Gábor, Máté: …most van ideje a marhahajtásnak! A Dél-Dunántúl pusztulása 1683–1685-ben […Now is the Time to Drive the Cattle! The Destruction of Southern Transdanubia in 1683–1685]

Abstract

Hungarian ethnographic research traditionally focuses on the 18th to 20th centuries, for which better sources are available. This volume, by University of Pécs lecturer Gábor Máté, is unusual in this respect, since its subject and setting are events that took place during the War of Reconquest (1683–1699). The decisive defeat of the Ottomans in the Battle of Vienna (in 1683) paved the way for liberation from the Ottoman occupation, the precondition for which was the retaking of Buda. At the time of the first, unsuccessful siege of the former capital of the Kingdom of Hungary (July–November 1684), troops from the Christian border fortresses along Lake Balaton systematically attacked Southern Transdanubia, which was then in the hands of the Ottomans. However, the offensives against the region, which was known at the time as Somogyság, were not so much military operations aimed at weakening Ottoman rule as spontaneous raids by soldiers from the Hungarian border fortresses, who took advantage of the chaotic situation to procure loot.