Sárvár ( or ; ; ) is a town in

Vas County Vas (, ; ; or ; ) is an administrative county (Counties of Hungary, comitatus or ''vármegye'') of Hungary. It was also one of the counties of the former Kingdom of Hungary. It is part of the Centrope Project. Geography Vas County lies in weste ...

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 ...

. Sárvár lies on the banks of the River Rába at Kemeneshát. The population is nearly 16,000. The town has become a tourist centre of international renown.

Etymology

''Sár'' means "mud" in Hungarian, and ''vár'' means "castle". The latter is a common ending for settlement names.

History

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Sárvár was used as a centre for the internment for Polish soldiers who had arrived in Hungary in 1939. Later in the war, Sárvár was used as a concentration camp for the internment for thousands of Serb families expelled by Hungarian soldiers from their homes in northern Serbia in 1941. Now, there is a monument and graveyard for hundreds of Serbs who died in the Sárvár concentration camp.

Sights

Sárvár's notable sights include the spa (with its famous medicinal water), a

Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

church, an

arboretum An arboretum (: arboreta) is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees and shrubs of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, many modern arbor ...

, the park forest and the Csónakázó Lake. A number of rarities of cultural remains are shown in the exhibition halls of the Ferenc Nádasdy Museum.

Castle

Through the Nádasdy family, the castle of Sárvár, now called Nádasdy Castle, played a significant role in the progress of Hungarian culture in the 16th and 17th centuries. The first Hungarian book, The New Testament of 1541, was printed here. The knight's hall of the castle is decorated with the battle scenes of Lord Chief Justice

Ferenc Nádasdy Count Ferenc II Nádasdy de Nádasd et Fogarasföld (6 October 1555 – 4 January 1604) was a Hungarian nobleman and a distinguished soldier. His family, the Nádasdy family, was one of the wealthiest and most influential of the era in Hung ...

(married to the notorious

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 ...

) and with scenes from the Old Testament. The Nádasdy Castle and estate later became a property of the kings of Bavaria, and the former King Ludwig III died there in 1921, three years after being deposed. The last owner who was expropriated in 1945 was Prince Franz of Bavaria, a son of Ludwig III. Ludwig's grandson Prince Albert of Bavaria lived in exile in Budapest between 1939 and 1944 and visited his uncle Franz occasionally with his family before they were arrested by the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

and deported to concentration camps in Germany. Prince Franz had set up a stud farm here, whose horses he took with him to Leutstetten Castle in Bavaria when he fled. Many of the estate's employees also fled there.

Notable people

Ludwig III of Bavaria Ludwig III (Ludwig Luitpold Josef Maria Aloys Alfred; 7 January 1845 – 18 October 1921) was the last King of Bavaria, reigning from 1913 to 1918. Initially, he served in the Bavarian Army, Bavarian military as a lieutenant and went on to hold ...

Péter Balassa Péter Balassa (born 18 March 1975) is a Hungarian football player and politician. Balassa retired at end of 2008–2009 season, he became a Member of Parliament in 2022. Balassa has played in the Hungarian NB I for Videoton FC Fehérvár dur ...

, footballer *

Alice Lok Cahana Alice Lok Cahana (February 7, 1929 – November 28, 2017) was a Hungarian Holocaust survivor. Lok Cahana was a teenage inmate in the Auschwitz-Birkenau, Guben and Bergen-Belsen camps: her most well-known works are her writings and abstract paint ...

, Holocaust survivor and artist *

Edward Eisner Edward Eisner FRSE FIP (20 December 1929 – 25 December 1987) was a Hungarian-born physicist who was Professor of Applied Physics at the University of Strathclyde from 1968 to 1987. He specialised in the physics of sound. The "Edward Eisner Memo ...

, physicist and professor *

József Vass József Vass (25 April 1877 – 8 September 1930) was a Hungarian politician, who served as Minister of Religion and Education between 1920 and 1922. He finished his theological studies in Rome. After his ordination he became chaplain in Ado ...

, politician *

József Vida József Vida (born January 9, 1963, in Sárvár, Vas) is a retired male hammer thrower from Hungary, who represented his native country at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. He set his personal best (76.01 metres) on July 4, 1999, in ...

, hammer thrower * Takács de Saár, noble family * Zoltán Stieber, footballer

British avian flu outbreak

The Bernard Matthews Sága Foods plant in Sárvár, that processes

turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

s, has been implicated in the

H5N1 Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 (A/H5N1) is a subtype of the influenza A virus, which causes the disease avian influenza (often referred to as "bird flu"). It is enzootic (maintained in the population) in many bird populations, and also panzoo ...

outbreak in

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

Twin towns – sister cities

Sárvár is twinned with: *

Seini Seini (German language, German: ''Leuchtenburg''; Hungarian language, Hungarian: ''Szinérváralja'') is a town in Maramureș County, Romania. It administers two villages, Săbișa (''Kissebespatak'') and Viile Apei (''Apahegy''). It officially b ...

, Romania * Sonntagberg, Austria * Steinheim an der Murr, Germany *

Uherské Hradiště Uherské Hradiště (; ) is a town in the Zlín Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 25,000 inhabitants. The agglomeration with the two neighbouring towns of Staré Město (Uherské Hradiště District), Staré Město and Kunovice has over ...

, Czech Republic

References

External links

* in Hungarian, English, German and Czech
Accommodation in Sárvár
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sarvar Populated places in Vas County Spa towns in Hungary Thermal baths in Hungary Roman settlements in Hungary