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.
See P. Rakodczay, Edward Szigligeti’s Life and Works (Hung.; Pressburg, 1901); Pál Gyulai, Memorial Speeches (Hung.; Budapest, 1879 and 1890). (R. N. B.)
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 A.D. 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.
