History, notable natives, monuments
History of municipality
The area of the village was very suitable for human settlement, as evidenced by many archaeological findings found here. From the older Bronze Age there is a settlement and burial site of the Carpathian mound culture, a mass finding of Celtic silver coins from the 1st century BC, a burial site from the time of the Avar Khaganate and a burial site from the 11th-12th century.
The first written mention of the village dates back to 1237. The lands belonged mainly to the Esztergom County, which received them from King Endre II of Hungary in 1237. The village became a branch parish of the Archdiocese of Esztergom. The village is way older. It was destroyed several times by the adversity of fate (armies, floods, fires, etc.), so it appears less in the documents than other villages alongside of the river Váh or river Hron. The village has always rebelled, which testifies the tough nature of the local inhabitants.
In 1438, King Albert confirmed the local estates to the Esztergom County according to which an island belonged to them as well. The proximity of the important town of Esztergom, the seat of the Hungarian Primate, caused that Obid was able to develop in its shadow.
In 1570 the village was called "Great Obid" - Nagy Ebed. There was also a sheer called "Little Obid" - Kis Ebed, with another name Olvíz.
In 1593, Obid became a resort of the Turks. The Archbishop of Esztergom was appointed the owner of the village in 1609. In 1664, 50 households were registered in the village.
Even after the expulsion of the Turks from Hungary in 1686, the desired peace did not come to the devastated territory. According to the 1696 census, the bondsman left the village and lived in the town of Esztergom, from where they came to work in the local fields. Later they settled here again, but not on the original site, the old village stood on the Faluhely vineyard.
The population had only hardly recovered from the turmoil of the war when in 1703 the uprising of Ferenc II. Rákóczi began.
Between 1701 and 1712 the population of Obid decreased by 20%. The village did not escape the plague neither, that broke out in Hungary in 1713. In 1715 there were 41 households registered in the municipality, in 1720 there were only 39 households. Later, Obid did not recognize the problems of villages with mixed religion (only Catholics lived here) and embarked on a path of apparent development. The Esztergom County was apparently a good landowner who cared about the prosperity of its estates.
In 1831 the village was struck by a cholera epidemic, which significantly decimated the local population. On 13 July 1849, the I, III and VII military corps (28,000 soldiers) of the Hungarian national guard under the command of General Arthur Görgey moved from Komárno through Obid to Vác. In 1876, Obid was hit by a disastrous flood, causing considerable damage to the village. Despite the upheaval, the village developed and belonged to the larger settlements in the wider area. In 1886, the municipal government bought a fire engine (made in 1871) from the town Esztergom. In 1888 a big fire struck the village. In 1890 in addition to 1,446 Catholics, there were 18 Jewish inhabitants. In 1895 the largest landowner of the village was the General County of Esztergom. There was a well-known mating station established in the area. In 1895 another flood devastated the village. For this reason, they started to build a dam at Obid, which was completed in 1899.
A dairy cooperative was set up here too. In 1912, the Voluntary Fire Brigade was reorganized by Dénes Báthy. In 1916, a consumer cooperative was founded in the village and its nice ground-floor building was built. The outbreak of World War I (1914-1918) hampered the promising development of the village and brought only suffering and sorrow to the common people. The year 1918 brought a significant change, as the village became part of the newly established 1st Czechoslovak Republic. Obid became a border village, whose population was mainly engaged in agriculture, fishing and viticulture. After 1925 the consumer cooperative became a member of the consumer cooperative HANZA Galanta, which had 32 members in 1938. On the basis of the decision of the Vienna Arbitration on 2 November 1938, Obid was rejoined to Hungary. After the outbreak of the World War II in 1940, a crisis occurred and the common people suffered again. At the end of 1944 and the beginning of 1945 there was fierce fighting and the village was pretty much destroyed. On 28 March 1945 the war ended in Obid.
The following post-war years did not bring anything positive to the local Hungarian population, they were deprived of their civil rights, schools were closed, people were displaced and their estates were nationalized.
After 1948, the situation was settled, the population of Hungarian nationality got restored their civil rights, and teaching in the Hungarian language began. Obid began to change into a socialist village. In 1952, the local Unified Farmer Cooperative (UFC, in slovak JRD) was founded, roads were improved and paved, sidewalks were built, and the infrastructure of the village was improved. Many new houses were built, old houses were modernized and thus the appearance of the village was partly changed. In 1965 a flood caused considerable damage in the village and the local UFC (JRD) was incorporated into the UFC Mužla. In 1974 a new building of the local inn, the grocery store JEDNOTA consumer cooperative (JEDNOTA, s.d.) and the Pensioners' Club - now the Municipal Office - were built.
In 1976 the village was annexed to the town Štúrovo. Slowly schooling was ceased here and building permits were banned. There was even an incredible plan to level the village with the ground and build a fertilizer plant in its place. These inhuman plans came to an end in November 1989, when the communist government fell. It was true that one could profess any religious belief, one could do business freely, censorship was abolished, but on the other hand, the crisis in the society was deepening, there was a shortage of jobs and there was an acute shortage of finance. This crisis deepened even more after the establishment of the independent Slovak Republic on 1 January 1993.
In 1999, after 23 years, the municipality regained its independence. The inaugural meeting of the municipal council was held on 1.12.1999, when a nine-member municipal council was elected and Tibor Nagy was elected mayor. From the same date the municipal office was established. The water supply system was built in 1994, the gasification of the village in 1996. Since independence, several investments have been made in the village, such as the construction of a new municipal office building, the reconstruction of the community center, the kindergarten, the roads in the village, the construction of new rental flats and others.
In 2018 and 2022, Ing. Monika Vajda was elected mayor. The local municipal office continues to improve the commune so that Obid is rightfully ranked among the developed municipalities in the region.
Notable natives
A number of important personalities of local history are buried in the local cemetery.
Bathy Dénes (1888 - 1923), local teacher - cantor
Becse Ferenc dr. (1913 - 1970), local dean - pastor
Bukovszky Gyula (1879 - 1942), teacher, school headmaster, father of the popular doctor Dr. László Bug and chairman of several social and cultural associations
Deszáth János (1813 - 1875), local pastor, his tombstone has not been preserved
Fehér Ferenc (1843 - 1920), local pastor
Gál Ferdinand (1825 - 1901), national guard and participant in the struggles of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848/49. The tombstone was erected by his wife Gertrúd Kis
Galambodi Makkay Janka (1893 - 1971), popular local teacher, president of several cultural associations
Mihala József (1808 - 1810), a local pastor buried in the old cemetery and therefore his tombstone has not been preserved
Nagy Mihály (1818 - 1848), local pastor
Révész Ferenc (1899 - 1961), dean - pastor of village Žiharec
Tóth István Zoltán (1905 - 1984), dean - local pastor
Many victims of World War II are buried in the local cemetery.
Sights
The village is decorated with many small sacral monuments, which were built mainly in 1778 (stone crosses), but there is also a stone cross built in 1764 by István Becs, but this fell into disrepair over time and new ones were built in its place.
The sandstone wayside cross in Föszeg was erected in 1856 by the widow of András Morvay and restored in 1893 by Mihály Szabó. The cross is mounted on a taller square pedestal. On the hill in Föszeg there is a stone polychrome statue of St. Vendelín from 1812, mounted on a taller column. In the Mikszáth street there is a roadside statue of the Guardian Angel made of artificial stone from 1906 and restored in 1949. The statue is mounted on a high rectangular pedestal. Next to the Municipal Office there is a polychrome stone roadside statue of St. Florián, dating from 1886. The statue is mounted on a high square pedestal, on which there is a commemorative plaque of firefighters killed during the World War I (6 names), which was placed here on 20 June 1937 by members of the Volunteer fire brigade (DHZ). The plaque bears the symbols of two crosses and firefighting tools. There is a roadside cross of pink marble with a cast-iron body by the road of King St. Stephen, which originally stood in the old cemetery and was restored by Mihály Gaal and moved to the above-mentioned place in 1924 by his son József Gaal. On the hill there is a roadside cross made of pink marble with a cast-iron corpus from 1872.
A roadside stone sculpture of the Holy Trinity from 1902 stands alongside the King Stephen´s street. The sculpture is mounted on a high pillar. On the state road to Štúrovo there is a polychrome stone statue of St. Ján Nepomuk, erected in 1767 by Mr. Osi and restored in 1924 by Julianna Mészáros. The statue is mounted on a high square pillar. Slightly higher at the eastern entrance to the village there is a stone wayside cross with a cast-iron corpus from 1873. The cross is surrounded by three chestnut trees. In front of the church is a stone statue of St. Joseph, erected to the Glory of God in 1913. The statue is a work of art on a tall square pedestal.
At the side wall of the church there is a carved wooden spear, which was built in honour of the millennium 2000 and was carved by the carver R. Smidt from Svodín. In front of the church there was a wooden cross with a cast-iron body and covered with a semicircular metal canopy, which was recently removed due to its poor condition. In its place stands a three-part memorial built for the victims of the World War I and II from black marble, engraved with the names of fallen heroes who got lost on various battlefields. It was made by L. Németh from Štúrovo. The memorial was unveiled on 8 May 2001.
The old sandstone central cross of the cemetery with a sandstone body was built in 1787. The cross is mounted on a high square sandstone base, on which there is a relief of death. Pastor Mihály Nagy (+ 1848) is buried near the cross. The new central cross of the cemetery, made of pink marble - today without its cast-iron body from 1864, was erected by Alajos Brigán. On the square pedestal is a relief of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The cemetery's newest central cross made of artificial stone with a polychrome cast-iron corpus stands in front of the new house of mourning and was erected in 1943 by József Bitter and his wife Agnes Góra to the Glory of God. The cross is mounted on a square pedestal. Next to it is a black marble cross with a cast-iron body, which was erected in June 1942 by Marshal Archduke József to commemorate his injuries acquired at the railway bridge. The cross was transferred to the cemetery in the 1960s.
Other buildings
Obid was for many decades an affiliate parish of Mužla, since 1787 several local pastors worked here. The original rectory building has been repaired and rebuilt several times in order to meet the lifestyle requirements of the given period. At present it is a ground floor building on an L-shaped plan, around the perimeter of which runs a distinctive multi-banded crown cornice. The building was opened to the courtyard by a pillar corridor, which is glazed today. The rectory building has been comprehensively restored in the recent past.
The folk architecture of the village is characterized by houses facing the street. The buildings from the end of the 19th century are represented by ground-floor single-axial rectangular three-room houses built using the rammed earth technique, originally with roofs made of reeds. The houses faced the courtyard with a lean-to roof. The foundations of the houses were made of stone, the walls of rammed earth and unfired brick. The rooms have beamed ceilings. Outbuildings were attached to the houses. In the courtyard there are separate storage buildings made of stone, originally under a red roof, with cellars underneath.
The houses from the first half of the 20th century followed the original building traditions, were built of burnt and unburnt brick and were already under hard roofing. The ground floor rectangular houses of this period are open to the courtyard by a pillar corridor and their two-bay frontage extends into the corridor. Wealthier householders-built houses on wide plots. They are ground-floor houses on an L-shaped plan, with a passage gate to the courtyard on the main façade, with living rooms on the left side to which outbuildings were attached, and a section to the right of the gate for farming purposes.
