Kothencz Kelemen (szerk.): Migráció és hagyomány-formálódás a történeti Duna-Tisza közi nemzetiségek népéletében - Bajai dolgozatok 22. (Baja, 2018)

Bárth János: Migráció és hagyományformálás a népéletben

János Bárth

Migration and tradition formation in the folklife

Many villages and market towns resettled after the wars of the 16th and 17th centuries on the area between the Danube and Tisza rivers. The spontaneous movement from the North to the South made a huge impact on the repopulation of the area. How have the culture of the new varied population integrated to the target settlement? For example, how did the ‘keceliség’, which is the consciousness of the habitants of Kecel documented by ethnographers, was formed? In the author’s summary of history of science is stated that the Hungarian ethnography was late with the research of the local culture formation. According to the author, the following factors have played an important role in the emergence and formation of the ethnographic image in the resettled villages of the 18th century and in the agricultural towns in the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century:

1. What kind of culture elements did meet and compete within the knowledge and

the customs of the new communities?

2. Which culture element was represented by the majority of the new settlement?

In other words: Which migration direction did give most of the new population

and could this majority enforce their own notion?

3. Which culture element was represented by the leaders of this new settlement

and by the tradition forming, ethnographic image-forming individuals?

The research on these topics, on tradition formation in the 18th and 19th centuries and on migration-related issues, is possible only with the tools and methods of historical ethnography and by the study of archival sources of historical folklore.

[Translated by the editor]

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