Štúrovo

Štúrovo (until 1948 Slovak Parkan ; Hungarian Párkány ; German Gockern ) is a town on the Danube with 10,186 inhabitants (as of December 31, 2019) in southern Slovakia .

View from Esztergom to the Maria Valeria Bridge and Štúrovo

geography

The municipality is located in the southeastern part of the Slovak Danube lowlands , immediately southwest of the confluence of the Hron and the Danube, which forms the Slovak-Hungarian border here. The Hungarian city of Esztergom is located on the opposite bank of the Danube from Štúrovo . Not far from Štúrovo rise the small Burda Mountains on the Slovak side and the Pilis Mountains on the Hungarian side, across the Danube. The city center is located at an altitude of 116 m nm and is approx. 50 kilometers from Nové Zámky , from the Hungarian capital Budapest and around 150 kilometers from the Slovak capital Bratislava .

Neighboring municipalities of Štúrovo are Nána in the north, Kamenica nad Hronom in the northeast, Esztergom in the east and south and Obid in the west.

history

The present city was founded in the forties of the 16th century (first concrete mention in 1546) in the course of the wars between the (Ottoman) Turks and the Habsburgs by the Turks as a military base prior to the fortification of the Danube bridge at Esztergom . They gave the facility the name Ciğerdelen Parkani (pronounced Dschigerdelen Parkani , about "fortress that bores into the bowels of the enemy"). In front of the new settlement there was the fishing village Kakat (h) (first document 1075 as Kokot , later names: Chokot, Kokat, Cocott, etc.), which was depopulated by the Turks in the course of the establishment of Parkan. This term meant rooster in old Slovak ; this heraldic animal is to this day in the city arms of Štúrovo. The name form Parkan appears for the first time in 1571, the Hungarian version Párkány then in 1773.

Štúrovo and Esztergom 1664

The place initially suffered from the many conflicts on what was then the western border of the Ottoman Empire .

On October 7, 1683, the numerically superior Turks (up to 40,000 men), who retreated after the Second Turkish Siege of Vienna , defeated a Polish Hussaria of only 4,000 men under King Jan III. Sobieski . Two days later, on October 9, 1683, after the Polish cavalry was reinforced by infantry, artillery and imperial troops, the Turks were defeated by Charles of Lorraine and Jan III. Sobieski crushed. The events are summarized as the Battle of Párkány .

Until 1918 the city belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary and then came to the newly formed Czechoslovakia . She came back to Hungary for a short time from 1938 to 1945 through the First Vienna Arbitration .

Parkan was renamed Štúrovo in 1948 after World War II . The name is derived from Ľudovít Štúr , although he never lived in the city. In 1960 the neighboring agricultural community of Nána (first document 1157) was incorporated into Štúrovo, but in 1990 it became independent again.

At the end of 1991 a referendum was held in the city to reintroduce the name Parkan . With a turnout of 54%, 87% of the vote was in favor of the proposal, making the referendum valid. However, the government at the time refused to rename it in 1992 out of "social interest".

population

According to the 2011 census, Štúrovo had 10,919 inhabitants, including 6,624 Magyars , 2,930 Slovaks , 90 Czechs , 21 Roma , seven Poles , five Bulgarians , three Ukrainians , two Germans , two Jews and Russians, and one Croat . 30 residents indicated a different ethnic group, and 1,202 residents gave no information about the ethnic group .

7,070 residents supported the Roman Catholic Church , 489 residents the Reformed Church , 109 residents the Evangelical Church AB , 66 residents the Pentecostal movement, 43 residents the Jehovah's Witnesses , 22 residents the Greek Catholic Church , 14 residents each for the Evangelical Methodist Church and to the Orthodox Church ; 107 residents professed a different denomination. 1,377 residents were without religious denomination , and the denomination was not determined for 1,608 residents.

Culture

Bilingual street sign - Slovak above, Hungarian below

Due to the long and repeated membership of Hungary, the city is bilingual. Besides Slovak, Hungarian is also spoken.

traffic

Štúrovo is the end point of two 1st-order roads, I / 63 from Bratislava and I / 76 from Hronský Beňadik . The II / 509 runs to Bajč and Nové Zámky , while the II / 564 leads to Levice via Demandice .

On the western edge of the city there is a large train station on the international railway line Bratislava – Budapest , which is also a border station for trains to Hungary. The regional railway line Štúrovo – Levice branches off to the east of the station .

The bridge between Štúrovo and Esztergom, which was completed in 1895 and blown up in 1944 by the retreating Wehrmacht , was only rebuilt in 2000/2001 with financial support from the Slovak and Hungarian governments and the EU's PHARE program due to the previously poor Hungarian-Czechoslovak relations . The Danube bridge is called " Maria Valeria Bridge ", Slovak Most Márie Valérie , Hungarian Mária Valéria híd .

Town twinning

Štúrovo maintains partnerships with

Hungary Esztergom , neighboring city in Hungary
Czech Republic Bruntál in the Czech Republic
Italy Castellarano in Italy

Romania Baraolt in Romania
Serbia Novi Bečej in Serbia
Poland Kłobuck in Poland

literature

Párkány , in: Guy Miron (Ed.): The Yad Vashem encyclopedia of the ghettos during the Holocaust . Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2009 ISBN 978-965-308-345-5 , pp. 576f.

Web links

Commons : Štúrovo - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ Štúrovo - Z histórie mesta , Štúrovo.sk, accessed on March 30, 2011 ( Memento from August 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
↑ Results of the 2011 census (Slovak)
^ Website of the city

[1] Štúrovo - Z histórie mesta , Štúrovo.sk, accessed on March 30, 2011 ( Memento from August 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive )

[2] Results of the 2011 census (Slovak)

[3] Website of the city