The Transitional Empire

The Habsburg monarchy was conceived in 1527 as a borderland when the Ottoman march into the Pannonian plain united the Austrian, Bohemian and Hungarian lands. The latter’s vulnerability encouraged a consensual relationship between the Habsburg court and domestic elites that positioned Hungary’s political system between “western” European absolutism and the anarchical “royal republicanism” of Poland. The Habsburg claim to the entire kingdom helped sustain the vision of a united patrimony, ultimately realized following the triumph over the Ottomans and definitively confirmed in 1867. The combination of Hungary’s borderline character and competing jurisdictions contributed to political instability during the 16th and 17th centuries. Only after the Habsburgs had pushed the Ottomans from the Hungarian plain, did the frontier begin a more conventional evolution. In a move that was a clear break with previous frontier arrangements, the Habsburgs and Ottomans clearly separated their territorial jurisdiction by drawing and demarcating the boundary that pacified the frontier regime more in keeping with general developments in Europe. Outer borders gradually assumed new functions. The permanent sanitary cordon that the Hasburgs established in 1728 along its entire length remained an unparalleled public health institution, effectively blocking the spread of plague from the Ottoman Balkans. In addition, it served as a migration control institution, signaling the ongoing transition to a modern international frontier, which would have been unimaginable without its mobility control function. This spacial transformation encouraged the kingdom’s recovery and re-population, as well as its transition from a “borderland” into the “heart of Europe”. The simultaneous colonization of Hungary from the west and southeast stimulated its economic and demographic recovery, while compounding its linguistic and ethnic diversity, particularly in border areas, thereby contributing to its dissolution in the age of nationalism