels no country by violence to apostatise; but he uses other means whereby imperceptibly he roots out Christianity...[42]
The relative religious tolerance of the Ottomans enabledProtestantism in Hungary (such as theReformed Church in Hungary) to survive against the oppression of the Catholic Habsburg-ruled Hungarian domains.
There were approximately 80,000 Muslim settlers in the Ottoman-controlled territory ofpresent-day Hungary; being mainly administrators, soldiers, artisans, and merchants ofCrimean Tatar origin. The religious life of the Muslims was supervised by themosques that were either newly built or transformed from older Christian churches. Payment for the servants of the mosques, as well as the maintenance of the churches, was the responsibility of the Ottoman state or charities.
Besides Sunni Islam, a number ofdervish communities also flourished including thebektashis, thehalvetis, and themevlevis. The famousGül Baba monastery of Budin (Buda), sheltering 60 dervishes, belonged to thebektasi order. Situated close to thejanissaries camp, it was built byJahjapasazáde Mehmed Pasha, the thirdbegler bey (governor) of Budin.Gul Baba's tomb (türbe) is to this day the northernmost site of Islamic conquest.[43]
Another famous monastery of its time was that of thehalveti dervishes. Built around 1576 next to the türbe of Sultan Süleyman I the Magnificent (1520–1566) in Sigetvar (Szigetvár), it soon became the religious and cultural centre of the area. A famousprior of the zavije (monastery) was theBosnianŠejh Ali Dede. The monastery ofJakovali Hasan Paša in Peçuy (Pécs) was another famous location. Its most outstanding prior was Mevlevian dervishPeçevi Arifi Ahmed Dede, a Turk and native of Peçuy.
By the end of the sixteenth century, around 90% of the inhabitants of Ottoman Hungary were Protestant, most of them beingCalvinist.[44]
Muslims settled in Baranya and Pécs in Ottoman Hungary. Following the successful HabsburgSiege of Pécs, some Muslims converted to Catholicism between 1686 and 1713.[45]
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