Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis. – Alba Regia. A Szent István Király Múzeum Évkönyve. 32. 2002 – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: C sorozat (2003)

Tanulmányok – Abhandlungen - Lukács László: Multiethnic and Homogenous Periods in the History of Székesfehérvár. p. 43–51.

revival in the Reform Period. We found the county's noble leaders in the Casino Society, that was established in 1838 by the influence of Széchenyi's reform thoughts. Out of the 240 members of the Society 84 were town burghers (Dormuth 1936, 18-19). The chiefly Hungarian population of Fejér County also contributed to the magyarization of the German population. In the northern part of the county, in Bakony and Vértes Mountains one could find a loosely connected small German diaspora, but this was far from the county town. We can find an entirely Hungarian, Presbyterian population around Székesfehérvár (Csór, Iszkaszentgyörgy, Sárkeresztes, Zámoly, Pátka, Pákozd, Seregélyes, Aba, Szabadbattyán, Sárszentmihály). The Hungarian population of these villages and the burgher craftsmen of German origin often met at markets, fairs and workshops. The magyarized population of Székesfehérvár welcame the ideas of the Hungarian national revival. The nobility of Fejér county and the burghers of Székesfehérvár formulated a Hungarian memorandum in 1825 to the first reform government in Pozsony requesting that Székesfehérvár should be again the site of coronation. In 1840 the burghers asked the inner council that the Presbyterian college of Pápa should be moved to Székesfehérvár. They planned to give to the college free estate in the town, bricks for discount price and 10000 Forints financial aid. The initiation of the burghers was wrecked by István Say town judge and by the inner council who thought 'it is not right that a Catholic leadership would give that large amount of support to a Presbyterian college.' (Juhász 1931a, 199). Among the heads of families with civic rights the craftsmen were the most numerous: out of the 930 burghers there were 442 craftsmen in 1828. Out of the 252 burghers, recorded between 1830 and 1836, 141 were craftsmen. Most of them were of Hungarian origin with the exception of 8 German and 2 Slav craftsmen (Eperjessy 1988, 115-116). A correspondent of a periodical of Pest does not really confirm or verify the high level of linguistic magyarization. He writes about huntings and shootings, and says that during these events and parties the crowd was chattering and singing in German, and one could only hear a Hungarian song with rare exceptions (Hugh 1844, 217-218). During the Revolution of 1848, on the 3

rd of October armed craftsmen, peasants, and clerks of Székesfehérvár rose up and defeated the army of 1500 Croatian men led by Jellasics. It was Ferenc Szász, a master builder, who organised the uprising. 20000 ell's length of halina cloth was ordered and then made for uniforms by the tailors. Just three days before the surrender on the 10

th of August 1849 at Világos, the people of Székesfehérvár more than 2000 craftsmen and peasants revolted against the incoming Austrian imperial troops. Seven people were killed and 24 were seriously injured in the fights. As retaliation the Austrians burned down almost 70 houses. The Austrians captured Mihály Kuczka a smith, Mihály Varga and Pál Gánts furriers, Ignác Uitz a bricklayer, András Hübner and Ferenc Havelka tanners, and executed them on the 14

th of August in Pest. The six burgers from Fehérvár, two of them with German name, were the first victims of the retaliation after the fall of the freedom fight (Erdős 1978, 84-86, 128-130; Nagybákay 1971, 13; Demeter 1985, 88-89). By 1850 only 23 burghers considered themselves Germans. Elek Fényes wrote about Székesfehérvár in 1851: 'The population of the town is 20770. They are mainly Hungarians. The German minority can speak Hungarian and their children have even a better command of this language.' (1851, II. 9.) In Hornyánszky's book entitled Geographisches Lexikon des Königreichs Ungarn, a geographic-statistic work, we can also read that there are Hungarians and Germans living in Székesfehérvár (1857, 341). The offspring of the magyarized German citizens learned in Hungarian schools. The burghers became members of the growing number of Hungarian cultural associations. One more sign of the magyarization was the lack of newspapers in German. The first issue of the weekly Székesfehérvár was published in 1871, and together with its sister newspapers it was written in Hungarian. The German language was the longest preserved in the church services. In the Felsővárosi and Cistercian churches the sermons were held in German as well till 1885. János Pauer's in his book published in 1887 on the occasion of the 100 years anniversary of the bishopric in Székesfehérvár writes about these two chuches: 'Lingva in Parochia hung, et germanica' (1887, 406, 408.). According to the census of 1880 only 3 percent of the population of Székesfehérvár was German. The annual procession of 1885 was disturbed, by a group of 53 people who sang in German. The chauvinistic witness who published his shocking experience in the Székesfehérvár és Vidéke, called the town officials' and the bishop's attention to the incident. On the 10

th of November 1885 the town commission turned to the episcopate to abolish to use of the German language in church services. The reason was that Hungarian had penetrated into every layer of everyday life and the use of German is only an outdated custom. As a result at the beginning of December the episcopate abolished the sermons held in German (Lauschmann 1998, IV, 158— 159). The last German sermon was held during the Advent of 1885 by a monk teacher in the Cistercian church. I have heard an anecdote several times in the 1960s about the ceasing of German sermons from János Ignác Sulyok episcopal librarian and archivist, presently prior of Zirc: the leader of the on and on thinning number of German population was the family Wünsch. They insisted on the sermons held in German. On a Sunday during the Advent 53