Atitudinea sultanului Süleyman I în chestiunea Transilvaniei în timpul negocierilor de pace cu Ferdinand I de Habsburg din anii 1557-1559
Sultan Süleyman I’s Attitude Concerning Transylvania During the Peace Negotiations with Ferdinand I of Habsburg from 1557-1559

Summary/Abstract: Although relatively short, the period 1557-1559 is very important for the evolution of the Habsburg-Ottoman relationships with respect to the political and juridical status of Transylvania. If the Habsburg-Ottoman treaty from 1547 had created a certain balance between Vienna and Istanbul as concerns the question of the former kingdom of Hungary, the events of the following years proved that the issue was far from being settled. Both the Ottoman Porte and Vienna wished, in fact, the complete and absolute control over the Hungarian kingdom. The sixth decade brought more initiative from Vienna in an attempt to force the Ottoman Porte to accept a last solution in the “Hungarian issue”, even though, for the moment, Ferdinand was forced to evacuate his army from Transylvania in 1556. Controlling most of the territories of Partium, and having become emperor of the ”Holy Roman-German Empire”, the peacemaker of the German regions and the author of friendly relationships with France, Ferdinand was finally able to bring the German, Austrian, and Hungarian military might to the anti-Ottoman front in Hungary. In contrast with his Christian rival, at least three serious problems obstructed sultan Süleiman’s military and diplomatic possibilities in the confrontation with the Habsburgs: the conflict with the Shiite rebels in Persia, the power struggle among his sons who took advantage of his old age, but mostly the burden of governing an empire with universal Islamic ambitions and the erosion of a government meant to guarantee the unity and security of the Muslim world which was, at least theoretically, under the spiritual and political authority of the Ottoman sultan. The years 1557-1559 represent a period when, for the first time, Transylvania became an independent object of the Habsburg-Ottoman negotiations, after two decades of the Porte’s global approach to the “Hungarian heritage.” If the Ottoman Porte accepted the status of an autonomous principality for Transylvania, and promised to respect and defend it, Austria, in contrast, wished Transylvania to become a part of St. Stephen’s Crown, reduced to the size of the former voivodate and subjected to the political authority of the House of Austria. Initially, the sultan was extremely categorical and intransigent in the question of Transylvania, and he negotiated with the Habsburgs for nearly three decades, being encouraged by the victory in Persia and by the anti-Ferdinand attitude of the Transylvanians. During the peace negotiations, however, Ferdinand, mastered the situation better and better, became ever more energetic towards the sultan, which determined the Ottoman ruler to give up in front of the Christian emperor. We discover the defensive attitude of the sultan in three gestures made towards Ferdinand in the summer of 1559: calling him “emperor”, he communicated to Vienna that he accepted that the new peace treaty should include a provision allowing direct negotiations between the Viennese authorit

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