The roots of ethnic conflict in Transylvania go back at least as far
as the collapse of the feudal
kingdom of Hungary on the blood-soaked plains of Mohács. This
battle against the Ottoman Turks in
1526 resulted in the division and depopulation of the once powerful
and prosperous kingdom of
Matthias Rex (1458--90). The Hungary that had provided stability for
Eastern Europe for over 500
years was now subjected to depredations from both East and West. Transylvania,
which had been an
integral part of this kingdom, henceforth faced an uncertain future
as the Habsburgs and the Ottomans
attempted to consolidate their hold over northwestern and central Hungary
respectively.
The defeat at Mohács opened an age of constant conflict. The
Hungarian population was dramatically
and drastically reduced in the ceaseless military struggles. Many sections
of the former kingdom were
totally depopulated. It was during these critical years of the Turkish
wars that Transylvania gained
added significance for the peoples of Eastern Europe. The Hungarian
princes who governed it from
1541 until the end of the seventeenth century provided continuity to
the quest for Hungarian
independence. At the same time, Transylvania became a haven for the
Rumanian populations of
Wallachia and Moldavia.
The study by L. S. Domonkos provides an ethnic profile of the medieval
kingdom of Hungary on the
eve of the Battle of Mohács. It sketches the ethnic composition
and the prevailing state order of which
Transylvania was an integral part. Domonkos also shows that the relations
between these diverse
groups were not confrontational along ethnic lines.
The study by Louis J. Elteto focuses on the beginnings of the disintegration,
which in the long run
produced some of the nationality conflicts of the future. Elteto's
analysis reflects on the period that
follows the Battle of Mohács, its main concern being to outline
the impact of the Reformation on the
national consciousness of the Hungarians, Saxons, and Rumanians of
Transylvania. This period
represents for all the peoples of Transylvania an important phase in
the differentiation of their
respective self-definitions.
Béla K. Király's study is concerned with the role of Transylvania
in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries in fostering or hindering
the concept of independence for the kingdom of Hungary. As noted above,
the Battle of Mohács
signalled the end of independence for Hungarian statehood. Its division
into Habsburg and
Ottoman-occupied parts meant that the remainder, i.e., Transylvania,
was now the only hope for the
preservation of Hungarian liberty and the only political entity that
could work toward the
reestablishment of the kingdom of Hungary.
Together these three studies provide the broad background for the developments
that led to the
emergence of modern nationalism in Transylvania.
1. The Multiethnic Character of the Hungarian
Kingdom in the Later Middle Ages
by L. S. DOMONKOS
THE NATIO HUNGARICA
The Hungarian kingdom in the late Middle Ages was not a national state
in the modern sense of the
word, but a multiethnic political unit in which the Magyar nobility
held the dominant position. In this
respect Hungary is not unique, for the medieval period does not offer
examples of national states.
Hungary had within its borders a large number of non-Magyar inhabitants
in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries who were nevertheless members of the "Natio Hungarica"
or "Natio Hungarorum,"
irrespective of the ethnic background. The terms of "Natio Hungarica"
or "Natio Hungarorum" should
be viewed basically as indicators of geographic and not ethnic origin.
An individual belonged to the
"Hungarian Nation" if he or she resided under the authority of the
king of Hungary, i.e., in the lands of
the Hungarian crown.[1] Probably the clearest illustration of this
point can be drawn from late
medieval university practices. A large number of students from the
Hungarian kingdom attended the
University of Vienna in the fifteenth century, where the scholars were
divided into four "nations,"
following the model of the great University of Paris. These nations
were the Austrian, which also
included Italy; the Rhenish, comprising the Rhineland and Western Europe;
the Hungarian, with the
Slavic areas added; and the Saxon, to which belonged students from
northern and eastern Germany,
Scandinavia, and England.[2] If, for example, a student from one of
the Transylvanian Saxon towns
enrolled at the University of Vienna, as Thomas Altenberg of Szeben
(Hermannstadt, Sibiu) did in
1453, he was inscribed into the registers of the Hungarian Nation[3]
and not the Saxon Nation, for the
simple reason that he came from a territory of the Hungarian crown.
The fact that Thomas Altenberg
spoke German and might have felt more at home in the Austrian, Rhenish,
or Saxon nations at the
University does not enter the picture at all. He was, because of the
geographic location of his home, a
member of the Natio Hungarica.[4]
The Hungarian kingdom in the fifteenth century comprised a geographic
entity bounded by the
Carpathian Mountain range in the north, east, and southeast, and by
the Danube and Száva (Sava)
rivers in the south and southwest. The western border with Austria
did not follow any major
geographical barrier or line. The area of the kingdom was about 300,000
square kilometers (or 124,000
square miles) and included the regions of Hungary proper, Croatia-Slavonia,
and for a time the coast of
Dalmatia. The population of fifteenth-century Hungary (including Transylvania
but excluding
Croatia-Slavonia), has been estimated to have been between 3.4 and
4 million inhabitants. The more
conservative figure given by Erik Molnár,[5] who based his calculations
on a family unit of four
members, is probably more nearly correct than the estimates of István
Szabó, who took a five-member
peasant family as the norm.[6] It is interesting to note that in 1720,
almost 200 years after the Battle of
Mohács, the population of the same area is still 3.5 to 4 million.[7]
This gives some indication of the
devastation caused by the Turkish wars. Under the authority of the
Hungarian crown, the areas of
Transylvania and Croatia-Slavonia enjoyed a degree of autonomy in their
political and administrative
life but were parts of the regnum Hungariae. The kingdom was subdivided
into counties, of which
fifty-seven were in Hungary proper, seven in Transylvania, and seven
in the Slavonian area. South of
the Száva River frontier were a number of military districts
(bánságok), which were buffer areas
against Turkish expansion and scenes of a number of campaigns against
the Ottomans during the early
period of the reign of Matthias Corvinus.
In the early sixteenth century, Miklós Oláh (1493--1568),
humanist scholar, friend of Erasmus, and later
archbishop of Esztergom --- and as his name indicates, of Rumanian
origin --- composed an important
geographic treatise entitled "Hungaria,"[8] in which he gave an invaluable
description of the kingdom as
it was before the Turkish devastation. Oláh's work has been
studied with care by art historians, but it is
also important to us because in Chapter XIX of "Hungaria," Oláh
enumerated the various inhabitants
found in Hungary during his own lifetime. He describes these as follows:
"The territory of the
Hungarian kingdom contains in our time diverse nations, [namely] Hungarians,
Germans, Bohemians,
Slavs, Croatians, Saxons, Székelys, Vlachs, Serbs, Cumans, Jaziges,
Ruthenians, and most recently
Turks."[9] Oláh mentions twelve "nations" who resided under
the sovereignty of the Hungarian crown.
These same twelve groups were present during the 200 years prior to
the Battle of Mohács, which is
the period on which we plan to focus. It is well known that Mohács
brought about the destruction of
the medieval Hungarian monarchy and ushered in great
changes that also effected the subsequent ethnic composition of the
state, to the detriment of the once
dominant Magyar element. Following roughly the outline presented by
Oláh, let us examine the twelve
"nations" and their major characteristics during the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries.
THE MAGYAR ELEMENT AND THE SZÉKELYS
The first mentioned "nation" were the Magyars, who were the dominant
ethnic group in the Hungarian
kingdom in the late Middle Ages. Not only were the Magyars the politically
significant element, but
they also constituted the vast majority of the population. By the end
of the fifteenth century, the
kingdom was more thoroughly Hungarian than it ever was until the post-Trianon
era of the twentieth
century.[10]
Our most reliable, although unfortunately incomplete, sources of information
concerning the wealth,
size, population density, etc. of the late medieval Hungarian state
are the taxation records of 1494--95.
These were prepared during the tenure of Zsigmond Ernuszt, bishop of
Pécs and treasurer
(thesaurarius) of the realm, who in 1496 was accused of having stolen
a sizeable sum from the
treasury. In order to clear himself, Ernuszt prepared elaborate accounts
for the period 1494--95, which
are an invaluable source for the study of the social and economic conditions
of the period.[11]
Elemér Mályusz, one of the most renowned Hungarian medievalists,
estimated on the basis of taxation
documents that 77.25 percent of those employed in agricultural pursuits
in the fifteenth century were
Magyars. This is based on the analysis of the names of the taxpayers.
Mályusz also found that about
17 percent of the names were such that it is impossible to determine
the ethnic group to which the
individual belonged. Some of these were undoubtedly also Hungarians,
which would push the
percentage up further, to about 80 percent.[12]
The Magyar population was concentrated in the lower-lying regions of
the Carpathian Basin, in the
plateau areas, and in the river valleys. Since there was, for a long
period, an ample land reserve, the
less desirable areas were left to others or remained unoccupied. Particularly
strong were the
settlements in the counties of Baranya, Tolna, Bács, and Bodrog.
Towns and villages in the valleys of
the Körös, Szamos, and Maros in eastern Hungary were inhabited
predominantly by Hungarians. The
same is true of the lower valley of the Vág and Nyitra rivers
in northwestern Hungary. The evidence
presented by surviving charters and other documents from the fourteenth
and fifteenth
centuries is overwhelming: the place names are predominantly Hungarian,
indicating that the majority
of the population was in fact Magyar.[13]
If one were to draw a map showing ethnic distribution in Hungary, the
more mountainous regions
would show the presence of Slovak, Rumanian, or Ruthenian inhabitants
in large areas. This, however,
should be viewed with a certain amount of caution because of the great
differences in the density of
the population between the counties on the plain and in the Carpathian
or Transylvanian regions.
Mountains and forests can give livelihood to much smaller numbers of
people; consequently,
settlements were of more modest proportions in these regions. Furthermore,
since many of these
mountain settlements were of more recent foundation, they were also
less populous.[14] To illustrate
density of population, we must again turn to the tax lists of 1495,
which measure the number of porta
(tax-paying units) per county. There were 15,000 portas in Baranya,
11,000 in Somogy, and 10,000 in
Tolna County. At the same time there were 300 portas in Árva
County, 790 in Liptó, and 1,420 in
Zólyom[15] all located in the mountainous areas of northern
Hungary. It is clear that the population of
the Magyar-inhabited plains counties was several times the number of
inhabitants that could be found
in the border counties, which were generally more sparsely inhabited
and where the Hungarian
population was a smaller proportion of the total.
Of the fifty-seven counties that made up Hungary proper, twenty-two
counties formed a coherent
block of Magyar-inhabited areas. Around this core were twenty-six counties
where other "national" or
ethnic groups were present in larger or smaller numbers. And, finally,
there was a number of counties
in which the Magyar element was probably less than 20 percent. Seven
of these were in the
northernmost part of the kingdom: Trencsén, Árva, Turóc,
Liptó, Zólyom, Szepes, and Sáros. Two,
Máramaros County in the east and Pozsega in the southwest, had
few Hungarian inhabitants, although
even there the nobility was predominantly Magyar.[16]
In general, we can say that the weight of the Hungarian population was
to be found in the south, in
those regions that fell under Turkish domination first and remained
subjugated for the longest. It is
there that the tragedy of Hungarian history can be found. While the
southern counties would be
depopulated, the northern would be able to grow relatively unimpeded.
In 1495, there were 2.75 portas
per square kilometer in Tolna County and .80 porta per square kilometer
in Trencsén County. Yet, in
1870, Trencsén County had 258,000 inhabitants, Tolna 222,000.[17]
Two areas under the Hungarian crown but with some degree of autonomy
were the
Croatian-Slavonian region and Transylvania. The number of Hungarians
in Slavonia was small. Except
for a few members of the nobility, the percentage of Magyars in this
region was insignificant.
In Transylvania, the situation was quite different. There were three
administrative units in
Transylvania: the Saxon region (Szászföld), the Székely
region (Székelyföld), and the Seven Counties
(Belsőszolnok, Doboka, Kolozs, Torda, Küküllő,
Fehér and Hunyad). The Saxon region was obviously
German; the Székelys were Magyars; and in the seven counties
the total population was about
two-thirds Magyar, and one-third Rumanian (Vlachs, Wallachians).[18]
In some areas, the number of
Vlachs (Wallachians) was probably higher.
We have until now been concerned mainly with the peasantry, which, after
all, was the bulk of the
population. Let us now examine briefly the other segments of the Magyars,
namely the nobility and the
urban dwellers. The "political nation" was made up of the nobility,
secular and ecclesiastic, which
constituted about 5 percent of the total population. The vast majority
of these belonged to the petty or
lesser nobility, which was almost exclusively Magyar. Among the barons
and prelates, however, there
were many who rose to prominence although of non-Hungarian ancestry.
Random examples of this
can be seen in the case of the Cillei (Cilli) family, the powerful
competitors of the Hunyadis. The
Croatian-Slavonian Frangepán and Vitrovec families were also
considered barons of the Hungarian
kingdom.[19] Although some Hungarian historians have tried to disprove
that the Hunyadi family was
of Vlach (Wallachian) origin, the overwhelming evidence supports the
view that they indeed were not
Magyars, but rose in the service of the Hungarian king, received nobility,
intermarried with Magyar
noble families, and thus rose to prominence.[20] A large number of
others were also able to make this
transition, among them the famous Drágffy, Majláth, and
Nádasdi families.[21] Similarly, leaders of the
Slovak, Ruthenian, and Saxon communities made their way into the ranks
of Hungarian nobles. There
are, however, instances where the reverse situation was also evident.
Magyar nobles living in
predominantly Slovak-inhabited areas became linguistically assimilated
to their subjects, as is evident
from their correspondence by the sixteenth century.[22] Generally,
it was advantageous for any
person, regardless of ethnic background, to join the ruling class rather
than to be part of the exploited
segment of society.
Among the prelates there was also a number of important men who rose
to prominence in the
Hungarian state, although they were
ethnically not Magyars. Excellent examples of this are provided by the
careers of Archbishop János
Vitéz of Esztergom and of his nephew, the great humanist-poet
Janus Pannonius, bishop of Pécs
(Fünfkirchen). The Vitéz family was of Slavonian origin
and had intermarried with Magyar nobility.[23]
Vitéz was one of the most loyal supporters of Hunyadi, and under
Matthias was eventually rewarded
with the offices of chancellor and primate of Hungary. Janus Pannonius
was a member of the Royal
Council and privy chancellor. It was obviously ability that determined
the rise of these men and not the
question of whether they were Magyar or Slavonian. Other examples abound:
the successor of Janus
as bishop of Pécs was Zsigmond Ernuszt, whose family originated
from Austria and who was probably
partially Jewish. György Szathmári, bishop of Várad
(Oradea, Grosswardein) and later of Pécs, was
born of German parents in Kassa (Kosice, Kaschau) while Johann Filipecz,
bishop of Várad, was a
Moravian. László Vingárdi Geréb, bishop
of Transylvania, was a member of a Saxon family that made
the transition to the Magyar nobility in the course of the fifteenth
century. All these men served the
Hungarian kingdom without being of Magyar ancestry and had a strong
attachment to the "Natio
Hungarica," of which they were an integral part.
When we examine the backgrounds of the heads of the "political nation,"
namely the kings, we find that
the Hungarian kingdom was ruled by men who were, for the most part,
non-Magyars. The list of rulers
for the fifteenth century presents a curious picture. Sigismund (1378--1437)
was of the House of
Luxembourg. Although a stranger in Hungary at first, by the end of
his reign he often wore Magyar
dress, swore in Hungarian, and was buried next to his hero, Saint László,
at Várad. Albert (1437--39)
was a Habsburg, Wladislaw I (1440--44) a Pole. János Hunyadi,
regent (1446--52), was of Rumanian
ancestry; László V (1444--57) lived most of his life
abroad and probably knew little if any Hungarian.
The only "true Magyar" king was Matthias (1458--90), succeeded by the
Polish Wladislaw II
(1490--1516). The ethnically predominantly Magyar kingdom of Hungary
was ruled by non-Hungarian
kings through most of the fifteenth century.
Turning our attention away from nobles, prelates, and kings, we find
that the population of the urban
centers was predominantly non-Magyar. Hungary was slow to develop cities.
The growth of towns
before the Tatar invasion was minimal, and even in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries the number of
true cities was very small.[24] The Decree of 1514 enumerated those
cities (civitas) that by virtue of
their privileges could be counted as genuine urban centers. Altogether
there were only twenty-four in
the whole kingdom, the most important of
which were the free royal cities of Buda (Ofen), Pest, Kassa, Pozsony
(Bratislava, Pressburg),
Nagyszombat, Bártfa, Eperjes, and Sopron (Ödenburg).[25]
By 1500, however, there were about 750
market towns (oppidum, mezőváros) throughout the land.[26]
It is an interesting Hungarian
phenomenon that from the second half of the fifteenth century onward
the growth of the civitas
stagnated, while the number of oppida increased considerably.[27] The
population of the market
towns was often made up of German settlers (hospites, guests) in the
early fourteenth century. During
the course of the next 100 years, however, large numbers of Magyar
and Slavic settlers took up their
residence in the market towns. In the areas inhabited predominantly
by Hungarians, the oppida
became mainly Magyar, while in areas where the Slavic population was
the majority, their movement
to the market towns made those particular settlements Slavic.[28] Our
information about the
development of oppida in the Transylvanian area is fragmentary. The
almost complete monopoly of
the Germans as urban settlers was eventually broken down by the movement
of both Magyar and
Slavic populations into the cities and towns.
This urbanization trend was a general European phenomenon and is not
peculiar to the Hungarian
kingdom. Two obvious results of this population movement were the abandonment
of villages in many
formerly inhabited areas[29] and the increase of Magyar and Slavic
elements in the urban centers. The
fact that many towns had increasingly mixed populations made it possible
to weaken the ethnic identity
of the non-Magyars, especially of the Germans. This led in some instances
to the "Magyarization" of
some individuals, just as others lost their German identity and became
part of their Slovak environment.
In Buda, for example, the Ohnwein family became Bornemissza during
the course of the fifteenth
century.[30] In Eperjes, the entry of Magyars into town life and their
growing influence has been
demonstrated by the study of Béla Iványi.[31] Towns such
as Székesfehérvár and Esztergom were
almost completely Magyar by 1500, although they had had large French,
Flemish, and Italian
populations in the previous centuries. Szeged and Óbuda were
always Magyar. Pest was changing
from a predominantly German to predominantly Hungarian town. In Buda,
the German-speaking
population was still very strong. Only in the fifteenth century were
the Hungarians able to force the
Germans to agree to the rotation of the judgeship (judocus) so that
one year the incumbent was
German, the next Hungarian.[32] The German preponderance at Buda can
best be seen in the
organization of the parishes on Castle Hill. The Hungarian parish was
the Church of Saint Mary
Magdalena, a simpler, smaller structure. The German parish church,
named after Our Lady (today
Matthias or Coronation Church), was a far more imposing and larger structure
than the parish of the
Magyars. The laws of the capital city of Hungary were written in German
and are known as the
Ofner Stadtrecht.[33] Buda became a Hungarian city only in the twentieth
century.
Before leaving the subject of the Hungarian element, let us turn briefly
to the examination of the
Székelys (Siculi, Seklers). In origin and language, they were
Magyars and lived as a compact block in
the eastern part of Transylvania called the Székelyföld.
All the Székelys were considered noble and as
such owed military service but paid no taxes to the king.[34] The royal
representative in the region was
called the ispán (comes sicolorum), whose primary function was
to lead the Székely military units in
case of war. Their social organization still reflected the vestiges
of the clans that made up the "Székely
nation." Originally, there were seven territorial units based upon
these clans, each of which was called
a szék. From these, several subunits (fiúszék)
were formed in the course of time. At the head of each
szék there was an elected captain (hadnagy, later kapitány)
and a judge.[35] Together, all the
Székelys formed the Universitas Sicolorum, one of the three
administrative units of Transylvania. The
population was originally divided into two major classes based upon
the type of military service that
they performed; i.e., those who fought on foot were called darabant
and those who fought on
horseback, lófő. In 1473, Matthias Corvinus reorganized
them militarily and created three classes,
namely the primor, who led a troop of Székelys into battle;
the primipilatus, composed of the lófő,
who constituted the cavalry; and the pixidarius, made up of those who
fought on foot.[36]
This autonomous block of Magyar-speaking inhabitants in Transylvania
was able to retain its language,
customs and institutions throughout the late Middle Ages and for centuries
thereafter.