Mezei István: Urban development in Slovakia (Pécs-Somorja, 2010)

1. Introduction

Introduction

Zólyom Counties (their towns: Körmöcbánya [today: Kremnica], Besztercebánya [today: Banská Bystrica], Selmecbánya [today: Banská Štiavnica], Bélabánya [today: Banská Belá], Újbánya [today: Nová Baňa], Bakabánya [today: Pukanec] and Libetbánya [today: Ľubietová]).

The name Felvidék (Upper Hungary) appeared in the 19th century, denoting the high mountains mostly inhabited by ethnic minorities close to the Polish border. After that part of the country had been torn off from Hungary in 1920, the name Felvidék took on a political and administrative meaning. Since then it has been used to mean the whole area of Slovakia, also including the part of the Small Hungarian Plain to the north of the Danube (Paládi-Kovács 2003).

In their analyses, the representatives of Hungarian academic life, especially those of historical geography, regard the watershed area on the left bank of the Danube and that on the right bank of the River Tisza as Felvidék (Pinczés 1998).

Henceforth I will mainly use the term Felvidék (Upper Hungary) regarding the historical past. Neither the standpoint of present-day Slovak public opinion nor (unfortunately) that of Slovak researchers is acceptable. In contradiction with the historical facts they refer to present-day Slovakia (together with its borders and geographical and administrative names) as a thousand-year-old province (country).

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