Pre?ov | |
---|---|
City | |
City centre of Pre?ov | |
Coordinates: 49°00?06?N 21°14?22?E / 49.00167°N 21.23944°ECoordinates: 49°00?06?N 21°14?22?E / 49.00167°N 21.23944°E | |
Country | Slovakia |
Region | Pre?ov |
District | Pre?ov |
First mentioned | 1247 |
Government | |
o Mayor | Ing. Andrea Tur?anová |
Area | |
o Total | 80.40 km2 (31.04 sq mi) |
Elevation | 250 m (820 ft) |
Population (2017) | |
o Total | 89,138 ![]() |
Time zone | UTC+1 (CET) |
o Summer (DST) | UTC+2 (CEST) |
Postal code | 080 01, 080 02, 080 03, 080 04, 080 05, 080 06 |
Area code(s) | +421-51 |
Car plate | PO, PV |
Website | www.presov.sk |
Pre?ov (Slovak pronunciation: ['pr] , Hungarian: Eperjes, German: Eperies, Preschau, Ukrainian: ) is a city in Eastern Slovakia. It is a seat of the administrative Pre?ov Region (Slovak: Pre?ovský kraj) and ?ari? as well as the historic Szepes County of the Kingdom of Hungary. With a population of approximately 91,352, it is the third-largest city in Slovakia. It lends its name to the Eperjes-Tokaj Hill-Chain.[1] There are many tourist attractions in Pre?ov such as castles, pools and the old town.
The first written mention is from 1247 (Theutonici de Epuryes).[2] Several authors tried to derive the name from Hungarian: eper - a strawberry. The theory was questioned in 1940s and newer Slovak works suggests a derivation from Slavic personal name Pre?/Pre?ä and its later phonetic adaptation (introduction of e before the initial consonant group and removal of the suffix, the original form then ceased to exist).[2] Strawberries[a] depicted on the coat of arms of Pre?ov are not necessarily determinative, the Latin name Fragopolis (strawberry city) is only a modern translation.[2]
Other alternative names of the city include German: Eperies (between 1938 and 1945 also Preschau), Hungarian Eperjes, Latin Fragopolis, Polish Preszów, Romany Peryeshis, Russian (Pryashev) and Rusyn and Ukrainian (Priashiv).
People from Pre?ov are traditionally known as "ko?are" which means "horse keepers".[b]
The old town is a showcase of Baroque, Rococo and Gothic architecture. The historical center is lined with buildings built in these styles. In the suburbs, however, the Soviet influence is clearly evident through the massive concrete panel buildings (paneláky) of the housing estates (sídliska) and the Sek?ov district. More Soviet-style architecture is seen in the government buildings near the city center.
Significant industries in the city include mechanical and electrical engineering companies and the clothing industry. Solivary, the only salt mining and processing company in Slovakia, also operates in the city. The city is a seat of a Greek Catholic metropolitan see and of the primate of the autocephalous Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia.
Many concerts, operas, operettas and stage plays are performed at the new building of the Joná? Záborský Theatre (Divadlo Joná?a Záborského), as well as at the older theatre premises.
The city and the region were contenders for European Capital of Culture 2013.[3] The nearby city of Ko?ice was chosen.
Habitation in the area around Pre?ov dates as far back as the Paleolithic period. The oldest discovered tools and mammoth bones are 28,000 years old. Continuous settlement dates back to the 8th century.
After the Mongol invasion in 1241, King Béla IV of Hungary invited German colonists to fill the gaps in population. Pre?ov became a German-speaking settlement, related to the Zipser German and Carpathian German areas.[1]
In 1412, Pre?ov helped to create the Pentapolitana, the league of five towns, a trading group. The first record of a school dates from 1429. After the collapse of the old Kingdom of Hungary after the Ottoman invasion of 1526, Pre?ov became a border city and changed hands several times between two usually rivalrous domains, Austrian Hapsburg Royal Hungary and Hungarian states normally backed by the Ottomans: the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom, the Principality of Transylvania, and the Principality of Upper Hungary.
Still, Pre?ov went through an economic boom thanks to trade with Poland. In the 16th century it brought in grape vines from the nearby Tokaj wine region, and was home to German-Hungarian, Polish and Greek wine merchants. Some of the first books on Tokaj wine were written in German in Pre?ov.[1]
In 1572, salt mining began in Solivar (at that time a nearby town, now part of Pre?ov).
Antun Vran?i?, a Croatian[4] prelate, writer, diplomat and Archbishop of Esztergom, died in Pre?ov in 1573.
Pre?ov was prominent in the Protestant Reformation. It was at the front line in the 1604-1606 Bocskai Uprising, when Hapsburg commander Giorgio Basta retreated to the town after failing to take Ko?ice from the Protestant rebels.
In 1647 the Hapsburgs designated it the capital of Sáros county. In late January 1657, Transylvanian Prince George II Rákóczi, a Protestant, invaded Poland with army of some 25,000 which crossed the Carpathians on the road from Pre?ov to Krosno.
Wolfgang Schustel, a Lutheran reformer during the Reformation, who adopted an uncompromising position on public piety worked in Pre?ov and other towns. In 1667, the important Evangelical Lutheran College of Eperjes was established by Lutherans in the town.
Imre Thököly, the Protestant Hungarian rebel and Ottoman ally studied at the Protestant college here. In 1685 he was defeated here by the Hapsburg at the Battle of Eperjes. In 1687 twenty-four prominent citizens and noblemen were executed for supporting the uprising of Imre Thököly:
At the beginning of the 18th century, the population was decimated by the Bubonic plague and fires and was reduced to a mere 2,000 inhabitants. By the second half of the century, however, the town had recovered; crafts and trade improved, and new factories were built. In 1752 the salt mine in Solivar was flooded. Since then salt has been extracted from salt brine through boiling.
The English author John Paget visited Presov and describes it in his 1839 book Hungary and Transylvania.[6] In 1870 the first railway line was built, connecting the town to Ko?ice. At the end of the 19th century, the town introduced electricity, telephone, telegraph and a sewage systems. In 1887 fire destroyed a large part of the town.
On 16 June 1919, the very brief Slovak Soviet Republic was declared here. In 1920, after the Treaty of Trianon, Eperjes became part of the newly created Czechoslovakia as Pre?ov. During World War II, the nearby town of Ko?ice again became part of Hungary as a result of the First Vienna Award. As a result, many institutions moved from Ko?ice to Pre?ov, thus increasing the town's importance. In 1944, a professional Slovak Theatre was established in Pre?ov. The city is a site in the Holocaust:
On 19 January 1945 Pre?ov was taken by Soviet troops of the 1st Guards Army. After 1948, during the Communist era in Czechoslovakia, Pre?ov became an industrial center. Due to the World War II Pre?ov lost majority of its Jewish population, however population of the city increased rapidly from 28,000 in 1950 to 52,000 in 1970 and 89,000 in 1990.
Pre?ov lies at an altitude of 250 metres (820 ft) above sea level and covers an area of 70.4 square kilometres (27.2 sq mi).[7] It is located in the north-eastern Slovakia, at the northern reaches of the Ko?ice Basin, at the confluence of the Torysa River with its tributary Sek?ov. Mountain ranges nearby include Slanské vrchy (south-east), ?ari?ská vrchovina (south-west), Bachure? (west) and ?ergov (north). The neighbouring city of Ko?ice is 34 kilometres (21 mi) to the south. Pre?ov is about 50 kilometres (31 mi) south of the Polish border, 60 kilometres (37 mi) north of the Hungarian border and is some 410 kilometres (255 mi) northeast of Bratislava (by road).
Pre?ov has a warm humid continental climate, bordering an oceanic climate. Pre?ov has four distinct seasons and is characterized by a significant variation between hot summers and cold, snowy winters.
Climate data for Pre?ov | |||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
Average high °C (°F) | -0.6 (30.9) |
1.7 (35.1) |
8.3 (46.9) |
13.9 (57.0) |
19.4 (66.9) |
22.2 (72.0) |
23.9 (75.0) |
23.9 (75.0) |
20.0 (68.0) |
13.9 (57.0) |
5.6 (42.1) |
1.1 (34.0) |
12.8 (55.0) |
Daily mean °C (°F) | -3.3 (26.1) |
-1.7 (28.9) |
3.9 (39.0) |
8.9 (48.0) |
13.9 (57.0) |
16.7 (62.1) |
18.3 (64.9) |
17.8 (64.0) |
14.4 (57.9) |
9.4 (48.9) |
2.8 (37.0) |
-1.7 (28.9) |
8.3 (46.9) |
Average low °C (°F) | -6.1 (21.0) |
-5.0 (23.0) |
-0.6 (30.9) |
3.3 (37.9) |
8.3 (46.9) |
11.1 (52.0) |
12.2 (54.0) |
11.7 (53.1) |
8.9 (48.0) |
4.4 (39.9) |
0.0 (32.0) |
-3.9 (25.0) |
3.7 (38.6) |
Average precipitation mm (inches) | 33 (1.3) |
28 (1.1) |
34 (1.3) |
47 (1.9) |
66 (2.6) |
92 (3.6) |
78 (3.1) |
72 (2.8) |
51 (2.0) |
40 (1.6) |
46 (1.8) |
35 (1.4) |
622 (24.5) |
Source: [8] |
In the past, Pre?ov was a typical multiethnic town where Slovak language, Hungarian, German and Yiddish were spoken.
Mother tongue |
census 1880 | census 1890 | census 1900 | census 1910 | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | Number | % | |
Slovak | 5,705 | 56.27% | 5,573 | 53.74% | 6,804 | 47.10% | 6,494 | 39.78% |
Hungarian | 1,963 | 19.36% | 2,670 | 25,74% | 5,513 | 38.16% | 7,976 | 48.86% |
German | 1,889 | 18.63% | 1,786 | 17.22% | 1,705 | 11.80% | 1,404 | 8.60% |
Romanian | 2 | 0.02% | 4 | 0.04% | 27 | 0.19% | 170 | 1.04% |
Rusyn | 162 | 1.60% | 106 | 1.02% | 121 | 0.84% | 47 | 0.29% |
Serbo-Croatian | 5 | 0.05% | - | - | - | - | - | - |
Serbian | - | - | 5 | 0.05% | 5 | 0.03% | 2 | 0.01% |
Croatian | - | - | 0 | 0.0% | 6 | 0.04% | 4 | 0.02% |
Slovenian | - | - | 0 | 0,0% | - | - | - | - |
Other | 132 | 1.30% | 227 | 2,19% | 226 | 1.84% | 226 | 1.38% |
Foreign (non-Hungarian) | 30 | 0.30% | - | - | - | - | - | - |
Cannot speak | 251 | 2.48% | - | - | - | - | - | - |
Total | 10,139 | 10,317 | 14,447 | 16,323 |
Before World War II Pre?ov was a home for a large Jewish population of 4,300 and housed a major Jewish museum. During 1939 and 1940 the Jewish community absorbed a flow of Jewish refugees from German Nazi-occupied Poland, and in 1941 additional deportees from Bratislava. In 1942 a series of deportations of Pre?ov's Jews to the German Nazi death camps in Poland began. Plaques in the town hall and a memorial in the surviving synagogue record that $2 6,400 Jews were deported from the town under the Tiso government of the First Slovak Republic. Only 716 Jewish survivors were found in the city and its surrounding when it was liberated by the Soviet Red Army in January 1945.[]
According to the 2011 census, Pre?ov had 91 782 inhabitants, 81.14% declared Slovak nationality, 1.70% Romani, 1.59% Rusyn, 0,7% Ukrainian, 0.48% Czech, 0.14% Hungarian, 13.8% did not declare any nationality.[10]
The religious make-up was 55.8% Roman Catholics, 12.44% people with no religious affiliation, 8.15% Greek Catholics, 4.05% Lutherans, 1.55% Orthodox, 17.16% did not declare any religious affiliation.[11]
The town lies on the Ko?ice-?ilina railway. Trains are departing and arriving from Pre?ov railway station
Institutions of tertiary education in the city are the University of Pre?ov with 12,600 students, including 867 doctoral students,[12] and the private International Business College ISM Slovakia in Pre?ov, with 455 students.[13] In addition, the Faculty of Manufacturing Technologies of the Technical University of Ko?ice is based in the city.
There are 15 public primary schools, six private primary schools and two religious primary schools.[14] Overall, they enroll 9,079 pupils.[14] The city's system of secondary education consists of 10 gymnasia with 3,675 students,[15] 4 specialized high schools with 5,251 students[16] and 11 vocational schools with 5,028 students.[17][18]
Pre?ov is home to one professional football team - 1. FC Tatran Pre?ov which is the oldest football team in Slovakia.
The city's ice hockey club is HC Pre?ov Penguins. Home arena of Pre?ov is ICE Arena and it has capacity of 5500 visitors.
The city's handball club is HT Tatran Pre?ov which is Slovakia's most popular and currently most successful club. Handball team of Pre?ov is taking part not only in Slovak league (where is dominating), but also in international SEHA league with best handball teams from region. Many handball players from this team are also members of Slovak national handball team.
Pre?ov is twinned with: