Location
United States
48° 13' 47.64" N, 18° 36' 10.44" E
See map: Google Maps
US
Count Stephan I Koháry died in the battle of Levice on 19 July 1664. His death is commemorated by the memorial that is now located near a commercial centre at the border of Levice (in the direction to Tlmače).
The memorial was built by the then municipality. In the second half of the 19th century, the Levice burgomaster Lukács Mácsay had a new memorial built as a wayside shrine with four niches. Initiated by open letters and claims published in BARS weekly, the memorial was repaired and the surrounding was cleaned up later in the beginning of the 20th century. The memorial was repaired two more times, in 1950’s and after the windstorm in 2000. In 2016, the Levice Beautifying Society (Levický okrášľovací spolok) decided to renew the memorial and the surrounding to arrange a new and respectable look of the area.
Battle of Levice
As a strategic fortress on the way to mining towns, the Castle of Levice was conquered during the Turkish campaigns. The town and the castle of Levice was regained to the emperor’s hands by General Louis Jean-Louis Raduit de Souches on 12 June 1664. However, the Turks did not want to give up the fortress and sent their army 15 to 20 thousand men to conquer it again. The decisive battle happenned in the area between Starý Tekov, Hronské Kľačany and Podlužany. Count Stephan I Koháry was in command of the cavalry consisting of 800 men on the right edge of the first line. After driving the Turkish army back behind the Čajkovský brook, Count Koháry with his troops got close to Levice where he died after a short and tragic battle with janissaries (he was hit by seven, in other resources eight bullets). He fell off the horse but remained hung in the stirrup (this tragedy allegedly happened in the area near the today’s commercial centre at the entry to Levice from Tlmače) and the runaway horse pulled his dead body until it stopped near Hronské Kosihy where his son Stephen II Koháry had a chapel built later. It is hard to assess how true this verbally reported event is.
