Page 5 - Békés megye 2022

History that lives with us

The past obligates

The area was known to be inhabited back in the 5-4 mil- population, and settled Slovakians, Germans, and Hungar-

lennia BC; many different tribes lived in this area: Scyth- ians in an organized manner within the county.
ians, Celts, Gepids, Sarmatians and Avars, and, aft er the On 23rd July, 1715, the forming and offi cial-electing Gen-
conquest of Hungary, it was the property of the Vata clan. eral Assembly was convened in Békés, and Békés County
Békés County was established in the 11th century, and was re-established. In parallel, the re-population of the
Békés became its seat. It was first mentioned in 1213, and towns and villages of the county was started. In 1715,

its first count (ispán) was Damján. there were residents only in nine towns and villages in the

By the 13th century, the relatively dense sett lement struc- county, about two or three thousand people. According
ture, consisting of hundreds of villages and the develop- to data of the census, this number reached 70,000 people
ment of nearly two centuries, were almost completely de- in 1780. In the 18th century, the transformation of the
stroyed in 1241 during the Mongol invasion, when whole wild, natural environment to cultural landscape began, and
areas were depopulated. during the Napoleonic wars, the county was already the
The fortress of Gyula was built at the beginning of the dispensary of the country. The general assembly had no

15th century, and Gyula was awarded the title of county established venue until the mid of the 18th century. It was
seat during the last third of the century. The fortress was held mostly in Békés, in Füzesgyarmat, in Szeghalom, or

seized by the Turks in 1566. The one and a half centuries occasionally in Vésztő, in Szarvas, in Vári, in Körösladány,

of Turkish conquest was even more devastating than the or in Csaba. From 1731, the meetings were usually held
Mongol invasion, and the population disappeared from in Gyula.

almost the whole of the area. The modern area of Békés County was created by the re-
At the beginning of the 18th century, following the expul- organization in 1950 when a new county seat, Békéscsaba,
sion of the Turks and the Rákóczi War of Independence, was appointed, which serves as the region’s industrial and

the spontaneous return and resettlement of the population commercial centre, as well as its railway junction.
began. János György Harruckern initiated large-scale re-
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