The medieval documentary mention of the castle of Óvár was “Várna”, located in Slovakia (Varin in Slovak), a serious fortress on the right bank of the Vág River, built in the second half of the 13th century in the Kingdom of Hungary on the 475-meter-high peak of a rocky ridge with a formidable precipice.
The lords of the castle, the Balassa clan, had several fortifications built to protect their estates in the area. The oldest core is the horseshoe shaped old tower of the upper castle, surrounded by a long, extended palace wing with two floors. At the western end of the cairn there is a collapsed cellar. The south side of the irregularly shaped castle with its inner tower is bordered by a very deep ravine, while the north side is bordered by a steep slope.
It was attackable only from the eastern side, so the larger lower fortress was built here. The buildings, probably erected in the 16th century, housed stables, warehouses and farm buildings. A cistern was built in the south-east corner of the lower courtyard, next to a large boulder.
The medieval fortress of Óvár castle has been destroyed by explosions, its walls have collapsed to the ground in some areas, while in others you can see the traces of supporting beams. Unlike the fortress of Sztrecsnó on the other side, this fortress has not yet been archaeologically excavated and its walls are in ruins.
The first documented mention of the area was in 1224, when King Endre II donated the estate near the Vág River to his favourite follower, the stable master Mihály of the Bana clan. After 1235, King Béla IV, who succeeded to the throne, took the land back from Mihály.
Before 1254, this estate was given to Mikó, Detre and Mihály of the Balassa clan of Zólyom by the king in exchange for the castle of Árva. They built Óvár castle, which was initially called Várna in the documents, but only after the construction of the fortress of Sztrecsnó on the other side of the river it was called Óvár. According to the historian Fügedi Erik, Óvár could only have been built after 1267, as it was not mentioned in the land dispute of that time.
When Wenceslas (Vencel) was crowned King of Hungary in 1302, he granted the counties of Trencsén and Nyitra to his most powerful supporter, Palatine Máté of the Csák family. The oligarch – who only pretended to support his king, but in reality recognised no one above him in his province – by this time had conquered the secular and ecclesiastical estates in the Vág river valley, one after the other. The army of the Csák clan took the Balassa castles here, including Óvár.
In 1321, after the death of the oligarch Csák Máté, the province, which had encompassed vast territories, fell apart, and after the bloody siege of Trencsén and its surrender by agreement, the pro- Csák armies of the other fortresses opened the gates to the troops of King Károly Róbert without drawing swords. In the same year, at his seat in Temesvár, the monarch acceded to the request of Byter’s son Péter and Miklós’ son György, of the Balassa clan of Zólyom, and the ruler returned to them the castles of Budetin, Hricsó, Zsolnalitva, Szucsány, Óvár (Varna), which had been seized by the Csák clan but occupied by the royal army, as well as the castles of Kékkő, Hídvég and Gyarmat on the banks of the river Ipoly.
Master Dancs of the Balassa family exchanged his lands along the river Ipoly for the lands of his relative Kékkői Péter along the river Vág in 1323. In the same year, King Károly Róbert, after reviewing his land grants, took the fortress of Óvár from Master Dancs, the forestry Comes of Zólyom. From that time onwards, Óvár belonged to the Castle Comes of Vágbeszterce, which also included the fortresses of Budatin, Hricsó, Zsolnalitva, Rajec, Zsolna and Sztrecsnó. The administration of these royal fortresses belonged to the office of the respective country magistrate, who also received the revenues.
In 1382, after the death of King Louis (Lajos) the Great, the District of Beszterce was abolished. In 1429, King Sigismund (Zsigmond) of Luxembourg donated Óvár to his wife, Cillei Borbála, together with other castle manors, to compensate for the southern castles confiscated from her in 1419. At the same time, he allowed the lady to appoint her own castellans.
In 1440, King Ulászló I pledged it – together with Sztrecsnó – to Captain Capek János of Huchwald in Tapolcsány. In 1442, the fortress and all the related serf villages were taken over from Capek János by Szentmiklósi Pongrác. In 1453, King László V confirmed the pledge of lord Pongrác to the dominion of the castle.
Hunyadi János, the Transylvanian Voivode, acquired Óvár from him in 1454 in exchange for another estate. Szilágyi Erzsébet, the widow of Hunyadi János, hoping that the powerful lord would help her in the internal war, returned the castle of Óvár to Baron Szentmiklósi Pongrác.
As the castle of Sztrecsnó on the other side of the river became increasingly important in controlling the Vág river valley, and was built up with bastions more resistant to modern cannon warfare, the fortress of Óvár gradually lost its importance. However, in the 16th century, the castle was probably enlarged by the addition of a more extensive lower castle.
In the 17th century, the noble family of Pongrácz of Óvár and Szentmiklós had a Renaissance-style manor house built in the nearby village of Krasznya, so they moved here from the inaccessible Óvár. In the 1680s, after the fall of the Kuruc War of Independence led by Thököly, the advancing Imperial troops blew up the walls in several places with gunpowder.
Since then, Óvár castle has been a ruin, its walls deteriorating, while its courtyard has been reclaimed by nature.
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Here are a few nice pictures of Óvár castle:
