Cegléd (German: Zieglet) is the fourth most populous city in Pest county, after Érd, Dunakeszi and Szigetszentmiklós, and the most populous in the Cegléd district, where it is based. The "Gate of the Great Plain".
Location
It is located 74 kilometers southeast of Budapest.
Its geographical position is similar to Kecskemét and Nagykőrös. The
city is located in the plain between the Danube and the Tisza, at
the confluence of two natural micro-regions: the Gerje – Perje plain
and the Pilis – Alpári sand ridge. Grain production developed in the
black part, animal husbandry in the sand part, and later viticulture
and fruit growing. Its area was characterized by swampy, watery,
inland parts and the Gerje stream with its floodplains.
The
origin of his name
According to some sources, the name of the
city is also derived from the Turkish word “cegle”, which means
willow. According to other opinions, the name “corner” derives its
name from the fact that important roads meet on the outskirts of the
city.
Prehistoric history of the settlement
With the advent of the
productive lifestyle, settlement also began. Remains of several
early (for example, Copper Age) settlements can be found on the
present-day Cegléd border. The site of the late Bronze Age Vatya
culture in the Old Grapes is outstanding. The first people known in
Cegléd to be known by name were the nomadic Scythians of Iranian
origin. Their cemetery was found in Tápiószelén and their golden
deer in Tápiószentmárton. Roman rule did not extend to this area,
but in Roman times the nomadic Sarmatians (Jazigs) of Iranian origin
lived here. After the storms of migration, during the conquest, the
princely tribe probably occupied the territory of Pest county.
According to the finds, the area around Cegléd was inhabited at the
time of the conquest.
The Middle Ages
The formation of
Cegléd began in the Árpádian era, but there are few documented
mentions and historical sources, so we don't know much about this
period. The excavations carried out today prove that there were
several Árpádian villages on the border of Cegléd (besides Cegléd,
Cseke, Félegyháza, Székegyház, Külsőhegyes, Töröttegyház and at
least 3 more in the Vienna back, Máté valley and Madarászhalom), and
during the research more a village remains were also found, with a
church and cemetery. The depopulation of these small villages of a
few hundred people was probably due to the Tartar invasion.
Cegléd's first diplomatic mention IV. It dates from the time of
László (Kun), 1290. However, this royal charter does not clearly
prove that the place name “Chegled” applies to this area, as even
then there were several places in Hungary with such a name. The
first authentic diploma for Cegléd in the Great Plain can be dated
to 1358. Probably the pagan Cumans admitted to Hungary after the
Tartar invasion also settled in the area.
The hitherto royal
estate was donated by our King Louis I (the Great) in 1358 to his
mother, Erzsébet Łokietek of Poland, who in 1368 passed it to the
nuns of the Clarissa of Óbuda, who were landlords of the town until
the Turkish era and then until 1782.
The city gradually took
over the privileges of the market town: on May 8, 1364 (the day of
the founders of the town) the city was granted duty-free status by
Louis I (the Great), in 1420 by Sigismund of Luxembourg, and in 1448
by Governor János Hunyadi, For the feasts of the apostle Barnabas
and Matthew the Evangelist, he granted the town the right to hold a
national fair. (MOL DL 14 166.)
We also know the national
fair of Andrew's Day from 1521. (MOL DL 23 567.) The market town had
its own council of 12 members. The privileges and the favorable
location attracted the inhabitants of the surrounding villages to
Cegléd.
Data on the size of the city’s population are from
the 1470s and 1510s. In previous years, approx. 750, while in recent
years approx. 1100 people lived in Cegléd. The charter issued by the
first city council dates back to 1521. (MOL DL 23 567.) During the
Middle Ages, 13 universities were known from the settlement.
In the 14th century, the entire area from Bercel to Tószeg belonged
to Cegléd, then King Sigismund of Luxembourg donated Abony,
Tetétlen, and Mátyás Hunyadi to Törtel.
Zsigmond also donated
the 4 steppes, the possession of which resulted in centuries of
warfare and litigation between Cegléd and Nyársapát. The controversy
ended with the settlement of the inhabitants of Nyársapát, who was
destroyed in 1666, in Cegléd.
In 1509, the town revolted
against the nuns' officer because of its various arbitrariness in
collecting taxes, and after a heated debate, the townspeople killed
Dean Sebestyén. The nuns sent priest Lőrinc Mészáros to the city to
reassure the people. Then, with the help of the new officer, two
years later he managed to reach an agreement with the Dean's family
for the nuns and the inhabitants. Accordingly, the city paid 200
forints in compensation to the officer's relatives.
In 1514, Franciscan monks and rural priests played a major role
in recruiting the Crusader Army and formulating the ideology of the
Peasant War. These included Dózsa's alleged friend, the
aforementioned priest Lőrinc Mészáros (whose name used to be the
Catholic School). The army of 40,000 crusaders against the Turks
also marched in Cegléd, practiced, and from here Dózsa sent out his
proclamation calling for serfs to join. About 2,000 people from
Cegléd also joined the army, as there was also a wealthy peasantry
or vineyard peasantry who wanted to rise. However, Dózsa's famous
speech in Cegléd was never made. Regardless of this, the Dózsa
statue made by József Somogyi is not unauthorized behind the
Catholic church in Kossuth Square.
Under Turkish rule
After the Tartar invasion, another danger threatened Hungary: the
Turks. Cegléd was set on fire after the battle of Mohács, and after
the occupation of Buda in 1541 and then Szolnok in 1552, it came
under Turkish rule for 150 years. In the Turkish era, the city
became a sultan's treasury (hash) estate, so it enjoyed relative
peace. The surrounding population fled to the city in the face of
the devastation, and the sheer border provided opportunities for
brittle cattle farming. In the 1550s he was a member of the
association of 3 cities - Kecskemét, Nagykőrös, Cegléd - and had a
high degree of judicial independence. As a result of the
Reformation, the population of the town became Calvinist (István Kis
Szegedi also preached here), such a high school operated in the
town, and the Reformed also took possession of the Catholic church.
While the Turkish age brought great devastation to the whole
country, Cegléd prospered significantly during the peaceful periods.
This was the end of the Fifteen Years' War (1593–1606). With the
recapture of Nógrád Castle in 1594, larger campaigns began in the
territory of Pest County as well, which also affected Cegléd. At
that time, due to the great losses suffered in Cegléd, the people
were completely disbanded between 1596 and 1602. Most of the
population fled to Kőrös. After repopulation, it was still a
prosperous city in the 17th century with a high degree of autonomy.
The Turkish world in Cegléd came to an end after the liberation of
Buda, but due to the wars that led to the expulsion of the Turks,
the population fled to Kőrös and Kecskemét again in 1683.
Cegléd supported the Rákóczi War of Independence, the prince himself
visited the city twice. Although the population was forced to flee
three times during the War of Independence, after 1711 the
population of the city increased again, and from the middle of the
18th century as a result of continuous growth, by 1848 it had more
than 16,000 inhabitants.
The Baroque era
After the
expulsion of the Turks, the Clarissians regained the city, which was
greatly offended by the population accustomed to greater
independence. In the spirit of counter-reformation, Catholics were
settled in the city, who made up half of the council, and one of the
2 chief justice candidates was also Catholic. They took away the
Reformed church, abolished their high school. Although Cegléd had
the largest serf plots in the whole country, after the decree of
Mária Terézia in 1767, the size of the lands in the hands of serfs
decreased. In 1785, the manor created Ceglédbercel on the "surplus
lands" taken from them. The Clararis Order II. After his liquidation
by József, the landlord's rights were exercised by the Cegléd
Religious Foundation Estate. The King's grace decree also abolished
discrimination against the Reformed.
In the 18th century, a
part of the population began to move to homesteads, as a result of
which the city is still the center of a large-scale homestead world.
Cold beef farming still played a significant role, but viticulture
also became increasingly important. The friend of István Széchenyi,
a friend of János Török (the namesake of the Agricultural Vocational
High School) founded in 1847, made a significant contribution to the
development of agriculture.
Reformation, revolution, war of
independence
The first pharmacy of the city of Cegléd was opened
by János Öffner, after it was allowed on April 8, 1817, by György
Forgó, the chief physician of the county. Öffner died in 1822, and
after a long lawsuit between the heirs, the pharmacy in Cegléd was
bought by András Schütz. The pharmacy in Cegléd, then known as the
"King of Hungary", was owned by András Schütz until 1841. In the
1840s, József Ferenczy from Őkényi was the third owner, and in 1859
Sándor Persay (1818-1885) from Persai was the fourth, when the
pharmacy was called "To the Holy Spirit."
After the great fire of 1834, the planned construction of today's
city began. At that time, the present-day church was built on the
site of the Gothic Catholic church and the construction of the
Reformed church was started according to the plans of József Hild.
The Budapest – Cegléd – Szolnok railway line, opened in 1847, and
the Cegléd – Szeged railway line, which branched towards Szeged in
1854, also show the strengthening of the city's
transport-geographical role.
The balcony of the former Green
Tree Inn in Bratislava was erected on the wall of the Reformed
School in 1996, on which Kossuth presented Lajos Batthyány as the
responsible Prime Minister of the country to the celebrating
Bratislava on March 17, 1848. It was also announced from this
balcony that Parliament had accepted the emancipation of serfs. This
may have been very favorable for the people of Cegléd, as this all
the serf plots became the property of their users.
The winds
of the revolution also reached this small market town, and a
national guard was formed, whose members marched to Bačka on the
news of the Serbian attack and took part in the siege of Szenttamás.
As a result of Jelačić's attack in September, Lajos Kossuth
published an article calling for war on September 10, 1848. On the
same day, the Chief Justice of Cegléd, Mihály Csizmadia, convened
the councils of Cegléd, Nagykőrös and Kecskemét, and in a resolution
called on the government and the parliament to start arming the
country ("Cegléd letter"). Kossuth could also refer to this decision
when he announced in parliament that he was going on a recruitment
tour. On the afternoon of September 24, 1848, he arrived by train at
his first station, Cegléd.
His appearance and incendiary
speech - in front of the Catholic church in Cegléd - had an
invigorating effect on both the insurgents and the national guards;
2-3 thousand joined the war of independence. It is said that the
volunteers of Cegléd marching to Pest sang the Kossuth song for the
first time. Today, a memorial plaque stands at the site of the
speech, and the Kossuth Statue of János Horvay erected in 1902 in
Szabadság Square also commemorates this event. The New York statue
was also modeled on this in the 1920s.
From the fall of 1848,
the city was again on the “path of wars”. There was only one battle
here on January 25, 1849, the battle of Bede (or Paul's Day), when
General Mór Perczel, advancing from Szolnok, ran out the Austrian
troops of Ferenc Ottinger and chased them to Irsa. Today, a monument
stands on the site of the battle, and the statue of Mór Perczel is
located on Malom Square. In 1849, Austrian and Hungarian troops
stationed in Cegléd.
Due to the changes taking place on the
battlefield, in July 1849 Cegléd was the seat of the Hungarian
government for a week. Lajos Kossuth and his family were housed in
the house of József Ferenchich, a manor officer, at 6 Pesti út.
Along with Kossuth, Minister Mihály Horváth and Military Commanders
Mór Perczel, Józef Wysocki, Lajos Aulich and Arisztid Dessewffy took
part in the July 8 military council. But Alajos Degré, József Bem
(after whom the Industrial Vocational School was named) and Henryk
Dembiński were also present. When Cegléd fell into imperial hands,
Jelačić, Schlik and Ottinger also stayed here.
Retaliation
also reached the city: the Catholic priest Károly Bobory and the
Reformed pastor Károly Nánási Szabó were sentenced in 1853 to 15
years in prison. Among the heroes of the war of independence, the
hero of the battle of Vác, Károly Földváry, and Kálmán Csutak, who
fought with Bemmel in Transylvania, were buried in Cegléd.
After the war of independence
Cegléd adhered to the traditions of
independence even after the defeat of the war of independence, and
after the compromise he usually elected representatives of the
independence party. In 1876-77, Mihály Táncsics lived in Cegléd,
selling his own books, with little success (today a primary school
bears his name). In 1877, 100 people from Cegléd met with the
emigrant Kossuth in Turin to call him home a member of parliament
for the city. Kossuth did not come home, but the “Turin Hundreds”
and then their descendants celebrated the anniversary of the trip
every year. Even today, one of the oldest associations in the
country, the Turin Hundred Delegation Museum Friends Circle,
operates in Cegléd, which plays a significant role in nurturing the
Kossuth cult and supporting the Kossuth Museum. Even if Kossuth
could not have been the representative of the city, his son did:
Ferenc Kossuth not only represented Cegléd at the turn of the
century, but he was also the leader of the Independence and
Forty-Eight Party. Mihály Károlyi was also a member of the city's
parliament during the First World War (the former Károly Mihály
Commercial Vocational High School was named after him, the school's
new name is László Unghváry Vocational High School and Vocational
School of Commerce).
On November 26, 1881, under the administration of Lajos Jakab,
the theater was opened on the Népkör plot, performing Bánk bánt. The
Persay-born Persay Persian dr. Ferenc Persay (1854-1937), a lawyer,
later deputy lord of Bars County, and Mayor Sámuel Bába Molnár,
earned merits around the construction of the theater, as long as
they collected the 10 forint subscriptions. Ferenc Persay's father,
Sándor Persay of Persai (1818-1885), a pharmacist from Cegléd, was
one of the first pharmacists in the city; He obtained his diploma in
pharmacy in 1848 and was the fourth owner of the first pharmacy in
Cegléd, the pharmacy called "Holy Spirit". The third pharmacy of the
settlement was founded in 1896 by the other son of the pharmacist
Sándor Persay of Persia, Elek Persay (1856-1908), pharmacist,
councilor of the city of Cegléd, councilor of the city of Cegléd,
member of the board of the Roman Catholic Church, "Savior". under
the name ".
Agricultural modernization also appeared in and
around Cegléd. By the end of the 19th century: mechanization began
(threshing machine, steam), fruit culture and animal husbandry
spread. At the turn of the century, a trend of plant growth was
observed, but the nature of small-scale industry remained unchanged.
In the second half of the 19th century, the mill industry
developed most strongly (water, dry, wind, steam mills). These were
already capitalist industrial enterprises. The city has also
increasingly benefited from the traffic situation. In the middle of
the 19th century, only the size of the settlement, as well as some
significant public buildings and residential houses, expressed the
rank of a market town. By the turn of the century, however,
urbanization had already progressed, in 1899 the city received a
state grammar school (Reformed Kossuth Lajos High School in Cegléd),
the establishment of which is linked to the name of archivist János
Dobos (1844-1913) (his father, János Dobos, a nobleman pastor, a
deep imprint in the memory of the city because of his hard work).
The wife of the archivist János Dobos from Cegléd was the daughter
of Sándor Persay, a pharmacist, and Anna Persay Persia (1859-1915).
At that time, the most significant public buildings were built: the
heyday was largely connected to the person of the then mayor, Ferenc
Gubody.
Cegléd was also one of the centers of the agrarian
socialist movement at that time. In 1897, the Social
Democrat-motivated István Várkonyi (named after a primary school)
convened the first agricultural workers' congress in Vigadó, which
once stood on the site of today's Sports Hall, where the land
distribution program was formulated and the Hungarian Independent
Socialist Party was established. The movement was then shattered a
year later. Nevertheless, on the initiative of Pál Urbán, the first
(then still voluntary) producer cooperative of the country was
established in 1902 in Cegléd-Homokpuszta.
The 20th century
In the First World War, nearly 1,000 inhabitants of Cegléd died, and
the days of the Soviet Republic in 1919 did not pass without
casualties.
The losses of World War II were also exacerbated
by the deportation of Jews (about 600 victims) and the August 29,
1944 bombing of the railway station. On November 4, 1944, the Soviet
army occupied the city, on the outskirts of which it operated a huge
prisoner of war camp. In the following years, the communist
dictatorship was established here as well. In 1952, the village of
Csemő became largely independent of the homesteads in Cegléd. On
October 26, 1956, high school students initiated a demonstration in
the city and the revolutionaries fell into power. Then, on November
4, the Soviet troops stationed in Cegléd took part in the defeat of
the revolution. In the seventies, the city started to develop, but
after the change of regime, its industry and agricultural
agriculture practically ceased, although the importance of tourism
(Cegléd Spa and Leisure Center) is constantly growing.
Cegléd
was once a significant center of the Hungarian Armed Forces.
Military life began in the city in 1874, and the first barracks
building in the city still stands today. The construction of another
barracks began in 1905, for forty years by Hungarian soldiers and
later by the Soviets after World War II. Hungarian soldiers were
finally received outside the city by the "Dózsa György Laktanya" in
Törteli út, built in 1951. This is where the first unit, the 30th
Breakthrough Artillery Division, moved in. The artillery was
monarchical in Cegléd for fifteen years. Finally, in 1966, other
weapons also moved here. At the time of the closure of the barracks,
the artillery division ended its career as György 10 Dózsa Fire
Brigade.
The other important military unit of the barracks
was the 66th MH Puskás Tivadar News Battalion. The battalion was
founded on October 29, 1966 in Cegléd, under the name of the 66th
Independent News Tax Battalion. The task of the battalion was to
ensure the news of the 3rd Mechanized Corps in the Cegléd garrison
in peace and, of course, even in wartime conditions. Rapid
communication between subordinate troops was important to the corps.
In 1990, the news battalion adopted the name Tivadar Puskás in a decree of the then Minister of Defense. In 1991, the corps merged with the 3rd Police Commandant Battalion, also stationed in Cegléd, and thus the 66th MH Pivadás Tivadar Leadership Battalion was formed from the two organizations. From the end of 2000, due to the reorganization measures of the organization, the liquidation of the battalion began, and at the same time the barracks in Cegléd began to "disappear". History finally caught up with him on June 30, 2001, when the barracks were finally closed. He lived for 50 years and with that Cegléd ceased to exist as a military town.
Buildings of local significance
Reformed Great Church
New
Town Reformed Church
Felszegi Reformed Church
Church of the
Exaltation of the Holy Cross (Classicist)
Old Catholic Parish
(18th century)
Lutheran Church (Neo-Gothic)
Chapel of Our Lady
of Hungary
Chapel of St. Clare
St. Margaret's Chapel
City
Hall (eclectic)
City Court
City Market Hall
Veer House
Horseshoe Irma House
IPOS Headquarters
Freedom Square 8.
Kishartyányi mansion
Kossuth Ferenc u. 1.
Freedom Square 2.
Kossuth tér 10.
Officer's club
Train station
Palace of
Culture (Kossuth Cultural Center)
City Library
Cegléd Gallery
Artem Gallery (former brewery)
Duo Gallery
Museums
Kossuth Museum
Jazz Drum History Museum
Urban Sports
Collection
Church and School History Museum
Cast Iron Stove
Museum
Repository of Old Times
Monuments, public
sculptures
Turin monument
I. and II. world war memorial
European Union monument
Bedei monument
Trinity statue
Statue of city founders
Doge statue
Dog bust
Kossuth statue
Bust of Kossuth
Kossuth balcony
Belfry
Gubody park
Bust
of Gubody
Turul statue