Early history White-Croat Ungvar (677) The city was founded by
early Slavs, one tribe of whom was the
White Croats, who settled the area of the modern Uzhhorod under
Kuber in the second half of the first millennium AD. Warriors from Ukraine established the Ungvar fortress in 677 according to the
Chronicon Pictum. The settlement was the center of a new Slavic principality headed by a dynasty descended from
Porga's nephew
Kubrat. In the 9th century, the fortified castle changed into a fortified early
feudal town-settlement which according to
Gesta Hungarorum was originally subject to the
Old Bulgarian Prince
Salan until falling to
Laborec, a ruler who was loyal to
Great Moravia. In his 1861 seminal work 'Ungvár története: a legrégibb idöktől maig' (History of Uzhhorod: from ancient times to the present), Hungarian historian Károly Mészáros from
Hajdúdorog writes: 'The first inhabitants of Ungvámak, before the city and its region came into the possession of the conquering Hungarians, were Slavs and Ruthenians'.
Magyar conquest (895) , the oldest building in Uzhhorod According to the Hungarian medieval chronicle
Gesta Hungarorum by
Anonymus, the
Magyars led by
Álmos, Grand Prince of Hungarians, arrived in the region and stormed theas he called it'Hungvar' fortress in 895 AD, then ruled by
Laborec. Having taken over the castle, Almos appointed his son
Árpád as prince of 'Hungvaria' and from Hungvar his warriors were called Hungarians. As this may be viewed as naive folk etymology by a medieval writer (as magyars were called ”ungri” by chroniclers decades before 895), for further information on the ethnonym of the Hungarians see the article
Name of Hungary. In the Kingdom of Hungary, the small town began to extend its borders.
King Saint Stephen made it the centre (castrum) of
Ung County with a strong military presence to protect the north east border of Hungary. In 1241–1242, the
Mongols of
Batu Khan burnt the settlement. In 1248 the city was granted town privileges by
King Béla IV of Hungary. In the early 14th century, Uzhhorod was involved in the civil wars in the interregnum between Hungarian barons when the dynasty of Árpád died out. Finally
Charles I of Hungary from the
Anjou dynasty, descendant of the
House of Árpád by his mother occupied the throne. The Anjou House also ruled the
Kingdom of Naples and the Hungarian king Charles I invited the
Drugeths into Hungary and gave the town to them. The Drugeth family became a member of the
Hungarian nobility. During that period
Philip Drugeth built
Uzhhorod Castle. Together with the castle, the city began to grow. From 1430, Uzhhorod became a free royal town.
Under Habsburg rule During the 16–17th centuries, the Kingdom of Hungary fell into three parts. The middle was occupied by the
Ottoman Empire, the northwest was ruled by the
Habsburg dynasty, the eastern part became the
Principality of Transylvania, that hold the independent Hungarian statehood. During this period, the city was engaged in the religious and political fight between primarily Hungarian
Protestant Transylvania and the German
Catholic Austria. Each one wanted to reunite the Kingdom of Hungary under their rule. In 1646 the
Union of Ungvár was proclaimed and the
Greek-Catholic church was established, in a ceremony held in the Ungvár castle by the
Vatican Aegis. In 1707 Ungvár was the residence of
Ferenc II Rákóczi, leader of the national liberation war of Hungarians against Habsburgs. From 1780 the city became the capital of the
Greek Catholic Eparchy and from 1776 the center of a newly created school district. The beginning of the 19th century was characterized by economic changes, including the first factories in the city. The greatest influence on Ungvár among the political events of the 19th century was made by the
Hungarian Revolution of 1848-1849, during which the native Hungarian nobility sought both to shake off the suzerainty of the
Austrian Empire and to have authority over their own people. 27 March 1848 was officially celebrated in the city as the overthrow of the monarchy in Hungary. It is now celebrated in Hungary on 15 March. In 1872 the first railway line opened, linking the city to the important railway junction of
Chop, then known as Csap. According to the 1910 census, the city had 16,919 inhabitants, of which 13,590 (80.3%) were
Magyars, 1,219 (7.2%)
Slovaks, 1,151 (6.8%)
Germans, 641 (3.8%)
Rusyns and 1.6%
Czechs. By religion, 5,481
Roman Catholic, 5,305
Jewish, 4,473
Greek Catholic, 1,368
Calvinist. At the same time, the municipal area of the city had a population composed of 10,541 (39.05%) Hungarians, 9,908 (36.71%) Slovaks, and 5,520 (20.45%) Rusyns.
During the World Wars The
First World War slowed down the tempo of city development. On 10 September 1919,
Subcarpathia was officially allocated to the Republic of
Czechoslovakia. Uzhhorod became the administrative center of the territory. During these years Uzhhorod developed into an architecturally modern city, with
Malyi Galagov, a new government quarter, being built from scratch. After the
First Vienna Award in 1938, Uzhhorod was given back to
Hungary from which it was separated after World War I. In 1941 the Jewish population reached 9,576. On 19 March 1944, German troops entered the city. They established a
Judenrat (
Jewish council) and set up two ghettos, at the Moskovitz brickyard and Gluck lumberyard. During May 1944, all Jews were deported to Auschwitz in five different transports and subsequently murdered. Only a few hundred Jews survived.
Soviet Union On 27 October 1944, the city was captured by the troops of the
4th Ukrainian Front of the
Red Army. This period brought significant changes. On the outskirts of Uzhhorod new enterprises were constructed and old enterprises were renewed. On 29 June 1945, Subcarpathian Ukraine was annexed by the
Soviet Union and became a westernmost part of the
Ukrainian SSR. This followed the assumption of local authority by the People's Committee of Transcarpathian Ukraine based in Uzhhorod and headed by a local Communist. That year the Uzhhorod State University (now
Uzhhorod National University) was also opened. Since January 1946 Uzhhorod was the center of newly formed Zakarpatska oblast.
In Ukraine Since 1991, Uzhhorod has been one of 24 regional capitals within independent Ukraine. Of these, Uzhhorod is the smallest and westernmost. In 2002, a bust of
Tomáš Masaryk, Czechoslovakia's first president, was unveiled in a main square of the city. A similar bust was unveiled in 1928 on the 10th anniversary of Czechoslovak independence, but was removed by the Hungarians when they took over the region in 1939. On 15 April 2022, as part of the
derussification campaign that swept through Ukraine following the February 2022
Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Uzhhorod City Council decided to rename 58 streets connected to Russian figures. ==Geography==