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Prešov is a city in eastern Slovakia. It is the seat of administrative Prešov Region (Slovak: Prešovský kraj) and Šariš. With a population of approximately 85,000 for the city, and in total more than 100,000 with the urban area, it is the second-largest city in eastern Slovakia and the third-largest city in all of Slovakia, after the nearby city of Košice. It belongs to the Košice-Prešov agglomeration and is the natural cultural, economic, transport, and administrative center of the Prešov Region. It lends its name to the Eperjes-Tokaj Hill-Chain, which was considered the geographic entity on the first map of Hungary from 1528. There are many tourist attractions in Prešov, such as castles (e.g. Šariš Castle), pools, and the old town.
The first written mention is from 1247 (Theutonici de Epuryes). Several authors derived the name from Hungarian eper (strawberry).
Other alternative names of the city include Preschau (in German), Eperjes (in Hungarian), Preszów (in Polish), Peryeshis (in Romani), Пряшев (Pryashev) (in Russian), Пряшово (Pryashovo) (in Rusyn) and Пряшів (Priashiv) (in Ukrainian).
People from Prešov are traditionally known as koňare which means "horse keepers".
The old town is a showcase of Baroque, Rococo, and Gothic architecture. The historical center is lined with buildings built in these styles. On the outskirts, however, the Soviet influence is clearly evident through the massive concrete panel buildings (paneláky) of the housing estates (sídliská) and specifically the Sekčov housing estate, the largest housing estate in Prešov. More Soviet-style architecture is seen in the government buildings near the city center.
Significant industries in the city include mechanical and electrical engineering companies and the clothing industry. Solivary, the only salt mining and processing company in Slovakia, also operates in the city. The city is the seat of a Greek Catholic metropolitan see and of the primate of the autocephalous Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia.
Many concerts, operas, operettas, and stage plays are performed at the new building of the Jonáš Záborský Theatre (Divadlo Jonáša Záborského), as well as at the older theatre premises.
The city and the region were contenders for European Capital of Culture 2013. The nearby city of Košice was chosen.
Prešov lies in the eastern part of Slovakia at the confluence of the rivers Torysa and Sekčov in the Košice Basin. It is surrounded by Slanské vrchy from the east and Šarišská vrchovina from the west. Roads I / 18 (Poprad – Michalovce), I / 68 (direction Stará Ľubovňa), I / 20 (direction Košice) intersect in the town and the south-western connection of the D1 motorway (Poprad – Košice) is being built. The Košice – Muszyna railway line leads through Prešov, to which the lines to Humenné and Bardejov connect. Košice lies 36 km (22 mi) south, Poprad 75 km (47 mi) west, Bardejov 41 km (25 mi) north and Vranov nad Topľou 46 km (29 mi) east.
Self-governing city districts. Territorial districts of self-governing city districts:
Cadastral city district: Prešov, Nižná Šebastová, Solivar, Šalgovík, Cemjata
Other districts: Delňa, Dúbrava, Kalvária, Rúrky, Soľná Baňa, Šarišské Lúky, Širpo, Šidlovec, Táborisko, Teľov, Vydumanec, Borkút, Kúty, Surdok
Housing estates: Sídlisko Duklianskych hrdinov, Mier, Mladosť, Sekčov, Sídlisko II, Sídlisko III, Šváby
Previous city districts: Haniska (1970–1990), Ľubotice (1970–1990), Šarišské Lúky (1970–1990, since 1990 it's a part of the village Ľubotice)
In the last few years and today, the construction of new residential areas and satellite towns in Prešov is being realized, especially in the districts Šidlovec, Solivar, Šalgovík, Tichá dolina, and Surdok.
Habitation in the area around Prešov dates as far back as the Paleolithic period. The oldest discovered tools and mammoth bones are 28,000 years old. Continuous settlement dates back to the 8th century.
After the Mongol invasion in 1241, King Béla IV of Hungary invited German colonists to fill the gaps in population. Prešov became a German-speaking settlement, related to the Zipser German and Carpathian German areas, and was elevated to the rank of a royal free town in 1347 by Louis the Great.
In 1412, Prešov helped to create the Pentapolitana, the league of five towns, a trading group. The first record of a school dates from 1429. After the collapse of the old Kingdom of Hungary after the Ottoman invasion of 1526, Prešov became a border city and changed hands several times between two usually rivalrous domains, Habsburg Royal Hungary and Hungarian states normally backed by the Ottomans: the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom, the Principality of Transylvania, and the Principality of Upper Hungary.
Still, Prešov went through an economic boom thanks to trade with the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In the 16th century, it brought in grape vines from the nearby Tokaj wine region, and was home to German-Hungarian, Polish, and Greek wine merchants. Some of the first books on Tokaj wine were written in German in Prešov.
In 1572, salt mining began in Solivar (at that time a nearby town, now a part of Prešov).
Antun Vrančić, a Croatian prelate, writer, diplomat and Archbishop of Esztergom, died in Prešov in 1573.
Prešov was prominent in the Protestant Reformation. It was at the front line in the 1604–1606 Bocskai uprising, when Imperial Army commander Giorgio Basta retreated to the town after failing to take Košice from the Protestant rebels.
In 1647, the Habsburgs designated it the capital of Sáros County. In late January 1657, Transylvanian Prince George II Rákóczi, a Protestant, invaded Poland with an army of some 25,000, which crossed the Carpathians on the road from Prešov to Krosno.
Wolfgang Schustel, a Lutheran reformer during the Reformation, who adopted an uncompromising position on public piety, worked in Prešov and other towns. In 1667, the important Evangelical Lutheran College of Eperjes was established by Lutherans in the town.
Imre Thököly, the Protestant Hungarian rebel and Ottoman ally, studied at the Protestant college here. In 1685, he was defeated here by the Habsburgs at the Battle of Eperjes. In 1687, twenty-four prominent citizens and noblemen were executed, under a tribunal instituted by the Austrian general Antonio Caraffa, for supporting the uprising of Imre Thököly:
"The city particularly suffered during the religious conflicts of the seventeenth century, when it had a reputation for Protestant anti-Habsburg sentiment. In 1687, General Carafa, an emissary of the Austrian emperor, imprisoned a group of local noblemen suspected of insurrection in a former wine warehouse off the square now known as Caraffa's Prison. He subsequently, and notoriously, had 24 of them tortured, executed, and their heads placed on spikes around the town, after what we would now call a show trial."
At the beginning of the 18th century, the population was decimated by the Bubonic plague and fires and was reduced to a mere 2,000 inhabitants. By the second half of the century, however, the town had recovered; crafts and trade improved, and new factories were built. In 1752, the salt mine in Solivar was flooded. Since then, salt has been extracted from salt brine through boiling.
The English author John Paget visited Prešov and describes it in his 1839 book, Hungary and Transylvania. In 1870 the first railway line was built, connecting the town to Košice. At the end of the 19th century, the town introduced electricity, telephone, telegraph, and sewage systems. In 1887, fire destroyed a large part of the town.
In 1918, Czechoslovak troops began occupying eastern Slovakia, along with Prešov. On 16 June 1919, Hungarian troops entered the city and the very brief Slovak Soviet Republic was declared here with the support of the Hungarian Soviet Republic. The short-lived republic collapsed on 7 July 1919, and Czechoslovak troops re-entered Prešov. In 1920, after the Treaty of Trianon, Prešov definitively became part of the newly created Czechoslovakia. During World War II, the nearby town of Košice again became part of the Kingdom of Hungary as a result of the First Vienna Award. As a result, many institutions moved from Košice to Prešov, thus increasing the town's importance. In 1944, a professional Slovak Theatre was established in Prešov. The city is a site in the Holocaust:
"In 1940, on the eve of the Holocaust, Prešov contained five synagogues and more than one in six of the city's population—4,308 people—was Jewish. Three of the synagogues are still standing, but the Jewish community now numbers fewer than 60. Outside the sole functioning synagogue, on Švermova just off the main square, is a memorial to the 6,400 Jews from Prešov and the surrounding region who died in the Holocaust. The broad path leading to the tombstone-shaped monument, surrounded by prison-like bars, is intended to represent the Jewish pre-war population; the narrow path that leads on from it to the synagogue, those who survived."
About two thousand Jews were deported from Prešov to the Dęblin–Irena Ghetto in May 1942. Only a few dozen survived.
On 19 January 1945, Prešov was taken by Soviet troops of the 1st Guards Army. After 1948, during the Communist era in Czechoslovakia, Prešov became an industrial center. Due to World War II, Prešov lost the majority of its Jewish population. Nonetheless, the population of the city increased rapidly from 28,000 in 1950 to 52,000 in 1970 and 89,000 in 1990.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Prešov”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.