Dénesi Tamás (szerk.): Collectanea Sancti Martini - A Pannonhalmi Főapátság Gyűjteményeinek Értesítője 8. (Pannonhalma, 2020)
II. Gyűjteményeinkből
Bélyeggyűjteményeink fertőtlenített koleralevelei 1831ből 117 Névtár (1987) = A pannonhalmi Szent Benedek-rend névtára , összeáll. Berkó Pál – Legányi Norbert, Győr, 1987. PRT VI. A = Sörös Pongrácz (1916), A Pannonhalmi Főapátság története. Hatodik korszak (1802-től napjainkig) A, Budapest. PRT VI. B = Sörös Pongrácz (1916), A Pannonhalmi Főapátság története. Hatodik korszak (1802-től napjainkig) B, Budapest. Valló István (1930), Az 1831. évi kolera története Győrött, Győri Szemle, 1, 33–54. Antal Hirka OSB Disinfected cholera-letters of 1831 in our collection of stamps In June 1831 in Hungary, the first wave of the cholera epidemic started spreading, which subsided by the end of the year, though it still covered the beginning of the following year. The country’s northern and eastern borders were locked down, and the epidemiological activity was controlled by royal commissioners all over the country. Among others, prevention meant locking down roads and complete regions of the country, quarantine, and prohibiting markets, however, the epidemic demanded almost 240 thousand victims in our country. Owing to the carefulness of the general practitioner of the monastery of Pannonhalma and the measures ordered by the Archabbot, only four people contracted the illness in the markettown of Szentmárton. In the Stamp Collection of the Archabbey’s Museum in Pannonhalma, interesting relics of the cholera epidemic are kept. The four choleraletters belong to the group of 6570 letters of this kind from 1831 to be found in Hungary for the time being. These ones were left to us in Father Gelá z Gál ’s exhibition material, which was on show with the title of “Letters before Stamps” at the International Stamp Exhibition in Yerevan in 1983, where it was awarded a gold medal. Mailservices – because mailcoaches often came from farther infected parts of the country – meant serious danger in the period of the epidemic. Where the lines of lockdown were crossed by postal routes, mailcoaches were stopped, and because the modes of choleraspreading had not been known yet, the measures previously introduced against the plague were put into operation in connection with letters and other consignments. In the provisional smoketents constructed for this purpose, the letters were perforated at many points by a needlecontraption fixed to a pair of longhandled pliers, then they were exposed to disinfecting smoking, and they were allowed to be transported only afterwards. The letters having been delivered during the epidemic preserved the traces of perforation.
