Szigetvár

, _sr. Сигетвар or "Sigetvar") is a town in Baranya County in southern Hungary.

History

The town's fortress was the setting of the Battle of Szigetvár in 1566.

There was already a fortress in the marshland back in the Celtic and Roman times. The Castle of today was built on an artificial island - created by filling up the swampy area and driving the stream into a canal - in the 1400s. If you walk along the top of its external walls, 4 m thick at some places, you can get great views of the town. The bridge over the inner moat stands at the place where Zrínyi and his soldiers broke out of the inner castle. The equestrian statue of Miklós Zrínyi commemorates the self-sacrifice of the heroic captain of the castle. It is said that the Turks built up the mosque of sultan Suleiman I and the minaret beside it - only part of the latter can be seen today - in the honour of their sultan, perished in the siege, in twenty days after invading the castle. The former Andrássy Palace, hosting the exhibitions of Zrínyi Miklós Museum on the history of the castle, is also next to them.

Some other monuments in the town also date back to Turkish times. Two years after the siege, the mosque of Ali Pasha was built up, later - in 1788 - to be transformed into a Christian church: the Roman Catholic parish church. The two minarets, as well as the windows and niches with ogee arches indicate its original function. The Turkish House of red raw brick walls and interlaced steel window grills in Bástya Street was originally destined to be a caravanserai. The two holy-water basins of the Franciscan Church were made of Turkish washbasins. The carved main altar of the Baroque Church is another sight to see.

In 1966, on the 400th anniversary of the siege, Szigetvár regained its old rank of a chartered ancient city. Development began to gather speed. Today it has a population of 12000.Along with the cannery and the shoe factory, more and more small-size private businesses offer new jobs to local people. The town has a regional hospital with 450 beds, several primaries and secondary scholls, a student hostel for 100 persons as well as a music school.