Page:EB1911 - Volume 26.djvu/341

 red pepper largely used in Hungary, and of a pastry called tarhonya; and has factories of soap, leather, boots, saw-mills and distilleries. Szeged is the centre of the commerce and industry of the great Hungarian Alfold, being an important railway junction and the principal port on the Theiss.

Since the 15th century Szeged has been one of the most prominent cities in Hungary. From 1541 till 1686 it was in possession of the Turks, who fortified it. It is also notorious for its many witchcraft trials. In 1848 it sent strong detachments to the national Hungarian army. In July 1849 the seat of the government was transferred hither for a short time.

SZÉKESFEHÉRVÁR (Ger., Stuhlweissenburg, Lat., Alba Regalis or Alba Regia), a town of Hungary, capital of the county of Fejer, 41 m. S.W. of Budapest by rail. Pop. (1900), 30,451. It is situated in a marshy plain and is a well-built and prosperous town. Szekesfeh6rvar is the seat of a Roman Catholic bishopric, one of the oldest in the country, and was formerly a town of great importance, being the coronation and burial place of the Hungarian kings from the 10th to the 16th century. Amongst its principal buildings are the cathedral, the episcopal palace, several convents, of which the most noteworthy is the Jesuit convent, now a Cistercian secondary school with a handsome church, and the county hall. The town carries on a brisk trade in wine, fruit and horses, and is one of the principal centres of horse-breeding in Hungary. Székesfehérvár is one of the oldest towns of Hungary, in which St Stephen, the first king of Hungary, built a church, which served as the coronation church for the Hungarian kings. In the same church some fifteen kings were buried. In 1543 it fell into the hands of the Turks, under whom it remained until 1686. Before evacuating it, the Turks plundered the tombs of the kings, destroyed the old church and several other buildings, and burnt the archives. Several sarcophagi of the kings, and the foundations of the old church, have been found by excavation beneath the cathedral.

SZEKLERS, or Szekels (Szekely, Lat. Siculi), a Finno-Ugrian people of Transylvania, akin to the Magyars. They form a compact mass of rather more than 450,000, extending from near Kronstadt on the south to Maros-Vasarhely and Gyerg6 St Mikl6s on the north. Their origin is unknown and has been the subject of much learned debate. Their own ancient tradition affirms their] descent from Attila’s Huns. According to Procopius (De bello gothico, iv. 18) 3000 Huns entered Transylvania (Erdeleu, i.e. the Magyar Erdély) after their defeat “calling themselves, not Hungarians, but Zekul,” and the Szeklers were the descendants of the Huns who stayed in Transylvania till the return of their kinsmen under Arpad; the anonymous scribe of King Bela speaks of them as “formerly Attila’s folk.” Von Rethy (Ung. Rev. vii. 812) suggests that they were originally a band of Black Ugrians who sought refuge in Transylvania after their defeat by the Pechenegs. Timon, however (Magyar Alkotmány és Jogtörténet, p. 75), points out that their language proves that their separation from the main Magyar stock must have taken place after the Magyar tongue had been fully developed (see also Hunfalvy, Magyarorszdg Ethnographiâja, 200). According to another theory they were Magyars transplanted by St Ladislaus to Transylvania in order to form a permanent frontier guard. Some such origin would, indeed, seem to be implied by the name Szekel, if this be derived, as Czetneki surmises (“Die Szeklerfrage,” Ung. Rev. i. 411-428), from szek, seat, i.e. an administrative district (cf. the Stuhl of the Transylvanian Saxons); Szekely would thus mean simply “frontier-guards.”

SZIGLIGETI, EDE (1814–1878), Hungarian dramatist, whose original name was József Szathmáry, was born at Nagyvárad-Olaszi, on the 8th of March 1814. His parents would have made him a priest; he wanted to be a great doctor; finally he entered the office of an engineer. But his heart was already devoted to the drama and, on the 15th of August 1834, despite the prohibition of his tyrannical father, he actually appeared upon the stage at Budapest. His father thereupon forbade him to bear his name in future, and the younger Szathmary henceforth adopted instead the name of Ede Szigligeti, the hero of one of Sandor Kisfaludy’s romances. He supported himself for the next few years precariously enough, earning as he did little more than twelve florins a month, but at the same time he sedulously devoted himself to the theatre and sketched several plays, which differed so completely from the “original” plays then in vogue (The Played-out Trick actually appeared upon the boards) that they attracted the attention of such connoisseurs as Vörösmarty and Bajza, who warmly encouraged the young writer. In 1840 the newly founded Hungarian Academy crowned his five-act drama Rosa, the title-rôle of which was brilliantly acted by Rosa Laborfalvy, the great actress, who subsequently married Maurus Jókai. Szigligeti was now a celebrity. In 1840 he was elected a member of the Academy and in 1845 a member of the Kisfaludy Society. He was now the leading Hungarian dramatist. Three of his plays were crowned by the National Theatre and sixteen by the Academy. His verdict on all dramatic subjects was for years regarded as final, and he was the mentor of all the rising young dramatists of the ’sixties. During the half-century of his dramatic career Szigligeti wrote no fewer than a hundred original pieces, all of them remarkable for the inexhaustible ingenuity of their plots, their up-to-date technique and the consummate skill with which the author used striking and unexpected effects to produce his dénouement. He wrote, perhaps, no work of genius, but he amused and enthralled the Magyar playgoing public for a generation and a half. Szigligeti’s most successful tragedies were Gritti (1844), Paul Beldi (1856), Light’s Shadows (1865), Struensee (1871), Valeria and The Pretender (1868). His tragedies, as a rule, lack pathos and sublimity. Much more remarkable are his comedies. He is a perfect master of the art of weaving complications, and he prefers to select his subjects from the daily life of the upper and upper-middle classes. The best of these comedies are The Three Commands of Matrimony (1850), Tuneful Stevey (1855), Mamma (1857), The Reign of Woman (1862), and especially the farce Young Lilly (1849). He also translated Goethe’s Egmont and Shakespeare’s Richard III., and wrote a dramaturgical work entitled The Drama and its Varieties. A few of his plays have appeared in German.

SZOMBATHELY (Ger., Steinamanger), the capital of the Hungarian county of Vas, 162 m. W. of Budapest by rail. Pop. (1900), 23,309. It is the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop, and possesses a beautiful cathedral (1797–1821) with two towers, 180 ft. high. Other buildings are the episcopal palace, to which is attached a museum of Roman antiquities, the county hall, the convent of the Dominicans and the seminary for Roman Catholic priests. Szombathely is an important railway and industrial centre, and has a state railway workshop, manufactories for agricultural machinery, foundries and steam mills.

About 5 m. south of Szombathely lies the small village of Jaák, with a Dominican convent from the nth century, which has a remarkably beautiful church, one of the best specimens of Romanesque architecture in the country. About 16 m. by rail south of the town is Kormend (pop. 6171), with a beautiful castle belonging to Count Bathyanyi. About 16 m. by rail, west of Kormend is the small town of Szent Gotthard (pop., 2055, mostly Germans), with a Cistercian abbey, founded by King Bela III. in 1183, where General Montecucculi gained a decisive victory over the Turks in 1664.

Szombathely occupies the site of the Roman town Sabaria Savaria), which was the capital of Pannonia. Here in 193 Septimius Severus was proclaimed emperor by his legions. Many remains from the Roman period have been excavated, such as traces of an amphitheatre, a triumphal arch, the old fortifications, an aqueduct, &c. The remains are preserved partly in the museum at Budapest, and partly in the municipal museum. The bishopric was created in 1777.