Smolenice ( hu, Szomolány; german: Smolenitz) is a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred ...

and

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

Trnava District Trnava District ( sk, okres Trnava) is a district in the Trnava Region of western Slovakia. In its present borders the district was established in 1996. Before that date Hlohovec district was a part of it. It comprises the villages around the Trn ...

in the

Trnava Region The Trnava Region ( sk, Trnavský kraj, ; hu, Nagyszombati kerület; german: Tyrnauer Landschaftsverband) is one of the eight Slovak administrative regions. It was established in 1996, before which date most of its districts were parts of Brat ...

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...

, on the foothills of the

Little Carpathians The Little Carpathians (also: ''Lesser Carpathians'', sk, Malé Karpaty; german: Kleine Karpaten; hu, Kis-Kárpátok) are a low, about 100 km long, mountain range, part of the Carpathian Mountains. The mountains are situated in Western Slov ...

. It is 60 km northeast of Bratislava and 25 km northwest of

Trnava Trnava (, german: Tyrnau; hu, Nagyszombat, also known by other alternative names) is a city in western Slovakia, to the northeast of Bratislava, on the Trnávka river. It is the capital of a ''kraj'' ( Trnava Region) and of an '' okres'' ( T ...

. The village is made of two parts, Smolenice and ''Smolenická Nová Ves'' (formerly ''Neštich'').

History

The location of Smolenice at the edge of the basin of Trnava, easy access, and fertility facilitated settlement of the land in the Paleolithic era. There are only occasional archeological discoveries from this time, however, with more coming from the

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...

era. The most significant period was the transition between the Bronze and Iron Ages, when the Celts around the 6th century BC had an

oppidum An ''oppidum'' (plural ''oppida'') is a large fortified Iron Age settlement or town. ''Oppida'' are primarily associated with the Celtic late La Tène culture, emerging during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, spread across Europe, stretchi ...

above the village. There was a settlement on the same place during the

Great Moravia Great Moravia ( la, Regnum Marahensium; el, Μεγάλη Μοραβία, ''Meghálī Moravía''; cz, Velká Morava ; sk, Veľká Morava ; pl, Wielkie Morawy), or simply Moravia, was the first major state that was predominantly West Slavic to ...

period. From the 10th century it was part of the

Kingdom of Hungary The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from the Middle Ages into the 20th century. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the coronation of the first king Stephen ...

. The village was first mentioned in 1256 under name ''villa Solmus'', though the settlement started to grow in the late Middle Ages. In the 14th century, the gothic Smolenice Castle was built above the village, as a part of a chain of fortifications protecting the passes through the

. The castle was royally owned at first, but it changed hands for several centuries until, in disrepair, in 1777 the Pálffys assumed ownership of it. On 28 May, 1704 the battle of Smolenice between the Kurucs and Austrian Imperial army took place. During the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

, it burned down, and only the outer fortifications remained. In the 20th century, reconstruction of the Smolenice castle ruins began, and was finished in 1953, reconstructed as a château. From 1880 to 1883, Count Jozef Pálffy built a wood processing plant near the nearby village of Majdán. This was replaced in 1968 with the a paint factory ''Chemolak''. On 6 August 2016 Cologne artist

Gunter Demnig Gunter Demnig (born 27 October 1947 in Berlin) is a German artist. He is best known for his ''Stolperstein'' ("stumbling block") memorials to the victims of Nazi persecution, including Jews, homosexuals, Romani and the disabled. The project plac ...

erected five Stolpersteine for Friedrich Beinhacker and four members of the Sidon family, all murdered by the Nazi regime.

Sights

* The Smolenice Castle, now reconstructed as a château * Ruins of Celtic oppidum on the Molpír hill. * The Driny limestone cave, the only publicly accessible cave in western Slovakia. * Little Carpathians with many castle ruins, with the protected Hlboča valley, and the highest point of the Little Carpathians, Záruby (768 m) * Grave of Štefan Banič

People

* Štefan Banič, born 1870 in Neštich, inventor of the military parachute.

References

External links

Municipal website
*http://en.e-obce.sk/obec/smolenice/smolenice.html {{Authority control Villages and municipalities in Trnava District