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The Kingdom of Hungary (Hungarian: Magyar Királyság) is the name of a multiethnic kingdom that existed in Central Europe from 1000 to 1918. It arose in present-day western Hungary and subsequently spread to remaining present-day Hungary, to Transylvania (in present-day Romania), Slovakia, Carpatho-Ukraine, Vojvodina (in present-day Serbia and Montenegro), Croatia, and other smaller nearby territories. However, some of these areas were not part of the Kingdom of Hungary in certain historical periods.
The term "Kingdom of Hungary" is often used to denote this long-lasting configuration of territories in order to draw a clear distinction with the modern Hungarian state, which is significantly smaller and more ethnically homogeneous. Prior to and in the 19th century, the term Hungarian often referred to any inhabitant of this state, regardless of his or her ethnicity as we would understand it today.
Location and rough map of the Kingdom of Hungary in 1914The state was ruled by the kings of Hungary, the bearers of the Holy Crown of St. Stephen. The first kings of the Kingdom were from the Árpád dynasty. In the early 14th century, this dynasty was replaced by the Angevins, and later the Jagiellonians as well as several non-dynastic rulers, notably Matthias Corvinus.
At the Battle of Mohács in 1526, the Hungarian army was defeated by the forces of the Ottoman Empire, and King Lajos II of Hungary was killed. Under the Ottoman attacks the central authority collapsed and a struggle for power broke out. Some Hungarian nobles proclaimed Ferdinand of Habsburg, who was ruler of neighbouring Austria and tied to Lajos's family by marriage, as King of Hungary; there had been previous agreements that the Habsburgs would take the Hungarian throne if Lajos died without heirs, as he did. However, other nobles turned to the Hungarian nobleman John Zápolya. Zápolya received the support of the Ottoman Sultan but no recognition from other Christian powers.
A three-sided conflict ensued as Ferdinand moved to assert his rule over as much of the Hungarian kingdom as he could. By 1541, the former territory of the kingdom had been split into three parts, and remained so until the end of the 17th century. Although the borders were changing very frequently during this period, the three parts can be identified more or less as follows:
- Present-day Slovakia, north-western Transdanubia, Burgenland, western Croatia, and adjacent territories were under Habsburg rule. This area was referred to as Royal Hungary, and though it nominally remained a separate state, it was administered more or less as part of the Habsburgs' Austrian holdings, to which it was immediately adjacent. This was the continuation of the Kingdom of Hungary.
- The Great Alföld (i.e. most of present-day Hungary, incl. south-eastern Transdanubia and the Banat), partly without north-eastern present-day Hungary, became part of the Ottoman Empire.
- The remaining territory became the newly independent principality of Transylvania, under Zápolya's family. Transylvania was a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire.
After a failed Ottoman invasion of Austria in 1683, the Habsburgs went on the offensive against the Turks; by around 1700, they had managed to conquer the remainder of the historical Kingdom of Hungary and the principality of Transylvania. At this point, the Royal Hungary terminology was dropped, and the area was once again referred to as the Kingdom of Hungary, although it was still administered as a part of the Habsburg realm. In the 18th century, the Kingdom of Hungary had its own Diet (parliament) and constitution, but the members of the Governor's Council (Helytartótanács, the office of the palatine) were appointed by the Habsburg monarch, and the superior economic institution, the Hungarian Chamber, was directly subordinated to the Court Chamber in Vienna.
Map of Austria-Hungary with the Kingdom of Hungary shown in green shadesIn 1867, following the Ausgleich, the Austrian Empire became the so-called "dual monarchy" of Austria-Hungary. The historic Kingdom of Hungary was granted considerable internal autonomy and a share in the operation of the Empire as a whole. This arrangement was to last until 1918, when on the one hand the non-Magyar peoples of the Kingdom of Hungary joined new or neighbouring states (Czechoslovakia, Romania, and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes), and on the other Hungarians declared a Hungarian republic (within the old boundaries of the kingdom) as the Central Powers went down in defeat in World War I. This is generally seen as the end of the state that is referred to as the Kingdom of Hungary.
Beset by a series of internal revolutions and occupied by the Entente and Romanian troops, Hungary accepted the radical reduction in the territorial extent of the previous kingdom (which reflected boundaries that were almost 800 years old) laid out by the Treaty of Trianon in 1920. However, it should be noted that Kingdom of Hungary was also the formal name of the Hungarian state that existed largely on the territory of present Hungary from 21 March 1920 until 21 December 1944. This state (which was also commonly referred to as the Hungarian Kingdom) was conceived of as a "kingdom without a king," since there was no consensus on either who should take the throne of Hungary, or what form of government should replace the monarchy. The kingdom was ruled in this period by Miklós Horthy, who had the title of regent. Hungary became a republic on 1 February 1946.
See also
- List of Hungarian rulers
- Nobility in the Kingdom of Hungary
- Administrative divisions of the Kingdom of Hungary
- Comitatus (Kingdom of Hungary)
- History of Hungary
- Croatia in the union with Hungary
- History of Slovakia
- Transylvania