Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The principality of Transylvania prospered as a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire. This ar-
rangement would remain in place for almost a century and a half.
Turkish power began to wane in the 17th century, especially after the Turkish attempt to
take Vienna was soundly defeated. Buda was liberated in 1686 and an imperial army under
Eugene of Savoy wiped out the last Turkish army in Hungary at the Battle of Zenta (now
Senta in Serbia) 11 years later.
BUDAN: BUDA ALATURKA
The Turks did little building in what they called Budan, apart from several bathhouses
still extant (Király, Rudas), dervish monasteries, and tombs, city walls and bastions;
for the most part, they used existing civic buildings for administration and converted
churches into mosques. Matthias Church on Castle Hill, for example, was hastily
turned into the Büyük Cami (Great Mosque), and the heart of the Royal Palace be-
came a gunpowder store and magazine.
Contemporary accounts suggest that Buda began to look like a Balkan city, with
copperware shops lining Kasandzhilar yolu - a transliteration of Kazancilar yolu
(Earners St) - which is today's I Szentháromság utca on Castle Hill, for example. The
nearby church of St Mary Magdalene, of which only the tower still stands, was shared
by Catholics and Protestants, who fought bitterly for every square centimetre of
space. Apparently, it was the Muslim Turks who had to keep the peace among the
Christians.
Joseph II, who ruled as Habsburg emperor from 1780 to 1790, was nicknamed the 'hatted
king' because he was never actually crowned in Hungary.
The Habsburgs
The expulsion of the Turks from Hungary at the end of the 17th century did lead to the na-
tion's independence. Buda and the rest of the country were under military occupation, and
the policies of the Catholic Habsburgs' Counter-Reformation and heavy taxation further ali-
enated the nobility. In 1703, Transylvanian prince Ferenc Rákóczi II raised an army of Hun-
garian mercenaries
(kuruc)
against the Habsburgs. The war dragged on for eight years, but
superior imperial forces and lack of funds forced the
kuruc
to negotiate a separate peace
with Vienna behind Rákóczi's back. The 1703-11 War of Independence had failed, but
Rákóczi was the first leader to unite Hungarians against the Habsburgs.
