Ottoman Hungary

Ottoman Hungary was the territory of southern and central Medieval Hungary
which was ruled by the Ottoman Empire from 1541 to 1699. Ottoman rule was
scattered and covered mostly the southern territories of the former medieval
Kingdom of Hungary as almost the entire region of the Great Hungarian Plain
(except the northeastern parts) and Southern Transdanubia.

Contents
Ottoman occupation of the
History Hungarian Kingdom – 1629
Administration
Ethnic changes during the Ottoman rule
Culture
Muslim schools
Religion
Gallery
See also
References
Sources
External links

History
By the sixteenth century, the power of the Ottoman Empire had increased gradually,
as did the territory controlled by them in the Balkans, while the Kingdom of
Hungary was weakened by the peasants' uprisings. Under the reign of Louis II
Jagiellon (1516–1526), internal dissentions divided the nobility.

Instigating war by feigned diplomatic insult, Suleiman the Magnificent (1520–1566)

attacked the Kingdom of Hungary and captured Belgrade in 1521. He did not
hesitate to launch an attack against the weakened kingdom, whose smaller, badly led
army (approximately 26,000 Hungarian soldiers compared to 45,000 Ottoman
soldiers) was defeated on 29 August 1526 at the Battle of Mohács. Thus he became
The political situation around influential in the Kingdom of Hungary, while his semi-vassal, named John Zápolya
1572: The Habsburg Kingdom of and his enemy Ferdinand I both claimed the throne of the Kingdom. Suleiman went
Hungary (Royal Hungary), further and tried to crush Austrian forces, but his Siege of Vienna in 1529 failed after
Principality of Transylvania, and
the onset of winter forced his retreat. The title of king of Hungary was disputed
Ottoman eyalets
between Zápolya and Ferdinand until 1540. After the seizure of Buda by the
Ottomans in 1541,[1] the West and North recognized a Habsburg as king ("Royal
Hungary"), while the central and southern counties were annexed by the Ottoman Sultan and the east was ruled by the son of
Zápolya under the name Eastern Hungarian Kingdom which after 1570 became the Principality of Transylvania. 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 were
 Orthodox and Muslim Balkan Slavs,[2]
Southern Slavs were also acting as
akıncıs and other light troops intended
for pillaging in the territory of present-
day Hungary.[3]

In these times, territory of present-day

Hungary began to undergo changes due
The 1881 map of Hungary
The political situation around to the Ottoman occupation. Vast lands showing the boundaries of the
1683: The Habsburg Kingdom of remained unpopulated and covered almost completely destroyed
Hungary (Royal Hungary), Imre with woods. Flood plains became Hungarian settlement areas
Thököly's Principality of Upper marshes. The life of the inhabitants on during the Ottoman occupation of
Hungary (existed between 1682- Hungary
the Ottoman side was unsafe. Peasants
1685), Principality of
fled to the woods and marshes, forming
Transylvania, and Ottoman
eyalets (Budin Eyalet, Varat guerrilla bands, known as the Hajdú
Eyalet, Eğri Eyalet, Temeşvar troops. Eventually, the territory of
Eyalet, Kanije Eyalet, Uyvar present-day Hungary became a drain on
Eyalet) 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 south Germany and northern Italy - in some years
they exported 500,000 head of cattle. Wine was traded to the Czech lands, Austria
and Poland.[4]

The defeat of Ottoman forces led by Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha at the Second
Siege of Vienna in 1683, at the hands of the combined armies of Poland and the
Holy Roman Empire under John III Sobieski, was the decisive event that swung the Ottoman soldiers in the territory of
present-day Hungary
balance of power in the region.[5] Under the terms of the Treaty of Karlowitz, which
ended the Great Turkish War in 1699, 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"; see Kingdom of Hungary (1526–1867)).

In the 1540s the total of the four principal fortresses of Buda (2,965), Pest (1,481), Székesfehérvár (2,978) and Esztergom (2,775)
were 10,200 troops.[6]

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.[7]

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 the Eyalet of Budin.[7]

Administration
The territory was divided into Eyalets (provinces), which were further
divided into Sanjaks, with the highest ranking Ottoman official being the
Pasha of Budin. At first, Ottoman-controlled territories in present-day
Hungary were part of the Budin Eyalet. Later, new eyalets were formed:
Temeşvar Eyalet, Zigetvar Eyalet, Kanije Eyalet, Eğri Eyalet, and Varat
Eyalet. Administrative centers of Budin, Zigetvar, Kanije and Egir 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-day Romania also included some parts of present-day Hungary.
Pashas and Sanjak-Beys were responsible for administration, jurisdiction
and defense. The Ottomans' only interest was to secure their hold on the
territory.

The Sublime 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. Wars, slave-taking, and Ottoman soldiers besiege Estolnibelgrad
the emigration of nobles who lost their land caused a depopulation of the (probably Székesfehérvár) in Hungary.
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.

Ethnic changes during the Ottoman rule

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 medieval Kingdom 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.[8]

The economic decline of Buda the capital city during the Ottoman conquest characterized by the stagnation of population. The
population of Buda was not larger in 1686 than two centuries earlier in the 15th century.[9] The Ottomans allowed the Hungarian
royal place to fall into ruins.[10] The Ottomans later transformed the palace into a gunpowder store and magazine,[11] 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-ruled Royal Hungary. The number of Jewish and Gypsy immigrants became dominant during the
Ottoman rule in Buda.[12]

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.[13] 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 the Danube–Tisza Interfluve (the territory between the Danube and Tisza rivers).[14]
According to modern estimations, the proportion of Hungarians in the
Carpathian Basin was around 80% at the end of the 15th century, and non-
Hungarians hardly were more than 20% to 25% of the total
population.[15][16][17][18] The Hungarian population began to decrease at
the time of the Ottoman conquest,[15][16] The decline of the Hungarians
was due to the constant wars, Ottoman raids, famines, and plagues during
the 150 years of Ottoman rule.[15][16][19] The main zones of war were the
territories inhabited by the Hungarians, so the death toll depleted them
much faster than other nationalities.[15][19]
The Holy League took Buda after a long
The three parts of Hungary; the Habsburg Hungary, Ottoman Hungary and siege in 1686

Transylvania, experienced only minor differences in population increase in

the 17th century.[20] According to data presented in the most authoritative
studies, the collective population of all three regions grew from about 3.5 million inhabitants at the close of the 16th century to
about 4 million by the close of the 17th century.[20] This increase was before the immigration to Hungary from other parts of the
Habsburg Empire.[21] The Ottoman–Habsburg wars of the 17th century were fought intermittently and affected populations
occupying a much narrower band of territory.[20] Thus wartime dislocations in Hungary do not seem to have seriously affected
mortality rates among the general civilian population.[20] 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.[20] 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 the Bocskay rebellion.[20]

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.[21]

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.[21]

Culture
Despite the continuous warfare with the Habsburgs, several cultural centres sprang up in this far northern corner of the Empire.
Examples of Ottoman architecture of the classical period, seen in the famous centres of Constantinople and Edirne, 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 of Turkish baths, with
the building of the Rudas Baths, was the beginning of a long tradition in the territory of present-day Hungary. No less than 75
hammams (steam baths) were built during the Ottoman age.

Muslim schools
In the seventeenth century, 165 elementary (mekteb) and 77 secondary and academic theological schools (medrese) were
operating in 39 of the major towns of the region. The elementary schools taught writing, basic arithmetics, and the reading of the
Koran and of the most important prayers. The medreses carried out secondary and academic training within the fields of Muslim
religious sciences, church law and natural sciences. Most medreses operated in Budin (Buda), where there were twelve. In Peçuy
(Pécs) there were five medreses, Eğri had four. The most famous medrese in Ottoman-controlled territory of present-day Hungary
was that of Budin (Buda), built by the Bosniak-Serb Mehmed-pasha Sokolović during his seventeen years of governing (1566–
1578).
In the mosques, 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. 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. The spread of culture was supported by the
libraries. The school library of Mehmed-pasha Sokolović in Budin (Buda), contained, besides Muslim religious sciences, other
literature, works on oratory, poetry, astronomy, music, architecture, and medical sciences.

Religion
The Ottomans practiced relative religious tolerance, and Christianity was not
prohibited. Islam was not spread by force in the areas under the control of the
Ottoman Sultan,[22] however, Arnold biasedly 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 The mosque of Pasha Qasim in
whereby imperceptibly he roots out Christianity...[23] Pécs, now used as a Catholic church

The relative religious tolerance of the Ottomans enabled Protestantism in

Hungary (such as the Reformed Church in Hungary) to survive against the
oppression of the Catholic Habsburg-ruled Hungarian domains.

There were approximately 80,000 Muslim settlers in Ottoman-controlled

territory of present-day Hungary; being mainly administrators, soldiers, artisans
and merchants of Crimean Tatar origin. The religious life of the Muslims was
supervised by the mosques 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 of dervish communities also flourished including

the bektashis, the halvetis, and the mevlevis. The famous Gül Baba monastery of
Budin (Buda), sheltering 60 dervishes, belonged to the bektasi order. Situated
close to the janissaries camp, it was built by Jahjapasazáde Mehmed Pasha, the
Minaret of Eger
third begler bey (governor) of Budin. Gul Baba's tomb (türbe) is to this day the
northernmost site of Islamic conquest.[24]

Another famous monastery of its time was that of the halveti 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 famous prior
of the zavije (monastery) was the Bosnian Šejh Ali Dede. The monastery of Jakovali Hasan Paša in Peçuy (Pécs) was another
famous location. Its most outstanding prior was Mevlevian dervish Peçevi 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 being
Calvinist.[25]

Gallery
 The Pasha of Budin Coffee shop Köçek dancer with Slave woman musician
(Buda) receives the castanets. Ottoman
envoy of the Ottoman miniature by Balázs
Sultan. Szigetvári Csöbör, 1570.

See also
Islam in Hungary
Transformation of the Ottoman Empire#Hungary - on the Ottoman defensive system in Hungary.
Magyarabs
Ottoman–Habsburg wars

References
1. Melvin E. Page, Colonialism: an international social, cultural, and political encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2003, p. 648
[1] (https://books.google.com/books?id=qFTHBoRvQbsC&pg=PA648&dq=seizure+buda+1541&hl=en&ei=zafQT
OW8NsrJswbuwt3NCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=seizu
re%20buda%201541&f=false)
2. Kontler 1999, p. 145.
3. Inalcik Halil: "The Ottoman Empire"
4. http://www.hungarianhistory.com/lib/hunspir/hsp25.htm
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e-decline-of-the-ottoman-empire/). muslimmatters.org.
6. Ottoman Warfare 1500-1700, Rhoads Murphey, 1999, p.227
7. Ottoman Warfare 1500–1700, Rhoads Murphey, 1999, p.56
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archive.org/web/20110514143926/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2267/is_n1_v63/ai_18501094/). Social
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May 2011. Retrieved 5 June 2011.
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on society in change , Volume 462 van East European monographs (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=sONn
AAAAMAAJ&q=%22population+of+Buda%22&dq=%22population+of+Buda%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDsQ6AE
wBDgKahUKEwjIufSz26vIAhXEWxoKHVEpAqg). Social Science Monographs. p. 3. ISBN 9780880333597.
10. Andrew Wheatcroft (2010). The Enemy at the Gate: Habsburgs, Ottomans, and the Battle for Europe (https://boo
ks.google.com/books?id=uOYWBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA206). Basic Books. p. 206. ISBN 9780465020812.
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J&pg=PT443). Lonely Planet. ISBN 9781743605059.
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History Gale virtual reference library (https://books.google.com/books?id=QjzYdCxumFcC&pg=PA95). Infobase
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13. IM Kunt and Christine Woodhead (2014). Suleyman the Magnificent and His Age: The Ottoman Empire in the
Early Modern World (https://books.google.com/books?id=66msAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA87&dq=%22christian+populati
on%22+buda+ottoman+-buddha&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjkoobx7ODTAhVCVRoKHXyZADsQ6AEIJjAB#v=o
nepage&q=%22christian%20population%22%20buda%20ottoman%20-buddha&f=false). Routledge. pp. 87–88.
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J&pg=PA1082&dq=%22With+the+arrival+of+this+large+number+of+Serb+refugees%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ah
UKEwig4fub_uDTAhWFChoKHQVfBz0Q6AEIJTAA#v=onepage&q=%22With%20the%20arrival%20of%20this%2
0large%20number%20of%20Serb%20refugees%22&f=false). New York City: Routledge. p. 1082.
ISBN 9781135193881.
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21. Ottoman Warfare 1500–1700, Rhoads Murphey, 1999, p.254
22. The preaching of Islam: a history of the propagation of the Muslim faith By Sir Thomas Walker Arnold, pg. 135-
144
23. The preaching of Islam: a history of the propagation of the Muslim faith By Sir Thomas Walker Arnold, pg. 136
24. Christina Shea, Joseph S. Lieber, Erzsébet Barát, Frommer's Budapest & the Best of Hungary, John Wiley and
Sons, 2004, p 122-123 [2] (https://books.google.com/books?id=_cbLvyml5kkC&pg=PA122&dq=northernmost+
G%C3%BCl+baba&hl=en&ei=PqnQTObmE4_0sgaOseCnCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=
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p. 153. ISBN 0814325610.

This article incorporates public domain material from the Library of Congress Country Studies website
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/ (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/).
Encyclopaedia Humana Hungarica: Cross and Crescent: The Turkish Age in Hungary (1526–1699)
Balázs Sudár: Baths in Ottoman Hungary in "Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae", Volume 57,
Number 4, 7 December 2004, pp. 391–437(47)

Sources
Kontler, László (1999). Millennium in Central Europe: A History of Hungary. Atlantisz Publishing House.
ISBN 963-9165-37-9.
Fodor, Pál; Dávid, Géza, eds. (2000). Ottomans, Hungarians, and Habsburgs in Central Europe: The Military
Confines in the Era of Ottoman Conquest (https://books.google.com/books?id=V9vom-ZAElcC). BRILL.

External links
Cross and Crescent: The Turkish Age in Hungary (1526-1699) (http://mek.oszk.hu/01900/01911/html/)
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