A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve 2016., Új folyam 3. (Szeged, 2016)
NÉPRAJZ - Juhász Antal: Egy szeged-felsőtanyai gazdacsalád a 19-20. században
Antal [uhász A farmer family from Szeged-Felsőtanya in the 19-20th century A farmer family from Szeged-Felsőtanya in the 19-20th century Antal Juhász The author examines the story of a far mer family in Szeged from the beginning of the 19th century to the end of the 20th century. The study’s sources are: hand-drawn maps from the 19th century, local documents of the national consensus of 1870 stored in the archives, the farmer register of 1895 and 1912 and the memoirs of family members. There were two branches of the Kordás family to emerge from the 1820-30s' at the Upper Town border section of Szeged: The branch living in the farm inspectorate of Gajgonya and 8-12 km further, in the inspectorate of Balástya. In the 19th century both families had several hundred acres of land and many farms. Mihály Kordás of Gajgonya [1839-1909] was the second greatest land owner of Szeged in 1895 with his 571 acres of land. His fortune was divided among his five children. The "old" farm with its 112 acres of land was inherited by his son József [1877-1963] who married from the prosperous Imre family. They raised six children. The grandson inheriting the farm [Péter Kordás 1928-1993] was pronounced as a kulak; later in 1961, when the peasantry was forced into collectives, he became the leader of the association. His descendants who lived in the old farm cultivated plants under foil from the 1980s’. Antal [1822-1903] from the other Kordás family was a member of a municipal committee of Szeged ex virilis and he owned a house in the town. The prominent field was cattle and sheep breeding on their farms and they employed 2-4 year old maids. Antal Kordás graduated from the Piarist High School of Szeged. His grandson Pál [1921-] who later applied to the medical faculty of the Szeged University, also studied here. He did not finish his studies; instead, he went home to work on the farm. In 1950 he was convicted for an economic crime and was banished from the village where he was born. He was not broken by the persecution of kulaks, he became chief accountant of the local collective later on. His son farms a 240 acre land, which he bought with compensation vouchers he got after the fall of communism in Hungary. The life of several members of the Kordás family exemplifies the process of shifting between peasantry and civilians in the 19-20th century, while also exemplifying their suppressed possibilities. 250
