Orosháza town is the seat of the Orosháza district of Békés county, the third largest settlement of the county after Békéscsaba and Gyula.
Location
It is located in the Southern Great Plain, in the
Storm Corner. It is located in a geographically flat area, with only
a few mounds in its northern area. It has no river, its lakes only
on the outskirts of the city. Lake Gyopárosi was born in a natural
way, which gave its name to the local spa and beach bath.
Neighbors: Nagyszénás from the north, Csorvás from the northeast,
Gerendás from the east, Pusztaföldvár from the southeast, Kardoskút
from the south, Székkutas from the southwest, and Árpádhalom and
Gádoros from the northwest. (To the west, the settlement closest to
it is Nagymágocs, but their administrative areas do not touch each
other.)
The outskirts of Kiscsákó, which is completely
separate from its center and has an exclusive nature, its roughly
trapezoidal area is in contact with the administrative areas of
Nagyszénás in the north and west, Kondoros in the east and Csorvás
in the south.
Approach
The easiest way to reach Szeged and
Hódmezővásárhely, as well as from Debrecen and Békéscsaba is on the
main road 47. It avoids its downtown from the north of the main
road, the old passage section has since been numbered 474. From the
surrounding settlements from Szarvas-Nagyszénás (and the main road
44) from 4404, from Medgyesegyháza-Csanádapáca from 4429, from
Mezőkovácsháza from 4428, from Mezőhegyes-Tótkomlós from 4427, from
Szentes-Nagymágocs available on roads 4406. Minor public roads in
the city area include roads 4407, 4408, 4446, 4447, 4448 and 4452;
Decades ago, the 4422 road to Makora also started on the southern
edge of downtown Orosháza. A separate part of the town called
Kiscsákó is affected by road 4642.
It can be reached by train
on MÁV's 135 Szeged – Békéscsaba, 125 Mezőtúr – Orosháza –
Mezőhegyes – Battonya, and 147 Kiskunfélegyháza – Orosháza railway
lines. The town itself has one station and five stops. These are:
Orosháza railway station, Orosháza-Glass Factory stop, Orosháza
homesteads stop, Orosháza upper stop, Szentetornya stop and
Gyopárosfürdő stop. Some stops with less traffic (Orosháza lower
stop, Monori homestead stop) have been closed.
The city is
39.1 km by car from Békéscsaba, 39.4 km from Szarvas, 32.7 km from
Hódmezővásárhely, 60.4 km from Szeged, 17.5 km from Nagymágocs, 13.1
km Nagyszénás, 13.6 km from Gádoros, 17.5 km from Csorvás, 16 km
from Pusztaföldvár, 19.6 km from Kaszaper, 10.3 km from Kardoskút,
19.9 km from Tótkomlós, 32, 3 km from Mezőhegyes, 29.2 km from
Mezőkovácsháza, 56.7 km from Gyula, 49.1 km from Békés and 49.9 km
from Makó.
History
From the beginning to 1744
The
history of the settlement dates back to the Neolithic Age, which is
confirmed by archeological finds found in the area. Among its first
inhabitants, the researchers of the so-called. They are considered
to be representatives of Körös culture.
A remnant of the
early Iron Age can still be seen today, the Great Castle on the
southeastern border of the city. Here, on the alluvial cone of
Ős-Maros, successive ethnic groups of the migration later found a
home for themselves, and then they were taken over by the conquering
Hungarians. Archaeologists have concluded that the Kalis people of
Iranian origin lived in Orosháza in the Árpádian period. [4] After
the destruction of the Tartar invasion, the area slowly
re-populated.
The name of Orosháza can first be found in a
charter dated 1466.
The medieval village name is a
combination of the old Hungarian personal name Oros and the common
name of the house (home, residence) with the possessive "-a"
possessive. The personal name Oros itself is a diminutive form of
the common name "úr" It originally belonged to Zaránd county, after
its final abolition in the 15th century it moved to Békés county.
According to archival sources, in 1517 a student named Tobias
Orosházi was studying at the University of Cracow, and in 1555
András Orosházi were canons of Oradea.
A charter dated in the
year before the battle of Mohács mentions Orosháza as the center of
a Békés county estate, the owners of which were the Komlóssys at
that time.
Under Turkish rule, the settlement was once again
doomed to destruction - the inhabitants here fell victim to the
fighting or fled to royal Hungary, which was more secure.
From resettlement to compromise
OROSHÁZA. Hungarian village Békés
Várm. the remnants of his earthly Lord B. Harukker, his inhabitants
are mostly Lutherans, he lies close to Szarvas, which also has a
branch and a post office. Arable land is good, pasture, meadow
enough, tree nints, piatzás is far away.
(András Vályi:
Description of the Hungarian Country, Volume 2, Buda, 1796–1799)
The modern history of Orosháza begins with the settlement of the
region in the 18th century. Settlers from Zomba in Tolna County
moved to the depopulated area under Turkish rule.
The serfs,
who feared their Lutheran faith, made a treaty with Baron Ferenc
Harruckern, and on April 24, 1744, on St. George's Day, the 70
resettled families, led by their teacher, Sándor Dénes, occupied the
Orosháza steppe.
Six weeks later, the noble Lutheran pastor
András Horváth also arrived at the settlers, and soon the first
church was built of cane and mud from Zomba.
The settling
population was mainly engaged in farming and animal husbandry, but
soon horticulture also developed, and in the 18th century the
industrial layer also developed. From the reform era onwards, the
market-town development of Orosháza began slowly. Until the outbreak
of the revolution and the war of independence in 1848-49, life in
the hundred-year-old settlement was quiet, without major political
upheavals. The news of the March Revolution was first heard from a
letter from the son of Pastor Mikolay studying in Pest on March 18
in Orosháza.
The guests were able to get acquainted with the
March resolutions at a general assembly in Gyula on March 20: for
the first time, in addition to these nobles, representatives of the
gentlemen's serfs also took part.
After the outbreak of the
southern grid, the national guard was formed here as well, where 665
infantry and 149 cavalry applied, and then the village exhibited
another 172 military recruits on the news of the Jellasics attack.
In the Rákóczi team formed by Pál Vasvári, 64 players from Orosháza
fought. The team was almost completely destroyed in mid-1849 in the
battle against the Romanian insurgents.
After the fall of the
War of Independence, the spirit of the revolution continued to live
despite the harsh retaliatory measures. Many hideouts found refuge
here, including the wife of Lajos Kossuth for one night, for whose
concealment Ferenc Mikolay (the reverend's son) was sentenced to 10
years in prison.
The following decades resulted in the
suppression of the Lutheran religion. In the years of the Bach
system, feudal relations also disintegrated. The development of the
empire's internal market by the end of the 1850s finally created a
favorable situation for agriculture. The common areas were divided,
the homesteads were built en masse, and grain production flourished.
From the Compromise to 1945
The activation of local political
life was brought about by the Compromise. In 1869, peasants and
artisans dissatisfied with the post-compromise situation elected
Mihály Táncsics as the Member of Parliament for Orosháza and its
surroundings. In 1899, he inaugurated Lajos Kossuth as an honorary
citizen of the place. The Kossuth statue, unveiled in 1904, became a
symbol of the Kossuth cult. In 1891, the bloody May Day of Orosháza
was a sad event of the germinating agrarian socialist movement,
which caused a national echo. The construction of the Great
Plain-Rijeka Railway (1870) accelerated the economic development of
the village. Through the later built wing lines (including the
Szentes - Orosháza railway line opened in 1906), Orosháza became the
railway junction of the Körös-Tisza-Maros road.
Local
small-scale industry and trade strengthened, and the agricultural
processing industry in particular began to flourish: poultry
processing, milling, and related construction. Between the two world
wars, Orosháza was included in the public consciousness as “the
largest Hungarian village”, by 1936 it had nearly 25,000 souls. The
special form of farming of the smallholder stratum, the farm world,
reflected the peasant civilization. In addition to modern furniture,
books and magazines appeared on the homesteads of the younger
generation. In the increasingly market-developed settlement, a
vibrant cultural life unfolded.
The life of association that
developed in the age of dualism flourished. Between 1891 and 1918,
53 new local associations were formed: in addition to traditional
church and civic organizations, a number of working circles,
out-of-country reading circles, and some sports associations emerged
as new phenomena.
József Veres, a Lutheran pastor, Member of
Parliament and historian of Orosháza, was a prominent figure in the
local spiritual life. His name was preserved for his man today in
his book “Orosháza, based on historical and statistical data”,
published in 1886.
Justh Zsigmond was born and raised in the
Justh-majori castle in Pusztaszentetornya, on the border of
Orosháza. He drew the themes and characters of several of his short
stories and novels from this Great Plain environment. In 1892, he
established a peasant theater in the park of his castle, where
peasant girls and bachelors played works by Shakespeare, Molière,
Aristophanes, and Plautus.
As a writer and politician in
Puszaszentetornya, József Eötvös worked directly in public life in
Békés County. As Minister of Religion and Public Education, he
initiated the establishment of a teacher training center in
Orosháza, which he was unfortunately no longer able to implement.
Civilization gave birth to the Civic Boys 'School in 1890, followed
in 1892 by the Civic Girls' School. In 1902, Endre Thék, the first
in the country, started the training of boarding apprentices in 15
professions.
In December 1898, at the request of Endre Thék, an industrial
exhibition called the Orosháza Industrial Exhibition was organized
to boost the industrial and agricultural development of the town,
which opened on Easter 1899, exclusively with the participation of
Orosháza craftsmen. Behind the serious aspiration, the high
ministries also stood behind and the Ministerial Commissioner for
Industrial Supervision was also appointed in the person of Miklós
Gerstler. In addition to a total of 312 exhibitors, they also
attracted a large number of visitors with large-scale programs. Of
the Ipra exhibitions held in the countryside, it was the only one
that brought profits, not just a boom in a particular area. The
exhibition received national attention. On the first day, nearly
4,000 attended the opening ceremony, and the number of visitors was
later high. In the first week, more than 12,000 tickets were
exchanged. During the exhibition, the panel awarded 7 first prizes,
29 second prizes and 38 bronze medals for outstanding industrial and
craft work. (Picture Magazine, 25 volumes. 1899. Part I)
The
reputation of agriculture in Orosháza - the need of farmers to know
and apply the most advanced production opportunities - inspired our
settlement to include the teaching of agricultural knowledge in the
school. After a long struggle, in 1926, the graduates of the Upper
Agricultural School took their matriculation exam for the first
time. The Lutheran High School, which was organized in the 1930s,
grew out of the Lutheran folk school.
However, development
here, as everywhere in the country, has been accompanied by serious
inequalities. The standard of living of the workers was inadequate,
and the international labor movement also reached the Storm Corner
(although the agricultural movements were more important here). The
celebration of May 1, 1891, culminated in a bloody clash with the
evicted gendarmes, after which hundreds were wounded in the squares.
The storms of history affected Orosháza in the same way as all
the settlements in the country. After the Treaty of Trianon,
Orosháza found itself in the border region of "little Hungary" at
the same time, and this fact became the determinant of further
development.
World War II involved significant material and
human casualties, and the exact number of casualties is still
unknown today. Orosháza was occupied on October 6, 1944 by Russian
troops in a single day.
From 1945 to the present day
In
the new system, Orosháza developed in a contradictory way. In 1946 -
with the accession of Szentetornya - the settlement rose to the rank
of a city. However, the promising development was soon followed by
the withering away of small and medium-sized enterprises and the
liquidation of peasant farms. The homesteads were largely demolished
in the 1960s, but at the same time the newly organized producer
cooperatives and the state economy gradually strengthened. As a
result of the love of work and the will of the peasants of Orosháza,
large-scale agriculture produced outstanding production and breeding
results, gaining a national reputation.
The results of oil,
natural gas and thermal water exploration are also significant. The
advanced mechanical engineering, glass industry and metallurgy
developed in part on this basis. In 1963, production began at the
glass factory, which employed thousands of people.
The image
of the city has also changed. Today's Kossuth Lajos Agricultural
Vocational High School has moved to a new building, the Táncsics
Mihály High School was built in 1953, and the Industrial Vocational
Training School in 1964. A new hospital, museum and cultural center
were built. In the city center, housing estates are now rising in
place of the typical village streets.
Lake Gyopáros, located
next to the town, was probably named after a flower called Gyopár,
which was once inhabited here. The analysis of its water was
performed in 1869 by László Elek, a village doctor. The water of the
lake has been found to have a healing effect, so it is suitable for
the treatment of musculoskeletal, chronic joint, rheumatic and
gynecological diseases.
Gáspártelek has belonged to Orosháza
since 1760, which apparently bears the name of its former owner.