Békésszentandrás
Encyclopedia
Békésszentandrás is a village
Village
A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

 in Békés county, in the Southern Great Plain
Southern Great Plain
Southern Great Plain is a statistical region of Hungary. It is part of Great Plain and North region. Southern Great Plain includes the 3 counties:* Bács-Kiskun* Békés* Csongrád...

 region
Region
Region is most commonly found as a term used in terrestrial and astrophysics sciences also an area, notably among the different sub-disciplines of geography, studied by regional geographers. Regions consist of subregions that contain clusters of like areas that are distinctive by their uniformity...

 of south-east Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

.

Geography

Békésszentandrás, the western gate of Békés county, lies along the left coast of the Hármas Körös river. The territory of the village is divided by the M44 road. The village is situated 150 km from Budapest, the capital city, and 50 km away from the town of Békéscsaba. It covers an area
Area
Area is a quantity that expresses the extent of a two-dimensional surface or shape in the plane. Area can be understood as the amount of material with a given thickness that would be necessary to fashion a model of the shape, or the amount of paint necessary to cover the surface with a single coat...

 of 77.45 km² and has a population
Population
A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...

 of 4,167 people (2001).

History

After the Hungarian conquest nearly seventy settlements were founded in the region of the Körös
Körös River
Körös is the name of a 195 km long river in eastern Hungary. It is formed at the confluence of the rivers Fehér-Körös and Fekete-Körös near Gyula. The Sebes-Körös flows into the Körös near Gyomaendrőd...

 rivers. Archaeological research indicates there were a number of smaller settlements in this region which later were depopulated during the Mongol invasion
Mongol invasion of Europe
The resumption of the Mongol invasion of Europe, during which the Mongols attacked medieval Rus' principalities and the powers of Poland and Hungary, was marked by the Mongol invasion of Rus starting in 21 December 1237...

. The first written reference about Békésszentandrás – as we now know is from 1297. The name of the village was mentioned for the first time in a controversial issue in 1329. It's autonomy was recognised on 18th April 1330 and became the property of the Úzvásári family under the name of Zenthandreas. Almost a hundred years later the settlement became the Crown's property again. Around 1436 King Sigismund donated it to his Knight
Knight
A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....

 János Hunyadi. The construction and flourishing of the Szentandrási estate began in that period. Around 1460 the estate received market town rights. After the death of János Hunyadi, his wife Erzsébet Szilágyi
Erzsébet Szilágyi
Erzsébet Szilágyi was a Hungarian noblewoman of Szilágy County of the Kingdom of Hungary. Elizabeth was the daugther of the count Ladislaus Szilágyi and Catherine Bellyéni, members of two influential Hungarian families of the XV century that were loyal to the King Sigismund of Hungary...

 managed the estate. She was followed by János Corvin and András Dánfy. Under the leadership of the Dánfy family the estate fell into pieces, lost its integrated management and market town rights. The four parts of the village were shared by Miklós Nagyfalusi Toldy, Anna Dánfy, the Paksy and Patócsi family. The number of people living in Szentandrás under the Turkish
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 rule often changed. Many of them left the settlement during the fighting at Gyula
Gyula
Gyula was, according to Muslim and Byzantine sources, the title of one of the leaders, the second in rank, of the Hungarian tribal federation in the 9th-10th centuries. In the earliest Hungarian sources, the title name is only recorded as a personal name...

 and just slowly drifted back to their village. Due to the high tax burden lots of people escaped to the free counties.

In 1596 Tatars
Tatars
Tatars are a Turkic speaking ethnic group , numbering roughly 7 million.The majority of Tatars live in the Russian Federation, with a population of around 5.5 million, about 2 million of which in the republic of Tatarstan.Significant minority populations are found in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,...

 destroyed the village, after that the territory was fallow for a long time. In the mid-1600s the area became populated again under the jurisdiction of György Rákóczi who was the Prince of Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...

. In the 1690s it became deserted once again because of liberation wars and a plague outbreak.

In the early 1700s a magistrate, György Száraz received the territory for 32,000 Forints
Hungarian forint
The forint is the currency of Hungary. It is divided into 100 fillér, although fillér coins are no longer in circulation. The introduction of the forint on 1 August 1946 was a crucial step of the post-WWII stabilization of the Hungarian economy, and the currency remained relatively stable until...

. His wife, Katalin Doróczi was a descendant of the Paksy family. The first settlers arrived in 1719 from Kaba
Kaba, Hungary
-External links:Home page: http://www.kaba.hu/main.php?f=kiir&oid=2&mid=1...

, Bihar county and later others came after them. Among them were a number of resettled people. György Száraz leased the estate to the county treasurer István Tolna, who was very cruel to the residents. They rebelled and this sparked the biggest rebellion of the century on 27th April 1735. Its leaders were Péró Szegedinácz, and the judge of Szentandrás, Mihály Vértessi. In the 1740s, the population of the village continued to grow after new groups arrived: Catholics from the upper Tisza
Tisza
The Tisza or Tisa is one of the main rivers of Central Europe. It rises in Ukraine, and is formed near Rakhiv by the junction of headwaters White Tisa, whose source is in the Chornohora mountains and Black Tisa, which springs in the Gorgany range...

 and Lutheran Slovaks
Slovaks
The Slovaks, Slovak people, or Slovakians are a West Slavic people that primarily inhabit Slovakia and speak the Slovak language, which is closely related to the Czech language.Most Slovaks today live within the borders of the independent Slovakia...

 from Hont
Hont
Hont is the name of a historic administrative county of the Kingdom of Hungary and then shortly of Czechoslovakia...

 and Nógrád
Nógrád
Nógrád is a village in Nógrád County, Hungary.- External links :*...

 counties. The latter, for the landlord's proposal migrated to Komlós
Tótkomlós
Tótkomlós is a town in Békés county, in the Southern Great Plain region of south-east Hungary.-Geography:It covers an area of 125.4 km² and has a population of 6638 people .-People:* János Jankó...

 mere. In 1796 a part of the inhabitants moved to Kishegyes mere.

The 19th century population of Szentandrás increased steadily. In 1827 3,740, in 1852 4,941, in 1890 6,362 inhabitants lived here. The village took part in the 1848-49 Independence War and several people became a victim. The most important event of that century was the river regulation so life became safer. The village was named Békésszentandrás at the end of the 1800s. Both World Wars had many casualties in the village, a Heroes' Statue reminds them which was inaugurated by József Archduke in 1927. One of the important results of the inter-war period is the introduction of carpet making which made Békésszentandrás world famous. The others are the modernisation of the local administration and the secession of Csabacsüd
Csabacsüd
Csabacsüd is a village in Békés County, in the Southern Great Plain region of south-east Hungary.-Geography:It covers an area of 66.88km² and has a population of 2130 people ....

 in 1924. Between 1936 and 1942 the country's largest dam of that time was built on the Hármas-Körös river. The dam was put into operation by the Regent Miklós Horthy
Miklós Horthy
Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya was the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary during the interwar years and throughout most of World War II, serving from 1 March 1920 to 15 October 1944. Horthy was styled "His Serene Highness the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary" .Admiral Horthy was an officer of the...

.

In the post-war period the collectivisation played a key role in the of the village. Beside agriculture, carpenters, shoemakers, metalworkers and tailors formed a cooperative, too. In the early 1960s a municipal water network was built up and pavement construction was started in the village so the living conditions improved. From the late 60's agriculture is the main source of income in the area.

In 1970 Békésszentandrás got the so called incorporated town title.

Since 1990 the village has been supplied with public utilities like the sewerage-, gas pipeline-, IT network and drainage ditch system. Most of the roads are fitted with solid surface. After the realisation of the future plans there's a realistic chance to establish a small town from the village.

Famous people

  • Ildikó Komlósi
    Ildikó Komlósi
    -Biography:Originary of Hungary from Békés County, she studied and was graduated at "Franz Liszt Academy of Music" in Budapest; improving her aptitudes for song at the "Scala" of Milan and at he "Guildhall School of Music and Drama" in London.-Career:...

    , Hungarian mezzo-soprano
    Mezzo-soprano
    A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...

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