Burgenland, Croatia, European States; Transdanubia; Transylvania
The first inhabitation of Burgenland (Hungary) dates back to the Stone Age. The Alpine lands and the fertile plains of the Danube Region were settled in prehistoric times. During the Roman Empire it formed the core of the province of Pannonia. According to Arabian sources, Great Moravia used to send its criminals against the Eastern Frankish Empire (Germany) and the Balaton principality and Bulgaria and where the Roman Empire had settled the Iazyges (a branch of the Sarmatian people who, c. 200 BC, swept westward from central Asia onto the steppes of what is now Ukraine) centuries earlier. In 900, they moved from the upper Tisza river to Transdanubia (Pannonia), which later became the core of the arising Hungarian state. Upon entering the Carpathian basin, the Magyars found a largely Slavic population there, such as the Bulgarians, Slovaks, Slovenians and Croats.
After the battle of Lechfeld at Augsburg (955), German settlers started to inhabit the area. Until the mid tenth century the western border of Hungary extended as far as the river Enns. Around 970, the marshes along the river Lajta in the Örség region were drained and the border was controlled by military communities. In 1043 a peace treaty between Kaiser Henry III and King Aba Samuel of Hungary fixed the western border of Hungary along the Leitha river (Transdanubia). Southern Transdanubia is bordered by the Danube and Drava. It is a region of forests and valleys- Hungary's hills around Budapest and in the Northern Uplands. By 100 BC the Carpathian Basin was under Celtic reign.
|
The Romans occupied Transdanubia (Western part of today's Hungary) around the birth of Christ. The Sava-valley, where Illyrian tribes lived, was occupied in 35 BC. Romans moved from province Dalmatia towards the Danube. In 11 BC Tiber reached the river, but he did not stabilise the Roman reign. This expansion was very important for Rome because barbarian tribes endangered its Northeastern borders. After many rebellions of Pannonian and Dalmatian tribes, (6 AD) Tiber's son, Drusus, occupied the territory (17 AD) and established a separated province, Pannonia, which Northern and Eastern frontier was the good defensible river Danube. At that time, new nomad ethnic group, Sarmata- Iazyges tribes, crossed the Carpathians and settled in the Hungarian Plain between the river Theiss and the river Danube. In the middle of the first century, Romans had three legions in Pannonia. These armies had an important role in 68-69 AD when they moved to Rome from Pannonia and helped Vespasian to the throne. |  |
During the Hunnic invasion in 375 AD, a group calling themselves the White Croats (as opposed to the Red Croats, who remained on the Don) retreated northwest over the Carpathians. There the White Croats intermingled with the Slavs of the central Slavic regions and adopted their language. The earliest mention of the Croatian name as Horovathos can be traced on two stone inscriptions in Greek language and script, dating from around the yeare 200, found by the Black Sea (more precisely in the seaport Tanais on the Azov sea, Krim). Both tablets are held in the Archeological museum in St Petersburg, Russia. One of the confluents to Don river near the region of Azov is called Horvatos. The Croatian name can be traced to different sites in Ukraine, also around Krakow in Poland, in Bohemia, and Austria, thus showing migrations of the Croatian tribes to their future homeland. In the Bavarian geographon (written in 666-890) there is a description of various tribes in the north of Karpatian and and Sudetian mountains, where the Croats are also mentioned.
By the 11th century, the area of today's Transylvania became a largely autonomous part of the Kingdom of Hungary. Kings of Hungary invited to settle in Transylvania the Szecklers, the Teutonic Order and the Saxons. The earliest mention of a Catholic bishopric in Bosnia dates from 1089 (i.e. from the 11th century). It was called Bosnian Bishopric, and its center was in Vrhbosna (today's Sarajevo). Deep traces were left by the Bosnian Franciscans, present on Bosnian soil since 1291, only 80 years after the foundation of the Franciscan order. In 1376 they had 35 Catholic monasteries and about 400 missionaries. In Turkish time, by a special Charter (Ahdnama, 1463) from the Sultan, the Bosnian Franciscans and their Croatian Catholics had a guaranty to live in peace and freedom in his Empire. Three Franciscan bishops in Bosnia had been killed by the Turks despite ostensible protection: in 1545, 1564, 1701, not to mention priests and ordinary people. Even some of Catholic churches built before 1463 were transformed into Muslim mosques (for example in Foca, Bihac, Jajce, Srebrenica, etc.). In the 18th century only three monastic Catholic churches were left (in Fojnica, Kraljeva Sutiska and in Kresevo), and two small churches in Podmilacje and Vares. Many small local states developed, but only in the 14th century the larger principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia emerged to fight the danger of a new threat in the form of the Ottoman Turks, who conquered Constantinople in 1453. By 1541, the entire Balkan peninsula and most of Hungary became Ottoman provinces.
Feudalism was consolidated late in Transylvania. By the 11th century, the area of today's Transylvania, a historical region in central and western Romania became a largely autonomous part of the Kingdom of Hungary.
|
The seven villages inscribed, founded by the Transylvanian Saxons, are characterized by a specific land-use system, settlement pattern and organization of the family farmstead that have been preserved since the late Middle Ages. In its early history, territory of present-day Transylvania belonged to Dacia, the Roman Empire, the Hun Empire, the Gepid Kingdom, the Kingdom of the Avars[citation needed], and the First Bulgarian Empire. The kingdom of Dacia was in existence at least as early as the beginning of the 2nd century BC and it reached its maximum extent under Burebista. The former Dacia Trajana province was controlled by the Visigoths and Carpians until they were in turn displaced and subdued by the Huns in 376, under the leadership of Attila. The Dacians rebelled frequently and due to increasing pressure from them and the Visigoths in 271, the Emperor Aurelian abandoned Dacia Trajana. The seven villages inscribed are (in order of face value): Saschiz, Darjiu, Viscri, Valea Viilor [Vorumloc], Calnic, Prejmer, and Biertan, all located in the counties of Alba, Brasov, Harghita, Mures, Sibiu, Region of Transylvania. Although the same language is spoken on both sides of the Carpathians, there is a clear cultural divide between the provinces while the Regat (Old Kingdom of Wallachia and Moldavia) is a primitive place. |  |
The region was also influenced during this period by massive Slavic migration. At the beginning of the 9th century Transylvania, along with eastern Pannonia, was incorporated into the First Bulgarian Empire followed by Magyar tribes linking it to the Principality of Hungary. By the 12th century the Szeklers were established in eastern and southeastern Transylvania as border guards and in the 12th and 13th centuries, the areas in the south and northeast were settled by German colonists called Transylvanian Saxons. Transylvania was organized according to the system of Estates.
Kings of Hungary invited to settle in Transylvania the Szecklers, the Teutonic Order and the Saxons. Ivan VI Frankapan was a master of the Royal Palace Stäkebórg, and also led the entire estate of the Royal Court in Sweden. He lived there from 1427(?) until 1433, and was a close friend to Eric VII of Pomerania, the second common King of Denmark, Sweden and Norway. How did Ivan VI get there? Well, when King Eric VII travelled to the Holly Land in 1424, he also passed through parts of Croatia. His travel back to his homeland also led him through Croatian lands. It is known that he visited Dubrovnik, Omis and Senj. It was probably in Senj that King Eric VII met Ivan VI, and made friends with him. Ivan VI Frankapan became known in Sweden as Johann Valle or Jany Franchi. During an uprising of Swedes against the Danish authorities, led by Engelbreksston, Ivan VI was at the Royal Palace. Upon his return to Croatia he became the Ban (viceroy) of Croatia.
The 15th century was also the era of Vlad Tepes, or Vlad Dracul, the Wallachian Voivode (principality) who impaled 20,000 thousand Turkish prisoners of war. Far from being the nationalist hero Romanians make him out to be, Dracul betrayed a multi-ethnic Christian force led by Hunyadi during the 1448 battle of Kossovo, going over to the side of the Turks, and costing the Christians the battle. After losing the battle of Mohács in 1526, Hungary fell to the Turks. King Louis II died shortly after this battle. The Voivode of Transylvania, John Zápolya, and Ferdinand Habsburg of Austria each claimed to be king of Hungary, and engaged in a power struggle that resulted in the tripart division of the country. Ferdinand took western Hungary, while Zápolya held Transylvania. The Turks took the central part of the country. This division would last until the 18th century.
The Báthory family came to power in 1571 and ruled Transylvania as princes under the Ottomans, and briefly under Habsburg suzerainty, until 1600. The latter period of their rule saw a four-sided conflict in Transylvania involving the Transylvanians, the Austrians, the Ottomans, and the Wallachian voivod Michael the Brave. The latter gained control of Transylvania in 1599 after the Battle of Selimbar and succeeded in uniting the three principalities of Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania- the three main parts of present-day Romania. The union did not last long, however, as Michael was assassinated by mercenaries under the command of the Habsburg general Giorgio Basta in August 1601. Basta swore allegiance to the Habsburg Emperor, Rudolph II and by 1604 reclaimed the principality for Catholicism through the Counter Reformation.
The independent principality of Transylvania was headed by elected Hungarian princes, marked by the reign of István Báthory, Prince of Transylvania, and King of Poland. Báthory is best known for his defeat of Ivan the Terrible in 1582. The Protestant Reformation, in the form of Calvinism took hold in Transylvania during this period. The Turks were finally expelled from Hungary by the end of the 17th century. Calvinist Transylvania was one of the few European countries where Roman Catholics, Calvinists, Lutherans, and Unitarians lived in mutual tolerance, but Orthodox Romanians were denied equal rights.
The Austrians defeated Prince Ferenc Rákóczi II and his kuruc freedom fighters in 1711, paving the way for Transylvania to become an Austrian province. The state of constant warfare since the 16th century had left parts of Hungary depopulated. The Austrians began a policy of resettlement in which Germans, Serbs, and Romanians were settled in traditionally Hungarian lands, such as Transylvania. This Austrian resettlement policy changed the ethnic composition of the Carpathian Basin. Some figures indicate that Magyars made up only 45 percent of the population in the Carpathian Basin (still a majority), and more specifically, 37 percent of Transylvania, with Romanians making up 49 percent, and the Saxons with 12 percent. In 1784 a bloody Wallachian peasant uprising occurred in the western mountains of Transylvania. Thousands of Hungarians were tortured, maimed and killed. The Austrian authorities put down this uprising. It was during this era that Wallachians began calling themselves "Rumanians".
From 1711 onward, the princes of Transylvania were replaced with Austrian governors and in 1765 Transylvania was declared a grand principality. The Adrianapolis Treaty of 1829 granted Russia sole control over the Danube estuary in the Black Sea. The revolutionary year 1848 was marked by a great struggle between the Hungarians, the Romanians and the Habsburg Empire. Having quashed the revolution, Austria imposed a repressive regime on Hungary, ruled Transylvania directly through a military governor and granted citizenship to the Romanians.
The 300-year long separate status of Transylvania came to an end after the Compromise from 1867. However, in the Ausgleich of 1867, which established the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the special status of Transylvania ended and it was reincorporated into the Kingdom of Hungary. While part of Austria-Hungary, a process of Magyarization affected Transylvania's Romanians and German Saxons. Transylvania had been a multi-ethnic region with Hungarian, Romanian and Saxon inhabitants since medieval times.