John Hunyadi: Defender of Christendom [Hardcover]

Considering the number of books out there on John Hunyadi, I thought this book was pretty good. It covers most of his major actions and events. However, this book is fairly macroscopic so you won't learn a lot about his actual life and his background is just barely touched on. Note: Whoever wrote the other review has no idea who this John Hunyadi is and, yes, he was at least half Romanian. His other name of Corvinus had to do with a Sigismund myth about Hunedoara.

This book is long overdue! Don't get me wrong. There are a number of books that cover John Hunyadi, and he is featured heavily in the events of 15th Century Balkans history. But as is too often the case, historians have their biases, and history books on this time period often are little more than Balkans nationalism. This text attempts to break the mold.

The author knows his sources, for one. The entire history of the name "Hunyadi" is called into question, and the ethnic identity of Hunyadi as either a Vlach (Romanian) or Magyar (Hungarian) is brought into question. Indeed, this is important, for if one enters a Romanian bookstore and asks for a book on John Hunyadi or Janos Hunyadi, they will only know him under the name "Iancu de Hunedoara" nine times out of ten.

As a historical figure, Hunyadi was a crusader, resisting the invasions of the Ottoman Empire, but also invading their lands in turn. He had studied under Italian mercenaries, and used the tactics of the knightly cavalry lords in bright steel, the peasant warfare tactics of Bohemian Hussite rebels, and the nuanced gunpowder technologies to devastate his foes. His son Matthias Corvinus later grew into a king in Hungary, though many argue Hunyadi himself was of peasant origins. He helped allow for the renaissance to spread through the Balkans by way of Italian contacts, was in close contact with the religious and political leaders of his day, and today is remembered both as the White Knight of Hungary, and one of three men called the Athlete of Christ. His allies and enemies included the Sultans Murad II, and Mehmed the Conqueror, Vlad Dracula, Vlad Dracul (Dracula's father), the Polish martyr King Jogaillon, the sons of the legendary gazhi Everenos, Albania's national hero Skanderbeg, and Serbia's protector and lord George Brankovic. This book covers it all.

The book is fast-based at point and dense at others. It differs in its interpretation of sources from other Balkan historians (such as Florescu, Raymond, Treptow, and John Fine, Jr.,) but it seldom does so without good reason to back itself up. The author is incredibly familiar with his sources, and discusses the way they have been interpreted at different points, as well as the ways they interact with one another. In fact, if a point of the book is ever "slow" or "dense" this is because it actively tackles some of the hardest problems in understanding the identity of John Hunyadi and does so thoroughly without falling into the shortcuts of other historical texts.

I have only one complaint of the book and that is its lack of familiarity with the Ottoman Turks, and with Muslims in general. The author will use words like "infest" to describe a Muslim presence entering an area, while the crusaders when invading merely are on campaign. The Ottomans are also referred to as barbarians, and are said to have neither culture nor an understanding of the most basic agriculture. This is not uncommon amidst Balkan histories written of this period of time which do not focus specifically on the Ottomans, and often Ottoman-centric histories are biased against the Slavic, Vlach, Bulgarian, and Magyar inhabitants of the Balkans. However, this is not history, even if the texts cited do include Ottoman primary sources. The ignorance on this matter becomes racially insensitive and Islamophobic in its simplified portrayal of the Ottomans.

Finally, I want to address a negative review on this book. Hunyadi's birth is a question addressed in the book: whethere he was Romanian/Vlach or Hungarian/Magyar. One reviewer claims he was a Hungarian, and so gave this book 1 star for addressing both possibilities. Let me say that the reviewer apparently did not read the first chapter. (Hungarian historians also have a tendency to claim that every Italian, Romanian, Turk, or Slav who was an important figure in their history is one of their own, so the reviewer might simply be ignorant of non-Hungarian texts).

Excellent book, long overdue, well-research, but problematic in its anti-Ottoman agenda.

János Hunyadi was a Hungarian, not a Romanian! He lived in Erdély (the so-called "Transylvania") that was part of Hungary/Magyarország until the Treaty of Trianon in 1920 (dismemberment of Hungary). As a result of this treaty, Hungary lost an unprecedented 2/3 of her territory, and 1/3 of her population!

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