Kuruc (, plural ''kurucok''), also spelled kurutz, refers to a group of armed anti-
Habsburg
The House of Habsburg (; ), also known as the House of Austria, was one of the most powerful dynasties in the history of Europe and Western civilization. They were best known for their inbreeding and for ruling vast realms throughout Europe d ...
insurgents in the
Kingdom of Hungary
The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from 1000 to 1946 and was a key part of the Habsburg monarchy from 1526-1918. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the Coro ...
between 1671 and 1711.
Over time, the term kuruc has come to designate Hungarians who advocate strict national independence and the term "
labanc" to designate Hungarians who advocate cooperating with outside powers.
The term kuruc is used in both a positive sense to mean “patriotic” and in a negative sense to mean “chauvinistic.”
The term labanc is almost always used in a negative sense to mean “disloyal” or “traitorous”. This term originally referred to Habsburg troops, mainly Austrian imperial soldiers, garrisoned in Hungary.
The kuruc army was composed mostly of impoverished lower Hungarian nobility and serfs, including
Hungarian Protestant peasants and
Slavs
The Slavs or Slavic people are groups of people who speak Slavic languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout the northern parts of Eurasia; they predominantly inhabit Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, and ...
. They managed to conquer large parts of Hungary in several uprisings from Transylvania before they were defeated by Habsburg imperial troops.
Name
The word ''kuruc'' was first used in 1514 for the armed peasants led by
György Dózsa. 18th-century scholar
Matthias Bel supposed that the word was derived from the
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
word "cruciatus" (crusader), ultimately from "
crux
CRUX is a lightweight x86-64 Linux distribution targeted at experienced Linux users and delivered by a tar.gz-based package system with BSD-style initscripts. It is not based on any other Linux distribution. It also utilizes a ports system ...
" (
cross
A cross is a religious symbol consisting of two Intersection (set theory), intersecting Line (geometry), lines, usually perpendicular to each other. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally. A cross of oblique lines, in the shape of t ...
), and that Dózsa's followers were called "crusaders" because the peasant rebellion started as an official crusade against the
Ottomans
Ottoman may refer to:
* Osman I, historically known in English as "Ottoman I", founder of the Ottoman Empire
* Osman II, historically known in English as "Ottoman II"
* Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empir ...
.
Silahdar Findiklili Mehmed Agha, a 17th-century Ottoman chronicler, supposed that the word Kuruc ("Kurs" as it was transliterated into Ottoman Turkish in his chronicle) was a Greek word meaning "polished" or "cilâlı" in Turkish.
Today's etymologists do not accept Bel's or Mehmed's theory and consider that the word was derived from the Turkish word (rebel or insurgent).
In 1671, the name was used by Meni, the
beglerbeg pasha
Pasha (; ; ) was a high rank in the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman political and military system, typically granted to governors, generals, dignitary, dignitaries, and others. ''Pasha'' was also one of the highest titles in the 20th-century Kingdom of ...
of
Eger
Eger ( , ; ; also known by other #Names and etymology, alternative names) is the county seat of Heves County, and the second largest city in Northern Hungary (after Miskolc). A city with county rights, Eger is best known for Castle of Eger, its ...
in what is now
Hungary
Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...
, to denote the predominantly-noble refugees from
Royal Hungary. The name quickly became popular and was used from 1671 to 1711 in texts written in
Hungarian,
Slovak and
Turkish to denote the rebels of Royal Hungary and northern
Transylvania
Transylvania ( or ; ; or ; Transylvanian Saxon dialect, Transylvanian Saxon: ''Siweberjen'') is a List of historical regions of Central Europe, historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and ...
, fighting against the
Habsburgs
The House of Habsburg (; ), also known as the House of Austria, was one of the most powerful dynasties in the history of Europe and Western civilization. They were best known for their inbreeding and for ruling vast realms throughout Europe d ...
and their policies.
The rebels of the first kuruc uprising called themselves ''bújdosók'' (fugitives), or in long form, "different fugitive orders—barons, nobles, cavalry and infantry soldiers—who fight for the material and spiritual liberty of the Hungarian motherland." The army mustered by the northern Hungarian noble
Emeric Thököly was also called kuruc. Their uprising forced the Habsburg emperor
Leopold I to restore the constitution in 1681 after it was suspended in 1673.
The leader of the last of the kuruc rebellions,
Francis II Rákóczi, did not use the term, instead using the French word or to highlighting their purposes. Contemporary sources also preferred the term "malcontents" to denote the rebels.
Kuruc was used in Slovakian popular poetry until the 19th century. The opposite term (widespread after 1678) was labanc (from the Hungarian word "lobonc", literally "long hair," referring to the wigs worn by the Austrian soldiers), denoting Austrians and their loyalist supporters.
History
Background
Source:
After the Magnate conspiracy and rebellion of
Francis I Rákóczi,
Leopold I introduced an absolutistic government system in
Royal Hungary (which was not
occupied by the Ottomans and was not part of the
Transylvanian Principality).
The creators of this system were
Wenzel Eusebius Lobkowitz (President of the Imperial Privy Council 1669-1674),
Johann von Hocher,
Ignaz Abele,
Leopold Königsegg-Rothenfels, Johann Kinsky (Johann Oktavian, Graf Kinsky von Wchinitz und Tettau 1604-1679) and
Raimondo Montecuccoli
Raimondo Montecuccoli (; 21 February 1609 – 16 October 1680) was an Italian-born professional soldier, military theorist, and diplomat, who served the Habsburg monarchy.
Experiencing the Thirty Years' War from scratch as a simple footsoldier, ...
. They also invented the Verwirkungstheorie. Hungarian Estates forfeited their rights because of this conspiracy. The emperor then had the right to govern without asking the Diet (parliament of the Estates). Königsegg said the Hungarian Kingdom was "armis subjecti."
They enforced local inhabitants to maintain the army supplies (portio
ood quarters
ccommodationand forspont
elivery collected by the local military officers (repartitio). They neglected traditional government officials such as nádor and created a governing council in March 1673 (which consisted of four German and four Hungarian members and one leader,
Johann Gaspar Ampringen, but he was only a puppet and the real power was held by the local military leaders).
The court tried again to suppress the Protestants. In 1671,
György Szepelcsenyi, the Archbishop of Esztergom,
Leopold Kollonics, bishop of Weiner-Neustadt and the President of the Hungarian Chamber, Ferenc Szegedy, Bishop of Eger, and István Bársony visited the free and important towns one by one with military escorts and took back former (more than 100 years earlier) Catholic churches and schools from Protestants. Citizens of
Pozsony, including both men and women, guarded their church for weeks Szelepcsényi was not able to fight against them until, in 1672, Kollonics took matters into his own hands. He brought 1,200 soldiers from Vienna, arresting the nobler citizens for a few weeks and forcing them to hand over their church and school. After that, they built conceptual lawsuits against Protestant pastors. Between 1673 and 1674, they twice made "judicum delegatum" against Protestant priests. The jury members were high priests and secular lords including the judge and other legislatures. The subject of the coup was political crimes — the connection of the Lutheran and Reformed pastors with the pasha of Buda and the plan of an open rebellion, the main evidence of which was the indictment of István Vitnyédy's letters to Miklós Bethlen and Ambrus Keczer. In the end, whoever signed a reversal (a document to resign work as a Protestant priest and leave Hungary) were pardoned. 200 signed, but 40 resisted. Those who refused were sold as galley slaves to
Naples
Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...
(to be saved by Admiral Ruttler's fleet in 1676).
Officials were often corrupt and greedy. For example,
von Sinzendorf, who handled military finances, confiscated many noble people's properties. During one negotiation, he confiscated 11 castles, 70 noble curia and 367 villages (mostly embezzled for himself).
Leopold I dismissed 11,000 Hungarian fortress soldiers because he did not trust them, tried to concentrate the military into some main fortress and started to explode the nobility's enstrengthed castles.
The government levied a new kind of tax (Accisa) which raised taxation rates 10 times higher. This caused taxpayers to suffer.
The members of the
Wesselényi conspiracy, mostly nobles who lost their estates and the ex-soldiers who were dismissed without severance pay, fled east. The oppressed Hungarians sought refuge in Transylvania, but the Prince Apafi didn't have permission from the
Ottomans
Ottoman may refer to:
* Osman I, historically known in English as "Ottoman I", founder of the Ottoman Empire
* Osman II, historically known in English as "Ottoman II"
* Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empir ...
to let them in, so they started to gather by the
Tisza river. Although many of them escaped to Poland, those left were ready to start a new uprising and then became the kurucs.
The first kuruc uprising

The first kuruc uprising occurred in 1672. The kuruc army gathered in the
Partium where many refugees of different origins took shelter from religious and political persecution in
Royal Hungary. They called themselves ''bújdosók'' (fugitives). Their weapons were mostly pistols, light sabres and
fokos (battle-axes).
Their war tactics were typical of
light cavalry
Light cavalry comprised lightly armed and body armor, armored cavalry troops mounted on fast horses, as opposed to heavy cavalry, where the mounted riders (and sometimes the warhorses) were heavily armored. The purpose of light cavalry was p ...
. The main subgroups were
Protestant
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...
s, who were disgruntled by the Habsburg ambitions of the
Counter-Reformation
The Counter-Reformation (), also sometimes called the Catholic Revival, was the period of Catholic resurgence that was initiated in response to, and as an alternative to or from similar insights as, the Protestant Reformations at the time. It w ...
; impoverished minor nobles (holding on to their privileges while the Habsburg Court attempted to deprive them of their nobility) and soldiers from the ''végvár''s (frontier castles) who were sacked by Habsburg generals. Later, when the Turks lost ground to the imperial armies and Austrian despotism intensified, the Habsburg oppression of Hungarians played an increasingly important role in the motivation of the kuruc.
Initially, in August 1672, the kuruc army invaded
Upper Hungary, where they conquered the castles of
Diósgyőr,
Ónod,
Szendrő
Szendrő is a small town in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county, Northern Hungary, from county capital Miskolc.
History
Szendrő was first mentioned in 1317. It was named after its owner Szend. Szendro is a Hungarian last name. The first stone-built ...
and
Tokaj. After they defeated the Habsburg army of
Paris von Spankau near
Kassa, the towns of Upper Hungary surrendered and many disaffected people joined them from the Slovak and Ruthenian population of the northern counties.
The two leaders of the army of "fugitives" were
Pál Szepesi and
Mátyás Szuhay, members of the minor nobility who previously took part in other anti-Habsburg movements.
According to the recollections of
Pál Szepesi, the "fugitives" began looting in the northern countries: "In the guise of persecuting the Papists they pillaged whole counties. We began killing the plunderers but to no avail—they didn't respect any officers."
The ''
Hofkriegsrat'' of
Vienna
Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
immediately took measures: they strengthened the Habsburg troops, called more soldiers from
Lower Hungary and made peace with the
Hajduk
A hajduk (, plural of ) is a type of Irregular military, irregular infantry found in Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and parts of Southeast Europe from the late 16th to mid 19th centuries, especially from Hajdú–Bihar Count ...
s. On 26 October 1672, the Habsburg army defeated the "fugitives" at
Gyurke (later Hungarian ''Györke'', Slovak ''Ďurkov''). The rebels retreated across the line of the
Tisza.
After this initial success, the Habsburg government began systematic religious and political persecution in
Royal Hungary. The
Palatine of Hungary was suspended and in its place
Emperor Leopold I appointed a Directorium to administer Hungary in 1673, led by
Johann Caspar von Ampringen, the
Grand Master of the Teutonic Order
The grand master of the Teutonic Order (; ) is the supreme head of the Teutonic Order. It is equivalent to the Grand master (order), grand master of other Military order (religious society), military orders and the superior general in non-milit ...
, which engaged in severe repression against dissidents. The most infamous case was the trial of 300 Protestant pastors who were sentenced to death in 1674, and who were later sold as galley slaves in
Naples
Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...
, causing public outcry across Europe.
''Universitas'' of the "fugitives"
In 1675, the "fugitives" occupied
Debrecen
Debrecen ( ; ; ; ) is Hungary's cities of Hungary, second-largest city, after Budapest, the regional centre of the Northern Great Plain Regions of Hungary, region and the seat of Hajdú-Bihar County. A city with county rights, it was the large ...
. Later that year, the town was sacked again by three different armies. This was not uncommon in troubled
Upper Hungary.
The fugitives tried to organise themselves as an independent community called "''universitas''" or "''communitas''." They issued decrees, sent envoys to foreign powers, made a seal and held Diets (assemblies). At the time, they were already called kuruc, though they never called themselves such. Between 1674 and 1678, their leader was Count
Paul Wesselényi, the cousin of the late Palatine
Ferenc Wesselényi.
The "fugitives" established diplomatic connections with Poland in 1674 and with France in 1675. In May 1677, France, Poland, the Principality of Transylvania and the ''universitas'' of the "Fugitives" signed a treaty in
Warsaw
Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...
by which King
Louis XIV of France
LouisXIV (Louis-Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was King of France from 1643 until his death in 1715. His verified reign of 72 years and 110 days is the List of longest-reign ...
guaranteed 100,000
thaler
A thaler or taler ( ; , previously spelled ) is one of the large silver coins minted in the states and territories of the Holy Roman Empire and the Habsburg monarchy during the Early Modern period. A ''thaler'' size silver coin has a diameter o ...
s aid and assistance. The "fugitives" were obliged to attack the Habsburgs with an army of at least 15,000 men.
Michael I Apafi
Michael Apafi (; 3 November 1632 – 15 April 1690) was Prince of Transylvania from 1661 to his death.
Background
The Principality of Transylvania emerged after the disintegration of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary in the second half of the 1 ...
, the Prince of Transylvania, gave military and financial support to the ''universitas''.
In the autumn of 1677, 2,000 French, Polish and Tatar soldiers arrived in Upper Hungary. This small army, led by colonel Beaumont, wasn't able to seriously threaten Habsburg supremacy, although Habsburg control over Hungary declined in 1677 as Johann Caspar von Ampringen left the region. Royal Hungary became one theatre of the
European war between
Emperor Leopold I and Louis XIV. The president of the Viennese ''Hofkriegsrat'',
Raimondo Montecuccoli
Raimondo Montecuccoli (; 21 February 1609 – 16 October 1680) was an Italian-born professional soldier, military theorist, and diplomat, who served the Habsburg monarchy.
Experiencing the Thirty Years' War from scratch as a simple footsoldier, ...
, drew a plan of "pacification" under the title "''L'Ungheria nell'anno 1677''." According to the plan, Royal Hungary would be occupied by three Austrian armies, the remnants of the Hungarian constitution abolished and a grand-scale program of German colonisation implemented. Chancellor
Paul Hocher, one of the most influential men in the Habsburg government, agreed with Montecuccoli's plan. In the Privy Council he declared, "All Hungarians are traitors."
Under Mihály Teleki
In 1678, the fugitives accepted
Mihály Teleki, the Chancellor of Transylvania, as their leader. Prince Apafi proclaimed war against the Habsburgs. Previously, he had begged the
Ottoman Sultan (his overlord) to leave. The Sultan had demanded an unacceptable condition: in the case of success, all Royal Hungary should join the Ottoman Empire.
On 5 April 1678, Prince Apafi issued an ambiguous declaration to the people of Hungary. He announced that he, along with the Polish and French kings, took up the arms against "the heavy yoke of oppression" and recommended "the submission to the mighty Turkish Emperor with a reasonable mind and sharp eye."
The kuruc army of Teleki, together with the Polish and French troops, advanced well into Upper Hungary but immediately retreated into Transylvania at the sight of the first Habsburg regiments. The failure wrecked Teleki's image as a competent leader. On the other hand, a small kuruc cavalry troop (about 8,000 people) briefly occupied the most important mining towns and castles of Lower Hungary.
The great kuruc uprisings
In 1678, one of the most influential young noblemen of Upper Hungary and Transylvania,
Emeric Thököly, declared war against the Habsburgs. In August 1678, Thököly's army occupied almost all of Lower and Upper Hungary. Habsburg rule in
Royal Hungary quickly collapsed. The fugitives joined the
Thököly Uprising and officially elected him as their leader in
Szoboszló in January 1680. The kuruc troops merged with Thököly's own army, although changing fortunes and Thököly's subsequent alliance with the Ottomans would split the movement. In 1681, Emperor Leopold I re-established the Palatine of Hungary, and thus some grievances were removed and a less repressive policy was adopted, but this did not deter the Hungarians from revolting again.
That time onwards, the history of the kurucs is synonymous with that of the two great anti-Habsburg uprisings in the Kingdom of Hungary between 1680 and 1711, i.e. the
Thököly Uprising (1680–85) and
Rákóczi's War of Independence (1703–1711). Although they are generally called kuruc wars, these anti-Habsburg uprisings had a much wider social base and more complex political aims than the original kuruc movements. See the history of the great kuruc uprisings under their respective leaders,
Emeric Thököly and
Francis II Rákóczi.
Later usage
In the first half of the 18th century, "kuruc" was generally used to denote Hungarian cavalry soldiers (
hussar
A hussar, ; ; ; ; . was a member of a class of light cavalry, originally from the Kingdom of Hungary during the 15th and 16th centuries. The title and distinctive dress of these horsemen were subsequently widely adopted by light cavalry ...
s) serving in the Habsburg army, especially in the time of the
War of the Austrian Succession
The War of the Austrian Succession was a European conflict fought between 1740 and 1748, primarily in Central Europe, the Austrian Netherlands, Italian Peninsula, Italy, the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. Related conflicts include King Ge ...
(1740–1748). Many former kuruc soldiers of
Rákóczi's War of Independence joined the Habsburg army after 1711.
The
Prussia
Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...
ns were also called kurucs in Hungarian literature, including by in 1790. The reason behind this strange usage was that the enemies of the ''labanc'' Habsburgs were considered synonymous with the kurucs.
At the end of the 18th century, the word went out of usage in common parlance and became an exclusively historical term for the rebels of Rákóczi and Thököly.
In present-day South German language, ''Kruzitürken'' is a swear word, combining ''Kuruzen'' (Kuruc) and ''Türken'' (Turks), meaning "curse it."
In present-day Hungarian language, ''kuruc'' is sometimes used to denote Hungarian national radicals. "
Kuruc.info" is also the name of a far-right, nationalist Hungarian webpage.
Notes
References
{{Reflist
External links
A detailed timeline of all kuruc uprisings
17th century in Hungary
18th century in Hungary
Rebel militia groups in Europe
Kingdom of Bohemia
Military history of Hungary
Slovakia under Habsburg rule