1.
National Assembly (Hungary)
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The National Assembly is the parliament of Hungary. The unicameral body consists of 199 members elected to 4-year terms, election of members is based on a complex system involving both area and list election, parties must win at least 5% of the popular vote in order to enter the list of members of the assembly. The Assembly includes 25 standing committees to debate and report on introduced bills, the Constitutional Court of Hungary has the right to challenge legislation on the grounds of constitutionality. The assembly has met in the Hungarian Parliament Building in Budapest since 1902, the name of the legislative body was originally Parlamentum during the Middle Ages, the Diet expression gained mostly in the Early Modern period. It convened at regular intervals with interruptions during the period of 1527 to 1918, as a result of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise, it was reconstituted in 1867. Natio Hungarica was a geographic, institutional and juridico-political category, the democratic character of the Hungarian parliament was reestablished with the fall of the Iron Curtain and the end of communist dictatorship in 1989. Todays parliament is still called Országgyűlés just like in royal times, at the sixth parliamentary elections, four parties or party alliances passed the minimum threshold, the Fidesz – Hungarian Civic Union in alliance with the Christian Democratic Peoples Party. Fidesz-KDNP candidates won seats to achieve a two-thirds majority required to modify major laws. The Hungarian Socialist Party won 59 seats, while its former coalition party Alliance of Free Democrats failed to win any seats, there were two newcomers to the Országgyűlés, Jobbik and Politics Can Be Different. 1 independent got into the Parliament, winning a constituency in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County, the other prestigious party, the Hungarian Democratic Forum also lost all its seats. The President of Fidesz and Prime Minister is Viktor Orbán, pál Schmitt served as Speaker of the National Assembly until August 2010 when he became President of Hungary. He was replaced by László Kövér, after the 2010 local elections, held on the 3rd of October, Katalin Szili founded the Social Union and became its first chairperson. As a result, she quit the Hungarian Socialist Party and their parliamentarian group, continuing the parliamentarian work as formally independent MP. The heads of the factions were, MSZP, Ildikó Lendvai, Attila Mesterházy Fidesz, Tibor Navracsics KDNP, Zsolt Semjén SZDSZ, Gábor Kuncze, Mátyás Eörsi, János Kóka. MDF, the faction of MDF broke up in 2009. The head of the allied faction Fidesz-KDNP was Viktor Orbán, the head of the minority government was Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány then Gordon Bajnai. The speaker of the Assembly was Katalin Szili then Béla Katona of the MSZP
2.
Hungarian cuisine
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Hungarian or Magyar cuisine is the cuisine characteristic of the nation of Hungary and its primary ethnic group, the Magyars. Traditional Hungarian dishes are based on meats, seasonal vegetables, fruits, fresh bread, dairy products. Hungarians are especially passionate about their meat stews, casseroles, steaks, roasted pork, beef, poultry, lamb, the mixing of different varieties of meats is a traditional feature of Hungarian cuisine. Goulash, stuffed peppers, cabbage rolls, and Fatányéros are all dishes that can combine beef and pork, and sometimes mutton. Goulash is a stew with more gravy or a soup using meat with bones, paprika, caraway, in old fashioned dishes, fruits such as plums and apricots are cooked with meat or in piquant sauces/stuffings for game, roasts and other cuts. Various kinds of noodles and dumplings, potatoes, and rice are commonly served as a side dish, Hungarian sausages and winter salami are a major part of Hungarian cuisine. Other characteristics of Hungarian cuisine are the soups, desserts, and pastries and stuffed crêpes, Hungarian cuisine uses a large variety of cheeses, but the most common are túró, cream cheeses, ewe-cheese, Emmentaler, Edam and the Hungarian cheeses Trappista, Pálpusztai and Pannonia cheese. Hungarian food is spicy, due to the common use of hot paprika. Additionally, the combination of paprika, lard and yellow onions is typical of Hungarian cuisine, and the use of the thick sour cream called tejföl. Less used spices are anise, basil, chervil, chives, cloves, juniper berries, lovage, mace, poppy seeds, rosemary, savory, tarragon, thyme and creeping thyme, Hungarian cuisine has influenced the history of the Magyar people. Some of these such as ginger and saffron are no longer used in modern Hungarian cuisine. At that time and later, considerable numbers of Saxons, Armenians, Italians, Jews and Serbs settled in the Hungarian basin and in Transylvania, also contributing with different new dishes. Hungarian cuisine was influenced by Austrian cuisine under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, dishes and methods of preparation have often been borrowed from Austrian cuisine. Some cakes and sweets in Hungary show a strong German-Austrian influence, all told, modern Hungarian cuisine is a synthesis of ancient Asiatic components mixed with Germanic, Italian, and Slavic elements. The food of Hungary can be considered a pot of the continent, with a culinary base formed from its own. In Hungary, people usually have a large breakfast, even eggs, French toast called bundáskenyér and vegetables are part of the Hungarian breakfast. Sometimes breakfast is a cup of milk, tea or coffee with pastries, a bun, children can have rice pudding or Semolina Cream for breakfast topped with cocoa powder and sugar or with fruit syrup. Hot drinks are preferred for breakfast, villásreggeli is a more luxurious big breakfast given on special occasions or holidays
3.
Hungarian language
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Hungarian is the official language of Hungary and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union. Outside Hungary it is spoken by communities of Hungarian people in neighbouring countries. Like Finnish and Estonian, it belongs to the Uralic language family, its closest relatives being Mansi and it is one of several European languages not part of the Indo-European languages, and the most widely-spoken European language that does not belong to the Indo-European family. The Hungarian name for the language is magyar or magyar nyelv, the word Magyar is used as an English and Hungarian word to refer to Hungarian people as an ethnic group. Hungarian is a member of the Uralic language family, the name of Hungary could be a result of regular sound changes of Ungrian/Ugrian, and the fact that the Eastern Slavs referred to Hungarians as Ǫgry/Ǫgrove seemed to confirm that. Current literature favors the hypothesis that it comes from the name of the Turkic tribe Onogur, there are numerous regular sound correspondences between Hungarian and the other Ugric languages. For example, Hungarian /aː/ corresponds to Khanty /o/ in certain positions, for example, Hungarian ház house vs. Khanty xot house, and Hungarian száz hundred vs. Khanty sot hundred. The distance between the Ugric and Finnic languages is greater, but the correspondences are also regular, during the later half of the 19th century, a competing hypothesis proposed a Turkic affinity of Hungarian. Following an academic debate known as Az ugor-török háború, the Finno-Ugric hypothesis was concluded the sounder of the two, foremost based on work by the German linguist Josef Budenz. The traditional view argues that the Hungarian language separated from its Ugric relatives in the first half of the 1st millennium b. c. e. in western Siberia, east of the southern Urals. The Hungarians gradually changed their lifestyle from settled hunters to nomadic pastoralists, in Hungarian, Iranian loans date back to the time immediately following the breakup of Ugric and probably span well over a millennium. Among these include tehén ‘cow’, tíz ‘ten’, tej ‘milk’, increasing archaeological evidence from present-day southern Bashkortostan found in the previous decades confirms the existence of Hungarian settlements between the Volga River and Ural Mountains. The Onogurs later had a influence on the language, especially between the 5th-9th centuries. This layer of Turkic loans is large and varied, and includes words borrowed from Oghur Turkic, e. g. borjú ‘calf’, dél ‘noon, many words related to agriculture, to state administration or even to family relations have such backgrounds. Hungarian syntax and grammar were not influenced in a dramatic way during these 300 years. After the arrival of the Hungarians into the Carpathian Basin the language came into contact with different speech communities, Turkic loans from this period come mainly from the Pechenegs and Cumanians who settled in Hungary during the 12th-13th centuries, e. g. koboz ‘cobza’, komondor ‘mop dog’. Hungarian borrowed many words from especially the neighbouring Slavic languages, in exchange, these languages also borrowed words from Hungarian, e. g. Serbo-Croatian ašov from Hung ásó ‘spade’. Approximately 1. 6% of the Romanian lexicon is of Hungarian origin, on the basis of the growing genetic evidence, the accepted origin theory is contested by geneticists too
4.
Kingdom of Hungary
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The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed from the Middle Ages into the twentieth century. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the coronation of the first king Stephen I at Esztergom in about the year 1000, by the 12th century, the kingdom became a European middle power within the Western world. The House of Habsburg held the Hungarian throne after the Battle of Mohács until 1918, from 1867 territories connected to the Hungarian crown were incorporated into Austria-Hungary under the name of Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen. The monarchy ended with the deposition of the last king Charles IV in 1918, the kingdom was nominally restored during the Regency of 1920–46, ending with the Soviet occupation in 1946. From 1102 it also included Croatia, being in union with it. Today, the feast day of the first king Stephen I is a holiday in Hungary. The Latin forms Regnum Hungariae or Ungarie, Regnum Marianum, or simply Hungaria, were the used in official documents in Latin from the beginning of the kingdom to the 1840s. The German name Königreich Ungarn was used officially from 1784 to 1790, the Hungarian name was used in the 1840s, and then again from the 1860s to 1946. The non-official Hungarian name of the kingdom was Magyarország, which is still the colloquial, in Austria-Hungary, the unofficial name Transleithania was sometimes used to denote the regions of the Kingdom of Hungary. Officially, the term Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen was included for the Hungarian part of Austria-Hungary, the Hungarians led by Árpád settled the Carpathian Basin in 895, established Principality of Hungary. The Hungarians led several successful incursions to Western Europe, until they were stopped by Otto I, the principality was succeeded by the Christian Kingdom of Hungary with the coronation of St Stephen I at Esztergom on Christmas Day 1000. The first kings of the kingdom were from the Árpád dynasty and he fought against Koppány and in 998, with Bavarian help, defeated him near Veszprém. The Catholic Church received powerful support from Stephen I, who with Christian Hungarians, Stephen I of Hungary was canonized as a Catholic saint in 1083 and an Orthodox saint in 2000. After his death, a period of revolts and conflict for supremacy ensued between the royalty and the nobles, in 1051 armies of the Holy Roman Empire tried to conquer Hungary, but they were defeated at Vértes Mountain. The armies of the Holy Roman Empire continued to suffer defeats, before 1052 Peter Orseolo, a supporter of the Holy Roman Empire, was overthrown by king Samuel Aba of Hungary. This period of revolts ended during the reign of Béla I, Hungarian chroniclers praised Béla I for introducing new currency, such as the silver denarius, and for his benevolence to the former followers of his nephew, Solomon. The second greatest Hungarian king, also from the dynasty, was Ladislaus I of Hungary. He was also canonized as a saint, however, kingship over all of Croatia would not be achieved until the reign of his successor Coloman
5.
Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen
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This union of polities is sometimes denominated Archiregnum Hungaricum, pursuant to Medieval Latin terminology. Pursuant to Article 1 of the Croatian–Hungarian Settlement of 1868, this territory was defined as a state union of Kingdom of Hungary. The Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen disintegrated with the dissolution of Austria-Hungary. The Latin name Transleithania referred to the parts of the Empire beyond the Leitha River, as most of its area lay to the east of that river — or beyond it, from an Austrian perspective. Cisleithania, i. e. the Habsburg lands of the Dual Monarchy that had part of the Holy Roman Empire with Galicia and Dalmatia lay to the west — on this side — of the Leitha river. The Croatian part of Transleithania was a site, especially in times of war against The Ottoman Empire. The territory reached from the arc of the Carpathian Mountains in present-day Slovakia to the Croatian coast of the Adriatic Sea, the capital of Transleithania was Budapest. The Military Frontier was under administration until 1873-1882, when it was abolished and incorporated into Hungary proper. However, the new government faced severe problems and the growing restiveness of ethnic minorities. The First World War led to the disintegration of Austria-Hungary, and in the aftermath of the war, the Transleithanian lands were under the rule of the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I as Apostolic King of Hungary and King of Croatia and Slavonia. He was succeeded by his grand-nephew Emperor Charles I in 1916, on 18 February 1867 the Hungarian Minister-President Count Gyula Andrássy convened the diet. The Hungarian government consisted of a minister and cabinet appointed by the emperor. Joint Austro-Hungarian affairs were managed through common ministries of foreign affairs, defense, the respective ministers were responsible to delegations representing separate Austrian and Hungarian parliaments. The compromise designated that commercial and monetary policy, tariffs, the railroad, the compromise also returned Transylvania to Hungarys jurisdiction. At Franz Josephs insistence, Hungary and Croatia reached a compromise in 1868. In fact, this half of Austria-Hungary was officially defined as a union of Kingdom of Hungary. The agreement recognized the Croatias distinct identity and granted the Croats autonomy over their internal affairs, in practice, however, this autonomy was fairly limited. The Croatian Ban would now be nominated by the Hungarian prime minister, areas of common policies included finance, currency matters, commercial policy, the post office, and the railroad
6.
Early modern period
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The early modern period of modern history follows the late Middle Ages of the post-classical era. Historians in recent decades have argued that from a worldwide standpoint, the period witnessed the exploration and colonization of the Americas and the rise of sustained contacts between previously isolated parts of the globe. The historical powers became involved in trade, as the exchange of goods, plants, animals, and food crops extended to the Old World. The Columbian Exchange greatly affected the human environment, New economies and institutions emerged, becoming more sophisticated and globally articulated over the course of the early modern period. This process began in the medieval North Italian city-states, particularly Genoa, Venice, the early modern period also included the rise of the dominance of the economic theory of mercantilism. The European colonization of the Americas, Asia, and Africa occurred during the 15th to 19th centuries, the early modern trends in various regions of the world represented a shift away from medieval modes of organization, politically and economically. Historians typically date the end of the modern period when the French Revolution of the 1790s began the modern period. Early modern themes Other In 16th century China, the Ming Dynastys economy was stimulated by trade with the Portuguese, Spanish. China became involved in a new trade of goods, plants, animals. Trade with Early Modern Europe and Japan brought in massive amounts of silver, during the last decades of the Ming the flow of silver into China was greatly diminished, thereby undermining state revenues and the entire Chinese economy. This damage to the economy was compounded by the effects on agriculture of the incipient Little Ice Age, natural calamities, crop failure, the ensuing breakdown of authority and peoples livelihoods allowed rebel leaders such as Li Zicheng to challenge Ming authority. The Ming Dynasty fell around 1644 to the Qing Dynasty, which was the last ruling dynasty of China, during its reign, the Qing Dynasty became highly integrated with Chinese culture. The Azuchi-Momoyama period saw the unification that preceded the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate. The Edo period from 1600 to 1868 characterized early modern Japan, the Tokugawa shogunate was a feudal regime of Japan established by Tokugawa Ieyasu and ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family. This period gets its name from the city, Edo. The Tokugawa shogunate ruled from Edo Castle from 1603 until 1868, in 1392, General Yi Seong-gye established the Joseon Dynasty with a largely bloodless coup. Joseon experienced advances in science and culture, King Sejong the Great promulgated hangul, the Korean alphabet. The period saw various other cultural and technological advances as well as the dominance of neo-Confucianism over the entirety of Korea, during the late 16th and early 17th centuries, invasions by the neighboring Japanese and Qing Chinese nearly overran the Korean peninsula
7.
Habsburg Monarchy
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The Monarchy was a composite state composed of territories within and outside the Holy Roman Empire, united only in the person of the monarch. The dynastic capital was Vienna, except from 1583 to 1611, from 1804 to 1867 the Habsburg Monarchy was formally unified as the Austrian Empire, and from 1867 to 1918 as the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The two entities were never coterminous, as the Habsburg Monarchy covered many lands beyond the Holy Roman Empire, the monarchy had no official name. The entity had no official name, Austrian Empire, This was the official name. Note that the German version is Kaisertum Österreich, i. e. the English translation empire refers to a territory ruled by an emperor, Austria-Hungary, This was the official name. An unofficial popular name was the Danubian Monarchy also often used was the term Doppel-Monarchie meaning two states under one crowned ruler, Crownlands or crown lands, This is the name of all the individual parts of the Austrian Empire, and then of Austria-Hungary from 1867 on. The Hungarian parts of the Empire were called Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen or Lands of Holy Stephens Crown, the Bohemian Lands were called Lands of the St. Wenceslaus Crown. Burgenland came to Austria in 1921 from Hungary, Salzburg finally became Austrian in 1816 after the Napoleonic wars. Vienna, Austrias capital became a state January 1,1922, after being residence, Upper and Lower Austria, historically, were split into Austria above the Enns and Austria below the Enns. Upper Austria was enlarged after the Treaty of Teschen following the War of the Bavarian Succession by the so-called Innviertel, formerly part of Bavaria. Hereditary Lands or German Hereditary Lands or Austrian Hereditary Lands, In a narrower sense these were the original Habsburg Austrian territories, i. e. basically the Austrian lands, in a wider sense the Lands of the Bohemian Crown were also included in the Hereditary lands. The term was replaced by the term Crownlands in the 1849 March Constitution, within the Habsburg Monarchy, each province was governed according to its own particular customs. Until the mid 17th century, not all of the provinces were even necessarily ruled by the same members of the family often ruled portions of the Hereditary Lands as private apanages. An even greater attempt at centralization began in 1849 following the suppression of the revolutions of 1848. For the first time, ministers tried to transform the monarchy into a bureaucratic state ruled from Vienna. The Kingdom of Hungary, in particular, ceased to exist as a separate entity, in this system, the Kingdom of Hungary was given sovereignty and a parliament, with only a personal union and a joint foreign and military policy connecting it to the other Habsburg lands. When Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed, it was not incorporated into either half of the monarchy, instead, it was governed by the joint Ministry of Finance. Austria-Hungary collapsed under the weight of the various unsolved ethnic problems that came to a head with its defeat in World War I, to these were added in 1779 the Inn Quarter of Bavaria, and in 1803 the Bishoprics of Trent and Brixen
8.
Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867
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The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, or Composition of 1867, established the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary. The Compromise partially re-established the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Hungary, separate from, and no longer subject to, under the Compromise, the lands of the House of Habsburg were reorganized as a real union between the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary. The Cisleithanian and Transleithanian regions were governed by separate parliaments and prime ministers, the armed forces were combined with the Emperor-King as commander-in-chief. The names conventionally used for the two realms were derived from the river Leitha, or Lajta, a tributary of the Danube and the traditional border between Austrian and Magyar lands. The Leitha did not, however, form the border, nor was its whole course part of the border. Hungarian political leaders had two main goals, according to Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, only three people contributed to the compromise, There were three of us who made the agreement, Deák, Andrássy and myself. In the Middle Ages Austria was a quasi-independent state within the Holy Roman Empire, ruled by the House of Habsburg, in 1526 at the Battle of Mohács, Hungary was defeated and partially conquered by the Ottoman Empire. The young king Louis II of Hungary, who had no legitimate heir, the crown of Hungary was inherited by the Habsburgs. The Ottomans were subsequently out of Hungary in 1699. From 1526 to 1804, Austria and Hungary were in a union under the Habsburgs. In 1804, Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, who was ruler of the lands of the Habsburg Monarchy, founded the Empire of Austria. In doing so he created a formal overarching structure for the Habsburg Monarchy, until the 1848 revolution, the workings of the overarching structure and the status of its component lands stayed much the same as they had been under the composite monarchy that existed before 1804. Hungarys affairs continued to be administered by its own institutions as they had been previously, thus under the new arrangements no Imperial institutions were involved in its internal government. The Holy Roman Empire was abolished in 1806, after the Hungarian revolution of 1848-49, the independent customs system of Hungary was abolished, and Hungary became part of the unified imperial customs system on 1 October 1851. In the failed Hungarian Revolution of 1848, the Magyars came close to regaining independence, after the restoration of Habsburg power, Hungary was placed under martial law. Prime Minister Félix von Schwarzenberg and his government, operating from November 1848, the centralist March Constitution of Austria introduced the so-called neo-absolutism in Habsburg ruled territories, and it provided absolute power for the monarch. A military dictatorship was created in Hungary, every aspect of Hungarian life was put under close scrutiny and governmental control. German became the language of public administration
9.
Hungarian nobility
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The Hungarian nobility consisted of a privileged group of laymen, most of whom owned inheritable landed property, in the Kingdom of Hungary between the 1260s and 1946. Late 12th-century documents used the term noblemen in reference to the dignitaries of the royal court, most of these aristocrats were native lords, some even tracing their families origins back to tribal chiefs who lived at the time of the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin around 895. Other aristocrats were regarded as newcomers, because their ancestors came after the establishment of the kingdom around 1000, the immigrant knights contributed to the introduction of heavy cavalry and the spread of chivalric culture. According to scholarly theories, groups of Slavic or Romanian notabilities of the polities from the preceding the Hungarian conquest also survived. Beside the aristocrats, less illustrious individuals held landed property and were obliged to provide service throughout the kingdom. For instance, a group of armed serfs – the castle warriors – held estates in the lands attached to royal castles. Through the integration of the different classes of free and non-free warriors and they referred to themselves as royal servants to emphasize their direct contact to the monarch. They forced Andrew II of Hungary to spell out their liberties in the Golden Bull of 1222, the royal servants identification as noblemen was enacted in 1267. The highest royal officials had by that time were mentioned as barons of the realm, in short time, the counties transformed into the most important institutions of the self-government of noblemen. A decree of 1351 declared the principle of one and the liberty of all noblemen. Moreover, significant economic, political and social differences existed between the wealthiest noblemen and noblemen who themselves cultivated their tiny plots, the rich landowners employed impoverished noblemen in their households as their familiares. Through their familiares, they could control both the counties and the Diet, or parliament, according to customary law, only sons and male members of the noble families could inherit noble estates. Noblemens daughters were only entitled to the quarter which was to be given in money or movable property. Only the monarch had the power to promote a daughter to a son, if a nobleman died, his estates were divided among his sons in equal parts, which contributed to the impoverishment of noble families. A group of families bearing hereditary titles emerged in the middle of the 15th century. First the monarchs granted the title of count to noblemen. The law book also summarized the privileges, including their personal freedom. The Latin became the language of the nobility and it represented that Hungary belonged to the western states in the modern historical consciousness and served as a symbol of independence against German expansion
10.
Ladislaus I of Hungary
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Ladislaus I or Ladislas I, also Saint Ladislaus or Saint Ladislas was King of Hungary from 1077 and King of Croatia from 1091. He was the son of King Béla I of Hungary. Géza and Ladislaus cooperated with Solomon for the next decade, Ladislauss most popular legend, which narrates his fight with a Cuman who abducted a Hungarian girl, is connected to this period. Gézas and Ladislauss relationship with Solomon deteriorated in the early 1070s, Géza was proclaimed king in 1074, but Solomon maintained control of the western regions of his kingdom. During Gézas reign, Ladislaus was his brothers most influential adviser, Géza died in 1077, and his supporters made Ladislaus king. Solomon resisted Ladislaus with the assistance of King Henry IV of Germany, Ladislaus supported Henry IVs opponents during the Investiture Controversy. In 1081, Solomon abdicated and acknowledged Ladislauss reign, but he conspired to regain the royal crown, Ladislaus canonized the first Hungarian saints in 1085. He set Solomon free during the canonization ceremony, after a series of civil wars, Ladislauss main focus was the restoration of public safety. He introduced severe legislation, punishing those who violated property rights with death or mutilation and he occupied almost all Croatia in 1091, which marked the beginning of an expansion period for the medieval Kingdom of Hungary. Ladislauss victories over the Pechenegs and Cumans ensured the security of his kingdoms eastern borders for about 150 years and his relationship with the Holy See deteriorated during the last years of his reign, as the popes claimed that Croatia was their fief, but Ladislaus denied their claims. Ladislaus was canonized on 27 June 1192 by Pope Celestine III, legends depict him as a pious knight-king, the incarnation of the late-medieval Hungarian ideal of chivalry. He is a saint in Hungary and neighboring nations, where many churches are dedicated to him. Ladislaus was the son of the future King Béla I of Hungary and his wife, Richeza. Ladislaus and his brother, Géza, were born in Poland. Ladislauss physical and spiritual makeup testified to Gods gracious will even at his birth, the almost contemporaneous Gallus Anonymus wrote that Ladislaus was raised from childhood in Poland and almost became a Pole in his ways and life. He received a Slavic name, Ladislaus is the Hungarian version of Vladislav, Béla and his family returned to Hungary around 1048. Béla received the so-called Duchy – which encompassed one-third of the kingdom – from his brother, the Illuminated Chronicle mentions that Andrews son, Solomon, was anointed king with the consent of Duke Bela and his sons Geysa and Ladislaus in 1057 or 1058. Béla, who had been Andrews heir before Solomons coronation, left for Poland in 1059 and they returned with Polish reinforcements and began a rebellion against Andrew
11.
Coloman, King of Hungary
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Coloman the Learned, also the Book-Lover or the Bookish was King of Hungary from 1095 and King of Croatia from 1097 until his death. Because Coloman and his younger brother Álmos were underage when their father King Géza I of Hungary died, the dying King Ladislaus preferred Álmos to Coloman when nominating his heir in early 1095. Coloman fled from Hungary but returned around 19 July 1095 when his uncle died and he was crowned in early 1096, the circumstances of his accession to the throne are unknown. He granted the Hungarian Duchy—one-third of the Kingdom of Hungary—to Álmos, in the year of Colomans coronation, at least five large groups of crusaders arrived in Hungary on their way to the Holy Land. He annihilated the bands who were entering his kingdom unauthorized or pillaging the countryside and he invaded Croatia in 1097, defeating its last native king Petar Svačić. Consequently, he was crowned king of Croatia in 1102, according to the late 14th-century Pacta conventa, he was only crowned after having ratified a treaty with the leaders of the Croatian nobility. For centuries thereafter, the Hungarian monarchs were also the kings of Croatia, Coloman had to face his brothers attempts to dethrone him throughout his life, Álmos devised plots to overthrow him on at least five occasions. In retaliation, he seized his brothers duchy in 1107 or 1108 and had Álmos and Álmos son Béla blinded in about 1114, Hungarian chronicles, which were compiled in the reigns of kings descending from his mutilated brother and nephew, depict Coloman as a bloodthirsty and unfortunate monarch. On the other hand, he is portrayed as the most well-versed in the science of letters among all the kings of his day by the contemporaneous chronicler Gallus Anonymus. Colomans decrees, which governed many aspects of life—including taxation, trade and he was the first Hungarian king to renounce control of the appointment of prelates in his realms. Coloman was the elder of the two sons of King Géza I who survived infancy, Gézas Byzantine second wife—whose baptismal name is unknown—left Hungary after her husbands death, implying that she was not his childrens mother. Consequently, the mother of Coloman and his brother, Álmos, must have been Gézas first wife, Sophia. According to historians Gyula Kristó and Márta Font, the brothers were born around 1070, Colomans uncommon baptismal name was recorded as Colomanus or Colombanus in medieval documents written in Latin. Kristó writes that he was most probably named after Saint Coloman of Stockerau, another possibility is that his name is of Turkish origin, because his brother bore a Turkish name. Colomans father ascended the throne in 1074, because Coloman and Álmos were minors when he died on 25 April 1077, Gézas brother Ladislaus I succeeded him. The new king decided that Coloman should be prepared for a career in the Church, the kings decision was unusual as Coloman was older than Álmos and elder brothers were rarely ordained priests. If the chronicle preserved genuine tradition of his appearance, his physical deformity may have influenced his uncles decision, however, modern scholars tend to refute this view, emphasizing that the chronicle was completed in the reigns of kings descending from Álmos. In preparation for his life, Coloman learnt to read and write
12.
Andrew II of Hungary
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Andrew II, also known as Andrew of Jerusalem, was King of Hungary and Croatia between 1205 and 1235. He ruled the Principality of Halych from 1188 until 1189/1190, and he was the younger son of Béla III of Hungary, who entrusted him with the administration of the newly conquered Principality of Halych in 1188. Andrews rule was unpopular, and the boyars expelled him, Béla III willed property and money to Andrew, obliging him to lead a crusade to the Holy Land. Instead, Andrew forced his brother, King Emeric of Hungary. The following year, Andrew occupied Hum, despite the fact that Andrew did not stop conspiring against Emeric, the dying king made Andrew guardian of his son, Ladislaus III, in 1204. After the premature death of Ladislaus, Andrew ascended the throne in 1205, Andrew introduced a new grants policy, the so-called new institutions, giving away money and royal estates to his partisans despite the loss of royal revenues. He was the first Hungarian monarch to adopt the title of King of Halych and he waged at least a dozen wars to seize the two Rus principalities, but the local boyars and neighboring princes prevented him from conquering the principalities. He participated in the Fifth Crusade to the Holy Land in 1217–1218, when the servientes regis, or royal servants, rose up, Andrew was forced to issue the Golden Bull of 1222, confirming their privileges. This led to the rise of the nobility in the Kingdom of Hungary and his Diploma Andreanum of 1224 listed the liberties of the Transylvanian Saxon community. The employment of Jews and Muslims to administer the royal revenues led him into conflict with the Holy See, Andrew pledged to respect the privileges of the clergymen and to dismiss his non-Christian officials in 1233, but he never fulfilled the latter promise. Andrews first wife, Gertrude of Merania, was murdered in 1213, because her blatant favoritism towards her German kinsmen, the veneration of their daughter, Elizabeth of Hungary, was confirmed by the Holy See during Andrews lifetime. After Andrews death, his sons, Béla and Coloman, accused his wife, Beatrice dEste, of adultery and never considered her son, Stephen. Andrew was the son of King Béla III and Bélas first wife. The year of Andrews birth is not known, but modern historians agree that he was born around 1177, Andrew was first mentioned in connection to his fathers invasion of the Principality of Halych in 1188. That year, Béla III invaded Halych upon the request of its prince, Vladimir II Yaroslavich. Béla forced the new prince, Roman Mstislavich, to flee, after conquering Halych, he granted it to Andrew. Béla also captured Vladimir Yaroslavich and imprisoned him in Hungary, after Bélas withdrawal from Halych, Roman Mstislavich returned with the assistance of Rurik Rostislavich, Prince of Belgorod Kievsky. They tried to expel Andrew and his Hungarian retinue, but the Hungarians routed the forces of Mstislavich and Rostislavich
13.
Golden Bull of 1222
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The Golden Bull of 1222 was a golden bull, or edict, issued by King Andrew II of Hungary. King Andrew II was forced by his nobles to accept the Golden Bull, the Golden Bull was issued at the year 1222 diet of Fehérvár. The law established the rights of the Hungarian nobility, including the right to disobey the King when he acted contrary to law. The nobles and the church were freed from all taxes and could not be forced to go to war outside of Hungary and were not obligated to finance it and this was also a historically important document because it set down the principles of equality for all of the nations nobility. The charters creation was influenced by the emergence of a nobility middle class, as a regular gesture of generosity, King Andrew often donated property to particularly faithful servants, who thereafter gained new economic and class power. It may even have inspired by Magna Carta, as its greatest supporters met with exiled Magna Carta leaders such as Robert Fitzwalter during the Fifth Crusade. The Full Text of the Laws Martyn Rady, Hungary and the Golden Bull of 1222
14.
Charles I of Hungary
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Charles I, also known as Charles Robert was King of Hungary and Croatia from 1308 to his death. He was a member of the Capetian House of Anjou and the son of Charles Martel. His father was the eldest son of Charles II of Naples and she laid claim to Hungary after her brother, Ladislaus IV of Hungary, died in 1290, but the Hungarian prelates and lords elected her cousin, Andrew III, king. Instead of abandoning her claim to Hungary, she transferred it to her son, Charles Martel, on the other hand, her husband, Charles II of Naples, made their third son, Robert, heir to the Kingdom of Naples, thus disinheriting Charles. Charles came to the Kingdom of Hungary upon the invitation of an influential Croatian lord, Paul Šubić, Andrew III died on 14 January 1301, and within four months Charles was crowned king, but with a provisional crown instead of the Holy Crown of Hungary. Most Hungarian noblemen refused to yield to him and elected Wenceslaus of Bohemia king, Charles withdrew to the southern regions of the kingdom. Pope Boniface VIII acknowledged Charles as the king in 1303. Wenceslaus abdicated in favor of Otto of Bavaria in 1305, because it had no central government, the Kingdom of Hungary had disintegrated into a dozen provinces, each headed by a powerful nobleman, or oligarch. One of those oligarchs, Ladislaus Kán, captured and imprisoned Otto of Bavaria in 1307. Charles was elected king in Pest on 27 November 1308, Charles won his first decisive victory in the Battle of Rozgony on 15 June 1312. After that his troops seized most fortresses of the powerful Aba family, during the next decade, Charles restored royal power primarily with the assistance of the prelates and lesser noblemen in most regions of the kingdom. He was not able to hinder the development of Wallachia into an independent principality after his defeat in the Battle of Posada in 1330. Charless contemporaries described his defeat in battle as a punishment from God for his cruel revenge against the family of Felician Záh who had attempted to slaughter the royal family. In the second half of his reign, Charles did not hold Diets and he established the Order of Saint George, which was the first secular order of knights. He promoted the opening of new mines, which made Hungary the largest producer of gold in Europe. The first Hungarian gold coins were minted during his reign, at the congress of Visegrád in 1335, he mediated a reconciliation between two neighboring monarchs, John of Bohemia and Casimir III of Poland. Treaties signed at the congress also contributed to the development of new commercial routes linking Hungary with Western Europe. Charless efforts to reunite Hungary, together with his administrative and economic reforms, established the basis for the achievements of his successor, Charles was the only son of Charles Martel, Prince of Salerno, and his wife, Clemence of Austria
15.
Matthias Corvinus
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Matthias Corvinus, also called Matthias I, was King of Hungary and Croatia from 1458 to 1490. After conducting several military campaigns, he was elected King of Bohemia in 1469 and he was the son of John Hunyadi, Regent of Hungary, who died in 1456. In 1457, Matthias was imprisoned along with his brother, Ladislaus Hunyadi. Ladislaus Hunyadi was executed, causing a rebellion that forced King Ladislaus to flee Hungary, after the King died unexpectedly, Matthiass uncle Michael Szilágyi persuaded the Estates to unanimously proclaim Matthias king on 24 January 1458. He began his rule under his uncles guardianship, but he took control of government within two weeks. As king, Matthias waged wars against the Czech mercenaries who dominated Upper Hungary and against Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor, in this period, the Ottoman Empire conquered Serbia and Bosnia, terminating the zone of buffer states along the southern frontiers of the Kingdom of Hungary. Matthias signed a treaty with Frederick III in 1463, acknowledging the Emperors right to style himself King of Hungary. The Emperor returned the Holy Crown of Hungary with which Matthias was crowned on 29 April 1464, in this year, Matthias invaded the territories that had recently been occupied by the Ottomans and seized fortresses in Bosnia. He soon realized he could expect no aid from the Christian powers. Matthias introduced new taxes and regularly collected extraordinary taxes and these measures caused a rebellion in Transylvania in 1467, but he subdued the rebels. The next year, Matthias declared war on George of Poděbrady, the Hussite King of Bohemia, and conquered Moravia, Silesia, and Lausitz, but he could not occupy Bohemia proper. The Catholic Estates proclaimed him King of Bohemia on 3 May 1469, instead, they elected Vladislaus Jagiellon, the eldest son of Casimir IV of Poland. A group of Hungarian prelates and lords offered the throne to Vladislauss younger brother Casimir, having routed the united troops of Casimir IV and Vladislaus at Breslau in Silesia in late 1474, Matthias turned against the Ottomans, who had devastated the eastern parts of Hungary. He sent reinforcements to Stephen the Great, Prince of Moldavia, in 1476, Matthias besieged and seized Šabac, an important Ottoman border fort. He concluded a treaty with Vladislaus Jagiellon in 1478, confirming the division of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown between them. Matthias waged a war against Emperor Frederick and occupied Lower Austria between 1482 and 1487, Matthias patronized art and science, his royal library, the Bibliotheca Corviniana, was one of the largest collections of books in Europe. With his patronage, Hungary became the first country to embrace the Renaissance from Italy, as Matthias the Just, the monarch who wandered among his subjects in disguise, he remains a popular hero of Hungarian folk tales. Matthias was born in Kolozsvár on 23 February 1443 and he was the second son of John Hunyadi and his wife, Elisabeth Szilágyi
16.
Vladislaus II of Hungary
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Vladislaus II, also known as Vladislav II, Władysław II or Wladislas II, was King of Bohemia from 1471 to 1516, and King of Hungary and Croatia from 1490 to 1516. As the eldest son of Casimir IV Jagiellon, he was expected to inherit Poland, George of Poděbrady, the Hussite ruler of Bohemia, offered to make Vladislaus his heir in 1468. Poděbrady needed Casimir IVs support against the rebellious Catholic noblemen and their ally, Matthias Corvinus, the Diet of Bohemia elected Vladislaus king after Poděbradys death, but he could only rule Bohemia proper, because Matthias occupied Moravia, Silesia and Lusatia. Vladislaus tried to reconquer the three provinces with his fathers assistance, but Matthias repelled them, Vladislaus and Matthias divided the Lands of the Bohemian Crown in the Peace of Olomouc in 1479. The Estates of the realm had strengthened their position during the war between the two kings, Vladislauss attempts to promote the Catholics caused a rebellion in Prague and other towns in 1483, forcing him to acknowledge the dominance of the Hussites in the municipal assemblies. The Diet confirmed the right of the Bohemian noblemen and commoners to freely adhere either to Hussitism or Catholicism in 1485, after Matthias Corvinus seized Silesian duchies to grant them to his illegitimate son, John Corvinus, Vladislaus made new alliances against him in the late 1480s. Vladislaus laid claim to Hungary after Matthiass death, the Diet of Hungary elected him king after his supporters defeated John Corvinus. The other two claimants, Maximilian of Habsburg and Vladislauss brother, John Albert, invaded Hungary, but they could not assert their claim and he settled in Buda, enabling the Estates of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Lusatia to take full charge of state administration. In Hungary, Vladislaus always approved the decisions of the Royal Council and they even annexed territories in Croatia after annihilating the united army of the Croatian barons in the Battle of Krbava Field in 1493. Vladislaus was the eldest son of Casimir IV, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania and she was the daughter of Albert, King of the Romans, Hungary and Bohemia. Vladislaus was born in Kraków on 1 March 1456 and his mother and father laid claim to Hungary and Bohemia after her childless brother, Ladislaus the Posthumous, died on 23 November 1457. However, their claims were ignored in both Hungary and Bohemia, the Diet of Hungary elected Matthias Corvinus king on 24 January 1458. The Bohemian Estates of the realm proclaimed the Hussite George of Poděbrady king on 2 March, Vladislaus was his fathers heir in Poland and Lithuania. Casimir IV wanted to prepare all his sons for ruling a realm, the historian Jan Długosz was Vladislauss tutor. Pope Paul II excommunicated George of Poděbrady in late 1466 and proclaimed a crusade against him, the Czech Catholic noblemen rose up against the heretic Poděbrady and sought assistance from Matthias Corvinus. Matthias declared war in March 1468 and invaded Moravia, on 16 May 1468, Poděbrady offered Casimir IV to make Vladislaus his heir if Casimir mediated a peace treaty between Bohemia and Hungary. Matthias refused Casimirs offer, but Poděbrady forced him to sign a truce in early 1469, fearing of losing Matthiass support, the Catholic nobles proclaimed him king of Bohemia in Olomouc on 3 May. After Poděbrady repeated his offer of bequeathing Bohemia to Vladislaus, Casimir IV entered into negotiations with the Holy Roman Emperor, Poděbrady died on 22 March 1471
17.
Louis II of Hungary
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Louis II was King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia from 1516 to 1526. He was killed during the Battle of Mohács fighting the Ottomans, born prematurely in Buda on 1 July 1506, the court doctors kept him alive by slaying animals and wrapping him in their warm carcasses as a primitive incubator. He was the son of Vladislaus II Jagiellon and his third wife. In 1515 Louis II was married to Mary of Austria, granddaughter of Emperor Maximilian I and his sister Anne was married to Marys brother Ferdinand, then a governor on behalf of his brother Charles V, and later Emperor Ferdinand I. As king of Bohemia, Louis II became known as Ludovicus the Child, the first thaler coins were minted during his reign in Bohemia, later giving the name to the dollars used in different countries. After his fathers death in 1516, the minor Louis II ascended to the throne of Hungary, Louis was adopted by the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I in 1515. When Maximilian I died in 1519, Louis was raised by his guardian, his cousin George. Following the accession to the throne of Suleiman I, the sultan sent an ambassador to Louis II to collect the tribute that Hungary had been subjected to. Louis refused to pay tribute and had the Ottoman ambassador executed. Louis believed that the Papal States and other Christian States including Charles V and this event hastened the fall of Hungary. Hungary was in a state of anarchy in 1520 under the rule of the magnates. The kings finances were a shambles, he borrowed to meet his household expenses despite the fact that they totaled about one-third of the national income. The countrys defenses weakened as border guards went unpaid, fortresses fell into disrepair, in 1521 Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent was well aware of Hungarys weakness. The Ottoman Empire declared war on the Kingdom of Hungary, Suleiman postponed his plan to besiege Rhodes, Louis failed to coordinate and gather his forces. At the same time, Hungary was unable to get assistance from other European states, Belgrade and many strategic castles in Serbia were captured by the Ottomans. This was disastrous for Louis kingdom, without the important cities of Belgrade and Šabac, Hungary. After the siege of Rhodes, in 1526 Suleiman made an expedition to subdue all of Hungary. Louis made an error when he tried to stop the Ottoman army in an open field battle with a medieval army, insufficient firearms
18.
Arad, Romania
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Arad is the capital city of Arad County, historically situated in the region of Crișana, and having recently extended on the left bank of the Mureș river, in Banat region of western Romania. It had one of the first music conservatories in Europe, the city has a population of 159,704, making it the 12th largest city in Romania. Arad is the third largest city in the part of the country, behind Timișoara. Arad was first mentioned in documents in the 11th century, the Ottoman Empire conquered the region from Hungary in 1551 and kept it until the Peace of Karlowitz of 1699. Arad became a center, which comprised the sanjaks of Arad, Lugoj, Kacaș, Beşlek and Yanova from 1660 till 1697. After 1699, the city was ruled by the Habsburg Monarchy, at the beginning of 18th century, Arad became center of Eastern Orthodox Eparchy of Arad. According to 1720 data, the population of the city was composed of 177 Romanian families,162 Serbian, the first Jew allowed to settle inside the city was Isac Elias in 1717. Eventually the Jewish population of Arad numbered over 10,000 people, more than 10% of the population, the new fortress was built between 1763 and 1783. Although it was small, it proved formidable having played a role in the Hungarian struggle for independence in 1849. The city possesses a museum containing relics of war of independence. It was from Arad that Lajos Kossuth issued his famous proclamation, the fortress was recaptured shortly after the surrender at Világos, with the surrender of general Artúr Görgey to the Russians. Thirteen rebel generals were executed there on 6 October 1849, by order of the Austrian general Julius Jacob von Haynau and these men are known collectively as the 13 Martyrs of Arad, and since then Arad is considered the Hungarian Golgotha. One of the public squares contains a monument, erected in their memory. It consists of a figure of Hungary, with four allegorical groups. Arad enjoyed great development in the 19th century. In 1834 it was declared a royal town by Emperor Francis I of Austria. Aradu Nou / Neu Arad / Újarad, situated on the bank of the Mureș river, is a neighborhood of Arad. It was founded during the Turkish wars of the 17th century, the works erected by the Turks for the capture of the fortress of Arad formed the nucleus of the new settlement
19.
Buda
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Buda is the former capital of the Kingdom of Hungary and since 1873 the western part of the current Hungarian capital Budapest on the west bank of the Danube. Buda comprises about one-third of Budapests complete territory and is mostly wooded, notable landmarks include the Buda Castle and the Citadella. The Hungarian presidents residence, Sándor Palace, is also in Buda, Buda became part of Ottoman-ruled central Hungary from 1541 to 1686. It was the capital of the province of Budin during the Ottoman era, by the middle of the seventeenth century Buda had become majority Muslim, largely resulting from an influx of Balkan Muslims. In 1686, two years after the siege of Buda, a renewed European campaign was started to enter Buda. After the reconquest of Buda, bourgeoisie from different parts of southern Germany moved into the almost deserted city, germans — also clinging to their language — partly crowded out, partly assimilated the Hungarians and Serbians they had found here. As the rural population moved into Buda, in the 19th century slowly Hungarians became the majority there. Edmund Hauler, classicist and philologist Andrew III of Hungary, buried in the Greyfriars Church in Buda Jadwiga of Poland, born here, first, capestrano, Italy Pest Óbuda Buda Castle Richard Brookes, Buda, The General Gazetteer, London, J. F. C. John Thomson, Buda, New Universal Gazetteer and Geographical Dictionary, London, H. G. Bohn Charles Knight, drawings of Castle Buda over the centuries
20.
Pest, Hungary
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Pest is the eastern, mostly flat part of Budapest, Hungary, comprising about two thirds of the citys territory. It is separated from Buda, the part of Budapest. Among its most notable parts are the Inner City, including the Hungarian Parliament, Heroes Square, in colloquial Hungarian, Pest is often used for the whole capital of Budapest. The name Pest comes from a Slavic word meaning furnace, oven, related to the word пещера, Pest was a separate independent city, references to which appear in writings dating back to 1148. In earlier centuries there were ancient Celtic and Roman settlements there, Pest became an important economic center during 11th–13th centuries. It was destroyed in the 1241 Mongol invasion of Hungary but rebuilt once again soon thereafter. In 1838 it was flooded by the Danube, parts of the city were under as much as eight feet of water, in 1849 the first suspension bridge, the Széchenyi Chain Bridge, was constructed across the Danube connecting Pest with Buda. Consequently, in 1873, the two cities were unified with Óbuda to become Budapest, writer, statesman and magician László Teleki, Theodor Herzl, Mary Katherine Horony Cummings and Harry Houdini are from Pest. Budapest Inner City Pest County Újpest Kispest Pestszentlőrinc Buda Óbuda Beksics, Gusztáv, Magyarosodás és magyarositás
21.
Bratislava
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Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia, and with a population of about 450,000, the countrys largest city. The greater metropolitan area is home to more than 650,000 people, Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia, occupying both banks of the River Danube and the left bank of the River Morava. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the national capital that borders two sovereign states. The history of the city has strongly influenced by people of different nations and religions, namely by Austrians, Croats, Czechs, Germans, Hungarians, Jews, Serbs. The city served as the site and legislative center of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1536 to 1783. Bratislava is the political, cultural and economic centre of Slovakia and it is the seat of the Slovak president, the parliament and the Slovak Executive. It is home to several universities, museums, theatres, galleries, many of Slovakias large businesses and financial institutions also have headquarters there. The capital of Slovakia is the eighth best city for freelancers to live in, mostly because of fast internet, in 2017, Bratislava was ranked as the third richest region of the European Union by GDP per capita. GDP at purchasing power parity is about three times higher than in other Slovak regions, the city received its contemporary name in 1919. Beforehand it was known in English by its German name, Pressburg, as it was long dominated by Austrians. This is the term which the German, the pre-1919 Slovak, the citys Hungarian name, Pozsony, was given after the castles first castellan, Poson. The origin of the name is unclear, it come from the Czech Pos or the German Poscho. Hungarian speakers still use the Hungarian name, Pozsony, the medieval settlement Brezalauspurc is sometimes attributed to Bratislava, however the actual location of Brezalauspurc is under scholarly debate. The citys modern name is credited to Pavel Jozef Šafáriks misinterpretation of Braslav as Bratislav when analyzing medieval sources, thus coming up with the term Břetislaw, during the revolution of 1918–1919, the name Wilsonov or Wilsonstadt was proposed by American Slovaks, as he supported national self-determination. The name Bratislava, which was used only by some Slovak patriots. The name Pressburg was also used in English-language publications until 1919, in older documents, confusion can be caused by the Latin forms Bratislavia, Wratislavia etc. which refer to Wrocław, Poland – not to Bratislava. The first known permanent settlement of the area began with the Linear Pottery Culture, about 200 BC, the Celtic Boii tribe founded the first significant settlement, a fortified town known as an oppidum. They also established a mint, producing silver coins known as biatecs, the area fell under Roman influence from the 1st to the 4th century AD and was made part of the Danubian Limes, a border defence system
22.
Szeged
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Szeged is the third largest city of Hungary, the largest city and regional centre of the Southern Great Plain and the county seat of Csongrád county. The University of Szeged is one of the most distinguished universities in Hungary, the famous Szeged Open Air Festival is one of the main attractions, held every summer and celebrated as the Day of the City on May 21. The name Szeged might come from an old Hungarian word for corner, others say it derives from the Hungarian word sziget which means island. Others still contend that szeg means dark blond – a reference to the color of the water where the rivers Tisza, Szeged and its area have been inhabited since ancient times. Ptolemy mentions the oldest known name of the city, Partiscum and it is possible that Attila, king of the Huns had his seat somewhere in this area. The name Szeged was first mentioned in 1183, in a document of King Béla III, today only one corner of the castle still remains standing. During the Mongol invasion the town was destroyed and its inhabitants fled to the nearby swamps, King Sigismund of Luxembourg had a wall built around the town. Szeged was raised to free royal town status in 1498, Szeged was first pillaged by the Turkish army on 28 September 1526, but was occupied only in 1543, and became an administrative centre of the Ottomans. The town was a sanjak centre first in Budin Eyaleti, after in Eğri Eyaleti, the town was freed from Turkish rule on 23 October 1686, and regained the free royal town status in 1715. In 1719, Szeged received its coat of arms from Charles III, during the next several years, Szeged grew and prospered. Piarist monks arrived in Szeged in 1719 and opened a new school in 1721. Szeged also held lectures and theatrical plays. These years brought not only prosperity but also enlightenment, between 1728 and 1744 witch trials were frequent in the town, with the Szeged witch trials of 1728-29 perhaps being the largest. In 1720, the population of the city totalled 193 households, Szeged is known as the home of paprika, a spice made from dried, powdered capsicum fruits. Paprika arrived in Hungary in the half of the 16th century as an ornamental plant. About 100 years later the plant was cultivated as an herb, Szeged is also famous for their szekelygulyas, a goulash made with pork, sauerkraut and sour cream. And also famous for their halászlé, fish made of carp. The citizens of Szeged played an important part in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, lajos Kossuth delivered his famous speech here
23.
Tata, Hungary
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Tata, is a town in Komárom-Esztergom county, northwestern Hungary,9 km northwest of the county town Tatabánya. Tata is located in the valley between the Gerecse Mountains and Vértes Mountains, some 70 km from Budapest, the Hungarian capital city, by virtue of its location, it is a railway and road junction. Motorway M1 from Vienna to Budapest passes through the city limits. According to the 2001 census, the town has 23,937 inhabitants,93. 3% Hungarians,1. 6% Germans,0. 6% Roma,0. 2% Slovaks and 6. 5% other. The area has been inhabited since prehistoric times, archaeological findings date back to 50,000 BCE, later it was a Roman settlement. The first known mention of Tata is from 1221 and its castle was built by the Lackfi family and had its prime under Matthias Corvinus, who had it rebuilt in a Renaissance style. In 1526 when the battle with the Turks happened and Louis II died in the battlefield. The plundering Ottoman army ransacked the area, but Cseszneky successfully defended the castle, during the Ottoman occupation, the castle of Tata was an important fortress. It was captured in 1543 by the Turks, during this period the castle had many different owners until it was burned down by the Habsburgs in retaliation for the Rákóczis War of Independence. In 1727, Count József Esterházy bought Tata and the surrounding villages, the town prospered, in 1765 it already had a secondary school. Tata and the adjoining village Tóváros are built around a lake, Tata on the hillside. Between them there is the Esterházy mansion and an old castle with archive, the theatre was built in 1889. The mansion is surrounded by the beautiful English garden, in 1938, the village of Tóváros was annexed to Tata, which was renamed Tatatóváros for a short while, one year later it was named Tata again. It was granted town status in 1954, media related to Tata at Wikimedia Commons Official website Tata photo gallery Tata at funiq. hu
24.
Trnava
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Trnava is a city in western Slovakia,47 km to the north-east of Bratislava, on the Trnávka river. It is the capital of a kraj and of an okres and it is the seat of a Roman Catholic archbishopric. The city has a historic center, because of the many churches within its city walls, Trnava has often been called parva Roma, i. e. Little Rome, or more recently, the Slovak Rome. The name of the city is derived from the Slovak word tŕnie which characterized the banks in the region. The Hungarian name originates from the Hungarian word szombat, referring to the weekly market held on Saturdays. The varieties of the name in different languages include German, Tyrnau, Hungarian, Nagyszombat and Latin, permanent settlements on the citys territory are known from the Neolithic period onwards. During the Middle Ages, an important market settlement arose here at the junction of two important roads – from Bohemia to Hungary and from the Mediterranean to Poland, the first written reference to Trnava dates from 1211. In 1238, Trnava was the first town in Slovakia to be granted a charter by the king. The former agricultural center gradually became a center of manufacture, trade, by the early 13th century, the king of Hungary had invited numerous Germans to settle in Trnava, this settlement increased after the Tatar invasion in 1242. At the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries, a part of Trnava was enclosed by very long city walls, the original Slovak market settlement and the Germans stayed behind this wall. The temporary German majority in Trnavas population yielded in favour of the Slovaks during the campaigns undertaken by the Czech Hussites in the 15th century, the Hussites opposed Germans and made Trnava the center of their campaigns in northwestern Kingdom of Hungary from 1432 to 1435. The cathedrals of the archbishopric were the Saint John the Baptist Cathedral, many ethnic Hungarians fleeing from the Turks moved to the town after 1541 from present-day Hungary. In the 16th and especially the 17th century, Trnava was an important center of the Counter-Reformation in the Kingdom of Hungary, the Archbishop Nicolas Oláh invited the Jesuits to Trnava in 1561 in order to develop the municipal school system. Subsequently, he had a seminary opened in 1566 and in 1577 Trnava’s priest Nicolas Telegdi founded a house in the town. The first Catholic Bible translation into Hungarian was also completed in the town by the Jesuit György Káldi who was there in 1573. On 26 December 1704 Francis II Rákóczis army suffered defeat against the Imperial Army, led by Sigbert Heister. The Jesuit Trnava University, the university of the Kingdom of Hungary at that time, was founded by Archbishop Péter Pázmány. From the late 18th century Trnava became a center of the literary, the first standard codification of the Slovak language was based on the Slovak dialect used in the region of Trnava
25.
Sopron
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Sopron is a city in Hungary on the Austrian border, near the Lake Neusiedl/Lake Fertő. When the area that is today Western Hungary was a province of the Roman Empire and its forum was located where the main square of Sopron can be found today. During the Migration Period, Scarbantia was believed to be deserted, by the time Hungarians arrived in the area, it was in ruins. In the 9th–11th centuries, Hungarians strengthened the old Roman city walls, the town was named in Hungarian after a castle steward named Suprun. In 1153, it was mentioned as an important town, in 1273, King Otakar II of Bohemia occupied the castle. Even though he took the children of Soprons nobility with him as hostages, the king rewarded Sopron by elevating it to the rank of free royal town. During the Ottoman occupation of Hungary, the Ottoman Turks ravaged the city in 1529, many Hungarians fled from the occupied areas to Sopron, and the citys importance grew. While the Ottomans occupied most of central Europe, the north of lake Balaton remained in the Kingdom of Hungary. In 1676, Sopron was destroyed by a fire, the modern-day city was born in the next few decades, when Baroque buildings were built to replace the destroyed medieval ones. Sopron became the seat of the comitatus Sopron, the town was the seat of the Ödenburg comitat near 1850. After the compromise of 1867 and until 1918, the city was part of the Habsburg-ruled Kingdom of Hungary, following the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, ethnic Germans inhabited parts of four western Hungarian counties, Pozsony, Vas, Sopron and Moson. These counties were awarded to Austria in the Treaty of Saint Germain. Since then Sopron has been called Civitas Fidelissima, and the anniversary of the plebiscite is a city holiday, however, the western parts of Vas, Sopron and Moson counties did join Austria and today form the Austrian federal state of Burgenland, while Pressburg/Pozsony was awarded to Czechoslovakia. Sopron suffered greatly during World War II, it was bombed several times, the Soviet Red Army captured the city on April 1,1945. As the first successful crossing of the border it helped pave the way for the flight of East German citizens that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9,1989. During the Socialist era, the government tried to turn Sopron into an industrial city, today, Soprons economy immensely benefits from the European Union. Having been a city close to nowhere, that is, to the Iron Curtain, furthermore, after being suppressed during the Cold War, Soprons German-speaking culture and heritage are now recognized again. As a consequence, many of the citys street-and traffic-signs are written in both Hungarian and German making it an officially bilingual city due to its proximity to the Austrian frontier, visitors admire the large number of buildings in this city that reflect medieval architecture - rare in war-torn Hungary
26.
Maria Theresa
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Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina was the only female ruler of the Habsburg dominions and the last of the House of Habsburg. She was the sovereign of Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Transylvania, Mantua, Milan, Lodomeria and Galicia, by marriage, she was Duchess of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany and Holy Roman Empress. She started her 40-year reign when her father, Emperor Charles VI, Charles VI paved the way for her accession with the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 and spent his entire reign securing it. Upon the death of her father, Saxony, Prussia, Bavaria, Prussia proceeded to invade the affluent Habsburg province of Silesia, sparking a nine-year conflict known as the War of the Austrian Succession, and subsequently conquered it. Maria Theresa would later try to reconquer Silesia during the Seven Years War. Of the sixteen, ten survived to adulthood and she had eleven daughters and five sons. She criticised and disapproved of many of Josephs actions, Maria Theresa understood the importance of her public persona and was able to simultaneously evoke both esteem and affection from her subjects. However, she refused to allow religious toleration and contemporary travelers thought her regime was bigoted and superstitious. As a young monarch who fought two wars, she believed that her cause should be the cause of her subjects. The dowager empresses, her aunt Wilhelmine Amalia of Brunswick-Lüneburg and grandmother Eleonor Magdalene of the Palatinate-Neuburg, were her godmothers and her father was the only surviving male member of the House of Habsburg and hoped for a son who would prevent the extinction of his dynasty and succeed him. Thus, the birth of Maria Theresa was a disappointment to him. Charles sought the other European powers approval for disinheriting his nieces and they exacted harsh terms, in the Treaty of Vienna, Great Britain demanded that Austria abolish the Ostend Company in return for its recognition of the Pragmatic Sanction. France, Spain, Saxony-Poland, Bavaria and Prussia later reneged, little more than a year after her birth, Maria Theresa was joined by a sister, Maria Anna, and another one, named Maria Amalia, was born in 1724. The portraits of the family show that Maria Theresa resembled Elisabeth Christine. The Prussian ambassador noted that she had blue eyes, fair hair with a slight tinge of red, a wide mouth. Unlike many other members of the House of Habsburg, neither Maria Theresas parents nor her grandparents were closely related to each other, Maria Theresa was a serious and reserved child who enjoyed singing and archery. She was barred from riding by her father, but she would later learn the basics for the sake of her Hungarian coronation ceremony. The imperial family staged opera productions, often conducted by Charles VI and her education was overseen by Jesuits
27.
French Revolutionary Wars
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The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of sweeping military conflicts, lasting from 1792 until 1802, resulting from the French Revolution. They pitted the French First Republic against Britain, Austria and several other monarchies and they are divided in two periods, the War of the First Coalition and the War of the Second Coalition. Initially confined to Europe, the fighting gradually assumed a global dimension as the political ambitions of the Revolution expanded, French success in these conflicts ensured the spread of revolutionary principles over much of Europe. The Revolutionary Wars began from increasing political pressure on King Louis XVI of France to prove his loyalty to the new direction France was taking. In the spring of 1792, France declared war on Prussia and Austria, the victory rejuvenated the French nation and emboldened the National Convention to abolish the monarchy. A series of victories by the new French armies abruptly ended with defeat at Neerwinden in the spring of 1793, by 1795, the French had captured the Austrian Netherlands and knocked Spain and Prussia out of the war with the Peace of Basel. A hitherto unknown general called Napoleon Bonaparte began his first campaign in Italy in April 1796, in less than a year, French armies under Napoleon decimated the Habsburg forces and evicted them from the Italian peninsula, winning almost every battle and capturing 150,000 prisoners. With French forces marching towards Vienna, the Austrians sued for peace and agreed to the Treaty of Campo Formio, the War of the Second Coalition began with the French invasion of Egypt, headed by Napoleon, in 1798. The Allies took the opportunity presented by the French strategic effort in the Middle East to regain territories lost from the First Coalition. The war began well for the Allies in Europe, where they pushed the French out of Italy and invaded Switzerland—racking up victories at Magnano, Cassano. However, their efforts largely unraveled with the French victory at Zurich in September 1799, meanwhile, Napoleons forces annihilated a series of Egyptian and Ottoman armies at the battles of the Pyramids, Mount Tabor, and Abukir. These victories and the conquest of Egypt further enhanced Napoleons popularity back in France, however, the Royal Navy had managed to inflict a humiliating defeat on the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile in 1798, further strengthening British control of the Mediterranean. Napoleons arrival from Egypt led to the fall of the Directory in the Coup of 18 Brumaire, Napoleon then reorganized the French army and launched a new assault against the Austrians in Italy during the spring of 1800. This latest effort culminated in a decisive French victory at the Battle of Marengo in June 1800, another crushing French triumph at Hohenlinden in Bavaria forced the Austrians to seek peace for a second time, leading to the Treaty of Lunéville in 1801. With Austria and Russia out of the war, the United Kingdom found itself increasingly isolated and agreed to the Treaty of Amiens with Napoleons government in 1802, concluding the Revolutionary Wars. The lingering tensions proved too difficult to contain, however, in 1789–1792, the entire governmental structure of France was transformed to fall into line with the Revolutionary principles of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. As a result, one of the first major elements of the French state to be restructured was the army, the transformation of the army was best seen in the officer corps. Before the revolution 90% had been nobility, compared to only 3% in 1794, Revolutionary fervour was high, and was closely monitored by the Committee of Public Safety, which assigned Representatives on Mission to keep watch on generals
28.
Ferdinand I of Austria
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He married Maria Anna of Savoy, the sixth child of Victor Emmanuel I of Sardinia. He abdicated on 2 December 1848 and he was succeeded by his nephew, Franz Joseph. Following his abdication, he lived in Hradčany Palace, Prague, Ferdinand was the eldest son of Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor and Maria Theresa of Naples and Sicily. Possibly as a result of his parents genetic closeness, Ferdinand suffered from epilepsy, hydrocephalus, neurological problems, and he was educated by Baron Josef Kalasanz von Erberg, and his wife Josephine, née Gräfin von Attems. Though he was not declared incapacitated, a Regents Council steered the government, when Ferdinand married Princess Maria Anna of Savoy, the court physician considered it unlikely that he would be able to consummate the marriage. When he tried to consummate the marriage, he had five seizures and he is best remembered for his command to his cook, when told he could not have apricot dumplings because apricots were out of season, he said I am the Emperor, and I want dumplings. As the revolutionaries of 1848 were marching on the palace, he is supposed to have asked Metternich for an explanation, when Metternich answered that they were making a revolution, Ferdinand is supposed to have said But are they allowed to do that. He was convinced by Felix zu Schwarzenberg to abdicate in favour of his nephew, then I embraced him and kissed our new master, and then we went to our room. Afterwards I and my dear wife heard Holy Mass, after that I and my dear wife packed our bags. Ferdinand was the last King of Bohemia to be crowned as such, due to his sympathy with Bohemia he was given the Czech nickname Ferdinand V, the Good. In Austria, Ferdinand was similarly nicknamed Ferdinand der Gütige, and he is interred in tomb number 62 in the Imperial Crypt in Vienna. Lord of Trieste, Cattaro and over the Windic March, charles II of Spain List of heirs to the Austrian throne Rulers of Germany family tree. He was related to every other ruler of Germany, ferdinands parents were double first cousins as they shared all four grandparents. Therefore, Ferdinand only had four great-grandparents, being descended from each of them twice, further back in his ancestry there is more pedigree collapse due to the close intermarriage between the Houses of Austria and Spain and other Catholic monarchies. 25–26 Ferdinand I In, Brockhaus Kleines Konversations-Lexikon,1, Leipzig,1911, p
29.
King of Hungary
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The King of Hungary was the head of state of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1000 to 1918. Before 1000 AD, Hungary was not recognized as a kingdom, the first King of Hungary, Stephen I. was crowned on 25 December 1000 with the crown Pope Sylvester II had sent him and with the consent of Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor. Following King Stephen Is coronation, all the monarchs of Hungary used the title King, from the 13th century a certain process was established to confirm the legitimacy of the King. This meant a level of protection to the integrity of the Kingdom such as that for example stealing the Holy Crown of Hungary was no longer enough to become legitimate King. The King Charles I of Hungary was crowned in May 1301 with a crown in Esztergom by the Archbishop of this city. In this time the Holy Crown wasnt used and he was crowned in Buda by the archbishop of Esztergom, however his third coronation was finally in 1310, in the city of Székesfehérvár, with the Holy Crown and effectuated by the archbishop of Esztergom. Then the Kings coronation was considered absolutely legitimate, a similar situation occurred with the Matthias Corvinus, when he negotiated to get back the Holy Crown which was in the possession of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III. Then after obtaining it he was legitimately crowned, as in all the traditional monarchies, the heir descended through the male line from a previous King of Hungary. In accordance with Hungarian tradition, this right passed to younger brothers, before passing to the son of the previous King. The founder of the first Hungarian royal house was Árpád, who led his people into the Carpathian Basin in 895 and his descendants, who ruled for more than 400 years, included Saint Stephen I, Saint Ladislaus I, Andrew II, and Béla IV. The same happened later with John Zápolya, who was elected in 1526 after the death of Louis II in the battle of Mohács. After this, the House of Habsburg inherited the throne, over the centuries, the Kings of Hungary acquired or claimed the crowns of several neighboring countries, and they began to use the royal titles connected to those countries. The title Apostolic King was confirmed by Pope Clement XIII in 1758, the title of King of Slavonia referred to the territories between the Drava and the Sava Rivers. That title was first used by Ladislaus I and it was also Ladislaus I who adopted the title King of Croatia in 1091. Coloman added the phrase King of Dalmatia to the style in 1105. The title King of Rama, referring to the claim to Bosnia, was first used by Béla II in 1136 and it was Emeric who adopted the title King of Serbia. The phrase King of Galicia was used to indicate the supremacy over Halych, while the title King of Lodomeria referred to Volhynia, in 1233, Béla IV began to use the title King of Cumania which expressed the rule over the territories settled by the Cumans at that time. The phrase King of Bulgaria was added to the style by Stephen V
30.
Hungarian Revolution of 1848
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The Hungarian Revolution of 1848 was one of the many European Revolutions of 1848 and closely linked to other revolutions of 1848 in the Habsburg areas. The revolution in the Kingdom of Hungary grew into a war for independence from the Austrian Empire, Czar Nicholas I answered, and sent a 200,000 men strong army with 80,000 auxiliary forces. Finally, the joint army of Russian and Austrian forces defeated the Hungarian forces, after the restoration of Habsburg power, Hungary was placed under brutal martial law. The anniversary of the Revolutions outbreak,15 March, is one of Hungarys three national holidays, the Kingdom of Hungary had always maintained a separate parliament, the Diet of Hungary, even after the Austrian Empire was created in 1804. The administration and government of the Kingdom of Hungary remained largely untouched by the government structure of the overarching Austrian Empire, Hungarys central government structures remained well separated from the imperial government. The country was governed by the Council of Lieutenancy of Hungary - located in Pozsony and later in Pest -, ignác Martinovics worked as a secret agent for the new Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold II, until 1792. In another of his works, Catechism of People and Citizens, he argued that citizens tend to oppose any repression and he also became a Freemason, and was in favour of the adoption of a federal republic in Hungary. As a member of the Hungarian Jacobins, he was considered a forerunner of revolutionary thought by some. He was in charge of stirring up a revolt against the nobility among the Hungarian serfs, for these subversive acts, Francis II, the Holy Roman Emperor, dismissed Martinovics and his boss, Ferenc Gotthardi, the former chief of the secret police. He was executed, together with six other prominent Jacobins, in May 1795, the Diet of Hungary had not convened since 1811. The frequent diets held in the part of the reign occupied themselves with little else but war subsidies. In the latter years of Francis I. the dark shadow of Metternichs policy of stability fell across the kingdom, but beneath the surface a strong popular current was beginning to run in a contrary direction. Hungarian society, not unaffected by western Liberalism, but without any help from abroad, was preparing for the future emancipation. In 1825 Emperor Francis II convened the Diet in response to growing concerns amongst the Hungarian nobility about taxes and this – and the reaction to the reforms of Joseph II – started what is known as the Reform Period. But the Nobles still retained their privileges of paying no taxes, the influential Hungarian politician Count István Széchenyi recognized the need to bring the country the advances of the more developed West European countries, such as England. It was an attack upon the constitution which, to use the words of István Széchenyi. In 1823, when the powers were considering joint action to suppress the revolution in Spain. The county assemblies instantly protested against this act, and Francis I was obliged, at the diet of 1823
31.
Reformed Great Church of Debrecen
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The Reformed Great Church or Great Reformed Church in Debrecen is located in the city of Debrecen. It stands in the city centre, between Kossuth square and Kalvin square and it is the symbol of the Protestant Church in Hungary, and it is because of this church that Debrecen is sometimes referred to as the Calvinist Rome. With a ground space of 1500 m² it is the largest Protestant church in Hungary and it also has the largest bell of all Hungarian Protestant churches. The Great Church was built between 1805 and 1824 in neoclassical style, a church already stood here in the Middle Ages, but it burnt down. St. Andrew Church, a Gothic hall church was built in its place between 1297 and 1311 and its area was about 16x46 meters. This church burnt down in 1564, in 1626 the already Protestant citizens of Debrecen started to build the St. Andrew Church again. With the support of George I Rákóczi construction was finished in 1628, in 1640-1642 a tower was constructed and a large bell – about 300 kg, made of Austrian cannonballs – was placed in it. In 1707, during the fight led by Francis II Rákóczi the church suffered heavy damages from the imperial troops. The church burnt down on June 11,1802, during the fire which destroyed most of Debrecen. The construction of the Great Church began on April 8,1805 and it was designed by Mihály Péchy, but the plans were altered several times during the construction, causing much frustration to the builders. The original plan featured a church with a ground plan and a large dome. The western tower was finished by 1818, the tower on August 6,1821. The towers are 61 meters high, the tower roofs feature Baroque elements. A nice panorama can be seen from the left tower, the old Rákóczi bell, restored after the fire, is in this tower too. The main nave of the church is 55 m long and nearly 15 m wide, similar to other Protestant churches, the inside walls are painted white. The interior is 21 meters high, the church accommodates about 5000 people. The armchair in which he sat can be viewed in the church, the church has two organs, one of them is in the southern part, above the main entrance. This is a new, electronic organ with pipes, three manuals and 52 registers, built by Péter Albert in 1981
32.
Franz Joseph I of Austria
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Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I was Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, and many others from 2 December 1848 until his death on 21 November 1916. From 1 May 1850 to 24 August 1866 he was also President of the German Confederation, in December 1848, Emperor Ferdinand abdicated the throne at Olomouc as part of Ministerpräsident Felix zu Schwarzenbergs plan to end the Revolutions of 1848 in Hungary. This allowed Ferdinands nephew Franz Joseph to accede to the throne, largely considered to be a reactionary, Franz Joseph spent his early reign resisting constitutionalism in his domains. Franz Joseph was troubled by nationalism during his entire reign and he concluded the Ausgleich of 1867, which granted greater autonomy to Hungary, hence transforming the Austrian Empire into the Austro-Hungarian Empire under his dual monarchy. After the Austro-Prussian War, Austria-Hungary turned its attention to the Balkans, the Bosnian crisis was a result of Franz Josephs annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908, which had been occupied by his troops since the Congress of Berlin. On 28 June 1914, the assassination of his nephew Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo resulted in Austria-Hungarys declaration of war against the Kingdom of Serbia and this activated a system of alliances which resulted in World War I. Franz Joseph died on 21 November 1916, after ruling his domains for almost 68 years and he was succeeded by his grandnephew Charles. His name in German was Franz Joseph I and I and his names in other languages were, Croatian and Bosnian, Franjo Josip I. Ukrainian, Фра́нц Йо́сиф I, Romanian, Francisc Iosif Slovene, serbian, Фрања Јосиф Franz Joseph was born in the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, the eldest son of Archduke Franz Karl, and his wife Princess Sophie of Bavaria. Franzl came to idolise his grandfather, der Gute Kaiser Franz, at the age of thirteen, Franzl started a career as a colonel in the Austrian army. From that point onward, his fashion was dictated by army style, Franz Joseph was soon joined by three younger brothers, Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, Archduke Karl Ludwig, and Archduke Ludwig Viktor, and a sister, Maria Anna, who died at the age of four. Instead, Franz was sent to the front in Italy, joining Field Marshal Radetzky on campaign on 29 April, by all accounts he handled his first military experience calmly and with dignity. Around the same time, the Imperial Family was fleeing revolutionary Vienna for the setting of Innsbruck. Soon, the Archduke was called back from Italy, joining the rest of his family at Innsbruck by mid-June. It was at Innsbruck at this time that Franz Joseph first met his cousin Elisabeth, his bride, then a girl of ten. Following victory over the Italians at Custoza in late July, the court felt safe to return to Vienna, but within a few months Vienna again appeared unsafe, and in September the court left again, this time for Olomouc in Moravia. By now, Prince Alfred I of Windisch-Grätz, the military commander in Bohemia, was determined to see the young Archduke soon put on the throne. By the abdication of his uncle Ferdinand and the renunciation of his father, at this time he first became known by his second as well as his first Christian name
33.
Lajos Kossuth
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With the help of his talent in oratory in political debates and public speeches, Kossuth emerged from a poor gentry family into regent-president of Kingdom of Hungary. As the most influential contemporary American journalist Horace Greeley said of Kossuth, “Among the orators, patriots, statesmen, exiles, he has, living or dead, no superior. ”Kossuths powerful English and American speeches so impressed and touched the most famous contemporary American orator Daniel Webster, that he wrote a book about Kossuths life. He was widely honored during his lifetime, including in Great Britain, Kossuths bronze bust can be found in the United States Capitol with the inscription, Father of Hungarian Democracy, Hungarian Statesman, Freedom Fighter, 1848–1849. Kossuth was born in Monok, Kingdom of Hungary, a town in the county of Zemplén. His father, László Kossuth, belonged to the nobility, had a small estate and was a lawyer by profession. László Kossuth had two brothers and one sister, the House of Kossuth originated from the county of Turóc. They acquired the rank of nobility in 1263 from King Béla IV, the mother of Lajos Kossuth, Karolina Weber was born to a Lutheran family of partial German descent, living in Upper Hungary. His mother raised the children as strict Lutherans, as a result of his mixed ancestry, and as was quite common during his era, he spoke three languages - Slovak, Hungarian and German. Kossuth studied at the Piarist college of Sátoraljaújhely and one year in the Calvinist college of Sárospatak, aged nineteen, he entered his fathers legal practice. He was popular locally, and having been appointed steward to the countess Szapáry and he was subsequently dismissed on the grounds of some misunderstanding in regards to estate funds. Shortly after his dismissal by Countess Szapáry, Kossuth was appointed as deputy to Count Hunyady at the National Diet, the Diet met during 1825–1827 and 1832–1836 in Pressburg, then capital of Hungary. Only the upper aristocracy could vote in the House of Magnates, however, at the time, a struggle to reassert a Hungarian national identity was beginning to emerge under leaders such as Wesselényi and the Széchenyis. In part, it was also a struggle for economic and political reforms against the stagnant Austrian government, Kossuths duties to Count Hunyady included reporting on Diet proceedings in writing, as the Austrian government, fearing popular dissent, had banned published reports. The high quality of Kossuths letters led to their being circulated in manuscript among other liberal magnates, readership demands led him to edit an organized parliamentary gazette, spreading his name and influence further. Orders from the Official Censor halted circulation by lithograph printing, distribution in manuscript by post was forbidden by the government, although circulation by hand continued. In 1836, the Diet was dissolved, Kossuth continued to report, covering the debates of the county assemblies. The newfound publicity gave the national political prominence. Previously, they had had little idea of each others proceedings and his embellishment of the speeches from the liberals and reformers enhanced the impact of his newsletters
34.
Julius Jacob von Haynau
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Julius Jacob von Haynau was an Austrian general who was prominent in suppressing insurrectionary movements in Italy and Hungary in 1848 and later. While a hugely effective military leader, he gained renown as an aggressive. His soldiers called him the Habsburg Tiger, those opponents who suffered from his brutality called him the Hyena of Brescia, born in Kassel, Julius Jacob von Haynau was the illegitimate son of Rosa Dorothea Ritter, and William I, the landgrave of Hesse-Kassel. He was born after his fathers return with his wife and family to Hesse-Kassel after 20 years in Denmark and his father acknowledged this natural son, providing for his education and entry into the military officer corps as a cadet. After several years of service in the Army, at nearly 22 years of age and she was the daughter of Field Marshal Lieutenant Weber. Her father was killed in action the year at the Battle of Aspern-Essling during the Napoleonic Wars. William and Thérèse had more than four decades of marriage together before her death in 1850 and she was survived by her husband and only daughter, Clotilde. In 1801, Haynau entered the Austrian army as an officer cadet at the age of 15. He gained extensive experience as a soldier during the Napoleonic Wars and he was wounded at Wagram in 1809, which the French won in one of their most important battles of the wars. Haynau later distinguished himself during the Austrian operations in Italy in 1813 and 1814, between 1815 and 1847, Haynau was promoted several times, reaching the rank of field marshal lieutenant. Haynau was said to have a violent temper, which led him into trouble with his superiors and his support for the monarchy led him to fiercely oppose the revolutionary movements of the mid-nineteenth century. When the revolutionary insurrections of 1848 broke out in Italy, Haynau was selected to command troops to suppress them and he fought with success in Italy. He became known in period for the severity with which he suppressed an uprising in Brescia. A mob in Brescia had massacred invalid Austrian soldiers in the hospital and his aggressive strategy may have partly been motivated by his wish to make Austria, rather than Russia, appear as the main victor of the war. For instance, he was said to have ordered women whipped who were suspected of sympathizing with the insurgents and he also ordered the execution by hanging of the 13 Hungarian rebel generals at Arad on 6 October 1849. Opponents called him the Hyena of Brescia and Hangman of Arad, in admiration, Austrian soldiers referred to him as the Habsburg Tiger. Upon the restoration of peace, Haynau was appointed to command in Hungary. His temper quickly led him into quarrels with the minister of war, in later years, he travelled abroad, including to western Europe and England
35.
Hungarian Parliament Building
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It lies in Lajos Kossuth Square, on the bank of the Danube. It is currently the largest building in Hungary and still the tallest building in Budapest, Budapest was united from three cities in 1873 and seven years later the Diet resolved to establish a new, representative Parliament Building, expressing the sovereignty of the nation. The building was planned to face the river, construction from the winning plan was started in 1885 and the building was inaugurated on the 1000th anniversary of the country in 1896, and completed in 1904. About 100,000 people were involved in construction, during which 40 million bricks, since World War II the legislature became unicameral and today the government uses only a small portion of the building. During the communist regime a red star perched on the top of the dome, mátyás Szűrös declared the Hungarian Republic from the balcony facing Kossuth Lajos Square on 23 October 1989. The Parliament Building is in the Gothic Revival style, it has a symmetrical façade, the dome is Renaissance Revival architecture. Also from inside the parliament is symmetrical and thus has two absolutely identical parliament halls out of one is used for the politics, the other one is used for guided tours. It is 268 m long and 123 m wide and its interior includes 10 courtyards,13 passenger and freight elevators,27 gates,29 staircases and 691 rooms. With its height of 96 m, it is one of the two tallest buildings in Budapest, along with Saint Stephens Basilica, the number 96 refers to the nations millennium,1896, and the conquest of the later Kingdom of Hungary in 896. The main façade overlooks the River Danube, but the main entrance is from the square on the east side of the building. Inside and outside, there are altogether 242 sculptures on the walls, the façade displays statues of Hungarian rulers, Transylvanian leaders and famous military figures. The coats of arms of kings and dukes are depicted over the windows, the east stairs is flanked by two lions. When entering the Parliament, visitors can walk up great ornamental stairs, see frescoes on the ceiling and pass by the bust of the creator, Imre Steindl, other statues include those of Árpád, Stephen I and John Hunyadi. One of the parts of the building is the hexadecagonal central hall, with huge chambers adjoining it, the Lower House. The modern National Assembly is unicameral and meets in the Lower House, while the Upper House is used as a conference, the Holy Crown of Hungary, which is also depicted in the coat of arms of Hungary, has been displayed in the central hall since 2000. Further features include the glass and glass mosaics by Miksa Róth. Due to its surface and its detailed handiwork, the building is almost always under renovation. The Parliament is accessible with Line 2 of the Budapest Metro and with tram line 2, at the east front of the building is a memorial to the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, as well as the imposing Kossuth Memorial and the equestrian statue of Francis II Rákóczi
36.
Battle of Solferino
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It was the last major battle in world history where all the armies were under the personal command of their monarchs. Perhaps 300,000 soldiers fought in the important battle, the largest since the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, there were about 130,000 Austrian troops and a combined total of 140,000 French and allied Piedmontese troops. After the battle, the Austrian Emperor refrained from further direct command of the army, the battle led the Swiss Jean-Henri Dunant to write his book, A Memory of Solferino. Although he did not witness the battle, he toured the following the battle and was greatly moved by what he saw. Horrified by the suffering of wounded soldiers left on the battlefield, Dunant set about a process led to the Geneva Conventions. The Battle of Solferino was an engagement in the Second Italian War of Independence. The wars geopolitical context was the nationalist struggle to unify Italy, the battle took place near the villages of Solferino and San Martino, Italy, south of Lake Garda between Milan and Verona. The confrontation was between the Austrians, on one side, and the French and Piedmontese forces, who opposed their advance, in the morning of 23 June, after the arrival of emperor Franz Joseph, the Austrian army changed direction to counterattack along the river Chiese. At the same time, Napoleon III ordered his troops to advance, while the Piedmontese fought the Austrian right wing near San Martino, the French battled to the south of them near Solferino against the main Austrian corps. The French army at Solferino, personally led by Napoleon III, was divided in four Corps plus the Imperial Guard, many of its men and generals were veterans of the French conquest of Algeria and the Crimean War, but its commander-in-chief had no military experience of note. The Sardinian army had four divisions on the field, according to the allied battle plan formulated on 24 June, the Franco-Sardinian army moved east to deploy along the right river banks of the Mincio. The French were to occupy the villages of Solferino, Cavriana, Guidizzolo and Medole with, respectively, the 1st Corps, 2nd Corps, 3rd Corps, the four Sardinian divisions were to take Pozzolengo. After marching a few kilometers, the allies came into contact with the Austrian troops, the battle started at Medole around 4 am. Marching towards Guidizzolo, the 4th Corps encountered an Austrian infantry regiment of the Austrian 1st Army, general Niel immediately decided to engage the enemy and deployed his forces east of Medole. This move prevented the three corps of the Austrian 1st Army from aiding their comrades of the 2nd Army near Solferino, the French forces were numerically inferior to the Austrians. The 4th Corps contained three divisions under de Luzy, Vinoy and Failly and a cavalry brigade. Niel, holding a line of 5 kilometres in length, was able to stop the Austrian assaults on his position by ably warding off attacks. After 15 hours of combat the Austrians retreated, both sides having lost in total nearly 15,000 men, around 4,30 am the advance guard of the 1st Corps came into contact with the Austrian V Corps under Stadion near Castiglione delle Stiviere
37.
Lombardy
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Lombardy is one of the twenty administrative regions of Italy, in the northwest of the country, with an area of 23,844 square kilometres. Milan, Lombardys capital, is the second-largest city and the largest metropolitan area in Italy, the word Lombardy comes from Lombard, which in turn is derived from Late Latin Longobardus, Langobardus, derived from the Proto-Germanic elements *langaz + *bardaz, equivalent to long beard. Some sources derive the second element instead from Proto-Germanic *bardǭ, *barduz, Lombardy referred during the early Middle Ages to the entire territory of Italy ruled by the Lombards, a Germanic tribe who conquered much of the Italian peninsula beginning in the 6th century. During the late Middle Ages, the term shifted meaning and was used to identify the whole of Northern Italy, with a surface of 23,861 km2, Lombardy is the 4th largest region of Italy. It is bordered by Switzerland and by the Italian regions of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol and Veneto, Emilia-Romagna, three distinct natural zones can be fairly easily distinguished in the Lombardy region, mountains, hills and plains – the latter being divided in Alta and Bassa. Inconsistent with the three distinctions above made is the subregion of Oltrepò Pavese, formed by the Apennine foothills beyond the Po River. The mighty Po river marks the border of the region for a length of about 210 km. In its progress it receives the waters of the Ticino River, the other streams which contribute to the great river are, the Olona, the Lambro, the Adda, the Oglio and the Mincio. The numerous lakes of Lombardy, all of glacial origin, lie in the northern highlands, from west to east these are Lake Maggiore, Lake Lugano, Lake Como, Lake Iseo, Lake Idro, then Lake Garda, the largest in Italy. A minor mountainous area, the Oltrepò Pavese, lies south of the Po, in the plains, intensively cultivated for centuries, little of the original environment remains. The most commons trees are elm, alder, sycamore, poplar, willow, in the area of the foothills lakes, however, grow olive trees, cypresses and larches, as well as varieties of subtropical flora such as magnolias, azaleas, acacias. Numerous species of flora in the Prealpine area include some kinds of saxifrage, the Lombard garlic, groundsels bellflowers. The highlands are characterized by the vegetation of the whole range of the Italian Alps. At a lower levels oak woods or broadleafed trees grow, on the slopes beech trees grow at the lowest limits. Shrubs such as rhododendron, dwarf pine and juniper are native to the summital zone, Lombardy has a wide array of climates, due to local variances in elevation, proximity to inland water basins, and large metropolitan areas. In addition, there is a seasonal temperature variation. A peculiarity of the climate is the thick fog that covers the plains between October and February. In the Alpine foothills, characterised by an Oceanic climate, numerous lakes exercise a mitigating influence, in the hills and mountains, the climate is humid continental
38.
October Diploma
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The October Diploma was a constitution of the Austrian Empire adopted by Habsburg Emperor Franz Joseph on 20 October 1860. The Diploma was written by the Minister of Interior, Agenor Gołuchowski and it attempted to increase the power of the conservative nobles by giving them more power over their own lands through a program of aristocratic federalism. This policy was a failure almost from the start, and Franz Joseph was forced to further concessions in the February Patent of 1861. Even so, Historians have argued that the October Diploma began the period of the empire. In 1860, Franz Josef and the Austrian Habsburg Empire were threatened with a crisis of existence,1856 had begun a period of diplomatic isolation following the defeat of Russia, a key Austrian ally, in the Crimean War. The second war of Italian Independence had ended in 1859 with an Austrian defeat at the hands of Napoleon III and these losses worsened the already weak state of the Austrian economy and exposed the weaknesses of the empires bureaucracy. Both liberals and conservatives were anxious for reform after a decade of near absolutist rule, while Hungarians, in March 1860, Franz Josef asked the Imperial Parliament, or Reichsrat, to advise the emperor on matters of reform. The Reichsrat, composed almost entirely of conservative aristocrats, naturally recommended a reconstruction of the based on the principles of aristocratic federalism. Their report was ignored by Franz Josef, but by the end of the year and it was the realities of foreign policy that led the emperor to adopt the conservatives’ ideas. He demanded that a constitution be written within a week and settled the general principles of the document during a stop en route to the conference. Taylor called the Diploma a victory for the Old Conservative nobility, the Habsburg government was reorganized on a federal basis, and the provincial diets were given the power to cooperatively pass laws with the Emperor and the Reichstrat. In a concession to the liberals, the membership of the Reichsrat was increased by over a new members. However, the Diploma called for the Reichsrat to meet very infrequently, the provincial diets were packed with the landed aristocracy, thus giving them more direct power over their own lands. Hungary was given special status in the Reichsrat through a provision called for non-Hungarian delegates to meet separately from the whole body to discuss non-Hungarian matters. This, however, fell far short of the Hungarian leaders desire for greater autonomy, almost immediately after the Diploma was passed, it became clear that it would not last long. The empires finances continued to fail, further showing the weaknesses of the current administration, prussia and the German Confederation began to sense a weakness in the monarchy that could be exploited, while Hungarians were furious with the few reforms they had been given. Additionally, the Tsar disapproved of granting a Federal Constitution to Galicia, in the end, it was the German liberals who were eventually able to effect change. Through their influence, the emperor was pressured into appointing the liberal Anton von Schmerling as Secretary of State in December, von Schmerling took to rewriting the October Diploma, and in February 1861, the emperor adopted the February Patent
39.
Imperial Council (Austria)
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The Imperial Council was the legislature of the Austrian Empire from 1861, and from 1867 the legislature of Cisleithania within Austria-Hungary. It was a body, the upper house was the House of Lords. To become law, bills had to be passed by both houses, signed by the government minister responsible, and then granted royal assent by the Emperor, after having been passed, laws were published in the Reichsgesetzblatt. In addition to the Imperial Council, the fifteen individual crown lands of Cisleithania had their own diets, the seat of the Imperial Council from 4 December 1883 was in the Parliament Building on Ringstraße in Vienna. The Imperial Council was dissolved on 12 November 1918, following Austria-Hungarys defeat in the First World War, in the course of the Revolutions of 1848, representatives from those crown lands of the Austrian Empire incorporated in the German Confederation met in a Imperial Diet at Vienna. The convention was inaugurated by Archduke John on 22 July 1848 and it was nevertheless only a sidestep, as Schwarzenberg three days later forcefully disbanded the Kremsier Parliament and finally had the constitution annulled with the New Years Eve Patent of 1851. Emperor Franz Joseph went on to rule with absolute power, in place of the Imperial Diet, he installed an Imperial Council, whose members were appointed on his authority. In the 1850s, chronic fiscal malaise became acute, the dire nature of the situation was revealed to the Emperor after the Second Italian War of Independence and the bloody defeat of Austrian forces at the 1859 Battle of Solferino. To calm the domestic front and to gain the support of wealthy Bourgeoisie, an Imperial Diet, still meant as a conciliatory body, was supposed to have 100 delegates elected by provincial diets that were to be established for each Austrian crown land. This electoral system, however, satisfied neither the bourgeois liberals nor the Hungarian nobility, for this reason, the Diploma was discarded and replaced by the February Patent of 1861, which was drafted by liberal minister-president Anton von Schmerling. This established a bicameral Imperial Council, the house was the House of Lords. Upon establishment of the Imperial Council by the February Patent, elections to the House of Deputies were conducted through a system of curiae, in this system, there were 343 deputies elected by the diets of the crown lands. The diets themselves were elected by four curiae, the curiae were essentially assemblies of certain social classes. There was one curia for the class, one curia for the towns and cities, one curia for the chambers of commerce. Each curia would elect a number of deputies to the diets. To be part of the curia of the cities and the curia of the rural communities and this system was rejected by Hungary, as with the October Diploma, and Hungary never sent any delegates to the Council. The February Patent was suspended in 1865, with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, Hungary would no longer send deputies to the Imperial Council. Instead, the Empire was reorganised into two parts, Cisleithania and Transleithania
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Landtag
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A Landtag is a representative assembly in German-speaking countries with legislative authority and competence over a federated state. Landtage assemblies are the bodies for the individual states of Germany and states of Austria. Likewise, the Landtag of South Tyrol is the legislature of the province of South Tyrol in northeast Italy. In the sovereign principality of Liechtenstein the national parliament is called the Landtag of Liechtenstein, the German word Landtag is composed of the words Land and Tag. The German word Tagung is derived from the German word Tag, as such meetings were held at daylight, the English word diet likewise comes from Latin, dies. Therefore, the representatives primarily defended class interests, and decisions were based on an electoral system. The precise composition obviously varied greatly, and could change over time, as the result of privileges granted or lost, entities split or merged, since 1466, Prussian Landtag were held in Royal Prussia. Prior to that, Prussian Landtag meetings were held in the Monastic state of the Teutonic Order, since 1525, Prussian Landtag were held in Ducal Prussia. 1806 the German Confederation was founded as successor of the Holy Roman Empire, §13 of the Bundesakte forced the German states to pass constitutions and implement parliaments called Landstände or Landtag. The first constitution was passed in Nassau, until 1841 all but 2 states got their constitution and parliaments. 1871 the German Empire was founded, all 25 states of the German Empire and the Reichsland Elsaß-Lothringen had Landtage as legislative authorities. The most important one was the Prussian Landtag, in the Weimar Republic 1918 till 1933 all German states had Landtage. In difference to the former Landstände and Landtage the Weimar Republik Landtage have been elected in free an equal elections,1933 the Nazis abandoned the federal structure of the Weimar Republic and established a unitary state. The Landtage were abolished as a result, since then, the official term in Swedish is riksdag, equivalent of the German Reichstag. In the contemporary Federal Republic of Germany, the Republic of Austria and the Italian Republics province of South Tyrol, in the Principality of Liechtenstein, the Landtag is the sole national parliament, because Liechtenstein has no federal structure due to its size. The national bicameral Parliament comprises the directly elected Bundestag and the Bundesrat which represents the governments in Federal matters which affect the Länder. The representatives are elected in general, free, secret and direct ballots according to the principle of proportional representation, the largest of the parliamentary groups usually nominates the Landeshauptmann governor. The modern Landtage are the successors of the estates assemblies in the corresponding crown lands of the Austrian Empire
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February Patent
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The February Patent was a constitution of the Austrian Empire promulgated in the form of letters patent on 26 February 1861. In the Austrian Empire, the early 1860s were a period of significant constitutional reforms, the revolutions and unfortunate wars of the late 1840s-1850s had created a national sense of discontent. The disastrous war in Italy demonstrated openly the weaknesses of the Austrian bureaucracy, the burgeoning influence of Prussia and the German Confederation was also a cause for concern. Emperor Francis Joseph I saw that, if he was to maintain his empire, the parliament split into two parties, a native German-speaking and a non-German-speaking side. The German side pushed for a central government, but the non-German side pushed for a division of power between the estates. Francis Joseph tried to formulate a compromise in the new constitution, the Diploma created a one-hundred-member parliament with extended powers over the empire’s finances but no power over the military or legislation. Also, the Parliament did not have power over Hungary, except in matters that affected the entire empire, the Hungarian Diet controlled Hungarian internal affairs. The new Parliament did not please either side, however, State finances continued to fail, the Germans were not happy with the power given to the diets, and the non-Germans were disappointed by the amount of power that remained in the Emperor’s hands. In addition to continuing problems, the Austrian Empire was plagued by outside pressures. For centuries, the Habsburgs had been in control of the German states, even when the German Confederation of States formed in 1815, Austria maintained its influence. With the rise of Prussia in Eastern Europe, that influence was threatened, the Emperor saw the expansion and centralization of Parliament as a way to gain internal strength that would transfer into external power. When Anton Ritter von Schmerling became Secretary of State in late 1860, he took on the task of revising the October Diploma. On the 26th of February 1861, the February Patent, a patent issued by Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I, was adopted as the “Imperial Constitution of 1861. ”It was proclaimed as a revision of the previous October Diploma. The members of the chamber were appointed for life and included the crown prince, prominent bishops, heads of noble families. Delegates sent from the diets comprised the 343-member lower chamber, with 120 representatives from Hungary,20 from Venetia, the Emperor could check the actions of the lower chamber by appointing more of his supporters to the upper chamber. The responsibilities of the new Parliament were divided into a ‘greater’, in the ‘greater’ section were matters that affected the empire as a whole, including Hungary. The ‘lesser’ section was for matters in the estates, essentially, it superseded the function of the diets in non-Hungarian lands. The Hungarian Diet could function alongside the ‘lesser’ Parliament if needed, only German or Romanian delegates from Hungarian lands were sent to the lower house
Legislatures of Austria–Hungary