Buda Castle, Hungary

The Buda Castle is a medieval castle located on the southern tip of Castle Hill in Budapest, Hungary. The castle's history dates back to the middle of 13th century when King Béla IV of Hungary built the first royal residence on the Castle Hill but the oldest part of the present-day castle dates from the 14th century. The 14th century structure built by Prince Stephen, Duke of Slavonia was greatly enlarged and rebuilt between 1410 and 1420 by Sigismund Luxemburg of Hungary and later Holy Roman Emperor. The last greater construction works were carried out under reign of Matthias Corvinus (1458 - 1490) who rebuilt the Gothic castle in the early Renaissance style.



After the Battle of Mohács in 1526 the Ottoman forces occupied Buda (the right bank of the Danube of today's Budapest) but did not damaged the Buda Castle although the Ottomans took all the bronze statues from the castle. During the second Ottoman siege and occupation of Buda in 1526 the Buda Castle was severely damaged. The last national ruler of Hungary King John Zápolya (1526-1540) repaired the damage but in 1541 the Ottoman army again occupied Buda which became a part of the Ottoman Empire and the seat of the Eyalet of Budim. During the Ottoman period the Buda Castle suffered a severe damage especially during the Hapsburg attempts to recapture of Buda in 1542, 1598, 1603 and 1684 but mostly survived until the great siege of 1686 when Buda was captured by the allied Christian forces.

In 1715 a small Baroque palace was built according to the plans of Johann Hölbling. The Baroque palace accidentally burned down in 1723 but Hungarian support of Queen Maria Therese during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748) led to the construction of the new Baroque palace which lasted from 1749 to 1769. The new palace was again severely damaged in 1810 by a fire and in 1848 during the Hungarian rising but between 1850 and 1856 the Buda Castle was rebuilt in a Neoclassical Baroque style. After the Ausgleich (Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867) the Buda Castle was the site of coronation of Franz Joseph I of Austria as the King of Hungary. In aim to express the larger Hungarian independence and the higher status of the Hungarian capital the Buda Castle went through rebuilding works which lasted from 1875 to 1912.



After the end of the World War I and collapse of Austria-Hungary the Buda Castle became the seat of the new regent of the Kingdom of Hungary Miklós Horthy who lived there with his family from 1920 to 1944. As the last major strong point of Budapest held by Axis forces (Germans and Hungarians) the Buda Castle was in large scale destroyed during the Soviet siege of Budapest at the end of World War II. Shortly after the end of World War II the reconstruction works of the medieval remains began but that was not the case of the ruined Neo-Baroque palace. The new Communist regime considered it a symbol of the former regime and the construction works of the former Royal Palace are still not completed.