National and historical symbols of Hungary

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Madaras

(County Bács-Kiskun)

A spade shield erect, the base curved to a point. It bears: azure, on a ground vert a bustard statant reversed argent, in the beak a wheat stalk or; in chief above a seven-pearled baronial coronet or.

From the village's historical seal the coat-of-arms has kept the motif of the bustard holding a wheat stalk, whereas the coronet refers to the Madarassy-Beck family, who played an important role in the development of the settlement.

Madaras boasts an eventful history. On the ridge of Telecskai hills the traces of an almost twenty thousand-year-old settlement from the early Stone Age have been recovered. With assiduous work, the archeologist Dr Mihály Kőhegyi carried out research for several years and, on the fields of Madaras, he unearthed Central Europe's most renowned Sarmatian settlement and graveyard. The mounds hid late Sarmatian and Hun burial places. During the excavations, Árpádian-age graves and the foundations of a church were also discovered.

The first documented mention of Madaras dates back to 1377, when it was pawned, then soon redeemed by the sons of Bailiff Köncsög, chief of the Cumanian clan that owned the area. At that time Madaras was a market town. In 1403 King Sigismund bestowed it on Miklós Kállai, followed by Pipo of Ozora as the owner for a short time. In 1439 Madaras was again pawned, this time by King Albert to János Hunyadi. King Mátyás granted the settlement to János Pongrác, after the death of whom the title of ownership went back to the king. King Wladislaw II gave it to János Corvin, who in 1504 passed it on to Imre Török of Enying. During the peasant revolt of 1514 the royal troops led by János Bornemissza camped here for a time. The settlement, the dwellers of which already were southern Slavs called rác, was also mentioned in 1580-2, during the period of the Turkish occupation. In 1598 the region around Esztergom got populated with the rác inhabitants of fourteen settlements from the area that included Madaras as well. The related agreement was signed by a person called György on behalf of the people of Madaras.

In the early 17th century the Turks built a palisaded fortress here, whereas the number of the inhabitants, soldiers and the servants of the mosque was recorded in several military pay registers. During the expulsion of the Turks Madaras got depopulated and remained uninhabited for almost a century. The deserted puszta was granted by the palatine as a fief to János Osztroziczky and his son Imre, who first pawned and later sold it to Péter Latinovits, vice comes of the county Bács. In 1751 it became the hereditary property of Péter Latinovits of Borsód, his wife and their descendants, who leased it to the village of Almás. In 1786 the heirs decided that the property be resettled and managed jointly, in accordance with their father's will. On 11 June 1787 the brothers commissioned the agent István Szalay to implement the resettlement( he was obliged to bring an adequate number of settlers to the praedium (uninhabited property), and to distribute the plots of land between them by the end of the same year. Distribution was arranged by the orders of Antal Quits, a land surveyor. The process of settling-in was carried out at such a feverish pace that documents dated July 1787 already called Madaras "a newly repopulated village". The settlement's seal also bears the above date. Still in the same year, the villagers asked for a priest who could preach and hear their confessions in Hungarian, German and Slovakian alike. By the orders of the authorities, in 1789 the Roman Catholic parish was established with a Hungarian parson, and a single-classroom school was also opened.

According to contemporary church registers, the ratio of Germans in the village was about fifteen per cent. Contrary to this data, a letter of 1792 addressed to the Chapter of Kalocsa related that the number of Germans at Madaras was 1,308 (60.3 per cent), while the Slovaks numbered 228 (10.5 per cent), neither of whom could speak Hungarian. Four years after the settling-in had taken place, the majority of the Germans and Slovaks moved from the village, and those who stayed got assimilated into the Hungarian population. The church was built in 1799.

In 1892 a six-classroom school, while in 1895 a village hall was built, the latter with public contributions. Local artisans obtained permission to establish guilds in the 1860s.Of the touristic attractions of the village one can mention the Roman Catholic church, built in 1799 and enlarged with oratories in 1903 and 1937. The side altar on the left is adorned with an altarpiece of St Helen by Mór Than. The slabs of the advowees Ödön and Lajos Latinovits, as well as the tomb of József Latinovits are also to be seen here. The latter work of art was completed in 1823 by the Viennese sculptor Jakob Schroth.