Košice

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Slávia, the most beautiful Art Nouveau building in Košice

File:Kosice fontana.jpg

The Singing Fountain in the centre of Košice

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Steel Arena - the new ice hockey arena

Košice Template:IPA2 (Latin: Cassovia or Caschovia, Template:Lang-de, Template:Lang-hu, Template:Lang-pl, Hebrew: קושיצה, Template:Lang-yi, 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.

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 centre 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 town was bombarded on 26 June 1941, what became welcomed pretext for the Hungarian government to declare war on Soviet Union day later.

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 cars to the concentration camps for their eventual murder. Thus their fate was identical to that of the other Jews of Slovakia, who were deported in 1942 by the Tiso regime, and to the fate of those from Hungary, deported by the Szalasi government in 1944 after the German military occupation.

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. In addition to the magnificent cathedral, there is 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 centre.

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 Hungarian language (75,4%), Slovak language (14,8%), 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. Occasionally, Slovak names appear too, but become dominant after the First World War.^[5]

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.

Administrative division

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

Administrative division of Košice
District	Boroughs
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

Sacral buildings

Higher Education

Technical University of Košice
Pavol Jozef Šafárik University
University of Veterinary Medicine of Kosice [4]

Famous people

Béla Gerster, the architect of the Corinth Canal and co-architect of the Panama Canal, born in Košice
Martina Hingis, Swiss tennis player born in Košice
Július Jakoby, painter
Sándor Márai, famous Hungarian writer
Arpád Račko, sculptor
Blessed Sister Sára Salkaházi, Sister of Social Service, martyr murdered by the Nazis in Budapest
Rudolf Schuster, former Košice's mayor and the second president of Slovakia (1999-2004)
Koloman Sokol, famous artist, founder of Slovak graphic art, deemed "Slovak Picasso", studied in Košice
Egon Steuer, head coach of the National basketball team of the Netherlands, born in Košice
Aurel Stodola, famous engineer, physicist and inventor, studied in Košice
Marek Svatos, ice hockey player for the Colorado Avalanche team in the NHL
Ferenc Szálasi, politician
Ladislav Troják, ice hockey player