Transylvania - The Roots of Ethnic Conflict

1. Ozorai and Sói banates (northern Bosnia), Macsói banate (northern Serbia), and Szörényi banate (northeastern Serbia and western Wallachia). See map in Bálint Hóman and Gyula Szekfû, Magyar történet [Hungarian History] (Budapest, 1942), vol. 2, between pp. 152 and 153.

2. Harold J. Grimm, The Reformation Era 1500--1650 2nd ed. (New York, 1973), p. 114. The Hungarian delegation attended the Diet of Worms and appealed to the Holy Roman Empire for help, but they left the city empty-handed on April 20, just four days after Martin Luther's arrival. The delegation was headed by István Verbõczi (or Werbõczy), a leader of the gentry. Egyed Berzeviczy, "Magyarország az 1521-iki wormsi birodalmi gyûlésen" [Hungary at the Imperial Diet of 1521 in Worms], Századok [Centuries], 39 (1905): 452--56.

3. For a definition of "second serfdom" and an account of its evolution in Hungary and its neighbors, see Béla K. Király, "The Emancipation of the Serfs of East Central Europe," Antemurale 15 (1971): 63--85.

4. Letter from Prince Zsigmond Báthory of Transylvania to György Király, commandant of Nagyvárad, dated June 2, 1597, from Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia). Sárospataki Füzetek [Sarospatak Notes], vol. 7 (1863), p. 760.

5. Imre Révész, Sr., A magyarországi protestantizmus történelme [The History of Protestantism in Hungary] (Budapest, 1925), pp. 49ff; Lajos Rácz, "Vallási türelem Erdélyben és Magyarországon a XVI--VII században" [Religious Tolerance in Transylvania and Hungary in the 16th and 17th Centuries], Protestáns Szemle [Protestant Review] 43 (1934): 198--204.

6. Sándor Bíró et al., A magyar református egyház története [History of the Hungarian Reformed Church] (Budapest, 1949), pp. 50--51; Révész, op. cit., p. 29; József S. Szabó et al., A Protestantizmus Magyarországon [Protestantism in Hungary] (Budapest, 1928), pp. 38--56; József S. Szabó, "Zwingli hatása Magyarországon" [Zwingli's Influence on Hungary], Protestáns Szemle [Protestant Review], 40 (1931): 689--94; Jenõ Sólyom, Luther és Magyarország: A reformátor kapcsolata hazánkkal haláláig [Luther and Hungary: The Reformer's Contacts with Our Country to His Death] (Budapest, 1933).

7. The Hungarian estates, the Saxon burghers, and the Szeklers --- the three "nations" --- concluded their "union" in 1437; renewed in 1547, it endured until 1848. See Benedek Jancsó, Erdély története [History of Transylvania] (Cluj, 1931); László Makkai, Erdély története [History of Transylvania] (Budapest, 1944), pp. 221--71, 358--74; Karl Kurt Klein, Saxonica Septemcastrensia (Marburg, 1971), pp. 229--58; Elemér Mályusz et al., Erdély és népei [Transylvania and Its Peoples] (Budapest, 1941), pp. 164--70; Sándor Szilágyi, "Az Erdélyi alkotmány megalakulása a szeparatio kezdetén" [The Establishment of the Constitution of Transylvania at the Outset of Separation], Századok [Centuries] 10 (1876): 36--48. The Sublime Porte watched zealously that the Habsburg government should not dominate Transylvania. In 1571 for instance, on the death of Prince János Zsigmond Zápolyai, Mustafa Pasha of Buda warned the Hungarian primate, Cardinal Antal Verancsics, against interference in Tranyslvanian affairs. László Szalay, Erdély és a porta 1567--1578 [Transylvania and the Porte, 1567--1578] (Pest, 1862), pp. 6--7.

8. Act 22, 1606. Corpus Juris hungarici 1526--1608 (Budapest, 1899), pp. 992--93. For historical perspectives on the treaty, see Ferenc Márk, "Bocskay István és a bécsi béke" [István Bocskay and the Peace of Vienna], Protestáns Szemle [Protestant Review], 16 (1904): 217--25; Etele Thurzó, "A bécsi békekötés" [The Peace Treaty of Vienna], Protestáns Szemle [Protestant Review] 18 (1906): 357--75, 447--67; Géza Antal, "A magyar protestáns egyház külföldi érintkezései" [The Hungarian Protestant Church's Connections Abroad], Protestáns Szemle [Protestant Review] 20 (1908): 65--84.

9. A specifically Hungarian office comparable to that of a viceroy, who was head of the executive branch of Hungarian government, speaker of the House of Lords, commander in chief of the armed forces, and president of one of the chambers of the Supreme Court --- a very powerful office. See Béla K. Király, Hungary in the Late Eighteenth Century: The Decline of Enlightened Despotism (New York, 1969), pp. 83, 89, 93, 103, 181, 260, 265--66.

10. ...per Palatinum, et consiliaros hungaros... ad conservandum regnum Hungariae, eiusdemque regnicolarum quietum, et utilitatem videbuntur esse necessaria; plenariam potestatem, et facultatem habeat... Corpus juris hungarici, 1526--1608, p. 962.

11. The regime of Ferenc Rákóczi II declared the Habsburg dynasty dethroned in 1707, but the Treaty of Szatmár brought his own reign to an end in 1711. The Parliament of Debrecen proclaimed the Habsburgs deposed on April 14, 1849, but Lajos Kossuth resigned his presidential authority on August 11, 1849.

12. ...nemo nisi legitime citatus, jurisque ordine convictus puniatur... Corpus juris hungarici, 1526--1608, p. 966.

13. Ibid., pp. 10--11. This requirement was reaffirmed by the Treaty of Nickolsburg (Mikulov, in modern Czechoslovakia) of 1621, the Second Treaty of Vienna of 1624, and the Treaty of Linz of 1645. This last secured freedom of religion even for individual serfs. The first Lutheran palatine (nádor) was Baron Tamás Nádasdy (1498--1562), elected in 1554. Mihály Horváth, Nádasdy Tamás élete [Life of Tamás Nádasdy] (Buda, 1838).

14. The following conditions were incorporated into Ferdinand II's coronation oath. They represented the maximum freedoms gained by the Hungarians thanks to the power of the Principality of Transylvania:

The Pacta Conventa of Ferdinand II: The Sixteen Conditions Guaranteeing to Hungary Freedom of Conscience and Constitutional Liberties.

I. The constitutional freedoms and liberties guaranteed to Hungary by the Treaty of Vienna and subsequent legislation will be honored.

II. All gravamina will be settled by future diets to be held not less often than every three years.

III. Hungary and its annexed territories will be governed by their own citizens, and no Hungarian troops will fight on foreign soil.

IV. The fortified frontier zone of Hungary will be put under Hungarian command.

V. The right of habeas corpus will be respected; only Hungarian judiciary will have the right to practice in Hungary, and they will be permitted to do so without administrative interference.

VI. Neither the crown nor the nobility will infringe freedom of conscience.

VII. The palatine will be elected.

VIII. The crown will maintain the defenses of the fortified frontier zone.

IX. The privileges of the royal free towns and the mining cities will be safeguarded.

X. The Holy Crown [of Saint Stephen] will be kept in Hungary under guard by Hungarian laymen of any accepted religion.

XI. No part of the territory of Hungary will be ceded away.

XII. Peace with Bohemia and Transylvania and other adjacent provinces will be maintained in accordance with the Treaty of Vienna.

XIII. Domestic tranquillity will be assured, and no foreign troops will be deployed [in Hungary].

XIV. Territories, towns, and strongholds under Austrian occupation will be restored to Hungary.

XV. The privileges of the hajdu soldiery will be preserved.

XVI. Ferdinand shall not intervene in the governance of Hungary so long as his father Matthias II [1608--19] lives.

Corpus juris hungarici, 1608--1657 (Budapest, 1899), pp. 175--83.

15. Protestantism indeed survived. In Hungary and Transylvania in the early nineteenth century, there were 1,971 Calvinist parishes, 737 Lutheran parishes, and 110 Unitarian parishes and 54 Unitarian affiliates (congregations without the status of parishes). István Lassu, Az ausztriai birodalomnak statisztikai, geográphiai és historiai leírása [Statistical, Geographical, and Historical Description of the Austrian Empire] (Buda, 1829), pp. 108--11. In the late nineteenth century, the religious affiliations of Hungary's various nationalities were as follows (given in percentages):

	Roman Catholic	Uniate	Orthodox	Lutheran	Calvinist	Unitarian	Jewish
Hungarians	56.0	2.1	0.2	4.0	30.8	0.8	5.6
Germans	66.5		0.3	20.2	1.3		11.4
Slovaks	68.8	5.4		23.7	0.5		1.1
Rumanians	0.3	36.7	63.3
Ruthenes	0.5	96.1	0.2				0.1
Serbs & Croats	62.2	0.4	37.0				0.1

Béla Bartha, "Statisztikai tanulmányok a magyar protestantizmusról" [Statistical Studies on Hungarian Protestantism], Protestáns Szemle [Protestant Review] 2 (1890): 39.

16. W. E. D. Allen, The Ukraine: A History (New York, 1963), pp. 111, 131, 143.

17. Count Zrínyi was a vigorous advocate of a native standing army as the one sure way to rid Hungary of Ottoman rule. To no avail, for the Habsburgs were opposed to setting up any such autonomous Hungarian army, lest it turn against them instead of the Turks. Ne bántsd a magyart: Az török áfium ellen való orvosság avagy az töröknek magyarral való békessége ellen való antidótum [Do Not Harm the Hungarians: A True Remedy for the Turkish Opiate or a True Antidote to a True Peace between the Turks and Hungarians], written in 1660 or 1661, first published in 1705, and reprinted several times thereafter; László Négyesy, ed., Gróf Zrínyi Miklós válogatott munkái [Selected Works of Count Miklós Zrínyi] (Budapest, n.d.), pp. 293--320.

18. For Habsburg efforts to mobilize European public opinion against Hungary, see Béla Köpeczi, Magyarország a kereszténység ellensége: A Thököly-felkelés az európai közvéleményben [Hungary, the Enemy of Christendom: The Thököly Insurrection in European Public Opinion] (Budapest, 1976).

19. Lt. Gen. [of the French Army] Antoine Manassés Pas, Marquis de Feuquières [the "Wizard"], Memoirs Historical and Military (London, 1736), 1:224--25.

20. Ferenc Rákóczi II of Borsi (1676--1735) was prince of Transylvania (1704--11), ruling prince of Hungary (vezérlõ fejedelem) (1705--11), and prince of the Holy Roman Empire. When his mother Ilona Zrínyi was taken captive after successfully defending the fortress of Munkács against its Habsburg besiegers for three years, Rákóczi was taken to Austria and raised there by his appointed guardian Cardinal Leopold Kollonich. The owner of 1.9 million yokes of land, Rákóczi became perpetual high sheriff of Sáros County in 1694. In 1697, he refused an offer to lead a peasant uprising, but in the face of increasing Habsburg tyranny he turned to Louis XIV in 1700 to try to enlist his support for a Fronde rather than a general insurrection in Hungary. Betrayed and arrested, Rákóczi escaped and took refuge in Poland. At the renewed invitation of insurgent leaders, he accepted what he had rejected in 1697 and on June 6, 1703, entered Hungary at the head of a small band of peasant rebels. Béla Köpeczi and Ágnes R. Várkonyi, II. Rákóczi Ferenc, 2nd ed. (Budapest, 1976). pp. 113--14. For a wealth of contemporary sources, see Köpeczi and Várkonyi. eds., Rákóczi tükör: Naplók, jelentések, emlékiratok a szabadságharcról [A Rákóczi Survey: Diaries, Reports, Memoirs from the War of Liberation] (Budapest, 1973); and Köpeczi, A Rákóczi-szabadságharc és Franciaország [The Rákóczi War of Liberation and France] (Budapest, 1966).

21. See Béla K. Király, "War and Society in Western and East Central Europe during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries: Similarities and Contrasts," idem and Gunther E. Rothenberg, eds., War and Society in East Central Europe, vol. 1 (New York, 1979), pp. 1--33.

22. Mátyás Molnár, ed., A Rákóczi-szabadságharc vitás kérdései: Tudományos emlékülés 1976. január 29--30 [Unsettled Questions of the Rákóczi War of independence: A Scholarly Memorial Conference, January 29, 30, 1976] (Vaja-Nyíregyháza, 1976).

23. Rákóczi had granted his most outstanding fighters these privileges, which were those of the hajduk. This kind of freedom had first been accorded by Prince István Bocskai of Transylvania after his insurrection of 1604--06 against the Habsburgs, which, like Rákóczi's war, had ended in compromise, the Peace of Vienna of 1606. The main strength of his insurgent army had been the hajduk, fiercely independent cattlemen-cumbandits, who fought gallantly for his cause. See Béla K. Király, ed., Tolerance and Movements of Religious Dissent in Eastern Europe (Boulder, Colo., 1975), pp. 208, 210--12. In reward Bocskai emancipated them from the jurisdiction of their lords, settled them in land-grant communities (the hajdu towns), and guaranteed them their rights to own property and to personal freedom. These privileges he conferred on all his meritorious soldiers who were not already members of the estates. The emancipated hajduk constituted the "warrior estate," a new stratum in Hungarian feudal society. The creation of the warrior estate was a subterfuge to avoid mass emancipation and to establish a kind of citizen soldiery, a well-spring of revolutionary warfare. See Ferenc Julier, Magyar hadvezérek [Hungarian Military Leaders] (Budapest, n.d.), pp. 283--316.

24. See Béla K. Király, "Prussian Diplomatic Adventure with Poland and the Feudal Revolt in Hungary, 1790," The Polish Review 12, no. 1 (Winter 1967): 3--11.

25. Paul Teleki, The Evolution of Hungary and Its Place in European history (New York, 1923), pp. 150--51. See the recent related debate "On Transylvanian Ethnicity," Current Anthropology 20, no. 1 (March 1979): 135--48. See also Gyula Kristó, "Rómaiak és vlachok Nyesztornál és Anonymusnál" [Romans and Vlachs in Nestor and Anonymus], Századok [Centuries] 112, no. 4 (1978): 623--61; Lajos Tamás, Rómaiak, románok és oláhok Dácia Trajánában [Romans, Rumanians and Vlachs in Trajan's Dacia] (Budapest, 1935).

The author wishes to express his thanks to Professor Stephen Fischer-Galati, editor of "East European Monographs," for permission to condense part of the author's study, "The Sublime Porte, Vienna, Transylvania and the Dissemination of the Protestant Reformation in Royal Hungary," in Béla K. Király, ed., Tolerance and Movements of Religious Dissent in Eastern Europe (Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs, 1975), pp. 199--221.

Transylvania - The Roots of Ethnic Conflict