Szentendre (German: Sankt Andrä, Serbian: Сентандреја, Slovak:
Svätý Ondrej) is the seat of the Szentendre district in the Budapest
agglomeration, Pest County. It attracts visitors mainly with its art
and culture.
Szentendre is located at the gate of the Danube
Bend, at the confluence of the Visegrád Mountains and
Szentendre-Danube, opposite Szentendre Island, in a beautiful
natural environment. It is easily accessible from Budapest by car,
the H5 HÉV, bus and cruise ship services. A popular excursion
destination.
The city was a small town until the 1870s,
barely reaching a population of four thousand. The residential area
of the city at that time now includes only two parts of the city,
the Downtown and the Donkey Mountain, although the latter also
became a residential area only in the early 20th century. These two
parts of the city are separated from all other areas of Szentendre
by the main road No. 11 running on their border.
Some smaller
settlements have joined Szentendre over the centuries, and today
they are different parts of Szentendre with traditional names, such
as Izbég and Derecske. Most of the parts that used to belong to the
agricultural areas of Szentendre are already built-up areas, such as
the Pannonia Colony, Püspökmajor, Pismány, Szarvashegy. The
incorporation of large-scale, one-step interiors in the late 1970s
multiplied the living space, and by the beginning of the 21st
century they were largely built-in, bringing the population of the
former small town to 25,000 in 2010. The expansion of the
residential area in Szentendre practically put an end to traditional
fruit growing and horticulture.
Szentendre is located in the eastern part of the Visegrád Mountains. It is followed by Leányfalu from the north, the Szentendre island is located on the other side of the Danube, it is bordered by the capital to the south and the volcanic block of the Visegrád Mountains rises above the west. Pismány.
Prehistoric times
The area of Szentendre is the history of
intermittently inhabited, independent (not developing from each
other) settlements. These settlements were established along the
four major watercourses of the region, usually in connection with
the traffic along the Danube, in ancient times the collection point
of the roads leading from Pilis. The material of the Ferenczy Museum
contains Bronze and Iron Age scattered finds. A Bronze Age urn
cemetery is known on Pap Island, which is, however, relatively far
north of the medieval core of Szentendre, the bed of the Bükkös
stream. In the early stages of the Middle Ages, it was also
inhabited in the same place (Sarmatians and Avars), although the
Avars already lived in the vicinity of today's city center.
Ox
In today's Szentendre area, the first better-known indigenous
people were of Eraviscus origin, the first known place to live was
Ulcisia Castra - later (in memory of one of the battles of
Constantius II) Castra Constantia - settlement (vicus) and farm
farms. He did not receive a municipal rank. The villas were
inhabited by Aquincum officials and veterans. Among them is the
largest villa building currently known in Pannonia. The fortress
(burgus) was a 205 × 134 meter structure, housing about a thousand
warriors, a cohor, the station of the Cohors militaria nova Surorum.
The floor plan known today may have been based on
horseshoe-shaped corner towers in the time of Diocletian. The Roman
locality was created in accordance with the interests of the limes
on the Danube line, it was the checkpoint of the section between
Dunabogdány (Cirpi) and Óbuda (Aquincum). The Danube Bend itself was
the key to the protection of Pannonia, as the spread of Quads,
Sarmatians and Jazigs also bordered this area. The name Ulcisia
Castra comes from the Illyrian external word, which means wolf, and
even refers to the Illyrians before the Eraviscs, unknown from
artifacts.
Ulcisia Castra (Hungarian: Farkasvár) was one of
the most important stations of the “limes” of the province of
Pannonia, Marcus Aurelius' favorite military camp (see also:
Hungarian sections of Roman limes). He turned here in 202 Septimius
Severus, in 214 Caracalla and in 375 II. Emperor Valentinian.
Middle Ages
In the age of migration, the area was not
inhabited. The Romans in 4-5. the site was abandoned around the turn
of the century, then there are still tombs from the 5th century, but
later the area was probably uninhabited. Longobard finds have been
unearthed from Hun times, and even the 100-grave cemetery is the
largest Longobard cemetery in Hungary known to date. A VII. century
Avar alloy products are known, some of which suggest that there was
an Avar princely center in the area. In the 9th century, Prince
Kursan is believed to have used the remains of the Roman camp as a
fortress, and the settlement belonging to it was about a kilometer
north, at the height of today's Pap Island. From here, tombs from
the 10th century are known, while the area was home to the most
significant settlements from the time of the Hungarian conquest in
Pomáz and Csobánka.
The toponymic material also suggests that
Szentendre was not a significant settlement at that time, as the
area is rich in tribal names, while the name of Szentendre dates
back much later. At the time of Taksony, Apor may have been a summer
residence. This is indicated in a charter of 1009, in which the
bishopric of Veszprém received a settlement from István I. The
settlement lay along the Apor stream, and today this stream is
usually identified with the Bükkös stream, which flows through
today's Szentendre, and was the southern border of the Middle Ages.
However, this area is inhabited, so there is no archaeological
evidence for the settlement that existed in the early kingdom.
According to some sources, a settlement called Apurig can be
localized in this area, based on the name thymology of which an
inhabited place can be imagined next to a watercourse called Apor
stream (Apor case). However, there are also four significant streams
in the area, Dera, Bükkös (formerly Bela-voda), Öregvíz (or
Sztaravoda) and Sztelin (formerly Pismány-brook), and according to
the map of the third military survey of 1872–1884, a the largely
dried-up watercourse was also significant, the Dömörkapui stream. It
is not possible to decide with which the Apor stream could be
identified. According to some theories, the name of the city also
refers to King Andrew I and St. Andrew's Monastery.
Already in the 12th century, the seat of the diploma issuer of
the bishopric of Veszprém was Szentendre. His name was Dul Fulco
(actually “hospes”, episcopal scribe) in his will in 1146 in Sanctus
Andreas, which II. King Geza confirmed it, it occurs for the first
time. Little is known about Fulco's life, on the basis of which he
immigrated to the Kingdom of Hungary from abroad and joined the
service of Prince Álmos as a clergyman. Later, Seraph served as
archbishop of Esztergom and several bishops of Veszprém, and later
became oblatus, joining the monastery of St. Martin of Pannonhalma
by the Benedictine order without becoming a monk. Based on his will
and estates, it is not certain that other threads were bound to
Szentendre in the occasional case of writing the will: if he had
possessions in Szentendre, he would certainly have included them in
his will. There is no settlement continuity between the Pannonian
Ulcisia Castra and the conquest settlement, and the cities of Apurig
and St. Andrew. Compared to the former Roman watchtower, the 12th
century town core was located on the other side of the Bükkös stream
around the still existing St. Andrew's Church. (Today is the parish
church of St. John the Baptist.)
During the time of the Árpád
House, it became a courtyard, ie one of the accommodations of the
nomadic royal house. Like the others, a church and a royal lodge
built nearby formed the core of the city. The Árpádian church was
built on a hill next to the Bükkös stream, the fortified manor house
was located between the stream and the hill, which presumably stood
on the site of or near today's Town Hall. Calvary is located on the
other side of the stream, and the first private houses were built on
the eastern side of the walled church hill. A 13–14. century (until
1318) it was also the seat of the archbishop. At that time
Szentendre had various goods stop and customs rights, the citizens
of Szentendre enjoyed duty-free access between Buda and Esztergom.
In 1318, Károly took the property from the bishopric of Veszprém,
moved the archbishopric to Buda, and Szentendre came under the rule
of the archbishop of Esztergom. From 1342 it was a Benedictine grand
chapter, in its monastery he died in 1385 II. Charles. The location
of the monastery is still unknown. From 1493 it became a Pauline
parish. The old maps mention Szentendre as Sanct Andreas Closter,
suggesting that the market town was formed around the monastery and
not vice versa, much of the town’s territory was owned by the Pilis
Cistercian order until the end of the 16th century. A promissory
note dates from the 16th century, according to which there were
already watermills along the Bükkös stream, which later formed an
important part of the industry in Szentendre, and we also know from
a document from the time of Charles I that the locals were mainly
involved in ship and wagon construction.
New Age
Serbian
immigration began as early as the 14th century, with the first, even
a small number of refugees emerging as a result of the first Battle
of Rigomeza in 1389. In 1426, György Brankovics also received
Szentendre among the areas he received in exchange for
Nándorfehérvár. By 1428, those who saw moving to the north after the
fall of Pigeon and Nichevo had arrived on Brankovic's estate. The
construction of the Belgrade Church probably began in 1521, which is
closely related to the loss of Nándorfehérvár in 1521. By 1559, on
the other hand, only 38 inhabited houses remained in Szentendre, in
1588 a total of six gates remained on all the estates of the Pilis
counties of the abbey, and these were in Szentendre.
In the Turkish era, the city was depopulated, listed as a
wilderness in the censuses. According to a 17th-century census,
there was only one head of the family in the city, meaning no more
than one permanent resident of the family, and the total number of
service staff associated with them. From 1595 (recapture of
Visegrád) to 1605 (re-Turkish rule of Visegrád and Esztergom) it was
the property of the Komárom castle headquarters. From 1659 it was
nominally the property of donor General István Zichy and President
of the Chamber, and in the first half of the 18th century it was
inherited in the Zichy family. Between 1420 and 1690 there were four
southern settlements in the settlement, of which only the last
Serbian is known in detail. In the 15th century,
Macedonian-Bulgarians and Dalmatians arrived, who declined
significantly under Turkish rule, moving in part to other nearby
settlements, but maintaining the Catholic parish. The area of
Esztergom was liberated from Turkish rule in 1684 (the victorious
battle of Szentendre was led by Károly Lotharingiai), but the
sovereignty of Pasha Ibrahim in Buda was only finally abolished in
Szentendre in 1686. In 1687 Dalmatians settled again, in 1690 Serbs.
The patriarch of Ipek, Chernojevich (III.), Who arrived with the
Serbs in 1690. The documents are about the arrival of a total of
about 37,000 people, 6-7 thousand Serb families, who were scattered
in the area - only a part of them went to Szentendre - and did not
intend to move permanently at all. Only the peace of Karlóca
preserved the state - the survival of Turkish rule over Serbian
territories - that ultimately left them. However, as a symbol of
confidence in moving home, it can still be recognized today that
these settlers did not buy large plots of land, only as much as they
could build a temporary house for. The whole city center still
consists of smaller or larger houses built on the same small plots,
the occupancy rate varies between 50 and 100%. Memories of the
flourishing are still preserved in the southern Baroque-style town
halls, churches, cobbled streets and narrow alleys of the city. The
great Serbian emigration of 1690 brought a large number of Serbs to
Szentendre, who left lasting traces on the image and culture of the
city, above all the Serbian trading houses of today's city center.
However, these are not identical to the houses built by the original
Serbian immigrants, the city center contained other buildings based
on late 19th century maps. During the reconstructions, extensions
and reconstructions, the Baroque, Rococo and Braid features of the
18th century have been preserved.
Along with the Serbs, there
was also significant Dalmatian immigration. Dalmatian families
settled on Szamárhegy, where Dalmatian Street today preserves their
memory. Even in the 1980s, only descendants of Dalmatian families
lived on this street. Today they are scattered throughout the city.
The structure of the medieval settlement is practically unknown,
the medieval walls are known only from a few incoherent points.
There is only one fully excavated medieval building because it is
located below the other listed buildings still in use today, which
are known at most for points. Among them are some points of a
roughly 200-meter section of the medieval city wall. The downtown
structure, which can still be seen today, developed between 1785 and
1850, which can be proved by comparing maps from military surveys.
The former small church with one church was transformed into a
small town with seven churches after resettlement. The six
additional churches were apparently founded or taken over by the
settlers, abandoned churches that had existed since 1389. It was so
much because each independent community had built one for itself,
and eventually the episcopal seat of the Greek Orthodox also
required the construction of an episcopal church. Thus Szentendre
became the city of the seven towers in the 18th century, the century
of the city's heyday.
The churches were first built of wood -
temporarily - and then during the 18th century they were all walled
up and given a tower, or a stone church was built nearby. The names
of four of them also reveal the origins of the founders. The
Pozsarevacska Church was founded in 1763 by the Serbian settlement
of Pozsarevac. The Csiprovacskát (Church of St. Nicholas) was built
by the Csiprovacács of Szerem, in 1791 (today the Roman Catholic
Church of Peter and Paul). Opovacska was built by Opovac Serbs in
1746, but the presbytery ceased to exist in 1900 and has been
operating as a Reformed church since 1913. The episcopal church
called Száborna or Belgrade was built by the people of
Nándorfehérvár. It was built according to the Preobrazhenska
occupation, by tanners and tobacconists around the harbor, and on
the hill above it still stands the cross of tobacconists.
Blagovestensk was founded by Greek merchants. The latter is
therefore also called Grecca, and it was also the name of their part
of town. The Catholic Dalmatians settled in the northern parts of
the city, starting from the parish church of St. John the Baptist
(which at that time was the only Catholic church on the site of the
former St. Andrew's Church).
Serbs were granted a number of privileges: free practice of
religion, election of judges, use of the Old Calendar, establishment
of a school, use of language, and significant tax breaks. In the
middle of the 18th century, a thriving Serbian civic city developed
on the site of the medieval Hungarian city, which became a patented
royal city from the time of Maria Theresa.
In the middle of
the 19th century, Hungarians, Germans and Slovaks settled, which
changed the ethnic image of the settlement. According to the 1890
census, Szentendre was inhabited by 27.9% German, 26.4% Hungarian,
23.6% Slovak, 19.1% Serbian and 3% other native speakers.
In
1872, Szentendre received the character of a city with an orderly
council. Urban status was never revoked, but the area depopulated in
Turkish times was naturally not on the list of cities. From the
1690s onwards, the population of a few hundred people began to grow
slowly, reaching a level with the settlers in 1872 when, instead of
a village character, an urban character again prevailed, and the
infrastructure of both the administration and the settlement allowed
urban development. exercise of prerogatives in the form of
The tranquil small-town life has attracted artists since the early
20th century. The artists' colony in Szentendre was established in
1929; it is associated with the so-called school in Szentendre. Even
today, more than two hundred fine and applied artists, as well as
writers, poets, musicians and actors live in the city, mostly with
exhibition and work opportunities in Budapest.
The city of
Szentendre was one of the smallest cities in Hungary until the
1870s, usually with a permanent population of 3–4,000. During the
20th century, the population grew dynamically. However, in 1979, by
enclosing the entire Pismány Hill, the Kada Peak and its
surroundings, the Tyúkosdűlő, Boldogtanya (formerly part of
Leányfalu), Sztaravoda, Szentendre and Izbég, the Bishop's Major and
its surroundings, and the Pannonia settlement the areas available
for housing and recreation have increased exponentially. The city
has since expanded to the surrounding mountains (for example,
Szarvashegy) and has already exceeded 25,000 permanent residents,
which does not include the undeclared permanent residents of
Szentendre in the resort areas. However, the infrastructure of the
city has hardly changed compared to the small settlement of a few
thousand inhabitants.
Economy and society in the new age
There were basically three economic sectors: grape and wine
production, industry, trade and transport. For example, two or three
generations have increased viticulture tenfold and excellent red
wine has also reached Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland by
water and land. The textile industry tailor, hatter, duvet and
carpet maker, and tógaszűcs zubbonykészítő masters; in the wood
industry, lumberjacks, carpenters, joiners, upholsterers and
coopers; the leather industry, Tanners, shoemakers, saddlers and
furriers; goldsmiths, blacksmiths and wheelmakers worked in the
metal industry. In addition to them, sailors, boatmen, millers,
charterers, tugs, soap makers, painters, bakers and pipe makers
lived in Szentendre.
The richest citizens of the city were
merchants who also owned vineyards. As early as 1698, they merged
into a community of interest under the name of the Serbian
Privileged Trading Company of Szentendre. Their guild lasted for
nearly a century and a half. They erected a memorial cross in the
main square of the town in 1763, thanks to the great plague that
escaped Szentendre. The squid cross (or plague cross) has been
around ever since.
Serbian merchant families built their
two-storey houses on the site of the former wooden houses, mainly in
the Main Square and its immediate surroundings, in today's Dumtsa
Jenő Street, Bogdányi Street, Greek Street and the Danube bank.
Their style is still visibly southern, “Mediterranean”. They stored
wine in their huge - sometimes multi-storey - cellars; the business
was set up on the ground floor; the merchant and his family lived
upstairs; and the high attic served as a warehouse. The material of
the Roman and medieval ruin buildings was used for the construction.
Their houses were often built on the foundations of earlier
buildings. This is how the present image of the city center
developed: simple Baroque, Rococo and braid buildings from the 18th
century within the framework of a medieval street structure.
According to the 1728 census, 2,158 ako wines were produced on
nearly 88 acres. The average yield per moon around 15 akos is good.
In 1772, the gentleman's census registered 371 hectares of
vineyards, in 1787 305 vineyard owners were registered, their total
yield was 34,895 akos, and by the turn of the century it had jumped
to 70,000 akos (almost four million liters). The 1791 census
contains 28 industries of 131 artisans.
The one-street, main-square settlement was transformed into a
radial structure, just as houses were built along the roads from the
Main Square to the mountains. The city is surrounded by vineyards,
which shows the main occupation of the population, as vineyards of
this size cannot be cultivated other than as main work. Two-thirds
of the population was exclusively engaged in wine production, and
the remainder was engaged in the wine trade and service industries,
such as plenty of coopers and hauliers.
The core of urban
settlements is relatively small. The houses of the wealthier were
built here. These are characterized by a lack of a half-roofed
installation, a small inner courtyard and a garden. At the time of
their construction, the large yard was not yet a status symbol, on
the contrary, the large yard was needed for farming, which these
owners did not do. The usually paved small courtyard was only needed
to access the necessary outbuildings. Some of the larger buildings
have no yard at all as all the space has been used for construction.
These are joined by small civic and industrial houses that are low
and have a longitudinal axis parallel to the road. The shops also
stood here. They were surrounded by semi-granary and agrarian zones.
The population is geographically separated by occupation. On the
side of the main road towards the Danube lived fishermen and
sailors, on the other side traders. The latter are richer in and
around the Main Square. Viticulture and arable farmers lived along
the roads to the mountains. The street structure adapts to the
surface color. There are relatively regular plots of land on the
flat parts, while moving north and west it becomes more and more
irregular. The single-centered radial structure is further
complicated by the fact that a bridge had to be erected on the
Bükkös stream, and both sides of the “Old Bridge” became one
junction. In addition, the area around the church above the Main
Square also shows the character of a circular settlement. Such
circular settlements in the Danube Bend only developed where Serbs
moved. Moreover, several independent, very small circular
settlements emerge next to each other. Due to its topographic
features, the church hill became the center of a circular settlement
(it was not inhabited by Serbs but also by Catholic Dalmatians), but
the other Serbian churches also became the centers of a circular
settlement in areas where the topography did not justify it. he
settled around his church.
The changes of the 19th century
are most visible in the center of the city, where the Church of St.
John was built and the cityscape with its narrow streets began to
take shape today. The great change can be attributed in large part
to the massive flood of March 1838, which demolished 177 houses
around the Downtown. The formation of the inner courtyard, which is
no longer used for agriculture, can be seen. These are trading
houses. In 1783, only 14 merchants were still registered in the
town, a number that multiplied by the 19th century.
The 19th
century brought decline to the city in every way. The floods of
1775, 1799, 1809 and 1837 played a significant role in this. In
1800, a fire destroyed the remaining wooden houses, while the
clay-covered stone houses were destroyed by floods. By 1832, the
population had shrunk to 3,186.
The vines are still
significant in the outer areas, but the pastures also appear on the
banks of the Bükkös stream. There are also historical data on the
decline of grapes. Exports fell and domestic demand for sand grapes
declined. The end of the mountain wines was brought by the
phylloxera of 1880–1885. The cadastre of 1885 already shows mainly
pastures.