Körmöczi Katalin szerk.: Historical Exhibition of the Hungarian National Museum 3 - From the End of the Turkish Wars to the Millennium - The history of Hungary in the 18th and 19th centuries (Budapest, 2001)

ROOM 9. The Rákóczi War of Independence and the Anti -Turkish Wars at the Beginning of the 18th Century (Gábor Németh)

ROOM 9 The Rákóczi War of Independence and the Anti -Turkish Wars at the Beginning of the 18th Century THE RÁKÓCZI WAR OF INDEPENDENCE PERIOD (1703-11) The Rákóczi war of independence, which broke out at the beginning of the 18th century, determined the history of Hungary for a decade. The successful war of liberation against the Turks launched after the recapture of Buda claimed many lives among the civilian population, and the country, which now became a theatre of war, was oppressed by the brutalities of a foreign army and the highhandedness of the imperial generals, causing unimaginable misery and suffering. At the same time, absolutism, as represented by Leopold I of Habsburg, resorted to ever more oppressive measures, in violation of the rights of the Hungarian Estates. The Court in Vienna decided the fate of the Hungarian regions that had been won back, and demanded that landowners perform military service in order to be confirmed in the possession of their properties. Plans and proposals relating to the reconstruction and ordering of the country were drawn up by the organs and the representatives of the central government, generally without a say from the Estates. The Diploma Leopoldinum, issued in 1690, treated Transylvania as a province that was separate from Hungary. The uprising led by Imre Thököly (1657-1705) in alliance with the Turks failed. In line with the ideas of imperial absolutism, at the Diet of Pozsony, summoned in 1687, the Estates, referring to the undying merit acquired by the House of Habsburg through its expulsion of the Turks, renounced their right to elect the country's king, and recognized the Habsburgs as hereditary rulers of Hungary through the 9 male line. At the same time, they gave up the main right guaranteed them by the Golden Bull (1222), the right to resist the king. This serious and unresolved situation, compounded by the violation of the nobility's prerogatives and by increasing dissatisfaction among the peasantry, led to an anti-Habsburg insurrection at the beginning of the 18th century. In 1703, Ferenc Rákóczi 7/(1676—1735), one of the most powerful landowners in Hungary and a descendant of Transylvanian princes, placed himself at the head of the disaffected (Fig. I). Rákóczi called every "noble and non-noble" inhabitant of the country to war, promising exemption from taxes and feudal dues to serfs who joined the uprising (members of their families were similarly exempted). The War of the Spanish Succession, which had broken out earlier and which tied down Habsburg troops and resources in the West, initially created a favourable international situation. Rákóczi

's diplomacy during the war of independence sought links with France and Bavaria. Later on it attempted to enlist help from Tsar Peter I of Russia. Beginning in 1704, there were attempts at a negotiated settlement with the Court in Vienna, but these all failed, and the Diet of Ónod, held in 1707, proclaimed the dethronement of the House of Habsburg. During the time of its existence, the kuruc state evolved a structure of its own. At the Diet of Széchény, held in 1705, the allied Hungarian Estates elected Rákóczi ruling prince (he had been elected prince of Transylvania in the previous year). However, the insecure