Rimavská Sobota

Rimavská Sobota lies beside the Rimava River in the southern Slovak basin. Its name recalls a Saturday market, and the settlement grew as a trading centre for the surrounding countryside, drawing people from settlements along the river. In the fourteenth century it received privileges that helped establish its position as a town.

A great fire devastated the town in 1506, after which the Hungarian king granted its inhabitants eight years of relief from taxes. Ottoman expansion brought a more prolonged interruption: Rimavská Sobota came under Ottoman rule from 1553 to 1593 and again from 1596 to 1686. In 1747 the townspeople purchased their freedom from their landlords, an important step in the recovery of local self-government after the wars that had repeatedly divided this part of the kingdom.