Hiking in the hill country - Aggteleki karszt, Ungarn

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One of the ruined buildings of the abandoned former Derenk settlement

Derenk was a settlement of medieval origin. The Ottoman Turkish rule and other fights, as well as a plague epidemic were decimated the population, so by 1715 it became completely depopulated. After two years Goral Polish nationality serfs (peasants) from the Scepusium (Szepes County) have been settled here by the local feudal lord, so the village started to live again until 1938.

The village is just 1 kilometer distance from the former Hungarian-Czechoslovak (and present Slovak) border, but on the Hungary side. It is because after the Threaty of Trianon that closed the World War I for Hungary the citizens of the village could and did choose this way. But in 1938 Miklós Horthy governor or regent of Hungary wanted this area for himself for hunting purposes, so the inhabitants had to leave the village and it was began to demolish the houses and other buildings. Not much consolation, but the former inhabitants received some compensation as well. Then most of the people settled in the surrounding villages within the county. In every summer since 1994 on the former Village Day (mid-July) some of them come back here to remember.