Sixteenth Century Turkish Settlements in Southern Hungary

Abstract

The question of Turkish settlements in Hungary has always greatly interested Hungarian historians and Turkologist. I myself carne into contact with it first as a student, while working on some Ottoman Turkish loan-words in Hungarian. I was then firmly convinced that there was no direct contact between the Turks and Hungarians in the areas under Turkish rule, since, according to my knowledge, the Turks lived in strongholds, the Hungarians mostly in villages, and the gulf between the two ethnic groups was tremendous. I assumed that the numerous Turkish loan-words in Hungarian came via Transylvania or South-Slavic areas where the inhabitants (Hungarians, Bosniaks, Serbians) had opportunities for closer contact with the Turks. This assumption reflected a well-known thesis in Hungarian historical scholarship and Turkology. According to the best general treatments of Hungarian history, and the most highly-regarded articles and monographs by specialists in the field, "the Turks lived only in strongholds", "the Turks all settled in strongholds or stronghold-suburbs”, since the Turkish occupation was strictly military, "personal relations between Turks and Hungarians were almost totally out of the question", and "Turkish domination hardly influenced the Hungarian race at all"; the Turks did not live in villages and towns, and as the genuine Turkish population of the Ottoman Empire was insufficient to spread out as far as the Hungarian countryside, the conquered land was occupied not by Turkish but by Serbian and Bosniak ethnic elements, and because of the small number of Turks, even the stronghold-suburbs were crowded with Serbians. The list of such paraphrases or quotations could be extended at length.

Keywords

• Southern Hungary
• Sixteenth Century
• Turkish Settlement
• Turkology
• Turkish History
• Balkans