Kiskunhalas is a town in Bács-Kiskun county, Kiskunság,
Kiskunhalas district. Kiskunhalas is located on the highest part of
the sand ridge between the Danube and the Tisza. It is 148 km south
of Budapest, 63 km south-southwest of Kecskemét, 56 km northeast of
Baja, 55 km west-northwest of Szeged, and 45 km north of Subotica.
Approach by road
It is located on Main Road 53. From Baja and
Szeged you can also approach Kiskunmajsa from the main road 55 and
the M5 motorway.
Approach by rail
The city is an important
railway junction. The Budapest-Subotica-Belgrade railway line
crosses it. Furthermore, the railway line connecting
Kiskunfélegyháza and Baja with the city ends here. In addition,
trains depart from and arrive in other major cities.
The origin of the name of the city is not clear.
Initially, it was thought that it got its name from the lake, the
swampy countryside surrounding the city to the west. Archaeologists
have also excavated Neolithic, Celtic, Sarmatian and Avar traces
here. The cemetery of the conquering Hungarians was discovered next
to Sóstó. There were at least 26 churches in and around Kiskunhalas
in the Middle Ages. After the devastation of the Tartar invasion,
Cumans settled between the Danube and the Tisza, which had declined
in population. The settlement became the center of the Csertán kun
family.
In 1290, the Cumans, who were engaged in nomadic
pastoralism, were granted privileges, and the seven Kun chairs
became one of the law-making places. The kun became the center of
the Csertán clan and Halas-chair. It is already referred to in 1347,
but Halas' name was first mentioned in a charter in 1366. In 1390 it
became a place of pilgrimage. In 1408 Sigismund of Luxembourg also
visited here. In 1439 the town was first mentioned as a town.
In 1436 he became a city of freedom. In 1492, according to
tradition, Paul Kinizsi defeated the legendary but then already
looting, disbanded black army here. In Turkish times, the Crimean
Tatars destroyed Halas twice (1566, 1596), although he enjoyed some
immunity as a Khas city. It was first resettled by the Turks in 1569
because they needed taxpayers. The city's population has meanwhile
become Reformed. After the destruction of the fifteen years of war,
in 1626 it was resettled mainly with the counties of Baranya. In
1663, Mihály I Apafi, who was visiting the Turks, spent the night
here. In 1664, a Reformed school belonging to the Debrecen Reformed
College was established here. The Habsburg power, which was
established after the expulsion of the Turks, limited not only the
ecclesiastical affairs of the city, which had a purely Reformed
population, but also the Jászkun district, which it administered.
In 1702, the Habsburgs pledged the Jászkun district to the
German Order of Knights. On October 5, 1703, one of the bloodiest
battles of the Rákóczi War of Independence took place here. About
234 kurucs died under the command of Colonel Ferenc Deák, but the
leader of the Rác-Labanc army, Johann Kyba, was also fatally
wounded, so both armies withdrew from the battlefield. In memory of
this, 200 years later, Hungary's first public kuruc statue was
erected in the city. In 1753, the last burning of witches took place
here in the Kiskunhalas area.
The pledged region became the
property of the Pest Disability House from 1731. The Jászkun, who
were enslaved, acquired the right of redemption in 1745, and then
regained their privileges and freedoms for a considerable sum.
The homestead was started primarily by immigrants. This favored
the emerging outlaw world, which peaked in the middle and second
half of the 19th century. Until 1753, the seat of the Kiskun
district was here, from here the captains of Kiskun controlled the
life of the district. When Félegyháza received the status of a
market town in 1753, the captaincy moved there. During the reign of
Mary Theresa, 60 Roman Catholic families of shepherds and peasants
were settled in the city, to whom the queen soon built a parish,
thus abolishing the denominational unit of the city. In the second
half of the 18th century, Greeks (Balkan peoples), Gypsies, Jews and
Lutherans came to the settlement. The ethnic and religious image of
the formerly Hungarian Reformed settlement changed significantly by
the beginning of the 19th century, and its population also increased
significantly. New neighborhoods were created, new cemeteries had to
be weighed, and the land issue also became a growing problem.
Description of the settlement at the end of the 18th century:
"Free Field City in the 'Little Kúnság; named' next to it as a half
post from a lake measuring half a meter, which is rich in fish; 's'
City' s patch made in 1693 is also illustrated with three fish
teners. In the 'old privileges it is called the Halaszszék, because
here the main chairs of the' Kis Kúni were used, although the
Captains, Counts, and the 'Table Judges' were held judging chairs.
and five, its inhabitants are Catholics, mostly Reformed, and a few
Lutherans.His post office is notable, being in the middle of 'Pesti
and Pétervári út, its salty lake does not suffer from' fish, but it
has healthy water for bathing. Paul Kinizsi beat the 'Czechs and
their cemetery heaps' in those places. and the black army of the
King, dispersed in the time of Ulászló, he stayed by this
‘mountain’, and it is called the Black Mountain. And the heap at the
bottom of the 'city, on the east side of the sun, is called the
Kurutz mound, because, according to the' Fish Minutes ', Captain
Kiba, beat the Kurutz in that place, cutting them down 234,' and
their dead bodies were carried there. year. The buildings of this
City are numerous, and its inhabitants number about 8,000 souls; but
they were mostly inferior, and were prepared for the ‘s’ Hungarians
compared to their old customs. It is notable for the aforementioned
island of Halas Lake, because the Ottomans and the Tartars, at the
time of their massacres, drew seeds there on a narrow bridge, the
legs of which are still illustrated in some places. The Sántz form
is surrounded by ditches, and in the garden vineyards beyond ‘s a’
the inhabitants walk through this ‘lake a’ embankment. Its border is
sandy but well-fertilized, its meadows, its separated pasture is
very spacious, and it is quite suitable for keeping many different
types of cattle. : Description of the Hungarian country, 1796–1799)
Kiskunhalas was transformed into a town with a council in 1872
on the basis of the Municipal Act of 1871, and then when the Jászkun
district ceased to exist during the 1876 settlement, it became part
of Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun county together with most of Kiskunság.
His first mayor was dr. István Vári Szabó was a lawyer. In the age
of dualism, the economic and social image of the settlement
continued to develop and change. Capitalist management became a
feature, banks and large enterprises began to operate. In addition,
cultural and associational life also flourished. By the 20th
century, Roman Catholics had become the most populous denomination.
During the First World War, the population of the city suffered
great blood loss. Between the two world wars, the city was
characterized by a strong decline and then slow growth, which, like
all other cities with orderly councils, became a county town in 1929
in connection with the national reorganization of the
administration. During World War II, the greatest losses were caused
to the Halas by the loss of life after repeated lineups, the
deportation and destruction of some of the local Jews, and then on
October 23, 1944, by the Soviet occupation.
After 1945,
several villages became independent on its large border (Pirtó in
1947, Balotaszállás, Imrehegy in 1952 - partly from the border of
Kecel - Kunfehértó and Zsana), thus reducing its area by about half.
In 1972, part of its former steppes, Bodoglár and Tajó, were annexed
to Kiskunmajsa, as a result of which the area of the town was
reduced by a quarter again, to just over a third of its original
area. During the 1950 county settlement, the city became part of the
newly formed Bács-Kiskun county, and at the same time the seat of
the Kiskunhalas district, which was also formed at that time.
Nationalizations, land reform, collectivization changed the image of
the city.
In October 1956, demonstrations, workers' councils
and a revolutionary committee were set up, and a series of fires
signaled that the people of Halas were also dissatisfied with the
previous policy. During the Revolution and the War of Independence,
on November 1, 1956, the only democratic vote in the country between
the parties with a local basic organization, the FKgP, was held
here.