The story behind the book dates back to October 2016. Our research team celebrated the localization of the Ottoman mausoleum (türbe) of Sultan Süleyman (1520â1566) in Szigetvár. We had a very successful period, between 2013 and 2015 we found and excavated the symbolic türbe of the ruler who died in 1566 during the siege of Szigetvár. The mausoleum and the adjacent buildings were searched in vain for more than 100 years.
It was at this dinner that the idea of our new project was raised by our late colleague János Hóvári, a distinguished Ottomanist, historian. For more than a hundred years, a debate has been going on in Hungary among historians and other researchers about the place where the crucial event of the period, the Battle of Mohács (1526), took place.
To turn the idea into a project, money was needed (as always). In the end, this was provided by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and its Excellence Collaboration Programme. The studies started in 2018. The social environment and reception of the türbe project in Szigetvár and the battle project of Mohács were very different. The research at the türbe was met with rather incredulous amazement in Hungary, while the battlefield research at Mohács was accompanied by furious debate.
Nevertheless, the investigations were done, just before the tragic COVID-19 pandemic. In retrospect, we were lucky. We could finalize the project in time, the participants survived the disease, and the closures provided the peace of mind needed for summarizing the results.
After several preliminary studies, work on the manuscript of this volume started in 2021. Looking back through my correspondence, I received a reply to my email from Kelly DeVries in early March 2021. He wrote that the subject was very exciting and of great interest not only to him but also to what he believes is a wide audience. The topic of this volume fits well into the History of Warfare series.
The work took much longer than I had originally thought. As usual, much was discovered while writing. It was one of the most intellectually exciting and transformative periods of my life. For all this, I owe an infinite debt of gratitude to my collaborators, especially to Pál Fodor and Máté Kitanics.
Along the way, we have had help from many institutions, whose generous funding has made it possible to carry out this project: the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the Szentágothai János Research Centre of the University of Pécs, the HUN-REN Research Centre for the Humanities and the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund â OTKA K 146585. Thanks to Nándor Zagyi for assisting us with some practical issues regarding this publication, such as the
Norbert Pap
Pécs, April 2024