The dismemberment of the state (1526 – 1711). – The German-phobic national party elected King John Zapolyai (1526-40), while a weak party, grouped around the widowed queen, returning to the political conception of the fifteenth century, hoped to find in the person of Ferdinand of Habsburg (1526-64), archduke of Austria and king of Bohemia, brother of Emperor Charles V, the sovereign who would have had the strength to defend the kingdom against the attack of the Turks. King John, an ally of Francis I of France, expelled from the country by Ferdinand’s armies, took a desperate step, putting himself under the protection of the sultan together with Hungary which for a century and a half had defended the Christian world against the Turks . In general, the Hungarian nation was right to despair of its fate. King John was so weak that an Italian adventurer, Ludovico Gritti, could become governor of the kingdom; on the other hand, the hope that Charles V would send sufficient forces to his brother Ferdinand was in vain. The sad conditions of the kingdom, a consequence of the Turkish campaigns (1529, 1532) and the civil war, led the two kings to make peace in Nagyvárad (Gran Varadino) in 1538. In this treatise, King John renounced his family’s claims to the throne after his death in favor of Ferdinand so that the torn kingdom could be reunited under a single ruler. However, when Giovanni died in 1540, leaving his newborn son Giovanni Sigismondo, his faithful with Fra Giorgio Martinuzzi at the head, not having faith in Ferdinand’s strength, refused to hand over their part of the country to the Habsburgs. Ferdinand’s attempts to enforce his rights by force only led to the capture of the capital Buda by the Turks (1541). The fall of the Hungarian capital marks the beginning of the Turkish occupation and the dismemberment of the state.
During the Turkish occupation the Hungarian kingdom was nothing but a battlefield, on which the forces of the civilized West fought in vain against the Turks who did not take long to expand the borders of the occupied territory. In a short time the whole great plain with a significant part of the Oltredanubian districts was subjected to the domination of the sultan. In 1547 Ferdinando was forced to ask the sultan for peace at the price of an annual tribute.
After the capture of Buda, the sultan granted the districts located east of the Tisza with Transylvania to Giovanni Sigismondo. Fra Giorgio Martinuzzi showed himself willing to hand over Transylvania to Ferdinand, but the negotiations lasted several years, since Fra Giorgio could not hope that the Habsburg would be able to repel a punitive attack by the Turks. Finally in 1551 Martinuzzi judged the moment to attempt the great blow to be favorable; Giovanni Sigismondo and the widowed queen Isabella, indemnified by Ferdinand, left the country, but in that same year the captains of the Habsburgs (Castaldo and Sforza Pallavicini), who had not understood Fra Giorgio’s astute policy, for fear of being betrayed, they murdered the great statesman. This political error had fatal consequences. Under the pretext of avenging the death of Martinuzzi, the Turks launched new attacks on the unhappy kingdom, and despite the heroism of the Hungarian warriors they occupied new Magyar territories. Ferdinand did not know how to keep even Transylvania under his domination, whose organization into an autonomous state had begun after 1542, at the behest of the sultan and not for an immanent need of national life (v.transylvania). After five years of dominion, Ferdinand lost Transylvania (1556) where Giovanni Sigismondo returned with his mother.
During the Habsburg rule, essential changes took place in the political life of the Hungarian people. The new dynasty was mistress of several countries, but the center of its dominion, especially as a result of the Turkish danger, was beyond the borders of the Magyar kingdom. Hungary thus remained without a royal court, an essential element for the development of the nation’s cultural and political life. Furthermore, the Hungarian people gradually lost their national autarchy as well, first of all because they continually needed the help of other peoples against the Turks.
Already under King Ferdinand the most intimate advisers of the sovereign, the members of the very important secret council, were all foreigners, for the most part Germans; and foreigners were also the members of the other central organs, whose functions extended over the whole of the Habsburg territories, including Hungary. These new central bodies were the courtroom for finance and the war war council for military affairs. The ancient Magyar authorities managed, it is true, to keep the administration and jurisdiction of the kingdom in their hands, and thus maintained the autonomy of the country, but the central government ceased to be Hungarian and served the interests of a great empire in an era in which, in the dualism of the privileged classes and the central power, this the latter reached its apogee due to the natural effect of the Turkish threat, which required a continuous concentration of forces. Under Ferdinand and under his son, Maximilian (1564-76), this political evolution had no significant drawbacks, given that the royal power did not cease to be in solidarity with the national will put at the service of the fight against the Turks and the defense of the Christian world..
It was the sovereign who dealt with the material means of defense, drawn mainly from his Austrian and Bohemian provinces, from the Germanic Empire and sometimes, especially in the case of a rather serious campaign, even from the Italian states, the papacy and Spain. Great was the merit of the Habsburg dynasty in the defense of the Christian world and this defense constituted the raison d’être of the Habsburg monarchy.
The ties between Hungary and the West were not severed even in this age of harsh trials. Protestantism soon spread in Hungary after the defeat of Mohács, when the Catholic Church, after having lost its prelates on the battlefield, not being supported by the state power, saw its possessions occupied by the lords and could no longer cure itself education of the clergy. Given the social organization of the country in large estates, the conversion of a great lord to the new faith had the consequence that the population of entire districts was obliged to follow the master also in the field of faith. The doctrines of the Reformation were preached first by the Germans, such as the court preachers K. Cordatus and J. Henkel, but later also by Hungarians who had studied in Germany,dévay) and P. Melio (v.; App.), who were also decisively influenced by the Swiss reformers. Calvinism was also welcomed by Magyar elements, and the synod of Debrecen (1567) adopted the second Confessio Helvetica, but he had, in turn, to fight against the unity of the Italian reformers and Francesco David. After all, Transylvania was then the only territory in Europe where four confessions were recognized by the state (Calvinism, Lutheranism, Catholicism, Unitarianism). In the second half of the century. XVI a large part of the Magyar nation was a follower of the new faiths; it was they who offered spiritual nourishment to the Magyar souls and also carried out a very important national work with the use of the national language. The Catholic Church did not begin to assert its claims until the end of the century, thanks to the tireless work of the Jesuits and the clergy educated at the Germanic-Hungarian college in Rome.
In the second half of the sixteenth century, under the kings and emperors Maximilian and Rudolph (1576-1608), following the political address of the court directed against the state autonomy of Hungary, a certain antagonism arose between sovereign and nation. The Habsburg kings lost confidence in the Hungarian people, discontent with the insufficient defense of the kingdom by the sovereigns. Not even the so-called long campaign (1593-1608), which lasted 15 years, did not remedy the subsequent devastation of the country. In this campaign the principality of Transylvania, dominated since 1571 by the Báthory dynasty, fought alongside the Habsburgs. For the Hungarian nation, the only result of the long struggle was the terrible new devastation of the country. The Magyars understood that the warlike enterprises of The West would not have succeeded in liberating the kingdom from Turkish occupation, and would have instead resulted in the annihilation of the Hungarian race. Discontent was increased in the country by the action of the organs, especially financial ones, of the central government, as these organs behaved more than once in a manner hostile to the Hungarian people. This feeling of insecurity was exacerbated by religious movements. The desperation of the people broke out with the revolution of Stefano Bocskay (1604) who, elected prince of Transylvania, with the support of the Turks managed to occupy a large part of Hungary. Bocskay’s revolution marks the rise of a new political conception in the Hungarian land, of a politics that seeks to counterbalance Germanic power and Turkish power, thus avoiding the crushing of the bled Hungarian people. This was the political direction of Transylvania, in the century. XVII bastion of the Magyar region. In the Peace of Vienna of 1606, Bocskay ensured the free exercise of the Protestant faith in Hungary and enlarged the territory of Transylvania with several Hungarian committees. Faithful to his conception, Bocskay also knew how to put an end to the long campaign with the armistice of Zsitvatorok (mouth of the Žitva river), in which humiliating conditions were no longer imposed on the king of Hungary. However, it should not be forgotten that with the sultan there was only a relative peace, during which the incursions of the Turks did not cease to weaken the Magyar race. In the Peace of Vienna of 1606, Bocskay ensured the free exercise of the Protestant faith in Hungary and enlarged the territory of Transylvania with several Hungarian committees. Faithful to his conception, Bocskay also knew how to put an end to the long campaign with the armistice of Zsitvatorok (mouth of the Žitva river), in which humiliating conditions were no longer imposed on the king of Hungary. However, it should not be forgotten that with the sultan there was only a relative peace, during which the incursions of the Turks did not cease to weaken the Magyar race. In the Peace of Vienna of 1606, Bocskay ensured the free exercise of the Protestant faith in Hungary and enlarged the territory of Transylvania with several Hungarian committees. Faithful to his conception, Bocskay also knew how to put an end to the long campaign with the armistice of Zsitvatorok (mouth of the Žitva river), in which humiliating conditions were no longer imposed on the king of Hungary. However, it should not be forgotten that with the sultan there was only a relative peace, during which the incursions of the Turks did not cease to weaken the Magyar race. armistice of Zsitvatorok (mouth of the river Žitva), in which humiliating conditions were no longer imposed on the king of Hungary. However, it should not be forgotten that with the sultan there was only a relative peace, during which the incursions of the Turks did not cease to weaken the Magyar race. armistice of Zsitvatorok (mouth of the river Žitva), in which humiliating conditions were no longer imposed on the king of Hungary. However, it should not be forgotten that with the sultan there was only a relative peace, during which the incursions of the Turks did not cease to weaken the Magyar race.
