Abaúj county

From the 13th century until 1881 it has been an independent county, but that time it has been united with Torna county. Its ancestor has been the so-called Újvár county established by St Stephen. It is mentioned from 1263 as Abaújvár county, its seat has been Abaújvár till 1647, and later Kassa till 1881. The most well-known and greatest inhabitants have been the Amadés, the Drugehts, the Perényis, the Rozgonyis, and the Czudars.

Main lands

Between the Bódva and Hernád rivers lie the hills of Cserehát which is connected to to the wide valley of the Hernád, while the other riverbank is covered with volcanic hills. This is the Eperjes-Tokaji mountains, what is incorrectly named Zempléni hills in atlases. This mountain is part of the Carpathian volcanic zone.

The territory has great medieval sources.

“Abaúj county got its name after Abaújvár. Its borders are Zemplén from East, Torna and Borsod from West and Szepes and Sáros counties from the North. The landscape is covered with hills and forests from the Eastern, Western and Northern parts, while in the South it is fertile and rather flat. Its most important hills are Regécz, Füzés, Saláncz and Boldogkő with their old castles. It has crops, copper, iron, fish, crayfish and enough wood. It has one independent royal town, 239 settlements, 41 plains according to the newest information. The inhabitants are mainly Hungarian in 154, Germans in 2 and Tóts in 72 settlements.” From the Lexikon written by Hübner János, and printed by Trattner János Tamás in Pest in 1816.

Trianon

With the peace treaty of Trieanon in 1920 The part of Abaúj close to Kassa, which meant about half of the Abaúj-Torna county,  was annexed to the independent state of Czechoslovakia. This peace treaty was however not concluded in order to make peace between the peoples, but it was rather a treaty hurting the interests of peoples. Indicating the borders meant another source of quarrels between the nations, as obviously Hungarian towns got to be parts of Czechoslovakia.

The decision of Trianon cut the crossing between East and West and also cut the small villages from the economic centers; the small Hungarian villages south from the border lost their traditional administrative centers: Szepsi, Torna and Kassa. They also lost their trading opportunities, so trading that was traditional here for centuries, had to come to an end. Special junctions, so-called gates came into being at the upper and lower parts of river valleys: these upper gates were made unreachable by the Trianon decision, but the greatest diffivulty was caused by the loss of the inner part of the county, and this meant the economic and cultural isolation of the border regions.

The Abaúj territories in Hungary had disadvantages from being disconnected from Kassa: the economic impact of the industrial development in Kassa came to an end in both cases of employment and supplies and this could not be given by the new county town. Szikszó. The territory with terrible agriculture and lacking industry became the “dark” Abaúj. Besides the emigrations to the USA and Canada, the migration within the country was also high, so soon Abaúj became the most sparsely populated county.

The inhabitants of villages over the border soon could experience all the disadvantages of being minorities; the settlements inhabited by Hungarians in the border regions have been missed from developments according to direct political decisions and their life is still hard, but at least not hopeless.

Taking all natural conditions into consideration, it is obvious that the region has been hard with the inhabitants all the time, they had to work hard to live here. However, it is inhabited from the prehistoric age and during the middle ages Abaúj has been one of the most densely populated areas.