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Košice

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This article is about the city in Slovakia. For other uses, see Kosice (disambiguation).
Košice
Coat of arms of Košice
Coat of arms
Location of Košice in Slovakia
Location of Košice in Slovakia
CountrySlovakia
RegionKošice Region
DistrictsKošice I-IV
First mentioned1230
Government
 • TypeCity Council
 • MayorFrantišek Knapík
Elevation
−228.8 m (558.6 - 2,583.4 ft)
Population
 (2006)
 • Total234,969
Time zoneUTC+1 (CET)
 • Summer (DST)UTC+2 (CEST)
Postal Code
040 00
Area code599981
Car platesKE
Telephone prefix+421-55
Websitewww.kosice.sk
Statue of Košice's coat of arms
St. Elisabeth Cathedral
St. Michael's Chapel
(after the restoration)
Jakab's Palace
Hlavná ulica (Main Street)
Hlavná ulica (Main Street)
Slávia, the most beautiful Art Nouveau building in Košice
Premonstratensian Church
Orthodox synagogue in Košice
File:Kosice fontana.jpg
The Singing Fountain in the centre of Košice
File:SteelArena1.jpg
Steel Arena - the new architectonic dominant of Košice

Košice IPA: [ˈkɒʃɪtsə] (Latin: Cassovia or Caschovia, German: Kaschau, Hungarian: Kassa, Polish: Koszyce, Hebrew: קושיצה, [קאשוי (kashow)] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help), Rusyn: Кошице, Romany: Kasha) is Slovakia's second largest city and the center of eastern Slovakia.

It lies in the valley of the river Hornád in the Košice Basin, encircled by the spurs of the Čierna Hora mountains to the north and the Volovské vrchy hills to the west.

Košice is the seat of a Region (kraj) or the Košice Self-governing Region (KSK), of universities, of the Slovak Constitutional Court, of a Roman Catholic archbishopric (since 1995), Evangelical Lutheran bishopric and a Greek Catholic bishopric. The town has a relatively large historic center.

Administrative division

The town of Košice is divided into 4 districts and 22 city parts:

Administrative division of Košice
District City parts
Košice I Džungľa, Kavečany, Sever, Sídlisko Ťahanovce, Staré mesto, Ťahanovce
Košice II Lorinčík, Luník IX, Myslava, Pereš, Poľov, Sídlisko KVP, Šaca, Západ
Košice III Sídlisko dargovských hrdinov, Košická Nová Ves
Košice IV Barca, Juh, Krásna, Nad jazerom, Šebastovce, Vyšné Opátske

History

The first signs of inhabitance can be traced back to the end of the older Stone Age. The first written reference to a southern suburb of the town can be dated back to the year 1230. Its advantageous business and strategic location helped the town grow quickly. The given privileges were helpful in developing crafts, business, increasing importance and for the development of this city. The oldest guild regulations were registered in 1307 and the city received its own coat of arms in 1369 from the king Louis I of Hungary, making it the first municipal coat of arms in Europe. Since the beginning of the 15th century, the city had been playing a leading role in the Pentapolitana - a league of towns of five most important cities of eastern Slovakia (Bardejov, Levoča, Košice, Prešov, and Sabinov). Since the 14th century, it has been the second-most important town in Slovakia (which was part of Hungary from the 11th century to 1918) after Bratislava.

In the 15th century, the town was temporarily controlled by John Giskra (Jan Jiskra), in the 17th and 18th centuries a center of anti-Habsburg uprisings in Slovakia (Hungary) and seat of Francis II Rákóczi. In the 17th it was the de-facto capital of Upper Hungary, i.e. of the easternmost part of the then Hungary (1563–1686 seat of the "Captaincy Upper Hungary", 1567–1848 seat of the Spiš Chamber (Zipser Kammer), which was a subsidiary of the supreme financial agency in Vienna responsible for eastern Slovakia). Between 1657 and 1921 seat of the historic Košice University (1777 turned into a Royal Academy, in the 19th century turned to a Law Academy). In 1723, there was erected the Immaculata statue at the place of a former gallows at Hlavná ulica (Main Street) commemorating the plague from the years 1710–1711.

Košice gained a public transit system in 1891 when Stephan Popper laid track for a horsedrawn tramway.[citation needed]

During World War II, after the First Vienna Award (Vienna Arbitration in 1938), Košice became part of Hungary until 1944.

The cooperation with the Third Reich led to the easy evacuation of the entire Jewish population of 12,000 and an additional 2,000 from surrounding areas via cattle car to the concentration camps for their eventual murder. Thus their fate was identical to that of the Jews of Slovakia, which were deported in 1942 by the Tiso regime and of those from Hungary, deported by the Szalasi government in 1944, after the German military occupation. The fate of the Kosice Jews is all the more symbolic because both Tiso's puppet government and admiral Horthy's somewhat more independent regime was ready to pay with the lives of Jews in the race for the Third Reich's benevolence, that they both supposed to be essential for keeping or acquiring ethnically mixed and thus disputed townships, the biggest of which having been Košice.

The most important building of the town is Slovakia's biggest church, the 15th-century Gothic St. Elisabeth Cathedral, the easternmost Gothic cathedral in Central Europe. Except the magnificent cathedral, there are also the 14th-century St. Michael Chapel, the St. Urban Tower and the Neo-baroque State Theatre in the centre of the town. The Executioner’s Bastion and the Mill Bastion are witnesses to the ancient system of fortifications for protecting the city against its enemies. The visitors can also discover the beauty of several other monuments and buildings of great cultural and historical interest (the old Town Hall, the Old University, the Captain's Palace, Liberation Square, etc.) as well as several galleries (the East Slovak Gallery) and museums (the East Slovak Museum). The visitors can relax in the quiet of Municipal Park located in the area around the city center.

Population

Košice has a population of 234,871 (as of December 31, 2005). According to the 2001 census, 89.1% of inhabitants were Slovaks, 3,8% Hungarians, 2,1% Roma, 1.2% Czechs, 0.5% Rusyns, 0.5% Ukrainians, and 0.2% Germans. The religious makeup was 58.3% Roman Catholics, 19.4% people with no religious affiliation, 7.6% Greek Catholics, and 4.1% Lutherans.[1]

Population in the past

  • According to German and Hungarian authors of the 19th century (e.g. Gusztáv Beksics), the town was a German-Slovak town in the early 19th century.[citation needed]
  • 1850: Slovaks (?%), Hungarians (39,71%), Germans (?%)
  • 1880: Slovaks (42%), Hungarians (41%), Germans (17%), 26,097 inhabitants total
  • 1900: Slovaks (23%), Hungarians (67%), Germans (9%)
  • 1910: people used mainly Slovak language (14,8%), Hungarian language (75,4%), German language (7,2%), Polish language (1,8%), 44,211 inhabitants total.[2] In the same time, the municipal area around the city had a population of 29,967, including 56.80% Slovaks, 39.99% Hungarians, and 0.99% Germans.[3] Jews were split among other groups by the 1910 census, as only the most frequently used language and not ethnicity itself was registered.
  • 1930: Slovaks and Czechs (60,2%), Hungarians (16,4%), Germans (4,7%), Jews (8,1%), 70,117 inhabitants total.
  • 1950: Slovaks and Czechs (95%), Hungarians (?%), Germans (?%), Jews (0%) - approximately 10,000 Jews were killed by German occupants in 1944[4]
  • 1970: Slovaks and Czechs (95%), Hungarians (4%), Germans (?%)

Further conclusions can be drawn about the ethnic history of Kosice considering the fact that the elected mayors were mostly Germans (Saxons) between the 14th-16th centuries and Hungarians between the 16th-19th centuries. Occassionally, Slovak names appear too, but become dominant after the First World War.[5]

Births

  • Blessed Sister Sara Salkahazi, Sister of Social Service and martyr, murdered by Nazis in Budapest in 1944 was born in Košice in 1899

Events

  • The oldest marathon in Europe (the second oldest in the world - founded in 1924) - The Košice Peace Marathon is run on the first Sunday of October every year in Košice.
  • The first and the oldest international festival of local TV broadcasters (founded in 1995) - The Golden Beggar, takes place every year in June in Košice.

Sacral buildings

Higher Education

  • Technical University of Košice
  • Pavol Jozef Šafárik University
  • Univerzita veterinárneho lekárstva v Košiciach
  • Ekonomická univerzita v Bratislave - Podnikovo - hodpodárska fakulta
  • Slovenská poľnohospodárska univerzita v Nitre - Fakulta ekonomiky a manažmentu
  • Katolícka univerzita v Ružomberku - Teologická fakulta so sídlom v Košiciach

Sister cities

Famous people

References

  1. ^ http://www.statistics.sk/mosmis/eng/run.html Municipal Statistics from the Statistical Office of the Slovak republic
  2. ^ Atlas and Gazetteer of Historic Hungary 1914, Talma Kiadó
  3. ^ [1]
  4. ^ [2]
  5. ^ List of Mayors [3]

Slovak language

English language

External links

Photographs

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Košice.
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