John Hunyadi

John Hunyadi (Bulgarian: Сабинян Янко / Sabinjan Yanko, Croatian: Janko Hunjadi, Hungarian: Hunyadi János, Latin: Ioannes Corvinus or de Hunyad, Romanian: Iancu or Ioan de Hunedoara, Serbian: Сибињанин Јанко / Sibinjanin Janko, and Slovak: Ján Huňady) (c. 1407–11 August 1456), was a leading Hungarian military and political figure in the 15th-century history of Central and Southeastern Europe. Scion of a noble family of Romanian origin, he mastered his military skills on the southern borderlands exposed to Ottoman attacks of the Kingdom of Hungary. Appointed voivode of Transylvania and head of a number of southern counties, he assumed responsibility for the defense of the frontiers in 1441.

Hunyadi adopted the Hussite method of using wagons for military purposes. He employed professional soldiers, but neither did he refrain from mobilizing local peasantry against invaders. These innovations contributed to his earliest successes against Ottoman troops plundering the southern marches in the early 1440s. Although defeated in the battle of Varna in 1444 and in the second battle of Kosovo in 1448, his "Long Campaign" across the Balkan Mountains at the turn of 1443 and 1444 and his defense of Nándorfehérvár/Belgrade in 1456 against the troops led personally by the Sultan established his fame as a most talented general of his age. In Hungary, tradition still helds that bells of Catholic churches are daily rung at noon to commemorate the latter victory, although the pope had ordered this in advance, before the siege, in order to encourage the soldiers fighting for Christendom.

John Hunyadi was also an eminent statesman of his age. He actively took part in the civil war between the partisans of Wladislas I and the minor Ladislaus V, two claimants to the throne of Hungary in the early 1440s, on behalf on the former. Popular among the lesser nobility, the Diet of Hungary appointed him, in 1445, as one of the seven "captains of the realm" responsible for the administration of state affairs until Ladislaus V (by that time unanimously accepted as king) came of age. The Diet of next year went even further by electing Hunyadi sole regent with the title governor. When resigned from this office in 1452, the sovereign awarded him with the first hereditary title "(perpetuus comes Bistriciensis)" in the Kingdom of Hungary. Furthermore, Hunyadi who had by that time became the wealthiest landowner in the kingdom preserved his influence in the Diets up until his death.

This Athleta Christi ("Christ's Champion"), as Pope Pius II referred to him, died some three weeks after his triumph at Nándorfehérvár. He fall victim to an epidemic that had broken out in the crusaders' camp. However, the memory of his defeat of the imperial troops hindered the Ottomans from invading the Kingdom of Hungary for more than 60 years. His fame was a decisive factor in the election of his son, Matthias Corvinus king by the Diet of 1457. Hunyadi is still a popular historic figure among Hungarians, Romanians, Serbians and other nations of the region, many of them even considering him as their own hero.