Pecs remembers the battle of Mohacs five centuries later
We are in 1526, the 29th of August.
Suleiman the Magnificent left Constantinople in April with 80.000 soldiers. He’s reaching one goal: to enlarge the great Ottoman Empire on his west side. Serbia fall five years before and the southern Hungarian border has no defense anymore.
In front of him, 20.000 men led by King Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia. The young king, 20 years only, knows that the fight is imminent but his army is obsolete compared to the elite troops of Janissaries.
The battle finally takes place in Mohacs. After a whole day of fights, Louis II dies flooded with his horse, 14.000 Hungarian soldiers are killed and 2.000 are captured.
Suleiman the Magnificent is now totally free to take Buda and Hungary is split between the Ottoman Empire, the Principality of Transylvania and the Habsburg Monarchy.
Five centuries later, on the 29th of May, the city of Pecs, remembers this battle, essential for its history.
Every year, since 1940, the setting is totally reconstituted at the foot of the Barbakan bastion.
About thirty Hungarian actors playing Ottomans or Hungarian fighters, weapons, costumes, music…and even belly dancers and narguileh.
Children can also learn how to manipulate the sword with a Janissarie or an Hungarian soldier, they just have to pick their side!
Anissa Herrou, Claudiu Degan, Sinan Kut
