Győr (Latin Arrabona, Jaurinum, German: Raab, Croatian: Jura, Đura) is a county town in Hungary, the center of the Western Transdanubia region, Győr-Moson-Sopron county and the seat of the Győr district. It is a major economic, cultural, university and sports center, one of the most dynamically developing cities in the country. The Vienna-Bratislava-Budapest axis is located on an innovative axis and has excellent transport facilities. As the third richest city in Hungary in terms of monuments, it won the Europa Nostra Prize for Monument Protection in 1989 in recognition of the reconstruction of the Baroque city center.
The origin of his name
Old well-known name: Arrabona, which
was the first name of the town. Arrabona was a Roman city in Upper
Pannonia. It got its name from the river Arrabo at the mouth of
which it lay, and which we know today as Rába. Some historians
derive their present name from this, while others associate it with
the personal name Geur (Geur was a knight in the first castle).
The city has an ancient Celtic and Latin name of Arrabona, a
medieval Latin name of Jaurinum. Turkish: Yanıkkale, German: Raab,
Slovak: Ráb, Serbian: Ђер / Đer, Croatian Jura / Đura / Vjura, of
which the first two are the most common. The people of Kópháza call
the city ,ura, the Kimleys call it Jura, the Bezenye people call it
Vjura. In 1824, László Tuboly (1756-1828) of Tubolyszegi wrote about
the interpretation of the name of Győr:
Geography
The city
is located in the eastern part of the Little Plain, at the mouth of
the Mosoni-Danube, Rába and Rábca, which is why it is also called
the “city of rivers”. An important route along the Danube has
connected Aquincum (Óbuda) with Vindobona (Vienna) since Roman
times. On the right bank of the Danube, the route led to flood-free
terraces and high floodplains to the Pándorfalvi plateau and then to
Vienna. On this route, the Rába and the Rábca formed an
insurmountable obstacle, and thus a transport hub was formed here.
The roads went to Vienna, Budapest, Sopron, Pápa, Veszprém and
Székesfehérvár.
Geomorphological conditions may also have
contributed to the formation of the city. In today's Downtown, two
flood-free terraces have developed, which have also been raised by
three coastal dunes. This made it suitable for building a castle.
Its significance increased from Roman times to Turkish times, when
it became the most important border fortress of our country. The
town and its surroundings are located in the area of the Kisalföld
Great Plain, but in the area of Ménfőcsanak it also extends to the
area of the Sokoró Hills, which belongs to the Transdanubian
Central Mountains.
Natural values
The area of Győr
belongs to the flora region of the Hungarian or Pannonian flora
region (Pannonicum), the Great Plain (Eupannonicum), and the flora
of the Little Plain (Arrabonicum). The flora of the Kisalföld
extends to Csallóköz in the north and to Austria in the west. The
areas protected from floods are mostly occupied by well-growing
arable land and, to a lesser extent, pastures. The fauna of the Győr
area is even more extinct than the original vegetation. Wildlife has
been insignificant for centuries. The Xántus János Zoo is located in
the Kiskút grove in the Gyárváros district.
Episcopal Forest:
The area around the city was originally covered with groves. The
grove forests were interrupted by living waters, branched river
branches, seaweed tissues of morotvas, reeds and sedges. The
vegetation of the landscape has undergone great changes. After flood
relief and drainage, most of the forests were cleared. Today only in
the floodplains of the Mosoni-Danube; Thus, between Püspökerdő,
Likócs and Győr-Szentiván, and east of Szentiván, we find a larger
forest. The areas protected from floods were mostly occupied by
well-growing arable land and, to a lesser extent, pastures. The park
forest in the western part of the city is the lungs of Győr. Here we
can take pleasant walks.
Rába-Quelle Bath: the surface of the
Little Plain belonged to the wing of the Carpathian Basin covered by
the Pannonian Sea until the middle of the Pliocene period in the
late Tertiary. Its interior began to sink again at the end of the
Pliocene. This subsidence area, which is bounded by fault lines, is
also called the Győr Basin. Along these, the water stock of the
former sea has been heated by deep magma and, mixed with mineral
salts, appears on the surface as medicinal water as a result of
drilling. The predecessor of the spa was built on this basis.
Hydrography
The Danube has a significant impact on the city.
The river was regulated between 1886 and 1894. The most significant
river in Győr is the Mosoni-Danube, which was regulated together
with the Danube. In 1907, the sluice of Rajka was built, with which
the flood could be completely excluded from the Mosoni-Danube. In
1924, the construction of the Industrial Canal was completed. In the
1980s, a new riverbed was built on the Mosoni-Danube, called the
“Episcopal Crossing”. The other major river in the town is the Rába:
its regulation was completed in 1893. The third river is Rábca.
Répce and Rábca are the names of the same river: it takes the
Kis-Rába in the Hanság area, hence it is called Rábca. Thermal
waters were also found in Győr. Under the regulation of Marcalt, in
1893, it was transferred to its old bed near the mouth of the Rába.
The climate of the city is continental, but the summer is slightly cooler, fuller than the Great Plain, and it receives more rainfall. The average annual temperature is 10.3 ° C. The annual amount of precipitation is 530 mm.
The
region has always played a key role throughout history. In Roman
times, next to the castrum protecting the province of Pannonia,
there was also a civic city (Arrabona). Around 430, it came under
Hun rule and was then occupied by the Avars. The rule of the Avars
was broken by the Franks. The emerging Hungarians found such a
population in the Kisalföld. At the time of the founding of the
state, St. Stephen founded a bishopric and had a cathedral built.
When the county system was formed, he made Győr its seat, with a
castle manor at the head. Due to its location, the castle became an
indispensable crossing point and later a market for trade along the
Danube. Győr played a nationally important role, especially after
the Tartar invasion. In Turkish times, it was a border fortress
defending Vienna. In 1566 the whole city burned down except the
fortress. With the reconstruction, a rectangular street network has
been designated instead of the medieval curved streets, which is
still in the city center to this day. In 1594, at the sight of the
mighty Turkish besieging army, the Italian and German castle guards,
with a free retreat, abandoned the castle (the military tribunal
sentenced and beheaded Castle Captain Ferdinand Hardegg). After
three and a half years, it was recaptured in 1598 by two outstanding
warlords of the age, Miklós Pálffy and Adolf von Schwarzenberg. The
population fleeing the Turkish occupation only slowly leaked back.
The industry was organized in a guild framework. The modernization
of the city could only begin in the 1660s. In the 17th and 18th
centuries, soldiers were replaced by squid and craftsmen to build
one of the most beautiful Baroque cities in Hungary. Queen Maria
Theresa elevated it to a free royal city. On June 14, 1809, as a
result of the battle of Győr, the city fell into the hands of the
French army of Napoleon, was occupied by General Eugène Beauharnais,
Viceroy of Italy, and Napoleon visited the city in person on 31
August. Napoleon intended Győr to be the seat of Western Hungary
occupied by his troops, and appointed General Narbonne, based in
Győr, to govern the occupied western Hungarian counties. Following
the peace with the Austrian monarchy, the French evacuated the city
in November 1809.
Due to his role in the War of Independence
in 1848-49, the rule of the Viennese government placed a special
burden on the city. An economic turn took place in the life of Győr.
In the 1830s, Győr became the most important domestic station of
intermediary trade. According to the description of Fényes Elek, 400
ships turned to Győr every year. Grain, tobacco, wool, hides,
horses, oxen, pigs, honey, wax, cobs were transported to Vienna, and
building timber, iron, luxury goods, and colonial goods were brought
from Vienna. Baron Sina had barely begun preparations for the
construction of the Vienna-Győr railway, and in 1840 work was
stopped. The left bank of the Danube, also supported by the National
Assembly, came to the fore. For the time being, the development of
the given conditions has not adversely affected Győr, but the
development has become stronger and stronger. The boom was halted by
the outbreak of the War of Independence and the subsequent
absolutist regime. The recovery of trade has been hampered by
military occupation, military supplies, harassment of the civilian
population, and political uncertainty. The city administration
started operating with great financial problems after the defeat of
the war of independence. Haynau seized the city’s financial stock,
and in the absence of a public tax due for two years, insolvency
ensued. The city administration and the county government sought to
promote economic recovery, which also had a dampening effect on
political unrest. In a short time, favorable changes took place, and
the citizens of the city threw themselves with great zeal into the
grain and animal trade. Many, leaving their original occupation,
became involved in the brokerage trade, which provided employment
opportunities and brought decent benefits. The merchants in turn
converted some of their houses into grain warehouses on the banks of
the Danube and Rába, and even in the busy streets of the city
center.
The internationalized grain trade began to decline in the 1860s. Railway construction destroyed the Győr market based on water transport. The development of the city went in a new direction. Large-scale construction began, which changed the image of the city. The cheap labor created by the withering away of the grain trade was employed by factories established with foreign capital. World War I also affected this region. The former Győr counties were merged with the remnants of the Moson and Bratislava counties, which had shrunk to a fraction of their territory. Between the two world wars, Győr became the second most important industrial center in the country after Budapest. (See the program of Kálmán Darányi Győr). It developed into an industrial city in the 20th century and still retains its significant role at that time. After World War II, the city, which had suffered great war damage, was rebuilt in a few years. After 1945, the population of Győr increased greatly with the number of people moving from the countryside. Its factories and plants have undergone tremendous development. Today it is the most important industrial city in Transdanubia. Until 1971, Győr had nine districts. The city became the seat of Győr-Sopron county, which was created by merging the Győr-Moson and Sopron counties during the 1950 county settlement. At the time of the 1956 revolution, it was here the “second capital of the revolution”. Therefore, retaliation also hit the city prominently with several death sentences and severe prison sentences. In the 1950s and 1960s, and then in the age of the construction of large housing estates, not enough attention was paid to old buildings and monuments. In the southern part of the city center, the construction of the metropolitan city center, which began at the turn of the century, was continued, however, a significant part of the newly built buildings was not used for the cityscape due to its uncharacteristic nature. By 1978, the city’s new theater had been rebuilt. In the 1980s, the planned restoration of the historic city core began, in recognition of which Győr won the Europa Nostra Prize for Monument Protection in 1989.