History of Transylvania - Modern Era - Early Modern Era: Transylvania As An Autonomous Principality

Early Modern Era: Transylvania As An Autonomous Principality

Main articles: Eastern Hungarian Kingdom, Treaty of Speyer (1570), and Principality of Transylvania (1571–1711)

When the main Hungarian army and King Louis II Jagiello were slain by the Ottomans in the Battle of Mohács (1526), John Zápolya, voivode of Transylvania, who opposed the succession of Ferdinand of Austria (later Emperor Ferdinand I) to the Hungarian throne, took advantage of his military strength,. As John I was elected king of Hungary, another party recognized Ferdinand. In the ensuing struggle Zápolya received the support of Sultan Suleiman I, who after Zápolya's death in 1540 overran central Hungary on the pretext of protecting Zápolya's son, John II. John Zápolya founded the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom (1538–1570) out of which the Principality of Transylvania arose. Principality of Transylvania was officially created after the signing of Treaty of Speyer by John Sigismund Zápolya and emperor Maximiliam II. in 1570. According to the treaty Principality of Transylvania nominally remained to be part of Kingdom of Hungary in the sense of public law.

Habsburg Austria controlled Royal Hungary, which consisted of counties along the Austrian border, Upper Hungary and some of northwestern Croatia. The Ottomans annexed central and southern Hungary.

Transylvania became a semi-independent state, under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire, Principality of Transylvania, where mostly Hungarian princes, who paid the Turks tribute, ruled with considerable autonomy and where Austrian and Turkish influences vied for supremacy for nearly two centuries.

Transylvania was now beyond the reach of Catholic religious authority, allowing Lutheran and Calvinist preaching to flourish. In 1563, Giorgio Blandrata was appointed as court physician, and his radical religious ideas increasingly influenced both the young king John II and the Calvinist bishop Francis David, eventually converting both to the Anti-Trinitarian (Unitarian) creed. In a formal public disputation, Francis David prevailed over the Calvinist Peter Melius, resulting in 1568 in the formal adoption of individual freedom of religious expression under the Edict of Turda (the first such legal guarantee of religious freedom in Christian Europe). Lutherans, Calvinists, Unitarians and Roman Catholics received protection, while the majority Eastern Orthodox Church was merely tolerated.

Transylvania was governed by princes and its Diet (parliament). The Transylvanian Diet consisted of three Estates: the Hungarian nobility (largely ethnic Hungarian nobility and clergy); the leaders of Transylvanian Saxons—German burghers; and the free Székely Hungarians.

The Báthory family, which came to power on the death of John II in 1571, ruled Transylvania as princes under the Ottomans, and briefly under Habsburg suzerainty, until 1602.

The younger Stephen Báthory, a Hungarian Catholic who later became King Stephen Bathory of Poland, undertook to maintain the religious liberty granted by the Edict of Turda, but interpreted this obligation in an increasingly restricted sense. The latter period of Báthory rule saw Transylvania under Sigismund Bathory enter the Long War, which started as a Christian alliance against the Turks and became a four-sided conflict in Transylvania involving the Transylvanians, the Austrians, the Ottomans, and the Romanian voivode of Wallachia, Prince Michael the Brave.

Michael gained control of Transylvania supported by the uprising Szeklers in October 1599 after the Battle of Şelimbăr in which he defeated Andrew Báthory's army. Báthory was killed by Szeklers who hoped to regain their old privileges with Michael's help. In May 1600 Michael also gained control of Moldavia, uniting the three principalities of Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania (the three main parts of present-day Romania). Michael installed Wallachian boyars in certain offices, but even so, he did not interfere with the Transylvanian Estates, and sought support from the Hungarian nobility. In 1600 he was defeated by Giorgio Basta the Captain of Upper Hungary and lost his Moldavian holdings to the Poles. After he presented his case to Rudolf II in Prague (that time capital of Germany) where he was rewarded graciously for his deeds to the Caesar & Hungarian king. He returned assisting Basta in the battle of Battle of Guruslău in 1601. His rule did not last long however, as Michael was assassinated by Walloon mercenaries under the command of the Habsburg general Giorgio Basta in August 1601. The rule of Michael the Brave was marred by the pillaging of Wallachian and Serbian mercenaries as well as Székelys avenging the Szárhegy Bloody Carnival of 1596. When Michael entered Transylvania, he did not free or grant rights to the Romanian inhabitants, who were primarily peasants but, nevertheless, constituted more than 60% of the population. Instead he sought to support the Hungarian, Szekler, and Saxon nobles by reaffirming their right and privileges.

After the defeat of Michael at Miriszló, the Transylvanian Estates swore allegiance to the Habsburg Emperor, Rudolph. As Basta finally subdued Transylvania in 1604 and initiated a reign of terror in which he was authorised to appropriate the land of noblemen, Germanize the population, and reclaim the principality for Catholicism through the Counter Reformation. The period between 1601 (assassination of Michael the Brave) - and 1604 (fall of gen. Basta) was the most tragic for Transylvania since the Mongol invasion. "Misericordia dei quod non consumti sumus" (only God's merciful save us from annihilation) characterised this period an anonymous Saxon writer. From 1604–1606, the Calvinist magnate of Bihar county István Bocskay led a successful rebellion against Austrian rule. Bocskay was elected Prince of Transylvania on April 5, 1603 and prince of Hungary two months later.

The two main achievements of Bocskay's brief reign (he died December 29, 1606) were the Peace of Vienna (June 23, 1606), and the Peace of Žitava (November 1606). By the Peace of Vienna, Bocskay obtained religious liberty and political autonomy, the restoration of all confiscated estates, the repeal of all "unrighteous" judgments, and a complete retroactive amnesty for all Hungarians in Royal Hungary, as well as his own recognition as independent sovereign prince of an enlarged Transylvania. Almost equally important was the twenty years Peace of Žitava, negotiated by Bocskay between Sultan Ahmed I and Emperor Rudolf II.

Under Bocskay's successors Transylvania had its golden age, especially under the reigns of Gabriel Bethlen and George I Rákóczi. Gabriel Bethlen, who reigned from 1613 to 1629, perpetually thwarted all efforts of the emperor to oppress or circumvent his subjects, and won reputation abroad by championing the Protestant cause. Three times he waged war on the emperor, twice he was proclaimed King of Hungary, and by the Peace of Nikolsburg (December 31, 1621) he obtained for the Protestants a confirmation of the Treaty of Vienna, and for himself seven additional counties in northern Hungary. Bethlen's successor, George I Rákóczi, was equally successful. His principal achievement was the Peace of Linz (September 16, 1645), the last political triumph of Hungarian Protestantism, in which the emperor was forced to confirm again the articles of the Peace of Vienna. Gabriel Bethlen and George I Rákóczi also did much for education and culture, and their era has justly been called the golden era of Transylvania. They lavished money on the embellishment of their capital Alba Iulia (Gyulafehérvár, Weißenburg), which became the main bulwark of Protestantism in Central Europe. During their reign Transylvania was also one of the few European countries where Roman Catholics, Calvinists, Lutherans, and Unitarians lived in mutual tolerance, all of them belonging to the officially accepted religions - religiones recaepte, while the Orthodox, however, were only tolerated.

This golden age and relative independence of Transylvania ended with the reign of George II Rákóczi. The prince, coveting the Polish crown, allied with Sweden and invaded Poland in 1657 in spite of the Turkish Porte clearly prohibiting any military action. Rákóczi was defeated in Poland, his army taken hostage by the Tatars. Chaotic years followed, with a quick succession of princes fighting one another and a Rákóczi unwilling to resign, despite Turkish threat of all-out military attack. To resolve the political situation, the Turks finally resorted to military power; the successional invasions of Transylvania by the Turks and their Crimean Tatar allies, the ensuing loss of territory (particularly, the loss of the most important Transylvanian stronghold, Várad in 1660) and diminishing manpower led to Prince Kemény proclaiming the secession of Transylvania from the Ottomans (April 1661) and appealing for help to Vienna. A secret Habsburg-Ottoman agreement, however, prevented the Habsburg court from intervening, and the defeat of Prince Kemény by the Turks, and the Turkish instalment of the insipid Mihály Apafi on the throne marked the complete subordination of Transylvania, which now became a powerless vassal of the Ottoman Empire.