A török béke kérdése a Dózsa-féle parasztháború idején
The Question of the Turkish Peace in the Time of the Dózsa-rebellion

Summary/Abstract: The essay tries to highlight the circumstances that undermined the successful signing of a peace treaty between the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in 1514. It examines the system of the relationships for both sides. The Kingdom of Hungary wanted to maintain the diplomatic practice that had developed previously, in which a peace treaty signed with the Sultan would include other Christian European states as well, such as Venice, Ragusa, Moldova, Wallachia and Poland, as well as in this case the Holy Roman Emperor. On the other hand Sultan Selim I wanted each Christian state to petition him separately for the peace. For Venice it was of crucial importance that the Holy Roman Emperor would not sign a peace treaty with the Sultan, because that would have precluded Selim I from providing mercenaries for Venice in exchange for money in their fight against the Holy Roman Empire. After the Ottoman Sultan’s successful negotiations with two of Hungary’s neighbors, in October 1513 the Peace of Venice was signed, and between the 16th and 27th of May the treaty was ratified by the Polish ambassador in the Anatolian town of Akşehir. On the other hand the Sultan refused to sign the treaty with the Hungarians, and imprisoned the Hungarian legation in Konya. Due to the long distance, the Hungarian leaders did not found out, but felt that the Ottoman Empire had developed peaceful relations with their neighbors, while the negotiations with them had become prolonged. As a result, the voivode of Transylvania, János Szapolyai ( John Zápolya) crossed the Lower Danube between May 12th and June 3rd 1514 and broke into the Bulgarian territories, but, because under the leading of György Dózsa the peasants gathered for the anti-Ottoman crusade turned against the nobility, the campaign ended quickly and Szapolyai had to withdrew his forces. Based on the circumstances presented, the study concludes that Selim I was not afraid of the Kingdom of Hungary, which was left on its own, and despite of the possibility of an eventual Hungarian assault, he attacked Iran and defeated the Persian Shah Ismail. While the peasant uprising of Dózsa had stopped the attack of the Hungarian armies against the Turks in 1514, Szapolyai took advantage of the Sultan’s absence and attacked again in the spring of 1515, besieging the Turkish fortress of Avala (Havale/Zsarnó) across Belgrade. From the report of Süleyman (later Sultan Süleyman I), the heir to the throne, who was guarding the western frontier, we know the precise chronological order of the Hungarian attack and the story of its successful Turkish relief. The two Turkish documents, both in their original language and in Hungarian translation, are included in the appendices of the study.

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