The Early Modern Era Section of the HAS Institute of History was established in the 1970s when a separate research team was created from a part of the previous Medieval History Section to study the period of roughly three centuries from the battle of Mohács in 1526 to the turn of the 18–19th centuries. Since 1 January, 2012 the section has functioned as the Early Modern History Research Team, part of the HAS Institute of History, and its principal objective has been to present Hungarian history between the 16th and 18th centuries in the international context, based on basic research. This exploratory work is being done primarily in the following research areas:
Because of the disintegration of the late medieval Hungarian state into three parts after 1526–1541, the part occupied by the Ottoman Empire is studied by internationally famous scholars of Ottoman history and culture, while the history of the Hungarian Kingdom, connected to the Central European Habsburg Monarchy, is studied by colleagues pursuing research in foreign and domestic archives. In addition, the study of the history of the Transylvanian Principality, a new state established in the Eastern region of historical Hungary in the 1570s, traditionally has been one of our research team’s strong fields of study. Apart from regional studies, the most fruitful fields of the group are political, military, administrative, religious and church, and social and economic history within contemporary and modern national borders. The principal objectives of the research team include the preparation of source publications and databases and the publication of monographs and volumes of essays that draw the attention of international and Hungarian historians (and the Hungarian public), as well as the organization of international and national conferences. Members of the group also have special roles in the editorial work of the institute’s periodical, Történelmi Szemle. Finally, our research team, which consists of about fifteen colleagues, considers it one of its primary tasks to contribute to our knowledge of the Hungarian people and strengthen Hungarian identity by researching and introducing these controversial three centuries of Hungarian history systematically from the perspectives of new approaches.