Eger

The ruins of the Romanesque basilica in the Eger Castle

Today's Eger was formed in the 10th century by St. Stephen (997–1038), the first Christian king of Hungary, who founded an episcopal see in Eger. The first cathedral of Eger was built on Castle Hill, within the present site of Eger Castle. Eger grew around this cathedral, and remains an important religious centre in Hungary.

This settlement took up an important place among the Hungarian towns even in the early Middle Ages. The natural fundamentals of the surroundings (meeting of plains and hills) made it possible to establish economic and cultural relations between the different parts of the country.

During the 11th and 12th centuries, Walloon settlers came from the areas beyond the Rhine. They settled with the kings' permission, bringing western culture to this region and acclimating the viticulture. The development of the town accelerated with their presence.

The stone fortress was built at that time

This development was blocked for a short time by the Mongol invasion in 1241, when the town was ransacked and burned down during the episcopacy of Cletus Bél.

After the withdrawal of the Mongols, Eger began to flourish all over again. Lampert, the bishop of Eger, received a permit from Béla IV for building a stone fortress. So the nearly destroyed town revived and reached the peak of its medieval development in the l4th and 15th centuries. During this period the forests which spread to the limits of the town were cleared for the most part, and vines were planted in their place. More and more town-houses were built in the settlement. Roads were constructed among which the ones in the inner town were narrow and twisting but those leading to the northern mining towns were wider. The various surrounding settlements such as Almagyar and Czigléd were built up along with Eger.

The Hippolyt Gate, one of the main entrances of the Eger Castle

The gothic episcopal palace of the castle

During the reign of King Matthias (1458–1490), Eger began to develop again. The gothic-styled Bishops Palace of Eger which can be seen at the present time was reconstructed by the order of bishop János Bekensloer. Building operations continued during the bishoprics of Orbán Dóczy and Tamás Bakócz. The beginning of the reconstruction (in late gothic style) of the cathedral fort can also be linked to their names. After the death of King Matthias, during the bishopric of Hyppolit the so-called Hyppolit Gate was built, this has recently been removed.

Eger in Wolf-Dietrich-Klebeband Städtebilder (1568)

Bertalan Székely's "Women of Eger" depicts the siege of 1552

After the Battle of Mohács (1526) a sorrowful period began in the history of Eger. During the dual kingship the town changed hands almost every year and the Ottoman army came closer as well. This circumstance provided the reason for reinforcing the fortress. In the autumn of 1552, Captain István Dobó and his handful of soldiers were successful in defending the fortress and northern Hungary from the expanding Turkish Empire. The first writer of note to draw on the story was the Hungarian renaissance poet and musician Sebestyén Tinódi Lantos (c. 1510–1556), whose account may have come partly from eyewitnesses. Géza Gárdonyi wrote his novel, "Eclipse of the Crescent Moon" in remembrance of this battle, and his work has been translated into numerous languages.

Despite the fact that István Dobó and his soldiers successfully defended the fortress, it was destroyed during the siege, so it was essential to wholly rebuild it. The reconstruction process of the fortress took place between 1553 and 1596 and Italian artificer officers planned the renovations. The famous Hungarian poet, Bálint Balassi also served here for a few years beginning in April 1578.

The Eğri Eyalet in the Ottoman Empire (1683)

Eger Minaret, remaining northernmost Ottoman minaret in Europe.

While István Dobó and his soldiers managed to defend the fortress in 1552, in 1596 the captain at that time and the foreign mercenaries under his rule handed it over. This was the beginning of the 91-year-long Turkish rule in Eger. The Eger minaret, which was built at the end of the 17th century, preserves the memory of this period. Among all the buildings of this type, the minaret of Eger is found in the northernmost point of the former Ottoman Empire. During the Turkish occupation Eger became the seat of a vilayet which is a Turkish domain including several sanjaks. Churches were converted into mosques, the castle rebuilt, and other structures erected, including public baths and minarets.

The rule of the Turks in Central Hungary began to collapse after a failed Ottoman attempt to capture Vienna. The Vienna-based Habsburgs, who controlled the rest of Hungary, apart from Transylvania, steadily expelled the Turks from the country. The castle of Eger was starved into surrender by the Crusader army led by Charles of Lorraine in 1687, after the castle of Buda had been retaken in 1686. Eger was relieved from Turkish rule in December, 1687. Although the reoccupation was effected by a siege (which starved out the defenders) and not by a bombardment, the town fell into a very poor state. According to the ... records there were only 413 houses in the area within the town walls which were habitable and most of these were occupied by left over Turkish families.

Eger is famous for the narrow alleys in the old part of the inner town

A house in the town centre

The Archiepiscopal Palace of Eger

The Cistercian Church of Eger

After the expelling of the Turks, the town was considered by the imperial regiment as a demesne of the Crown. Leopold I re-established Eger as a free royal borough in 1688, which meant that it was relieved from the ecclesiastic manorial burdens. This state lasted until 1695, when György Finesse, the returning bishop, had the former legal status of a bishopric town restored by the monarch.

Eger soon began to prosper again. The town was reclaimed by its bishops, which caused many local Protestants to leave. Although the town supported the Hungarian leader Prince Francis II Rákóczi in the 1703–1711 war of independence against the Habsburgs, the Hungarians were eventually defeated by the Imperial army. In 1709, Francis II Rákóczi and Ukranciev, the legate of Peter the Great, met here. It must be added that the legate died in Eger and was buried near the Serbian Church of Eger. Soon after that, the town was ravaged by plague. However, immigration into Eger was strong, and the population rose from 6000 to 10,000 between 1725 and 1750. Muslims were assimilated into the Christian population.

In the history of Eger, the 18th century was the period of development and prosperity. Many new buildings were built in Baroque and later in Rococo and Neoclassical style, including the cathedral, the Archiepiscopal Palace of Eger, the County Hall of Eger, the Eger Lyceum (now housing the Eszterházy College of Education) and several churches, while others were reclaimed from being mosques.

The building processes attracted many craftsman, merchants and artists with such talented ones among them as Kracker János Lukács, Anton Maulberts, Franz Sigrist, Josef Gerl, Jakab Fellner and Henrik Fasola. The town population grew suddenly. While in 1688 it was only 1200, in 1787 more than 17,000 people lived here. At this time, Eger was the 6th largest town of Hungary (based on the number of its inhabitants). Viticulture also reached its brightest period in these days. The wine-growing area was twelve times larger than it had been earlier.

The 18th century was also important because bishop Barkóczy and Eszterházy decided to found a university in Eger patterned after the ones in Nagyszombat and in Vienna. There were already precedents for this type of education because in 1700 Bishop István Telekessy, who took sides with Ferenc Rákóczy the Second, established a seminary in Eger. Then in 1740, Canon György Foglár founded a Faculty of Law and in 1754 bishop Barkóczy set up a school of philosophy. In 1769 the first medical school of Hungary was opened by the direction of Ferenc Markhot, but it was closed in 1755. Unfortunately the university of Eger could not begin its work because of appoint ... the monarch'. In the building which was marked out for the university we can find the Archdiocese's Library (the most beautiful baroque library in Hungary), and an astronomical museum with original equipment, which was the second museum of this type in Europe. Between 1946 and 1948 there were several more efforts to found a university in Eger all of which also ended in failure.

The 19th century began with disasters: a fire that destroyed half the town in 1800, and a collapse of the south wall of the Castle in 1801, which ruined several houses. Eger became the seat of an archbishopric in 1804, and the church remained in firm control of the town, despite efforts by its citizens to obtain greater freedom. In 1827, much of the town centre was damaged by fire again, and four years later over 200 were killed in an outbreak of cholera.

In 1804, a significant change occurred in the organisation of Eger's bishopric. The monarch made this town a centre of archbisphoric, but the bishoprics of Szatmár and Kassa separated from it.

The Period of Reforms (1825–1848) left several lasting marks on the life of Eger, especially on its culture. Pyrker László János, the archbishop of that time, founded a gallery which he donated to the Hungarian National Museum because the town did not guarantee an appropriate place for it. It was Pyrker's present which served as a base for the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts that was opened in 1900. In 1828 Pyrker established the first Hungarian teachers training college in Eger and he was the one who ordered the construction of the basilica which was built in neo-classical style, in accordance with the plans of József Hild. On the basis of its size, this basilica is the second among the churches of Hungary. In 1837, János Joó, an art teacher, began to edit Hungary's first technical journal with the title "Héti Lapok".

Traditional clothing of the citizens of Eger, 1846

The inhabitants of Eger took an active part in the revolution in 1848. Even though the revolution was suppressed, the age of landowners and serfs had gone forever, and the municipality gained freedom from the rule of the archbishop in 1854.

The main railway line between Miskolc and Pest bypassed the town, which was only reached later by a branch line from Füzesabony. Unfortunately (unlike other towns) Eger's civil development did not become faster, as distinguished from other towns, after 1849 and the Compromise of 1867. Industrial development was represented only by the mill, the tobacco factory and the sheet-iron works that were founded in the Reform Age.

During the decades after the turn of the century, the character of a school-town was dominant in Eger. Because of its schools and other cultural institutions, it became known as the Hungarian Athens.

At the beginning of the century, in 1904, the first independent theatre of stone was opened and the canalisation and the provision of public utilities began as well.

A restaurant in Eger

Economic recovery was slow after World War I, although the 1899 publication of Gárdonyi's "Eclipse of the Crescent Moon" made Eger popular as a tourist attraction and archaeological excavation of the castle resumed.

In 1933, Eger was one of those towns that first got the permission for opening a spa.

In 1910, 2,674 Jews lived in the village but in 1944 the Jewish community was murdered by Hungarians and Germans during the Holocaust.[5][6][7]

In World War II, the city suffered under the retreating German Army and the arriving Soviet army, but it managed to escape major bombardment.

In the decades after 1945, industrialization of the town commenced because of the change of regime. As a consequence, Eger's former character of a cultural centre began to fade, which diminished the patina of the settlement.

It was of great fortune that in 1968 the baroque inner city was preserved. It was saved from the deterioration (and from the construction of unsuitable, modern buildings).

The birthplace of Sándor Bródy in Eger

Eger is famous for its wines, most notably the "Egri Bikavér" (Bull's Blood of Eger). It is also well known for "Egri Víz", a type of brandy which originated in the 18th century, the "bujavászon" (a special Turkish tissue), as well as its thermal baths. Today, Eger is a prosperous town and popular tourist destination with a charming Baroque town centre.

Eger has a humid continental climate (Köppen: Dfb) closely bordering on a oceanic climate (Cfb) or humid subtropical climate (Cfa). The annual average temperature of Eger is 10.8 °C (51.4 °F), and the warmest July has an average temperature of 21.6 °C (70.9 °F), while January is the only month below freezing, with an average temperature of −0.8 °C (30.6 °F).[8] The annual precipitation is 583.4 millimetres (22.97 in), of which January is the month with the least precipitation at 25.7 millimetres (1.01 in), while July is the month with the most precipitation at 82.9 millimetres (3.26 in). Temperature extremes ranged from −18.3 °C (−0.9 °F) on January 13, 2003 to 38.6 °C (101.5 °F) on July 20, 2007.[8]

ARC bus on Line 5

The main railway station is located 1.5 km from the town centre. MÁV operates intercity train services to Budapest, and the trip is about 11⁄2 hours. Local trains to Füzesabony and Szilvásvárad also depart from this station.

Eger Railway Station

There are also smaller stations located near the castle and in the Felnémet district that are served by the Eger–Szilvásvárad local trains.

The bus station is located close to the basilica. Buses depart approx. every 30 minutes to Budapest, and the trip to the capital is about 2 hours. Volánbusz operates an extensive network of suburban and long-distance buses. Other bus companies also offer connections to a variety of destinations. Taking the bus to Felsőtárkány gets you close to several hiking and mountain biking trails.

Volánbusz also operates a fleet of local buses, serving most parts of the town, although the majority of buses run in a north–south direction. Line 12 is the busiest line in the town, and it has stops at the railway station, the bus station and in the town centre.

Eger has 17 churches, but the notable ones include:

• The cathedral or basilica, built in 1831–37 to Classicist designs by József Hild, contains some remarkable painting and sculpture. Late morning organ recitals are held frequently.
• The Minorite Church, 18th-century Baroque church
• The Serbian Orthodox Church (Rác-templom) is in Zopf style (1784–86). The interior was commissioned from Viennese artists by the rich local Serbian community of that time. It is dominated by an iconostasis.
• St Bernard Cistercian Church, 18th-century Baroque church

Eger is twinned with:[13]