Narda Summary
Narda
Summary
Summary
The two small villages hidden in the north-south valley, Kis- and Nagynarda (Small- and Big Narda) were merged under the name of Narda in 1950. We can also call it the village of the borders: since its first written mention until our days it has been lying along administrative, natural geographic and state borders. Its name was first recorded in 1221 when the estates of the Cistercian abbey of Pornó were registered. It belongs to the Lower Alps from a natural geographic point of view. Its avifauna is outstandingly rich: out of the 122 bird species observed, 62 species brood here, and there are eleven highly protected, and a hundred protected species.
On the basis of the Iron Age tumuli to be found in the Csémi forest to the west from the village, and earlier relics found in the other adjacent settlements, it can be presumed that Narda has been inhabited since that age. The Road of the Soldiers (Kátánszka sztázá) that survived behind the Ricsáviná forest, preserved the name of the road used by the Romans. It connected the castle of Óvár with Savaria.
The inhabitants of the Narda castle served to maintain the royal castle organisation in the Arpadian age until king Károly I. donated Narda to János Óvári and his son in 1322. The recently identified and assessed earthwork of Narda had a defence function also in this age. The church built in the XIII century, and re-built in the XVIII century is still standing in the village. Our settlement was also an example of dual villages in the middle ages: the name of Kisnarda, and with that, the existence of the dual village can be proven around 1333–42. While Nagynarda was clearly a serf village in later centuries, according to our knowledge, Kisnarda was mainly inhabited by the official and curial nobility until the XVIII century.
Emperor Frederic had a mortgage on the castle of Szalonak and its accessories – among others also Narda – in 1446, to the benefit of the Paumkircher family, who helped him to the Hungarian throne. The Batthyány family received among others Nagynarda from the king in 1528, but they could only take possession of it in the 1540-ies due to the resistance of the Paumkirchers.
According to the land register of 1532, only 18 persons were living in the village, and most of them had a German surname, with only the minority being Hungarian. Two third of the houses were abandoned. The Croatians were settled by the Batthyány family on their estates: a significant number of people might have arrived in Nagynarda in 1548 and between 1566 and 1568. Soon, there must have been either a pest, or some people moved on, and in 1588 ten houses stood empty again.
Based on the land registers prepared in the second half of the XVI century and the beginning of the XVII century, the Behovsics, Cserencsics, Dojsics, Horváth, Paukovics, Polyák, Szabó, Szekeres, Szitár, Vajda, Varga and Verhás families were among those permanently settled in Nagynarda. The Polyák and Verhás families are still living in Narda.
The popular name of the Croatians living today in Vas and Győr-Moson-Sopron counties is the grádistyei – a name given by themselves. This is, in effect, the literary translation of the German wording of “the Croatians of Burgenland”, and it served to bring the group and their environment awareness of Croatian identity, fragmented by state borders since the 1960-ies.
The year of 1649 can be called of the year of the great famine. Due to the agricultural activity of domanial farms, the burden on serfs also increased to a large extent: they already overstretched workable limits. socage got limited in the domain in 1650.
Although Narda did not have and still has no hillside with vineyards, many local people had vine on the hill of Csatár, from which they made wine. In 1744, 96 extraneous vineyard owners were recorded in Felsőcsatár: out of them 54 were from Nagynarda.
There are also some noblemen among the Croatians. Some of them arrived in West-Hungary as a noble family. Others – like for instance the Hérics family, still living in Narda – were granted nobility here.
Since the second half of the XIX century, education in our county has continuously served the aims of language policy, and Magyarization. The kindergarten foundations were not accidentally started in the settlements of Vas county, mostly populated by national minorities. The kindergarten of the county also opened its gates in Nagyarda in 1896.
György Frideczky was an outstanding personality among the vicars of Nagynarda: he served here from 1860 until his death in 1887: his prayer book for children was published at the Bertalanffy printing house in Szombathely in 1869. At the end of the XIX century, intensive migration started from our region: in addition to going to America, several Croatian families of Narda moved back to Croatia-Slavonia, the ancient land of their ancestors. The Trianon Peace Treaty had a direct effect on Nagy- and Kisnarda. By the division of Hungary, the two villages were annexed by Austria, together with the mostly Croatian and German populated villages to the south. In January 10. 1923, Kis- and Nagynarda, Alsó- and Felsőcsatár, Német- and Magyarkeresztes, Horvátlövő and Pornóapáti were returned to Hungary without any exchange schemes. This re-annexation had a kind of antecedent in the form of a popular movement: in September 6. 1921, the Croatians living in Kis- and Nagynarda, Alsó- and Felsőcsatár, Csém (Schandorf, Austria) and Csajta (Schachendorf, Austria) marched in front of the county-hall of Szombathely for a demonstration. The Hungarian National Association announced – among others – József Kuntár, the vicar of Nagynarda to be the “marthyr of the Hungarian nation” for his merits in the struggle for re-annexation.
The front-line in the second World War arrived in Narda at the end of March, and the beginning of April 1945, and stayed here for a year: during this time, the village, settled among hills, was kept under fire by the Germans from the west, and the Soviet troops from the east. Half of the village burnt down.
In 1951, – like in all other border-line villages in the west –, trucks with armed men appeared under cover of night also in Narda, and transported all the people in the houses picked to internment camps. The National Committee was formed in Narda in October 29. 1956. It warned the population to remain quiet and peaceful. Altogether 82 people, including border-guards, emigrated from Narda after November 4.
The mine-field laid after 1949 was raised in the spring of 1956, but it was laid again after the revolution, and because it was not efficient enough, it was replaced by a better quality one in 1959. At the time when it was raised, the S-100 technical lock, that is the electrical signalling system, or the “iron curtain” by its more popular name was built in September 1965. Its prototype was completed – among others – along the Narda border stretch.
The Cross of Appeasement was erected by the village near the Hungarian-Austrian border – the European Union border – in 1997: on the one hand, this reminds us of the border, the “iron curtain”, and on the other hand, in line with the event for which it was erected, it propagates the aim of the II. European Ecumenical Conference: the necessity of appeasement instead of restlessness. The municipality of the settlement used this idea to formulate the slogan of the village: Narda, the place of appeasement.
