Oslobodenie alebo obsadenie?
Liberation or Occupation?

Military, financial, and civil administration in recaptured Hungary during the Great Turkish War, 1683–1699

Summary/Abstract: PÁLFFY, Géza. Liberation or Occupation? Military, financial, and civil administration in recaptured Hungary during the Great Turkish War, 1683–1699. Historický časopis, 2022, 70, 4, pp. 581–608, Bratislava.Due to European diplomatic and military cooperation, the Great Turkish War, lasting from 1683 to 1699, resulted in the nearly complete recapture of Hungary from Ottoman rule. Only Banat remained in Ottoman hands until 1718. Although the events of the long war are known in detail, little research has been dedicated to what hardships and conflicts the recaptured territories encountered during the organization of the military and financial, followed by the civil and ecclesiastical administration. The present study aims to focus on these issues by synthesizing the research results of the past decades. It presents the challenges of the reconstruction that began during the war, as well as the conflicts among the military, financial, and civil authorities. During the Great Turkish War, the fate of Hungary was determined primarily by the interests of the Habsburg standing army, the Aulic Chamber (Hofkammer), and the Viennese court. This was also reflected by the fact that Leopold I convened the Hungarian diet only once, at the end of 1687. During the war, the Hungarian political elite, therefore, had very little say in the shaping of events and the new administration of the country. For this reason, the revival of civil and ecclesiastical institutions could only commence very slowly and in the face of great difficulties in the liberated areas, which were under close control from the military and financial points of view. Consequently, a part of the country’s population often regarded the liberation as occupation by the imperial generals, war commissioners, and chamber officials, and even as a series of devastations caused by the Habsburg forces. The recapture of the historical state of Hungary was, therefore, not without fierce political, social, and religious debates. Paradoxically enough, the Great Turkish War fundamentally contributed to the outbreak of the first independence movement in the history of Hungary, the War of Independence (1703–1711) led by Francis II Rákóczi.

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