Mukachevo

Mukachevo stands in the valley of the Latorica below the Carpathians. Its town and the fortress of Palanok commanded a route through a region where Ruthenian and Hungarian communities met. By the fifteenth century it had become a centre of regional crafts and trade, and it received the rights of a royal free town.

In the sixteenth century Mukachevo became part of Transylvania. Its castle later belonged to the Rákóczi family and figured in the struggles against Habsburg rule; the revolt of Emeric Thököly began here in 1678. In 1726 the Habsburgs granted the town and castle to the Schönborn family, whose settlement of German inhabitants accompanied the town’s expansion.