Absztrakt

In the Principality of Transylvania, the consequences of the power crisis between 1657 and 1662 posed significant challenges to Prince Michael I Apafi and his administration, who came to power in 1661. The greatest challenge was the intensifying Ottoman influence in the principality’s neighborhood: following the capture of Várad (1660) and most of the Partium, the Ottomans established a new province with the former “gateway” of Transylvania as its center. However, similar to other border regions of the Ottoman Empire, the exact boundary between the Principality of Transylvania and the Várad Eyalet was not clearly established. As a result, a considerable part of the counties in Partium and Transylvania were forced to pay taxes to both the principality and the Ottoman province of Várad; in other words, this area operated as joint possession (condominium). In the region also subjected to the Várad Ottomans, the representation of Transylvanian interests, the maintenance of legal continuity, and the protection of the local population were carried out by the “territorially competent” Transylvanian border fortresses; for example, Somlyó, whose jurisdiction primarily extended to the northwestern counties of the principality. In the new situation, both the Transylvanian state and the landowners had an interest in the local population staying in place: in addition to the “new” Ottoman overlords, the “old” ones from Transylvania and the Partium continued to claim their taxes from the region, as did the treasury to maintain its former revenues. These were indispensable for the operation of the Transylvanian border fortress system, especially Somlyó. To this end, establishing framework of coexistence, acceptable to both parties, was necessary. Moreover, Somlyó and the region it guarded constituted a special case because the daily lives of both the Transylvanian administration and the local population were also threatened by the raids of the Hungarian Royal Army soldiers in Szatmár and Kálló, Upper Hungary. The study examined the “mutual interdependence” of the population of the condominium and the border fortress of Somlyó, in the shadow of Ottoman power. Based on this, it presents the social and economic impacts of dual possession and uses individual case studies to provide an insight into the changes in everyday life in the border zone. The changing situation had a profound effect on individual lives as well, for example, some local landowners left the area subjected by the Ottomans to seek their livelihood in the more secure Transylvanian border fortresses, such as becoming officials in Somlyó Castle. The study also includes the examination of the “career paths” of individuals who integrated into the Transylvanian economic administration through this trajectory.