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3. Traditional economic life in the nor thern par t of the Danube Lowland 1par t of the Danube Lowland1
Izabella Danter
If we examine the results of the Hungarian ethnographic research in Slovakia achieved so far, we see that while some fields, such as folk customs, national costumes, folk dance or folk music, have been sufficiently described, documenta-tion of the tradidocumenta-tional peasant economic life seems to be wanting. In the previous decades, apart from the publication of few short descriptions and general overviews related to the theme, only a few ethnographers from Slovakia and Hungary have published extensive research on the subject.2 Their studies appeared mainly in Slovakian publications.
In the second half of the eighties, Magda Fehérváryné Nagy carried out an extensive survey on peasant economic life in Kolárovo. The results of her research were published in 1998 in an independent volume (Lifestyle and tradition) of
PL
SK
Váh
Danube
Bratislava Small Danube
Kolárovo Neded Vlèany
Budapest
CZ
HU
A
the series of the Ethnographic Research Group of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Research was also under-taken within the framework of a project called “Changes in lifestyle and traditional culture in Hungary in the 19-20th cen-turies”, which was published under the title: Peasant eco-nomic life in the first half of the 20th century- example from Kolárovo. This study examines the organisation and produc-tion structure of peasant farms from a producproduc-tion-consump- production-consump-tion viewpoint. According to the study, “….the peasant farm is not an unchanging unit, but it is a productive, consumer and a community-creating unit, of longer or shorter duration, and it is working and constantly changing within diverse exter-nal and interexter-nal conditions in time and space”3(Fehérváryné 1988: 15). Therefore, the functions of the farm have to be continuously followed from the farm’s foundation to its ces-sation. By understanding the productivity and relations of pro-duction of individual farms, we can define the degree of cap-italisation of the peasant farm within the community as well as the social manifestations of the transformation process.
The degree of effectiveness of the peasant farm is defined by the relation between its principal branches, agriculture and husbandry. However, at the same time, a good integration of secondary activities (such as gathering, fishing, hunting, bee-keeping, silviculture, carriage, nutrition, barter) into the two main economic sections has also an important role.
On the basis of the results achieved so far, Hungarian ethnography characterised roughly four types of Hungarian peasant farms, which can be subdivided into smaller, local types. The specialised literature describes the following types: the Alföld farms, where corn-producing (cereal growing) is joined with extensive husbandr y; South-Alföld and Kiskunság farms, which base their activity on gardening;
farms in the zone of Eger-Gyöngyös-Tokaj and of the vicinity of Balaton based on viniculture; farms in Northern-Középhegy-ség, Transylvania and Bakony, where crop-producing is subor-dinated to husbandry and where other activities play a signif-icant role, such as lime- and coal-burning, carriage, seasonal work etc. (Szabó-Földes 1979).
The long-term research project that I would like to present here aims to define the types of peasant farms that are char-acteristic of the northern part of the Danube Lowland. The inventor and leader of this ethnographic research project was in the beginning Magda Fehérváryné Nagy, ethnographic researcher of the Danube Museum in Komárno (Slovakia).
The project’s realisation was also helped by the fact that until 1990, within the network of museums in Slovakia, the Danube Museum in Komárno had the official task of the methodological supervision over museums in Southwest Slovakia. A team of ethnographers and museum researchers of South-Slovakian museums, who co-operated closely together, was also a prerequisite for the successful realisa-tion of the planned project. Several external researchers took part in the project in the course of the work. The aim of our research was to define the single themes belonging to the subject of traditional economic life and within this to describe characteristic work technologies and instruments.
Researchers examined the situation typical for the first half of the 20thcentury in selected peasant communities, which dif-fered from each other in their character, while research focus was placed on the relation of production and consumption.4 Our survey started in 1987 and its first field site was Kolárovo5. The results were published in 1992 in an inde-pendent volume (Gúta Hagyományos Gazdálkodása1992).
Kolárovo, a small rural town, lies at the junction of the Small-Danube and Váh rivers. It covers a vast land of which approximately one third lies on the southern side and two thirds on the northern side of the Small Danube. The devel-opment of peasant farms in Kolárovo was greatly influenced by the gradual increase of detached farmsteads (tanya in Hungarian). This process also had its effects on the land, which constituted the base of the peasant farms, on the work force and on draught animal force necessary for the cultiva-tion, as well as on work instruments and placement of house sites in the village. Thus, in Kolárovo we found village farms, detached farmsteads and combined farms which in the exam-ined period (i.e. the first half of the 20th century) could be
divided into three categories according to their production division and production mode: 1. Subsistence peasant farms where agriculture and husbandry were in equal balance, 2.
Subsistence peasant farms where husbandry was prevalent, 3. Production-oriented peasant farms where grain-growing was prevalent.
Farmers in Kolárovo saw the productivity of their farm in terms of land size: “…the peasantry’s thirst for land was above everything else, and not only farm mechanisation or house building, but also nutrition and dress were subordinat-ed to it” (Gúta …1992: 167).
The second field site of the research studying the tradi-tional economic life of the Danube Lowland was Le¾a6. Results of this study were published in 1994, as the eight vol-ume of the series Népismereti Könyvtár. Le¾a, a small village, is located in the north-eastern corner of the Danube Lowland, in the valley of the lower flow of the Ipe¾ River. The results of this research differed from the Kolárovo example. In the examined period, Le¾a’s population was 500 and two thirds of its land were not used as arable land but there were forests, meadows used as pasture, vine and vegetable gar-dens. Around one third of Le¾a’s population could make a liv-ing from the land. The main aim of families workliv-ing on farms was to gain sufficient food for the whole year. Farms involved both agriculture and husbandry and were all tied to the mar-ket. However, this did not mean large-scale production of a specific product, it meant rather a way of complementing the income of peasants by selling small portions of diverse agri-cultural products. The main part of their income was not spent on the purchase of more land but on the purchase of highly appreciated folk costumes: “In the scale of values in the village principal standard was the richness of folk dress-es” (Leléd Hagyományos Gazdálkodása1994: 163).
The third field site was Trhová Hradská7. Fieldwork started here in the first half of 1990s and is not yet completed.
In the fourth stage of our research project the traditional economic life of two big villages neighbouring Kolárovo to the north, Vlèany and Neded8, was examined. These two villages
grew into each other in recent decades and each has a pop-ulation around 4,000. In the examined period (first half of the 20thcentury) two thirds of the population was Reformed and one third Roman Catholic. Both communities had developed on the eastern side of the Váh river, while in the case of Neded the cadastral land also overreached on the western side. The wet, often-flooded land of the villages was influ-enced not only by the Váh river but also by two other smaller rivers, the Dudváh and the Èierna Voda. Among agricultural products, other than cereals, potato was an important prod-uct. On the hilly parts of the land villagers gradually started to grow plants which were more labour-intensive but at the same time more profitable. These were onions, carrots, pars-ley, early potato and on suitable soil, cabbage. Through the exchange of these vegetables they obtained grain and nec-essary cash. Already in the mid 19th century these two vil-lages were famous for their vegetables. Elek Fényes charac-terised Vlèany in the following way: “They intensively trade with cabbage, which is extremely famous, then with onions, carrots and other garden vegetables. They keep cattle as well as horses” (Fényes 1856, II: 6). Moreover, we can read the followings about Neded: “Its land is extensive and fertile:
abounding with grain, oats, barley, millet, maize, hay, reeds and so on. It has plenty of pastures and so they keep numer-ous cattle, horses and sheep. They trade with cabbages, onion and other vegetables in the same way as people from Vlèany do” (Fényes1856, II: 135). Along both sides of the Váh river there was a long strip of land excellent for gardening, running from the village of Zemné9 to Vlèany. Here the soil was frequently and richly manured and cabbage-growing only occasionally alternated other vegetables (e.g. carrot, onion) for few years. “A hundred cabbages from this land had always cost one forint more than what a hundred cabbages from other lands had cost” (Fényes 1837, II: 258). The character-istics of this vegetable-growing land have never been suffi-ciently explored, however, there are plenty of descriptions in the ethnographic literature. Among so called “village-mock-ing“ poems, superstitions and folk customs describing
popu-lar life in the village (collected and edited by József Bakos) we can also read this: “Even children say in Farkasd10: Buy car-rots, parsley, onions!” (Bakos 1942: 32-33). Another poem mocks the Vlèany people:
In the church in Farkasd, Even the priest says:
Buy carrots, parsley, onions!
(Gágyor 1986: 73)
In Neded the carrot used to have a role in wedding cus-toms: a stamp was carved from a carrot, then used to close the letter that was handed over to the groom by young males disguised as women, in order to buy out, symbolically, the wedding-guests. The groom “paid”, for opening the blocked road, wine and money (Bakos 1942: 42).
József Gágyor, in his village-mocking poems collected in the region of Mátyusföld11, mentions that inhabitants of neigh-bouring villages used to call people from Vlèany “onion peo-ple”, while people from Neded were called “cabbage people”.
A cabbage flower can also be found in the village crest of Neded.
Vlèany figures as a research field site in both the Hungarian and Slovakian ethnographic atlases and therefore, the characteristics of its traditional economic life have been mapped, too. In 1956, Tamás Hofer carried out ethnographic research in Neded during his survey of the types and spread-ing of Hungarian garden settlements (Hofer 1960: 331-349).
According to military maps from the 19th century, the village lay on the western bank of the Váh, while its gardens were sit-uated on the eastern bank. On the village side, there were vast community pastures, big cabbage fields and hayfields;
on the eastern side, where the gardens lay, large cabbage fields and hayfields could be found. The overwhelming part of the arable land was also situated here, on the eastern side.
Sheep-folds served for housing animals (mainly cows and horses) through the cold winter period. In the first half of the 20th century, intensive husbandry characterised both Neded and Vlèany. Pasturing husbandry was gradually pushed into
the background, first in Vlèany, where pastures were few. On grazing grounds in Neded, villagers also accepted animals from other villages, thus also from Vlèany. Vegetable growing and the extremely expanded marketing, carriage and goods exchange had a great influence on husbandry. As a conse-quence, horse-raising in particular grew significantly. Those, who in Vlèany and in Neded had at least one hectare of land, could live off of vegetable growing. Those who “moved a lot”, i.e. were very active in trade attending local markets, were well off. “When everyone will stay at home in Neded and Vlèany, that will mean the end of the world,” people used to say. Until the 1950s, apart from big landholders possessing thirty or more holds12, all members of the different economic groups (small-holders with two horses, poor farmers with only one horse, tenants and the bag-trading destitute), used to attend the markets and barter. This activity went on through the whole year, except in the coldest winter days and in the busy periods, such as during spring sowing, harvesting or threshing. This trading and bartering activity spread not only over the northern part of the Danube Lowland and the Danube region reaching Budapest, but also, to a lesser extent, over the Transdanubian region, from Gyõr to lower Bakony (in Hungary). The most frequented market places were naturally towns and villages of northern part of the Danube Lowland and of the Danubian region, from Komárno to Budapest. Because of the lack of roads and the bad con-ditions of those existing, until 1918 it was more convenient to travel on the Váh river, sailing on small ships or barges. In the beginning of the 20th century, the number of barges in Vlèany ranged from thirty to fifty, in Neded it reached eighty.
The so-called barge-trading was also popular. Its direction was the region along the Danube and the Váh, where it sup-plied settlements with vegetables within a 4-5 km distance from the riverside.
Eight researchers took part in the survey in Vlèany and Neded. The results of this research were presented in October 23, 2001 in Neded and we hope to publish the col-lected material soon.
References
Bakos, J. (1942), ‘Együtt dolgozunk. Az Érsekújvári Általános Gimnázium IV/a osztályában müködö nyelvmüvelö és falukutató munkaközösség írásai’. In Komlóssy Mihály IV/a.o.t. gyüjtése.
Érsekújvár (32-33).
Fehérváryné Nagy, M. (1988), Parasztgazdaság a XX. század elsõ felében- gútai példa.Budapest: MTA Néprajzi Kutatócsoport.
Fényes, E. (1836-1840), Magyarországnak s a hozzá kapcsolt tar-tományoknak mostani állapotja statisztikai és geographiai tekin-tetben.I-VI Pest.
– (1856), Magyarország geográfiai szótára.I-II. Pest.
Gágyor, J. (1986), ‘Falucsúfolók a Galántai járásban’. In Irodalmi Szemle, 29: 1.
Gúta hagyományos gazdálkodása(1992), Komárom: Csehszlovákiai Magyar Néprajzi Társaság.
Hofer, T. (1960), ‘A magyar kertes települések elterjedésének és típusainak kérdéseihez’. In Mûveltség és hagyomány I-II: 331-349.
Leléd hagyományos gazdálkodása (1994), Komárom-Dunaszerda-hely.
Szabó, L., Földes, L. (1979), ‘Gazdaság’. In Magyar néprajzi lexikon, F-Ka. Budapest (271-272).
1 Podunajská Nížina in Slovak, Kisalföld in Hungarian.
2 I mention here only some of the names: Marietta Boros, Ema Drábiková, Mihály Görcsös, Eleonóra Sándor.
3 Quotation used in the text are all translated by M. Pappová.
4 This is the list of researchers and their particular fields of inter-est: Endre Nagy studied geographical names and land use, Béla Angyal did research on husbandry, Ilona Gudmon on agriculture, Izabella Danter on abusive economy, Ida Gaál, Eleonóra Sándor and Éva Beke on fruit/vegetable-farming and wine-growing, Lídia Varga on popular nutrition and finally, József Liszka and Beòo Molnár studied the problem of barter.
5 Gútain Hungarian.
6 Lelédin Hungarian.
7 Vásárútin Hungarian.
8 Farkasd and Negyed in Hungarian.
9 Szímõin Hungarian.
10 Farkasd is the Hungarian name of Vlèany. The cited words were told in Hungarian in the original.
11 Hungarian name indicating a region situated on the northern side of the Small Danube river. For a more precise definition of the region in question see József Liszka in this volume.
12 One cadastral hold corresponds to 0.414 ha.