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Buda Castle was the former royal residence of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1944. It was constructed in the 13th century on the foundations of a fortress that had served as the royal residence of Béla IV of Hungary, following devastating Mongol invasions led by Batu Khan (grandson of Genghis Khan). Buda Castle embodies the royal city of Budapest, the capital of the Kingdom of Hungary in the Middle Ages, where the various monarchs of the empire resided, including the rulers of the House of Habsburg. It grew under the successive reigns of Kings Louis I of Hungary (or Louis the Great), Sigismund of Luxembourg and Matthias Corvinus (or Matthias I) between the mid-14th and late 15th centuries. This period corresponds to the apogee of the city of Budapest and the beginnings of the Italian Renaissance.
Occupied by the forces of the Ottoman Empire from 1541 to 1686, Buda Castle was the site of many battles and military sieges. Charles V of Lorraine, general of the armies of the Holy Roman Empire, overthrew the Ottomans with the help of the Polish king, John III Sobieski, as part of a European Christian alliance against the expansion of the Muslim Turks. The Royal Palace in Budapest suffered several attacks and had to be rebuilt more than once. In the 20th century, Buda Castle fell victim to massive looting by Nazi troops who used the former palace as a retreat at the end of the Second World War. The Nazis were driven out of the castle by the Soviet army at the end of the Budapest siege in 1944-45 when the Russian troops occupied the building. Despite the popular revolt during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, the country remained under communist influence until the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989.
Renovations in the second half of the 20th century transformed the complex to house the Hungarian National Library, the Hungarian National Gallery (with paintings and works by the greatest Hungarian artists), and the Budapest Historical Museum (tracing more than 1,000 years of history of Hungary and its capital). The Buda Castle Esplanade hosts some of the most famous festivals in Budapest (Wine Festival, Beer Festival, Chocolate Festival, Folk Art Festival…). A major architectural project is presently underway to renovate the castle site and restore the interior rooms to their former glory.