Eastern and Central Europe (Eyewitness Travel Guides)

34 EASTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE AT A GLANCE

1340 Ottoman

Turks invade

Thrace, gaining

a foothold

in Europe

ART AND ARCHITECTURE

In Central and North Eastern Europe, imperial courts

and mercantile cities imported the very latest in Gothic,

Renaissance and Baroque styles. In parts of the Balkan

peninsula subject to Ottoman rule, however, artistic

influences came from the East, and the region was

almost totally excluded from the European art world.

THE AGE OF EMPIRES
The arrival of the Ottoman Turks had a lasting impact on
Europe, wiping out the nation states of the Balkans and
replacing them with a multinational empire. The main
challenge to the Ottomans came from the Austrian
Habsburg Dynasty, which won control of Czech and
Hungarian territories before expanding south and east. For
centuries, the dominant force in North Eastern Europe was
the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but this was ulti-
mately toppled by Russia, the rising power in the East.

GOTHIC RENAISSANCE

LATE MIDDLE AGES REFORMATION

1350 1400 1450 1500 1550

1349 Charles IV of

Bohemia beco mes Holy

Roman Emperor, turning

his capital Prague into

a hub of politics, art

and culture

1331–55 Under

Stefan Dušan,

Serbia becomes

the leading power

in the Balkans

1344 Work begins on St Vitus’s Cathedral (see

pp236–7), Prague’s distinctive landmark

1410 Polish and

Lithuanian armies

defeat the Teutonic

knights at Grünwald

1415 Czech reformist theologian Jan Hus

is burnt at the stake as a heretic, but his

ideas inspire the development of

Protestantism a century later

1431 Birth of Vlad II the Impaler,

who leads Wallachian resistance

against Ottoman expansion

1458-90 Reign of

Mátyás Corvinus

in Hungary

1463 The Ottomans

conquer Bosnia and

Herzegovina

1526 Ottoman Turks

defeat the Hungarians

at the Battle of Mohács;

the Hungarian crown

falls to the Austrian

Habsburg Dynasty

1533 Ivan IV

the Terrible

becomes Grand

Prince of

Muscovy

1380 Teutonic knights

reconstruct Malbork

Castle (see p207), creat-

ing one of the great

Gothic fortresses of

North Eastern Europe

1420s Frescoes at the

Manasija Monastery

(see p558) mark

the high point of

Serbian religious art

1477 Veit Stoss

begins work on the

altarpiece of the

Church of St Mary,

Cracow (see p186)

1490s Berndt Notke creates

the Dance Macabre for the

Niguliste Church (see p103)

1499 John of Kastav fills St

Trinity Church (see p536) with

vivid late-Gothic frescoes

1531 Construction of

Gazi Husrev Bey

Mosque (see p515),

Sarajevo

1552 Moscow’s St Basil’s Cathedral

(see pp130–31) built to celebrate the

victories of Ivan the Terrible

1561 Construction of Stari Most

bridge (see p520) in Mostar.

Destroyed in 1993, it is

reconstructed in 2004

1282 The Habsburg

Dynasty establishes

its first feudal

holdings in

Slovene lands

1569 Union of

Lublin creates

Polish-Lithuanian

Commonwealth

1353–91 Bosnia

becomes a re gional

power under King

Tvrtko, then falls

to the Ottoman

Turks