Szegedin/Szeged
Szegedin/Szeged
Location
Szegedin is situated at 46° 15′ north latitude and 20° 10′ east longitude, approximately 170 km south-east of Budapest (Ofen and Pest), near the point where Hungary, Serbia and Romania meet.
Topography
Szeged is situated in the southern part of the Great Hungarian Plain on the lower reaches of the Tisza (Hungarian: Tisza), which flows into the Danube (Hungarian: Duna) some 120 km south of Szeged, in the Serbian region of Vojvodina. To the east of the city limits, the Mieresch (Hungarian: Maros) flows into the Tisza.
Political and administrative affiliation
Hungary; Csongrád County; the county town of Csongrád County.
Common symbolism
The coat of arms of Szegedin consists of a semicircular shield with notches on both sides, surmounted by a helmet with flowing crest on the right and left. Above the helmet is a crown, and upon this a lamb facing left. The shield is divided vertically into two fields: the left field features two diagonal silver stripes on a blue background, symbolising the rivers Tisza and Maros; the right field depicts a black half-eagle on a yellow background holding a sceptre in its talon. It has been part of the coat of arms since the reign of King Sigismund (reigned 1387–1437). The sceptre and crown represent Szegedin’s status as a royal free city, the helmet symbolises its military function, and the lamb signifies the free election of priests.
Prehistory
The area at the confluence of the Tisza and Mieresch rivers has been inhabited since Neolithic times. The rivers and the trade routes passing through the area ensured that the settlement enjoyed a favourable position in terms of trade and transport, whilst the hill rising from the marshes provided ideal conditions for settlement.
The Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period
From the end of the 15th century until the mid-16th century, Szegedin, with a population of approximately 8,000–9,000, was the third-largest town on what is now Hungarian territory after Buda/Ofen and Pest, and had an almost exclusively Hungarian population; however, there must also have been a ‘German element’, as in 1464 a certain Ladislaus Osvald served as town judge, and is said to have been German. By 1785, the town’s population had grown to 20,947.[1]
In 1543, Szegedin was occupied by the Ottomans. Although the town enjoyed privileged status due to its importance and paid taxes directly to the Sublime Porte, civic life largely stagnated. On 23 October 1686, following the conquest of Ofen on 2 September 1686, the city was abandoned by the Sultan and reintegrated into the Kingdom of Hungary; however, until the Treaty of Passarowitz/Požarevac in 1718, it remained a garrison and border town, its development shaped by military necessities. The municipal administration was organised along Habsburg lines, and many posts were filled by Germans from the Habsburg hereditary lands. Jews also settled in Szeged during this period; the first documented Jewish burial took place in 1794. The Jewish cemetery was extended in 1810, and a new cemetery was established at a different location in 1831. The military installations were demolished, with the exception of a remnant of the castle complex that still stands today, when Szegedin lost its status as a border town following the Habsburg conquest of the Banat (1716/17). On 21 May 1719, it was elevated to the status of a Free Royal Town.
Following Szegedin’s incorporation into Habsburg Hungary in the wake of the ‘Great Turkish War’, there was a not inconsiderable influx of immigrants in the 18th century, primarily from the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. A total of 218 people, including migrants from Bohemia, Moravia and the southern Austrian hereditary lands, were granted citizenship. These were mainly craftsmen, whereas in other parts of Hungary farmers made up the majority of immigrants and settlers. In 1703, ‘Schopper’ (Hungarian:‘super’) arrived in Szeged from Gmunden to work as shipwrights.
Of outstanding significance in the town’s history is the great flood of 1879, which destroyed a good 90 per cent of the buildings and the entire infrastructure. The city was rebuilt with international aid in the following decades, as evidenced to this day by the names of the ring roads (e.g. Bécsi körút [Vienna Ring Road], Párizsi körút [Paris Ring Road], Római körút [Rome Ring Road]). At that time, 1,682 Germans lived in Szeged (1880 census).[2]
In the 21st century, Szeged has a population of approximately 160,000. The proportion of Hungarians is well over 90 per cent, whilst fewer than one per cent identify as German.[3]
Economy
Wood and salt were imported from Transylvania; later, the wine trade was added to this. In the area surrounding the settlement – as indeed throughout the Puszta – cattle were reared and, between the 15th and 17th centuries, driven from here to Germany and Italy. The carved head of a Hungarian steppe cattle above the entrance to the council chamber in Nuremberg Town Hall bears witness to the importance of this commodity.
The first Jew to be documented as having settled in Szeged was the merchant Mihály Pollák in 1781. Jews continued to be permitted to settle in Szeged without being granted citizenship. They quickly became a significant force in the town’s economic and social life.
Well into the 19th century, Szeged was an important centre for shipping and shipbuilding on the upper reaches of the Tisza and therefore repeatedly attracted foreign specialists.
From the Napoleonic Wars until the end of the First World War, Szeged was the second-largest centre of the Hungarian milling industry after Budapest, as wheat cultivation had steadily grown in importance. Fruit growing around Szeged, which, like the food industry, ensured the livelihood of its inhabitants, was not significantly affected by the loss of large areas of farmland to the south and east of the city following the First World War. All that remains of this industry today is the ‘Pick’ salami factory, founded in 1869 on the site of the Feldmayer dynasty of Viennese blue dyers, which is renowned far beyond Hungary’s borders.
History of Religion and the Church
In the Middle Ages, Szeged belonged to the Archdiocese of Kalocsa; it did not become a bishopric until the early 18th century. In the 15th and 16th centuries, there were four monasteries in Szeged (one each for the Dominicans and the Premonstratensian nuns, and two for the Franciscans).
In 1880, a decision was taken to build a new cathedral, which was erected in the Neo-Romanesque style after the First World War and consecrated in 1930. It is one of the few major new church buildings in Hungary in the 20th century.
The synagogue, built in 1843, proved too small over the course of the 19th century for the Jewish community, which had existed since the late 18th century. The new building, designed by Lipót Baumhorn (1860–1932) and consecrated in 1903, was not destroyed during the Holocaust and is now the second-largest synagogue in Hungary.
Education, science and special cultural institutions
A well-functioning denominational school system, which had its origins in the Middle Ages, continued to exist in the town even during the ‘Ottoman rule’. In 1722, a building was erected for the Hungarian school, followed in 1735 by the construction of the German school. In 1739, a ‘Dalmatian’ (Serbo-Croatian) school was also established. In 1775, the three educational institutions were merged, and lessons were taught in all three languages. From 1710 onwards, the Piarists taught in the town at their own grammar school. The mid-18th century can therefore be described as the golden age of education in Szeged. During this period, the Piarist grammar school boasted the highest number of pupils in the country. As a result of the restrictions on the influence of Catholic religious orders over the education system, imposed by Emperor Joseph II (1741–1790) in the 1780s (which resulted in the poor being increasingly excluded from education, whilst German was declared the compulsory language), there were noticeable cutbacks in the town’s education system as a whole.
Joseph Kaschnitz (1759–1790), a Piarist priest and teacher in Szeged, wrote the ‘Ode to the Montgolfier Balloon Rising in Szeged in 1785’ (Pest 1785), as well as a speech addressed to Emperor Joseph II (Pest 1786) and a treatise on the education of young people (Pest 1787).
In 1806/1807, the municipal theatre staged plays by August von Kotzebue (1761–1819), Friedrich Ulrich Ludwig Schröder (1744–1816) and Emanuel Schikaneder (1751–1812) were staged at the municipal theatre; thereafter, performances were temporarily suspended due to structural damage. There was also a travelling theatre company that staged German-language plays. From 1816, the troupe led by Ádám János Láng (1772–1847) performed in Szeged; he was one of the outstanding performers at the German Theatre in Pest. During the so-called Reform Era (similar to the Vormärz), the status of German as an equal language in Hungary declined, and the German Theatre was closed down.
The present-day university (known as József Attila University since 1962) is the successor institution to the Ferenc József [Franz Joseph] University in Cluj-Napoca, Transylvania, which was founded in 1872 and traces its origins back to a Jesuit college established in 1581. Under the Treaty of Trianon, Cluj-Napoca – which had been under Romanian occupation since 1918 – was ceded to Romania; consequently, most of the Hungarian professors and students fled and were admitted to the University of Szeged, founded in 1921. Today, it has around 30,000 students across twelve Schools, including the School of General Medicine. This School is increasingly attracting students from Germany and Austria.
The University Library, also newly established in Szeged, was able to acquire 3,742 early printed books from the dissolved monastic libraries of the Franciscans, Piarists and Minorites in Szeged, including numerous works on the humanities and several incunabula. The oldest printed work is a Bible printed in Venice in 1476 and published by the Frankfurt publishers Franz Renner and Nikolaus von Frankfurt. A Bible printed by Anton Koberger in Nuremberg in 1487 and several other incunabula also bear witness to the level of learning amongst the clergy in Szeged. Among the significant works is a grammar by Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560), printed in 1562, which may have originated from a collection in Brilon in the Sauerland region and eventually found its way, via Transylvania, to the Order of the Minorites in Szeged and then to the Franciscan library there. The collection of the Esterházy family from Marcaltő (Veszprém County), which is also incorporated into the library, contains numerous works in foreign languages, including 990 German titles from the 19th century.
The present-day Károly Somogyi County Library is based on a donation by Canon Károly Somogyi (1811–1888), who, following the devastating flood of 1879, donated his scientifically valuable library of 43,701 volumes to the city of Szeged. Among the 36 incunabula in the collection, the oldest dates from 1473. Somogyi was a scholar with encyclopaedic aspirations; accordingly, 75 per cent of his library consists of foreign-language literature, 25 per cent of which is in German. The collection contains books from all academic disciplines, naturally including many on theology, amongst which are a large number of works relating to the Reformation.
Art History
Traces of medieval South German architecture can be seen in Oskola Street (Türkenbasar, Demjén House), which exemplifies the architectural style of the wealthy bourgeoisie. According to recent research, whilst the building itself was erected in the 18th century, the cellar may date back to the Middle Ages.
The town’s medieval buildings were destroyed during Ottoman rule. Only the Franciscan monastery, dating from 1503, survived; its church was considered the largest Christian church within the immediate Ottoman territory. Only Ottoman structures were newly erected (contemporary sources mention a castle, a mosque, a bathhouse and a seraglio), whilst Christian buildings were neglected.
Bibliography
László Blazovich (ed.): Magyar Várostörténeti Atlasz 3. Hungarian Atlas of Historic Towns No. 3. Szeged 2014.
László Blazovich: A Brief History of Szeged. Szeged 2007 (Dél-Alföldi Évszázadok 21).
László Blazovich, Attila Marosvári (eds.): Along three Rivers. Millenary album of Csongrád County. Szeged 2001.
Detlef Haberland/András Varga: On a Rare Melanchthon Print in the Szeged University Library. In: Wolfenbütteler Notizen zur Buchgeschichte, vol. 39 (2014), no. 2, pp. 153–163.
Detlef Haberland, András Varga: The Incunabula of the Klebelsberg Library, Szeged / A Szegedi Tudományegyetem Klebelsberg Könyvtár Ősnyomtatványai. Szeged 2017.
Judit P. Vásárhelyi (ed.): Hungary. Hildesheim, Zurich, New York 1998 (Handbook of German Historical Book Collections in Europe 5), pp. 228–241.
Web links
- www.szegedvaros.hu/ (Website of the City of Szeged, in Hungarian and English)
- www.pick.de/pick-original-ungarische-salami/ (Website of the Pick salami factory, Szeged)
- www.szegedinemetek.hu/de/deutsche-in-szeged/ (Website of the German self-governing community in Szeged)
- www.herder-institut.de/bildkatalog/wikidata/Q81581 (Images of Szegedin/Szeged in the image archive of the Herder Institute, Marburg)
Notes
[1] Blazovich, p. 233.
[2] I. Szabó: ‘The Population of Hungary between 1330 and 1526’. In: *Historical Demography of Hungary*, ed. J. Kovacsics, Budapest, 1963. pp. 95–97. The History of Szeged. Vol. I, ed. Gy. Kristó, Szeged, 1983, p. 450.
[3] 2019: 160,766; Magyarország közigazgatási helynévkönyve, 1 January 2019. KSH, 2019. www.ksh.hu/docs/hun/hnk/hnk_2019.pdf (accessed 4 January 2021).
Citation
László Blazovich, Detlef Haberland: Szegedin/Szeged. In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2021. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/p32464 (as at 30 July 2021).
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