Štúrovo

Štúrovo (Párkány) is the southernmost town of Slovakia, situated on the river Danube not far from the mouth of the Hron (Garam). It is situated opposite the city of Esztergom in Hungary. Connected by the Mária Valéria Bridge the two cities form a cross-border urban area. In 2021 Štúrovo had a population of 9,591, two-thirds of them belonged to the Hungarian minority.

Štúrovo / Párkány is a popular summer holiday destination with the Vadas Thermal Resort, the biggest aquapark in Slovakia. It is also an industrial and commercial center of local importance with lively cross-border traffic, an industrial park, railway junction, hotels, casinos and supermarkets. The Fair of Saints Simon and Jude is the biggest in the Danube region.

Names and etymology
The oldest name of the settlement was Kokot, the common Slavic word for rooster (the word still exists in Slovak but as a vulgarism). It was mentioned as Kokot in 1075, Cokot  in 1157, Chokot in 1209, Kokat in 1215 and Kakath 1276. The word entered Hungarian as "kakas" and is still in use.

Parkan originally meant a "fortified outpost" in Middle High German, and entered Hungarian as "párkány" (although its meaning later changed to "ledge"). In 1546 a small fort was built by the Ottomans and called Ciğerdelen Parkan meaning "liver-stabbing fort" or Çekerden. In the early modern period Párkány and Kakath/Kakad remained in parallel use for a while but over time the former became the dominant name (Kakad was last attested in 1732). A German name was also recorded in 1595 as Gockern.

Párkány was the official name of the town when it was part of the Kingdom of Hungary in the 18th-20th centuries. It is still in use as Hungarian remains a recognized minority language in the municipality.

The original Slovak name was also Parkan, and it was in official use from 1920 to 1938, and between 1945 and 1948. The town was renamed in 1948 after Ľudovít Štúr, a prominent figure of the Slovak national revival. There was an attempt to return to the old official name in a local referendum in 1991; however the government refused to accept the decision.

Symbols
The main symbols of the town are the coat of arms and the flag.

The coat of arms of the town was created by a local historian, Péter Püspöki Nagy, and adopted by the municipal council in 1971. The main charge refers to the medieval name of the town, Kakath ("kakas" meaning rooster in Hungarian), the chaussé evokes the triangular Ottoman fortress of Parkan in the early modern period, the azure field refers to the Danube and Hron (Garam) rivers.

The blazon of the arms:

"Azure, chaussé Or displayed a cock's head facing sinister erased Gules."

The flag of the town is a swallowtail with a red side and seven blue and gold stripes.

History
Thanks to a natural river crossing on the Danube, the area has been inhabited since prehistoric times. It was probably part of the Pannonian Limes during the Roman era. A fort named Anavum is often located hypothetically near the mouth of the Hron but no Roman remains have been found so far.

From the 10th century Gran / Strigonium (Esztergom) became the royal and ecclesiastical capital of the Kingdom of Hungary. A village developed on the opposite bank of the river that was first mentioned in the charter of the Monastery of Saint Benedict (now Hronský Beňadik) in 1075 ("in Kokot a possession of 10 fishermen's houses in the upper parts and 3 plowgate of land"). The settlement was regularly mentioned in medieval documents, most often in the form of Kakath from the 13th century onwards. It owed its significance to the proximity of the royal city and the Danube ferry. The ferry was part of an important trade route that connected the center of the Hungarian kingdom with its northern territories and the Kingdom of Bohemia. In 1215 the ferry toll was granted to the Chapter of Strigonium by King Andrew II of Hungary.

In February 1274 King Ladislaus IV of Hungary was staying in Kakath (referred to as villa Kokat) when the chapter asked for his help in a property dispute. In the Middle Ages Kakath was owned by the Archbishopric of Esztergom except the small tract of the Benedictine monastery. However, this was seized by the archdiocese in 1276 and never returned, although the monks continued to litigate over it until the 16th century.

During the struggle for the Hungarian crown in the first decade of the 14th century, King Wenceslaus II of Bohemia led a campaign in 1304 to Hungary to strengthen the position of his son, King Wenceslaus. He set up his camp at the port of Kokoth in July, then crossing the Danube he attacked Strigonium because Archbishop Michael was a prominent supporter of his son's rival, King Charles I.

From the 1520s onwards, Kakath was severely affected by the Hungarian–Ottoman Wars. The tax register of the archbishopric in 1531 recorded only 11 houses and 10 ferrymen, a significant decrease from the previous years. The town was probably ravaged during Suleiman I's campaign of 1529. Strigonium itself was besieged and captured by the Ottomans in 1543. By that time, the medieval market town had been destroyed by the devastating conflict: according to the tax register of that year, Kakath was completely abandoned.

During Ottoman rule a fortified outpost was built as part of the defense system of Esztergom, and named Ciğerdelen Parkan meaning "liver-stabbing fort" or Çekerden. Many attempts to retake the fortress from the Turks followed, but they were unsuccessful except 1595–1605 period, until 1683, when the Turks lost a battle near Párkány.

During the reign of Maria Theresa, the town regained its rights and became a district town.

In 1850, Párkány became a station on the railway between Pressburg (Pozsony, now Bratislava) and Budapest. In 1895, the Mária Valéria bridge to Esztergom was opened.

After World War I, the town became a border town of Czechoslovakia. In 1938, as a result of the First Vienna Award, Párkány and parts of Southern Slovakia were occupied by Hungary. It was liberated in the years 1944/1945 by Soviet troops. The Mária Valéria bridge was destroyed for a second time (first time in 1920) by retreating German forces.

After World War II, with the annulment of the Vienna Awards, the town became a part of Czechoslovakia again. It was renamed to Štúrovo in 1948. The formerly independent villages of Nána and Obid were merged with the town in 1960 and 1972 respectively. Štúrovo ceased to be the seat of a separate district in 1960 and was merged into the new larger Nové Zámky District.

The postwar industrialisation period saw a major pulp and paper processing plant opened - the Juhoslovenské celulózky a papierne (South Slovakian Pulpwood and Paper Works) in 1968, employing some 4,000 people. A new thermal swimming resort Vadaš was built in 1978. The local railway station became the second largest in Slovakia (1975).

After the Velvet Revolution, Nána (1990) and Obid (1998) became separate villages again. The Mária Valéria bridge to Hungary was rebuilt for the third time and opened in 2001, boosting the local economy.

Border crossing


Until 21 December 2007 when both Slovakia and Hungary became part of the Schengen Area, Štúrovo was a major border crossing between Slovakia and Hungary, with Esztergom located on the Hungarian side of the River Danube. The two cities are linked by the Mária Valéria Bridge. The road bridge is some 500 m in length and is named after Archduchess Marie Valerie of Austria, (1868–1924), the fourth child of Emperor Franz Josef, and Elisabeth.

The bridge was originally opened on 28 September 1895 but was destroyed twice. On 22 July 1919 the bridge was destroyed by a detonation at its first pier on its western side but the bridge was renovated in 1922 and completely reconstructed in 1926. During World War II, retreating German troops blew up the bridge on 26 December 1944 along with other bridges near Esztergom.

Decades of intransigence between the Communist governments of Hungary and Czechoslovakia meant that the bridge was not rebuilt until the new millennium, finally reopening on 11 October 2001. Half the costs of the project were covered by a 10 million Euro grant from the European Union, as part of the EU PHARE project to assist applicant countries in their preparations to join the EU.

Štúrovo was also a major railway border crossing between Slovakia and Hungary as it is on the main Bratislava-Budapest railway line. The main station across the border in Hungary is Szob which is located to the east on the same side of the River Danube.

Demographics
According to the 2001 census, 11,708 people were living in the town with 68.7% identifying themselves as ethnic Hungarian, 28.1% as Slovak and 3.2% as other nationalities. The religious make-up was: Roman Catholic 77.18%, without denomination or not specified 16.45%, Lutheran 1.36%.

Twin towns — sister cities
Štúrovo is twinned with:


 * 🇭🇺 Esztergom, Hungary
 * 🇨🇿 Bruntál, Czech Republic
 * 🇮🇹 Castellarano, Italy
 * 🇷🇴 Baraolt, Romania
 * 🇷🇸 Novi Bečej, Serbia
 * 🇵🇱 Kłobuck, Poland
 * 🇭🇺 Kőbánya (Budapest), Hungary