History of Gyõr
The name Gyõr must be familiar to the readers. Anyway, this word, which is rather difficult to pronounce for foreigners, is well know from road maps and road signs by travellers passing through. The city Gyõr is situated at one of the important roads in Central Europe, exactly midway between the two metropolis, Vienna and Budapest. A continuous stream of all peoples of Europe rolls along the board Szent István street, to the South of the city centre. The railway line Vienna-Budapest runs parallel with the road: every year hundred thousands of people rumble by the city in the trains of the railway connecting Western and Eastern Europe.
In spite of these, the city itself is nearly unknown to the bulk of the travellers. Most of the express trains does not stop in Gyõr, and for those driving in a car through the city, a row of high houses covers the vista of the historic city centre. The travellers do not know, or they just surmise that the big city buildings hide a pleasant small town centre. Here streets and squares with a history of several hundred years lie in hiding: houses, palaces and churches mellowed by age. The town has led a bustling city life from time immemorial: culture, industry and rich commerce add to the attraction of the settlement. The present day inhabitants are aware of the value of their surroundings and do their best to make their town more rich and beautiful.
Gyõr is situated in the north-western corner of the Carpathian Basin, in the centre of the Little Hungarian Plain (Kisalföld). Here, to the east of the Alps where the rivers Danube, Rába and Rábca meet, is the boundary of two big geographical units. The onetime boggy and marshy world of Hanság and Szigetköz lies to the west, and a plain area less rich in water with the Vértes and Gerecse Mts at its boundary to the east. The first human settlement was made in the archaic age on the hills and gravel terraces emerging where the rivers meet in the marshy, wet land (Calvary Hill, Chapter Hill and the onetime New Settlements, (now the industrial quarter), and the continuity of the occupation is witnessed by excavations, finds at archaeological sites. The first greater settlement developed some five centuries BC with Celtic inhabitants who gave the first name to the place: Arrabona. The same name had been used for eight centuries, and the abbreviated form - Raab - has been living till now as the German name of the city.
Roman merchants appeared around 100 BC here, and the northern part of the later province Pannonia was militarily occupied around AD 10. Soon afterwards the new boundary, the line of the river Danube became everywhere fortified. Simultaneously an important military road had also been built which connected Vindobona (Vienna) with Aquincum (Old-Buda in Budapest) which led to the south of Danube through the mouth of the river Rába. A fortified military camp had also been built to protect the ford on a hill near the mouth, and this camp ensured protection for the civilian population around it, too. This military camp was situated on the present Chapter Hill. It had a regular plan with a huge gate building facing towards southwest. The remnants of this gate were discovered by recent excavations there.
The Roman city could not hold out against the attacks of Barbarian tribes coming from east: the dwellers left their homes in the 4 th century and moved to the south. Nevertheless, the place was continuously inhabited during the centuries of the migration period, the old walls ensured protection for them till the access of the Hungarian population. At first the Hungarians occupied the fortifications of the Chapter Hill (Chapter-Gyõr), the Hungarians raised the height of the Roman ruins by earthwalls and ramparts made of wooden beam structures. King St Stephen founded a county (castle) government and a bishopric in this fortified place, its Hungarian name - Gyõr - comes from a personal name. In the beginning the early Hungarians lived in tents, later in earth huts partly dug into the soil. The supposed settlement of the early Hungarians in the time of the conquest was to the east-southeast of Chapter-Gyõr, somewhere in the eastern part of the present inner town (Royal-Gyõr). This settlement had a very ill fate through centuries. It was occupied in 1242 by Tatarians, in 1271 by the Czech king Otakar, then by Teutonic knights. In spite of the devastations, the settlement was always rebuilt and it developed even in hard times: the inhabitants of Gyõr received city rights in 1271 from the king Stephen V. It is supposed that the big regular main square of the city, the present Széchenyi square and the streets running nearly perpendicularly to it originate from that time. Along the roads leading out of this central part small settlements developed with small houses, farms, with churches or monasteries here and there (Királyföldje; King's Land, Szentdomonkosfalva, Szentadalbertfalva, Szentbenedekfalva;t Dominic's, St Adalbert's, St Benedict's Village, Felfalu; Upper Village, Malomsok; Many Mills, Révfalu; Ford Village). Later during the inner unrests and the beginning Turkish occupation, these parts of the city were completely destroyed and were resettled only in the 18th century. Till the middle of the 15th century, the fortification was to be protected mostly against Czech and German attacks coming from the west. As soon as the Turkish army took Székesfehérvár, the main menace came from the east. In 1529, the royal commander of the castle, Christoph Lamberg did not try to defend the city, he burnt it down, and the Turks found only smoking ruins. Thus they gave it the name Janik Kala, "Burnt city".
It was the danger of a Turkish occupation that finally made it necessary to rebuild the medieval inner city of a great extent, with its mainly small, gabled houses and to fortify it with bastions. At first it was intended to protect only the Chapter Hill and its immediate vicinity with new fortifications, later this plan was changed and several plans were made to engirdle the greatest part of the inner town by walls. The plans were made by Italian architects and military engineers. The realized plan is from Francesco Benigno: the walls and the seven orillons were made according to the most up-to-date "new Italian" fashion of fortification. The bulk of the walls was made of high quality bricks burnt in Vienna. The most endangered corners were reinforced by stone, and the upper corbels were also made of carved stone to close the walls. The bastions were connected by subsurface corridors, casemates and the guns were positioned in protected corners of the walls on high emplacements.
The Gyõr fortress was built at a very high expense and it was considered as one of the strongest fortresses of its time all over Europe. Its plan has been published in works on architecture, its name, however, has been withhold due to security. Furthermore the plans tell us that together with the fortifications, the system of streets was also made more regular, ground-plots were redistributed and correspondingly the salient and setback corners of the medieval houses were gradually straightened. The medieval system of streets can thus only be reconstructed on the basis of the cellars if they survived. It is supposed that the city has been significantly rebuilt in this age: in spite of this, the main characteristics of the early medieval town, the big main square and a system of perpendicular streets remained practically intact. In the reconstruction of the city, Italian architects living there played an important role: they built the first middle-class civic houses with loggias and arcades according to the late Renaissance style of their home (Király street 12., Rákóczi street 6). They called the city in Italian Giavarino.
The Gyõr fortress did not fulfil the hopes: in 1594 the Turks forced its defenders to surrender. Later in 1598 it succeeded to reconquer the border fortress being so important for the defense of Vienna. The besieging Austrian and Hungarian troups intruded into the fortress through the Fehérvár gate which was exploded by a petard and took the garrison by surprise in sleep. These warlike events -gunfire, devastating fire- caused severe damages in the city being rebuilt in Renaissance style.
In the next centuries the city developed quickly. Queen Maria Theresa gave Gyõr the right of a royal free borough in 1743. In this time corn- and cattle-dealers got especially fast rich: their city houses rivalled the palaces of the aristocrats living in the city (families Zichy, families Esterházy) for adornment. The greatest patron of the period was, however, undoubtedly the Catholic church. The monastic ord ers, Jesuits, Carmelites which settled here in the time of the counterreformation have built not only new churches, but also monasteries, hospitals and schools. These immense building activities have changed the aspect of the city. The language education was Latin in addition to the Hungarian in the Chapter school, later in the Lutheran lower gymnasium, then in the Jesuit gymnasium opened in 1627. The low Latin name of the city - Jaurinum - is found in old documents and scripts.
This huge fortifications failed again in Napoleon's time. Napoleon who occupied the city had the walls blown up at two places. Even the buildings of the then developing Újváros (New City) were endangered: the destruction of the immense new church of the Lutherans was, however, prevented by a French officer. The French still remember the victories battle of Kismegyer and the conquest of Gyõr is written - in its German form - on the column of the Are de Triomphe in Paris in the long list of Napoleon's victories.
The town-councillors came soon to the conclusion that there was no need for the fortifications any more, thus they decided in 1820 to destroy them. The "demolition of the bastions" was swiftly carried out, and a vast, contiguous area became free. The city could develop afterwards mainly to the south. A new town-plan was made and according to it the streets of the inner town running in north-south direction were elongated till the marketplace. Regular, big blocks of flats were constructed consisting at first of single-storey, later of several storey-houses, and the memory of the wall fell into oblivion soon. Only the Castle bastion and the Sforza demi-bastion were preserved: below their high brick walls the Danube and the Rába have been rolling on for four hundred years.
Gyõr's role increased further in crop- and cattle-trade with the advent of the steamship at the middle of the last century. It got a key role in the Hungarian exportation and the inhabitants gained a high profit from it. The construction of the railway line Pest-Kanizsa (1861) put an abrupt end to this prosperity. The city tried to balance the profit lost of the commerce by industrialisation. City leaders created advantageous conditions for the settlements of industry: in consequence, the incomes of the city increased, too, and this increase was spent mainly for the development of the inner town. The street to the railway station has been rebuilt (Baross Gábor street) and the Aradi vértanúk street has been elongated from the Carmelite monastery towards east till the Bécsi kapu square. The east-west directed Szent István street has been developed into a monumental boulevard, and opposite to the railway station, the new townhall has been erected together with other public buildings around it.
The plan of a complete reconstruction of the southern part of the city has not been realised any more due to the First World War. Among high city houses lower, single-storey modest buildings have remained, too. In the years after the First World War only a few, but important public buildings have been erected (Central Post Office, swimming pool) besides about two dozen apartment houses with balconies and loggias. The city preserved generally its aspect from the turn of the century till the Second World War. The Second World War caused immense damage. Not only factories, workshops, barracks in the suburbs were destroyed, but many of the inner town palaces were also ruined. Developments in the sixties brought even more change in the aspect of the inner town than wartime damage. Little care was given to old buildings unless they were protected as monuments; a considerable part of the inhabitants was settled into the southern part of the city, into concrete blocks of housing estates. The city lost its rank. And it was an even greater loss that old offices, shops, restaurants and cafes were also closed. The historic centre of the city became a gray, bald living quarter. This situation did not change until the beginning of the seventies. At this time a systematic reconstruction was started in the southeastern part of the inner town which was most severely wounded by the demolitions. A general town-plan was established. It was the time when the previous idea about the main function of a city, i.e. that is should yield comfortable, broad roads and street crossings for modern traffic-both for lorries and passenger cars-was abandoned. It was decided that cars are not allowed to drive into the inner town unless their immediate destination is the new quarter. Cars were stepwise banished from streets frequently used by pedestrians. Where the motorised traffic remained the speed of the cars was diminished by different measures. In conclusion, the streets of the inner town were slowly given back to the inhabitants.
The plans have also prescribed in which streets new houses may be built and in which streets new houses may be built and in which streets the old houses must be reconstructed. The town-plan for the inner town was followed by a whole series of detailed plans. The city leaders decided in favour of a complete inner and outer reconstruction of the old houses: they did their best to ensure the money necessary for this reconstruction. At one time the reconstruction of only one block was undertaken. Unhealthy, wet flats at the ground floor were given up, instead of them shops and restaurants were established. Flats on higher floors were modernised according to present-day demands. Many garret-spaces were also used to build flats. Some single-storey buildings, garden flanks were completely reconstructed. All this was made simultaneously, based on unified plans. Pavements, adequate street lamps and furnishing of the city squares were similarly reconstructed. These blocks received district heating and canalisation was also updated.
It was considered to be of great importance that the houses should be exactly restored in every detail. Old adornments of the buildings-heraldic bricks, ornamental door latches, banisters, cross-bars were carefully left on their original places. Before the restoration, art historians carried out researches on the buildings. The history of the houses and ground-plots was studied on the basis of old documents and plans in the archives: the original form of the buildings was established together with the later changes carried out by subsequent proprietors. If the later parts did not disturb the original aspect, they could remain.
If it was possible, the demolition of garden flanks, old fences has also been avoided: great care was taken in protecting the original plants. It was not striven after the establishment of big inner courts. Thus the original surroundings of most houses could be saved. In the direction of the frequent movement of pedestrians, however, thoroughfares were opened at the ground floor of the houses. Thus a series of shops could be opened in impressive courts: a vivid life characterises now the inside of the blocks. Wednesday and Saturday markets recall the onetime richness of the city life, for it was allowed merchants to pitch their tents in the streets of the inner town. The old, vaulted cellars gave place to restaurants, confectioneries and wine cellars, thus not only houses, gardens and streets were rejuvenated, but the old traditions of the city life came to a new life, too and started to flourish.
The inner town-from where some years ago inhabitants fled to suburbs with gardens-is today again a preferred living quarter. Small houses, modest buildings also get more and more in demand, they are reconstructed, supplemented. The historic quarters in Gyõr are developing and changing: their historic atmosphere, however, remains. Gyõr is mentioned today among the best examples of city reconstruction in whole Europe: the revival of Gyõr was duly honoured by the Europe-award for monument protection in 1989.
