Pécs (German: Fünfkirchen, Croatian: Pečuh, Serbian: Печуј /
Pečuj, Middle Ages Latin: Quinque Ecclesiae, Ancient Latin:
Sopianae) is a county town in the southwestern part of Hungary, the
fifth largest settlement in the country after Budapest, Debrecen,
Szeged and Meged. It is the largest settlement in Transdanubia. It
is the seat of Baranya county and the district of Pécs, the center
of Southern Transdanubia.
In the countryside inhabited by
Celtic and Pannonian tribes in the early 2nd century, the Romans
founded a city called Sopianae. By the 4th century, the settlement
had become a provincial seat and one of the major centers of early
Christianity. The early Christian cemetery complex from this period
was inscribed on the World Heritage List by the UNESCO World
Heritage Committee in December 2000.
The diocese was founded
in 1009 by King St. Stephen, and the first university in the country
was founded in 1367 by King Louis the Great. (Even today, the
country's largest university with nearly 34,000 students operates
here.) Bishop Janus Pannonius, the great poet of Hungarian humanism
and the most prominent representative of Latin-language Hungarian
poetry, made medieval Pécs one of the centers of the country's
cultural and artistic life.
After 150 years of Turkish
occupation - from this period such rich architectural monuments as
the mosque of Pasha Gázi Kászim have survived in the main square of
the city - in 1780 Pécs received the rank of a free royal city from
Queen Maria Theresa. After that, strong civilization and economic
development began. Industrialization accelerated significantly in
the first half of the 19th century, with Zsolnay pottery, Littke
champagne, and Angster organ becoming world famous.
Pécs has
always been a multi-ethnic settlement, cultural strata have stacked
on top of each other, the traditions and values of nationalities
have merged during its two-thousand-year history. Hungarians, Croats
and Swabians still live in peace with each other in a rich cultural
polarity, so it is not surprising that in 2010 the city, together
with Essen and Istanbul, became one of the cultural capitals of
Europe. The majority of the application, which was accepted in 2005
and declared a winner, was written by civilians, so the Pécs2010
Capital of Culture project was really the program of Pécs. The
program was based on 4 cultural investments: the Pécs Conference and
Concert Center, the South Transdanubia Regional Library and
Knowledge Center, Múzeumok Street and the Zsolnay Cultural Quarter.
These were complemented by the revitalization of public spaces and
parks, all co-financed by the European Union. The honorable title
launched huge developments in the city. New, modern hotels, a mall
and office buildings have been built.
In 1998, Pécs won the
UNESCO Cities for Peace Prize for its nurturing minority cultures
and its inclusive, tolerant attitude towards refugees from the South
Slavic war. The city was third in 2007 and second in 2008 in the
category of settlements between 75,000 and 200,000 in the LivCom
Awards international competition.