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Historical Sparks
● Of the older general documents, only two financial statements from 1847/48 and 1848/49 have been preserved. The 1847/48 report includes the following entry: “Funds were allocated for oak timber needed for the gallows and paid to the carpenter for building the gallows.” It remains unclear whether an execution by hanging ever took place in the village or whether this was merely intended as a means of intimidation during the turbulent revolutionary years of 1848.
● On Christmas in 1872, A. Kubina organized a collection for school supplies, toys, and treats for 120–130 schoolchildren in Voderady. Contributors included the district steward, several local farmers, and even the village innkeeper. A Christmas tree was decorated in the school classroom, and during the festive program, a little girl drew names from a jar, allowing children to select their gifts one by one. A. Kubina, the chief organizer, wrote: “Given the circumstances in our area, such an event is exceedingly rare in Slovakia.”
● On July 6, 1866, a severe frost struck, destroying the entire harvest—“the fields looked as if it were winter.” In January 1929, temperatures plummeted to –25 °C and –17 °C, while on April 5 of the same year, 20 cm of snow fell. In 1931, there was virtually no rainfall from April until the harvest, resulting in crops yielding only one-third of their usual amount.
● Peasants often resisted feudal oppression by fleeing the village. According to the portálny súpis (a tax registry), 19 serf farmers left Voderady between 1715 and 1737. Oral histories from the village’s oldest inhabitants, recorded in the mid-20th century, recount injustices inflicted by the feudal estate. During land consolidation, approximately 400 Hungarian jutra (1 Hungarian jutro = 4,316 m²) were allegedly taken from local farmers. These stories also reveal that, during the era of serfdom, the village reportedly had only 46 peasant landholdings and eight cotter houses.
● At the end of the 19th century, seasonal agricultural workers from Zvolen and Tekov counties came to the Ziči estate for work. Their daily wages ranged between 80 and 220 haliers (a historical currency unit used in the Austro-Hungarian Empire) for men and 70 to 160 haliers for women, depending on the complexity of the work performed.
Men earned significantly more, even though the difficulty of the work may have been similar. These amounts were likely sufficient to cover basic needs, but probably did not ensure a higher standard of living. This situation reflects the period’s inequalities not only in remuneration but also in living conditions, shaping the daily lives of workers.
● Historical records indicate that, at least until the late 19th century, our ancestors used local names for the months that differed from their official designations. These names were: January: Ľadeň, February: Únor, March: Brezeň, April: Dubeň, May: Kveteň, June: Traveň, July: Klaseň, August: Srpeň, September: Jaseň, October: Rujeň, November: Listopád, December: Prosinec.
Due to the distinctively hard pronunciation still present in our dialect today, these names were pronounced without softening.
Earlier, the names—and even the number of months—differed. Unlike today’s Roman-influenced nomenclature, earlier month names were derived primarily from natural phenomena and agricultural activities.
Probable Meaning of the Traditional Month Names
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Ľadeň – The month dominated by severe frost and ice.
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Únor – Derived from the ancient word unoriť; referring to the cracking and sinking of ice into rivers.
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Brezeň – The awakening of nature, the budding of birch trees, and the first signs of spring.
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Dubeň – The sprouting of oak trees.
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Kveteň – The period of flowering blooms.
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Traveň – When grass grows tall and must be mowed and dried into hay for livestock.
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Klaseň – The ripening of grain ears.
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Srpeň – Derived from the word srp (sickle), indicating harvest time (po rolách sviščá srpi – sickles whizz through the fields).
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Jaseň – Named after the ash tree (jaseň). The entire autumn season was named after this tree (jeseň = autumn, derived from "jasen" (ash tree) in Trnava dialect, as the season was historically named after this tree).
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Rujeň – Rujeň – The rutting season, characterized by the bellowing of deer (rut, rutting, roaring of stags).
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Listopád – The falling of leaves.
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Prosinec – This month is marked by a dull, grayish-blue sky. The name may derive from the dialect word sinet – to gray or turn bluish (ťašké sinavé mračná – heavy grayish-blue clouds; toľko sa čabŕnal ve vode, aš mal celkom sinavé perni – he splashed in the water so much that his lips turned entirely bluish).
● The largest beekeeper in the village until 1918 was the local teacher František Koniarek. He owned a large and modern apiary.
● In the past, the park in Voderady housed the tombstones of the last French king, Charles X of Bourbon, and his granddaughter Louise Marie Thérèse of France (1819–1864).
Charles X was the younger brother of the executed King Louis XVI and the last French king from the senior branch of the Bourbon family. He was born in 1757 in Versailles. During the July Revolution of 1830, he was deposed. He lived in Prague and Gorizia, where he died on November 6, 1836.
According to historian Dr. Ovídius Faust, the tombstones were transported to the Voderady park along with the remains of Charles X and his granddaughter Louise by Count Jozef Zichy during his tenure as governor in Rijeka, under the orders of Emperor Franz Joseph I. However, French King Charles X, his granddaughter Louise, and other members of his family are buried in the della Torre family crypt in the Franciscan monastery in Gorizia. The Zichy family were known for their efforts to establish various natural, architectural, and historical curiosities, among which the tombstones of the French king and his granddaughter likely belonged.
Tombstone plaque of the last French king, Charles X of the Bourbon dynasty, and his granddaughter.
Under the Greek letter alpha, the inscription on Louise’s tombstone reads:
"Here was laid to rest the highly esteemed and noble princess, Lady Louise Marie Thérèse of France, Duchess of Parma and Piacenza, born in Paris on September 21, 1819, who died on February 1, 1864, in Venice."
Under the Greek letter omega, the inscription on Charles’s tombstone reads:
"Here lies the highly esteemed and noble prince Charles X, by the will of God King of France and Navarre, who passed away in Gorizia on November 6, 1836, at the age of 79 years and 28 days" (more in the section Stone Secrets of the Voderady Park).
The tombstones are part of the collections of the Western Slovak Museum in Trnava.
● Count Joseph Zichy (1841–1924) undertook a journey to the Far East in the years 1875–1876. From this journey, 17 diaries and a world map by H. Kiepert at a scale of 1:20 have been preserved, on which he marked the route of his travels. According to the records, the route passed through: Lviv – Bucharest – Varna – Dardanelles – Istanbul – Alexandria – Cairo (Suez) – Singapore – Batavia – Tjaundoes – Bandung – Nagasaki – Kobe – Kyoto – Hakone – Yokohama – Mengala – Jedo Schibe – Shanghai – Beijing – Astar – Urga – Burgatai – Iro – Miochta – Siberia – Vrchnie – Udinsk – Baikal – Irkutsk – Nizhne Urlinsko – Surgo – Yekaterinburg – Peken – Kazan – Nizhny Novgorod – Moscow – Poland – Tatras – Považie – Voderady.
Map of Count Joseph Zichy's Journey Across the Far East
In 1877 (from June 3 to August 25, 1877), Joseph Zichy, together with his brother Augustín, undertook a journey to North America and Canada. He documented it in two diaries. Their travels took them through Germany, England, New York, San Francisco, the Niagara Falls (July 1877), and back to Voderady via England, France, Switzerland, and Austria.
Joseph (on the right) and Augustin Zichy at Niagara Falls on July 2, 1877
● On March 26, 1934, an Indian maharaja visited the village. At the manor, he viewed the fascinating museum collections of Count Štefan Keglevič.
● In F. Kolóssy’s Hungarian monograph on Roman Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Esztergom, information about the school in Voderady and its teachers is missing for unknown reasons.
● Count Jozef Keglevič used to play his musical instrument in a tree stand in the park. He had it built in the crown of a tree in a meadow behind the manor. The residents of Voderady familiarly called him ""Joey".
● On the church tower above the entrance, a stone coat of arms of the Baranyay family is embedded, along with a cartouche. The coat of arms is mounted upside down, which in heraldry signifies the discontinuation of the family's use of the emblem (one possible reason could be the extinction of the family line). The Latin text on the cartouche reads: EX TRUCTA SEDE THOMAS BARANIAI RELIQUIT ATQVE SVE FINIS POSTERITATIS OBIIT, accompanied by a chronogram and a separate date: 1674 DIE 14 MART. The church itself was built in 1693, and the tower, on which the coat of arms is mounted, was constructed later in 1744. This suggests that the plaque must have been relocated from elsewhere, likely originally placed on another building and later transferred to the church tower, presumably by the Zichy family.
Inverted stone coat of arms of the Baranyay family
● In 1947, an extreme drought struck the whole of Slovakia, including Voderady. It lasted throughout spring, summer, and autumn, leading to a catastrophic harvest failure. Chroniclers of the time compared these extreme conditions to those of the Sahara Desert. The drought was so severe that parts of the Danube's riverbed nearly dried up, completely halting navigation.
In Voderady, the drought significantly impacted the operations of the local mill, which was considered technologically advanced by the late 19th century. A generator or turbine was installed in the mill to produce electricity for its own needs. During the summer months, when the Gidra stream had a low water flow, the mill utilized a motor to maintain continuous operation even under reduced flow conditions. Despite these technological advancements, the drought of 1947 forced the miller, Jaroslav Sobotka, to request the construction of an electric connection and a transformer at the beginning of 1948.
A few years later, milling operations ceased, and the mill building was converted into a residential house. This house remains inhabited to this day and is considered the oldest in the village—records from the 18th century already described the mill as worn out, although the exact year of its construction is unknown.
● In 1965, the residents of southwestern Slovakia experienced the most devastating flood in modern Slovak history. Near the village of Čičov, the dam broke, and the Danube River flooded the Danubian Lowland. Water from the Danube poured into the inundated area for three weeks. A construction team from the Voderady Agricultural Cooperative (JRD) extended a helping hand to the residents of the flooded villages by assisting in the reconstruction of their homes. In 1966, representatives of the Voderady JRD were awarded an Honorary Recognition in Komárno for their efforts in the recovery of the Komárno district following the 1965 flood.
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A construction team building a house in Kolárovo (with Jozef Krivička, chairman of the agricultural cooperative, in the center)
● Toward the end of summer, sometime in 1968–1969, a Soviet military unit, approximately the size of a regiment, camped for several days near the former Klára Manor. They camouflaged their equipment and rested without venturing into the village, perhaps merely awaiting supplies. A few curious local boys from the village brought them apples on a couple of occasions, for which the soldiers expressed their gratitude with military badges. It is uncertain whether the idea of placing military radars near the village was conceived by some Soviet officers during this encampment.
A Soviet military unit was stationed on a hill behind the village in the early 1970s. A few years later, the small elevation with protruding radars was colloquially named "Russian Hill" by the residents of Voderady, a name still used today.
Rank-and-file Soviet soldiers were strictly prohibited from leaving the barracks. They participated in village beautification projects during numerous communal brigades, such as assisting with the construction of the new cultural center. Officers and their families were housed in apartments built on the school grounds within the village. One officer’s family resided in a confiscated house near the cemetery.
The presence of Soviet soldiers in Voderady, as is often the case, became the subject of both amusing and less humorous anecdotes. On one summer night, a group of "thirsty" soldiers decided to discreetly leave the barracks on the hill. After climbing over the fence, they walked to nearby Majcichov to quench their thirst at a village dance. However, a scuffle with some intoxicated locals ensued, requiring the intervention of public security officers and summoned Soviet officers accompanied by several soldiers to end their covert outing.
A more lighthearted story involved the local agricultural cooperative, where young Soviet soldiers brought a flat tire from a ZIL truck (ЗиЛ) to the repair shop, along with a new inner tube for replacement. The mechanics dismantled the large tire and, after inflating the tube, found it repairable. Using a vulcanization tool, they placed a heated patch on the puncture and lit it to fuse the patch onto the inner tube. The soldiers, astonished by the sight of smoke and the repair process, watched with wide-eyed disbelief. After a few minutes, the patch cooled, and the mechanics showed them the well-repaired tube. They reassembled the tire, inflated it with a compressor, and rolled it back to the amazed soldiers, who had no prior knowledge of such repairs. "Tekhnika bolshaya!" (Great technology!), one of them suddenly exclaimed. Delighted, the soldiers shook hands with the mechanics and took the repaired tire, along with the unused new tube, back to the barracks.
The Soviet soldiers permanently left the village and their barracks on the hill behind Voderady on September 13, 1990. After their departure, the vacated barracks were briefly used by the local agricultural cooperative, which manufactured small tractors called Hurikán on the premises. Following the cessation of production, the site remained unused for some time before being sold to the Slovak army for a symbolic sum of one koruna by the village’s first post-revolution mayor, Karol Sedlák.
Soviet soldiers from Russian Hill during a brigade in the village
● In 1971, the Voderady Unified Agricultural Cooperative (JRD) was visited during the harvest festival by one of the greatest and most popular athletes of the 20th century, Soviet football goalkeeper of Russian origin, Lev Yashin (1929–1990). Renowned for his impressive goalkeeping technique, he was often referred to as the "Elegant Goalkeeper." The media and fans, captivated by his "cat-like" style, gave him the nickname "Black Panther." The International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS) named him the best goalkeeper of the 20th century. In 1963, he became the first goalkeeper in history to win the Ballon d'Or, awarded to the best footballer in Europe.
The greatest goalkeeper of all time, Lev Yashin, among the residents of Voderady (in the front row, wearing a white suit)
Source: Čambálová, Daniela a kol. Voderady 1243–1993. Voderady: Obecný úrad 1993. „AR": Spomienky k pobytu sovietskych vojakov vo Voderadoch. Sagara, Dušan – Lednár, František – Haspra, Rudolf – Prachár, Ján Vznik a vývoj JRD Voderady 1972: JRD Rozvoj Voderady a Ústredný výbor zväzu družstevných roľníkov v Prírode, Bratislava 1972. Radlinský, Andrej, Ľudovít Nábožné výlevy: Spolok sv. Adalberta (Vojtecha) v Trnave 1850. Lev Ivanovič Jašin, Wikipédia: https://sk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Ivanovi%C4%8D_Ja%C5%A1in, Eurofotbal.CZ: https://www.eurofotbal.cz/clanky/pribeh-cerneho-pantera-30760. The Editors Voderady Info. Archive Voderady Info.
Viac tu: https://voderady-info.webnode.sk//kastiel/eng/
Viac tu: https://voderady-info.webnode.sk/historicke-iskricky/
