This short essay overviews the changing image of the Ottomans in Hungarian historiography from the late 19th century to the 1990s. It maintains that whereas the Ottoman Empire had received a generally negative treatment from the nationalist historiographies of the empire’s successor states in the Balkans and the Middle East, Hungarian historiography has been more divided and has offered a more diverse view with regard to the country’s Ottoman centuries. As in the case of the biased treatment of the new nation-states of the Balkans and the Middle East, the more balanced Hungarian attitude has its political and cultural-historiographical background, which is briefly addressed in the paper.