2020_2_Romhányi, Pinke, Laszlovszky

Environmental Impacts of Medieval Uses of Natural Resources in the Carpathian Basin

Beatrix F. Romhányi, Zsolt Pinke, and József Laszlovszky
Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church; Eötvös Loránd University; Central European University
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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 9 Issue 2 (2020): 241-283 DOI:10.38145/hunghist.2020.2.241

Various natural resources were abundant in medieval Hungary, and contemporary sources offer a portrait of the kingdom as rich because of these natural conditions. The different forms in which these resources were put to use were decisive for the history of the Carpathian Basin, including its environmental history. In the Middle Ages, there were two key economic activities which played an especially significant role both in the sphere of local production and in foreign trade and which also had a significant environmental impact: livestock farming on the Great Plain (primarily but not exclusively of cattle) and mining, including the processing of primary metals, which was closely related to mining in certain mountain areas. On the basis of analyses of sources drawn from the monastic network, medieval rural churches, and selected archaeological findings and written evidence, we examine the environmental consequences of these activities with particular focus on the changes in the settlement network and relative population density. Our data suggest that the long-term effect of the prevailing practices in the most lucrative, export-oriented economic sectors of the late medieval Kingdom of Hungary—both of which contributed to the ability of the country to withstand pressures from the advancing Ottoman for about 130 years and to some extent even beyond—was serious environmental degradation in the affected regions. The environmental problems caused by these practices could not be fully overcome for a long time. Certainly, the impact was increased by the consequences of the Ottoman wars and the changing climatic conditions of the Little Ice Age, but the process began well before the Early Modern crisis, in some respects as early as in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.

Keywords: natural resources, environmental impact, settlement network, medieval mining regions, Middle Ages, Kingdom of Hungary

The three most important economic sectors of late medieval Hungary were crop farming, animal husbandry, and mining.1 Regarding productivity in these sectors and their importance in foreign trade, sources prove that huge incomes were generated by the export of both cattle and non-ferrous and precious metals, mainly copper. Although there are some hints that these sectors became strategic earlier, there is little written evidence before the fifteenth century and even less in the Árpád age (1000–1300). Since animal farming and mining became large-scale in the fourteenth century and continued to increase throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in the Carpathian Basin, both had deep impacts on the natural environment, and triggered big human pressure leading to a large-scale transformation in the ecosystem. Certainly, there was a third sector of the economy that exerted similar pressures and that was also present, if to different extent, throughout the kingdom. The transformation of the natural environment to ploughland or to areas in which the populations engaged in various agricultural activities was a much longer process. The large-scale extension of cultivated areas started well before the Mongol Invasion (1241–1242), and it went hand-in-hand with the colonization of areas that had been uninhabited until then. However, written, and archaeological evidence suggests that the regenerative ability of the mosaic-like medieval agricultural landscape was considerably stronger than that of later land use systems, including both modern field systems and industrial agriculture. Therefore, our hypothesis is that the environmental impact of the agricultural practices which prevailed at the time was not as long-lasting as, for instance, that of mining. Furthermore, grain and wine played a limited role as exports in the foreign trade of the Kingdom of Hungary before the mid-sixteenth century, meaning that the royal treasury had lower expectations when it came to potential profits. Therefore, we do not touch on this subject in this paper.2 Here, we trace the pressures put on the ecosystem by animal farming and mining by drawing on direct evidence concerning the economic activities we discuss and some available indirect sources concerning shifts in settlement patterns, namely sources concerning the rural church network and the spatial distribution of monasteries. We focus on the late medieval period, though we also include the sixteenth century, because most of the practices that had come to prevail before the fall of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary in 1526, including economic and ecologic practices, continued without interruption until the 1560s or the 1570s. Furthermore, the character of sixteenth-century written data is very similar to the fifteenth-century data, and the number of written sources relevant from the perspective of our research increased in the first half of the sixteenth century. It has also been shown in the earlier secondary literature that, for example, defterler and other tax lists from the first decades of the Ottoman period in Hungary can be used in a regressive way to reconstruct the settlement systems of the different regions.3

Methods and Source Material

Given the scarcity of direct written evidence concerning the territorial impact of animal farming and mining on the settlement pattern and the environment, traditional historical methods do not lead us very far. Therefore, indicators and models based on analyses of phenomena that are not directly connected to our topic are needed to get closer to the process under investigation. Changes in the central elements of the settlement network can be interpreted as a measure of human pressure on the ecosystem and the exploitation of the available natural resources. We must remain aware of the nature of the sources at our disposal, so we emphasize that the results of this study refer to tendencies and our models can only be used to further an interpretation of the general picture, as one might arrive at significantly different results in particular regions if one were to have additional sources or to use the sources we have drawn on in a different way.

The settlement network cannot be fully reconstructed for the Middle Ages in Hungary, and this statement is valid for all the medieval periods, even for the Late Middle Ages, a period on which we have considerably more sources. Various significant attempts to reconstruct the whole settlement system of the kingdom represent outstanding scholarly work from different generations of medievalists, although they had to work with very fragmented written source materials, particularly in the study of the earlier centuries of the Middle Ages. The first large scale attempt to reconstruct the settlement network of the second half of the fifteenth century was a major contribution from the first positivist period of Hungarian medieval research. However, Dezső Csánki’s enterprise remained unfinished, and large parts of the medieval kingdom were never covered.4 The work of György Györffy, who aspired to publish a historical geography of the Carpathian Basin in the eleventh–thirteenth centuries, is similarly incomplete, although the data on most of the counties have been published.5 A third publication worth mentioning is the digital database compiled by Pál Engel on the landed estates in the Late Middle Ages.6 This work is the most complete of the above, covering the whole territory of the kingdom. Its aim, however, was to reconstruct the domains, not the settlement network. Therefore, from our point of view, it is similarly incomplete. Furthermore, archaeological field surveys have shown that there were many settlements—some of them were farmsteads or temporary dwellings, other were villages—that never appeared in any of the written sources.7 In the villages in the Árpád Era, we have to keep in mind that the pit-houses of the period were certainly not built to stand for centuries. The timespan for which these houses were used was probably between thirty and fifty years. Since there are hardly any houses that were renovated in that period, we have to take into consideration the possibility that many of the villages we know from the Árpád Era were homes to one or two generations of rural communities, and we also have to keep in mind that there may well have been a certain level of mobility when it came to the rural settlements. Another problem is—partly related to the above—that we do not have direct sources on population numbers, either.8 Consequently, we have to use diverse indicators when seeking the answers to the questions we pose.

In this context, it is important to note that there are datasets closely related to population density and economic activity in the Middle Ages. Almost all of them are at our disposal: the network of church institutions.9 While the network of rural or parish churches is mainly linked to population density, the monastic network is relevant from the perspective of economic activity. As a third element, we can use the data on late medieval Orthodox churches (sometimes together with data on villages the populations of which belonged to the Orthodox faith) where this data are relevant, since in this case, religion was quite closely connected to their economic pursuits, namely to transhumance, even if some communities may have been comprised of different social groups.10 There is also a fourth limited set of data: the eleventh-century and twelfth-century estates of monasteries, donated by the rulers. The rulers donated these estates not exclusively for religious reasons, but also as part of their royal “regional policies.” Often, the donation charters refer to the uses of natural resources, but even when they did not or when the document itself did not survive, the spatial distribution and the environmental conditions of the landed estates may reveal how the lands were used.

Because of its very nature, foreign trade—both export and import—can also be seen as a good indicator of ways in which natural resources were used. As royal power was generally strong in medieval Hungary, regulations related to foreign trade appear in written records. Thus, the appearance of certain goods (metals, cattle, etc.) in the written sources connected to foreign trade activity can be interpreted as a sign of the importance of these goods and the growing volume in the economic output of the country. In this context, we can use the commercial goods mentioned in diverse privileges given to different towns and trading companies, as well as toll lists and account books. Even international conflicts which imply clashing economic interests can be interpreted as indicators of the ways in which natural resources were put to use.

Documented Historical Processes

In a discussion of natural resources and particularly mineral ores in the context of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary, gold and silver come first in mind. Historical data and extensive academic literature and significant scholarly debates on the roles and impact of mineral mining and trade confirms this general picture.11 Therefore, we do not discuss these questions in detail here, but rather merely summarize a few of the more important conclusions from the secondary literature which are relevant to the questions we are raising concerning economic indicators and environmental impact. Certainly, both gold and silver played an important role in the economy of the country, especially after the economic reforms of King Charles I of Anjou in the early fourteenth century.12 The colonization of the peripheries of the kingdom and other marginal areas itself was a long process, and ore mining was one of the most important drivers of this process from the outset. Ores and raw metals were important export goods of the Hungarian Kingdom as early as around 1200. The toll regulation of Stein issued by Duke Otakar of Styria and Duke Leopold of Austria in 1190 mentioned copper, tin, plumb, and iron, along with salt, among the imported goods, and copper was mentioned in the toll regulation of Hainburg (1245), as well.13 After the Mongol Invasion, however, the mining regions experienced intensive development. Many of the major mining towns received their royal privileges in that period, including Besztercebánya (today Banská Bystrica, Slovakia) Körmöcbánya (today Banská Kremnica, Slovakia), and Selmecbánya (today Banská Štiavnica, Slovakia; in Latin Argentifodina), although the mine in the latter had existed nearly two centuries earlier.14

Copper, which was produced in great quantities (especially in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries), is usually also on the list. As for iron production (including bog iron), researchers tend to make less frequent mention of it. Written and material evidence concerning the production sites has been collected and evaluated by Gusztáv Heckenast and Gábor Vastagh.15 The exploitation and smelting of iron, mainly bog iron in the tenth and eleventh centuries, has been studied by the archaeologist János Gömöri,16 but the iron production met with less interest later.17 At the same time, these studies were mainly connected to the production sites in present-day Hungary, and they focused on the earlier period. This aspect of their research is crucial to the general picture, because very important mining areas and production centers were situated outside the modern political borders of the country, and for the late medieval period, one must assume considerably larger amounts of iron products. This can be confirmed by the much bigger population of the country and also by the significant spread of iron objects and building materials in the Late Middle Ages.

Iron mining and smelting are much less documented in the Late Middle Ages compared to other activities and ores in the context of mining. Iron was much more common than non-ferrous metals, and it was often produced in the same regions as gold, silver, and copper. Therefore, written evidence survived mainly about the latter, although there are hints concerning iron production, too. The toll regulation of Stein, issued in 1190 by Prince Otakar of Styria and Prince Leopold of Austria, listed iron among the goods imported from Hungary. The intensification of iron mining can be traced back to the second half of the thirteenth century, and not only in the northern mountain region. In 1291, for instance, German miners from Eisenerz in the Alps settled in Transylvania, more specifically in Torockó (today Râmetea, Romania), to work in the iron mines there (the German name of the settlement, Eisenburg, also referred to the presence of iron ore).18 Based on the contemporary written sources, there were at least six sites where iron ore was mined in the Carpathian Basin in the Middle Ages: the Aggtelek-Rudabánya Mountains, the Slovak Ore Mountains (known in Hungarian as the Gömör-Szepes Mountains, Slovakia), the region of Belényes (today Beiuş, Romania), the eastern part of Temesköz (in Romanian Banatul Montan), the area surrounding Torockó, and the Apuseni Mountains (known in Hungarian as Erdélyi-szigethegység) in central Romania, including the region of Hátszeg (today Haţeg, Romania) with Vajdahunyad (today Hunedoara, Romania) as its center.19 Though the data from written sources are scattered, the fact that many of these mines remained or became royal property during the Late Middle Ages indicates the importance of iron mining and iron production in these regions. Certainly, written sources from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries do not say anything about the beginning of mining activity in these areas, and none of the various archaeological investigations which have been done have yielded any meaningful findings concerning the early periods of medieval iron ore mining. The presence and accessibility of mineral resources does not necessarily mean that these resources were used. However, the evolution of the settlement networks—indicated by different types of written sources—in the areas where these kinds of mineral resources were found could be interpreted as evidence of the economic importance of these resources and may further a more subtle understanding of the changes in population density in a mining region over time. It can also offer an indirect proof for the growing importance of mining activity in less documented areas, as relatively well-documented mining areas can be compared with regions from which we have fewer written sources but about which we know that they had similar natural resources. If so, indicators can confirm—or actually call into question—the importance of some mining regions based on the evaluation of the local settlement system.

The list of important natural resources continues with salt, the mining of which was recorded since the late eleventh century. Alongside ores, salt was another important mineral that was exploited in large quantities. Salt played a significant role in the trade and commercial activities of this earlier period, and it continued to be mined and sold on the same scale in the Late Middle Ages. This also put significant pressure on the ecosystem, as we can clearly see from the better documented later periods. Salt production seems to have increased step by step. The first medieval intensification of salt mining took place around or shortly before 1100, when shipping on the Maros River was established. On the northern border of Transylvania, the monastery of Meszes was founded by Duke Álmos, brother of King Coloman, at the older salt road, which went through the Meszes Pass, during the same period (1102). Its connection to salt transportation is attested by the privilege it received in the 1130s.20 In a second phase, between the 1170s and the 1210s, King Béla III and King Andrew II contributed to the development of salt production and trade by employing Jewish and Muslim officials (comes camerae) and by granting privileges to different churches and monasteries.21A further increase in the quantities transported necessitated the navigability of the Szamos River. Most of the riverbed was probably cleared by the last decades of the thirteenth century, when shipping was mentioned in charters.22 It is difficult to estimate the quantity of salt that was mined, but data suggest that it increased gradually throughout the Middle Ages, and sources suggest that the incomes of the royal treasury from salt represented a large fraction of the royal incomes.23

Similarly, sources from the early fifteenth century document large-scale cattle trade, but as early as 1255, the toll list of Buda mentioned live cattle and cattle skin as important tariff articles.24 Considering that the Cumans were settled in the mid-thirteenth century on a territory that became the center of cattle farming, one may suspect that the story must have begun earlier.25 This type of extensive animal husbandry was made possible by at least two factors which transformed the region: the destruction of the area caused by the Mongol invasion of 1241–1242 and environmental changes due to changing hydrological conditions, both of which resulted in a significant process of settlement desertion. It should also be noted that extensive animal husbandry, dominated by cattle breeding, was still characteristic of large areas of the Great Plain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and historical and ethnographic studies shed light on the ecological pressures caused by these activities and on their impact on the local environment. Particularly the puszta-type of animal husbandry can be studied well in this context. Another branch of animal husbandry was transhumance, which sources indicate was a prevailing practice in certain areas of the Carpathian Basin as early as the thirteenth century, though it is difficult to determine the phases of its spread. In this case, changes in the settlement network can help us establish a more thorough chronology, too.

Changes in the Settlement Network

On the basis of the data connected to the spatial distribution of settlements and the indicators for this network, combined with the long-term processes described above, two major transformations of the settlement network can be observed in the Carpathian Basin between the eleventh and the sixteenth centuries (Maps 1–5). There were other significant aspects of inland colonization, but they are not so related to the two main issues discussed in this article: mining activity and extensive cattle production. The territorial expansion of areas under ploughland cultivation and other forms of agriculture was also an important process, but in most of the regions, it involved the extension of new field systems within the boundaries of the existing villages.26 In other words, these were previously settled areas with an existing settlement system, and they started to be transformed by the more active and regular use of previously uncultivated areas. This inner colonization was also connected to the changes in the settlement network in the form of settlement dispersion or in the process of nucleation. The first major colonization process involving areas that had not previously been settled started with the mountainous regions around 1100 and lasting until the end of the Middle Ages or even into Early Modern times (mid-sixteenth century). Due to this process, large areas with their original forest coverage and without a significant settlement network started to be settled in a more intensive way. The main element of the transformation process was the clearing of forests. The Transdanubian Mountains and the North Hungarian Mountains were settled in a more intensive way in the first period, and here, woodland clearing led mainly to the emergence of agrarian settlements and villages. In the second phase, particularly from the thirteenth century, high mountain regions with dense forest coverage started to be exploited as well, with different goals and in various forms of settlement expansion. In these mainly peripheral regions of the kingdom, minerals were increasingly exploited, and pasture lands were created on a large scale in the mountains, especially for sheep and goat breeding. Parallel to this, the other transformation that took place on the Great Hungarian Plain seems to have started in the first decades of the thirteenth century, but it was accelerated in a radical way by the Mongol Invasion of 1241–1242.27 As a result of these events and processes (the process of nucleation, urban development, expansion to the peripheral areas, and the Mongol invasion), the area between the Danube River and Csörsz-árok (or “Devil’s Dyke,” a line of Roman fortifications in the eastern Pannonian plain) became a very loosely settled region. Before this period, the settlement patterns and probably the population density were rather similar to settlement patterns and population densities in the other lowland and plain regions of the kingdom, but in the Late Middle Ages, a very different settlement structure emerged (Map 2a-c). The parish network concentrated on the rivers (the Tisza, Körös, Maros, and Zagyva Rivers), while the monastic network was almost completely missing from the territory (Map 3). The only monastic institutions in this region were the Franciscan and Dominican friaries in Szeged, the Benedictine abbey—later Observant Franciscan friary—of Csanád (today Cenad, Romania), and the Cistercian monastery of Egres (today Igriş, Romania). This institutional pattern was a mark of a livestock-raising society of the plain, where the dominant elements of economic production in the local rural communities were extensively reared cattle, horses, swine, and sheep.

The situation which prevailed in the area earlier can be reconstructed by using written sources mentioned in a previous part of this article. The special use and probably the special estate structure of that central part of the Great Hungarian Plain is referred to by the distribution of the estates given to royal abbeys. The monasteries themselves, especially those founded in the eleventh century, were usually outside the region in question (Map 1). Looking at the map of monastic estates donated before 1060, it is clear that the Great Hungarian Plain was not the region where this type of estate would have been present in the first decades of the Hungarian kingdom. The first monastic estates appeared on the territory after 1060, and the only abbey that received extensive landed estates there was Garamszentbenedek (today Hronský Beňadik, Slovakia), which was founded in 1075 by King Géza I.28 The monastery’s estates in the region concentrated on the Tisza River between Szolnok and Csongrád (Map 4). Monastic estates remained largely absent from the region discussed even in the twelfth century, when a large number of monasteries emerged along the Maros River. One of them was the Cistercian Abbey of Egres, founded by King Béla III in 1179. It was one of the wealthiest abbeys before the Mongol Invasion, but it had very few landed estates, and they were scattered along the river.29

At the same time, recent archaeological research in the region of Kiskunfélegyháza and especially in Bugac has revealed that a rich pre-urban settlement site connected to a monastic complex existed there before 1241.30 Different types of indicators (monastic buildings, import objects, finds connected to trade, etc.) at these sites show that the region also reached a high level of development with a relatively dense settlement network and with emerging central sites. Other findings, for instance in the region of Orosháza, similarly reflect intensive economic activity and higher population density than after the Mongol Invasion.31 These data and the specific character of the region’s monastic network and the almost missing monastic estates suggest that both the estate structure (ownership) and the use of the territory were specific in the eleventh–thirteenth century. Furthermore, data from different parts of the territory imply that changes in land use had begun before the Mongol Invasion, resulting in the radical transformation of the settlement system, while large parts of the territory became pasture for extensive cattle farming.32 Parallel to this transformation, the Árpád Era monastic network of the region disappeared almost completely.33

The settlement pattern that became characteristic of the Carpathian Basin in the Late Middle Ages first appeared in the papal tithe list of 1332–1337, which is a good indicator of the spatial distribution of the settlements34 (Map 3). Big empty regions can be identified for a major part of the Great Hungarian Plain in this period, and large parts of the Transylvanian Apuseni Mountains, including the Metaliferi Mountains, also seem not to have had a parish church network. At the same time, a very dense parish network can be observed in southern Transdanubia and medieval Slavonia (which are out of our present scope), but also in some parts of Transylvania and in the northern part of the Carpathian Basin, especially on the territory of the Eger Diocese. From the second half of the fourteenth century, an increasing number of new towns appeared in the mountainous areas. The number and size of the new churches suggests that the populations in these towns was growing, much as the growing number of monastic institutions from the fifteenth century indicates population growth in the region, although the network did not cover the mining regions evenly (Map 2b-c). In northern Hungary, pastoral care was offered by Franciscan (mainly Observant) friaries, while in the mountains between Transylvania and the Great Hungarian Plain, both Franciscan friars and orthodox monks assumed this task among the mixed Catholic and Orthodox population.

Concerning the periods after the Late Middle Ages, various groups of sources can be used in this context. They are of mixed character and comprise several registers, tithe lists, and canonical visitations of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, referring to priests of diverse denominations. This set of data is especially useful for the northern part of the Carpathian Basin, but to a lesser extent also for Transylvania. As for the other parts of the Carpathian Basin, some limited conclusions can also be formulated. Although the lists were compiled over a longer period of time, between the 1550s and the 1620s, they give a fairly good picture of the effects of the Ottoman wars, namely increasing population density in the less affected parts of the country. Furthermore, the ongoing colonization of the mountainous areas can also be seen on the map (Map 5).

Environmental Impacts of Animal Husbandry

The (almost) monocultural animal husbandry on the plain had a serious impact on the environment and the settlement pattern. The indicators which we have used in our research show some of these effects. As we have argued before, a structural transformation took place in the settlement pattern of the Great Hungarian Plain in the thirteenth century. While the plain was densely sprinkled with rural churches, which indicates a relatively large, albeit dispersed human population on the landscape, during the eleventh century (Map 1),35 most of the region, especially within the Devil’s Dyke, had been abandoned by inhabitants and ecclesial institutions by the early fourteenth century. The papal tithe list of 1332–1337 and regional settlement reconstructions show a vast uninhabited region in the middle of the plain.36 If we consider this area, three basic soil regions characterize the prevailing land use patterns and settlement structures over the late Middle Ages. Loess soils are the most fertile, and where loess soils were found, the lands were tilled and population density was at its highest.37 In contrast, animal husbandry prevailed in the almost entirely deserted areas with sand and clay soils.38 In Homokhátság (which means “Sandy Ridge”), a sand soil region which has been the subject of thorough study, the settlement pattern became dense in the early Árpád Era and collapsed by the fourteenth century.39 The settlements in the region suffered disastrous losses because of the Mongol invasion (1241–1242), and most of them were never resettled. Shortly after the Mongol invasion, Cumans who engaged in animal breeding were settled in the region. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the region was characterized by intensive aeolian processes, thus, wind very much reshaped the landscape.40 The same happened in other sandy regions of the plain between the thirteenth and the fifteenth centuries. Interestingly, similar processes occurred in previous periods, too, e.g. under the Sarmatians (first–fifth centuries AD) and the Avars (sixth–ninth centuries), when animal husbandry cultures colonized the landscape.41 At the same time, this economic transformation of the area may have put increasing pressures on the local ecosystem. Local settlement research and studies on wind-blown sand deposits partly excavated by recent large–scale archaeological investigations confirmed the scale and importance of these environmental changes. One particular archaeological site has also clearly demonstrated that a briefly used ploughland area, which was probably created as a consequence of the internal colonization process described above, was abandoned for agricultural use, and the sand-covered region was probably used for extensive animal husbandry.42 The growing number of cattle and other animals kept in these areas significantly contributed to the richness and economic boom of some local urban settlements, the so-called oppida (market towns), but this spread of animal breeding also may have led to the emergence of huge puszta areas around the big rural settlement centers. Thus, one may well conclude that overuse of the land and, more specifically, the sensitive vegetation which grows in sandy soils to support animal breeding led to changes in the hydroclimatic regime which made the land more vulnerable to aeolian processes.

One question remains, however: what was the reason for the massive abandonment of the settlements that preceded the arrival of the Cumans in the area? Can the mid-thirteenth century Mongol Invasion be blamed for this, as is widely believed?43 Curiously, massive settlement abandonment also took place in deep alluvial floodplains covered by clay soils according to a similar chronology. Clay soil indicates the sites of wetlands, which covered almost one-third of the plain. A multifactorial spatio-statistical investigation suggested that the settlement pattern of an extensive wetland landscape was located in the plain, shrunk and moved vertically, from the Árpád Era (which almost completely covered the Medieval Climatic Anomaly, beginning in 900 and ending in 1300) to the late Middle Ages (1301–1541), thus overlapping the first phase of the Little Ice Age.44 The massive settlement abandonment was concentrated in the low-lying zones of the region (which were vulnerable to floods) and took place before 1300. To summarize the written sources related to forms of land use, the permanently inhabited flood-free loess ridges were used for diverse forms of farming, while the inhabitants of the rather temporary settlements of the low-lying and clay-covered floodplains dealt mainly with animal husbandry and fishery or other activities linked to the benefits of waters.45 During the Late Middle Ages, floodplains were entirely abandoned, and the population concentrated mainly in the market towns and the few villages of the loess ridges or on the edge of the floodplain, which had a similar soil structure. The fields of the deserted settlements merged into the area of the emerging market towns, and a specific type of urban settlement, the cattle-breeding market town, evolved, where animal husbandry became the core sector of the local economy.46 An archaeobotanical investigation of the plain revealed that the proportion of species with high moisture demand increased significantly from the first centuries of the Árpád Era (1000–1241) to the last (1242–1301).47 Like other paleoclimatic examinations, this finding suggests that rapid climate change took place in the second part of the thirteenth century,48 when climatic extremities, e.g. long-lasting droughts and severe winters became more frequent49 and caused higher humidity on the plain and higher flood levels on the floodplains. At the same time, interdisciplinary research based in part on a wide range of written sources has clearly demonstrated that the first decades of the fourteenth century were the most serious period of this climatic change, which bore witness to significant increases in areas covered with water.50

The Use of the Woods

Woodland areas in medieval Hungary were used in many different ways, and historical and interdisciplinary studies have reconstructed the relevant aspects of the uses to which woodlands were put in a complex way. Hungarian historical research has identified the importance of this natural resource and the related source materials in the nineteenth century.51 Ethnographic studies on the eighteenth century also contributed to our understanding of traditional forms of woodland exploitation and of the clearing process.52 At the same time, the complex and interdisciplinary understanding of the uses to which woodlands were put in medieval Hungary is a result of more recent studies.53 For the particular discussion points of the present article, it should also be noted that woodland and forest management in the mining regions of Hungary in the seventeenth and (even more so) eighteenth centuries has been very intensively studied. The basic concepts of modern woodland management were developed in some of these regions, particularly in Selmecbánya (today Banská Štiavnica, Slovakia). However, this geographical overlap with the medieval mining regions does not mean that forest management practices can be seen automatically in a strong continuity context, as major legal and institutional development only began in the eighteenth century. Thus, the medieval use and exploitation of woodlands in the mining regions should be seen in a different way. This aspect is also crucial for a discussion of the pressures put on and changes which took place in the relevant ecosystems.

Medieval documents or the written sources do not enable us to reconstruct the forest coverage of the areas around the mining towns or in the mining regions. In a similar way, the amount of wood extracted from these areas cannot be calculated with the help of documentary evidence. It should also be noted that forests were used in the mining regions for several purposes: as timber in the construction of mines, to prepare charcoal, or to build ore crushers, etc. Therefore, we have to take into consideration all possible sources connected to these regions concerning woodland. The connection between mining and the use of wood was referred to in a donation charter issued in 1263 by King Béla IV when he gave Andrew, the judge of Besztercebánya, a forest as a reward for his merits in silver mining. From then on, the forests around the Northern Hungarian mining towns were usually in the hands of the richest burghers.54 Trip-hammers and ore crushers were mentioned in the region of Körmöcbánya (today Banská Kremnica, Slovakia) as early as 1331.55 According to a register from 1468, there were 29 ore crushers and four furnaces in Banská Kremnica alone.56 Another register says that in 1522 there were 43 mines, five furnaces, and five ore crushers in Selmecbánya (today Banská Štiavnica, Slovakia), employing 918 workers. There was a significant increase in metal production compared to the previous decades.57 Parallel to this, the mining towns, taking advantage of their royal privileges,—aimed to expand the territory where they could harvest the wood necessary for the mines and furnaces.58

The mines also contributed to the financing of the royal treasury. Indeed, the decrees issued by King Louis I in 1351 mention the urbura in connection with iron.59 Iron was mentioned along with gold, silver, tin, and plumb in 1427 when King Sigismund of Luxembourg donated the urbura collected in certain mining towns to Queen Barbara, though he retained the incomes from copper.60 In the late-fourteenth century, King Sigismund exchanged certain royal domains for castles of the Csáki family in Temes County, one of which was the castle of Kövesd (today Cuieşd, Romania), which had an iron mine that was mentioned explicitly in the charter.61 The region in question is better known today as Resica (Reşiţa, Romania), and it was one of the major metallurgical centers of Romania from the mid-eighteenth century until recently. However, iron production can be traced back in the region to as early as the twelfth century: an iron smelting workshop was excavated by Dumitru Ţeicu in Felsőlupkó (today Gornea, Romania),62 and different forms of iron ores were identified at several sites of the region that belonged to the royal domain of Illyéd (today Ilidia, Romania) in the Middle Ages. Further mines in the region which were mentioned in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries include Székesbánya (north of today Dognecea, Romania), Bényes (today Biniş, Romania), Boksánbánya (today Bocşa Montană, Romania), and further to the northeast Galadna (today Gladna Română, Romania). These localities were royal estates throughout the Middle Ages or became royal estates in the Late Middle Ages.63

Rulers were very concerned with running the mines. As early as 1349, King Louis I granted a privilege for merchants from Genoa in the copper trade, and in 1376 the same privilege was granted to Florentine merchants, too.64 Four years later, merchants connected to the Medici family acquired a share in Hungarian copper mining, and in 1385, the company made a contract with Venice, the center of the European copper trade, according to which the major share of the copper produced in Hungary would be sold in Venice (except for the part exported to Flanders).65 In the early fifteenth century, a shift can be seen in the trading network. It was connected to the person of Mark of Nuremberg, who, for instance, prohibited the import of Polish (medieval Ilkusz, today Olkusz, Poland) plumb in 1405 because of conflicts in copper production.66

One also finds direct orders concerning the mines from the fifteenth century. In 1426, King Sigismund ordered George of Jolsva, the bailiff of Zólyom castle (today Zvolen, Slovakia), to secure the necessary wood supply for the new plumb mines,67 and he regulated the use of the forests around Gölnicbánya (today Gelnica, Slovakia) in 1437.68 His successor, King Albert, took the miners of Offenbánya (today Baia de Arieş, Romania), Körösbánya (today Baia de Criş, Romania), Zalatna (today Zlatna, Romania), and Körösfő (today Izvoru Crisului, Romania) under his special protection.69 In 1475, the Thurzó Company made a contract with the Northern Hungarian mining towns. According to this contract, the company would establish water lading machines (Wasserkunst) in exchange for which it would receive one sixth of the mined ore as payment. The contract was confirmed and complemented by King Matthias in the same year, by that the necessary wood should be given to the company free of charge.70 In 1479, King Matthias allowed the town of Selmecbánya to harvest the wood needed for mining from the royal forest free of charge. This permission was expanded by King Wladislaus II, who ordered in 1496 that the wood had to be given to the town free of charge by any landowner.71 In 1500 and 1502, Wladislaus II confirmed the right of the Lower Hungarian mining towns to harvest the necessary wood in the royal forests, and this privilege was given to the Upper Hungarian mining towns in 1504 and 1507, as well.72 Wood was also needed in the salt mines, if in lower quantities. In 1498, for instance, King Wladislaus II donated salt worth 100 guilders to the Cathedral Chapter of Gyulafehérvár (today Alba Iulia, Romania) and in compensation gave the salt mine officials of Torda (today Turda, Romania) the right to cut timber with which to build salt ships in the forest of the Chapter.73 The intensive royal interventions to provide wood for the mining sector is absolutely understandable. Hungary and Bohemia were the major suppliers of gold and silver in late medieval Europe, and the kingdom’s copper production was also significant. In the 1380s, the Hungarian copper export can be estimated at 8–10 thousand tons per year. In 1495, when John Thurzó made his contract with the Fugger family on copper production within Hungary, the production of the planned kiln of Besztercebánya (today Banská Bystrica, Romania) was set at 300 quintals per week, giving a total of approximately 920 tons per year. Thus, that kiln alone would produce about 10 percent of the fourteenth-century export. The investment was intended to increase the quantity of the copper produced by the company and also to improve the quality, which meant multiple smelting, which demanded more energy. According to the accounts of the Fugger family, the company had invested 277,500 guilders by 1499, and profits reached roughly 2.5 million guilders between 1496 and 1546.74 The Thurzó company was involved in copper and precious metal production in areas outside of northern Hungary. The mines of Belényes (today Beiuş, Romania), where both silver and copper were mined, were restarted, and reorganized by John Thurzó in the early-sixteenth century.75

Large-scale logging, however, took its toll. In 1347, King Louis I allowed the miners of Nagybánya (today Baia Mare, Romania) and Zazár (today Săsar, Romania) to cut the necessary timber for the mines in any forest, be it royal or noble property, in part since there was no suitable material anymore in the town’s surroundings.76 Sources also indicate conflicts between miners and owners of forestlands. In 1459, the towns of Szomolnok (today Smolnik, Slovakia) and Svedlér (today Švedlár, Slovakia) turned to the king, since the bailiffs of the castles of Krasznahorka (today Krásna Hôrka, Slovakia) and Szádvár hindered the work of the charcoal-burners, destroying their kilns and causing other damages, as well.77 Between 1479 and 1503, a long-lasting conflict emerged between the miners of the region of Nagybánya on the one side and the Drágfi family and their bailiffs of Kővár Castle near Kővárremete (today Remetea Chioarului, Romania) on the other because of forest use.78 The miners of Offenbánya (today Baia de Arieş, Romania) and the Romanian knezate of Nagylupsa (today Lupşa, Romania) had a similar conflict between 1485 and 1487, where both the felling of timber for mines and the making of charcoal were mentioned.79

The first indication of rafting on the Hron/Garam River dates from 1209 (tributum lignorum, quae feruntur super Gran) and on the Váh/Vág River from 1206 and 1271, referring to the use of wood from the high mountains.80 Similarly, wood was a major source of income in the mountainous regions of the Drugeth domains in Ung County. As Pál Engel has pointed out, the former border zone (gyepüelve), which was settled in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, was mainly used for logging (silva dolabrosa). This is also supported by the presence of numerous mills on different streams in an area where ploughland was very limited at the time.81 However, the first clear evidence of the use of rafts in shipping other goods, in this case salt, is a charter issued in 1507.82 Before this, only reusable boats (often log boats) were used in salt transport, as written sources from the late eleventh century indicate.83 The territory where, as the charter says, rafts were used in a new way is the salt region of Máramaros County, where this practice continued into the 1860s.84

The intensive use of forests suggests that deforestation reached a critical rate in the mining regions. However, the same environment was affected by another economic activity, the grazing of sheep. Sources indicate that as early as the thirteenth century, transhumant shepherds used the lands in the Apuseni mountains to graze their herds.85 Their gradual movement towards the north is reflected partly in the foundation of small orthodox monasteries and churches built from the second half of the fourteenth century86 and partly in the increasing number of Wallachian villages, especially after the 1420s, when Ottoman raids destroyed large parts of southern Transylvania.87 Similarly, Orthodox, mainly Ruthenian settlers arrived from territories beyond the northeastern and northern Carpathians. Their presence can be traced back to approximately the same period. In 1337, Palatine William Druget settled orthodox peasants in the village of Korumlya (today Koroml’a, Slovakia).88 Large groups of Ruthenian (Podolian) settlers came to the region after Prince Fyodor Koriatovych was forced into exile (1392) and became the lord of the Munkács and Makovica Castles (today Mukachevo in Ukraine and Zborov in Slovakia) and count of Bereg and Sáros Counties.89 The donation charter of Queen Mary issued in 1390 offers further evidence of the presence of transhumant shepherds in Szatmár County. It gave Terebes (today Racova, Romania) to the ancestors of the Drágfi family, Balk, Drag, and John. Three years later, they came into conflict with another local landlord, Ban Simon of Medgyes, whose tenants killed their tenants’ sheep (iobagionum seu Olahorum).90 The conflict must have involved the use of the land, more specifically the use of the pastures. The spread of these settlements continued in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.91 In 1437, several Orthodox chapels were listed beyond the Vihorlat Mountains in Zemplén County.92 By the late-fifteenth century, shepherds of Romanian and Ruthenian origin had reached the western Carpathians, Árva, Trencsén, and Turóc Counties.93 The expanded grazing significantly contributed to deforestation.

In addition to the above, the Ottoman wars between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries also affected the territories in question, if in an indirect way. On the one hand, a significant part of the population fleeing the devastated southern regions and the Hungarian plain took refuge in the Carpathians. The first Protestant registers listing the pastors and the communities between the 1560s and the 1620s indicate a population density which would have been unthinkable before the Ottoman wars and which began to decline after the 1660s.94 The situation was slightly different in Transylvania, but immigration from Moldavia, and Walachia was almost uninterrupted, and for the most part targeted areas which were suitable for pasture. In other parts of the country, in the frontier zones of the region occupied by the Ottomans, fortifications needed a continuous supply of wood, which accelerated the process of deforestation in the frontier zones. Ágnes R. Várkonyi has emphasized that the maintenance of the Ottoman period defense system of Hungary put tremendous additional pressures on the forests in the mountainous regions (e.g., in the 1680s, the domain of Likava Castle regularly had to deliver large amounts of timber, poles, stakes, roof shingles, etc. for different fortifications which were 150–200 kilometers distant Likava itself), which had already been largely depleted by the mines and furnaces.95

Medieval Transformation of the Land Cover in the Mining Regions
of the Carpathian Basin

In this section, we offer a short review of the main directions of land cover changes that took place between the eleventh and the sixteenth centuries in the ca. 50,000 km2 mountainous regions of the northern and eastern part of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary. By the eleventh century, most of the lower regions and foothills, the environment of the mines in use in the Apuseni Mountains and the Northern Middle Mountains (northern Hungary and eastern Slovakia), became cultural landscapes. The ratio of open lands increased gradually due to human use, mainly grazing and forest clearance for charcoal production (for instance). Moreover, pastoral activities were associated with forest burning, which was a drastic form of clearance, as indicated in many pollen reconstructions of the Carpathians.96 This happened in the central part of the Apuseni Mountains, where the ratio of herbaceous pollen increased permanently from the Iron Age (eighth–sixth century BC) in a site situated at 1240 meters a.s.l. (above sea level) and in the environment of a bog (1400 meters a.s.l.) from the late Roman Period (fourth century AD).97 The presence of cereal pollens was stable, but their ratio was low in the total pollen profile in ten of the sites studied in the mountains from the late fifth century to the end of the sixteenth.98 In contrast, the first cereals are found in the 4280–3570 BC deposit layer of the Ponor karst area (1040 meters a.s.l. Apuseni Mountains) and in a layer of the Iaz peat bog dated to 4300–3700 BC (300 meters a.s.l. Apuseni Mountains).99 The earliest evidence of forest grazing and farming culture was identified at 4740–4620 BC in the Căpăţâna peat bogs (1220 meters a.s.l. Apuseni Mountains), but major deforestation began only around 1400 AD, linked to a migration wave of the transhumant Orthodox population reaching the area, as well as the rapidly rising demand for wood in the industrializing mining region.100 Similar temporal dynamics appear in the paleo-ecological records of sites in the Aggtelek-Rudabánya Mountains, very close to an important iron mine.101 The ratio of cereal pollens, however, increased here significantly from the late tenth century to the end of the eleventh and showed a consistently high proportion until the late sixteenth century.102 Human use was reconstructed in the Western and Northern Carpathians, including the Tatra Mountains and Szepesség Region (today the Spiš Region, Slovakia) from the early phase of the Migration Period (fifth century), but the ratio of cereals began to grow only towards the end of the eleventh century.103 As a result of the colonization policy of King Béla IV, thousands of settlements and dozens of new towns began to emerge in the Carpathians, including the Tatra Mountains, over the course of the fifty-year period beginning in the mid-thirteenth century.104 In other words, there was a dramatic increase in human pressure on the ecosystems in the mountains beginning in the thirteenth century. Rapid colonization following extensive pastural and mining activity reduced the forest coverage in Sáros and Zemplén Counties (in the northern Carpathians) and Borsod and Gömör Counties (in the northern middle mountains) by the late fifteenth century to an estimated 41–60 percent, 21–40 percent, 41–60 percent, and 21–40 percent, respectively.105 As it has been discussed in literature with regard to the Northern Middle Mountains in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, “the forests came to an end there, and the neighboring counties began to eliver their forests to the mining regions.”106

The traces of small-scale forest clearance were recorded in the Bronze Age peat deposit at 1143 meters a.s.l. in the Lápos (Romanian Lapuş) Mountains, close to the northern Transylvanian mining region.107 Then, the human impact gradually intensified beginning in the twelfth century. The fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries, when the modern cultural landscape evolved in the region, bore witness to large-scale logging and intensive agricultural activity. In the neighboring Gutai Mountains, the first sign of grazing is found in the ca. eleventh deposit layer of the crater lake Steregoiu (ca. 800 meters a.s.l.), but serious human impact appears only from the 1700s.108 In contrast, Fărcaş and Tanţău found pollen evidence of minor cereal production here in the layer dated to 820±75 AD.109 The deposit in the crater lake Preluca Ţiganului is situated in the Gutăi Mountains, and it has the earliest evidence of a human-driven decrease in forest diversity in a 2,300-year-old deposit. In other words, forest clearance and grazing may have started in the late Iron Age (300 BC).110 According to a historical estimate based on late-fifteenth-century common estimations (aestimatio communis) that covers nearly 3,000 km2 (almost one percent of the Carpathian Basin),111 forest coverage may have been 76–100 percent in Máramaros County, where important salt and precious metal mines were in operation, and 21–40 percent in Közép-Szolnok County, which covered the northeastern part of the Apuseni Mountains.112

Conclusion

Both written sources and changes in the settlement system prove that the mountainous areas of the Carpathian Basin that are rich in ores and—in Transylvania and Maramureş—in salt were increasingly exploited from the second half of the thirteenth century, after the Mongol Invasion. Mining was intensified in at least three periods: first in the first half of the fourteenth century, then in the last decades of the fourteenth century, and finally at the end of the fifteenth century. The increasing quantities to be shipped and the extremely expensive transportation costs of the time113 led to a transformation in transport infrastructure: around 1500, rafts began to be used instead of boats, and the use of rafts became widespread in the following centuries, especially on the Tisza and its tributaries, thus contributing to the decline of forests. As the documents cited above indicate, the forest maintenance that accompanied land use management in the majority of the medieval communities was not characteristic of the mining regions studied here during the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.114 However, forest management, including maintenance, belonged to the eminent interest of local communities, since forests (wood) were the main energy resource before the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth century. However, the melting ores offered such impressive profits for companies and the royal treasury that it was in the interests of the state to provide adequate wood to meet the needs of the mines. At the end of the Middle Ages, royal power tended to neglect the ownership and interest of local communities and landlords by allowing mining companies to clear forests. This step opened the gate for deforestation of huge areas in the Carpathians. When the destruction reached an extreme in certain mining regions in the sixteenth century, the central administration tried to correct its former stance and issued decrees that were intended to protect forestlands for instance by prohibiting iron mining in certain regions in 1564115 and issuing a new regulation concerning the forests used by the lower Hungarian mining towns in 1565.116 These efforts, however, proved useless, because of the conflicts with the Ottoman Empire and the civil wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the protection of lands, including forests, was hardly the primary concern. Moreover, as was the case in Transdanubia, influxes of refugees from the Ottoman wars led to a population increase in the mining regions from the mid-sixteenth century, thus putting increased human pressure on the forests in the mountains.117 Alongside mining, transhumance also became more widespread in the regions, reaching the westernmost part of the Carpathians in the fifteenth century. These economic activities resulted in the gradual deforestation of the regions. The process was probably hastened by the needs of military constructions, which were also a consequence of the Ottoman wars.

Our hypothesis is that the increasing number and intensity of hydroclimatic extremities linked to the medieval climate change that preceded the Little Ice Age may have contributed to or driven the desertion of settlements in the sandy ridge and floodplain regions of the Great Hungarian Plain in the thirteenth century. The Mongol Invasion merely ended a crisis which affected the farming system of the plain. The form of land use that became dominant in the region in the late Middle Ages—extensive grazing of cattle and sheep—remained the most prevalent practice until the eighteenth century. However, the increasing use of pastures, the partial extension of pastures towards the hills, the changing runoff coefficient due to deforestation in the bordering mountain regions, and the effects of warfare may have contributed to the aridity of the Hungarian Plain in the Early Modern era and the decreasing profitability of large-scale animal husbandry in the region.

Thus, the lucrative, export-oriented economic activities of the late medieval Hungarian kingdom, which contributed to the ability of the country to withstand Ottoman pressure for about 130 years (before the 1520s) and, in a more limited way, even longer (into the wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries), led in the long run to serious environmental degradation the effects of which could not be fully overcome for a long time. Certainly, this impact was increased by the effects of the Ottoman wars themselves and the changing climatic conditions of the Little Ice Age, too, but the process began well before the Early Modern crisis, in some respects, as early as the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.

Archival Sources

Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [National Archives of Hungary] (MNL OL)
Collectio Ante-Mohácsiana (collection of original charters: DL, photo collection: DF)
Collectio Kaprinai

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1 The research on which this article is based was made possible with the support of the National Research, Development, and Innovation Fund of Hungary (NKFIH) PD-128970 research grant, and it is a contribution to the PAGES’ LandCover6k project. Some other aspects of this article were developed within the framework of another project led by the same organization (NKFIH K-128880), which considered the long-term effects of the Mongol Invasion on population density and extensive animal husbandry.

2 On the history of agricultural production and its role in the medieval economy of Hungary, see Laszlovszky, “Agriculture in Medieval Hungary.” On the general issues of environmental changes in the context of the medieval economy in Hungary see Ferenczi et als., “Long-Term Environmental Changes.”

3 Engel, A temesvári és moldovai. For the sixteenth-century Ottoman tax registers on the territory of Medieval Hungary, see also Káldy-Nagy, A budai szandzsák 1559. évi összeírása; Ágoston, “A szolnoki szandzsák 1591–92. évi összeírása”; Káldy-Nagy, A gyulai szandzsák 1567. és 1579. évi összeírása; Káldy-Nagy, A budai szandzsák 1546–1590. évi összeírásai; Káldy-Nagy, A csanádi szandzsák települései; Káldy-Nagy, A szegedi szandzsák települései; Blazovich, “A Dél-Alföld települései.”

4 Csánki, Magyarország történeti földrajza.

5 Györffy, Az Árpád-kori Magyarország.

6 Engel, Magyarország a középkor végén.

7 Laszlovszky, “Tanyaszerű települések”; Laszlovszky, “Space and place.”

8 Kubinyi and Laszlovszky, “Demographic Issues.”

9 F. Romhányi, “Kolostorhálózat”; F. Romhányi, “A középkori magyar plébániák.”

10 The case of Ráckeve and some other villages with Serbian populations on Csepel Island, today to the south of Budapest, is an exception. These villages were settled in the second half of the fifteenth century under completely different circumstances.

11 On the economic history of medieval Hungary in general, see The Economy of Medieval Hungary, edited by József Laszlovszky, Balázs Nagy, Péter Szabó, and András Vadas (Leiden: Brill, 2018). On the history of mining and metallurgy in Europe cf. Ian Blanchard, Mining, Metallurgy and Minting in the Middle Ages: Continuing Afro-European Supremacy, 1250–1450 (African Gold Production and the Second and Third European Silver Production Long-cycles) (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2005).

12 Batizi, “Mining in Medieval Hungary.”

13 Wenzel, Magyarország, 23. However, Gusztáv Heckenast expressed his doubts concerning Hungarian iron exports to Austria in the twelfth century, see Heckenast, “A kora Árpád-kori,” 149.

14 Györffy, Az Árpád-kori Magyarország, vol. 3, 243–47. The region belonged to the estate of the Benedictine Abbey of Garamszentbenedek (today Hronsky Benadik, Slovakia), founded in 1075 by King Géza I, which was given Baka as well, where another mine existed in the Árpád Era. The settlement was first mentioned in a charter in 1217 under the name Bana (mine). The name Argentifodina (i.e. silver mine) first occurred in 1240, when the parson of the settlement was also mentioned. The fact that both names were used without an adjective suggests that Selmecbánya was the first and most important royal silver mine in the whole region. On the mining privileges issued in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, see Weisz, “A bányaváros, mint önálló”; Weisz, “Mining Town Privileges”; Weisz, “Az alsó-magyarországi bányavárosok,” (about issues connected to the use of wood: 38–40).

15 Heckenast, A magyarországi vaskohászat; Vastagh, Tanulmányok a kohászat.

16 Gömöri, Az avarkori és Árpád-kori.

17 The first important interdisciplinary monograph on this topic: Heckenast, Gusztáv, Gyula Nováki, Gábor Vastagh, and Elemér Zoltay, A magyarországi vaskohászat története a korai középkorban [History of iron smelting in Hungary in the Early Middle Ages] (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1968). For the latest summary on the topic based on the earlier secondary literature, see: Batizi, “Mining in Medieval Hungary.”

18 Szentpétery, Regesta regum, no. 59. The German name of the settlement, Eisenburg, is also telling. Medieval Styrian iron production probably began in the eighth and ninth centuries. It then intensified around 1100 and remained important until the nineteenth century. Cf. Sperl, Gerhard, Steirische Eisenstraße, edited by Montanhistorischer Verein für Österreich Leoben, 1984.

19 Sources indicate iron mining and metallurgy around Rudabánya from the tenth century, based on archaeological findings. Török, “Vasérc, vasbuca, vastárgy.” Several iron mines and furnaces functioning in the mountainous region of northern Hungary were mentioned as early as in the thirteenth century, after the Mongol Invasion (1241), cf. Heckenast, “A vashámor,” 2–4. The hammer mill in Csetnek (today Štitnik, Slovakia) was first mentioned in 1344 (Heckenast, “A vashámor,” 10). On the developing metallurgy of the region see also the privilege of Master Konrad, the bell-casting master of King Louis I (1357: MNL OL DF 280773; on master Konrad, see Szőke et als., “Konrád mester,” and the company of the Thurzó family, see Izsó, Szemelvények, 45, 48, 56, 58 etc. Iron mines in Upper Hungary were mentioned e.g. in Dobsina, Gölnic, Igló, Jolsva, and Vihnye (today Dobšina, Gelnica, Spišská Nová Ves, Jelšava, and Vyhne, Slovakia), too. Sources indicate iron mining and processing in the region of Besztercebánya and Selmecbánya, as well. Heckenast, “A vashámor,” 3. In the Temesköz, a charter issued by King Sigismund of Luxembourg concerning the acquisition of the castle of Kövesd mentioned the iron mine of Boksánbánya (today Bocşa Montană, Romania); 1395: Wenzel, Magyarország, 124. Medieval iron slag was found in the area of Vaskoh (today Vaşcău, Romania) during an archaeological survey, and an eighteenth-century description of ores and other mineral resources of Hungary described the iron ore of the region as one of the best raw materials, though there is no written evidence of its medieval or early modern use, cf. Tóth, “Az első magyar nyelvű,” 130. In Vajdahunyad (today Hunedoara, Romania), there is data from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (1493, 1509) indicating the mining of iron (and gold) (MNL OL DL 29875, 24348, 24364, 26508, 26510, short summary in Hungarian: Izsó, Szemelvények, 137–38). We do not enumerate here the smaller mining regions with more limited metal production (e.g. Nagybörzsöny, Telkibánya), but they too contributed to the processes described below.

20 1165: Szentpétery, Regesta regum, no. 107.

21 In 1233, the conflict resulted in the issuing of the Oath of Bereg, which was intended to regulate the participation of Church institutions in the commercialization of salt. Cf. F. Romhányi, “Salt Mining.”

22 1292: Szentpétery, Regesta regum, no. 3878. On salt shipping and the levy of tolls in the Árpád Era, see Weisz, “Megjegyzések az Árpád-kori.”

23 In addition to the article by B. F. Romhányi (footnote 21), see also Draskóczy, “Salt Mining.”

24 Szűcs, Az utolsó Árpádok, 103–4. Szűcs emphasizes that there was a clear turning point in the structure of Hungarian exports. Beginning in the 1280s, Hungarian cattle, copper, and grain began to dominate (333).

25 There are some hints of early thirteenth-century cattle exports (see the toll regulation of Radkersburg and the circulation of Friesach deniers in the first half of the thirteenth century), but large-scale cattle farming and cattle trade began after the Mongol Invasion. Cf. Lyublyanovics, New Home, New Herds; Sárosi, Deserting villages.

26 On the field systems in this context, see Laszlovszky, “Field Systems.”

27 Laszlovszky et als., “Contextualizing,” 432.

28 On the estates of the abbey in the Tisza region, see Laszlovszky, “Dedi eciam.”

29 Hervay, Repertorium historicum.

30 Rosta, “Egy elfeledett nemzetségi.”

31 Rózsa et als., “Árpád Period.”

32 Pinke et als., “Zonal assessment,” 102; F. Romhányi, “Changes in the Spatial.”

33 The reasons underlying the procedure are complex, including the transformation of church property after the Fourth Lateran Council, demographic changes in the region due to the Mongol Invasion, environmental and economic changes, etc. Cf. F. Romhányi, “Kolostorhálózat.”

34 F. Romhányi, “A középkori magyar plébániák.”

35 According to István Méri the population in the upper Trans-Tisza region began to grow dramatically in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Méri, “Beszámoló,” 51–52.

36 Györffy, Az Árpád-kori Magyarország, vols. 1 and 3.

37 Pinke et als., “A hajdúsági várostérség,” 138.

38 Nyári et als., “Investigation of Holocene blown-sand,” 46, 52–53; Vadas, “Late Medieval,” 54.

39 Bálint, “Az Árpád-kori településhálózat,” 1.

40 Kiss et als., 711, and 704–8.

41 Gábris, Túri, “Homokmozgás,” 241, 245; Nyári et al., “Investigation of Holocene blown-sand,” 54.

42 Nyári et als., “Multidisciplinary analysis.”

43 Györffy, Az Árpád-kori Magyarország, vol. 3, 34; Pálóczi-Horváth, “Túrkeve története,” 53.

44 Pinke et al., “Zonal assessment,” 101. For a more comprehensive overview of the medieval climatic history of the Carpathian Basin, see Vadas and Rácz, “Climatic Changes.”; Vadas, “The Little Ice Age.”

45 Györffy, Az Árpád-kori Magyarország, vol. 1, 510; Jankovich and Szatmári, Régészeti kutatások; Szabó, “A dömösi prépostság”; Szabó, A dömösi adománylevél.

46 Makkai, “A pusztai állattartás,” 31–32.

47 Pinke et al., “Zonal assessment,” 102.

48 Kern et als., 111, 114, 121–24.

49 Kiss, “Weather and Weather-Related.”

50 For data and further literature, see Andrea Kiss, Floods and Long-Term Water-Level Changes in Medieval Hungary (Cham, 2019). Another aspect of environment-driven crises has been addressed by Andrea Fara, “Production of and Trade in Food Between the Kingdom of Hungary and Europe in the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Era (Thirteenth to Sixteenth Centuries): The Roles of Markets in Crises and Famines,” Hungarian Historical Review 6 (2017): 138–79.

51 Tagányi, Magyar erdészeti oklevéltár.

52 Takács, Egy irtásfalu; Takács, Irtásgazdálkodásunk emlékei; Hegyi, A népi erdőkiélés.

53 Szabó, Woodland and Forests.

54 Szentpétery, Regesta regum, no. 1332.

55 Wenzel, Magyarország, 45.

56 Izsó, Szemelvények, 67. On the ore crushers and mills in the Kremnica region, see Vadas, “A középkori Magyar Királyság.”

57 Izsó, Szemelvények, 81.

58 Weisz, “Az alsó-magyarországi bányavárosok,” 40. For examples of local regulation of logging and woodland clearing see Weisz, “Mining Town Privileges,” 305.

59 Izsó, Szemelvények, 19.

60 Wenzel, “Okmányi adalék.”

61 Wenzel, Magyarország, 124.

62 Ţeicu, Banatul montan, 261 and 267.

63 F. Romhányi, “The Banat region.”

64 Wenzel, Magyarország, 158.

65 Izsó, Szemelvények, 41. Sources indicate regular commercial contacts with and the economic presence of Venetian merchants in Hungary as early as the 1220s, when one of the most important goods was Hungarian silver transported as far as the Levant. Szűcs, Az utolsó Árpádok, 323. On the importance and scale of medieval Hungarian copper mining, see Paulinyi, A középkori magyar réztermelés.

66 Paulinyi, A középkori magyar réztermelés, 36–37.

67 Tagányi, Erdészeti oklevéltár 1, 25.

68 Wenzel, Magyarország, 331–33.

69 Ibid., 126–27.

70 Izsó, Szemelvények, 45.

71 Tagányi, Erdészeti oklevéltár 1, 30.

72 Tagányi, Erdészeti oklevéltár 1, 30; Izsó, Szemelvények, 46.

73 Tagányi, Erdészeti oklevéltár 1, 30. However, wood for the ships built in Dés (today Dej, Romania) were sometimes transported from as far as the region of Radna (today Rodna, Romania). Draskóczy, A magyarországi kősó.

74 Izsó, Szemelvények, 57–59.

75 Wenzel, Magyarország, 118. The silver mines of the Bishop of Várad around Belényes (Beiuş) were first mentioned in 1297 (Györffy, Az Árpád-kori Magyarország, vol. 1, 599), then, in 1374 (Izsó, Szemelvények, 127).

76 Tagányi, Erdészeti oklevéltár 1, 20; Izsó, Szemelvények, 117–18. About this case, see also Weisz, “Mining Town Privileges,” 304. Another charter issued in 1376 (Fejér, Codex diplomaticus Hungariae, IX/5. 98.) may indicate that there was already wood of suitable quality in the closer vicinity of the mines, too, though it seems to have been wood used as building material for different edifices (cives et hospites… molendinum, casas, fornaces, balnea, allodia, et alias quaslibet haereditates aedificari facientes), and not for the mines directly or to burn as charcoal.

77 MNL OL DL 24901 (short summary in Hungarian: Izsó, Szemelvények, 106).

78 Izsó, Szemelvények, 121–22.

79 MNL OL DL 32505 (short summary in Hungarian: Izsó, Szemelvények, 132–33).

80 Alexander Fehér, Vegetation History and Cultural Landscapes: Case Studies from South-west Slovakia (Cham: Springer, 2018); Richard Marsina, ed., Codex diplomaticus et epistolaris Slovaciae, vols. 1–2 (Bratislava: SAV, 1971–1987); Bratislava Obzor, and Veronika Novák, “Mátyusföldi települések az okleveles források tükrében” [The settlements of the Mátyusföld region as reflected in the charters], in Mátyusföld vol. 2, edited by László Bukovszky 45–61 (Komárom: Fórum Kisebbségkutató Intézet; Dunaszerdahely: Lilium Aurum Könyvkiadó, 2005); Ferdinand Uličný, Dejiny Slovenska v 11. a 13. storočí (Bratislava: Veda, 2013).

81 Engel, “Ung megye,” 956.

82 The expression is super struibus lignorum. Iványi, A római szent birodalmi, no. 450. Before that, strues meant only a raft the wood of which was sold as building material or other raw material, but nothing else was shipped on it.

83 F. Romhányi, “Salt trade.”

84 Paládi-Kovács, Magyar néprajz, vol. 2, 979. In early modern times, rafting—especially of building material—was wide-spread on other rivers, too, e.g. on the Vág and Maros.

85 Miskolczy, Románok, 17–31.

86 Rusu, Dicţionarul mănăstirilor.

87 Köpeczi, Kurze Geschichte, 186–95.

88 Engel, “Ung,” 974 (1337: olahos descendere fecisset). Ruthenians were often called valachi in the charters because of similarities in their lifestyles, but in the case of Koromlya, a charter of 1437 says clearly that they were Ruthenians and that at the time they even had a priest of their own.

89 Kuczyński, “Fedor Koriatowicz.” The prince spent time in Hungary in the 1360s and 1370s. The monastery of Saint Nicholas, which he founded near Munkács (today Mukachevo, Ukraine), was called a parish of the Ruthenian (i.e. Greek Orthodox) rite in 1458. Its priest, Lucas, was confirmed by King Matthias Corvinus (Collectio Kaprinai, series B, vol. 6, no. 42). This means that the church was a recognized center of pastoral care for the Orthodox population after the Union of Florence.

90 Németh, A középkori Szatmár, 301.

91 For the fifteenth century see Mihályi, Máramarosi diplomák, 223 (1418: duas capellas ligneas, unam videlicet Christianorum et aliam Ruthenorum in two villages in Máramaros County); Németh, A középkori Szatmár, 268 (1424, Szakasz—capella Olahorum). Németh’s book contains considerable data on the Wallachian population in Szatmár County. A further example from 1516: MNL OL DL 86750 (a conscription of a domain on the border of Bereg and Máramaros Counties lists three wooden churches—capella lignea more volachorum—in Ruszkova, Polyána, and Rosálya). In Zemplén County, new Orthodox chapels were built in the sixteenth century, e.g. in Felsőcsebény and Oroszsebes (today Vyšné Čabiny and Ruská Bystrá, Slovakia), in the mountains to the north and east of Nagymihály (Samu Borovszky, Magyarország vármegyéi és városai: Zemplén vármegye és Sátoraljaújhely r.t. város [The counties and towns of Hungary: Zemplén County and the town of Sátoraljaújhely] (Budapest–Sátoraljaújhely, 1905) 42 and 96). In Ugocsa County, a charter issued in 1471 listed thirteen villages inhabited by Wallachians and Ruthenians (MNL OL DL 70956). In 1491, the Orthodox population of Máramaros County and the surrounding mountainous region had a bishop who resided in the monastery of Körtvélyes (today Hrusheve, Ukraine). MNL OL DL 36886.

92 Engel, “Ung,” 974.

93 The valachi living on the territory of the Árva and Likava Castles received a privilege from King Matthias Corvinus in 1474. Wenzel, Magyarország mezőgazdaságának, 330–31. On the colonization process of Trencsén County, see Fekete Nagy, “Trencsén megye,” in Csánki, Magyarország történeti földrajza, vol. 4, 61–62.

94 Csepregi, Zoltán, Evangélikus lelkészek Magyarországon 2: a zsolnai zsinattól (1610) a soproni országgyűlésig (1681) [Lutheran pastors in Hungary part 2: from the synod of Zsolna, 1610 till the diet of Sopron, 1681] (Budapest, 2018). I would like to thank Professor Csepregi for his additional information about the database. Furthermore, see Dienes, Dénes ed., Református egyházlátogatási jegyzőkönyvek, 16–17. század [Protocols of canonical visitations of reformed churches, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries] (Budapest: Osiris, 2001); Tomisa, Ilona ed., Katolikus egyházlátogatási jegyzőkönyvek, 16–17. század [Protocols of canonical visitations of Catholic churches, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries] (Budapest: Osiris, 2002). On the mosques established on the territory under Ottoman rule in the sixteenth century, see Sudár, Balázs, Dzsámik és mecsetek a hódolt Magyarországon [Mosques in Ottoman Hungary] (Budapest: MTA Történettudományi Intézete, 2014).

95 R. Várkonyi, “Környezet és végvár,” esp. 17.

96 Feurdean, Tanţău, “The Evolution,” 81.

97 Bodnariuc et als., “Holocene vegetation.”

98 Törőcsik and Sümegi, “Pollen-based reconstruction.”

99 Fărcaş and Tanţău, “The Human Presence.”

100 Fărcaş and Tanţău, “The Human Presence”; Grindean et als., “Middle to Late Holocene,” 34.

101 Sümegi et als., 42.

102 Törőcsik and Sümegi, “Pollen-based reconstruction.”

103 Törőcsik and Sümegi, “Pollen-based reconstruction”; Mályusz, Turóc megye, 1922.

104 Szűcs, Az utolsó Árpádok, 316.

105 Szabó, “Changes in woodland,” 111.

106 Mályusz, Turóc megye; Weisz, “A bányaváros mint önálló”, 49–50.

107 Peters et als., “Holocene vegetation,” 15.

108 Feurdean et als., “A paleo-ecological,” 132.

109 Fărcaş and Tanţău, “The Human Presence,” 34.

110 Feurdean, “Holocene forest,” 442.

111 Vadas and Szabó, “Not Seeing the Forest,” 478.

112 Szabó, “Changes in woodland,” 111.

113 Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 362–68.

114 Szabó, “The Extent,” 221.

115 Tagányi, Erdészeti oklevéltár, vol. 1, 77.

116 Heckenast, A magyarországi vaskohászat, 109–10.

117 Vadas and Szabó, “Not Seeing the Forest,” 478.

Map 1. Eleventh-century churches, churchyards and monasteries (with late medieval mines). Map drawn by Beatrix F. Romhányi

Map 2a. The monastic network before the Mongol Invasion, 1241 (with the late medieval mines). Map drawn by Beatrix F. Romhányi

Map 2b. The monastic network around 1300 (with the late medieval mines). Map drawn by Beatrix F. Romhányi

Map 2c. The monastic network around 1500 (with the late medieval mines). Map drawn by Beatrix F. Romhányi

Map 3. Parishes in the Kingdom of Hungary, 1332–1337. (with the late medieval mines). Map drawn by Beatrix F. Romhányi

Map 4. Monastic estates donated before 1100 (with the late medieval mines). Map drawn by Beatrix F. Romhányii

Map 5. Priests, churches and mosques mentioned between 1550 and 1620 (with the late medieval mines). Map drawn by Beatrix F. Romhányi

2020_2_Rózsa

Evaluation of the Floodplain Farming of the Settlements of Nagykunság Based on the First Cadastral Survey*

Sándor Rózsa
Eszterházy Károly University
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Hungarian Historical Review Volume 9 Issue 2 (2020): 213-240 DOI:10.38145/2020.2.213

River control was perhaps the most significant form of anthropogenic environmental intervention in the Carpathian Basin, and in recent decades it has been the focus of considerable attention in the scientific community. However, in order to be able to evaluate this intervention, we need to know more about the floodplain management before the river regulations. In this essay, I provide data concerning the eighteenth-century floodplain management, on the basis of the first cadastral survey documents.
According to Klára Dóka and other researchers, the settlements of the region along the Tisza River were in crisis in the early nineteenth century because the floodplain farming system was not adequate to sustain the growing population. However, they based this conclusion on sources concerning population growth, and they did not substantiate their essential contention concerning overpopulation with accurate data on production and consumption. I have sought to determine whether there really was an overpopulation crisis in Nagykunság at the end of the eighteenth century. The main question concerns the relationship between production and needs. The next question is whether the farmers had excess grain which they could take to markets. In other words, was the floodplain farming system profitable? My research constitutes a contribution to the debate between Bertalan Andrásfalvy and Miklós Szilágyi on floodplain management.
The first cadastral survey documents contain detailed and reliable data on the management of the settlements, and I contend that they are more accurate and useful than the tax censuses which were compiled at the same time. The first step in the research was to establish the average annual consumption of the population.
According to the data of the cadastral survey, production exceeded the needs of the population in each settlement, and the value of the production surplus covered the tax burdens. Wheat had a marketable share of the yield, come to 30–40 percent of the total. Assuming that livestock breeding was even more advantageous, one could contend that the floodplain farming system was profitable. However, natural resources are distributed disproportionately as a result of property relations. In Nagykunság, this found its most dramatic embodiment in the redemptus-irredemptus contrast.
There were several events in the late eighteenth century, such as the construction of the Mirhó dam and migration to Bácska, on the basis of which researchers have inferred that the floodplain farming system was in crisis, but the cadastral survey suggests otherwise.

Keywords: floodplain farming system, carrying capacity, overpopulation, production statistics

My research seeks to determine whether (and to what extent) floodplain farming was differentiated in the eighteenth century, whether it was able to satisfy the needs of the settlements, and how much marketable produce surplus was available to sell. In my study, by Nagykunság I do not mean the geographical landscape delimited on the basis of natural geographical aspects. I refer more narrowly to the Nagykun District, a political-administrative entity of eighteenth-century Hungary which formed part of the present-day Jászkun-District. I examined the water management of the six settlements which constituted Nagykunság at the end of the eighteenth century: Karcag, Kisújszállás, Túrkeve, Kunhegyes, Kunmadaras and Kunszentmárton.

The study of floodplain farming in Nagykunság is mainly justified by the fact that the population of the area carried out the first significant water regulation works in the Central Tisza Region in Hungary (well before the great river regulations of the nineteenth century took place), the so-called Mirhó Dam. The scour channel (fok)1 was first closed in the middle of the eighteenth century, but the rudimentary rampart erected at that time could not withstand major floods, despite frequent repairs. In 1776, the owners of Heves County demolished the rampart. They claimed that due to a decrease in the floodplain reservoir capacity, they were experiencing higher levels of flooding on the right bank of the Tisza. The settlements of the Nagykun district submitted a complaint about this almost immediately, but the permission required to reconstruct the dam was obtained only in 1785, and the rampart was rebuilt only in 1787, and even the owners of Heves County helped with the works.2 The flood relief work carried out by the settlements of the Nagykun district is considered in the secondary literature, primarily works on water history, one of the antecedents of the periodic regulations of the nineteenth century, and it is mostly treated as an indicator of the crisis faced by the farming system.3 Klára Dóka strove to reveal the origins of the elimination of floodplain farming by examining the farming of the settlements along the Tisza at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In her view, extensive floodplain farming faced a crisis by the turn of eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as it could no longer meet the needs of an increasing population, which prompted the communities to transform the previous system and intervene in the environment.4 However, based on my research carried out in recent years, I have considerable doubts about the need to eliminate floodplain farming behind the construction of the Mirhó Dam.5 The construction of the dam in 1786 alone cannot be considered evidence of overpopulation,6 it is necessary to assess the economic condition of the settlements, i.e. to carry out a production-need-based study.

An Outstanding Source: The First Cadastral Survey

During the period of enlightened absolutism, many valuable sources were created in connection with the economic, social, and environmental conditions of the country, of which, from the perspective of the questions at hand in this essay, the census and the military and cadastral survey should be highlighted. Of these, the cadastral survey is a lesser-known source, which is mainly due to the territorial mosaic character of the preservation of documents, as most of the documents created in preparation for the sharing of public burdens fell victim to the resistance of the estates after the emperor’s death.

The documents are valuable in part because they strove for completeness (i.e. they recorded all lands, regardless of whether the owner had tax exemption) and in part because they are based on cutting-edge statistical methods (homogeneous data structure, averaged data, etc.) and the survey was conducted professionally (through a well-established institutional system and by qualified engineers). We are well acquainted with the process according to which the survey was conducted, as the survey instructions7 survived and through the thorough exploratory work of statistician Zoltán Dávid.8 These are a great help in assessments of the reliability of the data.9

In the area under examination, a complete survey document survived only in connection with Kunszentmárton.10 As for the other five settlements, only the so-called summary sheets are available.11 However, such sheets also survived in the case of all the settlements in Kiskunság and Jászság, which thus make possible a comparative analysis. In the second half of the twentieth century, Dávid attempted to map the surviving documents of the cadastral survey, and he published some of the data (183 settlements) in a study, along with his analysis of the data.12 The data provided by Dávid provided an opportunity for me to compare the floodplain farming used by the settlements of Nagykunság with the farming used in the settlements in other regions.

Indicators of Agricultural Cultivation in Nagykunság at the End
of the Eighteenth Century

The settlements of Nagykunság were characterized by differentiated farming after repopulation in the eighteenth century. The leading sector was livestock farming, as livestock enjoyed better market sales opportunities and optimal environmental conditions. Grains were grown mainly for subsistence purposes, the sale of surpluses at the market was typical in the middle of the century. In the nineteenth century, as a result of the grain boom, the importance of arable crop production increased steadily, and self-sufficiency was replaced by commodity production. Tibor Bellon has thoroughly examined the farming in the settlements of Nagykunság in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.13 However, as an ethnographer, he ignored in-depth statistical analyses and did not explore the process of structural change in detail. If one examines floodplain farming, the relative weight of crop and livestock production compared to each other is by no means a marginal issue. Most researchers assume there was a grain boom at the focal point of water regulations. As grain production can be carried out only at high risk in a floodplain environment, it was necessary for the area to be free from floods.14

In the cadastral records, the data on meadows and pastures are the most uncertain, as the extents of utilization in floodplain environments varied depending on the intensity and duration of floods, which also provided a good opportunity for farmers to make the határ15 areas (the peasants’ individual plots along, with the buildings of the village and, often, areas of communal meadow, woodland, vineyards and/or pasture) used for grazing appear to be useless at certain times of the year. In terms of meadows and pastures, Karcag and Kisújszállás were in the worst situation. The average of 2.5 katasztrális hold16 per capita calculated here is particularly low compared to Túrkeve (5.13 katasztrális hold/capita) and Kunhegyes (4.84 katasztrális hold/capita). This is due to the hydro-geomorphological conditions, as the former two settlements lie deeper17 and they directly border the Berettyó River. The average in the settlements of Nagykunság (3.71 katasztrális hold/capita) is higher than the average in the settlements of Jászság (2.80 katasztrális hold/capita), but it lags far behind the average of nearly 10 katasztrális hold/capita of the settlements in Kiskunság, with a large határ area and typically low population density. However, it is worth drawing a comparison with the areas outside Jászkunság as well. Most settlements in Nagykunság had a lower average than the average of 4.22 katasztrális hold/capita in Heves County and Külső-Szolnok County, but they were in a better position than Győr County, which had an average of 2.23 katasztrális hold/capita, Moson County (2.5 katasztrális hold/capita), and Sopron County, with an average of 0.58 katasztrális hold/capita (except for Kisújszállás and Karcag).18 Although a land size/person similar to or worse than that of the control areas was observed in Nagykunság, and the highest yielding meadows and pastures were found here. In Nagykunság, the average hay yield was 10 quintals (1,000 kilograms) per katasztrális hold while in Jászság it was only 7.3 quintals (730 kilograms) and in Kiskunság it was 3.5 quintals (350 kilograms).

Much more reliable conclusions can be drawn on the basis of the data on ploughland than the aforementioned data. In the settlements of Nagykunság, the average ploughland per person was 1.55 katasztrális hold, which is significantly less than the average in the settlements of Jászság (2.94 katasztrális hold/capita) and Kiskunság (4.14 katasztrális hold/capita). The average in the settlements of Nagykunság lags behind the average in the settlements of Heves- and Külső-Szolnok (1.96 katasztrális hold/capita), Moson- (1.74 katasztrális hold/capita) and Győr County (1.68 katasztrális hold/capita), but it far exceeds the average in those of Sopron County (1.03 katasztrális hold/capita). However, if we subtract the demesne lands from all the ploughlands, it is 0.90 katasztrális hold per capita in Heves- and Külső-Szolnok County, 1 in Győr, 1.74 in Moson,
and 0.92 in Sopron County.

The 1.55 katasztrális hold per capita does not seem low compared to the data from the four counties, but it is depressingly low compared to Jászság and Kiskunság. Looking at the area size per capita in Nagykunság alone, we should assume a serious growth constraint or overpopulation, but it sheds a different light on the data if we also take into account the quality of the lands, i.e. their yield averages. The yield average in Nagykunság was 9.1 pozsonyi mérő (p. m.) (1 pozsonyi mérő = between 53.72 and 62.08 liters) per cadastral acre, which is well above the 3.83 p. m. per cadastral acre in Jászság and the 2.45 p. m. per cadastral acre in Kiskunság. In the 183 settlements surveyed by Dávid, the ploughlands produced an average grain yield of 7.7 p. m. Of course, I also had the suspicion that there might be some statistical error behind the exceptionally high yield averages or inaccurate or false yield data from Kiskunság and Jászság. There are no indications that the data on the settlements of Jászság and Kiskunság would be skewed downwards or the data on Nagykunság upwards. Only a comparison with the grain production potential19 can be considered a resource-critical tool. The average wheat production potential of the settlements of Nagykunság is four points better than that of Jászság and seven points better than the average in the settlements of Kiskunság. The average yield per settlement calculated on the basis of the cadastral survey shows a strong correlation with the wheat production potential, and thus the cadastral data seem reliable. The high yield average in the settlements of Nagykunság and the low ploughland area per capita suggest that, at the time, only the high-quality lands optimal for arable crop production were utilized on the határ of the settlements. Thus, low ploughland per capita should not itself be considered a sign of overpopulation. Rather, it may indicate a lower preponderance of crop production compared to livestock production.

Most researchers agree that in the eighteenth century, pastoral farming was the most important agricultural sector in Nagykunság, and arable crop production was carried out only for self-sufficiency.20 However, we have data on the market sales of grain from the middle of the eighteenth century as well. In 1750, palatine Miklós Pálffy ordered a survey of the economic strength of the settlements of Jászkunság to be conducted in order to levy taxes more proportionally. According to this census, the landholders of Nagykunság mostly sold their grain on the markets in Miskolc and Debrecen,21 but we have no data on the volume of the grain trade. For example, the landholders of Kunszentmárton mentioned that some landholders did not sell any mérő of grain in 10 years. Thus, the information concerning which markets the farmers s old their grains on does not suggest in itself that grain production was determined by production for marketing. Examining the cadastral data, we can clearly see that the ploughland per capita shows a small variance in the settlements of Nagykunság (1.1–2 cadastral acres per capita), i.e. the extent of ploughland was relatively closely related to the population, which indicates self-sufficiency in the sector. If we assume that crop production was under extensive compulsion to grow, whether due to market conditions or unsatisfied domestic need, the amount of ploughland would be determined not by the population but by the amount of potentially suitable areas. All this, of course, is only true if we rule out the possibility that the ploughland had already reached its maximum possible extent and the small standard deviation of the ploughland per capita was purely coincidental. We have already seen that the hydro-geomorphological features of the határs of the Nagykun settlements are different, and consequently their agricultural potential is also different. It therefore hardly seems likely that the ploughland reached its maximum extent, and thus the relationship between the extent of ploughland and the size of the population is not a statistical coincidence but an indication of self-sufficiency in crop production. Of course, this does not exclude the possibility that in years of high yields the surplus that was produced over the domestic consumption needs of the population was sold on the market. However, we can only venture conclusions concerning how much this amount may have been (and this is an important question of this study) if we also have estimates for consumption.

Calculation of Population Needs

Determining the grain needs of the peasant farms in Nagykunság is a very difficult task, as we have to take into account a number of variables (proportion of meat and cereal consumption, dietary habits, differences in nutrient requirements by gender and age groups, the impact of work activities, etc.) on which we have only sporadic data. However, as the relationship between production and consumption is a key issue in evaluating farming, despite these difficulties, we find a relatively large number of estimates in the literature and in contemporary statistical sources. In the present study, given the absence of adequate resources, I neither intend to estimate the contemporary needs of individuals, families, or peasant farms nor do I wish to contribute directly to the debates in this regard. I tried to bridge the problem of uncertainty by using estimates offered by several researchers and contemporary sources together, and since the sources so far provide little support, I assess their relevance to Nagykunság and the conditions of the relatively short period (the end of the eighteenth century) only to the extent needed.

The following estimates have been used for the annual grain need per person/family/household:

– Géza Perjés’ estimate for the eighteenth century: 3.5 q = 7.51 p. m./capita/year,22

– István Orosz’ estimate: 5 kila = 5 p. m./capita/year,23

– The average consumption used in the 1868 harvest statistics: 5 p. m./capita/year,24

– According to István N. Kiss’ estimate, a family’s minimum need for bread grain is: 6 q = 13 p. m./family/year,25

– In 1782, based on the aggregation of the Miskolc city council on grain need: 18 p. m./family/year,26

– Based on the censuses conducted in the Triple Districts during the Napoleonic Wars: 6 kila/capita/year,27

– Based on the 1816 Triple District Census: 1 kila barley/capita/year, 1 kila wheat/capita/year.28

Three of the data are estimates made after the fact and four were arrived at by contemporary public administrations. In order to make the calculations easier, I converted the needs to p. m., i.e. the unit of measurement that was also used in the cadastral survey. I did not consider the use of metric measurement units appropriate, because during conversion, pozsonyi mérő, which is one of the liquid measurement units, has to be converted to a weight measure, which can only be done with significant uncertainty.29

The lowest average need comes from the 1816 census, but these data are related to the “poverty census” and thus they should be interpreted as the minimum need of the population, and if the total grain production of any settlement did not reach the total population need calculated according to this, it indicates severe overpopulation. István N. Kiss’ estimate of 6 q/family, i.e. converted and rounded to 13 p. m./family/year, divided by the average family size of 5 people calculated on the basis of József’s census data, means an average consumption of 2.6 p. m./person/year. The consumption of 18 p. m./family/year, determined by the Miskolc City Council in 1782, corresponds to an average consumption of 3.6 p. m. per person, and thus, together with the former, it is one of the lower estimates. The average value is consumption used in the 1868 harvest statistics and the census made during the Napoleonic Wars, and István Orosz also assumed a similar annual need per person. The most well-founded estimate seems to be that of Géza Perjés, who estimated the main annual need at 3.5 quintals, (7.51 p. m.) based on calorie needs and taking into account a whole range of variables (work intensity, age and gender-related differences, the calorific value and milling characteristics of grains, etc.). In connection with his estimation, the biggest question is how livestock farming can be adapted to the population of the central settlements of the Great Plain; he himself drew attention to this uncertainty factor as well.30 However, in the communities of the Great Plain, which were mainly engaged in livestock farming, the proportion of grains in the average diet may have been lower, and this may have been especially true for floodplain settlements, where fish, game, and fruit (with regard to floodplain orchards) may have been been a proportionally larger part of the average diet. Another question is the extent to which the average daily consumption of 4,000 calories per an adult man, calculated by Perjés (and this seems high even seen from the perspective of today), can be generalized in the eighteenth century. In view of all this, Perjés’ data can be considered a kind of “upper” estimate.

The issue is further complicated by the question of what we exactly mean by food or bread grain in the era. During the cadastral survey, the yields of four cereals (wheat, rye, barley, and oats) were recorded. In peasant culture, of these, wheat and rye clearly appeared as food grains, while oats appeared essentially as fodder crops. However, barley can be classified in either category only with reservations. According to Miklós Szilágyi, little care was taken to store the barley in the eighteenth century, so it was probably considered a lower value grain.31 However, cereal porridge was the daily food of the people of Nagykunság, and according to sources, barley porridge, which was called gerslin, was also consumed.32 The population clearly sought mainly to consume bread grains, but after the depletion of these stocks, the consumption of barley as porridge could also have been considered. I tried to bridge the uncertainty about the general use of grains by comparing the needs with three basic categories, namely bread grains (wheat and rye), food grains in the broad sense (wheat, rye and barley), and the total grain yields (wheat + rye + barley + oat).

Need / Production

If we calculate using the lowest average consumption (2 p. m./person/year), we see that the settlements of Nagykunság addressed many of the food needs of the population with wheat, and if we take bread grain and food grain into account, 5–6 fold overproduction occurs. The total settlement need calculated in this way should clearly be considered a minimum need for survival, and if the yield per cadastre calculated on the basis of the averages over the course of several years were close to or below this value, it would indicate severe overpopulation. In the settlements of Nagykunság, however, even the wheat yield exceeded this multiple times, and there was no settlement in Jászkunság where the production would remain below this value. (Table 1).

Table 1. Production and need based on the highest and lowest average consumption.
Source: JNSZML IV. 2. 76.

Calculated with the estimate from the 1816 census (in p.m.)
	Wheat			Barley
	Net production1	Need2	Difference (percent)3	Net production	Need	Difference (percent)
Karcag	38,645	7,580	410	41,555	7,580	448
Kisújszállás	24,365	5,266	363	27,359	5,266	420
Kunhegyes	16,206	3,666	342	14,386	3,666	292
Kunmadaras	12,648	3,966	219	18,782	3,966	374
Kunszentmárton	20,169	2,985	576	20,355	2,985	582
Túrkeve	18,604	3,934	373	26,846	3,934	582
Calculated with a consumption of 5 p. m/person/year
	Grain bread (wheat and rye)			Edible cereals
	Net production	Need	Difference (percent)	Net production	Need	Difference (percent)
Karcag	48,192	37,900	27	89,747	37,900	137
Kisújszállás	29,965	26,330	14	57,324	26,330	118
Kunhegyes	20,187	18,330	10	34,573	18,330	89
Kunmadaras	24,493	19,830	24	43,275	19,830	118
Kunszentmárton	26,564	14,925	78	46,919	14,925	214
Túrkeve	31,558	19,670	60	58,404	19,670	197
Calculated with the estimate made by Perjés
	Grain bread (wheat and rye)			Edible cereals
	Net production	Need	Difference (percent)	Net production	Need	Difference (percent)
Karcag	48,192	56,980	-15	89,969	56,980	58
Kisújszállás	29,965	39,585	-24	57,924	39,585	46
Kunhegyes	20,187	27,558	-27	35,564	27,558	29
Kunmadaras	24,493	29,813	-18	45,436	29,813	52
Kunszentmárton	26,564	22,439	18	47,094	22,439	110
Túrkeve	31,558	29,573	7	58,737	29,573	99

1 Without the need for seeds. In the cadastral survey, seed was deducted from the crop and this net yield was also recorded. I used this in all my calculations.

2 Only in terms of human consumption.

3 As a percentage of need.

The mean value of the average consumption estimate is given by the 3–5 p. m./person/year calculations. The total population needs calculated on the basis of this were met by the wheat yield only in Karcag and Kunszentmárton, but in the latter, 35 percent of the wheat yield (a relatively high proportion) was overproduction. If we also add the rye yield to this, there is no longer any settlement in Nagykunság where there was underproduction, and in the case of Kunszentmárton and Túrkeve, there was even a surplus of 60–70 percent. If we add barley to this, a 100–200 percent overproduction arises in Nagykunság.

However, the situation is less favorable if we calculate with the average annual consumption of 6 and 7.51 p. m., which form the upper estimates. Wheat production alone does not meet the entire needs in any of the settlements, and an underproduction of 10–30 percent can be observed in terms of bread grain. Exceptions are Kunszentmárton and Túrkeve, where bread grain met the needs and there was even an overproduction of 6–18 percent. However, if we consider food grain, a more favorable picture emerges, as production exceeded the needs in all settlements and, moreover, Kunszentmárton and Túrkeve produced 100 percent more than they needed.

As we can see, due to the uncertainty on the consumption side, it is difficult to accurately assess the relationship between production and consumption; however, some important conclusions can be drawn from the data. Production exceeded the minimum need by several times in all settlements, which makes it clear that there was no serious overpopulation. However, according to Géza Perjés’ estimate, the production of the settlements only slightly exceeded consumption. It is, however, important to note that Perjés’ calculations assume an extremely ideal consumption even for later periods. Thus, in the years of average yields, the population could have had plenty of grain to sell, not to mention the years of good yields. As production exceeded 4–5 times the minimum need, the worse-than-average years could not have caused more serious disturbances; at most the complete crop yield might have been consumed. Of course, it would be misleading to assess the relationship of production and consumption solely on the basis of physiological needs, to which we must certainly add the various types of tax burdens as well.

In the case of the settlements of Nagykun, the tax books (Conscriptio facultatum) of four settlements, Karcag, Kisújszállás, Túrkeve and Kunszentmárton, remained for the years of 1780, but in the case of the latter two, the column of the paid amount remained unfilled. In the year of 1784/85 the population of Karcag paid a tax of RFT (Rhine Forint) 4,958,33 and that of Kisújszállás RFT 2,856.34 The amounts include both the war tax (contributio) and the habitation tax (domestica). The amount of taxes did not exceed 7 percent of the total cadastral income for a settlement. Taking into account the assumed highest grain need per capita in the two settlements of Nagykun (Perjés), we can calculate with 32,829 p. m. surpluses in Karcag and 18,339 p. m. in Kisújszállás, considering the whole grain crop together. Calculated on the basis of the average prices of wheat, rye, barley and oats (based on market prices reported in the cadastral survey), this is about 13,470 and 7,029 RFT.35 It follows that, in principle, the full amount of taxes could be paid merely from the sale of surplus grain. Considering the presumably higher benefits of livestock farming, the amount of war and habitation taxes alone did not impose an unbearably high burden on the population. This is, of course, a theoretical calculation as we do not know what proportion of the crop was actually marketable. Unfortunately, I did not find any summary data on the in-kind part of the war tax, but I assume that its burden might not have been greater than that of the part paid in money. I did not find any data on the exact distribution of the annual 12,600 RFT palatine census, either; however, based on the value calculations of the surplus crops in Karcag and Kisújszállás, it could hardly have been an unbearable burden. In 1837, Márton Bartsik, the archivist of Jászkunság, made a summary of the benefits in money and extraordinary in kind ones provided by the Jászkun District between 1735 and 1837.36 According to this, the largest produce delivery for military purposes for the period of 1750 and 1800 took place in 1760, when the three districts delivered 60,000 p. m. of grain. This was 5.91 percent of the total annual grain production of the districts. It is also a clear indication that a total of 573,471p. m. of grain collected on extraordinary occasions amounted to 56 percent of the annual average production of the district during hundred years.

In the above calculation of grain surplus only the physiological need and tax burdens were considered however, it is important to take into account feed requirements and and storage losses too. József Glósz examined the balance of grain production throughout the country, calculating with 9 p.m/capita/years of needs, of which 5 liters of physiological needs and 4 liters of other needs, which include tax burdens, animal feed and storage losses.37 Assuming an average consumption of 9 liters, there was an overproduction of 52 percent38 in Nagykun District, Túrkeve (103 percent) was in the best position and Kunhegyes (17 percent) was in the worst. It should be noted, however, that farmers in the Nagykun district did not pay the landlord’s tax, and compared to other landscapes, there was probably less grain used for fodder here, because grazing was typical and pastures were rich, so the average consumption of 9 p.m/capita/years seems a lot. However, indicated the good situation of cereal production is by the fact that even with this high average demand, a significant surplus of cereals can be observed.

According to Glósz’s calculations, there was a small underproduction in Nagykunság in the first half of the nineteenth century.39 However, according to the cadastral survey, with the same average demand that Glósz used, there was a 26 percent overproduction in the Jászkun District at the end of the eighteenth century. This can be explained by the fact that between 1780 and 1840 the population increased by 74 percent, but the arable land by only 29 percent. Given that the comprehensive river regulation that allowed for greater extensive development of crop production only began in the mid-nineteenth century, this does not seem unrealistic. This study confirms Glósz’s remark that county-level statistics may mask significant regional differences. The overproduction was 26 percent in the Jászkun District, but there were significant regional differences: the overproduction was 52 percent in the Nagykun District, 11 percent in the Jász District and 22 percent in the Kiskun District.

Distribution of Resources

The analysis of production and need presented so far is a highly theoretical calculation, as I have compared the total needs of the settlements with the total production, but relative overpopulation can also result from a large inequality in the distribution of resources. In principle, it can be assumed, for example, that the grain crop, which supplies the entire population of the settlement, is concentrated in the hands of a few landowners who constitute a small part of society, and thus the majority of the population faces food insecurity. The social division created by redemption40 (landowner redeemers/irredeemers displaced from land ownership) brought with it the possibility of such a situation. Fortunately, the individual sheets41 of the cadastral survey also provide an opportunity to examine the estate structure, but such a document has survived only in connection with Kunszentmárton. However, there is no indication that my findings regarding Kunszentmárton cannot be generalized to the other five settlements with due caution.

In Kunszentmárton, 473 landholders were registered during the cadastral survey, i.e. persons with at least an internal plot (with a house, a garden), 17 of whom did not have any ploughland, meadows, pastures, or vineyards. According to other sources, 269 redeemer landowners lived in the settlement, and thus it seems that even irredeemer landholders obtained access to land cultivated in the system of the land community during the cadastral survey period. In the landed estate structure of Kunszentmárton, however, the marked social response line formed by redemption emerges clearly. At first glance, the structure of the landed estate (Table 2) gives a strongly negative picture, as 26 landless and 183 (38 percent of all landholders) family heads with less than one cadastral acre was recorded. From the point of view of overpopulation, it can undoubtedly be considered negative that almost 46 percent of the population had little or no ploughland or meadow that could be cultivated, as this clearly resulted in a continuously intense demand for land. However, it is also important to point out that a favorable structure of landed estate emerges within the stratum of the redeemers (practically the landholders with land of more than 1 cadastral acre in the table). Among redeemers, especially in the case of ploughland, the landholders in each category and the total cultivated area in that category are relatively proportional.42 Accordingly, in this social stratum, i.e. in the actual landholders, land subdivision was not yet so widespread; this stratum could be less characterized by internal tension. Undoubtedly, the pressure of the stratum of irredeemers gradually became more severe on that of the redeemers, but the key question in judging overpopulation is how great this pressure could have been and whether it could be managed under the given conditions.

In 1786, hundreds of mostly irredeemer families migrated to Bácska as part of the chamber’s efforts to relocate sectors of the population. Relocation is interpreted by most researchers as a symptom of a crisis in the community when internal tensions have reached a level so critical that they trigger emigration. In connection with this, however, I would like to mention my hypothesis that emigration was motivated more by the benefits of the chamber’s relocation efforts than by internal social tension. This seems to prove that the councils of the Nagykun settlements initially strove to impede43 the organization related to emigration, and the landlords of Külső-Szolnok County wanted to allow emigration from their villages only on condition that the families moving away find new landholders to take their place.44 This behavior seems illogical if we assume that the settlements were facing an overpopulation crisis.

As the statistics show, the relatively large number (38 percent) of Kunszentmárton’s heads of families were landless peasants or smallholders, and consequently landholders with lower levels of wealth and property. However, the stratum of irredeemers was also highly differentiated. On the one hand, there were landholders who had significant numbers of livestock, and on the other, there were herdsmen, horse herdsmen, shepherds, etc.,45 who played an important role in livestock farming and otherwise enjoyed relatively high social prestige. It is very important that smallholders in the land statistics who cultivated less than one cadastral acre not be clearly considered social outcasts living at the poverty line, as most of them were servants and laborers in the service of redeemer landowners who had an income above the subsistence level. In the eighteenth century, the lord-peasant relationship was strictly regulated centrally by district administrations and at the local level by settlement councils: they prevented lords from luring contracted peasants away, sanctioned unilateral breaches of contract by the lord or peasant, and also set wages.46 The initial impediment to the organization of emigration was clearly motivated by the fear of losing a labor force. At the agrotechnical level of the eighteenth century, the existence of this stratum providing a labor force was a normal condition for the operation of the farm, as the labor force of a family alone may mostly not have been sufficient to cultivate the estates of redeemer landlords with medium and large lands.47

According to the cadastral survey, 209 landless farm peasants or dwarf holders lived in Kunszentmárton, and they accounted for 38 percent of all landholders. It is worth comparing this ratio with regional and national averages, but this is difficult to do. Of the surrounding settlements, the individual sheets survived only in Tiszaszalók (it is a part of Abádszalók today). The settlements of Jászkunság cannot be compared with one another due to lack of sources. In Tiszaszalók, the ratio of cottars with less than one cadastral acre was quite high, 61 percent. Of course, the socage settlement can only be compared with the privileged Kunszentmárton with certain reservations, as the landholders classified as cottars in the former may have had access to the allodial land of the landlords. Accordingly, the data for Tiszaszalók are likely to be skewed upwards in terms of the ratio of landless peasants or dwarf holders. Furthermore, the question may arise whether the very high ratio of cottars can be attributed to some peculiarity of the settlement. However, the ratio of socage and allodial lands and the ploughland per person is close to the averages in the settlements of Heves and Külső-Szolnok Counties,48 and on the basis of its urbarium, it does not differ from the settlements along the river Tisza, either.49

According to the census in Nagykunság, the ratio of male cottars was 36 percent of all adult men. This ratio was 39 percent for the whole of Jászkunság, 48.5 in Heves and Külső-Szolnok Counties, 51 percent in Pest County, 32 percent in Győr County, and 51 percent for the whole of the Kingdom of Hungary.50 In Nagykunság, therefore, the ratio of the landless peasants does not seem striking. At the time of the socage settlement, 27.12 percent of the cottars in the Kingdom of Hungary belonged to the category of housed cottars and 6.23 percent to the category of houseless cottars. By 1791, this proportion rose to 29.64 and 9.25 percent, respectively. Also in 1791, the ratio of housed and houseless cottars was 33.16 percent and 11.66 percent respectively in the counties of the Great Plain.51 Based on these, on the other hand, the ratio of irredeemers of 38 percent with no land or little land but with a house in Kunszentmárton seems a bit high.

An important issue associated with overpopulation is the standard of living of the lower social strata. Fortunately, the individual sheets of the cadastral survey indicated not only the extent of the land cultivated by certain landholders, but also their yield. In Kunszentmárton, only 39 landholders (7 percent) were listed who did not produce any kind of grain, and 30 percent of them produced less than 5 p. m., which was the lower annual need of a person. 53 percent of landholders produced 13 p. m. meeting one family’s minimum annual need on their own land, and 46 percent of landholders harvested more than 37.5 p. m.52 regarded as the upper estimate (Perjés). Thus, in terms of the distribution of production (Table 3), and thus 30 percent of landholders produced below the subsistence level, roughly 7 percent of them produced 13–40 p. m. needed only to provide for the family, and 46 percent also produced a surplus. Thus, a significant part of families produced a marketable surplus. However, I have to nuance the picture that emerges from the survey data at two points. My calculations refer to food grain, which also includes barley, the consumption of which as porridge may have been a stop-gap solution. A further criticism of the calculation may be that it records the average yield. Landholders with an average production of roughly 40 p. m. may have been the ones who were able to ensure their own crop supply even in poorer crop years. This applies to 54 percent of all landholders.

Table 3. Distribution of cereal production among individual landholders in Kunszentmárton based on first cadastral survey

Distribution of cereal production*
(pozsonyi mérő)	Number of landholders	percent	All cereals produced in category	percent
Less than 1	66	13.95	48	0.03
1 – 4	78	16.49	1.076	0.6
5 – 9	70	14.80	1.626	0.91
10 – 19	17	3.59	852	0.48
20 – 39	23	4.86	2.363	1.33
40 – 79	36	7.61	7.945	4.46
80 – 159	65	13.74	29.654	16.65
160 – 319	81	17.12	65.559	36.81
320 – 639	32	6.77	51.309	28.81
640 –	5	1.06	17.646	9.91

* The cadastral data of Kunszentmárton coincide with the estimation of József Glósz of the average yield of the categories of serf plots. See: Glósz, “A birtokviszonyok hatása,” 206. The average yield of the estates belonging to the 40–50 Hungarian lunar category was 267 p. m. (According to Glósz, this category had a yield of 280 p. m.), 25–30 magyar hold – 176 p. m. (Ibid., 185), 20–21 magyar hold – 133 p. m. (Ibid., 140), 13–15 magyar hold – 90 p. m. (Ibid., 90), 5–10 magyar hold – 42 p. m. (Ibid., 46), 3–5 magyar hold – 22 p. m. (Ibid., 23). 1 magyar hold = 0,76 katasztrális hold.

Based on the above, it seems that at the end of the eighteenth century, the structure of landed estate in Kunszentmárton did not yet show significant fragmentation of the estate, which contradicts the hypothesis according to which the settlement was largely overpopulated. However, the optimal condition observed in the settlement cannot necessarily be considered valid for the whole of Nagykunság. In the other settlements of Nagykunság, the ratio of irredeemers was lower, which, however, does not only mean that there were fewer social tensions and, consequently, less hunger for land, but also that there may have been a less favorable structure of landed estate within the stratum of landowners, as all the cultivable land was shared between several owners. This could have been somewhat offset by the fact that the land available was proportionally larger, but this was not the case, as the utilized area per capita in Kunszentmárton (5.71 cadastral acres/person) exceeded the average in the settlements in Nagykunság (5.31 cadastral acres/person). However, these uncertainties are not greater than the uncertainties in the analyses that have been conducted by researchers so far. Based on the data of the cadastral survey, it can be stated that the amount of natural resources in relation to the population and the distribution of resources at the turn of the century were still relatively optimal, at least compared to other areas.

Assessment of the Economic Condition: Conclusions

The main question of the present study was whether the settlements of Nagykunság were afflicted by overpopulation due to failing to meet basic food needs and thus to what extent the anthropogenic interventions in the ecosystems (the construction of Mirhó Dam) could have been motivated by a kind of extensive growth compulsion. Due to the limited sources which were produced during and survive from the time, the question cannot be answered with certainty, but from the data of the first cadastral survey, which has been undeservedly neglected in environmental history research so far, many conclusions can be drawn which are new compared to assessments carried out by researchers previously.

According to the data of the cadastral survey, the grain production of the settlements of Nagykunság met the domestic consumption needs of the population, and taxes as well as the feed needs of animals too, and the population also had a surplus that could be sold on the market in normal and good crop years. The population of the settlements grew arable crops mainly for self-sufficiency, which is indicated by the relatively close relationship between the size of the ploughland and the population. The structure of the landed estate, i.e. the most important natural resource and the distribution of agricultural land, was still optimal at the end of the eighteenth century, both at national and regional levels.53 The overpopulation which, according to Klára Dóka, was an issue in the case of the settlements along the Tisza and the resulting growth compulsion can be detected only to a small extent in the case of the settlements of Nagykunság, along with the social tensions resulting mostly from redemption. The farming of the settlements of Nagykunság was characterized by the optimal utilization of environmental resources, and thus by high average yields (especially in the case of grain production).

The construction of the Mirhó Dam can undoubtedly be attributed to the confrontation between nature and man, but this is probably not due to the need to change the existing land use system, but to changes in the system due to external factors, in our case to the periodic changes in climatic conditions. This is indicated by the fact that the complaint letters written before the construction of the dam mention disturbances arising in the use of areas already under cultivation (flooded meadows all year round, ploughlands and vineyards protected by dykes, etc.) and do not formulate the need to involve new areas.54 The grain boom which emerged later and which forced the floodplain communities of the Carpathian Basin to change to dryland farming can’t have been behind the construction of the Mirhó Dam in chronological terms, either. If we accept the picture which emerges on the basis of the cadastral data, i.e. that the farming system at the end of the eighteenth century was relatively optimal, it is also unlikely that the goal of the farming communities involved in dam construction would have been to eliminate the farming system which had been in use until then. With regard to the construction, it is also worth noting that the dam was erected in the first half of the eighteenth century (i.e. in the initial period of reorganization), which suggests the possibility that the existence of the dam was a normal condition for floodplain farming. The intervention was rather the only active element of the basically passive floodplain farming carried out by the settlements of Nagykunság, similar to the way in which the settlements of Sárköz selected the scour channels (fok) that were unfavorable to them. Thus, the aim of building the Mirhó Dam could not have been to drain the area, but to create a more regulated water system. Based on the above, I agree with Zsolt Pinke, who suggests that water management work was caused by the environmental challenges caused by intermittent climate change, and I also agree that the conflict among settlements stems from differences in hydro-geomorphological conditions.55 However, given that floodplain management appears to have been statistically profitable and that significant quantities of marketable grain were available, in my opinion pressures from population growth may have played little role in dam construction in the eighteenth century.

My results are an adjunct to floodplain management debates too. The opinions of two significant researchers on the topic, Bertalan Andrásfalvy56 and Miklós Szilágyi,57 differed mainly on the question as to whether floodplain management was profitable and well-planned. My results are closer to Andrásfalvy’s opinion on efficiency, as floodplain farming was profitable even in terms of field crop production, despite the fact that in the Nagykun District this sector was secondary. The study I have done does not in itself provide an opportunity to assess the other side, the planning of floodplain management, so I cannot contribute to the discussion in this respect.

However, the validity of my findings is limited by certain source-critical considerations, three of which are worth highlighting. In the case of the cadastral data, despite the fact that they provide much more reliable and less indirect information compared to the dical tax censuses of the period, there are a number of uncertainties. The uncertainties are rooted, on the one hand, in the fundamental problems of statistics and, on the other, in the much-mentioned interests of farmers in data distortion. The basic statistical problems include, for example, how much variance we have to reckon with in the case of the average yield, and the extent to which the pressure system caused fluctuations in production. The second major uncertainty factor is the determination of need. We have very little information on contemporary consumption patterns, especially at a given time and place, and the relatively large standard deviation of the estimates can be attributed to this. Moreover, need, like overpopulation, must be regarded as a relative concept. The third factor of uncertainty is the livestock farming sector as the cadastral survey provides data only indirectly in this regard. The main point is, therefore, that there are uncertainties about both the need and the production side, but in my view, they do not exceed the uncertainties about the types of sources used by researchers so far (e.g. tax censuses). Moreover, the cadastral survey also allows analyses which were not feasible on the basis of these other sources.

One of the important aims of the present study was to shed light on the need to reevaluate the statements made about floodplain farming, as in the light of newer sources, some questions are approached from a different perspective. It is also worth reconsidering these questions in light of new source-critical findings related to the sources used so far. The synthesizing character of environmental history requires that the statements made so far be checked from time to time, taking into account new findings in different disciplines and reevaluating prevailing conclusions if necessary.

Archival Sources

Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Levéltára (JNSZML) [Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok County Archives]

V. 200. 1. a./a Kisújszállás város levéltára [Archives of the city of Kisújszállás]. Vegyes tanácsi iratok XVIII–XIX. sz. Mirhó-gát építésével kapcsolatos iratok.

V. 200. 1. a./b Kisújszállás város levéltára [Archives of Kisújszállás]. Conscriptio Facultatum [Census of goods] 1784/1785.

V. 100. 145. Karcag város levéltára [Archives of Karcag]. Conscriptio Facultatum Priv. oppidi Kardszag-Uj-Szállás [Census of goods in Karcag] 1784/1785.

V. 1900. 792. Kunszentmárton város levéltára [Archives of Kunszentmárton]. Conscriptio II. József-féle [Census in the era of Joseph II] 1789.

IV. 2. 76. A Jászkun Kerület II. József-féle közigazgatási iratai [Administrative documents of the Jászkun District of the reign of Joseph II]. Községek terméskimutatása [Crop statement by villages] 1789.

T 30. Térképgyűjtemény [Map collection]. Gyolcs-mocsár térképe [Map of Gyolcs swamp] 1777.

Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára (MNL OL) [The National Archives of Hungary]

P. 6. 1. 21. Családok, személyek, testületek és egyesületek iratai [Records of families, persons and associations]. Ányos család [Documents of the Ányos family], II. József kataszteri utasításának magyar nyelvű példánya [The Hungarian copy of József II’ cadastral directions] 1786.

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Bagi, Gábor. “Egy bácskai kirajzás történeti háttere: A Tisza vidéki úrbéres települések lakosainak kivándorlási kísérletei a Bácskába 1785/87-ben” [Attempts of the inhabitants of the Tisza rural socage settlement to emigrate to Bácska]. In Jubileumi tudományos ülés a jászkunságiak bácskai kitelepülésének 200. évfordulóján. A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Múzeumok közleményei 44–45, edited by Gábor Bagi, and Gyöngyi Kaposvári, 131–62. Szolnok: Damjanich Múzeum, 1989.

Bagi, Gábor. “A Jászkun Kerület településeinek leírása 1750-ben” [Description of settlements in Jászkun District in 1750]. Zounuk 10 (1995): 233–84.

Bagi, Gábor. “Adatok a növénytermesztés nagyságához a Jászkun Kerületben 1786–1848 között” [Data on the size of crop production from Jászkun District]. Jászkunság: A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Tudományos Egyesület Évkönyve 2 (2014): 36–52.

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Bellon, Tibor. Karcag város gazdálkodása: Földművelés [Farming in Karcag: Crop production]. A Damjanich János Múzeum Közleményei 34–35. Szolnok, 1973.

Bellon, Tibor. Nagykunság [Great Cumania]. Budapest: Gondolat, 1979.

Bogdán, István. Magyarországi űr-, térfogat-, súly- és darabmértékek 1874-ig [Liquid-, volumetric-, weight- and piece measures in Hungary until 1874]. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1991.

Danyi, Dezső, and Zoltán Dávid, eds. Az első magyarországi népszámlálás 1784–1787 [The first population census in Hungary]. Budapest: Központi Statisztikai Hivatal, 1960.

Dávid, Zoltán. “Magyarország első kataszteri felmérése, 1786–1789” [The first cadastral survey in Hungary]. Történeti Statisztikai Évkönyv 1, no. 1 (1960): 33–58.

Dávid, Zoltán. “Adatok a mezőgazdasági termelés nagyságáról, 1786–1789” [Data on the size of agricultural production]. Történeti Statisztikai Évkönyv 4, no. 1 (1965): 99–141.

Dóka, Klára. “Gazdálkodás a Tisza árterein a XIX. század első felében” [Farming in the floodplain of Tisza River in the first half of the nineteenth century]. Agrártörténeti Szemle 24, no. 3–4 (1982): 277–303.

Elek, György. “ ‘Értünk Kunság mezején’: Táplálkozástörténeti adatok Karcag város 18–19. századi irataiból” [Nutritional history data from documents of Karcag in eighteenth and nineteenth century]. Zounuk 25 (2010): 125–57.

Fejér, László. A vízitársulatok 200 éve [Water companies for 200 years]. Budapest: Vízgazdálkodási Társulatok Országos Szövetsége, 2010.

Fodor, Nándor, László Pásztor, and Tamás Németh. “Coupling the 4M crop model with national geo-databases for assessing the effects of climate change on agroecological characteristics of Hungary.” International Journal of Digital Earth 7, no. 5 (2014): 391–410.

Fodor, Nándor, and László Pásztor. “The agro-ecological potential of Hungary and its prospective development due to climate change.” Applied Ecology and Environmental Research 8, no. 3 (2010): 177–90.

Glósz, József. “Területi hiány és felesleg Magyarország gabonatermelésében” [Grain shortages and surplus in the counties in Hungary in the first half of the nineteenth century]. Korall 10, no. 36 (2009): 119–40.

Glósz, József. “A birtokviszonyok hatása Magyarország gabonamérlegére a 19. század első felében” [The effect of estate structure on Hungary’s grain balance in the first half of the nineteenth century]. In Eszmék, forradalmak, háborúk: Vadász Sándor 80 éves, edited by István Majoros, 199–215. Budapest: ELTE BTK Kelet-Európa Története Tanszék, 2017.

Gyimesi, Sándor. “Adalékok Miskolc gabonaellátáshoz a XVII. század végén” [Data for the supply of grain to the population of Miskolc]. Agrártörténeti Szemle 9, no. 34 (1967): 481–90.

Györffy, István. Nagykunsági Krónika [The cronicle of Great Cumania]. Karcag: 1984.

Károlyi, Zsigmond. “A magyar vízi munkálatok rövid története különös tekintettel a vizek szabályozására” [History of aquatic works with special regard to the regulation of waters]. In A magyar vízszabályozás története, edited by Ihrig Dénes, 23–154. Budapest: 1973.

Katus, László. A modern Magyarország születése 1711–1914 [The birth of modern Hungary]. Pécs, 2012.

Keleti, Károly, ed. “Az 1868. évi aratás kenyérterményekben a törvényhatóságok által a közvetlenül gyűjtött adatok alapján” [The harvested bread grain in 1868 according to data from the administratuve units]. Hivatalos Statisztikai Közlemények 1, no. 3 (1868): 159–76.

Papp, Izabella. “A Jászkunok száz éves áldozatai: Bartsik Márton levéltárnok kimutatása a Jászkun Kerület katonai, pénzbeli és egyéb terheiről 1735–1837 között” [The sacrifice of Jászkun during hundred years: Statement about the military, monetary and other burdens of Jászkun District made by Martin Bartsik, archivist between 1735–1837]. Zounuk 9 (1994): 309–39.

Perjés, Géza. “Mezőgazdasági termelés, népesség, hadseregélelmezés és stratégia a 17. században” [Agricultural production, population, army nutrition and strategy in the 17th century]. In Seregszemle: Hadtörténeti és művelődéstörténeti tanulmányok, edited by Perjés Géza, 223–55. Budapest, 1999.

Pinke, Zsolt. “Alkalmazkodás és felemelkedés – modernizáció és leszakadás: Kis jégkorszaki kihívások és társadalmi válaszok a Tiszántúlon” [Accomodation and rising – modernization and fallback: Challenges and the social responses in the small ice age in the Trans-Tisza region]. PhD diss., University of Pécs, 2015.

Rózsa, Sándor. “A 18. századi árvízmentesítések vizsgálata Kunhegyes településen” [Investigation of eighteenth century water management in Kunhegyes]. In Tanulmányok az Eszterházy Károly Főiskola Tudományos Diákköreinek tudományos tevékenységéből (2013–2015), edited by Angelika Reichmann, 321–52. Eger: Líceum, 2015.

Rózsa, Sándor. “Az első kataszteri felmérés környezettörténeti forrásértéke” [Source value of the first cadastral survey in environmental history]. In “Politika, életrajz, divat, oktatás”: Tanulmányok Magyarország történetéből a középkortól napjainkig, edited by Csaba Kiss, Tamás Gergely, Kovács-Veres, and Sándor Rózsa, 129–52. Eger: Líceum, 2018.

Somogyi, Sándor. “A vízrajzi viszonyok szükségszerű átalakításának felismerése és lebonyolítása a XIX. században” [Recognizing the need for conversion of hydrographic conditions and carrying out the transformation in the nineteenth century]. In A XIX. századi folyószabályozások és ármentesítések földrajzi és ökológiai hatásai Magyarországon, edited by Somogyi Sándor, 149–64. Budapest, 2000.

Soós, Imre. A jobbágyföld helyzete a szolnoki Tiszatájon 1711–1770 [The situation of the serfs’ lands in Szolnok Tiszatáj 1711–1770]. A Damjanich János Múzeum közleményei 1. Szolnok, 1958.

Sugár, István. A Közép-Tiszavidék két kéziratos térképe [Two hand-drawn manuscript maps of the Middle Tisza region]. Tisza Téka 1. Eger, 1989.

Szabó, Lajos. “A ‘Mirhó gáttyának’ építése” [Construction of the Mirho Dam]. In “Áldás és átok a víz”: Tudományos emlékülés a Mirhó gát megépítésének 200. évfordulójára, edited by Tóth Albert, 3–22. Kisújszállás, 1987.

Szabó, Lajos. “Megélhetőség Kisújszálláson a XVIII. század második felében” [Standard of living in Kisújszállás in the second half of the eighteenth century]. Zounuk 2 (1987): 29–61.

Szabó, Lajos. ‘Kunhegyesi ‘földtelen emberek Feketitsre’ költözése 1785-ben” [Migration of landless people from Kunhegyes to Feketics]. In Jubileumi tudományos ülés a jászkunságiak bácskai kitelepülésének 200. évfordulóján. A Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok Megyei Múzeumok közleményei 44–45, edited by Gábor Bagi, and Gyöngyi Kaposvári, 37–65. Szolnok: Damjanich Múzeum, 1989.

Szilágyi, Miklós: “Az ősi ártéri gazdálkodás elméletéhez” [On the theory of ancient floodplain farming]. In A Szekszárdi Béri Balogh Ádám Múzeum és a Wosinszky Mór Múzeum Évkönyve, vol. 10–11, edited by Miklós Szilágyi, 299–310. Szekszárd, 1982.

Szilágyi, Miklós. “Az árpa vermelése – Kunszentmárton, 1766” [Storage of barely in the ground in Kunszentmárton]. Honismeret 29, no. 6 (2001): 106–15.

Wellmann, Imre. A magyar mezőgazdaság a XVIII. században [History of Hungarian agriculture in the eighteenth century]. Agrártörténeti Tanulmányok 6. Budapest, 1979.

1 Fok: scour channel, stream bed, channelixing water flow from the river onto floodplain during floods and draining it back during the falling stage.

2 On the history of the construction, see: Sugár, A Közép-Tiszavidék két kéziratos térképe, 53–57; Szabó, “A ‘Mirhó-gáttyának’ építése.”

3 Károlyi, “A magyar vízi munkálatok rövid története,” 59; Fejér, A vízitársulatok 200 éve, 17.

4 Dóka, “Gazdálkodás a Tisza árterein.”

5 Rózsa, “A 18. századi árvízmentesítések vizsgálata.”

6 The needs of the population exceed production.

7 MNL OL P. 6. 1. 21.

8 Dávid, “Magyarország első kataszteri felmérése.”

9 For a source-critical analysis of the first military survey, see: Rózsa, “Az első kataszteri felmérés környezettörténeti forrásértéke.”

10 JNSZML V. 1900. 792.

11 JNSZML IV. 2. 76.

12 Dávid, “Adatok a mezőgazdasági termelés nagyságáról.”

13 Bellon, Karcag város gazdálkodása, 24; Bellon, Nagykunság, 90.

14 Károlyi, “A magyar vízi munkálatok rövid története,” 83–84, Somogyi, “A vízrajzi viszonyok szükségszerű átalakításának felismerése,” 150.

15 Outskirts, agrarian area around the settlement.

16 Hold was used as a unit of measurement in the cadastral survey. A katasztrális hold contained 1600 négyszögöl this was recorded in the survey documents. 1 katasztrális hold = 1600 négyszögöl, 1 négyszögöl = 3,5966 m2 (SI) so 1 katasztrális hold = 5755 m2

17 71 percent of the area of Kunhegyes is above 87 m B.a (B.a: Its height above the Baltic Sea), while 56 percent of the area of Túrkeve is below 85 m B.a.

18 For the data on which the calculation is based see, Dávid, “Adatok a mezőgazdasági termelés nagyságáról.”

19 Grain production potential is calculated by taking into account the parameters determining the crop production of the határ of the given settlement, i.e. climate, soil conditions, etc. The data are for the present, but the extent of soil and climate change is supposed not to reach the critical level which would prevent applying the data to the eighteenth century with some uncertainty. Many thanks to László Pásztor, an employee of the Institute for Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, Centre for Agricultural Research, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences for the data related to the wheat production potential of the settlements’ határs (outskirts, agrarian area around the settlement). See for details: Fodor and Pásztor, “The agro-ecological potential”; Fodor et al., “Coupling the 4M crop model.”

20 Györffy, Nagykunsági krónika; Bellon, Nagykunság.

21 Bagi, “A Jászkun Kerület,” 254–66.

22 Perjés, “Mezőgazdasági termelés,” 240–42.

23 Quote by: Bagi, “Adatok a növénytermesztés nagyságához,” 38.

24 Keleti, “Az 1868. évi aratás kenyérterményekben,” 160–61.

25 Quote by: Gyimesi, “Adalékok Miskolc gabonaellátáshoz,” 482.

26 Ibid.

27 Quote by: Bagi, “Adatok a növénytermesztés nagyságához,” 38.

28 Ibid., 41.

29 In the eighteenth-nineteenth centuries, liquid measures were used instead of weight measures to measure cereals. In the 18-nineteenth centuries, the size of pozsonyi mérő changed from 74 icces to 64 icces, i.e. between 62.08 and 53.72 liters. Pozsonyi mérő, therefore, corresponds to 46.5 or 40.29 kilograms of grain. This uncertainty can no longer be accepted in the order of tens of thousands of pozsonyi mérő. For conversions, see Bogdán, Magyarországi űr-, térfogat-, súly- és darabmértékek, 345.

30 Perjés, “Mezőgazdasági termelés,” 236–37.

31 Szilágyi, Az árpa vermelése.

32 Elek, “ ‘Értünk kunság mezején’,” 103.

33 JNSZML, V. 100. 145.

34 JNSZML, V. 200. 1. a./2

35 Rajnai forint, taxes were paid in that currency.

36 Papp, “A Jászkunok száz éves áldozatai.”

37 Glósz, “Területi hiány és felesleg,” 125.

38 In this calculation I have already taken into account oats, which I have omitted so far because they were feed.

39 Glósz, “Területi hiány és felesleg,” 126.

40 The population of Jászság and Nagy- and Kiskunság redeemed themselves for the landlord’s jurisdiction in 1745, and in exchange for the money paid at that time, the districts gained administrative, judicial, and economic autonomy, an event called redemption, which derives from the Latin word redemptio. The right of redemption, which came into force after 1745, divided society into two large groups, the full-fledged redeemers, who contributed to the costs of redemption, and the irredeemers, who were left out of it. Redeemers, in proportion to their contribution to redemption, acquired so-called capital land, which they freely possessed, and the holdings could be inherited and sold. Irredeemers were in principle not excluded from land ownership, but in practice the right of pre-emption of redeemers significantly limited their access to land. Even irredeemers could obtain access to pastures, meadows, and unallocated, so-called redistributed lands (melon, tobacco, and maize, etc.) at redemption in the eighteenth century, but at the end of the century, irredeemers began to be displaced from the common lands. See for details: Bánkiné, A Jászkun Kerület közigazgatása, 23–34.

41 A sheet listing all the owners of each settlement one by one, in which all the holdings cultivated by certain farmers were recorded.

42 This can be contrasted with the national situation at the end of the nineteenth century, when smallholders with less than 5 acres, representing 53.47 percent of the landholders owning 7.52 percent of the total, cultivated land. Katus, A modern Magyarország születése, 450.

43 Szabó, Kunhegyesi “földtelen emberek Feketitsre” költözése, 43.

44 Bagi, “Egy bácskai kirajzás,” 133.

45 See this for more details: Györffy, Nagykunság, 7–28.

46 On the wages of employees and the employment system, see: Szabó, “Megélhetőség Kisújszálláson.”

47 According to Imre Wellmann, a serf who had more land than half a serf plot had to hire or use a day-laborer. See: Wellmann, A magyar mezőgazdaság, 147. In Kunszentmárton, at the end of the eighteenth century, 18 percent of the owners had more land than 11 katasztrális hold (on a country average, this is half a serf plot).

48 The data on the settlements were published: Dávid, “Adatok a mezőgazdasági termelés nagyságáról,” 123–24.

49 The urbariums are bublished: Soós, A jobbágyföld helyzete, 25–42.

50 For the data based on the calculation see: Danyi and Dávid, Az első magyarországi népszámlálás.

51 Quotes the data: Wellmann, A magyar mezőgazdaság, 69–70.

52 The 37.5 p. m. presumably covered ample the needs of a family, if we calculate average consumption of 7.5 p. m./capita/year and a family size of 5 people.

53 Dóka, “Gazdálkodás a Tisza árterein.”

54 JNSZML V. 200. 1. a./a.

55 Pinke, “Alkalmazkodás és felemelkedés,” 258.

56 Bertalan Andrásfalvy examined farming before the river regulations in the settlements of Sárköz along the Danube and found planned and productive floodplain management, which he called fokgazdálkodás. See: Andrásfalvy, A Sárköz ősi ártéri gazdálkodása.

57 Examining the Tiszavidék, Miklós Szilágyi did not find any traces of active floodplain management similar to that observed in Sárköz, and he doubted that the farming system before the river regulations would have been planned or very productive. See: Szilágyi, “Az ősi ártéri gazdálkodás elméletéhez.”

* The author’s research was supported by the grant EFOP-3.6.1-16-2016-00001 (“Complex improvement of research capacities and services at Eszterhazy Karoly University”).

Map 1. Hydrographic conditions of Grand Cumania (Nagykunság) at the end of the eighteenth century. Map drawn by the author using the following map: JNSZML T30.

Table 2. Structure of the landed estate in Kunszentmárton based on first cadastral survey

Distribution of ploughland
(cadastral acre katasztrális hold)	Number of landowners in category	percent	Total area of the category	percent
No arable land	39	8	-	-
– 0.99	182	38	27	0.46
1 – 4.99	31	7	94	1.59
5 – 9.99	39	8	293	4.95
10 – 19.99	64	14	983	16.59
20 – 39.99	85	18	2,344	39.57
40 – 79.99	30	6	1,638	27.65
80 – 159.99	2	0	190	3.21
160 –	1	0	355	5.99
Distribution of meadow
No meadow	167	35	-	-
– 0.99	78	16	20	0.45
1 – 4.99	41	8	116	2.59
5 – 9.99	56	11	428	9.55
10 – 19.99	62	13	847	18.89
20 – 39.99	47	9	1,311	29.24
40 – 79.99	17	3	963	21.48
80 – 159.99	5	1	519	11.57
160 –	1	0.2	280	6.24

2020_2_Bodovics

Weather Anomalies and Their Economic Consequences: Penury in Northeastern Hungary in the Late 1870s*

Éva Bodovics
Hungarian National Archives, Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County Archives
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Hungarian Historical Review Volume 9 Issue 2 (2020): 179-212 DOI:10.38145/2020.2.179

This study investigates an episode of penury in 1879–1880 in Borsod and Zemplén Counties which occurred as one of the negative consequences of a short-term weather change which was experienced across Europe in the late 1870s and early 1880s. From the mid-1870s on, due to the wetter and cooler weather, the annual crop yields repeatedly fell below the usual and expected averages in Hungary. After a catastrophic harvest in the autumn of 1879, when the quantity of harvested cereals was sufficient neither for reserves nor for spring sowing, the situation became severe. 1878 had also been a bad year for agriculture: the severe floods in the second half of 1878 not only had washed the crops from the fields but had also covered them with thick sludge that made it impossible to sow in autumn.
Since the spring of 1879 was characterized by unfavorable conditions for agriculture (increased rainfall, widespread floods, low average spring temperatures), the local and national authorities continuously kept their eyes on the crops. Thanks to this preliminary attention, the administration was able to respond quickly and in an organized manner to the bad harvest in July and August and could avert catastrophe at national level.
The leadership of the two counties responded more or less in the same way to the near-famine conditions. First, they asked the Treasury to suspend tax collection until the next harvest at least so that the farmers who were facing financial difficulties would not have to go into debt. Second, they appealed to the government for financial and crop relief to save the unemployed population from starvation. For those who were able to work, they asked for the approval of public works and major construction projects from the Ministry of Transport and Public Works. For many, such state-funded road construction or river regulation projects were the only way to make a living. Third, the county administrations also gave seeds for spring sowing to the farmers. While Borsod county survived the years of bad harvests without dire problems due to the higher proportion of better quality fields, in the more mountainous region of Zemplén, most landowners had smaller and lower quality lands, and they often chose to emigrate to avoid starvation. These difficult conditions may have provided the initial impetus for mass emigration to Western Europe and America.

Keywords: weather anomalies, penury, crisis management, Hungary, late nineteenth century

Hungary, as a predominantly agricultural country, has always been highly vulnerable to weather conditions. Both extremes of the precipitation spectrum, meaning too much or too little precipitation accompanied by temperature fluctuations and complemented by theoretical and technical backwardness in farming, have often led to subsistence crises.

Several people have already dealt with the history of penuries and famines in Hungary caused by the droughts of the nineteenth century: the distress of 1814–171 and the famine of 1845–47,2 and 1863–64.3 However, wet and cool weather, especially during spring and summer months, can also badly damage crops, resulting in penury and, in the worst case, famine. This is especially true when there is unusually humid and cold weather for years in a row. This happened in Hungary beginning in 1875, and this caused distress in the northeastern parts of the country after the catastrophic harvest of 1879. Though our research does not cover other regions of Hungary, press products and economic sources suggest that the poverty caused by the weather extremes was not limited to the northeastern counties.

Neither the unfavorable weather nor the subsequent difficult economic situation were unique to Hungary. Rather, the crises caused by extreme weather was hit much of Europe.4 The year 1879 marked a turning point in economic growth in many countries, with grain being imported in several places due to the high rate of crop losses (up to 50 percent) that generally occurred. The influx of cheap grain mostly from America and Russia led to a sharp drop in the price of the cereals produced in Europe. In England, for example, the 50-year recession, the so-called agrarian crisis, began in 1879.5 As Hubert H. Lamb put it, “1879 turned the decline into a collapse.”6

In the works written on the history of the Hungarian crisis,7 which affected the agricultural sector as well, the focus of research has been on the inflow of cheap grain and the consequent fall in domestic grain prices, and the relationship between the crisis and the weather anomalies of the era has not been examined. There had been a decline in agricultural prices in the country before 1879, so the explanation is not primarily to be found in the weather conditions, but we nonetheless must take into account the possibility that food and feed shortages due to a series of bad harvests and the catastrophic harvest of 1879, accompanied by impoverishment, could certainly have contributed to and deepened the depression. Our research, the initial findings of which are included in the present paper, is intended to fill this lacuna in the secondary literature.

This paper is divided into three sections. In the first, we examine the weather conditions of the last third of the nineteenth century, highlighting anomalies in temperature and precipitation. Next, in our discussion of conditions in two northern counties, we show how adverse weather affected agricultural production at the regional level. According to the sources, a series of poor harvests led to distress in several districts in late 1879 and early 1880. In the third part of the paper, we present the extent of this need and the official measures taken to address it. Although our paper focuses on events and conditions in these two northeastern counties, we also briefly discuss the situation in the neighboring counties in order to provide a wider context.

Sources and Methods

Given the aim of the paper, we used statistical and descriptive sources in our research. To observe the weather anomalies, we used the yearbooks of the predecessor to the current Hungarian Meteorological Service, which began publication in 1873.8 Collected under standardized conditions, these instrumental data are available from 1871 on for some settlements in the country. As the monitoring network expanded, weather data from other settlements were added to the yearbook over time. Consequently, we have data from different periods for the settlements in the northern region that we examined. The longest data series, dating back to 1871, are from Eger and Eperjes (today Prešov, Slovakia).

To examine the temperature, we used monthly averages calculated on the basis of the daily temperature averages recorded immediately after detection.9 With regard to precipitation conditions, we examined the monthly precipitation data aggregated from the daily data.

The data in the yearbooks were theoretically recorded in a centrally regulated way and under conditions with state-approved means, so we can consider them more reliable than those recorded in previous periods, but we must nonetheless be careful, because improper recording techniques or various bias factors may have affected the accuracy of the data. One such factor is the change of the location of the measuring station over time, which for example occurred in the case of Kassa (today Košice, Slovakia). The homogenization of our data, which could increase its accuracy and reliability, would make it possible to eliminate problems like this. However, homogenization would also require the examination of additional metadata (measurement-related data), which we are unable to perform because we lack the professional meteorological knowledge. We hope that soon meteorologists will also homogenize the data from our period, as they have done for the data from the twentieth century.

In order to be able to examine the characteristics of our data over a longer period, we also included in our research the data from Budapest, the city with the oldest data series in Hungary. These homogenized data series are from the váraljamet.hu meteorological website. The homogenization and interpolation of the data to the meteorological station of Pestszentlőrinc are carried out by ZAMG (Zentralanstalt für Meteorologie und Geodynamik).

In addition to the weather data series, the range of our statistical sources is expanded by the county yield results, which we collected from the relevant volumes of the Hungarian Statistical Yearbooks.10 Regarding the accuracy of the data, it should be noted that they were recorded on the basis of the accounts and estimates provided by landowners, but more importantly, the landowners tended to underestimate the actual yield at the time of the surveys, as they feared a tax increase.11 In addition, it is conceivable that farmers reported higher crop losses than the losses that they actually suffered in hopes of receiving state compensation. These are merely assumptions, but we can suspect that the situation may have been more favorable, if not necessarily by much, than the picture drawn by the data.

Descriptive sources were also included in the research in order to identify inaccuracies in the statistical data and the experiences behind the numbers. As our main goal was to present the official measures take to manage the crisis, we used the documents of the county administrations, which means the reports issued by the so-called szolgabíró or, roughly, sheriff at the district level and the alispán or deputy lord lieutenant at the county level. The magistrates in charge of running the districts (járás) served law enforcement, administrative, and judicial functions, and the szolgabírós normally submitted their reports on the conditions of their district every six months. However, due to the growing destitution, the alispán required monthly reports, and these reports enable us to present in detail the course and management of the crisis. After the ispán or lord lieutenant, the alispán was the second deputy in the county administration and also the figure who actually held control of the county. Reports from the szolgabírós (district deputies) and the leaders of the settlements also went to the alsipán, who, on the basis of these reports, submitted an exhaustive report to the Ministry of Interior on the affairs of the county every six months. Almost all of the szolgabírós’ and alispán’s reports are found in the Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County Archives of the Hungarian National Archives. In addition to these sources, materials published in the Borsod. Miskolczi Értesítő [Borsod. Miskolcz Gazette], an organ of the local press, were also examined.

Weather Conditions in Northern Hungary, 1871–1900

Instrumental data collected with standardized tools and methods have been available for Hungary since 1871. The development of the network of meteorological stations took place gradually, beginning in the Transdanubian areas and spreading to the regions in the east and northeast. Each station was connected to the network at different times, so while we have data from some areas from the very beginning, other parts of the country only appeared on the “weather map” of the country 10 or 15 or 20 years later. Of the northeastern region examined in greater detail in our study, the data sets from only two cities, Eger (the seat of Heves County) and Eperjes (the seat of the former Szepes County, today Prešov, Slovakia), date back to 1871; in the other settlements, measurements began to be taken a few years later.

Temperature between 1871 and 1900

In the diagram showing the annual average temperature of the settlements belonging to the northeastern Hungarian and upland regions, apart from the differences due to the geographical location, the curves of the individual towns mostly follow one another in the same rhythm without significant jumps (Fig. 1).

Figure 1. Annual average temperature of settlements in eastern and northeastern Hungary, 1871–1900.

Source: Meteorológiai Évkönyvek

We are best able to draw conclusions about the temperature conditions during the thirty-year period under examination on the basis of the data concerning Eperjes and Eger, which are supplemented by the partial data concerning the other towns. Between 1871 and 1900, several major declines in the average annual temperature were observed: a significant cooling was felt compared to the previous year or years in 1875, 1879, 1881, 1883, 1888, and 1893. The year 1875 is special because from that year on there was not any significant increase in the temperature until 1882. In other words, the period between 1875 and 1881 was the coldest for the entire time period. A similar cooling came only in 1888, but this was not followed by further cooler years. On the contrary, a slow warming began. The warmest years in the northern region were 1872, 1873, 1882, 1898, and 1900.

Although we do not have long-term data series for the settlements we studied, we can use Budapest’s temperature data dating back to 1780 to examine the extent to which the cooling in the last decades of the nineteenth century was exceptional over a longer period of time (Fig. 2).

Figure 2. Budapest’s annual average temperature, 1780–1900. Source: váraljamet.eoldal.hu

On the diagram showing the long-term temperature conditions in Budapest, the cooling experienced in our period, which began in 1875 after the warm years of the early 1870s, can be clearly seen. With the exception of 1882, 1885, and 1892, the average annual temperature in this period was around or below 9.7 °C, which differed significantly from the previous decades’ average temperature, which was above 10 °C (Fig. 3).

Figure 3. Budapest’s average temperature by decades. Source: váraljamet.eoldal.hu

Figure 4. Budapest’s annual average temperature by seasons. Source: Meteorológiai Évkönyvek

If we examine the temperature data by seasons, we see that this cooling occurred mainly in the summer and winter (Figs. 4 and 5). The temperature diagram for Budapest and Eger shows that during the period in question, the average temperature in the summer months (June, July, and August) decreased by about 2 degrees after 1877. The average temperatures in the spring (March, April, and May) and autumn (September, October, and November) started to decrease after the remarkably high average temperature of 1872, and then, in the following years of the century, both were between 8 and 12 Celsius (with the exception of the spring of 1876 and 1882 and the autumn of 1878). During the period in question, the autumn months were also cooler, as the temperature went above 10 Celsius only once, in 1878. The average for the spring months was similar, except for 1876 and 1882.

Precipitation between 1871 and 1900

After analyzing the temperature conditions, we now turn to an examination of the amount of precipitation. In the figure showing the annual precipitation in the northern and upland towns, we observe a significant difference in the rhythm of the falling precipitation (Fig. 6). The changing geographical environment of each settlement was correlated with large differences in the yearly amount of precipitation. Therefore, in contrast to the temperature data, it is difficult to draw general conclusions concerning the period in question on the basis of the precipitation data. This task is further complicated by the fact that the data sets for the settlements are rather incomplete; with the exception of the partial data for Eger and Eperjes from the years before 1877, we do not have information on the precipitation conditions in the other settlements.

Figure 6. Annual average precipitation in settlements in eastern and northeastern Hungary. Source: Magyar Statisztikai Évkönyvek

Based on these data series, we can say that for most of the 1870s, drier conditions prevailed in the northern region year after year, and only in 1878 did rainfall begin to increase. We learned from the analysis of the temperature data that temperatures were significantly higher in the early 1870s than after 1875; and from our fragmentary data, it appears that this warmer weather may have been coupled with a period of low rainfall, though the amount of rainfall was not so low as to cause a drought, at least not in this area. Within the period in question, there were four more years in which there were significant decreases in the amount of precipitation: in 1880, 1883, 1885, and 1889. However, these decreases were only temporary and were not followed by a more prolonged drop in precipitation.

It is worth noting that the different geographical conditions of the settlements may have led to significant differences in our data. The datasets concerning Eperjes and Eger are good examples of this: while in 1880 the annual rainfall peaked in Eger, in Eperjes the precipitation dropped drastically in the same year to a level that was close to a drought. The wetter years in the second half of the 1880s did not affect the county seat of Heves either; so the precipitation seems to have been concentrated in the upland area. However, the differences observed in the data series from Eperjes and Kassa (seat of the former Abaúj County) can be explained less by geographical conditions than by erroneous data recording. This is because the two settlements are located only 35–40 km apart in the valley of the Hernád River, and there is no geological formation between them that would explain such a discrepancy in the data. That is why the data from Kassa should be handled with extreme caution.

Although there are considerable differences in the data sets from the settlements studied, the wettest years in all cases12 occurred between 1878 and 1882.

As we did in the case of temperature, we can use the data concerning Budapest to see whether the precipitation between 1875 and 1882 was outstandingly above average from a long-term perspective (Fig. 7). In the diagram, the period in question clearly stands out from the other years with an average precipitation above 600 mm per year. There was no other period over the long run with such high precipitation values for every single year.

Figure 7. Budapest’s annual average temperature, 1841–1900. Source: váraljamet.eoldal.hu

The Impact of Weather Anomalies on Agriculture

As made clear in the discussion above, the 1870s proved extraordinary from a climatic point of view for two reasons. On the one hand, on average, more precipitation fell each year than in the individual years of the decade before and the decade after, and in some years the levels of precipitation were outstandingly high. This high average rainfall was a result of the rainy summer and unusually wet autumn months. On the other hand, in addition to the extraordinary rainfall, the decade was cooler on average than the previous decade and the subsequent decade. Although extremely high or extremely low rainfall can cause a lot of damage to agriculture, unsuitable temperatures can have an even direr effect on crop yields. Due to the cold springs, farmers could expect fewer crops, which were further damaged by the cool and rainy summers and autumns. The crop was either unripe or rotten. Thus, over the course of the decade, there may have been several major and minor crises in agriculture.

In this section, we examine the results of harvests of grains (winter wheat, winter rye and meslin13), maize, and potatoes, which are the agricultural products which have the greatest impact on daily livelihoods. In the case of the northern counties, potatoes were not simply an additional source of food. They were often the only option in higher settlements with cooler climates. And maize was often used as an important supplement when wheat and rye yields were unfavorable. In order to bring our quantitative data to life, we used many expressive narrative sources which offer impressions of the experiences people endured because of the poor harvests brought about by unfavorable weather.

Although the Hungarian Statistical Yearbooks provide data concerning various crops from the 1868 harvest onwards, due to the different methods of data collection, we were only able to use the series from 1877 onwards. In order to make the data easily interpretable, the development of each crop is shown in a separate figure. On the graph of wheat yields (Fig. 8), we see that there was a significant decline in three years (1879, 1883, and 1889), with the most severe decline coming in 1879, when the yield per hectare decreased by half or one third compared to the previous year. This low point can clearly be attributed to the extremely rainy and cold weather of the second half of 1878 and the beginning of 1879. Although there was already significantly more rain in 1878 than there had been in the previous years, this is not yet reflected in the average yield in 1878 because the excess rainfall only came in the autumn months. By this time, however, the wheat had been harvested. After 1879, we see a different degree of rise, after which the wheat crop stagnated in 1881–1882 and then fell again in 1883. This decline is presumably due to the lower rainfall in 1883. The period between 1883 and 1887 was a time of stagnation again, and then the yield average began to drop slightly at first and dramatically after 1888. The low point of 1889 is similar to that of 1879, though it was not as dramatic a drop.

In the case of rye, we see a pattern similar to the case of wheat, despite the fact that rye is better able to withstand cooler and wetter climates (Fig. 9). 1878 was a relatively good year for this crop, but the rainy weather that began towards the end of July was simply too much for the rye as well. Thus, in 1879, like wheat, the rye crop dropped by half or two thirds. However, 1883 cannot be considered such a bad year for rye, and in Szepes County, the average yield even increased. While in the case of wheat, the second low point came in 1883, in the case of rye it occurred somewhat later, in 1885–86, and it was not as severe. The weather in 1888 and especially in 1889, however, significantly reduced rye production, much as it reduced production of wheat.

Figure 9. Annual rye crop by counties, 1877–1890. Source: Magyar Statisztikai Évkönyvek

Since it is a one-to-one mixture of wheat and rye, meslin unsurprisingly followed the trend described for wheat and rye (Fig. 10). In other words, in the case of meslin, 1879, 1883, and 1889 were also considered the worst, but the years between 1883 and 1889 were also generally considered bad. On the other hand, the harvest in 1882 ended with a relatively favorable result in several counties.

Figure 10. Annual meslin crop by counties, 1877–1890.
Source: Magyar Statisztikai Évkönyvek

Turning to the potato and maize yields, the graphs clearly illustrate that these two crops were much more sensitive to weather changes than cereals (Figs. 11 and 12). However, it was not simply temperature and precipitation conditions that had a perceptible effect on the average yield per hectare, but also geographical differences, as we can see that the yields in the different counties show a very different picture. Nevertheless, the figures do indicate that there were common points, for instance the worst years. As shown in the figure below, in addition to 1879, which was also a low point for potatoes, in 1882, 1884, 1888, and 1890 the weather was not favorable for potatoes either. However, while in the last years the potato yield developed well in some of the counties (e.g. Abaúj and Borsod), in 1879, the statistics recorded an extremely low average yield in all the counties in question. In other words, from a practical point of view, this meant that, due to the generally poor harvest, it was not possible to compensate for the shortfall by importing from the neighboring counties. If we look at the average yield of the two counties, Borsod and Zemplén, which are the focus of our study, in Zemplén, where the climate was usually colder and therefore potatoes were the dominant food source, the average yield remained below 70 hectoliters/hectare for most of the period in question. This amount/quantity not only lagged behind the average yields in Borsod, it also lagged behind the yields in all the counties in the north. Moreover, not only were the yields low, but the size of the area cultivated also decreased significantly over the years: while in 1877, potatoes were grown on just over 22,000 Viennese acres,14 in 1890 the area on which they were grown came to only 11,720 Viennese acres. The biggest decline occurred in 1880, when potatoes were planted on only 8,400 acres, in sharp contrast with the previous year, when the area on which they were planted came to 15,000 Viennese acres. In Borsod, where potatoes were not a dominant crop,15 compared to the data from Zemplén, the potato crop developed relatively well from 1882: it produced a yield of over 100 hectoliters/hectare until 1889.

Figure 11. Annual potato crop by counties, 1877–1890.
Source: Magyar Statisztikai Évkönyvek

In the case of maize, which prefers warmer temperatures, our diagram offers a relatively more uniform picture.16 With the exception of the remarkably high value in Abaúj, a more significant decline can be observed which began as early as 1878 and continued in 1879. Despite the fact that 1882 proved a very good year for cereals, this cannot be said for maize, as the average yield started to decrease again this year, and in 1883 it reached another low point. The next unfavorable year came in 1890, when the average yield fell in all counties except Borsod, which was the southernmost.

Figure 12. Annual maize crop by counties, 1877–1890.
Source: Magyar Statisztikai Évkönyvek

Of the northern counties, only in the case of Sáros we can compare the average grain, potato, and maize yields with the precipitation values (Figs. 13 and 14). The figure clearly shows the strong correlation between precipitation and average yield: in the period with high precipitation (above 600 mm/year), grain yields declined, such as after 1879, 1882, and 1887, whereas in moderately rainy years, grain yields rose. Although each cereal responds differently to precipitation, there was not too much difference in yield. Similarly, in the case of potatoes, a close relationship can be observed between yields and changes in precipitation: too much rain clearly resulted in a drastic decline in yield, while in drier years the average yield improved somewhat. As for maize, the correlation can also be seen, though it is less spectacular way: declining rainfall led to higher crop yields.

Figure 14. Annual potato and maize crops in Szepes County in relation to the annual average precipitation in Eperjes. Sources: Meteorológiai Évkönyv, Magyar Statisztikai Évkönyvek

Subsistence Crisis and Its County-level Management

Although our data show that 1879 was the worst year for the crops we are studying, the harvest results of 1878 also lagged behind results from the previous years. Our qualitative sources show that this was due to the unfavorable weather typical of the whole of 1878. The year began with a huge amount of snow in January, followed by a rainy and cool spring. Continuous rainfall made it impossible to start spring work in the fields and the vineyards.

With the arrival of summer, the situation did not improve; due to the low average temperature and the amount of rain, the crop showed an increasingly depressing picture as harvest time neared. Articles in which locals expressed their frustrations were published in organs of the press, including for instance the following description:

The weather is still desperate, it doesn’t want to clear up, and the rain, if not every day, falls every other day. Grape rot is common on all the hillsides, and if the weather does not get warmer or windy soon, our hope for a rich harvest will be dashed. Good, high-quality wine can no longer be expected as very warm weather has not arrived and the soil is so full of moisture that its absorption can only be somewhat balanced by extremely windy, dry, warm days. The weather not only affects us winegrowers, but also the grain producers; in the counties of Abaúj, Zemplén, Ung, and Gömör, but also in the upper parts of our [Borsod] county, the grain is still out in the field, and the blackened and even greening bundles offer a sad sight.17

As our graphs show, the 1878 harvest was not overly plentiful, and although rainy weather continued throughout the autumnal months, at least the grape harvest turned out relatively well due to the higher temperatures in September and October. Plenty of wine was also reported from Sopron and Budaörs, although the quality was uneven.18 The reports submitted by the alispán of the county indicate that many grapes were harvested in Borsod as well, but where it was not possible to finish the harvest in time (and this was usually the case for better quality grapes), the grapes burst and rot due to the high quantity of rain. As a result, the quality fell short of expectations and the price of wine fell sharply.19

Excessive rainfall caused serious problems from other perspectives as well, in addition to disappointing yields. Due to frequent floods and inland water caused by high groundwater levels, a significant part of the arable land was covered with either water or a thick layer of mud. This made it difficult to plow and sow the lands in the autumn for the following year. Thus, the farmers had to begin the next year (1879) with harvests which were far more modest than they had hoped for large swathes of land that went unsown.

The climate of 1879 put people’s tolerance to the test. Although the winter was not too harsh, it was all the wetter, so when spring arrived and the huge amount of winter snow started to melt, this caused severe flooding across the country. Floods of several small and large rivers were reported from the area on which our research focuses, but most of the problems were caused by the flooding of the Tisza River, which affected both counties. The river broke the surrounding embankment between Zemplénagárd and Leányvár on December 27, 1878, flooding the surrounding arable lands.20 Although the embankment had been repaired, the szolgabíró of the Bodrogköz District reported on the July 4 that one fourth of Bodrogköz was still covered with water. As he noted in his report, the constant rains completely destroyed the few autumn sowings that the flood had spared and thus also the spring crop. Furthermore, after pastures had been broken up and turned into arable land in the previous dry years, now, when the remaining pastures were under water, people were driving their cattle to other counties to graze or simply selling them at cheap prices.21 The szolgabíró of the Szerencs District also highlighted in his report that places which where normally waterless in the middle of summer were also covered with water due to the high levels of rain.22

By July, it had become increasingly certain that the year’s harvest would be well below even the yields of 1878. Heavy rains and severe frosts had destroyed not only the cereals but also the potatoes and the maize, which were the staple food of the poor. The situation near harvest time was summarized by the szolgabíró of the Szinna District in July as follows:

This year in my district, because of the heavy and continuous rainfall, the field crops are showing a worrying picture. Wheat and rye are poorer than average, harvesting is very slow due to the continuous rainfall, barley is practically missing, oats are mediocre, maize, beans are very deficient, potatoes, which are indispensable to the Highlanders, have already rotted. This is compounded by the depressing circumstance that citizens who moved to the lowlands for the harvest are returning with half the income they earn in other years […]. Fodder crops, if they are successfully harvested, can be said to be pretty good this year. I note that we had quite high hopes for spring crops, in particular, at the end of last month, but they have been severely damaged by the continuous rainfalls since the 5 of this month [July].23

In early September, after the start of the harvest, he briefly reported that “the result can be said to be the worst possible” and that the proliferation of wild boars and bears was causing considerable damage to the already shoddy crop and among the cattle.24 Cereals produced so few seeds that they were considered not only insufficient for sale and food, but also as seeds. It was feared that great parts of both counties would soon face famine.

Finally, we must also talk briefly about the development of fruit crops, especially grapes, which were a major source of income in Zemplén County. As noted earlier, in 1878, despite the rainy autumn, there was a relatively large amount of wine, although the quality of the wine was not very good, and this led to a significant reduction in its price per barrel. In 1879, however, the vineyard owners’ prospects deteriorated further after hailstorms in late spring and summer severely battered not only the orchards but also the vineyards.25 In addition, in the settlements of Tokaj-Hegyalja (Mezőzombor, Mád, and Tarcal), a leafroller moth called Tortix pilleriana appeared, and the worms of this moth caused enormous damage in the vineyards.26 Presumably, the locals managed to curb the spread of the insect, because in the subsequent reports submitted by the szolgabírós, it was noted that traces of neither the tortrix pilleriana nor the phylloxera appeared in the vineyards.27 Unfortunately, the situation was much worse for the other fruits, as in 1879 and 1882 the crop failed due to frost and premature fruit loss.28

Heavy rainfalls and floods contributed indirectly to general impoverishment as well, since people could not get to the fairs and markets due because of the damaged roads and bridges, so they had to do without the incomes they usually made from selling their goods. In addition, repairs to the roads were made only slowly, as due to the high water levels, it was difficult to remove the gravel needed for paving from the rivers.29 It is thus hardly surprising that the szolgabíró have reported stagnation in tax collections in all the districts.

Penury in Zemplén County

It did not take long for the first signs of crisis to appear. In September, the alispán of Zemplén County informed the Minister of Interior about the worrying situation:

Your Honourable, the Hungarian Royal Ministry of Interior!

From the reports of some of our szolgabírós and the public statements based on the experiences of committee members gathered at this general assembly from different parts of the county, we have sadly made sure that most of the county’s people will struggle with poverty and hunger as a result of current year’s general infertility.—And the middle and smaller landowners, in addition to their already shaken credit, have found themselves in such a dire situation that they are on the verge of death without the help of a cheap state loan to be lended as soon as possible.30

The alispán ordered reports on the annual yields for each parish covering the possessions and the supplies of foodstuffs and seeds of the landowners. In addition, a so-called “poverty committee” was set up to compile the incoming data and take the necessary measures. In order to remedy the situation, the Minister of Finance was asked to suspend the collection of state taxes among the already struggling population for a year, beginning on October 1, 1879,31 and the Minister of Transport and Public Works was instructed to provide a source of income for the needy through public works.32 In response to the request, the Minister of Interior was willing to grant the requested government loan, but not for the number of people requested by the county. The financial support was limited to people of two categories: the destitute who were able to work and the destitute who were not able to work or could not support themselves on their own. Furthermore, seeds were also given to those who were unable to obtain them even through private credit. The Minister of Interior asked the county leadership to review the range of people who needed support based on the conditions mentioned above. Until the exact data was available, however, he sent 8,000 forints as financial aid, “so that where the risk of starvation really threatens, the necessary aid can be provided from this amount.”33

Despite the fact that the Minister of Finance was asked in November to suspend the collection of state taxes, reports from the county said there was no response to the request, and tax collectors continued to seize the last food items of those in need with the utmost rigor. Given the gravity of the situation, the Zemplén County General Assembly decided to take immediate action. Instead of sending petitions (felirat) to the Minister, which was the normal way of lodging a complaint or request, the Assembly requested the immediate suspension of tax collection by telegram:

Because of the famine, our assembly asks to stop tax enforcement against farmers in all our districts through telegraphs; otherwise there will be distress in districts where it otherwise would not have been.

Tax enforcement has a very bad effect in times of need.

More explanation in representations.

We are asking for taking actions through telegrams because there will be auctions tomorrow.34

The general county assembly decided on the following measures. First, it was resolved to purchase maize to feed the destitute who were incapable of working. It was estimated that the supply of maize to feed roughly 5,000 people in need, though the concession was made that “their number will be much higher,” counting one liter per person per day, would require 9,100 hectoliters of maize in total at a cost of 91,000 forints (10 forints per liter). The Minister of Interior was therefore asked to issue the necessary amount in the form of state aid.35

Steps were also take to provide help for the destitute who were able to work by offering public employment opportunities. The number of people belonging to this category was put at 7,891 in Zemplén County. For each person, 120 working days were calculated with a wage of 40 kreuzers per day, which comes to a total cost of 384,000 forints.36 The county assembly listed by district the public works in the county “the construction of which was in the best interests of the public” and then submitted the planned works and the estimates of costs to the Ministry of Public Works and Transport for approval.37 The minister may have found the costs of the planned public works too high, because he asked the county to select only those work projects which were essential to the public interests and then resubmit the proposal to the Ministry. Until authorization was given, he sent 50,000 forints to start the approved works.38

Fortunately, with the help of the sources, we can also get an idea of how the aid process took place. In each district, a district relief committee was set up to distribute food, which was procured by a subcommittee of the Poverty Committee (Central Subcommittee). The minutes of a meeting of the General Assembly offer the following description of this committee:

The District Relief Committee, composed of two, possibly three trusted, intelligent individuals living in the district and the szolgabíró, is led by the szolgabíró, who takes over the food sent by the Central Subcommittee and executes the distribution in agreement with the Committee members, and in due time he submits to the county alispán a certificate of the use of the food or financial aid that have been sent. In addition, he is required to report weekly to the alispán on the condition of those in need.39

The allocation and implementation of public works was organized in a similar way to relief management. First, the individuals responsible for oversight wanted to ensure that only county residents were involved in public works. It was the task of the szolgabírós to prove this, and they gave a certificate (ballet) to the individual who applied for employment. The needy were divided into two groups. The first group included strong men who would be given a daily wage of 40 kreuzers, while the second group included weaker men and women, who would only be given a daily wage of 30 kreuzers. Workers could claim their wages in cash or half in cash and half in crop. In addition to wages, workers also received food for the duration of the work. This was coordinated by the szolgabírós through contractors.40

Relief, however, came slowly, and many people decided to look elsewhere for their livelihoods. Some headed south towards the Great Plain, while others went to north and sometimes even as far as England or America. As the szolgabíró of Nagymihály wrote in November 1879,

In my district, this year’s poor harvest and the fact that state aid has not arrived yet are forcing the poorest people to migrate to America and England. I am aware that it is the working men, young and old, who leave their homes in hordes to emigrate, among them countless men of military age and off-duty soldiers. They make their way through Kassa to Eperjes, and there are agents in the latter town who give advice to those who want to emigrate.41

As the szolgabíró’s report shows, the authorities were aware of the possible consequences of emigration even before it took on a mass character, but they did not know what they could do to slow it. On what grounds could they hold people back, and how could they restrict an individual’s personal freedom if he or she wanted to leave? In addition to legal issues, moral questions also had to be taken into consideration. Etele Matolay, the alispán of Zemplén County, also addresses this problem in a letter to the Minister of Interior:

Another question, however, is whether it is possible or, in such a time of need, advisable to act with rigor in such a case if the person is not liable to military service when we are not even able to give the jobseeker a job at home. […] Then when they have to deal with poverty at home: I would consider it an unjustified restriction of personal freedom to prevent them from emigrating.42

When emigration began to take place on a larger scale, the authorities did not even know where people were going, and this also hampered official efforts to slow it. It was rumored that people were being taken to dig the Panama Canal, but they did not know exactly where they would end up or what kind of work they would be given or whether, for that matter, they would be paid properly, given care in the case of illness, or be transported back to their homeland.43

Although the abovementioned measures helped improve the conditions under which the destitute lived their everyday lives somewhat, the climate still did not improve, and 1880 ended with poor harvests (making it the third year in a row to end with a disappointing harvests). Seeing the increasingly dire impoverishment of the population, the alispán sent another petition to the Minister of Finance:

Considering that this year’s harvest was far less substantial than what was hoped for, and considering that most of those involved in agriculture have been burdened with considerable debts as a result of the spring crisis and repayment for these debts is due this year, and taxes of the last two years will also be payable this year, please be so kind as to extend the deadline for repayment of the state loan by one year and to modify the payment dates to October 1, 1881, 1882, and 1883. On October 1 of the current year, interest shall be payable only on the due date.44

Despite all hopes, the following year did not bring the long-awaited abundant yield. A heavy downpour came with hail in July, affecting almost all the districts in Zemplén County. It hit autumn and spring crops so hard that the szolgabírós saw little chance of the grains developing by harvest time.45 The district reports indicate that, in general, few grains were produced,46 and mice, who had multiplied in the highlands, caused significant damage to autumn grain.47 In his semi-annual report, the alispán ranked the 1881 harvest as one of the worst,48 and he noted that it had caused further impoverishment and an increase in emigration.

The year 1882 brought mixed results. Both the data and the narrative sources show that rainfall was abundant again, causing flooding along several rivers. Fortunately, the heavy rains came mostly in late summer, and by that time, the “truly beautiful crop” had been harvested in many places, but there were areas (e.g. in the middle of the county) where rains did great damage to the crops that had already been harvested. At the same time, the wet weather was beneficial to root and fodder crops and also to pastures and meadows, which had become dry in the long droughts during the first half of the summer.49 The diverse geographical conditions of Zemplén are well illustrated by the fact that, while in some areas the harvest was abundant, in other districts, such as the Homonna and Szinna districts to the north, a situation of destitution or near-destitution developed. The szolgabíró of the Szinna district, fearing a crisis as dire as the crisis faced in 1880, requested the cessation of tax collection.50 The sources, however, suggest that the szolgabíró’s fears may have been an overreaction, as there was no cause for distress.

Given the abundant crop, tax collection began with renewed vigor, and efforts were made to recover debts accumulated in the previous years. Several szolgabírós indicated that tax collection was progressing well, so there was no need to use bailiffs to collect arrears. It seems, then that the harvest of 1882 was abundant enough in several places to help the population begin to recover from the trials they had suffered in the previous years.

Penury in Borsod County

Although the first official report on impoverishment in Borsod County was written in December 187951 (months after the first official report on Zemplén), it can be assumed that the first signs of the crisis appeared earlier. At the beginning of November, the weekly journal Borsod. Miskolczi Értesítő reported on the unfavorable weather and poor harvests in the county,52 and soon after this, it wrote of needy job-seekers from the highlands: “There are already signs of acute need in the highlands, for every day we see the highlanders marching through the county with nothing to eat, migrating to the lower part of the country in groups, looking for work; […].”53 Presumably, by November, the leadership of the county was confronted with the extent of impoverishment, which found clear form in the sight of people coming from the highlands, and the people of Borsod also had to suffer increasingly dire penury. This is indicated by the fact that in November the General Assembly of Borsod County asked the Minister of Finance to suspend tax collection “given the impoverishment.”54

One month later, Bertalan Bay, the alispán of Borsod, reported to the Ministry of Interior on the situation in the county as it follows:

On the basis of the official reports I have received, I have stated that in this county there are generally alarming phenomena concerning the livelihoods of the lower classes; that in the town of Miskolc the number of the poor is very high, and the extreme cold, which arrived with unusual suddenness, aggravates the situation, so that the town authority is taking measures on a case-by-case basis to provide aid for the needy.

I also noted with regret that in the lower part of the district of Miskolc the working class has no income, and the small amount of food they have purchased is almost completely exhausted, and in particular that the town of Mező-Csát is facing a crisis; finally, in the upper section of the Szentpéter district, especially in Alacska, and in the upper section of the Eger district, in Tibold Darócz and Kács, several families depend on the mercy of the better-off. In both parts of the Szentpéter district, however, it was indicated that official aid measures would have to be taken soon.

Given these unfavorable circumstances, it is to be feared that the distress at the beginning of next year will be so great in many places that, in order to alleviate it and to secure the financial survival of some, it is necessary to resort to state aid. For this reason, I have the honor to request the respectable Hungarian Royal Ministry to lend a certain amount—at least one thousand forints—as state aid as soon as possible.55

Given that according to the alispán the most state aid would be needed at the beginning of the following year, we can conclude that the situation in Borsod was less serious than in Zemplén, where the county alispán applied for state aid in the autumn. This seems to be supported by the annual report of the Borsod alispán, dated February 1880, according to which

conditions are generally depressing, and the poorer class, especially because of the prolonged harsh winter, suffers from a sensitive shortage of already depleted foods and firewood in particular. However, with contributions by wealthier benefactors and using municipal funds in some places, the absolute need for state aid has not yet arisen to a greater extent—families struggling in need were only reported in the upper parts of the Miskolc and Eger districts, for whose relief I sent the amount corresponding to the need indicated [...].

At that time, only 300 forints had to be allocated from the 1,000 forints that had been previously sent by the Minister of Interior. At the end of the report, he summarizes the previous year as follows:

But it should also be emphasized that despite the generally unfavorable conditions last year and the extremely severe winter, the likes of which has not been experienced for decades, there has been no phenomenon in the county that would prove the depletion of people’s resources and means of subsistence. Even the poorest class, exposed in many ways to the most cramped way of life and the suffering and misery of life, bears its fate with silent surrender, and while people hope that difficult conditions will take a turn for the better, they calmly tolerate their circumstances, try to earn an income, and hope that their fates will improve in time.56

Impoverishment hit Borsod in the early 1880s. The szolgabíró of the Sajószentpéter district reported that a hungry person was transported to the hospital in Miskolc from Sajószentpéter, and a starving sick family was aided with funds from the town’s treasury. However, he added that the people, considering their livelihoods, were not in a position to be seriously worried, or state aid would have to be required.57 Not long after, however, he made the following report: “As a result of the fruitless harvest of the current year, the population of my district, with the decline of transport and manual labor, is already suffering a heavy burden of subsistence. In general, I can point out that not only manual day laborers, but also some of the landowners, are struggling with their livelihoods.”58

In Miskolc, the seat of Borsod County, the situation deteriorated considerably with the arrival of the extremely cold winter, but fortunately it did not turn into a crisis thanks to the quick measures taken by the town authorities. Having already created a list of the needy in the town in a forward-looking manner, they were able to alleviate poverty more easily and quickly with the distribution of food, firewood, and money as the need arose.59 As a result, in January 1880, the mayor of Miskolc, Kálmán Soltész Nagy, submitted a reassuring report to the county deputy:

Based on the reports made to me and on my own experience, I officially declare that the poverty of the poor in the town of Miskolc does not appear to be of such magnitude at this time that it would require legal or state measures.

It is undeniable that in the winter, the poverty of the population is greater than it has been in other years; however, the authorities, in accordance with the order of the town council, shall provide those who are incapable of working with the most essential foods and save them from starvation.60

Considering the deprivation suffered by the population and conditions close to famine, it could be feared that public safety would deteriorate. In 1879, the Borsod alispán asked the Ministry of Interior for eight more cavalries and eight infantry gendarmes, in addition to the existing ones, due to an increasing number of cases of violence.61

There were similar fears of an increase in acts of violence in Zemplén, but according to the semi-annual report of the alispán in 1880, “public safety, considering the given impoverishment and need, cannot be called worrying.”62

As in Zemplén, the provision of public works for the poorest was discussed in Borsod County. It would have been especially helpful for the needy in and around Miskolc if the riverbed regulation planned after the great flood in Miskolc in August 1878 had finally been given the green light from the Ministry. As Kálmán Soltész Nagy, the mayor of Miskolc, wrote in his report, “If the city had already approved the regulatory plan, it could not only help the poor by giving them work, but could also save the significant amount of money it has to spend on relief for the poor relief.”63 He then asked the alispán to try to get the Ministry of Public Works and Transport to approve the draft regulation as soon as possible “so that the work can begin to provide the poor of our town with a source of income at the beginning of spring.”64

Fortunately, the improving weather also alleviated the misery. As the Borsod County alispán wrote, “In the area of the town of Miskólcz, with the onset of milder days, the shortage begins to end, so much so that by the 15 of the current month [March], the supply of foodstuffs will be ceased. Residents in need of public aid can get work in the vineyards and gardens, and the need for further aid, thanks to providence, will disappear.”65

After the unfavorable harvests of the previous years, people rightly hoped that as the weather improved, the harvest would finally provide, if not abundant, at least a sufficient yield. However, the spring frosts dashed some of these hopes. In a report on the state of the crops in April 1880, Kálmán Soltész Nagy wrote,

I am convinced after questioning several farming and viticulture individuals that wheat sowing is generally good, while rye sowing, especially the rye which was sown last, under the cold and heavy snow, is almost completely lost. The buds of the fruit trees are almost completely lost as a result of the extraordinary frost, which recurred at the beginning of spring, and there is no prospect of fruit production at all. The buds on the vines are usually blackened, so they are infertile; however, the quality of the lower buds is still impossible to determine at this time.66

Nevertheless, the county managed to avoid the worst, and in July, the county alispán reported reassuringly to the Minister of Interior that

Anyway—thanks be to providence! Famine has not devastated our county in a large and scary way. The sympathy and compassion of individuals, municipalities, and our authorities have alleviated the problem everywhere. And now, during the summer, we no longer have a reason to talk about poverty. Works assuring subsistence are underway everywhere, and there is hope that the year will not be one of the worst from the perspective of the harvests.67

The yields of the next years were similar in Borsod and Zemplén. The floods of 1881 caused considerable damage in both counties (as they did in other parts of the country), but the harvest ended with a mediocre yield.68 A year later, in the spring of 1882, the alispán of Borsod saw the agricultural situation of the county more optimistically. But from mid-July through August, that is, during the harvest, many crops suffered due to torrential rains,69 and their quality fell short of expectations. But in several districts, they were still “good mediocre,” “completely satisfactory,” or, as the szolgabíró of the Eger district wrote, “The fruit in the whole district is definitely good. In some places, it has exceeded the farmers’ hopes.”70 Thus, the harvest of 1882, which can generally be said to have been plentiful and of good quality, brought the crisis in Borsod to an end, as it did in the neighboring Zemplén County.

Conclusions

The aim of our research was to examine the impact of the weather anomalies of the 1870–80s on agriculture in order to shed light on the decisive roles of weather conditions in the deepening of the agricultural crisis which took place in Europe in the last third of the nineteenth century. In the course of our research, by examining the climate and yield data of two Hungarian counties, Borsod and Zemplén, we observed a series of years of poor yields, as well as a catastrophic harvest in 1879, which led to a period of distress which lasted until 1882. During this period, the agricultural population, while avoiding the worst (as there was no famines), suffered material losses to a degree that led to mass impoverishment in the long run.

Our research does not show a clear link between unfavorable weather and the agricultural crisis, but we nonetheless maintain our contention that impoverishment caused by a series of bad harvests certainly exacerbated the inflow of foreign grain. Moreover, efforts to cope with the crisis were hampered by the fact that many farmers had been ruined and masses of people, including many farmers, emigrated. There are still many questions to be answered. Although we have only superficially examined the relationship between impoverishment and emigration, which took on massive proportions in 1879, it is very likely that the difficult economic situation in Hungary, which was a consequence of the unfavorable weather, gave a greater impetus to emigration. At this point, our research suggests a clear parallel between events and experiences in Hungary and the European experience, which included an ever larger wave of emigration in several countries beginning in the early 1880s.71 Our results also show similarities with the duration of impoverishment in Europe as well, as the worst period in Hungary was also between 1879 and 1882, from which the relatively good yields of 1882 were the way out. 72

Our research also revealed that even in the case of two neighboring counties, Borsod and Zemplén, needs were quite different, although we did not discern any significant differences in the ways in which these needs were addressed. Borsod was less sensitive to hardship, which was presumably the consequence of differences in farming (size and quality of cultivated land, varieties and proportions of cultivated crops, etc.) due to geographical differences. Our findings certainly make clear that if we wish to determine the extent to which we can speak of a national agricultural crisis in 1879–80, further studies at the regional level are needed.

Archival Sources

Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén Megyei Levéltára (MNL BAZML) [Hungarian National Archives Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County Archives]

IV. 803. b. Borsod Vármegye Törvényhatósági Bizottságának iratai, Közgyűlési iratok [Documents of the Municipal Committee of Borsod County, Documents of the General Assembly]

IV. 809. b. Borsod vármegye alispánjának iratai, Közigazgatási iratok [Documents of the Borsod County Alispán, Administrative Documents]

IV. 2402. a. Zemplén Vármegye Törvényhatósági Bizottságának iratai, Közgyűlési jegyzőkönyvek [Documents of the Municipal Committee of Zemplén County, Minutes of the General Assembly]

IV. 2402. b. Zemplén Vármegye Törvényhatósági Bizottságának iratai, Közgyűlési jegyzőkönyvek [Documents of the Municipal Committee of Zemplén County, Documents of the General Assembly]

IV. 2405. Zemplén vármegye alispánjának iratai, Közigazgatási iratok [Documents of the Zemplén County Alispán, Administrative Documents]

Bibliography

Printed sources

Borsod. Miskolczi Értesítő [Borsod. Miskolcz Gazette], August 29, 1878; November 6, 1879; November 20, 1879.

Meteorológiai Évkönyvek [Meteorological Yearbooks]. A meteorológiai és földdelejességi magy. kir. Központi intézet évkönyvei. Budapest: Athenaeum, 1873–1902.

Magyar Statisztikai Évkönyv [Hungarian Statistical Yearbook]. Budapest: Országos Magyar Királyi Statistikai Hivatal, 1879–1901.

Secondary sources

Bichet, Adeline, Doris Folini, Martin Wild, and Christoph Shär. “Enhanced Central European summer precipitation in the late 19th century: a link to the Tropics.” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 2013. doi:10.1002/qj.2111.

Boa, Krisztina. “Az 1863–64. évi aszály és ínség Békés megyében” [The drought and famine of 1863–64 in Békés county]. Fons 19, no. 2 (2012): 161–99.

Czoch, Gábor. “A reformkori közigazgatás az éhínséggel szemben (1845–47)” [Administration against the famine in the Reform Era, 1845–47]. In A mesterség iskolája: Tanulmányok Bácskai Vera 70. születésnapjára [The school of profession: Papers for the 70th birthday of Vera Bácskai]. Edited by Zsombor Bódy, Mónika Mátay, and Árpád Tóth, 371–89. Budapest: Osiris, 2000.

Hodgyai, Mátyás. “Ínséges évek Biharban 1814–1817 között” [Years of distress in Bihar County between 1814 and 1817]. Történelmi Szemle 33, no. 1–2 (1991): 59–69.

Kaposi, Zoltán. “A 19. századi agrárválság hatása a dél-dunántúli régió uradalmi gazdálkodására” [The effects of the nineteenth century agrarian crisis on the economy of latifundia in the Trans-Danubian region]. Közép-európai közlemények 8, no. 2 (2015): 81–93.

Kaposi, Zoltán. “Agrarkrise in Ungarn, besonders auf dem Gebiet von Süd-Transdanubien, 1873–1914.” In Internationales Kulturhistorisches Symposion Mogersdorf 2014 in Kőszeg, 157–78. Szombathely: Vas Megyei Önkormányzati Hivatal, 2019.

Kaposi, Zoltán. “Válság és alkalmazkodás: A 19. század végi agrárkrízis hatásai a dunántúli uradalmak működésésre” [Crisis and adaptation: The effects of the nineteenth century agrarian crisis on the functioning of Trans-Danubian latifundia]. In Magyar Gazdaságtörténeti Évkönyv 2016: Válság-Kereskedelem [Hungarian Economic Yearbook 2016: Crisis-Commerce]. Edited by György Kövér et als., 195–216. Budapest: MTA Bölcsészettudományi Kutatóközpont, 2016.

Katus, László. “Az 1863–64. évi aszály és éhínség az Alföldön” [The drought and famine of 1863–64 in the Hungarian Great Plain]. In A fogyasztás társadalomtörténete [The social history of consumption]. Rendi társadalom – polgári társadalom 18. Edited by József Hudi, 7–11. Budapest: Hajnal István Kör Társadalomtörténeti Egyesület; Pápa: Pápai Református Gyűjtemények, 2007.

Kiss, Zsuzsanna. “Gabonaválság a 19. század végén: Társadalomtörténeti nézőpontok” [Corn crisis at the end of the nineteenth century: Socialhistorical perspectives]. Aetas 4 (2014): 31–44.

Klement, Judit. “Die Agrarkrise am Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts und die Budapester Mühlenindustrie.” In Krisen/Geschichten in mitteleuropäischem Kontext: Sozial- und wirtschaftsgeschichtliche Studien zum 19./20. Jahrhundert. Edited by György Kövér, Márkus Keller, and Csaba Sasfi, 167–97. Vienna: Institut für Ungarische Geschichtsforschung in Wien; Balassi Institut Collegium Hungaricum; Ungarische Archivdelegation beim Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, 2015.

Lamb, Hubert H. Climate, History and the Modern World. London: Psychology Press, 1995.

Perry, Peter J. British Farming in the Great Depression 1870–1914: An Historical Geography. Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1974.

Rémiás, Tibor. “Az 1847. évi éhínség Torna vármegyében” [The famine of 1847 in Torna County]. Történelmi közlemények Abaúj-Torna vármegye és Kassa múltjából 1 (1997): 148–77.

Réthly, Antal. Időjárási események és elemi csapások Magyarországon 1801–1900-ig [Weather events and natural disasters in Hungary between 1801 and 1900]. Vol. 2. Budapest: OMSZ, 1998.

Sándor, Pál. A XIX. századvégi agrárválság Magyarországon [The late-nineteenth century agrarian crisis in Hungary]. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1958.

Ungár, László. “Az 1845–47. évi felvidéki éhínséggel kapcsolatos intézkedések Pesten és Budán” [Measurements taken in Buda and Pest against the Uppland famine of 1845–47]. Tanulmányok Budapest múltjából 6 (1938): 170–79.

Vörös, Antal. “A magyar mezőgazdaság a kapitalista átalakulás útján (1849–1890)” [Hungarian Agriculture on the road to capitalist transformation]. In A magyar mezőgazdaság a XIX–XX. században (1849–1949) [Hungarian agriculture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries]. Agrártörténeti Tanulmányok 4. Edited by Péter Gunst, and Tamás Hoffmann, 9–152. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1976.

1 Hodgyai, “Ínséges évek.”

2 Czoch, “A reformkori közigazgatás”; Rémiás, “Az 1847. évi éhínség”; Ungár, “Az 1845–47. évi.”

3 Boa, “Az 1863–64. évi aszály”; Katus, “Az 1863–64. évi aszály.”

4 Lamb, Climate, History and the Modern World.

5 On the agrarian crisis in Great Britain, see Perry, British Farming.

6 Lamb, Climate, History and the Modern World, 233; Bichet et als., “Enhanced Central European summer.”

7 Sándor, A XIX. századvégi agrárválság; Kaposi, “A 19. századi agrárválság”; Kaposi, “Válság és alkalmazkodás”; Kaposi, „Agrarkrise in Ungarn”; Klement, “Die Agrarkrise”; Kiss, “Gabonaválság a 19. század végén.”

8 Meteorológiai Évkönyvek.

9 The temperature was measured three times a day, at 7 a.m., 2 p.m., and 9 p.m.

10 Magyar Statisztikai Évkönyvek

11 Vörös, “A magyar mezőgazdaság.”

12 1886 was considered the wettest year in Rozsnyó (today Rožňava, Slovakia), but since we do not have data from the late 1870s, it is possible that precipitation in the missing years exceeded precipitation in 1886.

13 Meslin is a mixture of equal parts of wheat and rye that is sown and harvested together.

14 One Viennese acre is 5,755 square meters.

15 Between 1877 and 1890, the size of the sown areas varied between 2,300 and 3,000 hectares.

16 From Szepes County, there were maize data for only three years in the Statistical Yearbooks, so we did not include them in our analysis.

17 Borsod. Miskolczi Értesítő, August 29, 1878, 3.

18 Réthly, Időjárási események, vol. 2, 548.

19 MNL BAZML, IV. 809. b. 868/1881.

20 MNL BAZML IV. 2402. b. 2/2020/1879.

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid.

24 Ibid.

25 MNL BAZML IV. 2402. b. 107/1880.

26 MNL BAZML IV. 2402. b. 6559/1879.

27 MNL BAZML IV. 2402. b. 127/8758/1880; 9340/1881; 2216/1882.

28 MNL BAZML IV. 2402. b. 189/6559/1879; 162/9479/1882.

29 MNL BAZML IV. 803. b. 185/1879.

30 MNL BAZML IV. 803. b. 434/1879.

31 After the moratorium expired, they asked to pay the one-year tax in interest-free instalments. MNL BAZML IV. 2402. a. 188/1879.

32 MNL BAZML IV. 803. b. 434/1879; MNL BAZML IV. 2402. a. 188/1879.

33 MNL BAZML IV. 2402. a. 321/1879.

34 MNL BAZML IV. 2402. a. 321/1879.

35 Ibid.

36 MNL BAZML IV. 2402. a. 9522/1879.

37 MNL BAZML IV. 2402. a. 321/1879.

38 MNL BAZML IV. 2402. a. 9522/1879.

39 MNL BAZML IV. 2402. a. 321/1879.

40 MNL BAZML IV. 2402. a. 9522/1879.

41 MNL BAZML IV. 2405. b. 9958/1879.

42 MNL BAZML IV. 2405. b. 10717/1879.

43 Ibid.

44 MNL BAZML IV. 2402. a. 127/1880.

45 MNL BAZML IV. 2402. b. 7135/1881.

46 MNL BAZML IV. 2402. b. 7135/1881, 9286/1881, 9340/1881.

47 MNL BAZML IV. 2402. b. 9340/1881.

48 MNL BAZML IV. 2402. b. 5/2534/1882.

49 MNL BAZML IV. 2402. b. 162/9479/1882.

50 Ibid.

51 MNL BAZML IV. 803. b. 577/1879.

52 Borsod. Miskolczi Értesítő, November 6, 1879.

53 Borsod. Miskolczi Értesítő, November 20, 1879.

54 MNL BAZML IV. 803. b. 420/1879; MNL BAZML IV. 803. b. 569/1879.

55 MNL BAZML IV. 803. b. 577/1879.

56 MNL BAZML IV. 803. b. 1/1880.

57 MNL BAZML IV. 809. b. 488/1880.

58 MNL BAZML IV. 809. b. 519/1880.

59 MNL BAZML IV. 803. b. 1/1880.

60 MNL BAZML IV. 809. b. 107/1880.

61 MNL BAZML IV. 803. b. 418/1879.

62 MNL BAZML IV. 2402. a. 6/1880.

63 MNL BAZML IV. 809. b. 463/1880.

64 Ibid.

65 MNL BAZML IV. 809. b. 901/1880.

66 MNL BAZML IV. 809. b. 1246/1880.

67 MNL BAZML IV. 809. b. 2226/1880.

68 MNL BAZML IV. 809. b. 1/1882.

69 MNL BAZML IV. 809. b. 344/1882.

70 MNL BAZML IV. 809. b. 2638/1882.

71 Lamb, Climate, History and the Modern World, 234.

72 Ibid., 275; Perry, British Farming, 54–60.

* This work was financially supported by the NKFIH FK 128978 project.

Figure 5. Eger’s annual average temperature by seasons. Source: Meteorológiai Évkönyvek

Figure 8. Annual wheat crop by counties, 1877–90. Source: Magyar Statisztikai Évkönyvek

Figure 13. Annual cereal crops in Szepes County in relation to the annual average precipitation in Eperjes. Sources: Meteorológiai Évkönyv, Magyar Statisztikai Évkönyvek

2020_1_Boisserie

Volume 9 Issue 1 CONTENTS

Autumn 1918–Spring 1919: Six Months of Postwar Material and Political Uncertainty in Slovakia

Etienne Boisserie
Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

A few weeks after the Czechoslovak State has been proclaimed in Prague (October 28, 1918), Slovak territory is still a battleground for political and military control. Mid-January, the Czechoslovak forces are about to control the demarcation line under the command of Italian officers. But still, at that time, political and material problems surrounding the real control of the territory are hardly overlapped (and won’t be for almost a semester).
This paper intends to observe and analyze this short period of time (February–June 1919) when the material and psychological consequences of World War I cumulate with a weak legitimacy of the (Czecho)Slovak authorities, multiple material obstacles and the lack of experience of the so-called government in Bratislava. Those uncertainties are cruelly reminded in the personal–official and unofficial correspondence–of the main Slovak protagonists who describe a situation far from being controlled as the propaganda puts it.
The paper is based on archives of Slovak National Archive, and namely the general Minister plenipotentiary fond, and some personal archives of the main political actors of that period in Slovakia (mostly Vavro Šrobár, Ivan Markovič, Pavel Blaho, Fedor Houdek, Anton Štefánek). We shall also use some elements of the Regional Military Command (ZVV) Košice available at the National Military Archiv, and notably the regional reports.

Keywords: Czechoslovakia, Slovakia, Upper Hungary, aftermath of World War I, Czechoslovak provisional government in Slovakia

Months after the proclamation of the Czechoslovak State in Prague on October 28, 1918, the Slovak territory1 remained the theater of a battle for military and political control. Throughout this period, the priority for Czechoslovakia and the Slovak political and intellectual elites which supported the newly proclaimed state was solidly to anchor this territory to the new state, despite limited support and fragile political conditions.2 First, the Czechoslovak claim to certain territories, particularly those furthest east, was contestable and indeed contested. Second, the forces available in Slovakia to run the administration and take over from the Hungarian authorities were too few. Third, relations between Czechoslovak civilian authorities and the Italian military mission responsible for occupation of the territory were fraught with mutual mistrust. Last, like in most other regions of the former Habsburg Empire, the population faced worsened living conditions of all sorts, and this made the political situation fluid and unstable.

These difficulties and the uncertainties they created within the Czechoslovak apparatus in Slovakia are clear in the private and official correspondence of the main Slovak leaders of the time, who were responsible for administering the region from November 1918. In this article, we will primarily observe the correspondence between the Plenipotentiary, his “government,” and the prefects he appointed. This correspondence will shed light on a few themes that structured the activity and influenced the hopes and fears of these authorities in the first six months after the war. This correspondence shows the consequences of the Great War for the territory, as well as the material and political obstacles to the assertion of Czechoslovak authority. After a general overview of the context of the efforts to take over the civilian institutions in Slovakia in autumn 1918, I consider the main difficulties encountered up until April of the following year, when Czechoslovak authority was endangered during the first weeks of the conflict with the Hungarian Republic of Councils.

The Immediate Problem of Taking Control of Slovakia

In the early days of November, the new government under Mihály Károlyi in Budapest did not specifically address the issue of the Kingdom’s northern counties, where the Hungarian authorities only partially disappeared. The administrative apparatus was usable neither by Budapest, which had other urgent issues to address, nor by the Slovak National Council (SNR) in Turčiansky Svätý Martin (Turócszentmárton), which had been formed on October 30 and which struggled with its inexperience and lack of authority and political sway.3

From the very first days of November, serious problems arose concerning public order, and in many places, they broke down into armed conflicts and looting.4 Often, the various local councils cooperated with the local authorities in an attempt to maintain order and ensure that supplies reached local people, who were often disoriented.5 In the northeastern regions, Hungarian National Councils or Hungarian National Guards were assembled at the behest of the Budapest government. This happened most widely in the eastern part of the territory, but these bodies were also formed in some of the most densely Slovak-inhabited counties (like Orava [Árva], Turiec [Turóc], Liptov [Liptó], and even Turčiansky Svätý Martin, where a Hungarian National Guard was created on November 4, which contributed to maintaining political confusion through declarations in favor of autonomy). In response, National Councils and National Guards supported by the Slovak National Party (SNS) were formed in several towns.6 In some places, these Councils managed to take control of the municipal administration, but disorder remained considerable and difficult to control.7

On November 4, the National Committee (Národní výbor) in Prague named a provisional government in Slovakia (Československá dočasná vláda na Slovensku). Led by Vavro Šrobár, it was composed of three of the most reliable (and available) pro-Czechoslovak politicians: Ivan Dérer, Pavol Blaho, and Anton Štefánek.8 Its task was to take control of the territory with the help of a few hundred soldiers. This provisional government (known as the “Skalica government,” after the city where it had its first seat) managed to take control of the southwestern tip of Slovakia, between the Moravian border and the area north of Bratislava (Pozsony).9 A few towns were occupied, but resources were known to be insufficient to consider continuing as far as Bratislava.10 The Czechoslovak troops did succeed, however, in following the river Váh (Vág) upstream and occupying part of it before reaching T. S. Martin. But the situation of the Czechoslovak civilian authorities in Slovakia soon became delicate. The situation varied among regions, but the weakness of the available forces was felt everywhere, raising immediate difficulties for the “liberators.”11 There were many pockets of resistance that were not limited to transport nodes like the Vrútky (Ruttka) railway hub, where the workers came essentially from the Hungarian Plain and which was beyond Czechoslovak control.12 Initially, the position of the provisional government was fragile, but it was nonetheless more favorable than that of the Slovak National Council. The situation of the Skalica government grew increasingly complicated following the Belgrade armistice, which left the Hungarian Government free to govern the whole territory of the Kingdom, including regions which had been claimed by Czechoslovakia. The Skalica government did work, however, to keep or retake control, eventually reaching parts of the Moravian border. These operations left only a narrow, fragmented strip of land along the Moravian border under Czechoslovak control. Most situation reports sent to Šrobár at the time underlined the instability of the situation and detailed the provisional solutions aimed at ensuring the safety of the population.13

In Prague, the Revolutionary National Assembly met beginning on November 14. Two days later, Club of Slovak Deputies which had been formed within it proclaimed the transfer of the competences of the SNR to the provisional assembly and the Czechoslovak government.14 The SNR was marginalized by the second half of November.15

The situation in Slovakia raised further difficulties for the Czechoslovak authorities, which were also facing challenges in the Czech Lands. The question of the authority of civilian bodies was acute, and several obstacles complicated the issue of control of the demarcation line.

In early December, a bill was prepared on exceptional provisional measures in Slovakia.16

Slovakia (MPS). He arrived in Žilina (Zsolna) five days later, and he convened his government the next day.17 While his presence in Žilina was a step forward from a Czechoslovak perspective, this government had no legitimacy in the eyes of the locals. There is no clearer demonstration of the difficulties facing the Czechoslovak provisional authorities than the tale of the night-time arrival of one of its key figures, Štefan Janšák, who was in charge of public works. His account is far from glorious: “[The government] set to work in its new seat inconspicuously. At the station, it was met by a single man. Dr. Brežný was afraid that the people of Žilina would protest against our arrival, so he led us towards the center through the side streets. In our worn coats, with battered, old-fashioned suitcases, we looked like traveling salesmen [...]. The hotels were in such a state [...] that we did not venture into them. Dr. Brežný spread us among various local families.”18

In his memoirs, Ivan Thurzo, then Secretary of the Slovak National Council, mentions another difficulty faced by the Skalica government. Šrobár “knew nothing of what had happened in Slovakia in the last few days,” and, in particular, he knew nothing of the passage of the Mackensen army through Žilina, which had had an effect on the population far greater than the effect a few dozen Czechoslovak soldiers could have had.19 Šrobár also faced a variety of challenges: making the civilian administration work, organizing supplies, and controlling the postal service, communications, and railways.20 The doubt as to the solidity of Czechoslovak positions was also an obstacle for the members of his government.21 In a report to Šrobár on the military situation after a tour by train, Fedor Houdek, referent in charge of National Defense, painted a picture of the uncertainty of the time:

in Sučany and Turany [Nagyturány in Hungarian; situated a few kilometers east of T. S. Martin], we did not find any Czechoslovak army members. That was suspicious. The railway administration was occupied by old officials. Either they knew nothing or they did not want to tell us anything, so we learned very little from them. In Turany, the station manager is from Lisková, and he says Šrobár knows him.22 He was not very well disposed to us, but you could read the fear in his eyes. Disoriented in the political situation, perhaps he feared the return of the Hungarians, and being too attentive to us could have damaged his position. I asked him if I could use the station telephone, and I contacted Ľubochňa [Fenyőháza] and then Ružomberok [Rozsahegy]. In both places, they were unable to tell me if there were Czechoslovak army elements ahead of us, and I could obtain no information from them on the possible presence of the Hungarian army.23

At the end of October, the decision was made provisionally to retain all legislation from the Dualist period. Minister Plenipotentiary Šrobár therefore had to reorganize the whole administration on that basis. The implementation of policies in the different sectors was carried out by government delegates chosen carefully by Šrobár from among men who were both experienced and reliable. The various lists available in the Šrobár papers indicate that, while appointments were not yet decided with certainty, he could rely on a group of some 20 close collaborators with long reputations in the Slovak patriotic milieu. Apart from them, the pool was limited, most notably for the administration.24 In addition to the emergencies that Šrobár’s “government” had to handle itself, an essential task was delegated to the prefects (župani) appointed in the different counties. Upon their appointment, they were to reorganize local and municipal administrations and ensure the Czechoslovak State’s control over the territory. A shortlist of potential prefects had been drawn up before Šrobár’s arrival in Slovakia,25 but one of the difficulties was balancing the importance of presence in Prague and in the Slovak territory.26

In the days and weeks that followed, political uncertainty would be an obstacle to strengthening the pool of personnel on which the Šrobár government could. Several men reputed to be reliable cautiously declined the offer when contacted.27 Šrobár’s initial list had its limits. In his memoirs, Janšák sets out the problem in wider terms and highlights that the difficulties continued in early 1919. “Šrobár did his statistics before he even received answers from the people he had considered making the officers of this army of officials. When he informed them in writing that they were to take office, he encountered many refusals and much prevarication. Political insecurity in late 1918 and early 1919 and the risks attached to serving the new state were such that members of the older generations, especially fathers whose livelihood was assured (even if modest), preferred to wait and see which side fortune would ultimately favor.”28 Only in the early days of February were all the prefects definitively appointed.29 But some of them, like Otokar Jamnický in Komárno (Komárom), were only able to take office a few weeks later.30 It was sometimes impossible for them to exercise genuine authority. In Hont County, for example, the prefect’s position remained very unstable until April, when the appointment of Milutin Sahulčík enabled the establishment of a fledgling Czechoslovak authority.31 In his activity report published at the end of the year, the prefect of Hont recalled that “because of the complete lack of Slovak officials in the county seat, the prefect [author’s note: then Lehotský] could not carry out his functions, and old Hungarian officials continued to govern.” Only in late April could his successor establish his authority in some districts of the county.32

If the Žilina government faced these kinds of difficulties in the first half of December, this was also because the diplomatic and military situation remained disordered and uncertain. On December 9, the Czechoslovak Supreme Military Command in Prague published the “directive for the occupation of Slovakia,” which was to be carried out by the Czechoslovak army in Italy. Units of volunteers were tasked with securing the major transit routes and borders with Poland and occupying the interior of the territory. The last stage of this first phase of the occupation of Slovakia met with mixed results. The reports sent to Šrobár during the second half of December indicated multiple material difficulties, including food and/or coal shortages in several towns and regions, and the impossibility of installing a nascent administrative apparatus in certain towns. On January 7, 1919, Matej Metod Bella, who had been in charge of supplies for a few weeks, reported that “although we have appointed prefects, the administrations are not working.”33

However, after two months of great difficulties, some form of Czechoslovak civilian and military authority had been established over the territory. But when the peace conference opened in Paris, difficulties remained considerable—and they would increase throughout the spring, as the Slovak authorities faced resistances and insufficiencies that they were unable to overcome in such a short space of time.

Some resulted directly from the weakness of the authority exercised, while others, which were occasional but not unimportant, affected the eastern regions close to the demarcation line or were linked to disruption in certain sectors such as transport and supplies.34 The overall difficulties were a hindrance to exercising genuine civilian authority beyond Bratislava and western Slovakia, as well as to coordinating this civilian authority with the military authority handled by the Italian military mission since the December 1918 agreement.35

Italian-Slovak Tensions and Their Impact in Slovakia

During the construction phase of the Czechoslovak military apparatus, Czechoslovakia’s own forces were insufficient, and it had to rely on its allies for support. The main Slovak leaders in Slovakia were acutely aware of these needs. Initially, Italy expressed the most willingness to serve this function. In November, Foreign Minister Edvard Beneš had negotiated an agreement in principle for the Czechoslovak troops of France and Italy to be transferred to Czechoslovakia.36 It soon became clear that the French were reluctant, while the Italians were more inclined to go ahead with the transfer swiftly.37 The agreement reached in mid-December was quickly implemented. There were now Czechoslovak units (around 7,000 men) in Slovakia under the command of Colonel František Schöbl. Over the course of the month, these men took back the main cities claimed by the Czechoslovak state. But their behavior was criticized in all quarters, including by the Czechoslovak Defense Minister himself, Václav Klofáč, and by the Italian commanders who reported back to Luigi Piccione, Supreme commander of the Czechoslovak army in Slovakia.38 However, the Czechoslovak army deployed gradually along the demarcation line, and reinforcements came regularly.

But in the first weeks of 1919, tensions emerged between Rome and Prague, and relations between the Italian military authorities and the Šrobár government broke down rapidly. This had an impact on the situation in Slovakia. Ivan Markovič, Secretary of the Foreign Ministry specifically in charge of political and legal affairs reporting to Šrobár, underlined this in a report to Beneš sent in the first days of February:

In Slovakia, the attitude of the Italian officers is making waves. [...] I do not want to go into detail, because I would only be telling you what I have heard, without evidence, and you would not be able to conclude anything much from it. In short, the Italians are acting as if they had not recognized our sovereignty, particularly in the Magyarized towns. In particular, they are saying that it is not yet certain that these towns (Prešporok, Lučenec, Komárno, Nitra) will be ours. That comes across in the administration (in Nitra, the Italian colonel has not allowed us to raise our flags on the county administration building so as not to upset the Hungarian population).39

These conflicts heightened following the government’s move from Žilina to Bratislava in early February, and serious incidents occurred in the following days, including during the great demonstration of February 12, killing eight and injuring around 20.40 The Italians were now said to be favorable to the Hungarians. Their behavior was the subject of numerous complaints to the Czechoslovak authorities,41 and some of the most criticized officers were replaced. This tension between Italy and Czechoslovakia remained a point of constant tension until the departure of the Italian military mission at the end of May. It came on top of the shortage of available human resources, insufficiently compensated for by the contribution of Czech volunteers, which was organized spontaneously and informally in November 1918 before being made systematic.42

This policy of sending Czechs had its limits: the pool of personnel was small, and the chaotic conditions in Slovakia did not help. In several regions, reports from the prefects highlighted fragile political and social conditions.43 Other factors were not conducive to increasing the number of volunteers, including the prevailing financial conditions, as pay was markedly lower than in the Czech Lands,44 and professional questions, as some professions were better suited than others to being exercised in communities in which there were Hungarian majorities and which were reputedly hostile.45 Other difficulties were merely material and linked to the difficulty of billeting the men. These factors together explain the particular profile of most Czech volunteers in Slovakia: relatively qualified men who were young and unmarried, and who often mentioned pre-war Slovakophilia and/or had personal ties or friendships with Slovaks close to the new regime.46 Despite this contribution, staff shortages still affected all areas of the administration in early April, including the judicial apparatus, where the situation was soon considered acute.47 Even as late as April, Juraj Slávik in Prague noted that only three courts were totally controlled by the Czechoslovak authorities, in Banská Bystrica (Besztercebánya), Ružomberok, and Levoča (Lőcse), while others, such as in Nitra (Nyitra), had had to be closed.48 Šrobár made a wider, sharper report to Piccione on April 10, after having received authorization to occupy the territories north of the demarcation line: “I reminded him of the difficulties we would face if we were to occupy the country: supplies, the shortage of specialists and reliable people, administration, justice, railways, and the postal service. We have no teachers (...) and not even enough soldiers to hold a long border.”49 In addition to these administrative problems, there were also more political difficulties that the Czechoslovak administration in Slovakia struggled to resolve. Some of these difficulties were provoked by the attitude of the Slovak authorities themselves, particularly in early1919.

The Government’s Move to Bratislava and Internal Political Difficulties

From the Prevrat onwards, the city of Bratislava experienced a distinctive evolution as regards the territory potentially attached to Czechoslovakia. This attachment had initially been very strongly opposed among the German and Hungarian elites, before a form of accord was reached with the former. In the last days of 1918, the situation might appear to have calmed, but from the beginning of January and until the government’s arrival in Bratislava, the situation worsened in the city, particularly because of the decisions made by the Slovak government as it prepared its arrival. These measures contradicted the promises that had been made in the autumn, which had helped defuse the acute political opposition of the first weeks following the Prevrat. A few decisions made in late December had already appeared counterproductive. Railway employees who did not speak Slovak had been dismissed, as had those who had refused to swear allegiance to the government.50 In the days that followed, social allowances for the unemployed were reduced. Some workers were no longer paid, supplies became more difficult to assure, and the administration seemed to struggle to find a solution to material problems. The major difficulty faced by the Slovak authorities throughout the first half of the year remained supplies. The creation in January 1919 of a Supplies Department for Slovakia (Zásobovací ústav pro Slovensko) was supposed to help coordinate all activities. But it did not resolve the management and control difficulties that were creating tensions and serious concerns.51 Food stores in particular were looted, without the law enforcement forces (which were both insufficient in numbers and unreliable) putting an end to it. Moreover, disagreements between the Czechoslovak civilian administration and the Italian military authorities were now an open secret. In mid-January, the Slovak authorities still seemed optimistic about the situation in the city, but the situation went downhill fast.52 In the end, when Šrobár arrived in the city, there was an atmosphere of open hostility. The crowd that greeted him was essentially made up of Slovaks from the surrounding area who had been brought in for the occasion. The inhabitants of Bratislava ostensibly did not take part in these festivities. Šrobár had to contend with an insufficient, unreliable administration and a shortage of housing for the new arrivals, as well as scarce coal for the economic apparatus because of the priority accorded to transport, and the need to disarm the railway workers and some postal service personnel. The strikes in February demonstrated the importance of taking control of several administrations, including the railways.53 In the following weeks and months, more than 450 administrative staff and 2,500 railway workers were sent from the Czech Lands to replace employees who had refused to pledge allegiance to the new state and had been dismissed.

The new government also made repeated errors of judgment. Poor decisions included the closure of the city’s university after the refusal of the professors to take part in the festivities for the government’s arrival in the city.54 These tensions came on top of recurrent problems in relations with the civilian population in other regions. In early February, several reports from prefects noted a very unstable and dangerous situation for the Slovak authorities in regions close to the demarcation line.55 The normal functioning of the administration was endangered and the weakness of the Czechoslovak military presence had led to fatal incidents in a few towns.56 Two weeks later, Markovič summarized the government’s difficulties to Beneš, noting the persistent challenges faced by the civilian administration: “In Slovakia, the situation is more difficult than it was. The Hungarians continued committing provocative acts, especially among officials, and this has led to a general strike. It has above all affected the railways and the postal service, where the largest number of Hungarians and Magyarons work. Luckily, it did not break out everywhere at once, which has allowed us to gradually and fairly swiftly paralyze it by bringing in Czech personnel. Today, the trains are running more or less as regularly—or rather, irregularly—as before.”57

Uncertainty on Borders and the Issue of the Circulation of Information

The other immediate difficulty was the lack of information available to Šrobár.58 And when information did circulate, it was not precise enough for measures to be taken in Slovakia. In his report dated March 11, Fedor Houdek, who was close to the men of the government in Slovakia and a member of the Czechoslovak delegation to the peace conference and who had been in touch with Šrobár for a few days, reported with a touch of disappointment and anger that he could “still not give any positive information on the final settlement of the borders.”59 This problem of information circulation would persist. It was an increasing source of concern as the situation worsened in Slovakia, and the contradictory information available in Prague soon gave Markovič a sentiment of discomfort, which he expressed to Beneš in early April.60 At that time, the little information Šrobár had received from Houdek dated back to early April and was not very encouraging: there was nothing on borders, there was an atmosphere of secrecy in Paris, and the Wilsonian position “of optimistic humanism... does more harm than good.” His general assessment of the overall situation was pessimistic: “For us, the danger has never been greater than it is now, and it will be greater still in the near future.”61

In the meantime, in February and March, Markovič visited Bratislava, where he would spend several days before heading to Budapest. While he participated in several conferences aimed at asserting Czechoslovak authority,62 he sent reports to Beneš that were frankly optimistic as to the situation in the country. He had only just arrived when he sent a report on February 23, in which he offered the following conclusion: “I would not like my report to give you the impression that the conditions here are untenable. They are not. The people are generally showing calm and maturity, but the situation is worsening [...], the administration is working very poorly because there are not enough officials. In brief, the situation in Slovakia is not yet critical, but it is difficult, and it could become critical if the current uncertainty were to last even longer.”63 One month later, the effects of long-term uncertainty on the borders seemed to worsen due to effective Hungarian propaganda: “The Hungarians are still acting as if there were no doubt as to the territorial integrity of the Kingdom being upheld. That can be seen in several of their decisions and in the insinuations made by their press and agitators. And the masses are totally intoxicated by this hashish.”64

The uncertainty faced at the time by the Šrobár government and its administration was combined with political difficulties on various levels. These were linked in particular to the religious issue and the attitude of the politically organized Slovak Catholic faction. This fraction had organized in November 1918 around a priest from Ružomberok who was a figurehead of the Catholic faction of the national movement before the war: Andrej Hlinka.65 This Catholic faction, gathered within a Slovak People’s Party (SĽS), soon opposed Šrobár’s authority.66 The religious conflict which had marked the last years before the war was revived and amplified by the measures taken by the Interior Ministry in January 1919 to restrict freedom of assembly.67 These measures attracted much public criticism throughout February and March.68 In the context of the time, this agitation, described as “anti-Czech” by the authorities in Prague, was a constant source of concern. However, it was considered potentially less dangerous than the supply problems, which had become acute.69 In the first weeks of spring, the accumulation of material difficulties, political agitation involving the main leaders of the different Slovak factions, and the imperfect implantation of an embryonic administration supported by Czechs came to a head.70

In addition to this tense intra-Slovak context, the attitude of the Hungarian population also raised difficulties.71 Writing from Bratislava, Ivan Markovič underlined the most important aspects in a letter to Beneš in the first half of March.72 He reported the fear of incidents during the commemoration of the Hungarian Revolution and War of Independence on March 15 and the rumored armed uprisings, notably in Bratislava and Košice (Kassa), where exceptional security measures were taken.73 In Košice, the command of the 6th Infantry Division asked General Schöbl to ensure that all contact between officers and the civilian population was avoided in the days following the banned festivities.74 In Prague meanwhile, Prime Minister Karel Kramář was worried about the authorities’ ability to control the situation.75

Persistent Weaknesses and the “Kun Effect”

The impacts of the material difficulties and strategic situation of Slovakia both before and after Béla Kun came to power in Hungary were a source of concern. In early March, Markovič informed Beneš of the recurrent agitation provoked by the scarcity of food and other essentials and the lack of work. “This shortage is definitely a good means of agitating against the Czechs and the army, which is ‘starving’ Slovakia,” he wrote. No doubt used to modest goals, he did consider, however, that “the machinery is just about functioning”76 and that, while the stability of the Czechoslovak authorities remained fragile, the reliability of certain bodies that had long been questionable (for instance the police) was gradually improving, and anti-Czech agitation persisted in a less radical form. But less than two weeks later, while reporting a calm situation, he did note that, in some places, this calm could transform into a rebellion were the Czechoslovak authorities to show an insufficiently firm hand.77 The situation in Eastern Slovakia and Ruthenia particularly captured the attention of the Slovak authorities, which were informed of the multiple difficulties encountered. The material situation there was constantly described as even more unfavorable than in other regions. In March, acute supply difficulties became a problem again. During the Conference of Prefects and Deputies meeting of mid-April in Bratislava, the referent for supplies, Matej Bella, reported that the situation had at that stage “reached a point where there were fears of collapse.” The situation was still seen as critical by some, meaning only “the most basic needs” could be fulfilled.78 This situation raised fears of the population turning to Bolshevism in a region suffering endemic poverty and where the Czechoslovak ability to run a civilian administration encountered the most recurrent problems. Judging from the report by prefect Ladislav A. Moyš on the situation in Užhorod County in early May, this problem persisted throughout the period: “So far, we have been forced to run the administration, the justice system, etc. with officials from the old regime insofar as it is better to have poor staff than no staff at all.”79

Evidence indicates that the change in regime in Hungary and the Kun offensive had a positive impact on the authority of the Czechoslovak state. The fears inspired by the Kun regime in certain categories of the population, which had hitherto been either silently or overtly hostile to the Czechoslovak State, helped limit the destabilization of the Czechoslovak authorities, particularly in Bratislava,80 and criticism of the authorities became less audible. Reports converged in this vein to the extent that President Masaryk wrote in a rather satisfied tone to Beneš: “Hungarian bolshevism has helped us a lot in Slovakia: many Hungarians and Magyarons now see us as their salvation.”81 Markovič, meanwhile, mentioned certain segments of the population to which he referred as the majetnejšie neslovenské triedy (non-Slovak property-owning classes), for whom personal security and wealth were more important than the integrity of the Kingdom of Hungary and whose relations with the Czechoslovak authorities were now “generally better.”82 But the eastern sector remained an exception. Hungarian propaganda allegedly was exerting a growing influence over the population, who lived in a state of great deprivation, regardless of creed or nationality.83

Setting aside the special case of the eastern regions, which were fragile in the long term, early April saw the beginning of a general improvement in supplies and a gradual strengthening of the administration.84 In certain sectors important to the new regime, such as schools, the population was not spontaneously welcoming with the new arrivals, even in regions with Slavic majorities. This school issue was, along with that of the judicial institutions, one of the difficult points to address across the territory.85 In his report to the Conference in mid-April, the referent for school affairs, Anton Štefánek, reported that the opposition of Hungarian teachers to the new regime had grown in the first weeks of spring, and he announced the decision to close all schools that did not have a Czechoslovak teaching “corps” (Sbor československý) early, underlining the importance of triggering a “great cleansing of schools from the national point of view.”86

Despite persistent military difficulties, most civilian and military reports from this period mention a slight improvement in the situation, for which there were multiple causes. The attitude of the population now seemed more favorable to the Czechoslovak authorities, even if tensions persisted in certain regions, including in the west, such as in Nitra or Štiavnica. The general improvement in the food situation in April and early May helped strengthen the position of the Czechoslovak civilian authorities.87 Control of the railways and postal service had improved since the strikes had begun to subside in mid-March, but the worry provoked by the serious shortage of personnel to replace the previous administration remained high. It was in this context, which remained unstable, that the Czechoslovak army began a new phase in the conflict with the Hungarian Republic of Councils. Their initial victories gave way to a rout that shed light on the army’s endemic fragilities.88 It lacked means of transport and communication, its supplies were poor, it was ill-equipped, and it was weakened by a discipline more unreliable than ever and overt defiance of the Italian officers. A flurry of reports underlined the role played by the Italian officers in the moral breakdown of the Czechoslovak army.89 Moreover, during this Hungarian counteroffensive, part of the state apparatus also showed its fragility.90 Considerable pressure had to be applied to Hungary for the authorities to be able to take back and assert control of the territory from the beginning of July.

Conclusion

The failure of the Czechoslovak authorities to take quick control of the territories in question and the local administrations and the material uncertainties this failure caused undermined the Czechoslovak position.91 At the beginning of the summer of 1919, Markovič was even more pessimistic than he had been in the months before. He observed that the conditions were “beyond doubt worse than they were after the Prevrat [...]. Not so much because of a lack of will or because of any particular resistance, but because of the demoralization and general apathy of people, worn down by five years of war.”92 This observation in the summer was confirmed at the end of December 1919 in the Minister Plenipotentiary’s report on the situation in Slovakia, which warned against “the slightest optimism,” which it contended would be “inappropriate and dangerous” given the major difficulties the Czechoslovak authority continued to face, particularly in the four southern and eastern counties (Komárno, Hont, Gemer, and Abaujtorna).93 Most of difficulties were familiar from the previous period: the Hungarian threat, the apathy of the Slovak population, the fragility of the administration, and occasional tensions between the army and the civilian population in regions close to the Danube River or the Hungarian border, as well as in eastern regions.

It took several more months to structure the administration, this time employing resources from the Czech Lands and local Slovak elites and/or pre-Prevrat civil servants in some regions.94 But in many districts, particularly in the south and east, control remained incomplete. This administrative and political fragility of the Czechoslovak authority amplified the supply problems driven by the destruction and disorganization of the war against Hungary, which remained considerable.

Moreover, ahead of the legislative elections of spring 1920, Slovak internal political divisions (the early signs of which were observable from November 1918) intensified, as did the power struggles between the SNR and the Club of Slovak Deputies and the tensions between the authority of the Minister Plenipotentiary and political Catholicism. The Czechoslovak government in Slovakia addressed these difficulties through a policy of authoritarian control, taking measures to restrict the freedom of the press and the freedom of movement and using propaganda. Despite a few episodes of social conflict, the new absence of an external threat and the fatigue of the population helped stabilize Czechoslovak authority in the first months of 1920.

Archival Sources

Literárny Archiv Slovenskej Národnej Knižnice [Literary Archive Slovak National Library] (LA SNK), Martin.

Fond Daxner (80)

Fond Thurzo (166)

Slovenská Národná Rada v Martine (f. 94)

Starý fond 8. História kultúrna, C 903, Koncept návrhov na županov na
Slovensku [Draft proposal for prefects in Slovakia], 8 December 1918.

Slovenský Národný Archiv [Slovak National Archives] (SNA), Bratislava

Českoslovenká dočasná vláda na Slovensku, 614.11.1918 [Čs. doč. vláda].

Ministerstvo s plnou mocou pre správu Slovenska, boxes 1, 5, 8, 255, 257.

Personal collection (of.). Dula, box 9.

of. Markovič.

of. Šrobár, boxes 8, 9, 10, 11, 26.

of. Milan Rastislav Štefánik, box 39.

of. Pavol Blaho, box 40.

of. Anton Štefánek, box 10,

of.Hlinka, box 21

Vojenský historický ústav [Institute of Military History] (VHÚ), Bratislava

Collection Zemské Vojenské Veliteľstvo Košice, Presidium 1919, boxes 2, 3, 4.

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1 For the purposes of this article, I use the term “Slovakia” instead of “Upper Hungary,” as the first expression is the only one used in the correspondence on which I have focused. The term refers to a territory which was not defined precisely, but which encompassed the land north of the demarcation line and/or the territory claimed by the Czechoslovak state at the Paris Peace Conference.

2 For a recent synthesis on this period, see Hronský, “Vznik Česko-Slovenska,” 112–33; idem, The Struggle for Slovakia; Krajčovičová, “Začleňovanie Slovenska do Československej republiky.” With different perspectives, see also Nurmi, Slovakia: A Playground for Nationalism and National Identity.

3 An abundant literature is available. See Hronský, Slovensko na rázcestí; Krajčovičová, “Slovenská národná rada roku 1918”; Hronský, “Vznik a krátka činnosť druhej Slovenskej národnej rady”; Mlynárik, “Slovenská národná rada.”

4 Medvecký, Slovenský prevrat, 3–186. The term Prevrat, used in this paper without translation, refers both to October 28, 1918 and to the revolutionary process that followed. Revolution and takeover are possible translations, but insufficiently encompass the specific use of Prevrat in Slovak. In Trnava, see Blaho, Rozpomienky na prevratové dni po západného Slovenska, SNA, Bratislava, of. Šrobár, box 23, inv. č. 1007. In T. S. Martin, see Vyzva SNR, November 4, 1918, LA SNK, 94 R 14. See also recent studies devoted to this question, and mainly Beneš, “‘Zelené kádry’ jako radikální alternative,” and Szabó, “‘Rabovačky’ v závere prvej svetovej vojny.”

5 For an illustration at Tisovec, see LA SNK, 80 H 3, Samuel Daxner: List Jánovi Ormisovi (v forme denníka životopis), 31.

6 Hronský, Slovensko na rázcestí, 99–100. See also SNA, Personal collection (of.). Dula, box 9, IVb/3, inv. č. 234/9. For a complete list of the members of the National Councils by county (drawn up between December 6 and 12, 1918), see LA SNK, 94 S 19, Zoznam členov SNR.

7 Hronský, Slovensko na rázcestí, Príloha VIII; Medvecký, Slovenský prevrat, 3–186. For Turiec, see LA SNK, sign. 166 D 1, Ivan Thurzo, Z práce a z obeti za národ (Rozpomienky) [Work and sacrifice for the nation, Memories], 510–11.

8 Janšák, Vstup Slovákov medzi slobodné národy, 71–77. Vavro Šrobár (1867–1951) was one of the first activists of the Czecho-Slovak mutuality in the 1890s. Dérer, Blaho and Štefánek belonged to the most active groups favoring Czecho-Slovak mutuality in the 1900s. More details in Boisserie, “Family networks and the ‘generational key’,” 114–27.

9 For clarity’s sake, we have chosen to use the name “Bratislava” here, which would officially be bestowed on the city a few weeks later. In the Slovak documents of the time, there was no single standard: the names Prešpurk or, more often, Prešporok were used most often, but Břetislava and Bratislava were also employed. About the naming of the city, see Bugge, “The Making of a Slovak City.” See also Bartlová. “Transformácia administratívy v Bratislave.” Some important aspects of the evolution of the city may also be read in van Duin, Central European Crossroads.

10 Hronský, “Vznik a krátka činnosť druhej Slovenskej národnej rady,” 123 passim.

11 In Trnava (Nagyszombat), see Frndák, Spomienky na vojnu a prevrat, 55. See also SNA, BA, collection Českoslovenká dočasná vláda na Slovensku, 6–14.11.1918 [Čs. doč. vláda], sign. C, inv. č. 7. For Skalica (Szakolca), see Janšák, Vstup Slovákov medzi slobodné národy.

12 Šegľová, “Revolučná verejnosť v roku 1918.”

13 See short situation reports (November14–22) for the cities of Zvolen [Zólyom], Banská Bystrica [Besztercebánya], Slovenská Lupča [Zólyomlipcse], Pod Brezová [Zólyombrézó], T. S. Martin, Vrútky, Liptovský Sväty Mikuláš [Liptószentmiklós], Žilina, [Zsolna], Čadca [Csáca], Trenčín [Trencsén], in SNA, BA, of. Šrobár, box 8, inv. č. 582, November 1918, Zprávy zo Slovenska. Hospodárske a politické [Reports from Slovakia. Economic and political situation].

14 Šrobár, Osvobodené Slovensko, 254. See also the most comprehensive study: Lipscher, “Klub slovenských poslancov.”

15 LA SNK, Martin, Sign. 94 S 8, List výkonného výboru SNR… [Letter from the SNR Executive Committee…]. On concerns in Prague and tensions between Prague and Martin, see also Mlynárik, “Slovenská národná rada,” 516–18.

16 Zákon 64/1918 o mimoriadných prechodných ustanoveniach na Slovensku, zo dňa 10. prosince 1918. SNA, BA, f. Československá dočasná vláda na Slovensku, 6–14.11.1918, k. 1, sign. B2, inv. č. 4. The act provided for the appointment of a Minister Plenipotentiary for the Administration of Slovakia and 14 government referenti for Slovakia. They had exclusive powers for the Slovak territory under the authority of the counterparts in Prague.

17 SNA, BA, f. Čs. doč. vláda, box 1, sign. B2, inv. č. 4, Správa z nasadnutia min. komisie (MPS) z 13.12.1918.

18 Janšák, Vstup Slovákov medzi slobodné národy, 99. See also I. Thurzo, LA SNK, sign. 166 D 1, Z práce a z obeti za národ (Rozpomienky), 582–84. For another type of report, see Šrobár, Osvobodené Slovensko, 371–72.

19 LA SNK, 166 D 1, I. Thurzo, Z práce a z obeti za národ (Rozpomienky), 582–84.

20 In his first telegram after arriving in Žilina, Šrobár reported the departure of 70 locomotives and almost all the carriages from the town before his arrival. SNA, BA, f. Čs. doč. vláda, box 1, sign. B2, inv. č. 4, Minister Šrobár na Slovensku…, S.d. 1918.

21 SNA, BA, f. Čs. doč. vláda, box 1, sign. B2, inv. č. 4, Zpráva zo zásadnutia min. komisie v Žiline, 13.12.1918.

22 Vavro Šrobár was born in the village of Lisková (Liszkofálu), in Liptov (Liptó) County.

23 Šrobár, Osvobodené Slovensko, 411–12.

24 SNA, BA, of. Šrobár, box 10, inv. č. 611, Zoznam kandidátov. On prior links between the men of the Šrobár government, see Boisserie, “Family networks and the ‘generational key’.” For recent global studies on Šrobár’s period and the prefects, see Krajčovičová. “Vavro Šrobár,” and Šuchová, “‘Šrobárovi muži’: vymenovanie prvých československých županov.”

25 SNA, BA, of. Šrobár, box 9, inv. č. 607, Slovenskí župani – Návrh z 8.12.1918; SNA, BA, of. Šrobár, box 10, inv. č. 611, Menoslov slovenských katolíckych a evanjelických advokátov a juristov. See also LA SNK, Martin, C 903, Koncept návrhov na županov na Slovensku, 8 December 1918.

26 SNA, BA, of. Šrobár, box 9, inv. č. 607, “Slovenskí župani – Návrh z 8.12.1918.”

27 For the example of Samuel Daxner (eventually appointed župan of Gemer-Malohont on 29 December 1918), see LA SNK, 80 H 12, Župa Gemer-Malohontská v dobe štátneho prevratu. See also Medvecký, Slovenský prevrat, 326.

28 Janšák, Vstup Slovákov medzi slobodné národy, 160.

29 See the comprehensive study of Xenia Šuchová, “‘Šrobárovi muži’: Vymenovanie prvých slovenských županov.” See also some aspects of this question in Krajčovičová, “Vavro Šrobár.”

30 Jamnický, “Z veľkých udalostí historickej doby prevratu,” 119.

31 Šťavnica – Hontianská župa – navrh na vymenování Sahulčíka za župana. SNA, BA, fond MPS, box 255.

32 Zpráva župana o politickej a administratívnej situácii župy Hontianskej koncom roku 1919. SNA, BA, fond MPS, box 5, Sign. Prez. II/2, inv. č. 328. For similar problems in Gemer-Malohont County, where the whole of the county’s central administration refused to swear allegiance. See SNA, BA, fond MPS, box 255. Tisovce župan. Vymenování župana a ůředníků, Tisovec, letter of the Prefect to Vavro Šrobár,12 April 1919, and one month later, the report of the newly appointed Prefect, Ján Jesenský, to the referent for internal affairs: “ay župa – zpráva o poměroch“, 24 May 1919. SNA, BA, fond MPS, box 255. For a wider overview on this question, see mainly Šuchová, “‘Šrobárovi muži.’”

33 Šrobár, Osvobodené Slovensko, 427.

34 See Krajčovičová, “Dva ťaživé problémy Úradu ministra.” See also Samuel Zoch’s warning regarding the supply of coal in his report on the supply situation in Bratislava and the whole county (Modra, 7 January 1919), in Od Uhorského kráľovstva, 153–54 (doc. 61), 160 (doc. 65), and 222 (doc. 101).

35 Dokumenty československé zahraniční politiky.

36 Beneš, Světová válka a naše revoluce, 506–8 (doc. 204).

37 Klípa, “Italská vojenská mise,” 30–32.

38 Ibid., 42–43.

39 Letter from Markovič to Beneš, Prague, [before 10] February 1919. SNA, BA, of. Markovič, box 1, inv. č. 8. See Boisserie, “‘Situácia,” 276–77.

40 Šrobár, Oslobodené Slovensko, 29–31. For the measures taken by Defence Minister Klofáč, see Opis č. 3641, 4 February 1919, Vojenský historický ústav, Bratislava. VHÚ, collection Zemské Vojenské Veliteľstvo (ZVV) Košice, Presidium 1919, box 2, prez. č. 267/1919.

41 See for example SNA, BA, of. Milan Rastislav Štefánik, box 39, inv. č. 1235 in the case of Lučenec (Losonc) or, more generally in the recriminations and with a detailed description of several series of incidents, same collection, inv. č. 1249.

42 For December 1918, see SNA, BA, of. Pavol Blaho, box 40, inv. č. 1509. The pay problem of Czech officials in Slovakia was addressed from March 1919. See SNA, BA, fond MPS, box 255, 156/1919 prez. Adm, Opatření politického úřednictva, 22 March 1919.

43 See SNA, BA, of. Šrobár, box 10, inv. č. 619 for the reports from February 1919 in Novohrad County and Igor Hrušovský’s report for the Žilina region.

44 For a global overview on the question, see Krajčovičová, “Českí zamestnanci v štátnych službách na Slovensku.”

45 Markovič to Beneš, Prague, 15 April 1919. SNA, BA, of. Markovič, box 1, inv. č. 10.

46 These were the primary characteristics of those who directly approached the Czechoslovak authorities in Slovakia. SNA, BA, of. Blaho, box 40, inv. č. 1509. The first Czech officials sent to Slovakia had an atypical profile compared to the dozens of volunteers who approached Pavol Blaho. A detailed list of 64 of them sent to Slovakia in December 1918 highlights that they are relatively experienced men: 40 were over 40, and 15 were over 50. Moreover, 53 were married and 38 had children. SNA, BA, fond MPS, box 255, Status zem. kanc. úřed. české národnosti.

47 Markovič to Beneš, Prague, February 23, 1919. SNA, BA, of. Markovič, box 1, inv. č. 10.

48 Porada županů a poslanců ve dnech 11–13/4/19. Odbor soudnictví. Referent Dr. Dérer. SNA, BA, fond MPS, box 255. See also Markovič’s report to Beneš, Prague, 15 April 1919. SNA, BA, of. Markovič, box 1, inv. č. 20.

49 Šrobár, Oslobodené Slovensko, 114. (Underlined by Šrobár.)

50 Šrobár, Osvobodené Slovensko, 439. See recently: Luther, Bratislava česko-slovenská, 44–56.

51 Report of the Conference of Prefects and Deputies, 9–10 March 1919 in Šrobár, Oslobodené, 144–45.

52 For a rather optimistic analysis of the situation, see Report of the Prefect Samuel Zoch to Šrobár, January 17, 1919, in Od Uhorského kráľovstva, (doc. 83), 87. On the worsening of the situation and the interruption of several economic sectors because of a continuing shortage of coal, see Úradne osvedčenie župan Zoch, 2 February 1919, ibid. (doc. 104), 228.

53 Van Duin, “Vavro Šrobár, bratislavský štrajk.”

54 On February 9, Markovič, Secretary of the Foreign Ministry of the Czechoslovak government, who had recently been given responsibility for liaison with Šrobár, sent the latter a message from President Masaryk: “The University of Prešporok should not have been closed. That is an attack against a cultural institution. Particularly sensitive. It was a tactical error to ask the professors to welcome the government when it was predictable that they would refuse.” Message from Masaryk to Šrobár, February 9, 1919, SNA, BA, of. Markovič, box 1, inv. č. 7. See also Samuel Zoch’s decision, in Od Uhorského kráľovstva, (doc. 93), 211. And his explanation to Šrobár (14 February), Bratislava hlavné mesto Slovenska, 281–82.

55 See in particular, for Novohrad County: Ľudovít Bazovský’s reports to Šrobár of February 3 and 5, 1919, SNA, BA, of. Šrobár, box 10, inv. č. 619.

56 Letter from Markovič to Beneš, Prague, [before 10] February 1919. SNA, BA, of. Markovič, box 1, inv. č. 8.

57 Letter from Markovič to Beneš, 23 February 1919. SNA, BA, of. Markovič, box 1 inv. č. 10. In Slovak, see Boisserie, “Situácia,” 279. In several regions, prefects’ reports highlighted the fragility of social and political conditions. SNA, BA, of. Šrobár, box 10, inv. č. 619, for the February 1919 reports.

58 Šrobár, Oslobodené Slovensko, 146. This acute problem was also reported by Markovič to Beneš between February and May: letters from Markovič to Beneš, Prague, February 23, 1919, SNA, BA, of. Markovič, box 1, inv. č. 10; March 13, 1919, SNA, BA, of. Markovič, box 1, inv. č. 14; April 7, 1919, SNA, BA, of. Markovič, box 1, inv. č. 18.

59 Zpráva 7 Fedora Houdka Vavrovi Šrobárovi, Paris, March 11, 1919, SNA, BA, of. Šrobár, box 10, inv. č. 623.

60 Boisserie, “Situácia,” 280.

61 Zpráva 11 Fedora Houdka Vavrovi Šrobárovi, Paris, April 1, 1919, SNA, BA, of. Šrobár, box 10, inv. č. 623.

62 Slovenský denník, February 25, 1919, p. 3, March 4, 1919, p. 2, March 6, 1919, p. 3, and March 8, 1919, pp. 2–3.

63 Letter from Markovič to Beneš, Bratislava, February 23, 1919. SNA, BA, of. Markovič, box 1, inv. č. 10.

64 Letter from Markovič to Beneš, March 13, 1919. SNA, BA, of. Markovič, box 1, inv. č. 14.

65 Výzva A. Hlinku na založenie…, 10. november 1918 [Appeal of Andrej Hlinka for the creation of…, November 10, 1918]. SNA, BA, of. Hlinka, box 21, inv. č. 976. On Catholic agitation and the attitude of Hlinka, see Kramer, Slovenské autonomistické hnutie. See also Rychlík, Češi a Slováci ve 20. století, 75–79. More recently, Holec. Hlinka: Otec národa, 138–56.

66 Zápisnica z porady výkonného výboru, 28. novembra 1918. SNA, BA, of. Hlinka, box 21, inv. č. 977.

67 Memorandum, January 21, 1919. SNA, BA, of. Šrobár, box 10, inv. č. 613.

68 The sessions of the Club of Slovak Deputies echoed those tensions in February. See mainly “Zápisnica schôdzky Klubu slovenských poslancov, dňa 27. Februára 1919,” in Zápisnice Klubu slovenských poslancov, 148–51. See also Pavol Blaho’s request to Šrobár (March 26, 1919) for the creation of a Catholic periodical that would enhance Czechoslovak sentiment and serve the new State. SNA, BA, of. Šrobár, box 10, inv. č. 613.

69 Letter dated March 13, 1919. SNA, BA, of. Markovič, box 1, inv. č. 14. On this meeting, see also Slovenský Denník, March 5, 1919, “Bratislavské porady,” and Slovenský Denník, March 6, 1919, “Politická situácia na Slovensku.”

70 Boisserie, “Situácia,” 281–82. See also the report of Milan Ivanka, referent for internal affairs during the Council of April 11–13, 1919. SNA, BA, fond MPS, box 255, and an illustration in the Nitra County: letter from Igor Hrušovský to Vavro Šrobár, March 26, 1919, SNA, BA, of. Šrobár, box 10, inv. č. 619.

71 Among recent studies on the subject, see Nurmi, A Playground; Michela, Pod heslom integrity.

72 See for example letters of March 6 and 13, 1919. SNA, BA, of. Markovič, box 1, inv. č. 12 and 14. On this subject, see also the resolution adopted by the members of the Club of Slovak Deputies on February 27 1919, Slovenský Denník, March 5, 1919, “Za očistu nášho politického života.”

73 Letter from Markovič to Beneš, March 6, 1919, SNA, BA, of. Markovič, box 1, inv. č. 12. For the measures adopted by Šrobár, see Výnos MPS, 1131/1919 adm., March 6, 1919. VHÚ, BA, ZVV Košice, Presidium 1919, box 3, inv. č. 613.

74 VHÚ, BA, ZVV Košice, Presidium 1919, box 3, inv. č. 7854.

75 Letter from Kramář to Masaryk, Paris, February 28, 1919, in Korespondence T. G. Masaryk – Karel Kramář, 330.

76 Letter from Markovič to Beneš, March 6, 1919, SNA, BA, of. Markovič, box 1, inv. č. 12.

77 Letter from Markovič to Beneš, March 26, 1919, SNA, BA, of. Markovič, box 1, inv. č. 15. On the same topic, see the report on Šrobár’s foreword in Porada županů, April 11–13, 1919, SNA, BA, fond MPS, box 255.

78 Porada županů a poslanců ne dnech 11–13/4/19. Odbor zásobování. Referent Dr. Bella. SNA, BA, fond MPS, box 255.

79 VHÚ, BA, ZVV Košice, Presidium 1919, box 4, inv. č. 1496. For the memories of prefect Moyš, see Ladislav A. Moyš: Jeho účinkovanie počas vojny, počas prevratu a po prevrate, SNA, BA, of. Šrobár, box 26, inv. č. 1096. At that time, Užhorod County included part of the eastern part of the Slovak territory, as it was eventually delimited in the following years.

80 Letter from Markovič to Beneš, April 7, 1919, SNA, BA, of. Markovič, box 1, inv. č. 18.

81 Šolle, Masaryk a Beneš ve svých dopisech, 204.

82 See for example letters from Markovič to Beneš, April 7, 1919, SNA, BA, of. Markovič, box 1, inv. č. 18) and April 15, 1919, SNA, BA, of. Markovič, box 1, inv. č. 20, and the identical assessment in Slovenský Denník: Štefan Janšák, “Verejné práce na Slovensku,” April 8, 1919, and especially “Minister Šrobár precestuje...,” April 11, 1919.

83 See for example the report from the command of the Užhorod (Ungvár) garrison for the week of April 7–13, 1919, VHÚ, BA, ZVV Košice, presidium 1919, box 4, inv. č. 1222.

84 See in particular Vrchní velitelství čs-slov. vojsk na Slovensku, 361/op, Materiální situace, Kroměříž, March 8, 1919, příloha č. 6, VHÚ, ZVV Bratislava, Presidium 1919, box 3, inv. č. 683.

85 On the difficulties of establishing a Slovak education system, see SNA, BA, of. Anton Štefánek, box 10, inv. č. III/2, Veselé a tragikomické príhody v prvých dňoch oslobodeného Slovenska. For the very difficult case of Košice, see VHÚ, ZVV Bratislava, Presidium 1919, box 3, inv. č. 879 and 951.

86 Porada županů a poslanců ne dnech 11–13/4/19, Odbor školství. Referent Dr. Štefánek. SNA, BA, fond MPS, box 255.

87 See the weekly report by the Bratislava command for April 7–13, 1919, VHÚ, BA, ZVV Košice, presidium 1919, box 4, inv. č. 1221; similarly, in Lučenec (Situation report of the garrison command for the third week of April, same collection, inv. č. 1265) and in Banská Bystrica (Situation report dated April 27, same collection, inv. č. 1363). For the case of Nitra, see in particular MNO to ZVV Košice, April 18, 1919, 10743/11, VHÚ, BA, ZVV Košice, Presidium 1919, box 4, inv. č. 1252, and Igor Hrušovský’s report, Žilina, March 26, 1919, SNA, BA, of. Šrobár, box 10, inv. č. 619.

88 Hronský, “Priebeh vojenského konfliktu.”

89 See in particular Výňatek ze zpravod. hlášení pos. vel. v Košicích ze dne 20.5.1919, VHÚ, BA, ZVV Košice, Presidium 1919, k. 4, prez. 1658.

90 Details in Boisserie, “’Markovič zdeluje…’”

91 Hronský. “K problémom konsolidácie a bezpečnosti Slovenska.”

92 Letter from Markovič to Beneš, July 29, 1919. SNA, BA, of. Markovič, box 1, inv. č. 63.

93 Situační zpráva ze Slovenska ode dne 8./XII. do dne 21./XII., Bratislava, December 28, 1919. SNA, BA, fond MPS, box 5, Sign. Prez. II 1, inv. č. 328.

94 In the case of Bardejov (Bártfa), for example, see Szeghy-Gayer, “Államfordulat és az újrastrukturálódó helyi elit Bártfán.”

2020_1_Cornwall

Volume 9 Issue 1 CONTENTS

The Flickering Lighthouse: Rethinking the British Judgement on Trianon*

Mark Cornwall
University of Southampton
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This article reassesses the official British discourse around the Treaty of Trianon between 1919 and 1921. It studies a range of colorful opinions for and against the treaty, why they emerged at particular times, and why some could prevail over others. Especially it focuses on the rationale of those British parliamentarians or officials who spoke out against Trianon as being unjust to Hungary. These leading voices had varied backgrounds and prejudices, but they all had personal knowledge of Hungary either before or after World War I. The article is divided into three time-periods, thereby highlighting the main shifts in British opinion that were often caused by geo-political changes in Hungary itself. While the key British decisions were taken in 1919 at the time of the Paris Peace Conference, the vibrant and public British debate of 1920–21 also had a long-term impact: it sustained Hungarian hopes and illusions about a future revision of Trianon and about potential British sympathy. In fact, despite the strident voices heard during the British debate, the evidence suggests that there was more agreement among the British elite than some historians have suggested. By 1921, both opponents and supporters of Trianon had reached a certain pragmatic consensus; they recognized both the faults and the fairness of the peace settlement, but most now considered there could be no return to greater Hungary.

Keywords: Trianon, Great Britain, Paris Peace Settlement, revisionism

In one of the compelling spy thrillers which the novelist Eric Ambler wrote in the late 1930s, his stateless hero, Josef Vadassy, is a Hungarian living in France whose life has been dramatically changed thanks to the Treaty of Trianon. It was typical of Ambler to bring East-Central Europe into his thrillers, portraying the region for an English readership as somewhere both exotic and dangerous, where spies competed in the ideological battle of fascism against communism. However, at the start of Epitaph for a Spy, his Magyar protagonist makes a gross error. Explaining to the French police that he is from Szabadka, he gives the date of the Treaty of Trianon not as 1920 but as 1919.1 The reason for the mistake is perhaps simple. Ambler had never been to Hungary, and for him the detail was irrelevant: it might well be jarring to a professional historian or any Hungarian reader, but few among his English audience in the 1930s would care, for “Trianon” was unknown to them. On the other hand, if we wish to be generous to Ambler, we might suggest that Vadassy’s Magyar credentials were intact when he assumed that the Treaty of Trianon was in place by 1919. Arguably, the crucial decisions about Hungary’s future borders were made in that year. What was left, in 1920, was a flood of Hungarian protests, with some outspoken British voices of support, but these voices had little effect on the signing and ratification of the peace treaty.

Since 1920, many historians have suggested that Great Britain played a key role (perhaps the most vital among the Great Powers) in drawing up the treaty which shaped Hungary’s new borders and in stabilizing interwar Hungary. In the early 1920s, there was certainly much wishful thinking on the Hungarian side about Britain’s major influence, as well as Britain’s alleged historic sympathy for the Hungarian cause. Gyula Andrássy, for example, spoke in 1921 of “how deeply disappointed he and others had been that England had deserted her old principles […] It was not the England that Hungary used to know that had made the peace.”2 This illusion of special British sentiments towards Hungary always found some echoes in London too. In one British parliamentary debate in March 1920, for example, a garrulous politician who had recently visited Budapest pressed in exaggerated language for his country to intervene and help the Magyars: “It is Britain that is serving as a lighthouse for the whole world, and if it flickers and goes out through our cowardice, half the world will sink in the storm for lack of guidance which this country alone can give.”3

Yet the extent to which Great Britain really shaped the Hungarian settlement remains debatable. Even at the time, some establishment figures could not understand why the severe Trianon Treaty emerged as it did and why it had British approval. In April 1921, the treaty was debated in the House of Lords, and Lord James Bryce commented, “No-one has carried any lamp into these dark corners in which the fate of Hungary was decided.” A few months later, Lord Sydenham agreed. The Supreme Council’s decision concerning Hungary, he said, was “one of the most extraordinary things of which I know. Someday it may be explained, and we shall know what was behind this determination, but at present it is unintelligible.”4

Over the course of the past forty years, several British and American historians have tried to answer these questions. One conclusion has been the predominant influence on the British Foreign Office of “New Europe” adherents, especially the diplomats or “expert advisers” in Paris who shared the liberal-national outlook of publicists like R. W. Seton-Watson. Seeking to carve out a territorial settlement on the basis (mainly) of national ethnicity, these advisers’ role in 1919 was crucial in fixing Hungary’s borders to the advantage of neighboring states like Czechoslovakia and Romania.5 Other historians have approached the British impact on Trianon more broadly, highlighting how and why the Anglo-Hungarian relationship dramatically improved between 1918 and 1922 as Britain aspired to the restoration of political and economic stability. According to Gábor Bátonyi, these years were a unique chapter in British interest in the region. From a position of hostility or at least passivity towards Hungary in the first half of 1919, there was then a “positive shift,” as the influence of the “New Europe” group declined and the stabilization of Budapest became London’s predominant approach. Certainly, Britain was motivated by the desire to penetrate the Carpathian Basin economically, but perhaps as important was the sense that any long-term stability needed to be based on a just or fair settlement too. To some key British observers, the evidence increasingly suggested that the settlement was neither just nor fair to Hungary.6

The following discussion, in the centenary year of Trianon, seeks to rethink this shift in British official attitudes. It is primarily a study of the conflicting British discourse about Hungary and Hungary’s borders, with a particular focus on when and why certain voices emerged and why some gained ascendency. The article is divided into three time periods of the “Trianon settlement.” It also proceeds in reverse chronological order, working from 1921 back to 1918, in order to challenge a rather well-worn historical narrative and to highlight more clearly the trajectory of opinion-formation. Through this approach to the sources, I reassess the continuities or breaks in British perceptions. I also show that the shifting Hungarian geo-political framework itself determined how British observers responded in a positive or negative fashion. Indeed, to a large extent, London was always reacting to events on the ground in the Carpathian Basin, faits accomplis which could not be controlled and were usually only of modest concern to British official interests.

A Certain Consensus

The first period to consider, as an introduction, is spring 1921. After Hungary had ratified the peace treaty in November 1920, the focus in London was on British ratification in order to finish the peace process and allow reconstruction across Central Europe. This ratification occurred on May 5, 1921. The British parliamentary debates before this in the House of Lords and the House of Commons reveal well the underlying perceptions and prejudices for and against the treaty. However, we should not simply note the individuals who took a stand as supporters or opponents of Trianon, but also consider the ways in which the ideas of both camps overlapped and converged. Ignác Romsics contends that by 1921, there was still no rapprochement between the “Foreign Office faction” and the “pro-Hungarian faction.”7 Yet as we shall see, this is only partially true. This notion, furthermore, implies a strict division in opinion when by 1921 the divide was actually rather artificial.

Certainly, there were basic disagreements in the parliamentary debates from March to May 1921, and these very much echoed the views expressed a year earlier (by many of the same speakers). On the one hand, the British Coalition government in 1921 was pressing for treaty ratification. It claimed that the terms of the treaty could not now be reopened for negotiation, as that would mean another peace conference. Instead, the famous “Millerand note” (sponsored by the British) suggested a way forward for some Hungarian border adjustments in the future.8 Fundamentally, however, speakers like Robert Cecil in the Commons and the Foreign Secretary, Lord Curzon, in the Lords justified the dismemberment of historic Hungary as a process that was legitimate because of the ways in which the Magyar rulers had behaved before 1918. They had “grossly misgoverned the subject races.” Moreover, as Curzon put it, the Habsburg Monarchy had been “an artificial system” which had already begun to totter before 1914: the war, which Budapest had helped cause, had simply given the system its coup de grâce.9 Following this line of argument about Magyar misrule, the speakers also stressed that neither Britain nor the Paris Peace Conference had broken up Hungary. Rather, the peacemakers in 1919 had been faced with a fait accompli: at the end of the war, Hungary’s “hostile races” had taken matters into their own hands and Hungary had “fallen into its component parts.”10 Great Britain’s role, with the other Powers, had been, according to Curzon, to find a compromise when settling the borders. This had been done as far as possible according to the Wilsonian principle of self-determination. He maintained that the Magyar arguments had been given a fair hearing, and it was now time for Hungarians to put the past behind them: “the war may before long become no more than a painful dream.”11

Against this optimistic stance, the parliamentarians who spoke out against Trianon also appealed to the lessons of history and then, especially, attacked the way in which the principle of national self-determination had been adjudicated for Hungary. In both areas, however (history and self-determination), many “anti-Trianon” speakers were prepared to accept some of the government arguments: it was not a clear-cut division of views, notwithstanding the contrary contentions of later historians. Among the critics of Trianon, two main loose groups can be identified. One represented new, younger politicians of the parliamentary intake in the immediate wake of the war. A second small group of individuals stand out because of their experience of pre-1914 Europe, including having born personal witness to the relative stability of the old Habsburg Empire. Let us turn to them first.

Most notable in this regard were Lord Bryce and Lord Newton (Thomas Legh). James Bryce had visited Transylvania as early as 1866. He had met József Eötvös in Budapest, and had come to the conclusion that Hungarians were “a courteous graceful people.”12 In a speech in the House of Lords in May 1921, he disputed Magyar responsibility for the war and consistently stressed the sympathetic ties between Hungary and England, which included their alleged mutual crusade for “liberty.” Nevertheless, even Bryce was prepared to admit that “old Hungary” now had to bow before the “principle of nationality.” Indeed, when travelling in northern Hungary in 1878, he himself had seen how most of the rural population was Slovak (he described them as “a less advanced and less politically active race” than the Magyars with whom they lived together as friends).13 Forty years later, he seems to have acknowledged reluctantly that much of Slovakia wished to escape Magyar tutelage; he also conceded that the half of Transylvania with predominantly Romanian speakers might justifiably fall to Romania. What he disputed was the caricature of pre-war Hungary that had made the country seem as bad as Prussia or czarist rule in Poland. In other words, he claimed Hungary was being treated with disproportionate vindictiveness – most glaringly in the unjust way that the borders had been decided in Paris. Bryce therefore conceded the relevance of the “principle of nationality” to some extent, but he stressed that this principle had been violated, notably in the case of Bratislava (Pozsony) and the Székely communities of Transylvania.14 His parliamentary performance was noticed by Budapest, and it cemented Bryce’s reputation as a champion of the Magyars.15

Others who opposed the Treaty of Trianon were less compromising than Bryce. Lord Newton questioned whether Slovaks or Croats really wanted to leave old Hungary; he concluded that the country should be treated with “humanity and justice,” as it was “the least guilty of our ex-enemy powers.” A speedy ratification of Trianon would at least allow the resumption of correct Anglo-Hungarian relations.16 Newton’s forays on behalf of Hungary after the war were well known to the British Foreign Office, where one official thought him simply a dupe of Magyar propaganda, completely ignorant of Hungarian history and policy. But how true was this? His growing connections with Central Europe are intriguing, for alongside Bryce, he was one of Hungary’s most persistent supporters.17 Before the war, Newton had been a professional diplomat, traveling widely and acquiring his own understanding of the Habsburg “civilizing” mission in the Balkans. Apart from having seen Vienna and Budapest briefly in 1887, a visit to Bosnia three years later, mainly for trout fishing, left him singularly impressed: “I got the impression that [Bosnia] was well administered and that there was little to complain of in Austrian rule.”18

If Newton’s Habsburg links before 1914 were always tentative, by the end of the war, he was well-acquainted with several fellow-countrymen who were sympathetic to Hungary, including the future British High Commissioner Thomas Hohler, but also his own cousin, Admiral Ernest Troubridge, the British (Allied) commander on the Danube.19 Most significant was Newton’s underlying conservative stance against any radical peace settlement. He wished that the wartime belligerents had negotiated earlier for a stable peace and thereby prevented the destruction of the old order. In this regard, his scorn for Hungary’s neighbors was quite clear, mirroring perhaps his contempt for what he termed the “ill-mannered” Irish politicians, who before 1914 had constantly made trouble for Great Britain. In short, at Trianon, Magyars had been handed over “like so many animals, to alien races of an inferior civilization, in flat defiance of the sacred principle of Self-Determination.”20

Bryce and Newton viewed Trianon partly through a pre-war lens, in other words a certain nostalgia for what they had observed of the old Hungary, and this colored much of their criticism of the New Europe. However, while one historian has recently suggested that the critics’ “inveterate predilection for the old social and political order” was their sole common denominator, it was not in fact the only motivating force.21 A second group of critics was formed by some younger politicians, newly elected to the House of Commons, who had experienced the horrors of a European war first hand and did not want hostilities to break out again. For them, the troubling aspect of Trianon was not so much what was being lost (old Hungary, Anglo-Hungarian friendship), but rather the new nationalist instability which was already so evident. One speaker in the House of Commons, a former naval officer, attacked the whole “disease of nationality”; with an eye on other running nationalist sores, he claimed that little Ulsters or Alsace-Lorraines were now being created in Slovakia and Transylvania.22

Among those who attacked Trianon, a Scottish Conservative, Captain Walter Elliott, was the most vociferous of this new parliamentary intake. According to one witness, as a former wartime doctor and wounded soldier, Elliott had “a wide erudition and a fascinating capacity for conversation.” But in debate, “he was too diffuse with an argument insufficiently concentrated, often a fault in those who delight others and themselves delight in conversation.”23 Nevertheless, the new parliamentarian immediately made a stir with his oratory, and his many qualities led him to a seat in the British cabinet in the 1930s. His stance on Trianon in 1921 can be explained in a number of ways. As a maverick who tended to shirk from any party label, he felt mistrustful of the politicians who had produced the postwar chaos. He himself, with one eye on the Irish and Scottish problems, inclined towards a “national” style for British politics, where in his perception unity should predominate over fragmentation.24

He approached Hungary with the same pragmatism, and here two personal experiences of unabashed nationalism shaped his outlook. First, in the summer of 1919, he had decided to explore the territory of the fallen Habsburg Monarchy. He had motored along the Dalmatian coast (presumably encountering Italian-Croatian nationalist rivalry) and had then visited Budapest, observing the chaotic scenes there precisely in the wake of the regime of Béla Kun. While his biographer lightly dismisses these “trivial tales of excursions,”25 for Walter Elliott they were crucial in clarifying his abhorrence of the nationalist forces which, he felt, had caused the war and then decimated Hungary and the Monarchy. Secondly, this experience reinforced the views he had long held from his native Scotland. Before the war, the liberal commentator “Scotus Viator” (R. W. Seton-Watson) had proposed Scotland-in-Britain as the ideal federal model for national autonomy in Hungary.26 Elliott, though greatly loyal to Scotland, was equally averse to what he viewed as the whining criticisms of Scottish nationalists, and he drew his own lessons from that in the interwar world. In April 1921, in the parliamentary debate on Trianon Hungary, he savaged the “wicked policy of self-determination,” which had swept away a thousand-year-old entity. He then suggested a vivid comparison. If the Serb “immigrants” into southern Hungary could now leave the country and take territory with them, it would be like Belgian wartime refugees suddenly annexing the English coastal town of Bournemouth: what ingratitude that would signify to their host nation!27

Elliott took the most radical stance in this parliament, but in the long debates of 1921 there was actually some consensus that Trianon should now be ratified to achieve stability and perhaps also to further British influence in the region. The government side was conceding that the Hungarian settlement had been a most difficult subject: it was already criticizing the reparations imposed on Hungary as unrealistic and implying that small border corrections might be possible. In turn, the “anti-Trianon camp” was composed of men who professed to know about Hungary from personal experience, and they shared a common abhorrence of the nationalist New Europe which had replaced pre-war “stability.” But even here, there were some surprising concessions and some readiness to accept a break with the old Hungary. They agreed that previous Magyar rule over greater Hungary had indeed caused unrest and dissatisfaction; they also felt that it might be justifiable to implement the principle of national self-determination across the region. The big question for them was whether that principle had been carried out fairly, or whether Trianon contained fresh grievances which might be the seeds of a future European war. Behind the parliamentary vote in favor of treaty ratification on May 5, 1921, there was therefore a latent consensus that some future adjustments to Trianon could be necessary, while at the same time, the basic Hungarian settlement should be accepted.

The Debate at Its Height

The second phase to consider is from October 1919 until the signature of the Trianon Treaty in June 1920. These were critical months, when British interest in Hungary was at its height for many reasons. It was a time when, with the rise of the Horthy regime, there were many new British representatives in Hungary, including a High Commissioner, Thomas Hohler, and a special emissary from the Peace Conference, George Clerk (arriving in October 1919). Meanwhile, in Paris, Hungary’s treaty was finally being properly scrutinized. Count Albert Apponyi was able to submit the Hungarian arguments and objections, and in February–March 1920, the “Big Three” of Britain, France, and Italy disputed at least the viability of the proposed Hungarian borders.28 The winter of 1919–20 produced a heightened cacophony of British voices for and against the peace terms. In the end, it was the Foreign Office loudspeaker which would triumph, because its “experts,” like Allen Leeper, were deferred to as the key policymakers. They were already insisting that Hungary’s frontiers had been permanently fixed, all the more so, as precisely that message had been sent to the surrounding states in June 1919.

The authority of a contrary set of British opinions owed much to the fact that they came from new men on the spot, located on Hungarian territory from the summer of 1919 due to London’s concern about Romanian military excesses. Notable were those responsible to the Admiralty or the War Office: particularly Admiral Troubridge, who in August moved the headquarters of the Allied Danube Command to Budapest, and Reginald Gorton, who was sent as the British representative on an Inter-Allied Military Commission.29 These critical voices were then echoed in the British parliament by Bryce and others. The question arises whether, if this disparate Magyarophile camp had been more coordinated, it could have challenged the “Foreign Office” clique at this crucial stage. Rumors circulated at the time that support for Hungary was mounting. But as Seton-Watson (correctly) reassured the Czechoslovak President Tomáš Masaryk in March 1920, people like Troubridge and Newton did not really represent British policy:

They are individuals who have been caught up in certain currents and are busily engaged in urging a policy of their own upon our government, but not with success […] I can find no evidence of a serious nature to suggest that the Magyar intrigues have got any hold here in London.30

Indeed, the challenge for any champions of Hungary’s cause was tremendous, because of the Foreign Office “insider advantage” and the prejudices still circulating about Hungary as a German or Bolshevik ally, not to mention the concerted hostile stance of Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia.

Nevertheless, in late 1919, British officials in Budapest began to request a sympathetic hearing for Hungary in London. They did so partly because the new Horthy regime seemed accommodating, even moderate, and it thus offered a contrast with continued stories of Romanian “atrocities” in occupied Transylvania or the Yugoslav refusal to withdraw from the region around the city of Pécs. The British were also faced for the first time with an onslaught of Magyar petitions against the treaty, coupled with the widespread expectation that England at least would give Hungary a “fair hearing.” Most striking were the reports sent to Paris by Sir George Clerk and members of his mission, for they, after all, were Allied delegates whose designated role was to bring stability to Hungary (ensuring that a stable government was established and Romanian troops were evacuated from the country). One member of Clerk’s mission, for instance, reported to London about a tour of the truncated country: “The universal feeling throughout is that the old boundaries must be restored by some means or other and Roumania made to disgorge what she has taken.”31 Another, Percy Loraine, agreed after receiving a mass of petitions that there was widespread opposition to many of the suggested amputations. The loss of Croatia was accepted, but not Slovakia (where it was felt the conference had been duped by the Czechs) and especially not Transylvania.32

On the subject of Transylvania, Clerk himself felt that, because of the harshness of the Romanian invaders, a special Inter-Allied commission should be sent there. During the war, Clerk had been strongly influenced by the “nationality principle” in the British Foreign Office. But after arriving in Budapest, he quickly agreed with his Magyar hosts, who stressed that the “new rulers” in occupied Hungarian territory were “learners in the art of government” and of a “lower civilization.” One petition submitted to Clerk by the Hungarian Technical University pressed for territorial integrity, arguing that “Hungary has raised culture to a high level on its natural geographical territory […] On mutilated territory Hungary would be unable to further fulfil this vocation!”33 Clerk concluded that, while the new states needed firm supervision and guidance from the West, Hungary itself, on the basis of what he had observed, could be expected to be sensible: “They realize, I think, the broad justice of the inclusion of peoples of one common stock in one State, but they feel that the Allies have […] only heard one side of the case and have naturally given the benefit to those who fought on their side.” He warned against the Allies sowing the seeds of future conflicts.34

These reports usually found an unsympathetic ear at the Foreign Office, as they were sent first to Allen Leeper or Eyre Crowe (permanent secretary), key figures on the territorial committees of the Peace Conference, and they could easily be deflected.35 Both Leeper and Crowe were now irritated at Romania’s refusal to withdraw to the demarcation lines and were even prepared to send an Allied commission to investigate. But they did not want to reopen au fond the nationality questions, which their committees had settled in May 1919. Thus, when in November they were sent a memorandum from the Hungarian government about injustices in Slovakia, both responded negatively. Leeper noted that the memorandum was exaggerated and not worth passing on to the Supreme Council. Crowe remarked simply, “Better leave it alone. These controversies lead to no practical results.”36

Despite this, there is good evidence to suggest that by early 1920, the mood in the Foreign Office was indeed slowly shifting away from the Leeper-Crowe perspective towards a more positive engagement with Hungary’s complaints. One reason was the replacement as foreign secretary of Arthur Balfour, who fully supported Trianon and had been a member of the Peace Conference, by Lord Curzon, who seemed to have less blatant sympathy for Hungary’s neighbors.37 Curzon’s introduction to the Central European situation also coincided with the Clerk mission to Budapest, which, as Gábor Bátonyi suggests, started something of a special Anglo-Hungarian relationship in the winter of 1919–20. In addition to a Hungarian Delegation now being invited to Paris, another result of Clerk’s mission was the appointment of a British High Commissioner to Hungary. From January 1920, Sir Thomas Hohler was to be an “extraordinarily sympathetic and totally uncritical minister” in Budapest, partly due to his friendship with Regent Miklós Horthy in prewar Constantinople.38

Precisely at the time when the Hungarian delegation under Apponyi was putting its case in Paris in early 1920, Hohler sent several reports to the Foreign Office expounding the Hungarian case. He passed on the views of Horthy and Apponyi that, whatever treaty was signed, the state would eventually be restored “to its old historic limits.” Here, there was strong evidence that the Magyar leadership hoped especially for British support, all the more so after January 16, when both Curzon and Prime Minister David Lloyd George had shown interest in Apponyi’s ethnic map of Hungary.39 Hohler strongly promoted the idea that Britain should support Hungary as a “friendly buffer state” in the region, and he asked Curzon to consider a fresh presentation by Apponyi in Paris. “The present arrangements,” he concluded on February 1, “appear to be faulty and incapable of standing the test of time.” The treaty was contrary to Wilson’s principle of national self-determination and therefore constituted “an immediate menace to the peace of Europe.”40

It is of course tempting to suggest that Hohler was simply hoodwinked by Magyar propaganda, but like Clerk, he was at least reporting the protests and mood he observed on the spot. These critical winter months require more research to illuminate in detail the close interaction and even confluence of Anglo-Hungarian arguments and networking. Britain was keenly aware at this time that the French too were vying for influence over Hungary; this has been well documented by historians.41 Budapest in turn was taking new initiatives to highlight in London the benefits of Britain securing influence in the region. For it was precisely now that Miklós Bánffy was sent by the Hungarian government to London to make contact with politicians, including Curzon and Asquith. According to his memoirs, Bánffy had some success after “endless hard work, attention to detail and, above all, tact.”42 He found willing ears in Bryce, Cecil, and Newton, but also among church leaders, particularly Unitarians and Presbyterians alarmed at Romanian treatment of Transylvanian Protestants, and Jewish leaders like Lucien Wolf, who were anxious about minority rights.43

Bánffy’s path into the corridors of power was also considerably eased through the “invaluable help” of the Hungarian-born Rozsika Wertheimstein, the wife of Charles Rothschild. Having met the Rothschild heir, a serious conservationist, in 1906 when he was exploring the Carpathian mountains, the flamboyant Rozsika had moved to England, but she always kept firm ties with her family in Hungary. There, in December 1918, she had led a campaign publicizing the miserable plight of Hungarian children; in interwar Britain, she knew Magyarophiles like Lord Newton, and she actively promoted financial aid to Hungary from Rothschild resources.44 “In her house,” wrote Bánffy, “I almost felt I was breathing the air of my own home; and the lion’s share in any success I may have achieved in my mission was thanks to her advice and help and to her mediation on my behalf.”45

In the spring of 1920, indirectly through Rozsika Rothschild and other social contacts nurtured by Bánffy, vigorous debates began in the British parliament. Bryce, Newton, and others, having urged the Hungarians to delay finalizing the treaty as long as possible, echoed the language of Budapest when they spoke in the House of Lords: namely, that Hungary was pro-British and had been against the war, and that “civilised human beings” were now being handed over like cattle to the successor states.46 According to Newton, Hungary was like a man “who has had a paralytic stroke and is being constantly kicked and cuffed by his former associates and dependents.”47 Another Bánffy target, Lord John Montagu of Beaulieu, agreed, contending that the treaty was simply “insane and unworkable.” If Montagu’s own passion for motoring and modern transport perhaps naturally inclined him to criticize the new fragmented communications network in the Carpathian Basin, he had also just visited Budapest. There, he had honed some pro-Hungarian views when staying with his friend, Admiral Troubridge. He concluded that “that country had suffered unfairly in the breaking up of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire after the war.”48

Yet this fresh British political momentum of early 1920 also owed much to news reaching London about Romanian misrule in Transylvania and rumors about a White Terror (which a delegation from the Labour Party and the British trade unions would soon investigate). Some eccentric Conservative politicians were encouraged to support the Horthy regime precisely because of Labour opposition to it. Thus, in one House of Commons debate, Walter Elliott pointed out the prejudices of the left-wing press as he went on to condemn the treaty. Describing the new Slovakia as a “banana-shaped country,” he ridiculed the proposed borders: “The Peace Conference is full of very great and important gentlemen, but they cannot make rivers run sideways across mountains, because they run downhill and not across.” In his view, the iron rules of geography could not be changed.49

The Government responded to these criticisms in March 1920 by noting that the expert territorial committees had worked very diligently in 1919, that there was no bias, and that Hungary in January 1920 had had ample time to put its case to the Peace Conference. The critics rightly found this line of defense disingenuous. In fact, it did obscure the differences of opinion that had begun to appear at the Foreign Office. On February 10 in response to Hohler’s reports, Curzon noted that he did not really know why the conference had decided on the proposed borders for Hungary. Allen Leeper, however, quickly jumped in to reject Hohler’s arguments. He stressed that the territorial committees had followed the ethnic principle as far as possible (except in Slovakia and Transylvania, where transport links were necessary). And since the new countries had been told by Britain that this was the final settlement (and in the meantime had signed their peace treaties), future stability was in danger if everything were to be reconsidered. This would simply encourage Hungary to resist, and would constitute a betrayal of the recognition which Britain had given to Czechoslovakia and the other neighboring states.50

Curzon’s behavior a few weeks later suggests that he was not wholly convinced by this argument, or he felt at least that the Hungarian question still needed to be revisited. Lloyd George similarly was urging France and Italy that Europe would have no peace if the Hungarian case were not fully scrutinized. A key reason for this governmental shift was that, in early 1920, new opinions had surfaced at the Foreign Office, stemming either directly from British supporters or indirectly from Magyar campaigners in Britain. The Hungarian settlement was suddenly (for the first time) a real focus of public attention.

Nevertheless, Curzon continued to listen to the “expert” Allen Leeper, who stridently expounded his opposition to Hungary’s “anachronistic” arguments. The result was that, during a meeting of Allied foreign ministers in London on March 8, the idea of making any changes to the treaty was rejected.51 The overriding argument, as detailed in writing by Leeper, was that Hungary’s borders must be settled quickly and short-term stability must be prioritized over any long-term dangers. Thus, in 1920, the very idea of reopening the treaty was construed as a major obstacle. But there was a small “carrot” which the Powers (especially Britain) still seemed to be offering Budapest and which the Hungarians seemed grudgingly to accept when they signed the Treaty of Trianon (June 6). This was the so-called Millerand note, which was sent to Hungary on May 6 under the signature of the new French premier, Alexandre Millerand. While rejecting the Hungarian Delegation’s demand for plebiscites in contested areas, the note suggested that if Hungary had objections to the treaty, it might eventually appeal to the League of Nations over specific border rectifications. It was a glimmer of light that would sustain Hungarian revisionist hopes thereafter, just as the Anglo-Hungarian flirtation of winter 1920 had substantially prepared the ground.

Fixing the Trianon Framework

As we have seen, by 1921 there was growing British official consensus over Hungary, a realization that the new normality of Trianon should be accepted. In 1920, however, the clash of opinions was only too evident, for in the struggle for stability in the region, fresh voices had challenged the official line favoring Czechoslovakia and Romania and had questioned what the new Hungarian frontiers might mean for Central Europe. If we now turn briefly to 1918–1919, the third and best documented phase, this was of course the period when the Trianon framework, which later proved so hard to dismantle, was firmly set in place. First, in the faits accomplis of late 1918, the Allies had allowed the successor states to invade greater Hungary and stay there. Second, the Peace Conference’s territorial committees, guided by the principle of national self-determination, scrutinized the Hungarian frontiers and had them approved without debate by the Council of Ten on May 12, 1919.

Historians have examined much of this period in depth, showing that Lloyd George was an occasional spokesman for Magyar interests (for example in his Fontainebleau Memorandum of March 25, in which he warned about a draconian peace which could ferment Hungarian irredentism). On April 30, he proposed to the Council of Four that Hungary should be invited to Paris to discuss the peace terms. However, generally he was not interested or engaged enough to push his concerns in the face of the Foreign Office, which dominated in Paris and consistently favored the Czechoslovak and Romanian states.52 It is usually noted that Harold Nicolson, Crowe, and Leeper played key roles on the territorial committees, siding with France and defining Hungary’s ethnic borders in the narrowest sense possible; in addition, they focused on making the surrounding states economically viable. What is often ignored is the historic continuity in official British thinking: namely, Hungary was consistently seen as a destabilizing element in Central Europe. As I have shown elsewhere, the Foreign Office before World War I had summed up the “chauvinistic” Magyar regime as a key source of instability and had anticipated, even before Seton-Watson began to gain more influence in 1917, that Hungary would have to be restructured in some way.53 In the wartime British press, diverse opinions were ventilated for and against Hungary, but in Whitehall, a viewpoint sharply critical of Budapest was long established.54

During the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, this trend persisted. The Foreign Office believed that the old Magyar regime had fought to the bitter end and therefore deserved punishment, while the country’s new rulers (or were they really so new?) seemed in their petitions to the West far too obsessed with Hungary’s territorial integrity. Moreover, any small sympathy for Hungary’s aspirations was weakened by the reign of Béla Kun, which caused major headaches for the peacemakers. As Crowe noted on one occasion, the Allied plan in Central Europe was “to set up free and independent states as a counterbalance to a German-Bolshevik combination.”55 Hungary, having been Germany’s staunch wartime ally, could now for four months be portrayed as a virulent Bolshevik threat. In both cases (whether Hungary was a German ally or a hotbed of Bolshevism), it was natural to them in the regional danger by affirming tighter frontiers. During the key months of the Peace Conference, these concerns formed a steady backdrop to British official thinking, especially when Leeper and others suggested that Magyar nationalism and Bolshevism went hand in hand as a combined threat to Central Europe.56

Only a few British observers (apart from Lloyd George) started to become concerned about the future of Hungary. Ironically, Seton-Watson was one of them. In May 1919, having witnessed the chaos there, he wrote, “Little as I love the Magyars or regret the fate they have brought on themselves, I do not wish to see them destroyed altogether.”57 Despite this, like most British officials in Paris or London, Seton-Watson was not questioning the notion that greater Hungary needed to be dismembered. What was vital was to ensure stability and security for the New Europe; the new successor states were the allies who needed to keep order (since Britain itself could not contribute any troops). Only in the last months of 1919 was a new Hungarian regime established which tried to present itself to Britain as a respectable force for regional stability and order. As we have seen, this prompted new forms of support for the Hungarian cause and a new British questioning of the peace settlement.

Conclusion

Of course, the British debate on Trianon did not end in 1921. Fresh controversy was stirred through the press campaign of Viscount Rothermere six years later.58 During the three phases of the creation of Trianon, it is clear that the Hungarian treaty really became a subject for public discourse in Britain only from late 1919. Until then, the British officials who debated it were working in private on the territorial committees of the Paris Peace Conference. They were chained above all closely to the “nationality policy,” which Britain in mid-1918 had semi-officially adopted towards the Habsburg Monarchy.59

In its essence, that vision of a New Europe always had an anti-Hungarian streak based on the firm conviction that the Magyar regime in the old Monarchy had been oppressive and that similar nationalistic chauvinists were still in control of Hungary. It was only in 1920 that the idealistic crusade began to weaken, when the reality of the New Europe became clearer, and when new British voices sprang up to counter Leeper or Seton-Watson. Particularly, some new Magyarophiles emerged in the British parliament to paint a different version of modern Hungarian history and even to question the ideal of self-determination. Among these critics, there was a strong sense that an alternative moral dimension to the ongoing Hungarian crisis existed, one which any “fair-minded person” would surely support.60

Indeed, this early British debate over the morality of Trianon had some parallels with a later moral contestation over Central European grievances during the Sudeten crisis of 1938. In the early interwar years, the matter of Czechoslovakia’s German minority had received little British attention, or at least justice and morality were mainly felt to be on the Czech side against anything German. By 1936, however, many British observers were inclining towards a moral stance in favor of Sudeten German complaints about discrimination. They did so on the basis of the belief that firm evidence existed to support those grievances; that notion was strengthened by their own personal observations in Czechoslovakia and by the avid campaigning in Britain of Sudeten German political activists.61 In both cases (the Hungarian in 1920 and the Sudeten in 1938), there was a moral underpinning to the cause that strengthened the arguments of Britons who primarily feared regional chaos or even a new war if the respective grievances were not addressed. The difference in 1938 was that the British government was now prepared to back a (Sudeten) cause, which would reverse the peace settlement of 1919. It viewed that course as both moral and practical for British interests. This, in turn, raised again the matter of territorial revisionism more broadly. Recent research has shown how, parallel to the Sudeten crisis, British equivocation about Trianon naturally resurfaced; in the late 1930s, Anglo-Hungarian relations began to matter again, since key pillars of the New Europe were starting to crumble.62

Yet early 1920, when the Hungarians had first put their case to the Allies in Paris, was the key time when they had looked to the British lighthouse for guidance and aid. New feelers were then sent out from Budapest to sympathetic supporters in Britain. In response, the lighthouse sent back some reassuring messages, but it remained flickering and was never consistent. On the one hand, the British establishment was naturally conservative, wishing to conclude the Hungarian treaty as quickly as possible, gain economic advantages, and ensure regional stability. On the other, many British politicians who were now studying the subject for the first time began to feel uneasy about what had occurred. At most, they could suggest to Budapest that the Trianon borders might be adjusted in the future, if only Hungary would behave responsibly and peacefully on the European stage. By 1921, a certain consensus prevailed across the British political spectrum that the basics of Trianon were now permanent. It is worth emphasizing, especially in this centenary year of Trianon, that even friends of Hungary like Lord Bryce or Walter Elliott were not advocating a crusade to overturn the new frontiers. Theirs was a pragmatic approach: to complain about Trianon Hungary, but largely to accept it despite its imperfections: there could be no restoration of greater Hungary.

The next twenty years saw the Trianon grievance occasionally surfacing in Britain and stirring public awareness. Among those who harped on the subject were mavericks like Rothermere or idealists like Lord Newton. For Newton, Hungary had become a lasting passion, a new chapter in his life, and one that brought him into the company of the “most charming” Rozsika Rothschild. He continued to visit the region (for instance Transylvania in late 1921) and advised the Hungarians to be patient: they should “strive to create a homogeneous state, which will serve as an enviable model to their neighbors and do more towards recovering Hungarian Irredenta than anything else.”63

For others who heard the word “Trianon” in the late 1930s, it surely sparked anxious thoughts. Thus, for the novelist Eric Ambler in 1938, Trianon was above all useful as a small device to enhance the drama and credibility of his espionage thriller. His Magyar protagonist, Vadassy, might well personify one of the sad injustices of Trianon for those who were well-informed. But for most British readers, he probably evoked hazy ideas of chaos in nationalist Eastern Europe in the aftermath of a cataclysmic war. In their minds, the old Hungarian grievances were just some of the many that seemed to be resurfacing in 1938, edging Britain and Europe towards a new period of war and mass death.

Archival Sources

The National Archives, London (TNA)

Foreign Office files (FO)

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1 Ambler, Epitaph for a Spy, 9.

2 Repington, After the War: A Diary, 163.

3 Captain Walter Elliott, quoted in The Hungarian Problem in the British Parliament, 50.

4 Ibid., 214, 239.

5 See especially Sakmyster, “Great Britain and the Making of the Treaty of Trianon,” and Hugh and Christopher Seton-Watson, The Making of a New Europe.

6 Bátonyi, Britain and Central Europe, 4, 104. See also Sakmyster, “Great Britain and the Establishment of the Horthy Regime”; and for a study emphasising Britain’s economic agenda in the region: Lojkó, Meddling in Middle Europe.

7 Romsics, The Dismantling of Historic Hungary, 160.

8 See the speech of Cecil Harmsworth (Under-Secretary of Foreign Affairs) in the Commons on 20 April 1921: The Hungarian Problem in the British Parliament, 113.

9 Ibid., 193ff: speech by Curzon.

10 Ibid., 108ff: Harmsworth speech.

11 Ibid., 198–99, 206. Also Bátonyi, Britain and Central Europe, 117.

12 Fisher, James Bryce, vol. 1, 119–26.

13 Bryce, Memories of Travel, 102ff.

14 Bryce’s speech: The Hungarian Problem in the British Parliament, 213ff.

15 See the pamphlet commemorating the anniversary of Bryce’s birth: Balogh, A magyar revízió angol előharcosa.

16 Newton’s speech: The Hungarian Problem, 209, 212.

17 Sakmyster, “Great Britain and the Making of the Treaty of Trianon,” 122. See also for Newton’s extra-parliamentary agitation: Barta, “Oxfordi Magyar Liga,” 370–76.

18 Lord Newton, Retrospection, 44, 56–57.

19 Ibid., 130, 235. For Troubridge, see Bátonyi, Britain and Central Europe, 104. While pro-Serbian, Troubridge clearly approached Hungary with concerns about Romanian aggression in the region; for the background to his stance, see Šarenac, The Forgotten Admiral.

20 Buday, Dismembered Hungary, vii (introduction by Newton). See also Retrospection, 262–63, and Newton’s view of “ill-educated and ill-mannered” Irish MPs, ibid., 99.

21 Bakić, Britain and Interwar Danubian Europe, 10.

22 Speech of Lieutenant-Commander Joseph Kenworthy: The Hungarian Problem, 130–31.

23 Mosley, My Life, 273. According to Cuthbert Headlam, another Conservative politician, Elliott was “extremely able and has the gift of making people believe that he is even more able than he actually is.” Ball, Parliament and Politics in the Age of Baldwin and Macdonald, 272.

24 Coote, A Companion of Honour, 43, 48, 71; Searle, Country before Party, 118.

25 Coote, A Companion of Honour, 53–57.

26 On Seton-Watson, see Cornwall, “Robert William Seton-Watson és a kései Habsburg Birodalom,” 327–49. Also, for a personal view: Seton-Watson, “R. W. Seton-Watson and the Trianon Settlement,” 43–53.

27 Coote, A Companion of Honour, 77; and The Hungarian Problem, 156ff.

28 For a still useful older history of this subject, see Deák, Hungary at the Peace Conference.

29 Bátonyi, Britain and Central Europe, 103–6; Lojkó, Meddling in Middle Europe, 15: Troubridge “retained more leverage over the military situation than any other Allied commander.”

30 Bakić, Britain and Interwar Danubian Europe, 18.

31 TNA, FO 371/3518, D.C. Campbell to Leeper (private letter), 29 December 1919.

32 TNA, FO 608/17, Percy Loraine to Leeper, 22 November 1919 enclosing ten petitions.

33 TNA, FO 608/17/20922, Clerk to FO sending petition, 2 December 1919.

34 Ibid., Clerk report to Supreme Council, 29 November 1919.

35 For the impact of Crowe and Leeper on these committees (which effectively delimited the Hungarian borders), see Romsics, The Dismantling of Historic Hungary, 76–85.

36 TNA, FO 608/17, Clerk to Crowe, 6 November 1919, with minutes by Leeper and Crowe.

37 For alarming rumours that Curzon might be pro-Magyar, see Seton-Watsons, The Making of a New Europe, 401–2.

38 Steiner, The Lights that Failed, 289; Bátonyi, Britain and Central Europe, 114 (for the Clerk mission, 107–14).

39 Deák, Hungary and the Peace Conference, 207–11; Romsics, The Dismantling of Historic Hungary, 125–28.

40 TNA, FO 371/3518, Hohler to Curzon, 1 February 1920; and Hohler to Curzon, 28 January 1920 (quoting Apponyi).

41 See for example, Bátonyi, Britain and Central Europe, 120ff; and the detailed study of Mária Ormos, From Padua to the Trianon.

42 Bánffy, The Phoenix Land, 199–201; Romsics, The Dismantling of Historic Hungary, 129–30. Something of Bánffy’s network in Britain is also clear from the diary of the Hungarian peace delegation kept by Count István Csáky: see Deák, Ujváry, Pièces et documents relatifs aux rapports internationaux, Appendix 1.

43 For a discussion of Presbyterian links to Magyar Protestant churches, see Zsuppán, “Hungarian Treaty Revision,” 153–60.

44 Rothschild, Dear Lord Rothschild, 94–97, 244. Rozsika notably was also a life-long friend of Count Pál Teleki.

45 Bánffy, The Phoenix Land, 201.

46 Speech of Newton, 30 March 1920: The Hungarian Problem, 54.

47 Ibid., 57.

48 Speech of Montagu: ibid., 66. See also Troubridge, Marshall, John Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, 215, 256. In 1900 Montagu had been the first MP to drive a car into the British Houses of Parliament.

49 The Hungarian Problem, 47. Elliott would repeat this in April 1921: ibid., 161.

50 TNA, FO 371/3518, Hohler to Curzon, 1 February 1920: minutes by Curzon and Leeper (11 February 1920).

51 Romsics, The Dismantling of Historic Hungary, 134–37. Romsics suggests that Curzon persuaded Lloyd George to accept the resolution of 8 March 1920.

52 See for example ibid., 76–102. An older narrative covering Anglo-Hungarian relations in 1918–19 is Ardaj, Térkép, csata után.

53 Cornwall, “Great Britain and the Splintering.” See also the seminal work of Géza Jeszenszky, Az elveszett presztízs.

54 For a clash over Hungary in the British press, see Hanak, Great Britain and Austria-Hungary during the First World War.

55 TNA, FO 608/13, Seton-Watson to Balfour (telegram), 9 June 1919: minute by Crowe, 11 June 1919.

56 For instance, TNA, FO 608/13/13266, Leeper’s minute, 23 June 1919: “Magyar Bolsheviks and Nationalists have been accomplices on many occasions lately.”

57 TNA, FO 608/12, Seton-Watson to Headlam-Morley (private letter), 26 May 1919; also reproduced in Lojkó, British Policy on Hungary, 202–5.

58 As an introduction to this, see Romsics, “Hungary’s Place in the Sun.”

59 For the shift in British policy towards Austria-Hungary, see Cornwall, The Undermining of Austria-Hungary, chapter 6; and Calder, Britain and the Origins of the New Europe 1914–1918.

60 See The Hungarian Problem, 9.

61 For a new take on the Sudeten problem in British thinking, see Cornwall, The Devil’s Wall, chapters 8–9; for the diplomacy, see Novotný, The British Legation in Prague.

62 See the recent revisionist work of András Becker: “The Dynamics of British Official Policy towards Hungarian Revisionism, 1938–39; “British Diplomacy, Propaganda and War Strategy and the Hungarian-Romanian Dispute over Transylvania in 1939-40.” These stem from Becker’s PhD thesis: The Problem of Hungarian Borders and Minorities in British Foreign Political Thought 1936–1941 (University of Southampton, 2014).

63 Newton, in Buday, Dismembered Hungary, xiv. See also Rothschild, Dear Lord Rothschild, 18; Zsuppán, “Hungarian Treaty Revision,” 155.

* I would like to thank Catherine Horel and Balázs Ablonczy for their help and advice in the original commissioning of this article.

2020_1_Kosi

Volume 9 Issue 1 CONTENTS

Summer of 1919: A Radical, Irreversible, Liberating Break in Prekmurje/Muravidék?*

Jernej Kosi
University of Ljubljana
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In this article, I examine political, cultural and social circumstances in Prekmurje/Muravidék after its occupation by Yugoslav forces in August 1919. Since the mid-19th century, Slovene national activists in Cislanthania had considered this part of the Kingdom of Hungary as a territory densely populated by Slovene compatriots and therefore as an integral part of Slovene national space. Drawing on this belief, in 1919 Slovene officials, politicians, and journalists celebrated the act of occupation of Hungarian territory as an event that brought to the end of Hungarian oppression to the locals and with it a radical, irreversible and liberating break with the past. By examining archival sources and secondary literature, I confront the victorious Slovene discourse with the reality on the ground. In addition, I also assess how a set of administrative ruptures and legislative changes imposed by the Yugoslav government in the immediate post-1919 period influenced the everyday lives and experiences of the local population.

Keywords: Prekmurje, Muravidék, Treaty of Trianon, transition, transformation, imperial legacies

On August 12, 1919, military units of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes crossed the border with the Kingdom of Hungary and occupied segments of two counties, Vas (Železna in Slovenian) and Zala. Several weeks before that, the occupation had been sanctioned at the Peace Conference in Paris. To be more precise, in early July 1919, the Council of Heads of the four great powers’ included this small fragment of land in the very west of Hungary in the package of territorial compensations promised to Yugoslavia in exchange for Yugoslav participation in the military overthrow of the Hungarian Soviet Republic.1 The Yugoslav territorial acquisition of Prekmurje was confirmed a year later with the signing of the Treaty of Trianon. With the exception of a short interruption during World War II, Prekmurje, as the region is officially known in Slovenian (Muravidék in Hungarian), has been under Slovenian administrative control ever since.

The sudden July decision to hand over the territory of soon-to-become Prekmurje to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes came as a surprise, even though the Yugoslav Peace Delegation had laid claim to Prekmurje soon after the diplomats started to convene in Paris at the beginning of the year. According to the statements made by Slovenian members of the Yugoslav delegation, the linguistic and ethnographic facts unambiguously confirmed the region’s Slovenian character. To build a political strategy on language and cultural markers was a common practice among Central European diplomats competing for contested areas at the Paris Peace Conference.2 Yet in contrast to many territorial disputes that broke out after the collapse of Central European empires, the claim for Prekmurje did not require the Yugoslav diplomats and experts to engage in creative reasoning based on hastily compiled ethnographic and linguistic “facts.” On the contrary, in this particular case, Yugoslav diplomats could base their request for territorial rearrangement on “solid” evidence which had already been gathered. Since the late nineteenth century, Slovenian national activists, ethnographers, linguists, and writers living in the Austrian part of the Dual Monarchy had been accumulating extensive knowledge about the Slavophone community densely inhabiting western Hungary.3 In their interpretation, framed and thoroughly impregnated by the ethnolinguistically defined notion of Slovenian national belonging and adherence, these Slavophones were members of the Slovenian nation inhabiting the territory between the upper Adriatic to the west and the outskirts of Pannonian Basin to the east.4 In 1919, Matija Slavič, the Yugoslav delegation’s Slovenian expert responsible for Prekmurje, thus only additionally elaborated and refined previously published and widely disseminated findings.5 The culmination of his efforts was an ethnographic map of Prekmurje which meticolosuly depicted the area densely inhabited by Slovenian compatriots who had, according to the established Slovenian ethnolinguistic national narrative, been living under oppressive Hungarian rule for centuries.6

Despite the seemingly convincing case (convincing at least according to contemporary standards) substantiated with the strong evidence, the great powers were at best lukewarm about the Yugoslav territorial expectations regarding Prekmurje. The situation changed only as a result of the establishment of the Soviet Republic in Hungary. After the French delegation began propagating the need to suppress the Communist regime in Budapest, a window of opportunity opened for the additional readjustment along the northernmost part of the Yugoslav-Hungarian border.7

The legitimacy of the Yugoslav occupation of Prekmurje was grounded on the idea of the right of the self-determination, despite ultimately being only a consequence of strategic considerations. In reality, however, the decision could hardly be described as the implementation of the Wilsonian principles. There was no plebiscite in Prekmurje, and the locals were not given the right to choose which state they wished to join. They also had no say in the decision-making process at the Paris Peace Conference, despite different political initiatives formulated and propagated by members of local elites in the period between autumn 1918 and August 1919. It is true that the “Yugoslav option” was not without supporters in Prekmurje. In the months after the collapse of Austria–Hungary, many Slavophone catholic clergymen (though not all) who were in close contacts with Slovenian national activists in former Cisleithanian lands agitated among Slavophone parishioners for the annexation of the territory to Yugoslavia. Yet much more vocal were those members of the local elite who propagated an administrative reorganization within the borders of Hungary that would recognize the linguistic and ethnic peculiarity of the local population and grant the region some sort of autonomy. While these initiatives were seriously discussed on various levels of the Hungarian administration, the most radical application of the principle of self-determination was doomed to fail from the outset. The so-called Republic of Prekmurje, which was proclaimed on May 29, 1919 by Vilmos Tkálec, a low-level official of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, lasted for only slightly more than a week, as it was suppressed by the Hungarian army on June 6.8

In the days after the occupation of Prekmurje in 1919, Slovenian politicians, national activists, and journalists employed a common post-1918 interpretation to rationalize and substantiate the territorial gain. The contemporary Slovenian press described the territorial acquisition as “a moment of liberation” for the Slovenian compatriots and “a radical and irreversible break” of the region with its Hungarian past. “Nothing will ever be the same,” the Civil Commissioner Srečko Lajnšic promised the locals in August 1919. Lajnšic was the first head of the new Yugoslav administration in Prekmurje. According to him, the Yugoslav occupation of Prekmurje brought freedom after 1,000 years of struggle under the Hungarian yoke; it gave Prekmurje’s Slovenes a chance to unite with brothers in blood to form a single polity. This kind of post-imperial narrative was not uncommon among members of Central European national elites who happened to find themselves on the winning side of history in autumn 1918.9 Still, to what extend did the narrative correspond with the realities on the ground? Did the 1919 annexation truly play a role in the groundbreaking rupture with the past for people living in Prekmurje? What do administrative sources, historical accounts, and scholarly works reveal about the nature of this supposedly “radical and irreversible break”? In what follows, I will focus on a set of administrative ruptures and legislative changes imposed by the Yugoslav government after it acquired the region, and I will examine how these changes influenced the everyday lives and experiences of the local population.

As one would expect, for locals living in Prekmurje, the single most important break with the past was the change of the state regime, embodied in the incoming representatives of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Despite the fact that the local inhabitants and Hungarian officials who were present in the region offered no resistance to the newly arrived Yugoslav officials, the process of the administrative incorporation of Prekmurje initially did not go smoothly. The first weeks following the annexation were marked by internal strife between the Slovenian and Croat mid-level administrative bodies. Slovenian and Croat politicians and administrators could not agree on the question of which geographic and administrative jurisdiction Prekmurje should be associated with. As a consequence of this, both the Slovenian and Croatian provincial governments sent officials to the region seeking to put the territory of Prekmurje under their own administrative control. Moreover, the provincial government in Ljubljana also proclaimed Srečko Lajnšič, the district captain in the neighboring Styrian town of Maribor, the new Civil Commissioner in charge of the organization of temporary administration in Prekmurje. Unsurprisingly, Slovenian politicians saw the attachment of Prekmurje to the provincial government in Ljubljana as the only possible outcome of the occupation. In their eyes, it logically harmonized with the predominant reasoning of the Slovenian political and cultural elites from the former Cisleithanian lands, who regarded the formerly Hungarian territory as an integral part of the Slovenian national space. To their chagrin and exasperation, however, Croatian politicians and civil servants in Zagreb did not share their views. Instead, they immediately sent their own officials to take over several government and security posts in areas of Prekmurje that bordered Međimurje on the south, an area which had already been under the control of the Croatian administrative bodies since the winter of 1918.10

The fragmentation of the civil administration in Prekmurje led to conflicts and misunderstandings, as there was no clear demarcation line between the overlapping jurisdictions of Croat and Slovenian administrative bodies. The dispute was put to an end only after the intervention of a higher authority. On September 2, the Yugoslav minister of internal affairs Svetozar Pribičević finally interfered and provided a conclusive decision concerning the issue of administrative competences in Prekmurje. Pribičević ordered the provincial government in Ljubljana to mitigate the conflict, which was creating internal strife between Slovenian and Croat branches of administration and could also put Yugoslav control of the occupied territory in jeopardy. He thus decided that until the new constitution was written and ratified, Prekmurje should remain a single administrative entity under the auspices of the Civil Commissioner. The Slovenian provincial government should then, he insisted, provide the necessary officials and, in case of need, ask the provincial government in Zagreb for help. In any case, Pribičević reiterated once again, the territory of Prekmurje should remain a single unit with the Civil Commissioner in charge of the administration.11 The next day, the president of the Slovenian provincial government, Janko Brejc, ordered the subordinated departments and offices immediately to provide the requested personnel to the Civil commissioner.12 The Civil commissioner then moved the seat of his office from Radgona/Radkersburg in Styria to Murska Sobota in Prekmurje.13 With that, the first phase of the consolidation of the new administration in the occupied territory was completed.

The Yugoslav occupation of Prekmurje in August 1919 thus marked the end of Hungarian administration and of Hungarian as the official language of the state administration. From the outset, the incoming state representatives did not tolerate the existing Hungarian administrative structures. The newly arrived Slovenian administrators regarded the presence of Hungarian officials in Prekmurje as a security risk. “The state within the state cannot exist,” Lajnšic insisted. He added, “law won’t be restored as long as the administration remains in the hands of those who constitute a threat to the new order.” Given the fact that “a proper administration must be established,” the Civil Commissioner continued, “authorization should be given to take over or at least to suspend the work of the existing administrative bodies, for the Hungarian authorities only work against the establishment of public order.”14 Many Hungarian officials thus voluntarily left the region soon after the occupation, while others were encouraged, by different means, to hand over their official responsibilities to the Yugoslav representatives, pack their belongings, and leave for Hungary. The replacement was quick and clinical. Several weeks after the Yugoslav forces started entering Prekmurje, the Slovenian officials had taken over all the public offices and administrative posts in Prekmurje, from the courts and the gendarmerie to post offices and railway stations, and they had subordinated them in the process to the administrative bodies in Ljubljana.

Another important case indicating a clear rupture with the past involves the new categories introduced for the population. A series of decrees and laws enacted in the weeks and months after World War I had ended revealed that in the newly constituted nation state of South Slavs, citizenship would be “nationalised.” The national belonging ascribed to each citizen would play a crucial role in determining a given citizen’s rights and the extent to which these rights were respected and protected by the authorities. In other words, national belonging would influence the way in which the authorities treated a particular citizen. Since the establishment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in December 1918, the newfound Yugoslav official ideology propagated the state as a nation state. Serbs, Croats and Slovenes were regarded as constitutive tribes of the so-called three-named nation (troimeni narod), or the Yugoslav nation. In this sense, the new state was understood as a culmination and embodiment of the principle of the national self-determination of one sovereign Yugoslav nation.15 However, alongside Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, many people lived within the borders of the kingdom who identified themselves or were identified by the state administration as members of other national and religious minority communities, for instance Montenegrins, Macedonians, Jews, Germans, Hungarians, Muslims, etc. Following the postwar international agreements on the protection of national minorities, the state granted the members of several of the abovementioned communities a set of specific minority rights. In this sense, the new state officially recognized the existence of several other national groups, the members of which were normatively bestowed equal citizenship rights and, in some cases, also specific minorities rights.16

After acquiring Prekmurje, the new Yugoslav administration began applying the new categories to the local population. Locals who were granted citizenship (the majority of people living in Prekmurje) were divided into two distinct categories. The first one consisted of locals who spoke Slovenian dialects. This part of Prekmurje’s population was regarded as an integral part of the Slovenian tribe and thus as members of the Yugoslav nation. The second category, however, was reserved for members of the local population who were identified by the state administration as belonging either to the German or to the Hungarian minority. According to the peace treaty, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was not allowed to discriminate against citizens who belonged to minorities. But the state bureaucracy nonetheless treated citizens in Prekmurje differently with respect to their presumed national affiliation. Many documents reveal that the level of citizenship rights depended on the ascribed national belonging, as only citizens who were regarded as members of a dominant nation were granted full citizenship rights.17

In addition to the replacement of the state administration and the introduction of the distinction between majority and minority groups, inhabitants of Prekmurje experienced another major shift in the years following the occupation, namely the land reform. In 1919, Prekmurje was a predominantly agricultural region. The majority of the population consisted of peasants who owned no land and farmers who had small holdings. The division of large estates into parcels gave the peasant population of Prekmurje access to a means of basic survival, i.e. land. The decision of the state to introduce the land reform and hence intervene in the existing property relations was thus perhaps the most important rupture affecting the everyday lives of the local population.

The land reform in Prekmurje was part of the broader strategy of rural pacification adopted by the government soon after the proclamation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in December 1918. In the precarious first postwar weeks and months following the proclamation of the new state, the Yugoslav countryside was plagued by a wave of discontent and a series of more or less violent outbreaks.18 The uprisings of the rural population were influenced by a revolutionary movement in Russia and enabled by a fragile state apparatus, massive social deterioration, and a weak or non-existent monopoly of the state on violence. Since the economic recovery was at best gradual, the government decided to use the promise of land reform as a tool to quell rural social movements. As part of this strategy, in February 1919, regent Alexander confirmed a provisional bill that dissolved all large estates in exchange for financial compensation.19

In the years that followed, in Prekmurje as in the rest of the kingdom thousands of hectares of farmland changed the ownership. In truth, the transfer of property (the ownership of arable land) came into effect sluggishly because of the many conflicting interests and the complexity of the process of land division itself. The constant shifting of people in government also slowed down the procedures, as did the complaints concerning the measures, the revisions that were made to the decrees, the annulment of some decrees, and the involvement of political parties. Nonetheless, the change of ownership of arable land transformed the economic and social conditions in the region. Before the beginning of the agricultural reform in Prekmurje, one could cross the whole region from one end to the other (approximately 90 kilometers) without leaving the estates of only twelve large landowners. A good decade after the introduction of the first decrees, almost ten thousand land seekers held legal property rights to 56 percent of the farmland that had formerly been part of large estates. Much of the land was thus still part of large estates, but the land reform enabled many farmers to get their own plots.20

The three post-1919 changes described above significantly influenced the everyday lives and routines of locals living in Prekmurje. In many ways, at least at first glance, the 1919 rhetoric thus indeed did describe actual changes which had taken place in Prekmurje in the years that followed the Yugoslav occupation and the subsequent annexation. Still, did these changes retrospectively substantiate the narrative of a “liberating,” “radical,” and “irreversible” break with the past in the summer of 1919?

To begin with, in post-1919 Prekmurje various institutional practices, administrative procedures and norms, and also everyday habits survived the collapse of the Dual Monarchy. Many sections of Hungarian civil law and other decrees from the Hungarian era were simply translated into Slovenian and remained in force in Prekmurje throughout the interwar period, despite the inclination of the Slovenian provincial government to replace the existing Hungarian body of law with the normative framework that was in use in other territories under its control. In the late 1920s, the “Provisions of Vas County Regarding Buildings and Public Cleanliness” from 1909, for instance, still regulated the urban spatial restructuring of Murska Sobota, the administrative center and commercial hub of Prekmurje, while the unique combination of former Hungarian laws specified the rights of citizens regarding fishing and hunting in Prekmurje.21

The aspirations of Slovenian state actors completely to reorganize everything in Prekmurje were not inhibited solely by pragmatic reasoning and the lack of state resources. Their ability to address and their willingness, ultimately, to tolerate the reality on the ground and the continued attachment to customs and practices were often influenced by conflicts with the expectations of locals. Through dynamic negotiations, locals on many occasions managed to convince the representatives of the Yugoslav state to show some consideration for established practices and existing institutions. When in 1920 the Slovenian administration tried to put the existing network of elementary schools run by the local clergy under the control of the state, the local Catholic and Protestant dignitaries viciously opposed the proposals. As a consequence, until the early 1930s, the network of confessional semi-independent schools remained intact in Prekmurje.22

The occasional willingness of Slovenian judges sent to Prekmurje from Ljubljana to include in their rulings specifics of Hungarian law and practice that did not exist in the existing body of law of the former Cisleithanian lands is also telling. For instance, after the death of Štefan Kerčmar, his wife Fani Kerčmar asserted the right of survivorship (widow’s right), which gave her the right to use her husband’s property until her death or marriage. Though since 1914 the imperial Austrian Civil Code had not acknowledges this right, a Slovenian judge who followed imperial Austrian procedure regarding the inheritance recognized the legality of the widow’s request in the concluding verdict.23

Furthermore, despite the intention of the Slovenian government to purge the administrative bodies in Prekmurje of any Hungarian influence entirely, several Hungarian lower officials retained their positions. Soon after the occupation, the new Slovenian civil servants came to the conclusion that they would not be able to govern without the help of experienced and literate officials fluent in Hungarian. These individuals were familiar with the circumstances on the ground and as such an important source of reliable information about the expectations and needs of local communities, and they could also function as intermediaries between the state institutions, where predominantly Slovenian was used, and locals who spoke only Hungarian.

The example of a dispute which erupted in November 1920 between the two highest representatives of the state authority in Prekmurje concerning the employment of a municipal clerk who had dubious political views illustrates how the pragmatic aspects on many occasions prevailed over political and nationalistic ones. On November 2, the Civil Commissioner wrote to the head of the regional State Police Department, Gustav Puš. He expressed his dissatisfaction with what he saw as the inappropriate prerogatives given to one of Puš’s subordinates. Puš was the highest state law enforcement official, and he also held the position of provisional unelected mayor (gerent) of the Murska Sobota municipality. In the complaint, the Civil Commissioner thus revealed his astonishment at the fact that he had received an official certificate issued by a municipal clerk named Györy. He could not understand how it was possible that Györy was still employed at the municipal office and had the right “to sign documents in the name of municipality and even use the municipal seal,” given that he had recently been convicted by the Civil Commissioner and even served a sentence for having committed anti-state acts. Györy was not loyal to the state, he continued, hence it was “absolutely unacceptable” to grant him authority to issue certificates and handle the official municipal seal. For this reason, the Civil Commissioner instructed the head of the state police and the provisional mayor of Murska Sobota to sort out the scandalous situation. In short, he asked him to replace Györy as a municipal clerk with someone who would be seen as trustworthy by the Slovenian population of Murska Sobota.24

Gustav Puš’s response was surprising. He explained to the Civil Commissioner that Györy was in charge of issuing certificates on the conditions of families and properties so that grain could be distributed to the poor population as had been demanded by the Civil Commissioner in the instructions Puš had recently received. Györy had been entrusted with this task for a good reason, as he knew the conditions of the local population well, Puš asserted. He continued: “I am well aware that Györy was punished, for I was the one who led the investigation in question. At the municipal council meeting on July 23, 1920, Györy was nominated and accepted unanimously to serve as the municipal secretary. The transcript of the municipal meeting in question was sent to the Civilian Commissariat. If today, as the order demands, the district government wants to dismiss him, this would create many difficulties. […] I must point out that Györi has done a good job so far. His specific task has been to compile various lists, such as a list of recruits, a census of livestock, and other things that would be difficult for someone else who does not know the situation, people, and language.” In short, in his role of provisional mayor of Murska Sobota, the head of state police defended diligent work of his subordinate clerk, whom he had previously persecuted. On this occasion, the smooth functioning of the administration took precedence over the more abstract interests of the state.25

These cases suggest that the consequences of the transfer in 1919 of power over the territory were far from radical and irreversible. But neither was the annexation liberating, at least not for many locals living in the region. As mentioned above, the newly founded Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes promised to respect the citizenship rights of all citizens regardless of their nationality and to recognize minority rights of several national communities. In spite of these promises, after the war, Prekmurje’s Hungarian speaking population encountered many obstacles. The majority of the educated Hungarian speaking inhabitants of Prekmurje left the region after the occupation and annexation and settled in the new state of Hungary. Others, especially Hungarian administrative employees and teachers, were fired soon after the occupation because they allegedly did not speak the official language of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.26 Their departure was a major reason why it was difficult to set up a network of schools for the Hungarian minority. The interwar circumstances were precarious from the perspective of elementary schooling in Hungarian. This eventually led to a decrease in the number of pupils and, later, to the almost complete abolishment of minority schools in the region.27

In addition to disrespecting the rights of the Hungarian minority to their own educational institutions, the new authorities discriminated against members of the Hungarian minority, especially its rural segment, in another way. Hungarian speaking peasants, who densely inhabited the area around Lendava along the new border with Hungary, were also excluded from the land reform. Though the local Hungarian speaking farmers and rural communities were initially allowed to rent out arable land of the sequestered and dissolved large estates, they were forbidden in the second stage from buying it, and hence they were prevented from becoming proper owners. This opportunity was given to locals and newcomers considered Slovenians instead of to Prekmurje’s Hungarian speaking population. In contrast with what took place in some other parts of Yugoslavia, the exclusion was not about citizenship, but about the presumed nationality of the locals. At the beginning of the reform, the Yugoslav administration allowed peasants and farmers in Prekmurje who either spoke Hungarian or identified as Hungarians to lease the land, even though they still held the right to opt for Hungarian citizenship. Yet, in 1924, when these locals had become citizens of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, their contracts were revoked on the basis of their presumed nationality, which was determined by using the 1921 census. The officials of the district state agency responsible for the land reform in Prekmurje analyzed records of the census taken in villages along the Yugoslav-Hungarian border and postulated that the declaration of a local citizen’s mother tongue should be regarded as an objective marker of his or her national identity. In this sense, the state officials classified inhabitants of villages who declared Hungarian as their mother tongue as being of Hungarian nationality and, as such, potentially unreliable citizens, whose ownership of the land along the border could cause potential problems for the integrity of the Yugoslav state.28

The integration of Prekmurje’s Slavophone speakers of the region into the new Yugoslav frame was not exactly smooth either. The incoming administration perceived the Slavophone population of Prekmurje as their Slovenian brothers who had finally been liberated from one thousand years of Hungarian domination. The local Slavophones, however, looked on the newcomers with suspicion. Many of them were in fact patriotic Hungarians who expressed particular notions of self-belonging as Slovenes that did not correspond with the understanding of “Slovene-ness” cultivated in the former Cisleithania. As a result, after the Yugoslav occupation and annexation, two separate notions of “Slovene-ness” began to intersect in the region of Prekmurje. The sentiments of ethnic belonging held by the local Slovenian speakers were very different from the idea of “Slovene-ness” developed and widely disseminated in the course of the nineteenth century on the other side of the former border between the Austrian and Hungarian parts of the Dual Monarchy. The officials who came to the region after the war were for that reason identifying Prekmurje’s Slovenian speakers as a part of their own Slovenian nation, which supposedly stretched from the coasts of the Adriatic to the westernmost parts of Hungary. In contrast, the local inhabitants, with the exception of a few catholic priests, continued to nurture their own local and regional identifications. As a result, in 1919, members of Prekmurje’s Slovenian speaking population predominantly identified themselves as “Sloveni” or “Slovenci,” yet they regarded the incoming Slovenian officials sent to the region as representatives of the new Yugoslav state as Carniolans, Slavs, or simply “newcomers.” Prekmurje’s Slovenes hence did not think of the incoming Slovenes as belonging to the same ethnic group as them.29

The two abovementioned Slovenian groups commonly fought about the role of Prekmurje’s regional literary language, particularly in the educational and church setting. These disagreements were passionate because Prekmurje’s Slovenian was both a symbol of the region’s ethnical particularity and, above all, the language of the local evangelic and Catholic Church. The incoming Slovenian officials, especially teachers, nonetheless treated Prekmurje’s literary tradition in a patronizing and occasionally even contemptuous manner. In their eyes, the Slovenian spoken in Prekmurje was not a language but merely one of the dialects of “proper Slovenian,” and for that reason, it should be eliminated. After all, according to them, a true nation could only have one national literary standard.30 Misunderstandings between the locals and the newcomers were further exacerbated by a particular group of newcomers, the Slovenian teaching staff who fostered and spread liberal views which differed from the view of the local clergy.31

Many archival documents from the months following the annexation reveal the animosity between the local Slovenian speakers and the newly arrived Slovenian administrators. For instance, in April 1922, the commander of Murska Sobota’s gendarmerie reported on the positive responses of the local Slovenian “nationally unconscious intelligentsia” to Hungarian propaganda in support of border revisions and the return of Prekmurje to Hungary. According to the sources, along with the local Hungarians, some Slovenes also supported the return of the region to Hungary, more specifically “all the Lutherans, including Lutheran innkeepers, pastors, and teachers.” The writer of this report continued with the following claim: “Prekmurje’s people hate us—Serbs especially—and are convinced that they form a particular, not Slovenian nation.”32 Furthermore, under these tense circumstances, Jožef Klekl, a priest, a member of the national assembly, and one of the very few people in Prekmurje who had supported the Slovenian national movement in the prewar times, was declared a threat to the state because of his autonomist viewpoints.33

In conclusion, after August 1919, the inhabitants of Prekmurje had to confront the reality of living in a state in which the institutional framework and the political culture differed considerably from what they had experienced in the Kingdom of Hungary. The new Yugoslav state actors who came to the region replaced the Hungarian officials, but that was certainly not all they did. Almost immediately after the region’s incorporation into the new state, they started to introduce new administrative practices and state institutions, together with a new normative framework that legally divided the body of citizens into separate communities along the lines of presumed or expressed nationality. Generally speaking, the administrative apparatus treated the Slavophone majority of Prekmurje as a constitutive part of the “three-named nation,” and it classified local German-speaking and Hungarian-speaking communities as parts of two recognized minority groups. Last not least, the Yugoslav state enacted the land reform and radically intervened in the existing ownership relations. Thousands of local Slavophone farmers were given an opportunity to become owners of the land they cultivated.

However, a closer examination of several aspects of the local circumstances in Prekmurje in the decade after the incorporation of the region into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes offers a much more nuanced interpretation of the changes which took place. Instead of supporting the characterization of the annexation as a moment of radical rupture, the events which took place on the ground suggest that the changes occurring in the summer of 1919 in Prekmurje instigated a process of pragmatic adaptations and gradual transformations framed by many aspects of the imperial past. In this sense, the documents which survive speak for themselves, and they also cast a shadow of doubt on the prevailing Slovenian national narrative, according to which the summer of 1919 was the moment of the unification of the Slovenes of Prekmurje with the mother nation.

Archival Sources

Arhiv Republike Slovenije [Archives of the Republic of Slovenia] (ARS)

Pokrajinska in študijska knjižnica Murska Sobota [Regional Library Murska Sobota] (PIŠK)

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Službene novine Kraljestva Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca. http://sluzbenenovine.rs

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Bugge, Peter. “Czech Democracy 1918–1938: Paragon or Parody?” Bohemia: A Journal of History and Civilisation in East Central Europe 47, no. 1 (31 July 2007): 3–28.

Crampton, Jeremy W. “The Cartographic Calculation of Space: Race Mapping and the Balkans at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919.” Social & Cultural Geography 7, no. 5 (October 2006): 731–52.

Feiszt, György. “Revolucionarni pokret u Prekmurju od 1918. do 1919” [Revolutionray movement in Prekmurje in 1918 and 1919]. In Pomurje 1914–1920 : Zbornik radova = Mura mente 1914–1920, edited by Branimir Bunjac, 345–52. Čakovec; Csáktornya: Povijesno društvo Međimurske županije, 2011.

Göncz, László. “Madžarska manjšina v Republiki Sloveniji in nivo strpnosti slovenske večine do nje” [Slovene majority and the level of tolerance toward the Hungarian minority in Slovenia]. In Zbornik referatov mednarodnega znanstvenega simpozija Strpnost do manjšin, edited by Zlatko Tišljar, 79–88. Maribor: Pedagoška fakulteta; Inter-kulturo, 1997.

Greble, Emily. “The Uncertain ‘Wilsonian Moment’ for Muslims in Yugoslavia: Reframing Historiographical Conversations through Minority Experiences.” Passato e Presente, no. 106 (March 2019). https://doi.org/10.3280/PASS2019-106003.

Hornyák, Árpád. Hungarian-Yugoslav Diplomatic Relations, 1918–1927. East European Monographs 28. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013.

Kamusella, Tomasz. “The History of the Normative Opposition of ‘Language versus Dialect’: From Its Graeco-Latin Origin to Central Europe’s Ethnolinguistic Nation-States.” Colloquia Humanistica 5 (2016): 164–88.

Kamusella, Tomasz. The Politics of Language and Nationalism in Modern Central Europe. Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave, 2009.

Kokolj, Miroslav. “Prekmurje v prevratnih letih, 1918–1919” [Prekmurje in times of turmoil, 1918–1919]. In Revolucionarno vrenje v Pomurju v letih 1918–1920, edited by Janko Liška, 53–205. Murska Sobota: Pomurska založba, 1981.

Kokolj, Miroslav. Prekmurski Slovenci: Od narodne osvoboditve do nacistične okupacije, 1919–1941 [Prekmurje Slovenes: From the national liberation to the Nazi German occupation]. Murska Sobota: Pomurska založba, 1984.

Kokolj, Miroslav, Bela Horvat. Prekmursko šolstvo od začetka reformacije do zloma nacizma [Schools in Prekmurje from the beginning of Protestantism to the collapse of Nazism]. Murska Sobota: Pomurska založba, 1977.

Komac, Miran. “Narodne manjšine v Sloveniji, 1920–1941” [Ethnic minorities in Slovenia, 1920–1941]. Razprave in gradivo: revija za narodnostna vprašanja 75 (2015): 49–81.

Kosi, Jernej. “The Imagined Slovene Nation and Local Categories of Identification: ‘Slovenes’ in the Kingdom of Hungary and Postwar Prekmurje.” Austrian History Yearbook 49 (2018): 87–102.

Kosi, Jernej. “Slovenski nacionalni prostor na Ogrskem: Ustvarjanje zamisli o slovensko-hrvaški meji v dolgem srednjeevropskem 19. stoletju” [Slovenian national space in Hungary: Cunstructing the notion of Slovene-Croatian border in the long 19th century]. In Ustvarjanje Slovensko-Hrvaške Meje, edited by Marko Zajc, 29–46. Zbirka Vpogledi. Ljubljana: Inštitut za novejšo zgodovino, 2018.

Kosi, Jernej. “Slovene Ethnolinguistic Nationalism as Rhetoric and Practice in Post-imperial School Administration in Prekmurje.” Spiegelungen: Zeitschrift für deutsche Kultur und Geschichte Südosteuropas (München: IKGS, forthcoming, 2019).

Kosnica, Ivan. “Odnos državljanstva i nacionalne pripadnosti u Kraljevini SHS/Jugoslaviji” [Relation between citizenship and nationality in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes/Yugoslavia]. Zbornik Pravnog Fakulteta u Zagrebu 68, no. 1 (2018): 61–83.

Kovács, Attila. “Agrarna reforma in kolonizacija na območju Dolnje Lendave med obema vojnama” [Land reform and colonization in the area of Dolnja Lendava in the interwar period]. Razprave in gradivo, no. 53/54 (2007): 68–97.

Kyovsky, Rudy. “Trianonska pogodba in slovensko-ogrska meja” [The Treaty of Trianon and the Slovene-Hungarian border]. In Revolucionarno vrenje v Pomurju v letih 1918–1920, edited by Janko Liška, 236–59. Pomurska založba, 1981.

Lipovšek, Gašpar. Lovski in ribiški zakon: (zak. člen XX. 1883 in XIX. 1888) veljaven v Prekmurju [Hunting and fishing laws: (law XX of 1883 and XIX of 1888) valid in the territory of Prekmurje]. Gornja Radgona: Tiskarna Panonija, 1927.

Milić, Ivo. Pregled madžarskog privatnog prava: u poredjenju sa austrijskim gradjanskim zakonikom [An overview of the Hungarian civil law: In comparison to the Austrian Civil Code]. Subotica: autor, 1921.

Nemec, Janez. “Pravo v Prekmurju po 12. avgustu 1919” [Body of law in Prekmurje after August 12, 1919]. Časopis za zgodovino in narodopisje 60, no. 1 (1989): 54–64.

Newman, John Paul. “Post-Imperial and Post-War Violence in the South Slav Lands, 1917–1923.” Contemporary European History 19, no. 3 (2010): 249–65.

Prott, Volker. The Politics of Self-Determination: Remaking Territories and National Identities in Europe, 1917–1923. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.

Slavič, Matija. “Prekmurske meje v diplomaciji” [ Diplomacy and borders of Prekmurje]. In Slovenska krajina: Zbornik ob petnajstletnici osvobojenja, edited by Vilko Novak, 83–107. Beltinci: Konzorcij, 1935.

Slavič, Matija. Carte etnographique de Prekomurje: D’après la statistique officielle hongroise de 1890. Paris: Courtier & Cie, 1919.

Troch, Pieter. “Yugoslavism between the World Wars: Indecisive Nation Building.” Nationalities Papers 38, no. 2 (March 2010): 227–44.

1* The research for and writing of this article were funded by the ERC Nepostrans Consolidator Grant under the contract 772264.

In this text, I use the shorter term “Yugoslavia” to describe the polity that was officially known as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

2 On the border-drawing practices employed at the Conference, see Prott, The Politics, 113–47; Crampton, “The Cartographic.”

3 Kosi, “The Imagined,” 90–94; Kosi, “Slovenski nacionalni.”

4 On ethno-linguistic nationalism, see Kamusella, “The History”; much more broadly Kamusella, The politics.

5 On Slavič’s contribution to the “Slovene cause,” see his personal account: Slavič, “Prekmurske meje,” 83–92.

6 Slavič, “Carte ethnographique.”

7 Kyovsky, “Trianonska pogodba,” 236–59; Hornyák, Hungarian-Yugoslav, 46–49.

8 For an overview, see Feiszt, “Revolucionarni pokret,” 345–52; Kokolj, “Prekmurje v prevratnih,” 53–205.

9 On the Czech example, see Bugge, “Czech democracy,” 24.

10 Kokolj, Prekmurski Slovenci, 21–22.

11 Arhiv Republike Slovenije (ARS). Pokrajinska uprava za Slovenijo – predsedstvo (AS 60), Prekmurje IV, V. 10417, 2.9.1919.

12 ARS. AS 60, Prekmurje IV, V. 10417/1919. Upravna ureditev v Prekmurju, 2.9.1919.

13 ARS. AS 60, Prekmurje IV, V. 10595/1919, 6.9.1919.

14 ARS. AS 60, Prekmurje IV, V. 10092, Položaj v Prekmurju, 26.8.1919.

15 On the nature of citizenship in interwar Yugoslavia, see Kosnica, “Odnos državljanstva,” 61–83; Štiks, Nations and citizens, 32–34. On the idea of “troimeni narod,” see Troch, “Yugoslavism between,” 229–32.

16 For more detailed information on the minority and religious rights in Yugoslavia, see Greble, “The Uncertain,” para. 9–17.

17 Kovács, “Agrarna reforma,” 68–97. Komac, “Narodne manjšine,” 59–66.

18 Banac, “Emperor Karl,” 284–305; Newman, “Post-imperial and post-war,” 249–65; Beneš, “The Green Cadre,” 207–41.

19 Službene novine Kraljestva Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca, February 27, 1919, no. 11.

20 Kokolj, Prekmurski Slovenci, 483–591.

21 On regulations concerning the outlook of public space in Murska Sobota, see Brumen, “Panonskost Murske Sobote,” 91–102. The fishing and hunting rights in Prekmurje were regulated with the official translation of fragments of Hungarian laws combined with administrative procedures that were used in the former Cisleithanian lands; see Lipovšek, Lovski in ribiški.

22 Kokolj, Horvat, Prekmursko šolstvo, 318–24.

23 Nemec, “Pravo v Prekmurju,” 54–64. On differences between the Hungarian and Austrian inheritance law, see Milić, Pregled, 58–76.

24 Pokrajinska in študijska knjižnica Murska Sobota (PIŠK). SI_PIŠK/0001/001/001/00027. Dopis Civilnega komisarja, predstojniku oddelka državne policije o potrebni zamenjavi občinskega tajnika v občini Murska Sobota, 11.2.1920.

25 Ibid.

26 Kosi, “Slovene ethnolinguistic,” (forthcoming).

27 Göncz, “Madžarska manjšina,” 81.

28 Kovács, “Agrarna reforma,” 68–97.

29 Kosi, “The Imagined,” 95–102.

30 Kosi, “Slovene ethnolinguistic,” (forthcoming).

31 Kokolj, Horvat, Prekmursko šolstvo, 307–9.

32 ARS. AS 60, Prekmurje IV, V.Pov 1890/IV. Madžarska propaganda v Prekmurju, 15.4.1922.

33 ARS. AS 60, Prekmurje IV, V. Pov. 6573/IV. Klekl Jožef, upokojeni župnik in narodni poslanec v Prekmurju, informacija, 8.6.1921.

2020_1_Ablonczy

Volume 9 Issue 1 CONTENTS

“It Is an Unpatriotic Act to Flee”: The Refugee Experience after the Treaty of Trianon. Between State Practices and Neglect*

Balázs Ablonczy
Research Centre for the Humanities
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

In the wake of World War I, the collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy and creation of new political borders in accordance with the peace treaties prompted more than 400,000 people from the lost territories to seek refuge in Hungary. In this essay, I map the policies adopted by the Hungarian state in its efforts to integrate and pacify refugees, but also at times to discourage refugees from coming to Trianon Hungary. These policies were implemented with the participation of ministries, refugee organizations, large state-run enterprises, and municipal councils. I also interpret the various strategies used by individual actors in these processes. Taken together, the policies and strategies adopted by the state demonstrate the de facto prolongation of wartime administrative practices and offer examples of how the state turned against its own Christian, nationalist, and authoritarian ideology in the course of its efforts to keep prospective refugees from entering post-Trianon Hungary. How the questions raised by the refugee crises were tackled in the country was conditioned by multiple considerations and perspectives. The ambiguities of the policies that were adopted explain in part the long silence that has fallen over the issue of post–World War I refugees in Hungary.

Keywords: refugees, Trianon Peace Treaty, state administration, government, memory

The post–World War I flight of Hungarians was relatively organized and, most importantly, did not involve as much bloodshed as other exoduses during and after the war, such as the plights of the Greek-Turkish or Galician refugees. Moreover, this is an untold story in the Hungarian historiography. Recent articles by foreign scholars (especially Friederike Kind-Kovacs and Ilse Josepha Lazaroms) have drawn attention to this forgotten topic, focusing on children’s relief or on Jewish wagon dwellers in Budapest, but they have tended to focus more narrowly on particular groups.1

During the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in October and November 1918, the first wave of refugees from the borderlands reached the core territories of Hungary. This flow consisted essentially of railway workers, post officers, village and county clerks, and officers in the police forces and the gendarmerie. On October 31, Mihály Károlyi, an aristocrat, was nominated head of the government by Charles IV, the last emperor and king of the Monarchy. Károlyi would be the first prime minister of the newly formed Hungarian People’s Republic and then, from January, the first president of the same People’s Republic. His cabinet, composed of social democrats, the so-called bourgeois radicals (polgári radikálisok, a left-wing party consisting mostly of urban intellectuals), and people from the former Independence Party, had to confront the invasion of the former Hungarian territories by Serb, Czechoslovak, and Romanian troops, as well as the collapse of the public food supply, the Spanish flu, and a deepening political crisis inside the country. Károlyi’s government had not been recognized by the Allies or the Paris Peace Conference, and his main activity in foreign affairs was limited essentially to making repeated protests concerning the advancement of foreign troops on Hungarian soil to the head of the Allied military mission in Budapest, Lieutenant-Colonel Fernand Vix, whose so-called second note (March 20, 1919) led to the demission of Mihály Károlyi as President of the People’s Republic, which was followed by the communist takeover on March 21, 1919 and the proclamation of a Republic of Councils, which fell due to Romanian military intervention on August 1. That moment, followed then by the election of Miklós Horthy as Regent of Hungary on March 1, 1920, can be regarded as the beginning of the counterrevolutionary period, and it constituted a crucial shift in the handling the issue of refugees.2

This was an issue, however, which was relatively underrepresented in the Hungarian public sphere. Although the Hungarian press reported on it extensively in the first half of 1920s, the topic was barely taken up in political debate. The social side of the question was peddled by the opposition parties (social democrats, liberals, and the radical right), who wanted to demonstrate the government’s incompetence in the matter.

Similarly there were no movies, plays, or novels of any remarkable success about the refugee issue, or at least there were no works which have since become part of canonized national culture. After 1945, for reasons quite different from the ones in the earlier period, this topic was not among the preferred themes of the state’s memory regime. After 1956, for the Kádár regime, which was constructing its own legitimacy on anti-nationalist foundations, such a topic would have presumably been awkward, although the experience of flight appeared in some memoirs. There have been only a few attempts to explain the silence of the interwar period. While alongside its anti-communist and, at times, pronounced anti-Semitic stances the demand for the revision of the territorial boundaries of the Paris Treaties was one of the pillars of the Horthy era in Hungary (1920–1944), the regime did not wish to exploit the potential of the trope of flight, despite the uses it might have had in state propaganda. This paper discusses the possible reasons for this. Historians have not addressed the issue in depth. There is only one monographic study on the refugees in Hungary after the Treaty of Trianon. István I. Mocsy, an author who lives in the USA, attempted to present the issue on the basis of published materials. His location conditioned the type of sources on which he could draw.3

In this study, I analyze the reactions of Hungarian state organs (including the state railway), explore the motives behind their actions, and discuss images of refugees and the strategies which were developed by the community of refugees to promote their interests. First, I briefly present state policies and features of the social profile of wagon dwellers and of those who were repatriated. I do not interrogate sources to determine the reasons behind people’s decisions to flee. I inquire, rather, into the relationship between the circumstances of integration and dissipation of refugees into Hungarian society despite state policies that neither were effective nor were products of measured reflection and the erasure and transformation of the memory of refugees.

Numbers of Refugees in Hungary and Their Places of Origin

The immediate prelude to the flight between 1918 and 1924 and the test of the Hungarian refugee policy was the large-scale movement from the eastern and southern border areas of Transylvania, which was triggered by the Romanian invasion in August 1916. More than 200,000 people fled to interior areas of Hungary, and since the Hungarian public administration could not stand the pressure, refugees appeared in Transdanubia as well.4 This shaped the ways in which authorities treated similar crisis situations, such as aid, child protection, and refugee reception centers (for instance, Hajdú County, the capital of which is the city of Debrecen, was designated for refugees coming from Csík County, today Ciuc County in Romania, and in particular the capital of the county, Csíkszereda, today Miercurea Ciuc).5

Table 1. Refugees arriving in Hungary from different countries, 1918–1924 (based on data from the National Office for Refugees)

The repatriation of Transylvanian refugees had hardly been completed when, in autumn 1918, large waves of refugees poured into the interior areas from all occupied territories, not only from Transylvania. Initially, the movement was spontaneous, but it was subsequently replaced with a practice of expulsion on behalf of citizens of the successor states. To the extent that the military activities and the blockade permitted, the stream of refugees continued during the Hungarian Soviet Republic. Despite research efforts, we have only scattered information about the institutional framework of refugee policy between March 1919 and August 1919. According to the National Office for Refugees, which was set up in 1920, by 1924 roughly 350,000 people had fled to Hungary due to the change of borders. (However, this figure is a suspiciously round number, and it is likely that it is not precise.) The author of the monographic study that addressed the issue, Istvan Mocsy, estimated a much larger number in 1983. He talked estimated that there were between 420,000 and 425,000 refugees.6 According to official statistics, of the 350,000 refugees, 104,000 had had some form of employment (some 20,000 had been civil servants and 20,000 had been railway employees). Regarding this group, we need to correct two widespread beliefs which are based on stereotypes. First, most refugees did not depend on the state for employment, even if the proportion of civil servants was much larger among refugees than it was in the general population of the country. Second, we do not know the proportion of those who were expelled from the new states by the new authorities, nor do we know how many relocated because their professional positions made it practical to do so and how many simply chose to leave.7 In order to answer these questions, one would need a comparative study of citizenship policies in the surrounding states. For the moment, no such study has been done.8

The Policies of the Hungarian State

The activities of the Hungarian state related to the reception of refugees were ambiguous, to say the least. The first refugees in October-November 1918 were chiefly Hungarian State Railway employees and, to some extent, postal services employees who had left Croatia, Bosnia, or Fiume because of the advances of the Serbian and French army, uncertainty caused by revolutionary and national movements, or simply straightforward looting. In 1910, the Hungarian State Railways and other railway companies had nearly 110,000 employees.9 The relationship between railways and nation building deserves a separate study, but the Hungarian State Railway was definitely one of the symbols of Hungarian state authority in the areas where non-Hungarian ethnic groups dominated. From the last days of October 1918, Hungarian railway employees arrived by the dozens and, then, by the hundreds to cities close to the southern borders of post-Trianon Hungary, such as Gyékényes, Nagykanizsa, Csurgó, Murakeresztúr, Barcs, Pécs, and Szeged.10 The directorate of the State Railway in Budapest experimented with local solutions and ordered station managements to find employment for the people who were arriving. However, it soon became apparent that local station managers were unable to do this even at the largest junctures. There were simply not enough posts. At first, railways, just like other state-owned companies and state organs, encouraged their employees to hold out and allowed them to swear allegiance to the new states. Then, it allowed them to leave, only later to reverse the policy and subsequently, encourage employees to stay at their posts until the spring of 1919.11 Contradictory orders frequently figured as explanations in applications submitted by railway employees for compensation after 1919. One applicant, for instance, made the following complaint:

It is natural that, as in all things, the railway institution is the last to help its robbed emigre employees. While superiors, such as leisurely sheriffs and public notaries who grew fat during the war, do not fail to receive aid on time, it is odd that while we had little joy in the war and our supplies (compared to civil servants) were insufficient beyond measure, … we are the ones who are at the end of the list in receiving aid. […] Considering that our Directorate and Management ordered us to stay at our posts and thus, partially, caused our misery, we now ask the Directorate to differentiate us from those who were more fortunate and left with their belongings.12

The quote points to a certain competition among branches. The case of railway employees was dealt with at the company level. Initially, the Railway Syndicate was the authority responsible for refugee issues at the largest state owned company, and beginning at the end of 1919, the “Central Authority for Issues of Hungarian State Railway Refugees” played this role. Refugees could receive a few hundred Korona cash aid and possibly be sent to a new work station, but many of them would be reassigned to stations which were now on “the other side of the border,” such as Kolozsvár (Cluj in Romania), Szabadka (Subotica in Serbia), or Nagyvárad (Oradea in Romania), within weeks or months, which meant that they had to leave again. In late 1918, the management of the Hungarian State Railways began to assess which of their employees would remain employed in the new states. It is somewhat surprising that, despite chaotic conditions, among the declarations that were sent to Budapest about the willingness to be employed in those weeks we find documents written in both Croatian and Hungarian, and the names, which were from several different languages, were written in a diverse variety of ways. This indicates that the decision to stay or leave was not necessarily a question of ethnicity or national identity, at least not in the first period of state succession.13

At the ministry level, the Ministry of Interior appointed Pál Hegymegi Kiss, who would become a noted politician of the opposition in the interwar period, as Commissioner responsible for arranging accommodation for sheriffs and notaries, and he was also given responsibility for school teachers and the staffs of museums. While leaders at the university in Kolozsvár (Cluj) and Pozsony (Bratislava) decided to stay, professors and students of the forestry and mining college at Selmecbánya (Banska Stiavnica, in present-day Slovakia) left for Budapest and, subsequently, for Sopron.14 Crossing the mountain pass in winter and the act of leaving presented as something resembling an expedition from a periphery to the interior became part of the legendry of the institution, which still exists. However, the migration of the college was also the end of a prolonged debate in Hungarian educational policy, so professors arriving in Sopron received extra benefits that other fugitive civil servants did not have access to. This situation led to tensions and competition for the title of victim.15

Refugees kept continued arriving during the period of the Soviet Republic of Hungary, which lasted from March until August 1, 1919. Pauses due to military activity and border blockades were temporary. After the fall of the communist experiment, the new anti-revolutionary administration created the Transylvanian Department of the Office of Preparation for Peace Treaty Negotiations, which was explicitly tasked with providing aid for refugees from Transylvania. There were civilian organizations that tried to cover other regions (the Szepesi Szövetség or “Szepes Alliance,” the Területvédő Liga or “Territorial Defense League,” the Felvidéki Liga or “Upper Country League,” and the Délvidéki Liga or “Southern Country League”). In April 1920, i.e. relatively late, the government finally set up the National Office for Refugees (Országos Menekültügyi Hivatal – OMH) and the National Council of Refugee Issues, which was its advisory and supervisory body. The head of the council was István Bethlen, who would later become prime minister and who was among the most influential politicians in Hungary in the interwar period, while the head of the office was a refugee aristocrat and former prefect, Emil Petrichevich-Horváth (1881–1945). Transylvanians had a marked presence throughout the lifetime of these institutions. Initially, the office worked within the framework of the Office for Preparation for Peace Treaty Negotiations, but shortly became directly subordinated to the Office of the Prime Minister. Beginning in 1922, it was part of the Ministry for Labor and Welfare, and the head of the office was a state secretary until the institution was closed in 1924.

The papers of the office are lost, probably destroyed by fire during the battle of Budapest in 1944–45. Since then, scholarship on refugees has relied chiefly on a single source, the office’s own official record. However, these data should be treated with caution.16 OMH dealt with a range of issues, in addition to providing direct aid (clothes, cash, and coal) for refugees. It ran soup kitchens, organized re-training courses, provided legal counselling services, coordinated construction projects, and organized recreational holidays for children. It also established check points check newly arriving migrants, especially at the more important railway junctures which were also border stations.17 The explanation for this lay in the fact that, after the Treaty of Trianon had been signed on June 4, 1920, the Hungarian state faced the reality that the rate of immigration (290,000 refugees by the end of 1920) could not be sustained. In September 1920, Bethlen was very firmly in favor of stopping the flow, that is, immigration. In his view, 70 percent of the 300–500 refugees who were arriving daily were not really refugees, but people opting for citizenship, which they would only be able to do after the treaty had been ratified, which did not take place until November 1920. Bethlen felt that the attempt by these refugees to resettle in Hungary for reasons of personal economic interest “fundamentally threatened Hungarian national interests,” because it lessened the proportion of Hungarians in the lost territories, which would have been the basis for revision of the treaty). As Bethlen wrote in a letter to Prime Minister Pál Teleki in September 1920,

the majority of the émigrés do not have sufficient reason to emigrate and do so in hope of finding easy employment […] This way, in Transylvania and in the southern areas, houses which had been inhabited by Hungarians become empty, the number of Hungarians living in the cities is shrinking, and they are being replaced by a wave of foreign elements. Leaving this process without intervention would be a threat to the nation.18

In October 1920, Teleki adopted Bethlen’s point of view (they were distantly related and both had family roots and lands in Transylvania) and ordered outposts to be set up to control and limit immigration. Teleki voiced his opinion publicly and used wording that was almost identical to Bethlen’s. In addition to the idea of a “threat to the nation” and the urban dimensions of flight (i.e. the Hungarian population decreasing in towns and cities), he also mentioned the crisis of housing and damage to private property:

The rapid increase of the number of refugee officers fleeing from occupied territories is a national threat. We cannot push citizens out of their homes to provide housing for refugees. Doing so would be close to Bolshevism. […] It is an unpatriotic act to flee if they not forced to leave but only do so because they have sold their property in Sokols, Lei, or Dinar and they even pay to be expelled.19

His words caused considerable uproar in some groups of refugee officials and on the political far right,20 though they also caused echoes in other circles. The owner of a house expressed his anger with a refugee magistrate from Arad (Arad, Romania) when the refugee was allotted a portion of the property:

on seeing the order, he loudly protested against letting the property pass and stated that he didn’t build a villa for refugees to live in it! We should have stayed where we were, did we think that ham grows by the side of the road in Budapest? We are worse than the communists were, since they spared his villa, but we take it by force.21

The government did not think legal regulation was sufficient to tackle immigration, and it occasionally set up a border blockade (for example during the summer and early autumn of 1921). In such periods, no refugees were received mainly out of concern for the number of railway wagons needed during harvest. The government was firmly convinced that wagons that would have been used to transport and, perhaps, accommodate refugees were essential for the success of the operations related to harvest. In 1921, because of these policies, the number of migrants fell to one fifth of what it had been in 1920, and the total number in 1922 was 80 percent of the figure of 1921. In 1923, 9,043 people immigrated (or fled) to Hungary, while in 1924 this number had dropped to under 1,000.22 We do not have detailed statistics about their geographical location, such as place of departure and place of arrival. A recently released database about more than 15,000 refugees from the period (www.trianon100.hu/menekultek) shows an overrepresentation of urban migrants (coming from an urban milieu in the territories annexed by the successor states and arriving to cities, in particular Budapest, in postwar Hungary. However, this database is quite fragmented, and some groups (such as railway workers) may be overrepresented, so the results should be treated with caution. The reluctance of the government to accept all expellees, returnees, or “person moving in” (the Hungarian term used at the time was beköltöző ) was probably motivated by fear of a “third wave” of revolutions led by distressed middle-class refugees whose loss of prestige and search for proper lodging would lead to clashes with the authorities at the beginning of the 1920s.23

Wagons and Barracks

The government constantly feared that refugees would become a source of social unrest and that this group, which for the most part had belonged to the middle class in the pre-war societies in which they had lived, would become the engine of a new wave of revolution. It is clear from statistics that the authorities did their best to keep the most visible elements, those who lived in wagons, away from the capital, which had already borne witness to several revolutions, occupation by a foreign army, and other traumatic upheavals in 1918–1919. Although these people and the conditions in which they lived became symbols for the suffering of post-Trianon Hungary, hardly more than 12–14 percent of them lived in wagons for extended periods of time. It can also be established that a maximum of 20,000 people lived in railway cars parked at railway junctures or side tracks at any one point of time. A family was usually allotted two wagons. They kept their furniture in one of them and lived in the other one. These wagons were not suitable for extended habitation (for instance, they could not be properly heated), and hygienic conditions became unbearable around them, as there was no running water and some of the families had domestic animals. Diseases and epidemics soon broke out, and there were many accidents. The latter chiefly affected children who played around the railway lines. Statistics allow us to track the efforts of the government to distribute wagon dwellers throughout the country and limit their numbers in the capital. In early 1921, county prefects along the borders complained in vain, asking the government to find places somewhere else for the refugees.24 When statistical records began to be kept in October 1920, there were a recorded 1,540 wagons in Budapest with 3,840 people living in them, while outside the capital there were 4,137 wagons with 16,500 inhabitants. Subsequently, in Budapest, the number of wagon dwellers quickly declined until the spring of 1921, but this number began to grow again, reaching a peak in September 1921. In the second wave, the number of wagon dwellers dropped below 1,000 in September 1922, and a year later, there were less than 300 people living in such conditions. Newspapers in the capital triumphantly reported that there were no more wagon dwellers.25

Table 2. Changes in the number of wagon dwellers in Budapest and in the countryside

The decline in these figures was much slower outside the capital. There were several examples when railway stations in villages (for example Mórágy, Almásfüzitő, and Kecel) also received wagons with refugee families living in them.26 This way, however, the sight of refugees became more familiar to people across the country, and the unpleasant conditions in which they lived served as a poignant illustration of the consequences of the Treaty of Trianon even in small communities. While wagon dwellers became symbols of the misery of the country and the tragedy of the Treaty of Trianon, newspapers hardly mentioned them after 1924–1925. Although in the mid-1920s, papers reported several times that “the last wagon dweller” had moved into proper housing, there nonetheless remained refuges who continued to live in wagons, temporary shelters and barracks. The wagon dwellers’ suffering became part of a narrative of suffering which followed the pattern of the Stations of the Cross and drew a parallel between the Crucifixion of Jesus and the fate of Hungary. It is a telling detail that the Jewish press in Hungary partially endorsed this view. At the same time, the papers hardly mentioned the multitudes of Jewish refugees.27

Though wagon dwellers hardly made up one-seventh of all refugees, initially they were the subject of disproportionate attention (though interest in their plight had completely dwindled by 1924). Those that lived in barracks, former army hospital buildings, and schools dramatically outnumbered the wagon dwellers, but they did not become symbols of the postwar fate of the country to the same extent. This overrepresentation of the wagon dwellers in the imagery concerning the refugees could be explained by the fact that their conditions provided an apt and pithy image of the decline of the middle classes after the war, and the wagon itself became a symbol.28

Although the government and local authorities tried to facilitate the settlement of refugees with programs for small flat construction and by creating residential colonies, if one considers the number of flats completed in the first half of the 1920s, this intervention was hardly efficient or sufficient.29 More research is needed to determine how Hungarian society absorbed more than 100,000 refugees (or 400,000 if we include family members) who were mostly from middle class backgrounds and who had relatively high expectations when it came to living standards and material conditions. (There are countless examples of middle class refugees refusing to accept one-room apartments offered to them by municipalities, as they contended that these dwellings were of a “proletarian type.”30) Based on randomized analysis of data, by the 1930s, the number of refugees sharply dropped in the barracks that had been built for them, and they were replaced by the urban poor.31 One possible explanation for this is that refugees might have built houses drawing on their own resources. One such example is the St. Emeric Suburb (Szent Imre Kertváros), which lay beyond the boundaries of Budapest at the time. The community, which consisted primarly of former civil servants, struggled for ten years for the right to move to their new homes. The cross erected in the central square, which was named Hargita (a mountain range in Transylvania and also the name of a county in Transylvania), reminded the 280 owners of the Treaty of Trianon, as did the street names, decorations, and the designs of some of the houses.32

Institutions

Apart from futile initiatives, such as the launching of the so-called Székely National Party in 1920–21, the refugees did not appear as political force. After June 1921, the Bethlen government banned associations which openly irredentist views, such as defense leagues and relocated/expelled municipal authorities formed in Hungary (menekült törvényhatóságok) and associations that formed on a territorial basis and had territorial revision in their articles of association.33 These measures created a serious limitation to ability of refugees to give expression to their interests through civil bodies. A centralized institutional setting funded Hungarian associations across the border in a covert way, but until the formation of Revíziós Liga (League for Revision) in 1927, only those organizations were allowed to exist that organized activities that did not go beyond reminding members of their common cultural heritage. Yet, the orientation of these organizations was not in doubt: the organizations that operated in areas that were outside of the territories reannexed between 1938–41 quickly dissolved. The remainder of the associations functioned under close government control: the papers of the Prime Minister’s Office (Department of Nationalities and Minorities) and those of the Ministry of Home Affairs offer proof of the strict surveillance under which the activities of every refugee organization were kept. The first exercised its influence by granting or retaining subsidies, while the latter used the means of legal controls.

Being a refugee had importance in individual career paths. Almanacs kept by the Parliament of the time clearly illustrate that having come from one of the lost territories, having suffered the experience of flight, or having played an active role in an irredentist organization were assets in politics. These experiences complemented the “Good Hungarian, Good Patriot” image even in cases of politicians who had little to do with Transylvania. They did not however, become a basis of group formation.

Some refugee communities developed strategies with which to address the new circumstances. The migrants from Szepesség/Zips/Spiš often had German origins, and they used their associations as a kind of network of pressure/interest groups targeting pensions, jobs, and benefits. The pattern of migration among intellectuals of the Szepes region, which had been a palpable tendency since the nineteenth century, remained an observable trend, as did attachment to ethno-regional identities and the maintenance of ties to the homeland. These ties were nurtured through organized tours, regular exchange of information, and organized holidays for children.34 The associations around the much larger group of people who had left eastern Transylvania and especially the Association of Székely University and College Students (SZEFHE) and the network of associations around it had a different strategy. They did not build a network of influence. Instead, they sought to act in a Messianic way and integrate elements of Székely cultural heritage (military borderland identity, free peasant community, mythical Hun origins) into the national canon in order to transform Hungarian society, regardless of whether change came from radical Left or radical Right. One of the central figures put their mission in the following way: “I absolutely believe in Transylvania. I believe that all light, health, talent, good, beauty, and moral power comes from there. If Hungarians can still be saved, this can only be done via Transylvania.”35 This presence proved so powerful that it survived decades of state socialism. The revival in the post-1990 era of the Székely Anthem and a runic script allegedly used well before Hungarians adopted the Latin alphabet is partially a sign of the success of their and their successors’ efforts.36 The Zipser and the Székely refugee community had pronounced contours and defined itself vis-à-vis the state. While the first wished to use state infrastructure to promote their individual and group level goals and to protect cultural heritage, the second wished to integrate this heritage into the national canon.

Between 1918 and 1924, alongside people and artifacts, institutions were also relocated to a new country. Professors and students at the university of Kolozsvár (Cluj) and Pozsony (Bratislava) came to Budapest and, subsequently, to Szeged and Pécs, where their successors operate to this day. The Forestry and Mining College found its new home in Sopron, and the law schools of Máramarossziget and Eperjes also moved to Hungary. Although these individual histories are well explored, the question of institutional level flight has hardly been made the subject of study, and the comparative studies of policies towards universities are not complete in their scope or framework.37 From the perspective of the broader context, it is worth noting that the leadership of the universities initially adopted a strict legalistic point of view at the time of the political changeover and tried to continue working at their locations until they were forced to leave in 1919. Some of the institutions and the more specialized training institution in Selmecbánya found their place, since the development of universities was a matter of state policy in the 1920s. Institutions that did not fit the prevailing concept, however, barely survived or lost state subsidies and had to close down. I am thinking, for instance, of law schools whose curricula did not harmonize with the state’s concept of development.

Images and Imagination

If we look at remembrance of flight and repatriation, we find a picture that is more complex than the picture of victimhood. It is useful to consider memoirs written between the second half of 1920s and the 1980s about experiences of flight between 1918 and 1924.38 I considered it important, from a methodological point of view, to use memoirs that form a control group. I identified three memoir writers who hesitated and eventually chose remain in the lands of their birth. Their motivations are at least as telling about the circumstances of repatriation as the writings of those who left.

The individuals who decided to stay did not adopt a heroic pose (“loyalty to Transylvania”) when making this decision. Their motivations were fear of material uncertainty, a rejection or fear of the ideology of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, or fear of the so-called white terror. The feature that the writings of those who left and those that stayed have in common is strong referentiality. None of them used arguments that stand on their own. Arguments that might well be accepted as reasonable explanations for the decision to leave would include fear for one’s life or the desire not to become part of a national minority living in a new nation state. Instead, the memoir writers made references to more specific details of their individual circumstances. For instance, they would mention the advice given by a pastor, or they would mention the desire to free themselves from someone they despised. They also mentioned having lost their jobs or having been betrayed by (Hungarian) colleagues. In some cases, such as that of László Ravasz (a Calvinist preacher who was born in Transylvania and who emerged as a prominent representative of the Calvinist Church in the interwar period), there was even reference to a divine order. It is even more puzzling that the use of references to external persons or circumstances is independent of political regimes. It is just as typical of memoirs produced in the 1930s as it is of those written after 1947–48, i.e. in communist Hungary. The memoirs suggest that their authors felt the reasons for the decision to leave were not self-evident or understandable in the eyes of others. There was a need for one more explanation in the argument. The other feature that stands out is that those who went to Hungary adjusted to an expected mode of speaking. Memoir authors whose writings did not fit the prevailing ideological currents stayed and died outside of post-Trianon Hungary. One could mention Farkas Gyalui, the director of the library in Kolozsvár, who felt like vomiting when he thought of Mihály Károlyi, the communists, the anti-Semitism of the post-1920 regime, and the people he regarded “Hungarians in word only,” i.e. those who had left the land of their birth and resettled in Trianon Hungary.39

The images of refugees in works of literature are no less loaded. No great novels were written about the plights of the refugees, and refugees often did not recognize themselves in the works that were produced. Zoltán Szitnyai (1893–1978) was a journalist and a writer whose novels were frequently published in the interwar period. Since he was born in Selmecbánya/Banska Stiavnica, his works often revolved around the city and the people who left for Trianon Hungary. In his novel Hodinai Hodinák (“Árpád from Hodina,” 1936), some of the expelled Hungarians living in Budapest drew up lists of alleged traitors, in their eyes, those who remained and continued to maintain the pre-war patriarchal world. They were more like merry tourists: their behavior did not reflect any suffering or pain. Szitnyai used the same framework in his work about the association of refugees that was published in Kassa (Kosice) in the early 1930s (Szeptemberi majális or “May Day in September”). The author/observer was critical of the loftiness and emptiness of the leaders and members of the association and the fawning attitudes that they exhibited on the tenth anniversary of the founding of the association. They were looking forward to seeing a minister who had been sent to see them, and they all hoped that their requests would enjoy the support of the influential politician. Lajos Zilahy (1891–1974) was one of the best-selling authors of interwar Hungary. His novel Földönfutó város (“Beggar Town”), which was published in 1939, was not one of his major successes. It builds on experience he gained during his work as a journalist, and it offers a (man’s perception of a) female perspective on the society of refugees. It is the story of a family falling apart. Following the death of her husband, the widow decides to repatriate and become a wagon dweller. Although the novel has a surprisingly tolerant tone (it does not contain anti-Semitic formulas and it addresses taboos such as homosexuality), it is not optimistic in its final judgement: emigration, moral degradation, and human pettiness and the ill-will of refugee society provide an allegorical framework for the fate of the family. The mother saves her new love from the police, but her children leave her, and it seems unlikely that her new relationship will last.

Addressing the plights of refugees in the tradition crafted by memoirs and literary works was burdensome, and this may explain why their stories remain largely untold in Hungary. Under pressure from official and public discourse, these narratives were distorted and used to legitimize flight. The fact that these stories have gone untold has constituted a barrier to the memory of the community, and it has prevented this memory from being integrated into the larger national narrative of victimhood.

Conclusion

One can speak of the refugee policy of the Hungarian state in its true sense from the end of 1919, when the state set up certain institutions to manage the flow of immigrants arriving in the country and initiated and coordinated welfare efforts. This approach replaced earlier approaches that were used in a time of flight in 1916. Beginning in the second half of 1920, the government focused on drastically cutting back the number of new arrivals. They were motivated by concern for public order and hypothetical revision of the peace treaty in the future, rather than by humanitarian considerations. State companies, Churches, and state institutions or local municipalities had different and inconsistent policies. The latter used the refugee issue in their battles for material resources, in fights against control from center of the state, and in internal political battles. With the closure of the National Office for Refugees, the problems faced by immigrants disappeared from public view and, except for a few marked groups (Zipsers and Székelys), refugees were not able to represent themselves in the public or political spheres. Refugees not only had to face limitations imposed on them by government policies, but also had to grapple with the obstacles which arose because of the simple fact that many people in the communities in which they sought to settle saw them as competitors for available resources, so their cause did not evolve into a national outcry. Their flight forced them to justify their decisions and redefine their identities. Although state efforts were neither satisfactory nor consistent, Hungarian society finally integrated and absorbed this predominantly middle-class crowd of refugees, but the details (the technical details and networks) of this integration should be subjected to further study. In this sense, integration was a success story, though not thanks to the state. However, in many cases, the cost of success was silence.

Archival Sources

Fővárosi Szabó Ervin Könyvtár Kézirattár [Metropolitan Ervin Szabó Library, Manuscript Department]

Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára [National Archives of Hungary] (MNL OL)

K26 Miniszterelnökségi Levéltár [Prime Minister’s Office]

Z1610 Gazdasági Levéltár, Magyar Államvasutak Igazgatósága [Papers of

MÁV directorate]

Országos Széchényi Könyvtár Kézirattár [Manuscripts of National Széchényi Library] (OSZKK)

Quart Hung. 4313 Dezső Ottrubay Vitéz: “Visszaemlékezés az 1914–1918. világháborúra” [Remembering the World War between 1914–1918], “Háború utáni nehéz évek” [Hard years after the war]

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1* The paper is a product of the “Trianon 100” Momentum Research Grant of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Kind-Kovács: “The Great War, the Child’s Body and the ‘American Red Cross’,” 1–2, 33–62, and “Compassion for the Distant Other,” 129–59; Lazaroms: “Jewish Railway Car Dwellers in Post–World War I Hungary.”

2 Romsics, Hungary in the Twentieth Century, 89–123.

3 Mocsy, The Uprooted: Hungarian Refugees. Recently Dékány, Trianoni árvák.

4 This figure relates to those who managed to cross Királyhágó (in Romanian: Pasul Craiului) the historical border between Transylvania and the Kingdom of Hungary. There are only estimates of the number of people who moved to new locations within Transylvania.

5 Hungarian historiography has not dealt with this aspect. There are partial results, however. The most recent include Ilona L. Juhász, “Amikor mindenki a háború igája alatt roskadoz…” Erdélyi menekültek a mai Szlovákia területén [When are all toiling under the burden of war…Transylvanian refugees in present-day Slovakia], Somorja/Samorín, 2015; József Buczkó, “Szállást adtunk hűséges magyar véreinknek”: Székely menekültek Hajdúnánáson, 1916–1918 [We provide lodging to our loyal kin], Nánási Füzetek 19, Hajdúnánás, 2011. The summary that the leading expert of the theme wrote, Csaba Csóti, “Menekülés Erdélyből 1916-ban,” Rubicon 27, no. 1 (2016): 74–81.

6 Mocsy, The Uprooted.

7 Jelentés az Országos Menekültügyi Hivatal négy évi működéséről.

8 For Romania, see e.g. Constantin Iordachi, “Állampolgárság és nemzeti identitás Romániában” [Citizenship and national identity in Romania], Regio 11, no. 3 (2000): 27–57, 40–46. Compare with Lajos Nagy, A kisebbségek alkotmányjogi helyzete Nagyromániában [The constitutional position of minorities in Greater Romania], Cluj, 1944, 76–87. For Czechoslovakia: István Gaucsík, “Állam, polgár, jog. Megközelítések Csehszlovákia állampolgársági intézményének vizsgálatához” [State, citizen, law. Approaches to studying institutions of citizenship in Czechoslovakia], unpublished manuscript, 2019.

9 Szűts, “Vasutas vagonlakók és a MÁV menekültpolitikája,” 90.

10 A case study: Matus, “A horvátországi vasútvonalak evakuálása.”

11 Cserháti, “Az első világháború utóhatása a MÁV hivatalnokrétegére.”

12 MNL OL, Z 1610, box 119, 1919/12083. sz. Letter from Károly Kürthy, refugee railway officer from Zilah (Zalau, Romania), to the central directorate of the Hungarian State Railway. Debrecen, April 15, 1919.

13 About this, see the same fond, box 120, File: Letters exchanged in 1919, passim.

14 Németh, “A Selmecbányai Bányatisztképzőből lett soproni Erdészeti és Faipari Egyetem.”

15 MNL OL, K 26, bundle 1264. 1921-XLIII. t., 10935-1920, Refugee civil servants’ petition to the Prime Minister, May 1921.

16 Petrichevich-Horváth, Jelentés az Országos Menekültügyi Hivatal négy évi működéséről.

17 Ibid.

18 MNL OL K 26, bundle 1299. XLIII. t. Letter from István Bethlen to Prime Minister Pál Teleki, Budapest, September 16, 1920

19 “A kormány a menekültek beözönlése ellen” [Government against the flow of refugees]. Pesti Napló, October 30, 1920. 1.

20 MNL OL, K 26, bundle 1299. XLIII. t.–1922, Gálocsy Árpád továbbítja a Területvédő Liga tiltakozásának jegyzőkönyvét. Budapest, 1920. november 14. At the same location: Egri menekült tisztviselők memoranduma, Eger, November 26, 1920.

21 OSZKK, Quart Hung. 4313: Dezső Ottrubay, “Visszaemlékezés az 1914–1918. világháborúra” [Remembering the World War between 1914–1918] and “Háború utáni nehéz évek” [Hard years after the war] f. 211–12.

22 Jelentés az Országos Menekültügyi Hivatal négy évi működéséről, 37.

23 See i. e. “Vagonlakók a Lipótvárosi Kaszinóban és a Demokrata Körben” [Railway car dwellers in the Lipótváros Casino and in the Democrat’s Circle]. Az Est, November 9, 1920. 3. It should be noted that these institutions were considered as the seats of leftist or liberal associations and the process of moving in was facilitated by the far-right Association of Awakening Hungarians (ÉME).

24 MNL OL K 26, bundle 1264. 1921-XLIII. t

25 For example: 8 Órai Újság, January 15, 1925. 5.

26 On this see statistics that the Hungarian State Railway prepared in July 1920: MNL OL, Z 1610, box 120. Kimutatás a vagonban lakó menekültekről, 1920. június-július.

27 Zeidler, Ideas on Territorial Revision in Hungary; Lazaroms, “Jewish Railway Car Dwellers.” I am especially grateful to the author for having shared her paper with me.

28 The wagon dwellers are “the martyrs of the homelessness” (Népszava, July 24, 1926. 9.) or the wagon became the symbol of “distress, bitterness, suffering” (Miskolczi Napló, April 6, 1920, 5.).

29 On this, see Umbrai, A szociális kislakásépítés története, 69–75.

30 A late example: Újság, September 4, 1925. 8.

31 Dr. György Szalai, Barakklakók a Horthy-korszak Budapestjén: Történetszociográfiai áttekfintés [Barrack-dwellers in Budapest during the Horthy Era. A historical-sociological account]. Budapest, 1963. Fővárosi Szabó Ervin Könyvtár Kézirattára, Bq 333/135.

32 Teplán, “Szent Imre Kertváros.”

33 Iratok az ellenforradalom történetéhez, 2:177–81.

34 See Szűts, A szepesi menekültek sajtója, and Ablonczy, “ ‘Lesz még kikelet a Szepesség felett’.”

35 György Csanády’s Papers (Budapest, private property), manuscript notes ad. 3–7. d. n. [1928]. Csanády was a radio program editor, one of the five founders of SZEFHE, and the author of the Székely Anthem.

36 On the Székelys, see Ablonczy, “Székely identitásépítés Magyarországon.” On the frameworks of Székely ideology, see Hermann, Orbán, Csillagösvény és göröngyös út.

37 Ladányi, Klebelsberg felsőoktatási politikája, 28–39. On the university in Kolozsvár, see Vincze, A száműzött egyetem.

38 See Ablonczy, “Menni vagy maradni?”

39 Gyalui, Emlékirataim 1914–1924.

Published by: Institute of History, Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungarian Academy of Sciences

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