National and historical symbols of Hungary

Click to zoom

Csabacsüd

(County Békés)

The coat-of-arms is a shield couped en pointe, pierced flanche-wise, the base curved to a point. In the field vert a bustard holding in the beak an ear of wheat, all or. The lining of the shield and the leaves adorning it from the outside are also tinctured or.

The municipality of Csabacsüd can be approached on a road branching off the number 44 trunk road to Békéscsaba at a few kilometres south of Szarvas.

As proven by 19th-century archeological evidence and the related descriptions, the site of today's settlement would have been inhabited as early as the prehistoric age. The first documented mention of the village, then called Chabachyde, dates back to 1456. There are several interpretations as to the origin of the name. According to one, a hunter called Csaba had put a lure on the site where the village would be built later, whereas another description claims that the word "csüd" is the derivative of the ancient word "cső", meaning outpost. Thus the area might have served as an outpost of the castle of Csaba.

In any case, it is a fact that the above-mentioned document dated 1456 mentions the village as the possession of János Hunyadi. Until the Turkish invasion the settlement had been rather populous, since in 1557 thirty-five houses were registered, while in 1563 fifty-five families (approx. 275 people) may have lived here. However, during the Turkish occupation the village got completely devastated in 1596. According to historians, the Turks had the bricks of the houses destroyed at Csabacsüd transported to Szarvas so that the Turkish bath could be built.

After the resettlement had taken place, Csabacsüd puszta (i.e. fields with scattered farmsteads) became part of the estate of Békésszentandrás, sharing with it a common history from that time onwards. The villagers of Csabacsüd took part in the peasant revolt that broke out at Szentandrás in 1735.

After the fall of the war of independence of 1848-9, Baron József Eötvös found refuge in his estate at Csabacsüd, where Ágoston Trefort also lived and worked. Later both became Ministers of Education and Religious Affairs. At the initiative of farmers, who then still lived on scattered farmsteads, Csabacsüd broke away from Szentandrás in 1924, so that year became the time when the settlement's own history began.

On the strips of land distributed within the area of today's municipality the first dweller to build a house was Pál Szrnka (1926). The first body of representatives was elected in the same year, but until 1932, when the building of the civil parish hall was completed, it was seated at Szarvas. The settlement's first magistrate was Pál Janurik, assisted by János Demcsák as the first notary. It was the latter who initiated that Csabacsüd be built as a "Hungarian model village". The idea was also supported by FALU (National Union of Farmers). The features of this model settlement would be the geometrical arrangement of broad streets, hedges planted between the pavement and the road, and water channels along the side of the road. The hedges were planted and the channels dug by voluntary workers. The money needed for the carefully designed public buildings was usually raised by public contributions, whereas the building of private houses was made possible by loans granted by Falusi Lakásépítő Szövetkezet (Village Building Society, abbr. FAKSZ). These characteristic FAKSZ-houses featuring a narrow street front, a sill over the windows, and a porch along the full length of the side are today the core of the settlement. The first artesian well, bored in 1931and called Chárán-kút, is still to be seen on the main square, outside the Lutheran church, but it is no more in operation.

Owing to the second world war, the model village was, unfortunately, never completed according to the original plans.

E-mail: csabacsud@bekes.hungary.net