A Herman Ottó Múzeum Évkönyve 44. (2005)

Alabán Péter-Csépányi Attila: Hódoscsépány gazdaság- és társadalomtörténete a dualizmus idején

Vörös Antal 1966 A paraszti termelő munka és életforma jellegének változásai a Dunántúlon 1850-1914. Történelmi Szemle. 162-186. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY OF HÓDOSCSÉPÁNY Csépány is one of the northern settlements in County Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén, which had already existed in the 13th century, evén though it is first mentioned in a charter from 1323. It lies near the bordér with Slovakia, somé 5 km from the historical settlement of Ózd (today it is one of the town's outer districts). Its medieval history is barely known in the lack of documentary evidence; more is known about the areas, which were part of its outlying areas. One of these, Gubonna (originally called Gomonná) was an independent settlement in the 15th century - it was later described as a deserted area and, later still, as a farmstead. Somsály, the other area belonging to the Csépány estate, first appeais in a charter from 1446 (in which it is called Somsai). This area later passed intő the possession of the Csépányi family. Coal mining in the Somsály Valley began in the mid-19th century and led to profound social and economic changes in the settlement's life. The area's industrial character has disappeared by now, following the closing down of the mines and the Ózd smelting furnaces. In 1904, the settlement was given the prefix Hódos in order to distinguish it from other settlements with the same name, and it became administratively independent of the neighbouring settlement of Arló. The independence of Hódoscsépány ended on January 1, 1979, when, togcther with four other settlements, it was united with Ózd. The number of the settlement's inhabitants totalled 3963 at the time, reflecting a remarkable growth compared to the same figure from the early 20th century. Following the opening of the Somsály mine in 1900, the number of new settlers grew significantly and the population tripled during the next fifty years. The population's main occupation types changed too: with the spread of industrial employment, the number of people working in the mining and smelting industry rose significantly in the villages around Ózd (and Hódoscsépány was no exception) compared to agriculture (cereal cultivation and pastoralist stockbreeding). Lying in an ethnographic region called the Barkóság, populated by eastern Palóc groups, Hódoscsépány is one of the villages whose originál occupants came from the lesser nobility. These villages share numerous similarities. Hódoscsépány is one of the settlements among the Palóc villages clustered in the stream valley, whose natural environment was not particularly favourable for the predominantly farming and stockbreeding Román Catholic population. Similarly to other neighbouring villages (such as Sajóvárkony and Domaháza), Csépány was granted noble ránk in the 16th-17th century, evén though the members of the ancestral family after whom it had been named (the Csépány family) were single-plot nobles, whose life-style differed little from the other peasants. It must alsó be noted that the settlement's development was greatly influenced by the growth of Ózd intő an industrial centre and the elevation of the former peasant village to úrban ránk in 1949. Péter Alabán-Attila Csépányi 317