Štúrovo

Štúrovo (, ) is the southernmost town of Slovakia, situated on the river Danube not far from the mouth of the Hron. Connected by the Mária Valéria Bridge it forms a cross-border urban area with the city of Esztergom in Hungary. In 2023 the town had a population of 9,361, two-thirds of whom belong to the Hungarian minority. Administratively, it is part of the Nitra Region and the Nové Zámky District.

Štúrovo / Párkány is a popular summer holiday destination with the Vadas Thermal Resort, the biggest aquapark in Slovakia. It is also an industrial and commercial center of local importance with lively cross-border traffic, an industrial park, railway junction, hotels, casinos, supermarkets and the annual Fair of Saints Simon and Jude.

Names and etymology

The oldest name of the settlement was ''Kokot'', the common Slavic word for rooster (the word still exists in Slovak but as a vulgarism). It was mentioned as ''Kokot'' in 1075, ''Cokot'' in 1157, ''Chokot'' in 1209, ''Kokat'' in 1215 and ''Kakath'' 1276. The word entered Hungarian as "kakas" and is still in use.

''Parkan'' originally meant a "fortified outpost" in Middle High German, and entered Hungarian as "párkány" (although its meaning later changed to "ledge"). In 1546 a small fort was built by the Ottomans and called ''Ciğerdelen parkan'' meaning "liver-stabbing fort" or ''Çekerden''. In the early modern period Kakath/Kakad and Párkány remained in parallel use but over time Párkány became the dominant name (Kakad was last attested in 1732). A German name was also recorded in 1595 as ''Gockern''.

''Párkány'' was the official name of the town when it was part of the Kingdom of Hungary in the 18th-20th centuries. It is still in use as Hungarian remains a recognized minority language in the municipality.

The original Slovak name was also ''Parkan''. It was in official use from 1920 to 1938, and between 1945 and 1948. The town was renamed in 1948 after Ľudovít Štúr, a prominent figure of the Slovak national revival. There was an attempt to return to the old official name in a local referendum in 1991; however the government refused to accept the decision.http://www.sturovo.sk/main.php?id_menu=17329&id_menu_obsah_m34873=10106&firmy_slovenska_flag=0&caption1=0 Štúrovo - History (contains a link to .doc file, in Slovak)

Symbols

The main symbols of the town are the coat of arms and the flag.

The coat of arms of the town was created by a local historian, Péter Püspöki Nagy, and adopted by the municipal council in 1971. The main charge refers to the medieval name of the town, Kakath ("kakas" meaning rooster in Hungarian), the chaussé evokes the triangular Ottoman fortress of Parkan in the early modern period, the azure field refers to the Danube and Hron (Garam) rivers.

The blazon of the arms:

''Azure, chaussé Or displayed a cock's head facing sinister erased Gules.''

The flag of the town is a swallowtail with a red side and seven blue and gold stripes.

History

Prehistory

The area of Štúrovo has been inhabited since prehistoric times. On the natural plateau above the river to the southwest of the town a large Neolithic settlement was discovered by Juraj Pavúk during rescue excavations in 1965-67 when the South-Slovakian Pulp and Paper Mill (JCP Stúrovo) was constructed. Excavations uncovered a main area of approximately 140 by 120 meters, with longhouses distributed across it. A further excavated area suggested a minimum overall west-east extent of about 200 meters, with the excavator proposing a settlement area of up to 500 meters along the Danube. Ten building phases were identified, ranging from the developed Linear Pottery culture (LBK) to the Želiezovce phase, suggesting a more or less continuous occupation. A total of 31 longhouses were excavated, ranging from 14 m to 37 m in length. The site also provided a large assemblage of animal bones, indicating a diet dominated by domesticates such as cattle, sheep/goats, and pigs. Carbonised cereals were preserved in pits, with emmer dominant, and einkorn and spelt also present. There was a large house (Großbau) in three of the settlement phases that was probably used as communal grain store and animal stall. Chalcolithic finds of the Boleráz group were also recovered from this location.

In the Roman era the land on the left bank of the Danube was part of the Pannonian Limes. A settlement named Anavum in Ptolemy's Geography (in Greek ἄναυό) can be located hypothetically near the mouth of the Hron by using Ptolemy's coordinates. So far no Roman remains have been found in this area.

Archaeological finds prove the existence of a Germanic settlement in the Roman and Migration period. A rescue excavation was carried out in 1956-1957 in the former military training ground (Vojenské cvičisko) to the north of present-day Štúrovo. In total 66 structures were unearthed including 12 huts. The settlement was inhabited in the Early Roman Period and later again in the Late Roman and Early Migration Periods (between years 310/320 and 420/430 AD). At the time this area was populated by the Quadi people. The village consisted of sunken huts with hexagonal or rectangular post construction, and also structures on the ground level. The inhabitants mostly used Germanic pottery and kept domestic animals (cattle, goat, sheep, pig, horse, dog, cat and chicken). Among the unearthed bones cattle farming was best represented. Pottery imported from Pannonia attest commercial relations with the Romans across the Danube. A bronze coin of Claudius Gothicus was also found. The Quadic settlements in Štúrovo and the lower Hron basin vanished during the first decades of the fifth century when the tribes left their homeland.

There was an Avar-Slavic burial ground in the same area with 280 graves, dating from the 7th and 8th centuries. Among the findings, ten were identified as horsemen graves, along with several others that also belonged to the Avar warrior class. The majority of the other graves were attributed to the Slavic population, based on their construction and accompanying artifacts. The finds show the integration and cultural assimilation between the Avars and Slavs within the Avar Khaganate, making it challenging to distinguish between the two groups archaeologically. The primary occupation for the population appears to have been agriculture.

Medieval Kakath

From the 10th century Gran / Strigonium (Esztergom) became the royal and ecclesiastical capital of the Kingdom of Hungary. A village developed on the opposite bank of the river that was first mentioned in the charter of the Monastery of Saint Benedict (now Hronský Beňadik) in 1075 ("in Kokot a possession of 10 fishermen's houses in the upper parts and 3 plowgate of land"). The settlement was regularly mentioned in medieval documents, most often in the form of Kakath from the 13th century onwards. It owed its significance to the proximity of the royal city and a natural crossing on the Danube. The ferry point was part of an important trade route that connected the center of the Hungarian kingdom with its northern territories and the Kingdom of Bohemia. In 1215 the ferry toll was granted to the Chapter of Strigonium by King Andrew II of Hungary. In February 1274 King Ladislaus IV of Hungary was staying in Kakath (referred to as ''villa Kokat'') when the chapter asked for his help in a property dispute.

In the Middle Ages Kakath was owned by the Archbishopric of Gran except the small tract of the Benedictine monastery. However, this was seized by the archdiocese in 1276 and never returned, although the monks continued to litigate over it until the 16th century. During the struggle for the Hungarian crown in the first decade of the 14th century, King Wenceslaus II of Bohemia led a campaign in 1304 to Hungary to strengthen the position of his son, King Wenceslaus. He set up his camp at the port of Kokoth in July, then crossing the Danube he attacked Strigonium because Archbishop Michael was a prominent supporter of his son's rival, King Charles I.

From the 1520s onwards, Kakath was severely affected by the Hungarian–Ottoman Wars. On Tabula Hungariae, the oldest printed map of Hungary, the town itself was not depicted but the location was inside the area that was indicated as plundered by the Ottomans after the Battle of Mohács in 1526. The town was probably ravaged again during Suleiman I's campaign of 1529. The tax register of the archbishopric in 1531 recorded only 11 houses and 10 ferrymen, a significant decrease from the previous years. Strigonium itself was besieged and captured by the Ottomans in 1543. By that time, the medieval market town had been destroyed by the devastating conflict: according to the tax register of that year, Kakath was completely abandoned.

The exact location of the medieval settlement is still not known but rescue excavations in 2009 uncovered the edge of a large cemetery between today's Sobieskeho ulica and the Vadaš Thermal Complex in which at least several dozen people were buried. It was tentatively identified as the cemetery of Kakath.

Ottoman Parkan

The Ottomans soon built a fortified outpost (parkan) on the left bank of the Danube, opposite Gran. This was part of the defense system of the city which was now located in the heavily contested border zone between the Kingdom of Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. The outpost also provided a safe base for raiders sent north of the Danube. The construction of the new fort was reported by Pál Várdai, Archbishop of Gran, in his letter to the 7 mining towns on September 22, 1546: "You know how dangerous this region is, especially opposite Strigonium, due to the new castle being built very close by." The construction of the outpost was probably completed that year or the next. It was named by the Turks ''Ciğerdelen parkan'' meaning "liver-stabbing fort".

The Archbishopric of Strigonium still tried to collect income from the villages north of the Danube in the following decades, therefore it appointed stewards to Kakath, but it was unable to tax the outpost itself which was firmly in Ottoman hands. The fortress was modest in size and the garrison consisted of regular troops (müstahfıza), azebs and Christian irregulars ( martolos). The presence of artillerymen in 1586 suggests that the fort had cannons at that time, and there was a mosque with a muezzin.

Many attempts to retake the fortress from the Turks followed, but they were unsuccessful except 1595–1605 period, until 1683, when the Turks lost a battle near Párkány.

Párkány in the Kingdom of Hungary

During the reign of Maria Theresa, the town regained its rights and became a district town.

In 1850, Párkány became a station on the railway between Pressburg (, now Bratislava) and Budapest. In 1895, the Mária Valéria bridge to Esztergom was opened.

After World War I, the town became a border town of Czechoslovakia. In 1938, as a result of the First Vienna Award, Párkány and parts of Southern Slovakia were occupied by Hungary. It was liberated in the years 1944/1945 by Soviet troops. The Mária Valéria bridge was destroyed for a second time (first time in 1920) by retreating German forces.

After World War II, with the annulment of the Vienna Awards, the town became a part of Czechoslovakia again. It was renamed to ''Štúrovo'' in 1948. The formerly independent villages of Nána and Obid were merged with the town in 1960 and 1972 respectively. Štúrovo ceased to be the seat of a separate district in 1960 and was merged into the new larger Nové Zámky District.

The postwar industrialisation period saw a major pulp and paper processing plant opened - the ''Juhoslovenské celulózky a papierne'' (South Slovakian Pulpwood and Paper Works) in 1968, employing some 4,000 people. A new thermal swimming resort ''Vadaš'' was built in 1978. The local railway station became the second largest in Slovakia (1975).

After the Velvet Revolution, Nána (1990) and Obid (1998) became separate villages again. The Mária Valéria bridge to Hungary was rebuilt for the third time and opened in 2001, boosting the local economy.

Border crossing

Until 21 December 2007 when both Slovakia and Hungary became part of the Schengen Area, Štúrovo was a major border crossing between Slovakia and Hungary, with Esztergom located on the Hungarian side of the River Danube. The two cities are linked by the Mária Valéria Bridge. The road bridge is some in length and is named after Archduchess Marie Valerie of Austria, (1868–1924), the fourth child of Emperor Franz Josef, and Elisabeth.

The bridge was originally opened on 28 September 1895 but was destroyed twice. On 22 July 1919 the bridge was destroyed by a detonation at its first pier on its western side but the bridge was renovated in 1922 and completely reconstructed in 1926. During World War II, retreating German troops blew up the bridge on 26 December 1944 along with other bridges near Esztergom.

Decades of intransigence between the Communist governments of Hungary and Czechoslovakia meant that the bridge was not rebuilt until the new millennium, finally reopening on 11 October 2001. Half the costs of the project were covered by a 10 million Euro grant from the European Union, as part of the EU PHARE project to assist applicant countries in their preparations to join the EU.

Štúrovo was also a major railway border crossing between Slovakia and Hungary as it is on the main Bratislava-Budapest railway line. The main station across the border in Hungary is Szob which is located to the east on the same side of the River Danube.

Demographics

According to the 2001 census, 11,708 people were living in the town with 68.7% identifying themselves as ethnic Hungarian, 28.1% as Slovak and 3.2% as other nationalities.
The religious make-up was: Roman Catholic 77.18%, without denomination or not specified 16.45%, Lutheran 1.36%.

Twin towns — sister cities

Štúrovo is twinned with:

* Esztergom, Hungary
* Bruntál, Czech Republic
* Castellarano, Italy
* Baraolt, Romania
* Novi Bečej, Serbia
* Kłobuck, Poland
* Kőbánya (Budapest), Hungary

References

External links

Official website


Thermal swimming resort Vadaš

Virtual Tour of Štúrovo

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sturovo
Cities and towns in Slovakia
Populated places on the Danube
Socialist planned cities
Hungary–Slovakia border crossings
First Vienna Award
Municipalities in Slovakia where Hungarian is an official language
Villages and municipalities in Nové Zámky District