Bánkiné Molnár Erzsébet: Nemesi közbirtokosságok a Kővár-vidéken. Vallomásos összeírás 1803-ból - Monumenta Muzeologica 1. (Kecskemét, 2007)

SUMMARY The main focus of the publication is a document to be found in the collection of the Kiskun Museum in Kiskunfélegyháza, the list of testimonies dating from 1803. The document as a historic source is a rarity, since it is a record of the landed estates, the rights of usufruct and the beneficial interests of those noblemen of the 18 villages in the Kővár region who were public landowners (i.e. individual land ownership but affairs managed jointly), and who were omitted from the list of tax assessments. The Kővár region, which was considered as a privileged district, in the course of the 18

th century had been taking on a more and more county-type character, although its actual integration into the county system took place only in 1876. From the year 1877 some of the villages of the region became part of Szatmár county, while others were annexed to Szolnok-Doboka county. The 18 villages included in the list of testimonies today belong to Romania. The publication of the source, together with the study based on the analysis of the source, may offer an excellent opportunity for making our knowledge concerning this region more specified and detailed, and it might even induce further research both in Hungary and Romania. The book can be divided into two major parts. In the first part there are chapters which provide general information on the region, as well as chapters presenting the analyses of the document, whereas in the second part you can find information on the sources used, furthermore some complementary parts, like the indices of foreign words and place-names, which make precise comprehension easier. In the introduction of the book the author, Mrs. Bánki Erzsébet Molnár gives a brief overview of the special literature of Hungarian language concerning the Kővár region, covering the period from 1725, the date when the description of the country by Mátyás Bél was published, to this day. The author emphasizes that the relevant works of Zsolt Trócsányi and Mária Szentgyörgyi, as well as the studies with an outlook to the Partium region, written by Elek Csetri and István Imreh, are of outstanding importance within the special literature. Since the special literature concerning the Kővár region is extremely scarce, our knowledge on this region is rather limited to this day. 256