Zboró (Makovica)

Zboró (Zborov) aka Makovica can be found in Slovakia, it used to be near the Hungarian-Polish border before 1918. It is only 9 km from Bártfa (Bardejov) to the northeast. 

According to tradition, the village was given by King Béla IV. to his follower Makó as a gift and he built a castle there after the Mongolian Tatar invasion (1241). However, it is more likely that the castle of Zboró, also known as Makovica, was built around 1270 by Otto Biberstein. The castle was first mentioned as ‘Makouicha’ in a charter of King Lajos (Louis) I of Hungary dated 26 April 1347, and then in 1349 in the charter of the Jászó convent.

The village was first mentioned in 1355 in the charter of King Lajos (Louis) I. “Villam Zbro et in ipsa capellam et molemdinum”, i.e. in connection with the chapel and mill of the village of Zboró. According to this, there was already a wooden chapel in the village at that time, which was later mentioned in 1492. Ecclesiastically, Zboro was a parish of Szemelnye until the 16th century. In 1364, for his services and loyalty, Czudar Péter of Ónodi received it as a royal gift, together with the toll collecting place of Galbatő. The new owner started the intensive settlement of the manor. During the feud between Queen Elizabeth and King Albert, Hussite armies destroyed the manor. In 1470, with the death of Czudar Jakab, the Czudar family died out and the manor passed to the king.

In 1471, King Matthias Corvinus (Hunyadi Mátyás) gave the castle and its manor to his followers, the Rozgonyi family. Later that year, Polish armies ravaged the area during the fighting between Matthias and the Polish King Casimir. In 1491-92, during the struggle for the throne following the death of Matthias, the settlement was attacked again by the Poles, and the entire manor was destroyed. In 1512, the manor was returned to the king, who gave it to the Tarczays, and after the Battle of Mohács, it became the property of Szapolyai János. (Please, note that I use the Oriental name order for Hungarians where family names come first.)

The first church of the village was built at this time, the date of its construction is not known – it was either built by the Rozgonyi or the Tarczay family – but the church and the parish building were already standing in 1541. In 1540, after the death of King Szapolyai, King Ferdinand I divided the estate among his supporters, the Dessewffy, Péchy, and Tachy families.

The division lasted until 1548 when the castle and its manor were donated to the captain of Kassa (Kaschau, Kosice), Serédy Gáspár. The new possessor, faced with the approaching Turkish threat, set about fortifying the castle, for which he brought in Italian masters skilled in up-to-date castle architecture. He had new residential and economic buildings, a Renaissance palace, and high walls built. In 1571, the manor became the property of Balassa András, Comes of Nógrád, who married Méray Anna, the widow of Serédy Gáspár.

The Serédy Castle was built in the middle of the 16th century in the Renaissance style and is first mentioned in 1548. It was later rebuilt several times. It belonged to the Erdődy family and later to the Clary-Aldringen family. It was bought by the forestry company in 1907. It burnt down in the mid-1960s and has been a ruin ever since.

Zboró castle was bought and restored by Rákóczi Zsigmond in 1601. The Rákóczy castle in Zboró was built around 1625 by Rákóczi Pál, who died here on 12 March 1633. In 1640, the church of St. Sophia was added to it. It was extended around 1660. After the destruction of the castle, the headquarters of the manor moved here. From the 18th century, it was the property of the Aspermont family. It burnt down during the First World War and was demolished in the 1950s.

The village built its first stone church on the site of the old cemetery in the early 17th century. The old wooden church was given to Hosszúrét, where it stood until 1787. The church was finally consecrated on 5 December 1655 by Kisdy Benedek, representative of the Bishop of Eger, in honor of St Margaret of Antioch.

The castle was the wedding place of Prince Rákóczi I Ferenc and Zrínyi Ilona in 1666. After Rákóczi’s death, Zrínyi Ilona became the wife of Prince Thököly Imre, and the castle became a stronghold of the anti-Habsburg uprising. Zrínyi Ilona defended it in 1684, but the Imperials led by General Schlutz captured and destroyed it on 14 October 1684. The castle was a dowry of Rákóczi Julianna and became the property of the Aspremont and later Erdődy families.

At the end of the 18th century, Vályi András wrote of the castle and the settlement like this: “ZBORÓ. It is a Russian market town in Sáros County. Áspermont and Count Szirmay are the Lords, whose castles are marked, the inhabitants are Catholics, there is a paper mill and a hospital; its border is fertile, it has woods, pastures, meadows, and fields, and its market is near.”

On 23 March 1876, the church’s tower and roof structure burnt down in a fire, but it was rebuilt. In the late 1800s, the castle was destroyed by fire. During World War I, the Russians attacked it, and the castle was destroyed in a cannon fire in 1914, together with the church next to it, and has been a ruin ever since. Its other church was again badly damaged in the autumn of 1915. It belonged to the Bártfai district of Sáros County until the Treaty of Trianon.

In 1910 it had 2,205 inhabitants, of whom 1,341 declared themselves Slovaks (60.8%), 653 Germans (29.6%), and 80 Hungarians (3.6%). There were a total of 125 Poles and Gypsies in the municipality (5.7%), the smallest ethnic group being Ruthenians (6). In 2011, out of 3,184 inhabitants, 2,543 were Slovak, 449 were Gypsy, 21 were Ruthenian, and 19 were Ukrainian.

Here is a short video, of the first castle in it Zboro Castle in winter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBx9kff5oiY

 

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Here are a few more pictures of Zboró Castle: