Veľké Slemence (; ) is a village and

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

Michalovce District Michalovce District (''okres Michalovce'') is a district in the Košice Region of eastern Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the e ...

in the

Košice Region The Košice Region (, ; ; ) is one of the eight Slovak administrative regions. The region was first established in 1923 and its present borders were established in 1996. It consists of 11 districts ( okresy) and 440 municipalities, 17 of which ...

of southeastern

Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...

History

In historical records the village was first mentioned in 1332. It was a single village named Szelmenc (between 1919 and 1938 it was called Slemence) before 1945. From 1919 until 1945, Szelmenc bore the same history as

Subcarpathian Rus' Transcarpathia (, ) is a historical region on the border between Central and Eastern Europe, mostly located in western Ukraine's Zakarpattia Oblast. From the Hungarian Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin, conquest of the Carpathian Basin ...

. It was first ceded to Czechoslovakia in 1919, then after the

First Vienna Award The First Vienna Award was a treaty signed on 2 November 1938 pursuant to the Vienna Arbitration, which took place at Vienna's Belvedere Palace. The arbitration and award were direct consequences of the previous month's Munich Agreement, whic ...

in 1938 it returned to the

Kingdom of Hungary The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from 1000 to 1946 and was a key part of the Habsburg monarchy from 1526-1918. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the Coro ...

, then back, then, after the Soviet-Czechoslovak Treaty in 1945 was partially ceded to the Soviet Union along with

. The new border between the two states ran through Szelmenc. The town was divided between Slovakia (2/3) and Ukraine (1/3) by cutting it into two parts - Veľké Slemence became a part of

and Mali Selmentsi (Малі Селменці) a part of

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

. In 1946, a house which lay exactly on the border was demolished with all the other objects in the way, and a 6 meter high

palisade A palisade, sometimes called a stakewall or a paling, is typically a row of closely placed, high vertical standing tree trunks or wooden or iron stakes used as a fence for enclosure or as a defensive wall. Palisades can form a stockade. Etymo ...

wall with watch towers and border patrolling were installed. For the next 60 years crossing between the two parts was prohibited. To meet with relatives on the other side, locals had to first travel 13 km to

Uzhhorod Uzhhorod (, ; , ; , ) is a List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality on the Uzh, Uzh River in western Ukraine, at the border with Slovakia and near the border with Hungary. The city is approximately equidistan ...

for visas to Czechoslovakia. If their visa application, which took at least two weeks, was successful, they would travel 80 km south to the nearest border crossing, then 80 km back, and return the same way. Previously 3–500 meters and a half day, the trip became at least 160–200 km long for one way only and took at least a month to organize. Those, who tried to shout over from one side to the other were penalized on both parts. This resulted in discussing, sending messages, news in form of songs, sung loud near the border. In 2003, a Székely gate (székelykapu) was installed on the border, one half of it being in the Slovak, while the other half being on the Ukrainian part of the border, with a short poem on the Mali Selmentsi part. The poem can be roughly translated as "From one Szelmenc became two, should be unified by the Creator, God bless with peace and keep us together, our hope remains, and will join together what torn apart, gate wings of the two Szelmec closes our villages together". After the

fall of communism The revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, were a revolutionary wave of liberal democracy movements that resulted in the collapse of most Marxist–Leninist governments in the Eastern Bloc and other parts of the world. Th ...

, and more than a decade of fights with bureaucracy and negligence, a

border checkpoint A border checkpoint is a location on an international border where travelers or goods are inspected and allowed (or denied) passage through. Authorization often is required to enter a country through its borders. Access-controlled borders of ...

for pedestrians and cyclists was established in 2005 on the street which was divided. It was opened on 23 December 2005, ending 61 years of division. On 1 January 2008, Slovakia joined the

Schengen Agreement The Schengen Agreement ( , ) is a treaty which led to the creation of Europe's Schengen Area, in which internal border checks have largely been abolished. It was signed on 14 June 1985, near the town of Schengen, Luxembourg, by five of the t ...

, resulting in tightening of the crossing between the two Szelmences once again. The residents of Mali Selmentsi were again forced to travel to Uzhhorod to apply at the Slovak Consular Office for a visa to enter Slovakia and the

Schengen Area The Schengen Area ( , ) encompasses European countries that have officially abolished border controls at their common borders. As an element within the wider area of freedom, security and justice (AFSJ) policy of the European Union (EU), it ...

. On the other hand, as Slovak citizens, the residents of Veľké Slemence could enter Mali Selmentsi and Ukraine without a visa. However, on 11 June 2017, the

visa policy of the Schengen Area The visa policy of the Schengen Area is a component within the wider area of freedom, security and justice policy of the European Union. It applies to the Schengen Area and Cyprus, but not to EU member state Ireland. The visa policy allows nati ...

was amended. Ukrainian citizens holding

biometric passports A biometric passport (also known as an electronic passport, e-passport or a digital passport) is a passport that has an embedded electronic microprocessor chip, which contains biometric information that can be used to authenticate the identit ...

no longer require a visa to enter the Schengen Area for up to 90 days in a 180-day period. At present, the border between the two Szelmences can only be crossed by pedestrians and cyclists who are EU, EEA, Swiss and Ukrainian citizens. The two parts have a total population of about 840 people, almost exclusively (+95%) ethnic Hungarians, with a few

Romani Romani may refer to: Ethnic groups * Romani people, or Roma, an ethnic group of Indo-Aryan origin ** Romani language, an Indo-Aryan macrolanguage of the Romani communities ** Romanichal, Romani subgroup in the United Kingdom * Romanians (Romanian ...

in and around the village(s). The elderly citizens of the two Szelmences were once citizens of

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

, the

, and the Soviet Union, and now are the citizens of

(and thus the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

) and

, while most of them have never left the village, where they were born. The divided town, its inhabitants, and their relationships across the border, particularly in the context of the

Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

, became the subject of the 2023 book ''Hranica: príbehy zo slovensko-ukrajinského pohraničia'' by Slovak journalist Stanislava Harkotová.

Geography

The village lies at an altitude of 106 metres and covers an

area Area is the measure of a region's size on a surface. The area of a plane region or ''plane area'' refers to the area of a shape or planar lamina, while '' surface area'' refers to the area of an open surface or the boundary of a three-di ...

of 9.972 km². The

has a population of about 600 inhabitants.

Culture

The village has a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

pitch.

Education

Dobó István Hungarian Elementary School Dobó István Hungarian Elementary School is situated in Nagyszelmenc, which is a small village of eastern Slovakia. However, it is a Hungarian School, since 97% of the population of the village is Hungarian. History In 1886 the first parish sc ...

Bibliography

*Zelei, Miklós: A kettézárt falu. Ister Kiadó, Budapest, 2000.

Gallery

References

Egy határátkelés tapasztalatai
Találjuk ki Közép-Euópát?, September 19, 2007 ( Hungarian)
Schengenjárás Szelmencen
September 7, 2007 ( Hungarian)
Pic of the old border
on Flickr

made by the American Hungarian Federation, americanhungarianfederation.org, 2004 (English)
News From Szelmenc
americanhungarianfederation.org (English only)
Vasfüggöny után újabb vasfüggöny

Új Szó Új Szó (; ) is a Hungarian-language daily newspaper published in Bratislava, Slovakia. It also publishes a weekly Sunday supplement titled '' Vasárnap'' (, before 1990: ''Vasárnapi Új Szó''). History ''Új Szó'' was established by a party ...

online, November 7, 2003 ( Hungarian) {{DEFAULTSORT:Velke Slemence Villages and municipalities in Michalovce District Divided cities Slovakia–Ukraine border crossings Municipalities in Slovakia where Hungarian is an official language