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Debrecen

Debrecen with its almost 205 thousand inhabitants is the second largest city in Hungary, and the city 220 kilometres far from Budapest has a rich history more than 6 centuries long. It is not only the cultural and scientific centre of the region, but also a marvellous place of various festivals and cultural events. Moreover, Debrecen is the city of a flourishing bath culture and a distinctive health centre as well.

The city grew out of the union of a number of villages and was founded in the meeting of important trading routes, but the history of the city is still hardly known around and even after the time of the conquest. Debrecen emerged from the surrounding villages after the Mongol Invasion. The name of the city occurred first in 1235 in an ecclesiastic document. An important stage of the development of Debrecen was the charter given by King Louis the Great in 1361, which elevated Debrecen into the group of privileged market-towns. Thanks to the records kept about the active and flourishing trade from the 16th century, an image of a well-established and effective city with flourishing external relations is drawn.
By the end of the 17th century, after the Turkish withdrawal, the country was drawn under Habsburg rule, and the charter presented by Leopold I. in 11 April, 1693 Debrecen was elevated to the rank of a royal free town.

The Hungarian Revolution in 1848 March affected Debrecen radically as well: the further unfolding freedom fights shed new light on Debrecen. During the first half of 1849 the government of Hungary moved here, thus Debrecen became the temporary capital – Debrecen later acquired the name “the sentinel of liberty” for this – of the country. The temporary Parliament held its sessions in the Oratory of the Reformed College, where Lajos Kossuth, the world-famous leader of the Revolution declared the dethronement of the Habsburg rule and the independence of Hungary.

The city, which gradually became more and more beautiful, opened its first stone-built theatre in 1865 and it was named after one of the greatest poets of Debrecen, Mihály Csokonai Vitéz. At the end of the World War II the war caused serious damages in the city, but in 1944 the rehabilitation following the centuries’ old traditions of the city and the region began. (Source: Debrecen.hu)