Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis. – Alba Regia. Az István Király Múzeum Évkönyve. 20. 1980 – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: C sorozat (1983)

Tanulmányok – Abhandlungen - Lukács László: Vándoralakok, vándormunkások és a területi munkamegosztás Kelet-Dunántúlon. – Vagrants, Internant workers and the territorial division of Labour in Eastern Transdanubia. p. 185–199. t. XLV–XLII.

VAGRANTS, INTERANT WORKERS AND THE TERRITORIAL DIVISION OF LABOUR IN EASTERN TRANSDANUBIA The appearance of itinerant labourers is closely linked to the development of a territorial division of labour. Also they transmit and exchange the cultural goods produced in a territorial, regional system of the division of labour. In this study I examine the regional division of labour and vagrants, itinerant workers of an ethnographically defined region, Eastern Transdanubia. According to Bertalan Andrásfalvy, an ethnographically defined region unites geographical and ecological diversity. In Eastern Transdanubia, the Transdanubian central mountain range and the lowlands spreading directly to the south, the Meadow Land (Mezőföld), illustrate the synthesis of geographical diversity. Those living in the central mountain range of Transdanubia were engaged primarily in forestry, domestic wood-working industry, mining, and lime and charcoal-burning; the residents of the Mezőföld, with its excellent cropland, dealt with grain production or specialized in the cultivation of a single crop (cabbage, peppers, horse radish, celery, tobacco). Animal husbandry was important in both regions. In the highlands, forest grazing, feeding swine on mast, and rocky, barren sheep-walks were prominent, while the Mezőföld was characterized by fertile, moist meadows and pastures, as well as the utilization of feedcrops. In the large estates of the Mezőföld animal husbandry and grains, corn and feed production was practiced at a level far superior to that of the peasantry. Outside the permanently employed manorial farm-hands, reapers and threshers from nearby villages found work here, but just as often they came from distant regions. Seasonal workers (summások, hónaposok) arrived from the counties of the Uplands (now Slovakia), Ruthenia and Western Transdanubia. From the Transdanubian central mountain range cottars travelled to reap, peasants possessing horses to thresh at the estates of the Mezőföld. We have data on agricultural seasonal workers arriving from distant regions to work on estates in the Mezőföld already in the second decade of the 19th century. In 1814 eighty-eight Slovak seasonal workers from the Uplands were employed in the reaping and harvesting of hay at the estate of the Cistercian order (19,450 hectares) in Előszállás. They paid the seasonal workers in one sum when the work was done, fed them a festive lunch on the last day of work and then signed a contract with the leaders of the work teams for the completion of the hay harvest for the coming year. The Slovak seasonal workers worked two months at the estate in 1814 and 1815. They were discharged at the end of the hay harvest, hence they were not employed to harvest grains. We also know that the estate transported the seasonal workers by boat to Dunapentele, and then from there by cart. In 1848—49 Slovak seasonal workers from Árva and Trencsén counties and Germans from the Czech city of Reichenberg worked on manorial farmsteads between Adony and Ercsi. We know the names and birth places of seasonal workers and their children who died here from the death register of the Roman Catholic parish at Adony. Beginning in the last third of the 19th century, manorial estates based their large-scale sugar beet and corn production primarily on the work of migrant labour from the northern and western regions bordering the Carpathian basin (the Uplands, Ruthenia, Vas and Zala counties). The apellation summás (or, in local parlance, hónapos, meaning monthly worker) originates from the Latin word summa, which indicated that they received their wage at greater intervals, in one sum: provisions and monetary remuneration usually once a month, produce at the completion of their work. Before the First World War the summás-s came to the Mezőföld from Borsod, Heves, Nyitra, Trencsén, Ung, Bereg, Csongrád, Békés, Vas and Zala counties. Since most of the border regions from which seasonal workers came seceded from Hungary, in accord with the peace treaty following World War I, it was necessary to satisfy the evén greater demand for seasonal labour from the counties remaining where labour migration was common. Three communities in the Matyó region (Mezőkövesd, Tard, Szentistván) provided the largest number of summás-s working in the Mezőföld during the period between the two World Wars. In addition, work groups arrived from the other summás villages of Borsod, Heves, Nógrád, Békés, Zala and Vas counties. In 1920 sixty "autumn" summás-s worked at Feketepuszta, near Enying, who came from Alsóőr (Vas County), when the Austrian province of Burgenland was being established. The majority of summás-s came from the following communities: not including the Matyó communities mentioned above, Szomolya, Bogács, Tibolddaróc, Domaháza (Borsod County); Felsőtárkány, Noszvaj, Ostoros, Bodony, Mátraderecske (Heves County); Hollókő, Nagylóc, Rimóc, Varsány, Magyarnándor, Herencsény (Nógrád County) ; Gyoma, Endrőd (Békés County) ; and Mindszentkálla, Barabásszeg, Zalabaksa, Pórszombat (Zala County). At the Előszállás estate during the Second World War 220 workers were hired for six months to harvest and thresh grains and to hoe and pick sugar beets and corn; 500 monthly workers contracted in the spring to hoe and thin out sugar beets and 320 were hired in the fall to harvest the beets. In addition to local summás-s, in 1944 the estate brought summás-s from the communities of Terpes, Fedémes (Heves County), Mezőkövesd (Borsod County), Tarpa (Bereg County), Pórszombat (Zala County) and from Ruthenia. In 1940, in the counties in and around the region under discussion, 6993 summás-s worked in Fejér County, 3529 worked in Veszprém County (primarily in the Enying district, which lies in the Mezőföld region) and 2761 in Tolna County, for a total of 13,273. During this year, 51,396 summás-s were employed in Hungary. Even before World War II many migrant workers remained in Eastern Transdanubia. In the summer of 1945, 161 former migrant families from Bodony received land at Besnyőpuszta in Fejér County and founded the village of Besnyő there. There were two groups of manorial seasonal workers who possessed special skills: the melon workers and the tobacco workers. The former group came to the Mezőföld from Csány (Heves County), the latter from Verpelét (Heves County). The vendel-s, who travelled from estate to estate, were considered true vagrants. The vendel-s were usually over thirty years of age, shabby in their appearance, social outcasts, people who had become estranged from their families and who did not work regularly. One could find among them town clerks who had been kicked out of their jobs, but the majority of them came from simple backgrounds. They slept in the sheep shed. They lived from odd jobs; sometimes estates would hire them on a weekly basis. Often they would help around the house of manorial farm-hands cutting wood, hoeing or harvesting corn. They would go into nearby villages or towns to shop for the farm-hands. They also helped around the farm manager's home. The farmhands repaid their help with hot food, the farm manager with used clothing. If they received money, then on Saturday and Sunday they would drink in the neighbourhood taverns. They never begged. On winter evenings they conducted heated political debates in the sheep shed. They made the rounds of neighbouring villages and brought news to the shepherds tied to the manor. They were most often referred to by their nicknames: Rose Pista tied a flower to a cane and carried it with him everywhere; Running József ran into the village to shop in one breath: Gendarme Pista originally worked as a gendarme, but was thrown out and eventually joined up with the vendel-s. The Crazy Baron was indeed a baron, but he fell into depravity. Never without an umbrella on his arm, he went in to see the squire, n* 195