Sárvár (german: Kotenburg or ; la, Bassiana; sl, Mala Sela) is a town in Vas County, Hungary. Sárvár lies on the banks of the River Rába at Kemeneshát. The population is nearly 16,000. The town has become a tourist centre of international renown.

Etymology

''Sár'' means "mud" in Hungarian, and ''vár'' means "castle". The latter is a common ending for settlement names.

History

During the World War II, Sárvár was used as a centre for the internment for Polish soldiers who had arrived in Hungary in 1939. Later, during the World War II, Sárvár was used as a concentration camp for the internment for thousands of Serb families expelled by Hungarian soldiers from their homes in northern Serbia in 1941. Now, there is a monument and graveyard for hundreds of Serbs who died in Sárvár concentration camp.

Sights

Sárvár's notable sights include the

spa A spa is a location where mineral-rich spring water (and sometimes seawater) is used to give medicinal baths. Spa towns or spa resorts (including hot springs resorts) typically offer various health treatments, which are also known as balneoth ...

(with its famous medicinal water), a

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

church, an

arboretum An arboretum (plural: arboreta) in a general sense is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, man ...

, the park forest and the Csónakázó Lake. A number of rarities of cultural remains are shown in the exhibition halls of the Ferenc Nádasdy Museum.

Castle

Through the Nádasdy family, the castle of Sárvár, now called Nádasdy Castle, played a significant role in the progress of Hungarian culture in the 16th and 17th centuries. The first Hungarian book, The New Testament of 1541, was printed here. The knight's hall of the castle is decorated with the battle scenes of Lord Chief Justice Ferenc Nádasdy (married to the notorious

Elizabeth Báthory Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed ( hu, Báthori Erzsébet, ; sk, Alžbeta Bátoriová; 7 August 1560 – 21 August 1614) was a Hungarian noblewoman and alleged serial killer from the family of Báthory, who owned land in the Kingdom of ...

) and with scenes from the Old Testament. The Nádasdy Castle and estate later became a property of the kings of Bavaria, and the former

King Ludwig III Ludwig III (Ludwig Luitpold Josef Maria Aloys Alfried; 7 January 1845 – 18 October 1921) was the last King of Bavaria, reigning from 1913 to 1918. Initially he served in the Bavarian military as a lieutenant and went on to hold the rank of Oberl ...

died there in 1921, three years after being deposed. During the World War II, the castle was used as the retreat of Ludwig's grandson Prince Albert of Bavaria.

Notable people

Péter Balassa Péter Balassa (born 18 March 1975) is a Hungarian football player and politician. Balassa retired at end of 2008–2009 season, he became a Member of Parliament in 2022. Balassa has played in the Hungarian NB I for Videoton FC Fehérvár du ...

, footballer *

Alice Lok Cahana Alice Lok Cahana (February 7, 1929 – November 28, 2017) was a Hungarian Holocaust survivor. Lok Cahana was a teenage inmate in the Auschwitz-Birkenau, Guben and Bergen-Belsen camps: her most well-known works are her writings and abstract p ...

, Holocaust survivor and artist *

Edward Eisner Edward Eisner FRSE FIP (1929-1987) was a Hungarian-born physicist who was Professor of Applied Physics at the University of Strathclyde 1968-1987. He specialised in the physics of sound. The "Edward Eisner Memorial Fund Award" is named in his hon ...

, physicist and professor *

József Vass József Vass (25 April 1877 – 8 September 1930) was a Hungarian politician, who served as Minister of Religion and Education between 1920 and 1922. He finished his theological studies in Rome. After his ordination he became chaplain in Ado ...

, politician *

József Vida József Vida (born January 9, 1963 in Sárvár, Vas) is a retired male hammer thrower from Hungary, who represented his native country at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. He set his personal best (76.01 metres) on July 4, 1999 in ...

, hammer thrower *

Takács de Saár Takács de Saár (in Hungarian: ''saári Takács'') is a Hungarian noble family. The family members mainly lived in Vas and Sopron counties and had their seat in Saár village, which since 1912 is a district of Sárvár. The family's nobility was ...

, noble family *

Zoltán Stieber Zoltán Stieber (; born 16 October 1988) is a Hungarian professional footballer who plays as a winger or attacking midfielder for Újpest. Having spent time in a number of Hungarian youth sides Stieber spent four years with the academy of ...

, footballer

British avian flu outbreak

The

Bernard Matthews Bernard Trevor Matthews CVO CBE QSM (24 January 1930 – 25 November 2010) was the founder of Bernard Matthews Farms, a company that is best known for producing turkey meat products. Early life Bernard Trevor Matthews was born in 1930 in Br ...

Sága Foods plant in Sárvár, that processes turkeys, has been implicated in the H5N1 outbreak in

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

, England.

Twin towns – sister cities

Sárvár is

twinned Twinning (making a twin of) may refer to: * In biology and agriculture, producing two offspring (i.e., twins) at a time, or having a tendency to do so; * Twin towns and sister cities, towns and cities involved in town twinning * Twinning inst ...

with: * Seini, Romania * Sonntagberg, Austria * Steinheim an der Murr, Germany * Uherské Hradiště, Czech Republic

References

External links

* in Hungarian, English, German and Czech
Accommodation in Sárvár
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sarvar Populated places in Vas County Spa towns in Hungary Thermal baths in Hungary Roman settlements in Hungary