Gunda Béla et al. (szerk.): Ideen, Objekte und Lebensformen. Gedenkschrift für Zsigmond Bátky - István Király Múzeum közelményei. A. sorozat 29. (Székesfehérvár, 1989)
Ján Botík: Economic Functions of the Peasant Dwelling in Hont
ECONOMIC FUNCTIONS OF THE PEASANT DWELEING IN HONT In elaborating the problems of the economic functions of the peasant dwelling, it is useful to start with an analysis of the economic and social institution of the peasant dwelling which in historical documents is given the Latin name sessio and its Slovak counterpart sedenie. This is because the peasant dwelling had made a significant contribution to the creation of the urban-settlement character of the village as well as to the formation of the most important elements of the peasant yard and dwelling as the most elementary settlement unit. The institution of the peasant estate is closely connected with a small scale system of farming which, as the product of feudal society, persisted also under the capitalist system and was abolished with the socialist reconstruction of agriculture. The social representatives of small scale production in farming comprised the widest strata of agricultural producers who under feudalism came from the families of villein farmers and under capitalism from the families of privately farming peasants. The two elements, the agricultural land and the building site with facilities, yard and garden, of a peasant estate formed an organic unity and they represented property and the basis of existence of a peasant family. In relation to problems solved attention is mainly drawn to the built-up part of the peasant estate for which the synonyms rolnicky dvor or rolnicke obydlie (peasant yard or peasant dwelling) will be used. The peasant yard or peasant dwelling may be characterized as one of the main components of a peasant estate, creating a space and materialized framework within which the numerous and various functions of a peasant family are carried out. The fact that the peasant family under feudalism and capitalism represented not only a social but also an economic, and thus a productive and a consumption unit meant that the peasant dwelling had to provide the family with dwelling space as well as space for various economic activities. Thus, the peasant dwelling represents a complex of dwelling and economic and operating buildings or places serving to satisfy the biological-social as well as the economic and production needs of a peasant family. The forms of peasant dwelling known to us from the 19th and the first half of the 20th century are the result of long-term historical development and the impact of a number of different factors. Among the most important of these are the small-scale mode of farming in working groups within the structure of the peasant family, the natura character of farming and weak links with a market, which resulted in orientation towards various branches of agricultural production within the general trends of selfsufficiency and self-supply. All the above facts together with the size of the peasant dwelling, hereditary-legal customs, the settlement morphology of villages and some other factors had also affected the forms of the peasant dwelling and its economic functions, as well as the whole character of the composition of its yard. Overlapping of dwelling and economic-production functions belongs to the most universal and marked signs of the traditional peasant dwelling, though according to the dominant function it should be stated that the peasant dwelling had been adapted mainly to economic needs and dwelling needs had been put to some extent in to the background. In this respect, the leading expert on south- Slavonic dwelling and settlement, Sreten Vukosavljevic (Sociologija stanovanja, Beograd 1965) wrote that “the whole dwelling and especially the house does not function so much as a residence but is more adapted to functioning as an atelier for the farmer and his servants. The atelier of one large workshop comprised the whole estate and its environs. The house, buildings surrounding it and yard with gardens are adapted mainly to this purpose. Everything else is of less important.“ This is also proved by the fact that on a Slovakian national scale, 70% of the total built-in area of the peasant yard represented the economic part, and only 30% formed the dwelling space. Not only the built-in area, but also the number of objects and the area of the economic part was usually larger and their functional specification was characterized by a greater diversity as compared to the dwelling part. The total extent and marked functional differentiation of objects or spaces in the economic part of the peasant dwelling was due to several factors. Under small scale and natural 161
