Habsburgs
Transylvania under the Habsburgs
Habsburgs
In the
17th century, the Ottoman Empire were weakened both internally and
externally by costly wars, especially against Persia, the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Russia and Austria-Hungary. In
September 11-12, 1683 Jan III Sobieski,
king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, defeated the Ottomans at
the Battle of Vienna; the Hapsburg Empire began its expansion to the
south-east and the Christian forces began the process
of
driving the Turks from Europe. The Transylvanian Diet rejected Ottoman
suzerainty in favor of Austrian protection in 1688. Following the
victory of Eugenio
di Savoia in the Batle of Zenta
on September 11 1697, the
Austrian-Turkish peace treaty of Karlowitz (1699)
sanctioned the annexation of Transylvania and its organization as an
autonomous principality to Hapsburg Austria, ruled by a governor.
Transylvania
After the victory against Michael the Brave,
the Hapsburg general Giorgio Basta promoted a persecution in
Transylvania against the Protestants, expropriating their estates, but
he was defeated by the army organized by Stephen Bocskay
(1605-1607). Leveraging on the support of the Turks as prince of
Transylvania, in 1606 he concluded treaties with the
Habsburgs to
secure his position and to guarantee religious freedom,
and Transylvania's independence. After Bocskay's
death, Gabriel Báthory (1607-1613) and Gábor
Bethlen (1613-1629) succeeded to him as prince. Under
Bethlen's enlightened despotism, Transylvania experienced a golden age
with the promotion of agriculture, industry, trade, and education, but
most of his reforms were abolished by the Transylvanian
Diet after Bethlen died. The new prince was György
Rákóczi I (1630-1640), who fight with the Protestants in the
Thirty Years' War, gaining the mention of Transylvania as a sovereign
state in the Peace of Westphalia. Launching an attack to Poland without
the approval of the Ottomans, György Rákóczi II
(1648-1660) caused the attack of Turkish and Tatar army against
Transylvania that ended Transylvania's golden age.
In Transylvania the
Romanians remained segregated from the political life and
almost
all the common activities were under the control of the local
landlords. In addition to the feudal exactions, the Orthodox
Romanians had to pay tithes to the Protestant or Roman Catholic church,
according to their landlords' faith. Orthodox priests, living in
penury, survived working as peasants. Emperor Leopold
I
merged the Roman Catholic Church (Greek-Catholics) and the
Transylvania's Orthodox Church
in 1699 and 1701; the Habsburgs, however, never recognized the Uniate
Church and the equality of the Uniate clergymen with the Catholic
priests. In 1711, the empire defeated
an eight-year rebellion of Hungarian nobles in Transylvania,
and
the Uniate Church become an incubator for the Romanian
nationalism. The influence of Uniate clergymen in Vienna and
Rome
was the bridge to pass to the Romanians with Western ideas, to publish
the Daco-Roman origins, to use the Latin
alphabet for the Romanian
language instead of the cyrillic one, building the center of Romanian
culture of the Scoala Ardeleana (Transylvanian
School)
in Blaj with intellectuals like Constantin Cantacuzino, Dimitrie
Cantemir, Ioan Budai Deleanu,
Petru Maior, Samuil Micu and Gheorghe Sincai. From 1729
to 1744, the Uniate bishop Ioan
Inocenţiu Micu Klein,
a baron and member of the Transylvanian Diet, was the main spokesperson
for the Romanians' request for equality in Transylvania, but he didn't
succeeded in his intent; in 1768 and he died in a Roman monastery.
Thanks to his tours in Transylvania, the Emperor Joseph II (1780-90) saw the serfs' wretched existence of the Romanians before his accession. As emperor he promoted several reforms: he strengthened the central control, launched education programs, and recognized full civil rights for Orthodox Christians. The Enlightenment of the emperor was misunderstood as support against the feudal masters, and in 1784 Horea, Cloşca and Crişan, led a revolt of the Transylvanian serfs who sacked castles and manor houses, and murdered more than 100 nobles,but the revolt was repressed and the leader executed. To remove the revolt's root causes, the emperor ruled for the emancipation of the serfs, the abrogation of Transylvania's constitution, the end of the Union of Three Nations, and the use of German as the official language, butCatholic clergy and Hungary's nobles resisted to these reforms.
The germanization attempt of the empire caused several reactions by national movements and the Hungarians asked the unification of Transylvania with Hungary. The Romanians experienced a national awakening. In 1791 Transylvania was restored as a territorial entity thanks to the petitioned of two Romanian Orthodox and Uniate bishops by the Emperor Leopold II (1790-92) asking for granting to Romanians religious, political and civil rights, but the Diet, however, granted only the right of Orthodox believers to practice their faith, refusing to Romanians equal political rights with other Transylvanian populations.
Francis I (1792-1835), Leopold's successor, ignored Transylvania's constitution and didn't convoke the Transylvanian Diet for 23 years up to 1834, when Hungarian deputies asked to use the Magyar as the official language. In 1843 the Magyar was recognized as the Hungary's official language, and in 1847 the same happened in Transylvanian too.
Wallachia and Moldavia
After
Michael the Brave, the authority of the Ottoman Empire was
re-established in the region, but without the tributes requested before
the year 1594. Matei Basarab (Mathew Basarab)
(1632-1654) in Wallachia proved to be an excellent organizer
of the military forces in the country. Vasile Lupu
(Vasile the Wolf) (1634-1653) in Moldavia was a protector of Orthodoxy,
by organizing a synod in Jassy. He come in conflict
with Wallachia
trying to submit this principality, but his army was
defeated at
Ojogeni (1639), Nenişori (1639) and Finta (1653). After that
the
Moldavian boyars replaced him with the
Wallachian Gheorghe
Ştefan, followed by Gheorghe
Ghica, who became Prince of Moldavia in
1658-1659 and Prince of Wallachia in 1659-1660. He moved the capital
from Târgovişte to Bucharest,
an important commercial center on the
trade route to Constantinople.
Between 1678 and 1710 princes of Wallachia
were Serban Cantacuzino (1678-1688) and Constantin
Brâncoveanu (1688-1714), who lived in the residence
of Mogoşoaia,
example of the "Brâncovenesc style" introduced by him as a synthesis of
Renaissance and Byzantine architecture. Because of his anti-Ottoman
policy of forming alliances first with Austria, and then with Russia,
Brâncoveanu was deposed from his throne by the Ottomans, and brought
under arrest to Istanbul, where he was imprisoned in 1710 and beheaded
in 1714.
The Ottoman Empire, to defend its position, introduced the Phanariot regime in Moldavia on 1711 and Wallachia on 1716,that survived until 1821; in this regime in the two principalities were appointed by the Ottomans Greek voivodes coming from the Phanar district of Istanbul. Disputed by three great empires, Wallachia and Moldavia became battlefield for over 150 years.
In 1718 Oltenia, an important part of Wallachia, was incorporated into the Austrian Empire as a result of the Passarowitz Peace with the Turks, and was only returned in 1793. In 1775 the Austrian Empire occupied the north-western part of Moldavia, later called Bukovina.
After Poland was divided in 1795 among Russian Empire, Prussia and Austro-Hungary, Russia, by successive conquests, reached the Dniester river, thus becoming Moldavia’s eastern neighbor. At the end of the Russian-Turkish war of 1806-1812, Russia annexed as Bessarabia up to 1918 the eastern part of Moldavia between the Dniester and Prut rivers.
Last update May 14th, 2006
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