"They Have Become Turks" (Sie Seindt Tuerkhen Worden): Anti Habsburg Resistance and Turkification in Seventeenth Century Hungary (original) (raw)

2019, The Humanities in a World Upside Down. Editors: Ignacio Lopez-Calvo. Cambridge Scholars Press. p.12-35.

Abstract

Several recent publications, including my forthcoming Humanities and Post-Truth in the Information Age (co-edited with Christina Lux; Northwestern UP), have addressed the importance of the humanities and the arts for the goal of having both a dynamic economy and functioning, diverse democratic societies with socially conscious and well informed citizens:

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References (70)

  1. the Habsburg emperor and preferred the Ottoman sultan as their overlord during the late seventeenth century. Works Cited Benczédi, László. "A török orientáció a XVII. század végi Magyar politikában (=The Turkish Orientation in Late 17 th -Century Hungarian Politics)." A török orientáció a XVII. század Magyar politikában. Tudományos emlékülés. Ed. Péter Németh, László Iklódi and Péter Hársfalvi. Vaja: Nyírségi Nyomda, 1985, 21-33. Print.
  2. Berend, Nora. "Violence as Identity: Christians and Muslims in Hungary in the Medieval and Early Modern Period." Austrian History Yearbook 44 (2013): 1-13. Print.
  3. Bethlen, János. Az Erdélyi történelem. Eds. József Jankovics and Judit Nyerges. Budapest: Balassi Kiadó, 1993. Print.
  4. Born, Robert and Sabine Jagodzinski, eds. Türkenkriege und Adelskultur in Ostmitteleuropa vom 16. bis zum 18. Jahrhundert. Vol. 14 of Studia Jagellonica Lipsiensia. Leipzig: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 2014. Print.
  5. Deák, Farkas, ed., A bujdosók levéltára. A Gróf Teleki-család Maros- Vásárhelyi levelárából [=The Archive of the Exiles. From the Family Archive of Count Teleki of Maros-Vasarhelyi]. Budapest: M. T. Akadémia, 1883. Print.
  6. Dezső, Márkus, ed. Magyar Törvénytár [=Hungarian Code of Laws]. Vol. 1-2. Budapest, 1900. Print.
  7. Fodor, Pál and Géza Dávid, Ottomans, Hungarians and Habsburgs in Central Europe. The Military Confines in the Era of Ottoman Conquest. Leiden-Boston-Cologne: Brill, 2000. Print.
  8. Goffmann, Daniel. The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, New York, Tokyo: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Print. Hammer, Joseph von. Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches grossentheils aus bisher unbenützten Handschriften und Archiven.Vol. 6. Pest: C. A. Hartleben's Verlag, 1830. Print.
  9. Heppner, Harald and Zsuzsa Barbarics-Hermanik. Eds. Türkenangst und Festungsbau. Wirklichkeit und Mythos. Frankfurt, Berlin, Bern, New York, Oxford, Vienna: Peter Lang Verlag, 2009. Print.
  10. Pálffy, Geza. "The Origins and Development of the Border Defence System against the Ottoman Empire in Hungary (Up to the early Eighteenth Century)." In Pál Fodor and Géza Dávid, Ottomans, Hungarians and Habsburgs in Central Europe. The Military Confines (Turcismus) Heves varmegyében," Agria. Az Egri Muzeum Evkönyve XXII (1986), 99-111.
  11. Benczédi, "A török orientáció," passim. Hungarian historian Béla V. Mihalik recently studied two Turcismus cases against Protestants inside Habsburg Hungary. While rooted in original research his article suffers from the assumption that the Ottomans "overall embodied the archenemy…for all of Hungarian society." Mihalik finds it "extraordinary that Protestants asked the Ottomans of all people (ausgerechnet die Osmanen) for help.…." Cf. Béla V. Mihalik, "Turkismus und Gegenreformation. Die Osmanen und die konfessionellen Konflikte im Ungarn der 1670er Jahre," Osmanischer Orient und Ostmitteleuropa. Perzeptionen und Interaktionen in den Grenzzonen zwischen dem 16. und 18. Jahrhundert, eds. Robert Born and Andreas Puth (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2014), 321-335, esp. 324, 336.
  12. See, for examples, the dispatches of the Venetian and Vatican ambassadors in Joseph Fiedler, ed., Die Relationen der Botschafter Venedigs über Deutschland und Österreich (Vienna: Kaiserlich-Königliche Hof-und Staatsdruckerei, 1867), 2: 101-118 (Relation des Gesandten Sagredo, 1665), 119-142 (Bericht des Marino Giorgi, 1671); Relationes nuntiorum Apostolicorum Vindobonensium de Regno Hungariae 1666-1683 (Pannonhalma, 1935), nos. 25, 30, 38, 63, etc.
  13. The relevant documents are widely dispersed and I am cognizant of the fact that more data remain to be discovered.
  14. Cf. Georg Wagner, Das Türkenjahr 1664. Eine Europäische Bewährung.
  15. Raimond Montecuccoli, die Schlacht von St. Gotthard-Mogersdorf und der Friede von Eisenburg (Vasvár) (Eisenstadt: Michael R. Rötzer, 1964), passim.
  16. 9 Slovak historians J. Kabdra and J. Blaskovics started the study of a few relevant defterler, but they focused on areas that had officially been annexed by the Ottomans after the Vasvar Treaty. Cf. J. Kabdra, "Turecké pramene vzt'ahujúce sa na dejiny tureckého panstv na Slovensku," Historicky Časopis 4 (1964): 156-169;
  17. J. Blaskovics, "Rimavská Sobota pod tureckym panstvom," in Kapitoly z dejín prírody a okresu Rimavská Sobota (Bratislava, 1968), 23-70.
  18. Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Kriegsarchiv, Vienna, Austria (=ÖSTA KA), Expeditions Protokolle, no. 431 (1672), fol. 212v (report dated March 12, 1672).
  19. Cf. the regular reports by Habsburg ambassador Casanova from the sultan's court and the frequent dispatches by the Aulic War Council to Buda, in Haus-, Hof-, und Staatsarchiv, Vienna Austria (=HHStA), Turcica I, fasc. 141-143 (1669- 1672), passim. In July 1671, Köprülü threatened invasion, in Turcica I, fasc. 143, Konv. A, fols. 102-107, Casanova from Turkish Camp, July 5, 1671. I agree with the astute observation of von Hammer that Köprülü was eager to find a pretext for war: "Köprili…aus einem Krieg schon den Samen des nächsten warf, und in Ungarn nur den Aufruhr under der Maske des Friedens gross zog" [Hammer 6: 333].
  20. I have left out other types of evidence pertaining to merchants, artisans, divinity students (of Lutheran and Calvinist colleges), runaway serfs, and various kinds of bandits. 13 This conspiracy has been ignored by Central European and Habsburg scholarship since Gyula Pauler wrote a path-breaking study about it in 1876. In his footnotes Pauler lists numerous archival fonds that remain unstudied in the Habsburg Court Archive (=HHStA) in Vienna. Cf. Gyula Pauler, Wesselényi Ferencz nádor és társainak összeeskűvése. 2 Vols. (Budapest, 1876), 1: 98-108, esp. 104; Georg B. Michels, "Ready to Secede to the Ottoman Empire: Habsburg Hungary after the Vasvar Treaty (1664-1674)," E-Journal of the American Hungarian Educators Association, Vol. 4 (Fall 2012), pp. 1-11.
  21. HHStA, Ungarische Akten, Fasc. 292, Konv. A, fol. 81; fasc. 322, Konv. D, fol. 96v.
  22. HHStA, Turcica I, Fasc. 143, Konv. A, fols. 107, 122, Casanova from Turkish Camp (July 5 and 14, 1671). For other documented visits by Szepessy to the sultan's court (in Istanbul, Edirne, and elsewhere during the Polish campaign), see ÖSTA KA, Expeditions Protokolle, no. 431, fol. 188 (February 1672); Gergely 6: 414 (December 1672);
  23. Hammer, 6: 299 (January 1674), 319 (January 1676).
  24. HHStA, Ungarische Akten, Fasc. 289, Konv. D, fols. 54-55; Fasc. 293, Konv. C, fols. 1-31, Processus causae Andreae Keczer, Mihály Zsilinszky, A Magyar országgyǘlések vallásűgyi tárgyalásai a Reformátiótól kezdve. Vol. 3 (1647-1687) (Budapest: Viktor Hornyánszky, 1893), 137.
  25. Magyar Országos Levéltár (=Hungarian National Archives), Budapest (hereafter MOL), E254, March 1672, no. 70; HHStA, Ungarische Akten, Specialia, fasc.180, Konv.
  26. D, fols. 6-7;
  27. ÖSTA KA, Expeditions Protokolle, no. 431 (1672), fols. 684, 851, 856v, 861; Registratur Protokolle, 1672, fols. 405r-v. Troops sent by the pasha of Varad helped the rebellious soldiers ("…daß die Rebellen… mit den Wardeiner Türkhen sich conjungiert…") [ibid., Registratur Protokolle, fol. 448].
  28. Cf. petition by Kallo soldiers dated July 14, 1672 threatening to leave his Majesty's service immediately unless they were paid, E254, July 1672, no. 58.
  29. On such forays, see the correspondence between Habsburg border captains, the pashas of Eger and Varad, and the commanders of Ottoman border garrisons, in Végvári levelek 1660-1682 (Budapest, 1962).
  30. On Tokai Fortress, see MOL, E148, Acta Neoregestrata, Fasc. 518, no. 1, fols. 19, 51 ("…ad Tokai sufficientes Turcas esse"). On Onod Fortress (including a September 1672 massacre of German soldiers and Catholics), see MOL, E250, fasc. 44, no. 34; E254, March 1672, no. 33.
  31. MOL, E254, January 1672, no. 85; March 1672, no. 33; June 1672, no. 27.
  32. MOL, E148, Acta Neoregestrata, fasc. 517, no. 22, fols. 4-6; HHStA, Ungarische Akten, Specialia, fasc. 324, Konv. B, fol. 75v.
  33. On a similar mission by the Calvinist noble Pál Balko see Filmtar, Benignae Resolutiones, Sept. 1, 1672, doboz 15898, cim 657, fols. 22, 24; ÖSTA KA, Registratur Protokolle, 1672, fol. 406.
  34. Sámuel Gergely, ed., Teleki Mihály levelezése, vol. 6 (Budapest: Athenaeum, 1912), 256-58, 301, 414, 422.
  35. MOL, Acta Neoregestrata, fasc. 518, no. 1; fasc. 1737, nos. 2-3, 5-6;
  36. Szabo, nos.
  37. -2, 6, 22-23; HHStA, Ungarische Akten, Specialia, fasc. 323, Konv. A -B, passim; Konv. D, fols. 173-186, Fassiones contra Czegledi; ibid., fol. 198, Announcement of his death (June 8, 1671).
  38. ÖSTA KA, Expeditions Protokolle, no. 431, fol. 284 (n.d. April 1672);
  39. MOL, E254, July 1672, no. 104; August 1672, nos. 36, 49, 71, 79; Mihalik, "Turkismus," 332-335.
  40. The War Council knew very well that holding Ecsed fortress was crucial for defending the easternmost territories of Habsburg Hungary. Even though the Vasvar Peace Treaty explicitly gave the fortress to the Habsburg side it remained contested. Cf. HHStA, Ungarische Akten, Specialia, fasc. 288, Konv. E, fols. 19- 21v;
  41. Wagner, Das Türkenjahr 1664, 440-441 (text of Vasvar Treaty);
  42. Hammer, 70 (Habsburg complaint to Grand Vezir Mehmed Köprülü).
  43. Pastors in border fortresses were an important target of Habsburg investigations. Cf. MOL, Acta Neoregestrata, fasc. 1737, no. 6.
  44. The term for "Turkish authority" is a loose translation of tributum Turcicum. The payment of tribute-usually a lump sum of thousands of forint (floreni) was a symbol of recognizing the sultan's authority.
  45. The pastors were threatened with death, galley slavery, and incarceration. Cf. Rebellion oder Religion? Die Vorträge des internationalen Kirchenhistorischen Kolloquiums Debrecen, 12. 2. 1976. Eds. László Makkai and Peter F. Barton (Budapest, 1977), pp. 18-19, 51-53.
  46. In late April 1674 the Aulic War Council concluded-after receiving reports from the commander-in-chief of the Habsburg army--that the arrest of Protestant clergy, particularly in border fortresses, further destabilized the border region as more people ran away to Ottoman territory or asked the Ottomans for help. Cf.
  47. Szabó, nos. 336-337, 342; HHStA, Ungarische Akten, Specialia, Fasc. 326, Konv. A., fols. 21-22.
  48. ÖSTA KA, Expeditions Protokolle, no. 431, fol. 711, October 1672, no. 2 (Sept. 16 and 20); fols. 781r-v, November 1672, no. 154 (n. d);
  49. Szabo, nos. 203-206;
  50. Registratur Protokolle, 1672, fol. 400, August 1672, no. 133 (n. d.);
  51. MOL, Sectio G, fasc. 10, fols. 42-55; Úriszék, no. 474.
  52. A similar situation emerged in at least two counties (Arva, Trencsen) adjacent to Poland leading to great concern in the Polish capitol. As a delegate to the Sejm put it, "the Pasha of Buda could easily spy out Cracow from his perch in the [Carpathian] mountains" [Norman Davis, God's Playground. A History of Poland, Vol. 1 (New York: Columbia UP, 1982), 486]. On the Turkish domination of Torna and Gömör counties that were directly bordering on Ottoman territory, see MOL, E254, December 1672, nos. 26, 40.
  53. ÖSTA KA, Expeditions Protokolle, No. 431 (1672), fols. 284-285, 439v, 513v, 780, 826; MOL, E148, Fasc. 517, no. 8, fols. 9, 24, 54-55. Cf. a 1676 complaint by Kindsberg, the Habsburg emissary in Istanbul, that "der Beglerbeg von Neuhäusl dem österreichischen Befehlshaber von Neutra zweytausend Prügel habe geben lassen" (Hammer, 6: 320).
  54. There is no evidence of direct Turkish involvement but Habsburg officials made a plausible connection with a coinciding invasion of Hungary's eastern counties by rebel troops from Ottoman and Transylvanian territory. Cf. ÖSTA KA, Registratur Protokolle, 1672, fols. 486-487; MOL, Benignae Resolutiones, Sept. 19, 1672;
  55. Oct. 6, 1672; Camerae Expeditiones 1672, no. 25 (Sept. 20);
  56. Szabo, nos. 203-206, 210-211, 227.
  57. Cf. Úriszék, no. 541 (acquittal of peasant rebel who joined armed invaders from Turkish territory and participated in the pillaging of a Catholic church). The fate of two peasants arrested in August 1672 for serving the Pasha of Kanizsa remains unclear (ÖSTA KA, Registratur Protokolle, 1672, fol. 413).
  58. E254, February 1672, no. 18, Letter by Strassoldo (February 8, 1672);
  59. MOL, E23, Litterae Camerae Scepusiensis, csomo 12, fols. 24-27v, Report on excesses of German soldatesca (March 23, 1672), fols. 51-122, Investigation of General Strassoldo (August 18, 1672);
  60. E190, Rakoczi Family Archive, doboz 33, Levelek 1665-1680, Folder 1671-1675, sz. 8143, Instructions to Spankau (February 20, 1672). In August 1672 a lieutenant was arrested by orders of the commander-in- chief, General Paris von Spankau, because of disobedience and random violence ("…mit 80 mann herumvagiert und insolentien verübt") (ÖSTA KA, Registratur Protokolle, 1672, fol. 406. For similar evidence, see ibid., fols. 412 ("…wegen unterschiedlicher beschwörden wider die Teutsche soldatesca").
  61. MOL, E254, March 1672, no. 48; August 1672, nos. 42, 63, 72, 74-75; P507, Nadasdy Archive, V, fasc. 667, fol. 7; Lipót Ováry, A MTA Történelmi Bizottságának oklevélmásolatai. 3 vols. (Budapest: MTA, 1890-1891), vol. 3, nos. 1995, 2007.
  62. Szabo, nos. 342, 347, 351-352; Úriszék, nos. 335, 477.
  63. Farkas Deák, ed., A bujdosók levéltára. A Gróf Teleki-család Maros-Vásárhelyi levelárából [=The Archive of the Exiles. From the Family Archive of Count Teleki of Maros-Vasarhelyi] (Budapest: M. T. Akadémia, 1883), passim.
  64. Very little is known about these exile communities. The Turkish historian M. Tayyib Gökbilgin began to study them in "Thököy ĺmre ve Osmanli-Avusturya ilişkilerindeki rolü. Birinci bölüm (1670-1682) (=Imre Thököly and his role in Ottoman-Austrian relations. Part 2," in Türk-Macar kültür münasebetleri işiği altinda II. Rákóczi Ferenc ve Macar mültecileri (=Ferenc Rakoczi II. and the Hungarian Exiles in light of Turkish-Hungarian cultural relations) (Istanbul: Baha Matbaasi, 1976), 180-210.
  65. Fiedler, Die Relationen, 143-166 (Bericht des Zuanne Morosini, 1674);
  66. Relationes nunciorum, nos. 117, 119-120; Gökbilgin, 191; Hammer, 6: 324-325.
  67. A handful of historians have recognized this dramatic shift in power relations. Among them are the Czech Ottomanist Zdenka Veselá, the Hungarian scholars Gyula Pauler and László Benczédi (cited above), and the Turkish historian Gökbilgin (cited above). Cf. Zdenka Veselá, "Slovakia and the Ottoman Expansion in the 16 th and 17 th Centuries," in Ottoman Rule in Middle Europe and the Balkan in the 16 th and 17 th Centuries (Prague: Oriental Institute, 1978), 5-44. 44 This border war has not yet been studied by historians. Foreign diplomats such as Hamel Bryuninx, the Dutch resident in Vienna, greatly worried that this war- which drew in increasing numbers of Turkish troops-would lead to a catastrophe (particularly in light of the ongoing Habsburg campaign against France over the Netherlands). Cf. "De Houding der Nederlanden in de Hongaarsche Geloofsvervolgingen (1674-1680)," Bijdragen en Mededeelingen van het Historisch Genootschap 40 (1919), 10-110, esp. 22-23 (report dated July 5, 1674).
  68. On Thököly and the Ottomans in 1682-83, see Vojtech Kopčan, "A török Porta Thököly-politikája," in László Benczédi, ed., Thököly-felkelé és kora (Budapest, 1983), 119-127.
  69. Turcica I, fasc. 143, Konv. C, fols. 89-94, Casanova from Edirne (May 11, 1671; fols. 118, 120r-v, Spy report (January 12, 1672).
  70. Cf. Dmitro Doroshenko, Het'man Petro Doroshenko. Ohliad ioho zhittia i politichnoi diial'nosti[=Hetman Peter Doroshenko. Review of His Life and Political Activity] (New York: Ukrains'ka Vil'na Akademiia Nauk v SShA, 1985), 411-32. Doroshenko completed this study on the eve of WWII; he noted among others the remarkable restraint of the Ottoman army that entered Ukraine in late summer 1672 ("The Turks did not commit any acts of violence against the population; they did not destroy anything; the grand vezir maintained the strictest discipline in his army," 423). By comparison the horrors committed by the Polish and Russian armies were legendary.