H. Kolba Judit szerk.: Historical Exhibition of the Hungarian National Museum Guide 2 - From the Foundation of the State until the Expulsion of the Ottomans - The history of Hungary in the 11th to 17th centuries (Budapest, 2005)

ROOM 6 - Hungary Split into Three Parts. The Ottoman Occupation (second half of the 16th century-17th century) (Ibolya Gerelyes)

ROOM 6 Hungary Split into Three Parts. The Ottoman Occupation (second half of the 16th century - 17th century) Our exhibition displays in three rooms the period of approximately two hundred years known as the age of the Ottoman occupation. In this period the Ottoman empire, which had appeared much earlier on the borders of the country and which strove for dominion over the world, took a firm stand on the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary, determining its fate until the end of the 17th century. As a result of its division into three parts, the country acquired three different faces and, despite the interactions, has left us with differing cultural achievements. In this room relics from the central territories coming under Ottoman rule are exhibited. Some of the 16th-century Renaissance relics have, for technnical reasons, been placed among the material from the occupied territories. After the fall of Nándorfehérvár (Beograd) (1521) and the occupation of the southern Hungarian defence line by the Turks ( 15211524), the capture of Buda became a possibility for the Ottoman empire. At the Battle of Mohács on August 29, 1526, a Hungarian army of 25,000 men suffered a decisive defeat at the hands of the 80,000strong army of Sultan Suleyman I (15201566). In the battle the military and governmental organization of Hungary suffered irreparable loss. The young monarch Louis II (1516-26) was drowned in the swollen Csele brook while trying to escape, and seven prelates and twenty-eight Hungarian magnates were killed on the battlefield. After the defeat at Mohács, the power lines along which the country would subsequently be split into three were already visible. When the Hungarian Estates elected two kings, John Szapolyai, voivode of Transylvania ( 1526-1540) and Ferdinand of Habsburg, archduke of Austria and king of Bohemia (1526-1564), the dissolution of the country began. Buda, the capital of the country, finallly passed into the hands of the Turks in 1541. In the years that followed, up until 1566, the Turkish wedge was thrust more and more into the body of Mediaeval Hungary. The peace treaty concluded in Adrianople in 1568 by King Maximilian I (1564-76) and Sultan Selim II (1566-74) acknowledging the Turkish gains of the years 1552 and 1566 and fixed the status quo. The treaty proved, too, that for the foreseeable future there would be no possibility of expelling the Turks and restoring the integrity of the country. The Szapolyai and Habsburg dynasties settled their relations in 1570 in the so-called Treaty of Speyer, by which Transylvania became a separate country in vassalage to the Turks while enjoying independence in its internal affairs. At the same time it acknowledged the authority of the Hungarian king from the House of Habsburg ruling over so-called Royal Hungary, which consisted of the western and northern parts of the former country. FROM THE BATTLE OF MOHÁCS TO THE TREATY OF SPEYER (1526-1570) The exhibition of the period begins with the Battle of Mohács, which has had a decisive influence on our national mind. The picture of the mass graves, excavated on the Mohács battlefield, reminds us of the fallen, both Hungarians and non-Hungarians. Linked to this is the so-called Kölesd treasure. According to tradition, the wooden chest, containing forty silver beakers and cups, was found near the Kölesd estate, in Tolna county, on the banks of the Danube. On two items of the treasure trove we find the coat of arms of the onetime owner, Ambrus Sárkány de Ákosháza, lord-lieutenant of Pozsony (Bratislava) county and later of Zala county, killed in action at Mohács. In the wooden chest posterity presumably happened upon vessels sent back from the Mohács camp which, however, never arrived.