Castle of Eger

The first castle serving the bishops of Eger stood on Várhegy hill near Felsőtárkány, built as a refuge fortress in the early Árpád period. Mongol forces destroyed it during the invasion of 1241, after which the bishop moved his seat to a rocky hill within Eger itself, where a new castle was built and developed rapidly; around 1470 Bishop János Beckensloer added a Gothic palace, whose ground floor still stands.

As Ottoman power advanced through Hungary the fortress became a key link in the border-defence chain confronting the empire. In the first half of the 16th century it was divided into an outer and inner castle and its works modernised to plans by the engineer Alessandro Vedani. István Dobó was appointed castellan in 1548 and set about strengthening both the garrison and its weaponry in anticipation of a Turkish assault.

In September 1552 a combined Ottoman force of 35,000–40,000 men, led by the vizier Kara Ahmed with Szokoli Mehmed, beylerbey of Rumelia, and Hadim Ali, beylerbey of Buda, laid siege to Eger, defended by 2,100–2,300 men under Dobó. The assault failed and the Ottomans suffered heavy casualties before withdrawing; 1,700 of the defenders survived, though most of the walls had been badly damaged by the time the attackers pulled back.

Reconstruction stretched over decades, following plans by Ottavio Baldigara, Bornemissza Gergely and Christoporus Stella; the garrison was raised to 7,000 men, and German gunners were brought in. In 1596 the Ottomans besieged Eger again; this time its multinational garrison surrendered to Sultan Mehmed III after only brief resistance.

The Ottomans held Eger for 91 years, maintaining and even extending its fortifications, until the Habsburgs recaptured the castle in 1687 after starving out its defenders.

In 1701 the imperial war council ordered the now-superfluous outer castle's defences blown up; only the inner castle retained a minor role during the Rákóczi uprising that followed. The site then declined for generations, its stone carried away by the cartload for building work in the town below.

Archaeological investigation, led first by Arnold Ipolyi, was interrupted when the archbishop handed the castle to the treasury for use as a military barracks in 1870; further research in 1877 by lieutenant János Balogh uncovered an extensive underground passage system, nearly 4 kilometres long, running beneath the town. Military use of the site continued until 1957.

The Szép Bastion, closed off in the 1950s, was restored in 2014 and reopened to visitors in 2016; it is now the highest point within the walls. Also in 2014 Eger Castle was designated a National Memorial Site commemorating the 1552 victory, and from 2016 it has undergone renovation under Hungary's EU-funded National Castle Programme.

The castle is a listed historic monument. Its museums, run by the Dobó István Castle Museum, include exhibitions on the site's history and the kazamaták, the system of cellars beneath the fortress.