Petercsák Tivadar - Berecz Mátyás (szerk.): Tudomány és hagyományőrzés - Studia Agriensia 26. (Eger, 2008)
KATONAI HAGYOMÁNYŐRZÉS A 21. SZÁZADBAN - KOPÓCS JÁNOS: Az 1317-es debreceni csata kutatásával kapcsolatos eredmények felhasználása a helyi hagyományőrző csoportok tevékenységében
János Kopócs APPLYING RESEARCH FINDINGS ON THE BATTLE OF DEBRECEN (1317) TO THE ACTIVITIES OF THE LOCAL BATTLE REENACTMENT SOCIETIES In spite of what we wrote on the subject in 2006, and the fact that Hungarian battle reenactment has a history going back several decades, historians and those concerned with recreating the conditions in which battles took place have failed to join forces despite their shared interests. Most battle reenactment societies today are engaged in local historical research, often providing the impulse for new initiatives in their chosen field, as well as contributing to new findings themselves. It was in this spirit that we gave our study on the Battle of Debrecen (1317) to one of these societies, the Dósa of Debrecen Infantry Bandérium, who focus their activities on Debrecen’s 14th century past and the life of Dósa of Debrecen, whose career took him to the position of palatine, in the hope that they could recreate the battle in one of their reenactments. Historians first became interested in the Battle of Debrecen during the 19th century. Although they were able to piece together most of the main incidents with the help of the written sources, very little was mentioned of the fighting itself. It was this gap in our knowledge of the event that we wanted to fill. Having assembled the evidence we decided to reconstruct the engagement from a military point of view. First we set about establishing the supposed scene of the battle, the position of which was unknown on account of a lack of written evidence. We also attempted to estimate the size of the armies, something that had yet to be done. We considered both army size and the composition of the armies to be important factors in the way the battle developed. Finally, based on the data we had available we modelled the course of the battle from the initial advance to the cessation of hostilities. 165
