Tyrnau

Slovak: Trnava

Latin: Tirnavia, Tyrnavia; Hungarian: Nagyszombat

The Latin name, as well as the German and Slovak names derived from it, can be traced back to the Trnávka stream (Old Slavic: Tŕň= thorn) which flows through the town. The Hungarian place name ‘Nagyszombat’ (= ‘Big Saturday’) originated from the Saturday markets held in the town.

Tyrnau is situated at^48° 23' north latitude and^17° 36' east longitude, 49 km north-east of Pressburg/Bratislava and 47 km north-west of Neutra/Nitra.

The village is situated in the Trnava Hills (Trnavská pahorkatina) between the Little Carpathians (Malé Karpaty) and theVáh valley.

Slovak Republic, Trnava Region (Trnavský kraj). The city is the centre of the Slovak ecclesiastical province, established in 1977, and the seat of the Archdiocese of Trnava.

The coat of arms depicts a golden wheel with six spokes on a blue field, symbolising a Christogram. An image of Christ can be seen in the centre of the wheel. The Greek letters A and Ω symbolise the beginning and the end of the world, whilst the letters R and C stand for Regia Civitas (royal city).

Archbishop Péter Pázmány (1570–1637) founded numerous Catholic institutions in Tyrnau, which is why this centre of the Hungarian Counter-Reformation was also known as ‘Little Rome’ or ‘Slovak Rome’.

The settlement was first mentioned in writing in 1211. Tyrnau was an important economic centre of the county of Pressburg. Its role in trade was linked to the local Jewish community and a customs post established there. King Béla IV (1235–1270) granted Tyrnau the title of ‘Royal Free Town’ by means of a charter (1238). Following the Mongol invasion (1241), Bavarian and Austrian settlers arrived in the town, leading to a change in its ethnic composition: Germans now formed the majority. In 1382, Louis I, King of Hungary (1342–1382), died in Tyrnau. In 1432, the town was sacked by Hussites under Blažek Borotín. In accordance with a decree issued by King Matthias Corvinus (1458–1490), Germans and Slovaks – who at that time constituted the town’s second-largest ethnic group – were elected to the town council on an annual rotating basis.

In 1532, whilst fleeing the Ottomans, the Archbishop and the Cathedral Chapter of Gran/Esztergom moved their seat to Tyrnau, where it remained until 1820. Archbishop Miklós Oláh (1553–1568) established a Jesuit presence, founded a school and, through his humanist court, transformed the town into an intellectual and cultural centre. With the settlement of Hungarians fleeing the Ottomans, a Hungarian majority established itself in Tyrnau; in 1574, the town’s charter was drawn up in Hungarian. In 1545 and 1550, Ferdinand I of Habsburg (1526–1564) convened two Hungarian Imperial Diets. During the Fifteen Years’ War (1591–1606) and the Bocskai Uprising (1604–1606), Tyrnau was briefly occupied by enemy troops. In 1645, the town was conquered by the Transylvanian Prince George I Rákóczi (1593–1648). On 26 December 1704, as part of the so-called Rákóczi Uprising, the Battle of Tyrnau took place, in which the Kurucs under Franz II. Rákóczi (1676–1735) suffered a defeat at the hands of Habsburg troops (Labanzen). In the early 19th century, the town was occupied by French troops.

In 1238, Tyrnau was granted a charter by Béla IV. At the head of the royal free town (libera Civitas) stood a town judge (iudex), elected annually , who governed it together with a town council (iurati cives) consisting of twelve members. The town’s citizens were exempt from taxation in the medieval Kingdom of Hungary.

In 1840, Tyrnau had 6,800 inhabitants, of whom 38 per cent were Slovaks, 33 per cent Germans and 15 per cent Hungarians. In 1880, the town had 10,824 inhabitants, of whom 56 per cent were Slovaks, 25.5 per cent Germans and 14.2 per cent Hungarians; and in 1910, 14,501 inhabitants, of whom 53 per cent were Slovaks, 15 per cent Germans and 30.3 per cent Hungarians.^[1] In 2011, Tyrnau had a population of 65,578, of whom 98.8 per cent were Slovaks, 0.7 per cent Czechs, 0.2 per cent Hungarians and 0.3 per cent others.^[2]

Its favourable location on trade routes between Bohemia, Moravia, the Spiš, Silesia, Poland, Hungary and other regions fostered trade in Tyrnau as early as the Middle Ages. The town’s boom in the 19th century coincided with the expansion of its infrastructure. In 1846, the first Hungarian horse-drawn tram began carrying passengers between Tyrnau and Pressburg. Today, numerous international industrial firms and Slovak companies have branches in Tyrnau.

In modern times, numerous diocesan and provincial synods were held in Tyrnau (including in 1561, 1566, 1633 and 1734). In the 16th century, both Lutheran and Calvinist movements emerged, but they lost ground again in the 17th century under the influence of the Counter-Reformation. The religious affiliation of the inhabitants was as follows: in 1840, 94.1 per cent of the population were Roman Catholic, 0.6 per cent Greek Orthodox, 4 per cent Protestant and 1.3 per cent Jewish. In 1910, 80.8 per cent of the population were Roman Catholic, 0.2 per cent each were Greek Catholic and Greek Orthodox, 4.7 per cent were Protestant and 14 per cent were Jewish.^[3] 2001: 71.85 per cent Roman Catholic, 0.2 per cent Greek Catholic, 0.11 per cent Greek Orthodox, 2.93 per cent Evangelical, 6.54 per cent other, 18.37 per cent non-denominational or of unknown religious affiliation. 2011: 60 per cent Roman Catholic, 0.3 per cent Greek Catholic, 0.15 per cent Greek Orthodox, 2.3 per cent Protestant.^[4]

Tyrnau is home to the Ján Palarik Theatre and the Ján Koniarek Gallery.

Cardinal Péter Pázmány, Archbishop of Gran, founded a university in Trnava in 1635, which was relocated to Buda in 1777 (the forerunner of the Loránd Eötvös University and the Catholic Péter Pázmány University there). In 1992, the University of Trnava (Trnavská univerzita) opened its doors. Since 1997, the state-run St Cyril and Methodius University (Univerzita sv. Cyrila a Metoda) has also been in existence. In 1787, Anton Bernolák (1762–1813) compiled the first codification of the Slovak language in Trnava.

The Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály (1882–1967) graduated from the town’s Catholic grammar school in 1899, where he composed his choral work *Stabat Mater *.

In 1578, Miklós Telegdi founded the Cathedral Chapter Press in Tyrnau, which operated until 1609. Between 1648 and 1777, until the university was relocated to Ofen/Buda, the university press operated in the town. It was here that the first complete Hungarian version of the Holy Scriptures, translated by the Jesuit monk György Káldy, was published in 1626. Péter Pázmány wrote part of his Counter-Reformation work *Az isteni igazságra vezérlő kalauz* [Guide to Divine Truth] (Pressburg 1613) in Tyrnau.

• István Bitskey: Catholic Renewal in the European Context. The Case of Upper Hungary in the 17th Century. In: Klára Papp, János Barta, Attila Bárány, Attila Györkös (eds.): The First Millennium of Hungary in Europe. Debrecen 2002, pp. 349–364.
• Jaroslav Dubnický: Ranobarokový univerzitný kostol v Trnave [The Early Baroque University Church in Trnava]. Bratislava 1948.
• István Käfer: Four Hundred Years of the University Press, 1577–1977. Budapest 1977.
• Stefan Kazimir: Vývoj ekonomicko-sociálnej štruktúry mesta Trnavy v poslednej tretine 16. storočia a v 17. storočí [The Development of the Economic and Social Structure of the City of Tyrnau in the Last Third of the 16th Century and in the 17th Century]. In: Historický Časopis 18 (1970), pp. 48–90.
• Vladimír Rábik: The Topography of the City of Trnava in the Middle Ages. In: Jaroslava Žuffová (ed.): Monuments of Trnava and the Trnava Region 10. Trnava 2007, pp. 7–16.
• Vladimír Rábik: Trnava [Tyrnau]. In: Martin Štefánik, Ján Lukačka (eds.): Encyclopaedia of Medieval Towns in Slovakia. Bratislava 2010, pp. 523–551.
• Michal Stetina: Trnava Printers [Tyrnau Druker] 1578–1968. Bratislava 1970.
• 1238–1938. This book was published by the Trnava City Council to mark the 700th anniversary [This book was published by the Tyrnau City Council to mark the 700th anniversary]. Trnava 1938.

• www.trnava.sk/sk (Tyrnau town website)
• www.truni.sk (University of Tyrnau website)

[1] Ernő Deák: Royal Free Cities – Municipal Cities. Urban Administration in the Lands of the Hungarian Crown (1780–1918). Part 2: Selected Materials on Urban Administration A. Vienna 1989 (Austrian Academy of Sciences. Publications of the Commission for Economic, Social and Urban History 4), p. 176.

[2] See www.trnava.sk/userfiles/download/attachment/Obyvate%C4%BEstvo2011-2polrok.pdf (accessed 17 April 2013).

[3] See Deák (as in note 1), p. 177.

[4] See www.trnava.sk/userfiles/download/attachment/ourak_demo_Trnava_Obce_SODB-2011.pdf (accessed 17 April 2013).

Tamás Fedeles: Tyrnau/Trnava. In: Online Encyclopaedia on the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe, 2013. URL: ome-lexikon.uni-oldenburg.de/54445.html (accessed 22 February 2021).