Murad II

Murad II as an archer, Ottoman miniature from 1584

Murad II ,مراد بن محمد / Murād b. Meḥemmed ; (* June 1404 in Amasya ; † February 3, 1451 in Edirne ) was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1421 to 1451 (with an interruption from 1444 to 1446) .

government

Murad succeeded his father Mehmed I on the throne. The attempt of his uncle Mustafa (the "false Mustafa", see Mehmed I ), supported by the Byzantine emperor Manuel II. Palaiologos and other princes , to appropriate the throne led to difficulties soon after he took office, which led to an unsuccessful termination of the siege Constantinople led in 1422. However, the renegades were soon defeated and Mustafa was executed , as was Murad's younger brother, who filed his claim to the throne.

In the following years Murad consolidated the Ottoman rule in Western Anatolia and in 1430 occupied Saloniki , which had only come under the protection of Venice a few years earlier . He engaged in a long-term struggle with the Bosnians , Albanians and Hungarians , in which the Ottomans suffered many severe setbacks against Johann Hunyadi and Skanderbeg . Accordingly, he concluded a ten-year contract in Szeged in 1444 , in which he gave up all claims to Serbia and recognized Georg Branković as the Serbian regent.

Shortly afterwards, deeply affected by the death of his eldest son Ala-ud-din, he abdicated in favor of his second son Mehmed , who was twelve years old at the time. But the attack of the Christian powers - in violation of the signed treaty - overwhelmed the inexperienced young ruler, so that Murad returned from his retirement in Magnesia , defeated his enemies in the Battle of Varna (November 10, 1444), and himself again to Magnesia withdrew. A Janissary uprising caused him to take power again. He spent several years of his life on military expeditions in Europe, defeating Hunyadi again in Kosovo on the blackbird field (October 17-19, 1448). When the situation in the Balkans was stabilized, he turned east and defeated Timur's son Shāh Ruch and the emirates of Karaman and Çorum-Amasya. He died in Adrianople in 1451 and was buried in Bursa .

literature

• Ferenc Majoros, Bernd Rill: The Ottoman Empire 1300-1922. The story of a great power . Marix, Wiesbaden 2004, ISBN 3-937715-25-8 .
• Josef Matuz: The Ottoman Empire. Baseline of its history . 4th edition. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2006, ISBN 3-534-20020-9 .
• Gabriel Effendi Noradounghian : Recueil d'actes internationaux de l'Empire Ottoman 1300–1789. Tome I. Paris, Neufchâtel 1897. Reprint: Kraus, Nendeln 1978, ISBN 3-262-00527-4 .
• Anton Cornelius Schaendlinger: Murad II . In: Biographical Lexicon on the History of Southeast Europe . Volume 3. Munich 1979, pp. 248-250

Web links

Commons : Murad II.  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Badisches Landesmuseum, Karlsruhe: Murad II.

predecessor	Office	successor
Mehmed I.	Sultan of the Ottoman Empire 1421–1444 1446–1451	Mehmed II