Nagyecsed is a town in Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg county, in the

Northern Great Plain The Northern Great Plain ( ) is a statistical ( NUTS 2) region of Hungary. It is part of the Great Plain and North (NUTS 1) region. The Northern Great Plain includes the counties of Hajdú-Bihar, Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok, and Szabolcs-Szatmár-Be ...

region In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and ...

of eastern

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

. The old name of the town was Ecsed but over time it has been renamed Nagyecsed, meaning "grand" or "great Ecsed" to distinguish it. The area had close associations with a cadet branch of the

Báthory family The House of Báthory () was an old and powerful Hungarian nobility, Hungarian noble family of the Gutkeled clan. The family rose to significant influence in Central Europe during the Late Middle Ages, holding high military, administrative and ...

Elizabeth Báthory Countess Elizabeth Báthory of Ecsed (, ; ; 7 August 1560 – 21 August 1614) was a Hungarian noblewoman and alleged serial killer from the powerful House of Báthory, who owned land in the Kingdom of Hungary (now Slovakia). Báthory and fo ...

was raised in the town's now ruined

castle A castle is a type of fortification, fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by Military order (monastic society), military orders. Scholars usually consider a ''castle'' to be the private ...

. Her main residence and later her prison was Csejte Castle, Upper Hungary, now in

Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, 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 west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...

, but she was buried in the family crypt at Ecsed. The town's castle was demolished in the eighteenth century after the

Kuruc Kuruc (, plural ''kurucok''), also spelled kurutz, refers to a group of armed anti- Habsburg insurgents in the Kingdom of Hungary between 1671 and 1711. Over time, the term kuruc has come to designate Hungarians who advocate strict national inde ...

uprisings.

Geography

It covers an area of and has a population of 5,927 people (2022). The town is divided in two by the Crasna River. It formerly lay north west of the Ecsed Marsh (Ecsedi-láp), which was the largest contiguous marshland of the Great Hungarian Plain. As part of water control operations by Tibor Károlyi this was drained in the late nineteenth century, and the lands thus reclaimed transformed into farmland.

Notable people

Bódi Guszti Bódi Guszti (born December 12, 1958, in Nagyecsed, Hungary) is a Lovari Romani, Gypsy, Hungarian musician, composer and singer. Biography He started performing, singing and playing piano early in his childhood. He married his love Margó at ...

(born 1958), a Lovari Romani,

Gypsy {{Infobox ethnic group , group = Romani people , image = , image_caption = , flag = Roma flag.svg , flag_caption = Romani flag created in 1933 and accepted at the 1971 World Romani Congress , po ...

, Hungarian musician, composer and singer

References

Populated places in Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg County Elizabeth Báthory {{Szabolcs-geo-stub