6 - The period of religious disturbances in Slovakia

Summary

The defeat at the Battle of Mohács by the Ottomans, in late August 1526, and the extinction of the Jagiellonian dynasty heralded the end of the medieval Hungarian state. Subsequently, Central Europe entered a new period of history, most commonly referred to as ‘modern’. This period was characterised by a range of new political, economic, social and cultural phenomena, which determined developments in the following centuries. The territory of Slovakia suddenly became the centre of the Kingdom of Hungary, with all the related consequences that came with this change. The ascendant Habsburg dynasty increasingly integrated this part of Europe more firmly into the wider continent. For almost 150 years, southern Slovakia became a frontier region with the Ottoman Empire, which represented another world, culture and religion. It recognised entirely different values, unknown and often incomprehensible to Christian civilisation. The constant alternation of military conflicts with periods of peace hindered the straightforward economic and social development of this region.

The fact that the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary had also become an arena of constant armed conflict between the Hungarian nobility and the royal court, fought under religious and estate banners, was also a disturbing factor. This political unrest also triggered wider social conflicts, and had cultural as well as economic effects. At much the same time, the unity of the medieval world was under assault by the triple influences of humanism, the Renaissance and especially the Reformation, which gradually undermined its cohesion.